Todd Grigsby for President

It's about time, given that I have some pretty strong views on how things should be run, that I throw my hat into the ring and declare my candidacy for President of the United States of America.

Here's where I stand:

• Fidelity. Let me start by saying that I'm married with children and happy to be so. I will not wander or stray. In that same vein, I pledge not to commit any immoral act which will dishonor the office I hold and the country I represent. My private life will in no way cast a shameful shadow across my public presence. Should I violate that pledge at any time, I will vacate the office immediately and without complaint.
• Income Taxes. Eliminate the current system, go to a flat tax with -- and this is important -- only one exemption and two deductions for anyone. The exemption would be for individuals making less than 30% of the national average for individuals or households making less than 30% of the national average for households. One of the deductions would be 8% of the national average income for individuals for each child and the other deduction would be 20% of the national average income for individuals towards the ownership of a home. The tax rate would start off at 8%. We could fiddle with that as we need to stabilize revenues. If you make more, you pay more. If you make less, you pay less. In the end, the rich are still rich, but the poor won't be quite as poor, and middle income makers won't shoulder the burden for the entire nation.
• Abortion. I'm not against abortion. I'm not for it, I don't like it when it's used as an alternative to birth control, but enough women feel strongly about it that I will protect their right to decide.
• Racism.
  Affirmative Action. I am against Affirmative Action in it's current form. I am for a three-pronged replacement for AA:
  - I am for stricter laws with well-defined penalties against discrimination in hiring and education.
  - I am for government-subsidized, full, one-time, 4-year scholarships with partial housing allotments for students whose familys' incomes fall below the poverty line.
  - I am for government-subsidized, partial, one-time scholarships for students whose familys' incomes don't fall below the poverty line but do fall significantly below the national average.
  - I am for strict guidelines preventing discrimination in giving out those scholarships.
  In effect, I prefer a hand-up, rather than a hand-out, that's available to *anyone* that is willing to *try*. The result will be a better educated nation, a more equally educated population, and a severe reduction in the need for public assistance programs like Welfare.

  Hate Crimes. Hate crimes are the most basic and common evil we face today. Propogation of hate is too easy and it's effects are too devastating on our society's ability to progress and to exist peacefully. It must be curtailed in an extreme manner.

  Education. It should be federally mandated that all American children be taught the negative aspects of hate. This should be interspersed with commentaries about the great people of all races, not just black and white. It should be a mandatory part of every child's education, a condensed program repeated every couple of years throughout a child's tenure in school whose obvious and explicit message is that racism is wrong and hate is evil.

  3 Strikes for Non-Violent Hate Crimes. Recent events have shown that there are individuals in our society that are driven by uncompromising and unrepentant hatred to commit acts which are patently inconcievable to the ordinary citizen. These acts must be dealt with in a severe manner. Non-violent hate crimes propogate violent ones. Non-violent crimes with a hate-oriented theme should be dealt with in a manner that sends an unmistakable message.

  2 Strikes for Violent Hate Crimes. The same goes for hate-motivated crimes that are violent and result in possible or actual injury

  Automatic Death for Murderous Hate Crimes. And if a murder is commited that is hate-motivated, the sentence is death.

• The Death Penalty. I'm for it, although I think that, unless the crime is hate-motivated, it's an issue for states to decide.
• Social Security. I'm all for finding a better alternative to Social Security while protecting the guarantees of a protected retirement and returning the SSI benefits to those that have paid into the system.
• Welfare. I'm for providing those that are on Welfare with a real opportunity to get an education and/or job training while also providing daycare so parents on Welfare can take advantage of the new programs. Once each Welfare recepient has received the training and education needed to support himself or herself with a decent job, that individuals Welfare support should be phased out or highly limited. In this way we
• 3 Strikes for Violent Felons. If someone commits violent felonious acts often enough to be caught and convicted on 3 separate occasions, that person has proven they cannot function in society and should be given life in prison.
• 2 Strikes for Sexual Offenders. If someone is convicted of more than one count -- not one conviction, one COUNT, convicted of raping more than one PERSON -- that person should receive a life sentence. Period. Statistically, sexual offenders are the most likely to repeat and are the hardest to catch and convict given the nature of the crime and the likelihood that the victim will report the crime, especially in the case of child molesters. By the time a sexual offender is caught, they've usually harmed several people. And once caught and convicted, they can rarely be reformed to the extent that they will never commit the offense again. Best to be rid of them.
• Prison Reform. The "3 Strikes" laws are not enough in themselves. On the first and second strikes, prisoners should be forced to take real job training and should receive the best therapy available. The idea is not to simply cage them with nothing to do but beat up each other, it's to *reform* them, to create better individuals rather than harder criminals.

  Secondly, prisoners with a chance of being rehabilitated should be safe in prison. Guards should protect these prisoners from each other and from prisoners who have received life sentences. And strict punishments should await guards who violate the prisoners' right to safety while incarcerated. Also, prisoners should be provided with small AM/FM radios with earphones and a library of books. No weights, no TVs, no cigarettes. Put that money back into educating and reforming them. You say they won't like it? Well, buddy, prison ain't Disneyland...

• Drugs. I feel that the answer to keeping kids from getting crazy with drugs is education. It should be mandatory, it should be thorough, and it should be repeated periodically throughout our children's education. There is information in the Internet on how to produce "designer" drugs using house-hold materials. Keeping drugs out of kids hands is going to get harder and harder. Instead, make them understand why the drugs are bad and what they are doing to their bodies when they take the drugs.
• Gay Rights. What's to say? Gays have rights, but extreme right wing fundamentalists are determined to see that those rights are not only not protected, but actually outlawed. I am all for gay couples having the same rights and protections that straight couples have.

  In fact, any law which attempts to control sexual conduct between consenting adults should be repealed. Now.

• Sexual Harassment. Whether it's advances from the opposite sex or the same sex -- a topic which today's courts are having trouble getting a grip on -- people should feel safe in the workplace and should not have to deal with sexual harassment. We need clear and concise legislation that defines what is and isn't sexual harassment, and it should be current enough with the times to be inclusive of all flavors of sexual orientation. These new laws should also dictate harsh penalties for companies found condoning or ignoring reports of sexual harassment.
• Tobacco. Outlaw it. I'll miss my cigars, but compared to my children's health and the potential risk of them taking up smoking, I will happily say goodbye to them and never look back.
• Frivolous Insurance Coverage. I don't think Viagra should be covered under Medicare and Medical. And if it is, birth control should get at least some kind of partial coverage.
• Assault Weapons. Any gun that shoots more than 9 bullets between reloads should be outlawed. Period.
• Guns. Gun sales that don't occur at a gun shop should be illegal. This would outlaw gun sales at gun shows, through classified ads, etc. If you didn't have a dealer license, you couldn't sell a gun. And dealer licenses would have to be renewed every 6 months.
• Space Exploration. Give NASA more money, but make sure they realize that funds will only continue if the movement towards "faster, cheaper, better" continues. NASA has done more with less in the last couple of years than at any time in it's history. We need to be able to expand into space in the near future, given the increasing strains humans place on the earth's resources, but NASA's era of billion dollar fireworks displays is over.
• International Policy.
  1. Put more pressure on the UN and the World Court to fulfill their charters as world government organizations. When the UN requests that NATO troops are put on the front line, hand the bill to the UN. Stop putting U.S. troops on the front line every time the UN fails to show some backbone. Withhold funds and troops until some real steps are taken in this direction. But on the other hand, stop making the kind of world policy decisions in NATO that should be made by the UN. NATO should be the police, but the police shouldn't be running around dealing out justice.

  2. Also, we should insist that more countries step up to the plate and join NATO, at least insofar as supplying troops or military weapons and supplies. If you don't pitch in, you don't get protection. It's like buying insurance. You pay a premium, in this case troops or supplies, and the next time you look out your window and discover that a neighboring nation's tanks are rolling past your house, you can pick up the phone and we'll stop by to help out.

  3. Just like some city municipalities are doing nowadays, I think the police should hand the criminal the bill for putting him in line. In situations where the UN fails to take appropriate action and NATO has to step in to protect a group of people from atrocities, the country responsible for the atrocities should be forced to repay the cost to NATO. The country's border should be placed under military guard and a heavy tax should be placed on all imports and exports until the price of policing them as been repaid. If NATO tells a country to back off and it doesn't, it'll not only get the crap stomped out of it, but it'll have to pay for our efforts to stomp the crap out of it.

  4. Keep the pressure on Iraq. That's all, just shut them down and make it *very* clear to the people of Iraq that that is how it will be until Saddam is gone. Offer a large monetary award to any individual or group that helps Saddam to step down, say about a cool $10 million. That's what it costs to launch 10 missiles, and we go through that every day we're there. Heck, give the money to Saddam if he leaves and promises never to come back.

  5. Put more pressure on China to stop human rights offenses. Do some serious dealing with them to get them to stop violating the rights of the citizens of Tibet, Thailand, Turkestan, and even their own people. If economic pressure is what it takes, rally the European Common Market behind a boycott of China's products. That will hurt China where it counts. Keep it up until China releases it's political prisoners and removes limitations on religious, political, communications, personal, and economic rights. China's government has a long way to go before it finally catches up with the governments of the 17th century, let alone the 21st century, and it's about time the people of the world did something about it (see point #1).

  6. Drop the sanctions against Cuba. Let's face it, the original reasons for sanctioning Cuba are gone. In fact, if it's still in America's best interest to eliminate Fidel Castro, and I sincerely doubt that, the best way to do it is to throw the economic doors wide open and allow people to come and go as they please. I guarantee a huge initial influx of refugees followed closely by a huge outflux of big business and U.S. dollars looking to embrace an eager and underprivileged populace. Eventually it will equalize and the result will be a drastically impaired power structure in Cuba unless they play ball in a very real way. Heck, about 10 years after that, they could become the 51st state...

  7. Put serious pressure on North Korea, India, and Pakistan to slow down on the nuclear weapons thing. This is one place where the UN is going to fall short. The U.S. has the nuclear might to control upstarts, and I'm afraid the only way to force nations like North Korea to stop waving their swords around is to threaten them to their face that if they do make the awful decision to bomb someone, we'll wipe them off the face of the earth. It sounds drastic, but nuclear war, due to fall-out and radiation, doesn't just affect the combatants. It affects the world as a whole. Nuclear proliferation cannot be condoned or ignored.

• Ecology.
  Part of the surplus we have should be used to preserve and restore the wilderness we sacrificed to realize the tremendous growth in our economy.