A: Personally, I cannot give a heartfelt yes or no answer to this question as worded. And I cannot give a short answer to it either as there are so many factors that have to be considered. The initial premise is relatively short: I believe a woman has the right to do with her body what she chooses. I also believe that once her choices or the choices of someone else's imposition themselves on her result in the creation of a new life, then the ensuing choices are imposing on the rights of someone else, namely the forming baby, who had no choice in the matter of being conceived. And those choices become increasingly dramatic as the baby gets closer to term, climaxing in something I absolutely am against which is the partial birth abortion. I find it hard to believe that anyone could willingly allow this last one much less perform it.
All of these factors can be dealt with if we simply focus on them and get people involved in the solution discovery process, especially women. Birth control is an obvious and known solution and it is not just a woman's responsibility. Vasectomies should be made extremely cheap or even free and should be encouraged especially now that they are reversible.
An alternative to abortion that I support is adoption. While a woman may not want or be able to take care of a child, giving that child an opportunity to live is still a wonderful thing to do. I support enhancing adoption and foster care services as an alternative to abortion.
I personally believe it's a woman's right to choose to end the pregnancy, but I also believe there are options other than terminating the life, especially in late term pregnancies. I am pro life and that applies to ALL life and if there are options for accomplishing the same goal and preserving the life I will favor those options.
Socioeconomic factors like poverty are unfortunate and preventable reasons that motivate women to get abortions. Birth control is a highly effective solution to the issue of abortion, including surgical solutions such as vasectomies which are reversible.
My question for women is when they go to choose, do they want limited options or many options? Many of these options revolve around other topics such as the economy.
A: Let's define progressive first and truly understand what taxes are. Taxes are NOT revenue for the government but rather a return to the government of money that was put into circulation by the government in the first place. In today's economic situation we also need to understand that we do not have monetary sovereignty, meaning that rather than print our own money we borrow every dollar from someone else--a foreign owned, private bank called the Federal Reserve. There are much better ways to handle government funding and at the same time get money into circulation more efficiently if we end the debt economy and replace it with a usury free, non-profit leaning, grant economy.
A: I fully support same-sex domestic partnerships and the equality of these partnerships under law. I believe that any two people should be able to enter into a contract, and have that contract honored. Benefits that comes as a result of a marriage contract should be viable in a civil union contract as well. I am an advocate of freedom. This is supposed to be a free country.
A: I fully support equality in the workplace and in hiring practices, and the end of discrimination against women and minorities. However, I do not support affirmative action, which is effectively reverse discrimination, and doesn't ultimately solve the problems of racism and sexism. I favor new and innovative approaches to truly empowering women and minorities through local economic & business models. Local coop non-profit businesses, local economic models, untying the hands of non-profit and alternative model businesses greatly increase the career options available to all people because of the new employment needs they create. By working on a local level, community members who know each other and have a stake in their community will be working together, and corporate imposed discrimination will dissolve. We are all people, and we should not discriminate on the basis of race or gender.
The Media is out of control as a propaganda war instead of a public service. They need to be there on campaigns not get paid off over who to favor.
Free speech means free speech for all of us; not just corporations and not just those who can "afford" it.
They have sold out the campaign process to the highest corporate bidder and allowed them to do all of that anonymously to boot.
A: Oppose. Crime rates in the US will dramatically lessen if we address the root causes of most crimes--imposed scarcity, poor economic models, and poor educational models among others. If someone gets to three strikes then the problem may really be ours, not theirs. This doesn't mean to be soft on crime, but rather to be harder on the roots of the problem rather than trying to only deal with the symptoms.
A: Strongly opposed. Killing someone does not bring about a "payment" for a crime, not even a murder. I think we can be more innovative and thoughtful and come up with ways that the criminal can be useful to society and useful to the victim's family rather than becoming murderers ourselves as a society.
Prison/jail needs to be a place of reform and repayment rather than just a place of needs-met isolation from society. I have a number of ideas and suggestions for how to make prison work for society rather than just being a burden on society. An example America could take after is the Norwegian prison system, which at first glance may seem to nice, but in reality, effectively lowers crime rates and rehabilitates criminals. We don't even try to rehabilitate people in prison and Jail any more.
A: Oppose. Drug use isn't immoral, though it's unintelligent, it's a symptom that society is on the wrong path. One, drugs are sold for profit. If there were no profit to be made from them there would be significantly less drugs made. So the question then becomes, "how can we end profiteering on drugs?" Two, many people have no hope, no purpose. If they had a purpose, a set of worthy goals that are realistic and in line with their passions, they wouldn't be interested in the drugs. There are people who want to use drugs to purposely change their consciousness but if trained properly could do so without drugs. Psychonautics should be a readily available course of study. Children need a user's manual to the human psyche and that will make drugs far less attractive.
A: Opposed. I believe students should be allowed to pray if they wish, but I am a promoter of truth & fact-based teaching in schools. And I am a supporter and promoter of the first amendment--all of it. Religion of course can be taught, but it needs to be from an objective standpoint rather than a promotion of assumption to the same level as fact. Religious studies of a faith perspective need to be handled by parents and churches, not schools and governments. Schools and governments need to be only interested in facts and seeking the truth. It is fine for those who are religious to use their time to pray, but unfair, illegal, and unconstitutional to turn our schools into a bully pulpit for any or all religions, which is what would happen if we would allow school-sponsored or teacher led prayer.
A: Oppose. ALL schools should be equally good. The entire education system needs to be overhauled. Education needs to be fully customized, include all learning styles, be 100% free (which can be done while at the same time reducing federal taxes and shrinking federal government through a bit of innovation), be mastery based rather than time based, be self-paced and teacher facilitated in each subject, and be geared to help students go far beyond their teachers rather than it being a poor transfer of insufficient knowledge as it is now. Deciding to turn over America's education to privatization is a cop out, and still isn't the true reform we need to see.
A: Yes. Our campaign collaboration effort has identified how we can shift quickly from oil and coal over to electric, solar, and geothermal by mobilizing the nation locally and nationally and we have begun sharing these ideas already.
A: I support free trade, but with the full involvement of the people, not through back room deals involving only bankers & politicians. It has to be fully free trade (meaning open to and determined by all rather than just a few) to be truly free trade. Plus I have ideas about how to make the US the best goods producer of the world again with awesome quality and low prices and become self-dependent regarding at least the basic needs once again--including energy.
A: Support. Elections should be 100% free. The nation's choice should not be limited to the wealthiest or best fundraisers but should include all good candidates willing to step up and do the job. Money needs to be removed from the equation. No public official should be essentially owned by the highest contributor. All campaign funds and donations should be publically posted that includes even trivial things like lunches and gifts.
A: Support with side thoughts. I support the 2nd Amendment but I believe we shouldn't need it. I believe we need to start asking the questions about why we are in a position of having to defend ourselves from others. Perhaps there's a better solution and we need to be seeking it such that we don't need guns anymore. If we ask the question expecting an answer and keep doing that until we find the answer we're looking for then we'll find it.
A: Support. I believe that before any funding is sent to the health care industry, the conflict of interest needs to be removed from the equation. As long as doctors and medical research organizations and pharmaceutical companies and so on are dependent upon people being sick in order to earn a living, the health of the patient will be at odds with the health professional's income. New reverse-compensation models, local compensation models, and other innovative approaches to ensuring the above professionals are taken care of while encouraging them to permanently heal the patients and keep them healthy need to be implemented.
A: Agree. We need to be addressing the root causes of things such as terrorism, so that considering things like the Patriot Act becomes nonsense. The authorization of wire tapping, for example, without due cause, is a huge invasion of privacy to law abiding citizens and gives the central government too much power.
A: Support with qualifications. We need to shift our military's focus. We need to bring all non-treaty troops home immediately, and stop seeking to control oil supplies when we could be completely free of oil in a couple of years. The military needs to be strong, but the focus needs to be on helping people not killing and conquests.
A: Support. I would significantly change the Dream Act such that everyone wins from all sides of the issue and get significant collaboration in the effort. We need to overhaul the INS, streamline it, make it more efficient, and size it such that they can handle the load. I am not in favor of a fence on the border but rather a working relationship with the people on both sides of the border to address the root causes of the problems.
This also operates as a fence if you string up a batch of them across the border, but more importantly it gives immigration a home at the border.
It also most importantly allows us to insulate and protect ourselves and regulate flow better by stalling it out if it doesn't pass basic reality tests like speaking English or being employable.
It also allows the USA to meaningfully test and reality test potential applicants and see how they really do objectively to score... and reject those who are lazy or who have serious issues as bad investments.
A: Oppose. I say non-profitize it. There are ways of enhancing social security, lowering the retirement age to 55 or even 50, and removing the costs of living for retirees completel through just a little bit of innovation. And the profiteering that takes place targeting seniors needs to be exposed and curtailed. Here's another example of a necessary area which would benefit from the US returning to sovereign money.
A: If it means increasing any personal federal taxes in any way then I oppose it. Eliminate income taxes completely ASAP, at least at the Federal level. Eliminate or overhaul the IRS so that they work for the people rather than against them. If we return to sovereign money we will find hundreds of new options open up for us as a country. Currently the Federal Reserve prints their money and lends it to us while we pretend that it's ours. Not a dollar in circulation belongs to the United States citizens. The constitution says to coin our own money, not borrow it.
We will not participate in wealth transfer, but rather in poverty transformation--helping poor people and poor areas of the country transform themselves through innovative plans which are laid out on our website rather than taxation.
A: Yes. Immediately.
A: Support. But we shouldn't NEED welfare services. If we'd approach economics properly and with innovation, with a pro-human requirement then everyone would have what they need and much of what they want while having a much smaller federal government and a significantly advanced America and a significantly advanced humanity. Churches already supply welfare services. Nobody needs to allow them to do this. If we mean have the federal government PAY churches to do it, that's a very bad idea. So much more to share. So many ideas, so many solutions, so much frustration with politicians who don't seem to get it.
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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 Scott Keller. Click here for Scott Keller on all issues.
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