Robert Aitchison

NEW! (10-18-2000) OK it's been 10 months since I have updated this page, and the election is less than three weeks away, so I figured I might as well get to it. :-) Here is a basic rundown for where I stand in the upcoming elections:

I have heard that my punctuation and grammar are terrible, I made some changes to this page and the Opinions page to try to help that.

If I say so myself I have a pretty interesting cross section of political views in my makeup.

I used to identify myself as a conservative Republican but I have come to realize that isn't terribly accurate. I now would classify myself as a social Libertarian and an economic Republican.

To explain, I am a social Libertarian because I don't feel the government has any business telling me how to live my life nor do I feel that it is the governments responsibility to solve my problems. I am an economic Republican because I believe in smaller government, decentralized government, a strong military.

I belong to the Republican party but I have been growing more and more dissatisfied with the party over the last four years, it's getting harder and harder to tell the Democrats and Republicans apart. I will probably stay with the Republican party because of the chance to make an impact in the primary process.

Typically I vote for the Republican candidate because the Democrats just piss me off too often, I voted Libertarian in the last presidential election since it was no more throwing away my vote than voting for Bob Dole.

Below are some ideas I have to fix what's wrong with America, you can take most of the list and turn it into a list as to why I would never be elected president. :-)

Labor Unions are the new exploiters of the American worker

It used to be that big businesses exploited the workers and it was the job of a union to defend them, nowadays it is the other way around in many cases.

Let's look at a couple of issues that unions fight for nowadays and then look at the real meaning

• Outsourcing - What they really mean is that nobody has the right to work unless they are paying union dues.
• Teachers unions fighting against school voucher programs - All they really care about is that all the money goes into the unionized public schools instead of the mostly non union private schools, this maintains the status quo and their power base.

Now there are still a few instances where the Unions are on the right side, such as fighting against mandatory overtime but these reasonable cases are sadly few and far between.

Not that I am saying that corporate America could give a rats behind about the workers either, it's just two sides of the same coin.

The "War on Drugs" is unjust and unwinnable

You can't change human nature so the demand for drugs will never go away.

All that the current policy accomplishes is eliminating all but the most ruthless, violent and intelligent of drug organizations, this policy actually increases drug related violence.

I would decriminalize drug use, sell drugs through regulated channels so you could control quality and tax the hell out of it. The tax revenue would be able to fund drug treatment centers.

The bottom line is that if Marijuana should be illegal than so should Alcohol (oh yeah, that's already been tried).

Speaking of decriminalization, lets legalize prostitution

It's the same concept that eliminating the criminal element will make the whole process safer.

In Nevada where there is legalized prostitution there has not been one documented case of AIDS infection or of a prostitute being murdered by her customer or pimp (since there is no pimp).

Pouring more money into the broken process that is social security is a terrible idea

I have outlined a plan for how to provide for the retirement of tomorrow's senior citizens without leaving today's out in the cold.

1. First you will give people the option to "disenroll" from the Social Security program, those who elect to would have their SS deductions lowered by 75%, the 25% remaining deduction will continue to go into the SS system to support those who remain in the system.
2. Of the 75% reduction, 2/3 of that (50% of the original deduction) would go automatically into government approved and insured, but privately managed retirement accounts. The enrollee would be able to decide where their money would go and the government management (and waste) would be minimal.
3. The remaining 25% of the original deduction goes back to the enrollee to do what they want with.

The net of all of this is that the employee has a 25% reduction in SS deductions and will have a MUCH higher rate of return when they retire, eventually the SS system would all but disappear and the SS support deduction could be lowered to 10% or less.

Gun Control advocates just don't get it

They have never and will never be able to answer the "guns don't kill people" argument.

Look at 30-40 years ago where there was practically no gun control, you did not see anywhere near the kind of violence you see today.

It's the fault of society that we have all this violence, between the media turning mass murderers into pop icons and the bleeding heart liberals making it so you don't have to be responsible for your actions.

Getting back to guns, all that the gun control laws will do is take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, criminals always have and always will have easy access to guns.

I think we should allow anybody with no criminal record get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, they should have to go through gun safety courses and prove that they are responsible, then let them carry anything they want, you would find that an armed society is indeed a polite society.

Of course the secret agenda of the gun control advocates is to disarm the populace, they want to repeal the second amendment for the same reason that our founding fathers put it there, so they can establish a fascist government without fear of armed revolt.