Maywood, California. I am 58, twice divorced, with 2 degrees in Engineering and 1 in Psychology. 5 kids, and not making any more, thank you very much.....

Federal spending: Must be cut to less than federal income immediately. That is, federal income is about 2.2 trillion dollars per year, and current outlay is somewhat in excess of 3.5 trillion.

visited 44 states (88%)
Discussion of tax policy seems to function as a distraction from what is ludicrous levels of spending on unconstitutional federal functions such as federal pretended regulation or services relating to Energy, Agriculture, Housing, Health Services, Medicine, Labor. Corresponding unconstitutional departments should be eliminated. The federal spending, particularly in unconstitutional areas must be radically reduced and taxes may not be raised.

After spending is reduced, some discussion should take place on how necessary taxation should be distributed. Certainly a large class of people should not be able to vote without paying taxes, nor should taxes be levied on good behavior (such as productive activity) that can be changed. Ideally taxes should be paid partially by excises levied on bad behavior that is hard to avoid.

Illegal Aliens: A little tough love is required. Don’t give them jobs or benefits, most decent people won’t come. The rest, smugglers and terrorists, won’t be able to hide among the thousands. For them, a reward should be offered for information leading to their apprehension. For sanctuary cities, politicians supporting illegal aliens, hiding them, should be prosecuted under RICO acts.

It is an actively bad idea to focus deportation efforts on violent criminals, as they will merely reenter the US and resume their criminal career. Convicted criminal aliens should be detained in very unpleasant circumstances while not protected by US civil rights law. Rather than Guantanamo, some very secure facility in Antarctica should be identified where such people can serve their sentence.

Abortion: I don’t know when life starts, until I have a definition of what life is. Lacking confidence in that matter, Abortion should be regulated by the states, like all other medical procedures. To overrule the several bad precedents, Congress should pass judicial regulations, ending federal judicial meddling in state medical regulations.

Death Penalty: My aunt makes her living defending murderers from the death penalty. Whereas I might need to take a life defending my family under pressure of uncertainty, time, and circumstance, the state probably doesn’t need to take a life, after the person is apprehended. On the other side, the recidivism rate of people put to death is low. I guess I would prefer locking the goblin in a cell for the rest of his natural life, and welding it shut. After he eventually dies, we seal the cell by filling it with concrete. The death row would consists of cells, some filled, some not filled yet. My mild and shallow opposition to the death penalty is due to my lack of faith in government institutions such as those which determine guilt and innocence, the criminal justice system. I remember reading about Cory Maye, who defended his house and daughter from intruders, shooting one to death. The intruders were police who did not have a warrant to search his house. He was convicted of felony murder, and sentenced to death, and spend some years on death row. Oddly, the retiring governor didn’t pardon Cory Maye, but did pardon other murderers.

Religion. I am a Roman Pagan. I see great commonality between the Christian G-d the Father and Roman Jupiter (Zeus-Pater). I see the Christian Holy Spirit as being analogous to Juno/Hera, the Divine Mother, the Comforter. Roman pagans don’t achieve the forgiveness of sins by the sacrifice of Jesus, rather, we sacrifice portions of animals, (usually by means of the weekend Barbecue). I have especial interest in Vulcan/Hephaestus. I owe the G-ds a life of courage, diligence, and purity, that I may, perhaps, some day be honored among the heroes in Elysium.

Homosexuality. I’m agin' it, but have compassion for those so deluded or abused that they can not seek proper affection, but rather seek perverted affections. If only psychotherapists or educators knew their jobs, the damage and deluded could be healed. Until they are healed, we love them despite their disability, just as we would if they had broken a leg, we regret their injury, and look forward to their eventual recovery. I would be opposed to debasing the religious sacrament of marriage by granting it to those deluded and abused into seeking perverted affections, but I do not see a problem with granting them the comfort of civil recognition of comforting relationships that they or any other may chose, so long as those relationships do not harm others. I do not see how someone deluded or abused into seeking perverted affections would be fit subjects for raising children, though I understand that such sad cases triumph over their history through acts of great good will. Where such persons do good, they are to be lauded without reservation.

Drugs: I am agin' them. I think the war on drugs, conducted by the federal government is illegal and unconstitutional, aside from being bad policy. Medical regulation is a power that properly belongs to the states, requiring for its successful operation more than the pretended or perverted authority of the federal government to tax. I hold that Wickard was wrongly decided, and thus personal growing and use of material does not rise to the level of interstate commerce, and thus should not be regulated by the federal government. Federal prohibition of alcohol took a constitutional amendment, and still did not work, so was returned to the states by a second amendment. Cannabis, Heroin (a Bayer product), Cocaine, and other drugs should all be regulated, or not regulated, by state medical authorities. They are not good for people, (outside of treating particular medical circumstances,) but some people are in pain, and I can not see how making them illegal for medical uses does any good, not at least good that is more than compensated by the bad. Legalizing drugs would thin out the herd in a better way than having drug smugglers corrupt or murder the police.

Defense: Arguments against unconstitutional federal spending do not affect military and naval spending. The levels of such spending could be reduced as a mater of policy, not legality. I would suggest reducing the number of services to two: Department of War and Department of Navy. It seems to me that the function of the Air Force and Marines would be more efficiently performed as part of those departments, and the number of general officers and civilian employees should be reduced below that number with which we fought WWI.

My first patent is number 6,079,138 for folding delayed blowback operating system for automatic hand held weaponry. Permits a 24 inch barrel in a 28 inch rifle. By the way, it is ambidextrous! with a straight down ejection path. Able to convert from 7.62x51 to 5.56x45 to .45ACP by change of barrel and magazine. Since there is no gas tube to clog, and no piston or operating rod to jam or buckle, a silencer can easily be integrated. The silencer is most effective with the subsonic .45 ACP bullet, but eliminating the 'pop' from the muzzle and leaving the supersonic 'crack' of the bullet is also useful. The .45ACP silenced eliminates both leaving only the 'thump' of the bullet hitting the target or the back stop.

With regard to the War of the Great Rebellion (Civil War) the bad guys started the war, the good guys won it. Slavery is a bad thing, because once you allow slavery, then anyone can be slaves after bumping into a professional kidnapper. RE Lee enslaved whites, purchasing them from professional kidnappers who had papers forged to legalize their captures. Lee raped his young female slaves, and sold his daughters to brothels. Ending slavery was a great good, and fighting to extend it was a great evil. The greatest generals of the war were Grant, Sherman and Thomas, the last a loyal Virginian who set a great example.