A: ISIS was created by Saudi Arabia, has been trained by the CIA and armed by the Pentagon, and is a direct result of our intervention in Iraq that was itself rooted in 925 now clearly documented lies. Al Qaeda is a joint creation of Saudi Arabia and the CIA.
Q: What should be done about that?
A: We should close all of our military bases and withdraw all of our military forces around the world, bringing them home to their families and bringing their wallets home to our economy as well. We need a strategic pause to clean house at home: install an honest government; devise a strategy of peace, friendship, and commerce (I cite Ron Paul); and focus on the well-being of the American public, not the well-being of predatory banks and US-based merchants of death.
A: Support. This is a matter best left to the states, where faith, culture, and law can be responsive to the community. In cases of rape and incest, the community should be respectful of the woman's right to her own freedom from biological enslavement.
A. Support. However, all small businesses and businesses operating primarily within a single state's domain should be excluded.
A: Support. There are ample legal options for any individuals who wish to have a close legal partnership. Civil marriages offered by the state are at the state's discretion, and religious marriages offered by any faith are at the faith's discretion.
A: Strongly Oppose. There is no justification for the murder of another human being when alternatives are available, to include life in prison at hard labor. There are those who believe that the death penalty encourages deviants who wish for "suicide by cop."
A: Strongly Oppose. The federal judiciary is out of control and has been captured by corporate interests including the prison-congressional complex that treats prisoners as slaves and profits from their labor.
A: Strongly Oppose. Marijuana should be legalized, along with the growing and sale of hemp. We need to get CIA and DEA out of the drug smuggling business, apply the same social and legal constraints to drugs that we apply to alcohol, and eliminate the primary foundation for organized crime and drug smuggling with all its violence.
A: Support. No society has ever held together without a strong religious under-pinning. This is a matter best left to states, and within states, to individual school districts responsive to their community.
A: Oppose. When examined carefully, vouchers turn out to be a tax break for the well-off and do not impact on schools. The federal education system is completely out of control and corrupt. Teachers need to be brought into a new class of public servant that is properly paid, with pay tied to results.
A: Strongly Support. There is more than enough energy--including clean coal and real oil (North Dakota)--to meet America's needs. KEYSTONE pipeline and the Canadian Tar Sands are a scam, the energy companies want to externalize true costs (including the use of massive amounts of clean drinkable water from aquifers that are dropping ten meters a year) to the public, while refining this crude for EXPORT. We also have the wrong energy model, focusing on centralized wind farms and other forms of centralized production that lose 50% of the energy enroute to the end user. We need to focus on conservation and on localized energy self-sufficiency.
A: Strongly Oppose. Free trade is not the same as fair trade. We have allowed corporations to hollow out the US economy by out-sourcing work to countries where child labor and other social and ecological costs are not controlled, and where governments subsidize unfair competition.
A: Strongly Support. In fact, We the People Reform Coalition is the ONLY proponent for comprehensive electoral reform, with an Election Integrity Pledge, a Statement of Demand to be read nationally in January 2012, and a two-page outline of an Electoral Reform Act of 2012 that will not only eradicate corporate contributions in all respects, but open ballot access, eradicate digital vote manipulation, and do the many other things that Ralph Nader, Christina Tobin, Jim Turner, Theresa Amato, and our many crowd-sourced contributors have been championing. We need to do it all--allowing ballot access restrictions to remain makes campaign finance reform meaningless. All national parties (this includes Green, Libertarian, and Reform) should be on all state ballots when they have a candidate for national office. This is part of our push for legislation in February-March 2012.
A: Strongly Support. Not only is this a Constitutional right not subject to executive or legislative abrogation, but it is also the only thing that stands between We the People and our out of control and corrupt federal government.
A: Oppose. Federal programs are out of control and largely corrupt, with over 50% of every dollar shown to be fraud, waste, or abuse. PriceWaterhouseCooper's report, "The Price of Excess," documents this. In addition, because of Congressional corruption, Medicare drugs cost us 90% more than the rest of the world because Congress will not allow negotiation. Health is four-part challenge: individuals must be responsible for their own fitness; organizations must provide healthy environments free of toxins; alternative and nature cures must be well-integrated in all health practices, and medical and pharmaceutical remediation must be both a last resort, and honestly intelligently administered.
A: Strongly Oppose. 4% of the force (the infantry) takes 80% of the casualties (dead and wounded, many amputated, 18 a day committing suicide once released from active duty) and receives 1% of the budget. N Secretary of Defense in recent memory, including the current incumbent, has had the intelligence & integrity to get their job right. We need to cut the military-industrial complex back to a maximum of $300 billion a year, placing emphasis on the infantry and everything in direct support of the infantry, on a 450-ship Navy of many small distributed ships, on a long-haul Air Force that allows us to close all of our overseas bases, and on creating four forces after next, each coherent and capable: Big War Force, Small War Force, Peace & Stabilization Force, and Homeland Restoration Force. The US Department of Defense is completely broken at the policy, acquisition, and operational levels, as is the rest of the government. It needs a leader with INTEGRITY.
A: Strongly Support. The Patriot Act was not even read by our corrupt Congress, and is long over-due for being slammed down along with the provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that permit the incarceration and even the murder of US citizens by the military without due process. The federal government is out of control and lacking in both intelligence and integrity.
A: Support. Illegal immigrants come to America for two reasons: because it has been a land of opportunity; and because our failed foreign policy has supported over 40 dictators who make their own people so miserable they choose to emigrate. This needs to be brought under control by holding landlords and employers accountable for renting or employing illegal immigrants once the amnesty period is over.
A: Strongly Oppose. The federal tax system is corrupt and broken, but we can fix that. Social Security is the heart of what must be a total transformation of how we govern ourselves and our economy. I strongly believe in full employment, no mandatory retirement, ample continuous learning for adults, and a social contract between individuals--the heart of any community--and their larger community.
A: Strongly Support. HOWEVER, I favor the abolishment of personal income taxes, business incomes taxes, and all other forms of tax such that we can eliminate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax vastly expands the range of taxed transactions to include currency trading and stock trading as well as inter-bank transfers.
A: Strongly Support. Also out of Afghanistan and out of all of our overseas bases. We went to Iraq on the basis of 935 now-documented lies, and the naked amorality in the federal government continues today as the bi-opoly strives to take us to war on Iran. Neither the OMB nor the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) nor the Congress have a coherent strategic analytic model, or a commitment to making sane, coherent policy that is in the public interest.
A: Strongly Support. God is what happens when communities are healthy. Someone smarter than me said that and I have always remembered it. Communities NEED the Golden Rule and faith-based compassion. Anything a church can do to help those in need is a positive contribution to their community.
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The above quotations are from Email interview series: Presidential candidates interviewed by OnTheIssues.org. Click here for main summary page. Click here for a profile of Robert Steele. Click here for Robert Steele on all issues.
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