c0d3h4x0r's Journal: My principles

These are the principles I stand for and live by.

1. Equal opportunity, fairness, and meritocracy

All people should have equal opportunity, regardless of any factors (race, religion, opinions, economic situation, etc). Period. This is the only policy that is fair to everyone. This isn't to say that people should be guaranteed special treatment or handouts. This is to say that people should all have the same opportunities to earn their own way based purely on their own merits.

2. Accountability and justice

All people should be held fully accountable for their actions. The severity of punishment should always match the severity of the damage caused by the action, without being excessive. This is the only policy that offers any form of fairness and justice to both wrongdoers and victims.

3. Guaranteed protection of natural rights

There are several naturally occuring human rights which should never be infringed upon by any person, organization, or law. These should be explicitly codified into the U.S. Constitution as permanent, irreversible ammendments, never to be infringed upon again in the future.

The natural rights include:

• The right of every person and/or organization to be left alone.

• The right of every person and/or organization to say whatever they want, whenever they want to, however they want to, regardless of the content.

• The right of every person and/or organization to independently learn, discover, and figure out how things work, and to create new things based on that fairly acquired knowledge.

• The right of every person and/or organization to immediately defend itself against attack (physical or otherwise).

• The right of every woman to choose to have an abortion.

• The right of every person of sound mind to choose to live or die and to obtain the assistance necessary in carrying out such a decision.

• The right of every person and/or organization to copy and/or share informational content (including music, video, and other media).

• The right of every person to live and to be in good health.

• The right of next-of-kin or a legal guardian to make a decision on behalf of a person who is incapable of making or communicating their own decision.

• The right of every person to expect, demand, and receive honesty from others.

• The right of every individual person to be equally represented in and heard by their system of government

• The right of every person and/or organization to received whatever information they request from their government

• The right of every individual person to their physical privacy.

Principles lead to specific stances

These principles give rise to my stances on various specific issues:

• I am against race-based quotas of any kind.

• I am for the awarding of financial assistance based on proven financial need (but I am against the awarding of financial assistance based on any other factor).

• I am for government tuition assistance that guarantees every citizen the ability to attend any school of their choosing to which they have qualified.

• I am for legalizing gay marriages.

• I am for complete separation of church and state, meaning that no one set of religion beliefs (even if held by the majority of citizens) shall be endorsed or validated in any way by the government

• I am for requiring indisputable hard evidence (not merely circumstantial) for any "guilty" verdict in any court case, civil or criminal.

• I am for the death penalty when the convicted has been proven guilty via indisputable hard evidence.

• I am for a loser-pays-all judicial system (both civil and criminal) so that the guilty must fully compensate the innocent for court costs and losses

• I am for a complete removal of money from the country's political process. All qualified candidates, regardless of how much money they have, should receive equal opportunity to utilize the various media to communicate to the citizenry. And all lobbying and any other form of bribery should be immediately outlawed.

• I am for active government prosecution of the heads of organizations (such as CEOs of corporations) for anticompetitive behavior or for abusive treatment of their personnel, other organizations, or individual consumers.

• I am for punishments that fit the crime, meaning a complete reevaluation of the punishments that are commonly associated with or mandated by certain laws, such as individual drug possession, computer network intrusion, or small-scale copyright violation.

• I am against declaration of bankrupcy or any other form of letting people off the hook for their debts.

• Companies and stores should be required to clearly show the full, before-rebate price of all items they sell and should be prohibited from making the after-rebate price larger or otherwise visually emphasizing the after-rebate price over the full price.

• The entire notion of "confidentiality" should be completely outlawed. The government should have no secrets from the people it serves.

• Intrusive advertising and solicitation via any means should be entirely outlawed.

• We need to completely overhaul all intellectual property laws to reinstate and forever forward protect the natural rights of all people to learn, obtain, copy, and distribute informational content

• The "data brokerage" and "credit reporting" industries should be required by law to give individuals free, complete, anytime access to and control over their own information.

• The possession and usage of all illegal drugs should be legalized, but the distribution and sale of such drugs should be legislated by the government just like any other industry.