Labor Party Standing Committee thread: Endorsement voting

[Hatman 🍁]

And you call yourselves representatives of the people!

Surely, they are the representatives of the champagne socialists. I.e., not real socialists at all!

[Hatman 🍁]

It amuses me how the so called "Labor" Party is both too far left wing and too far right wing!

[Hatman 🍁]

Samosas are food of the people, and I will not have anyone implying otherwise.

I'll take a closer look at the declaration later, but I'd like to add that insofar as we're a socialist party we ought to have the goal of addressing social injustice and societal cleavage in general.

Har, har. You keep hoping this bourgeoisie Marxist-Leninist party cares one iota about such things!

[Hatman 🍁]

Bourgeois! Bourgeoisie is the noun form. Don't you live across the river from Frenchland?

How elitist of you!

Not uprising of a party whose members are sipping champagne and eating caviar while they weep for the poors from their ivory towers of hedonism!

[Hatman 🍁]

While Arby's may not be everyone's cup of tea, your party is continuing to prove its elitism by bashing this everyday workingman restaurant!

Oh, and ultra-revisionist? I take offence to that description. Whatever it means.

[Hatman 🍁]

I figured your party would probably be split between us an Polnut. That is understandable. I have criticized some of your party's stances, whether they be too far right, or too far left. But you know, that averages out pretty good

But my criticism is only there to enlighten. To make you more pure! I will admit that the Labor Party is better than most of the rest.

Please don't see this as pandering, but rather an explanation for my rhetoric

Boo! Down with revisionist Washburnism!

I don't even know what this means...

[Hatman 🍁]

I'll vote for you if you move towards a more pro-choice position

Our position is that abortions should be legal, and heavily subsidized right up until birth. However, in a Washburnist society, there would be little reason to have an abortion, as there would be sufficient state support for the usual cases. I don't see what the worry would be, as wouldn't we be making abortion more available?

Anyways, abortion is a tricky subject for me, due to personal reasons (my partner and I would  have had an abortion, but it was too late in the pregnancy,  but now we have a healthy beautiful daughter, and lots of family support).  I know that if people like us knew that there would be little to worry about when they have an unplanned pregnancy, then they would be less likely to have an abortion.

Perhaps my running mate may shed some light on the issue, but since he joined my party, he might not have much opposition to the platform.

As for my platform, I will be brief. Our main commitment is to creating a new and fairer tax structure that will ensure that no one is earning more than they are worth. Our next main commitment would be a drastic change in environmental regulation with the plan to abolish fossil fuel powered automobiles by 2021. And, to retrofit all homes and buildings with solar panels in the same time frame. Our goal is to drastically reduce CO2 emissions. I want my daughter to live in a world not much worse (and hopefully better) than the one that we are in now.

Of course, there will be other major changes we'll be promoting. Health care and education will be the focus of much of our spending. Private education and private health care will be nearly abolished. Children will only be able to attend private education in addition to regular public education. And private health care will only be available for cosmetic surgeries and non-esssential surgeries.

Our next big focus will be jobs. Our plan is to bring the unemployment rate as close to 0% as possible. We will be creating a Secretary of Employment to deal with these matters. (not an actual cabinet position, but rather an office). Offices will be set up across the country, and unemployed citizens will be able to submit the resumes there and will be compared to job openings available. People will be assigned jobs that they are best suited for. Areas where there is more people without jobs than jobs available will be homes to new government offices, or government started factories which will be sold off to the private sector, or better yet, an employee run co-op. Also, if there are areas where jobs are needed, unemployed citizens from areas without jobs will be encouraged to move to these new areas. We would encourage them by providing them with a loan that will help them pay for moving to a new area.

[Hatman 🍁]

Obviously there will be certain circumstances that would allow for changes. That's what debate is for. Of course, disabled students will get public education. The degree of integration with non-disabled students would depend on the degree of disability, I suppose. It's up for debate. I might not be wise to have mentally challenged students, for example in a regular school, for example. There may be bullying for example, and due to their disability will unfortunately have less opportunities. Increasing opportunities for impoverished students is the main reason for wanting to abolish private schools.

[Hatman 🍁]

Oh, I forgot to mention that post secondary education would become free under a Washburn administration

[Hatman 🍁]

We are very committed to democracy. But, I will address the bolded parts.

Trade: Well, I don't believe we should be doing trade with dictatorships or with nations that while democratic, are run by corporatists.

Foreign intervention: It will not be a commitment of a Washburn presidency to start invading countries. We will however support insurgent movements in nations, to oppose dictatorships. The recent Arab spring uprisings would have all received help from a Washburn administration.

Education: This has been covered already in this thread.

State run broadcaster: This will be completely democratic. The state run broadcaster will not spew government propaganda, but rather be a forum of ideas, from both the left and the right. It will exist to provide neutrality, and biaslessness to compete with corporatist media. The corporatist media cannot be trusted, because they are beholden to their corporate overloads.

Death penalty: No Atlasian will be convicted of the death penalty, however will not oppose other nations using the death penalty against former dictators.

Police having guns: Police will be discouraged to use guns, but they will need them if a criminal has a gun. I don't see the problem with that.

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, officers may need guns under certain circumstances. However, if elected I would be happy to look into what those circumstances might be. I do understand that much of our police force has a "macho" attitude that needs to be dealt with, certainly before we start handing out weapons to them. But anyways, the primary mandate I would have in terms of gun control is ensuring we get guns off the street (first and foremost), and then work from there.

[Hatman 🍁]

So, you guys are all changing your votes because bgwah comes in here and calls me a dick?

Where does this come from? Is this because I wouldn't join the "Jesus Christ Party"... even after persistently pursuing me to do so?  Well, it's one thing to attack my policies, sir, but it is disgraceful to attack my character! Shame on you!

But, it is to be expected. When I first ran for office, over six years ago, I was a political neophyte. I was appalled at the dirty tricks of politics back then. But, I have grown a thick skin over the years and I can take it. Well, I won't personally attack bgwah, because I am above that.

[Hatman 🍁]

So, you guys are all changing your votes because bgwah comes in here and calls me a dick?

Where does this come from? Is this because I wouldn't join the "Jesus Christ Party"... even after persistently pursuing me to do so?  Well, it's one thing to attack my policies, sir, but it is disgraceful to attack my character! Shame on you!

But, it is to be expected. When I first ran for office, over six years ago, I was a political neophyte. I was appalled at the dirty tricks of politics back then. But, I have grown a thick skin over the years and I can take it. Well, I won't personally attack bgwah, because I am above that.

I was talking about you with someone. We agreed that you put up this faux-nice guy persona but at the end of the day you're just kind of a dick. Sorry.

Me being nice is not fake, bgwah. Sometimes I'm nice! How unbelievably hard to believe, that a human being can be nice sometimes. Sometimes I can be a dick. Sometimes if I have a hard day, and someone says something, I react in a dickish manner. Sure, it happens. Is it okay? No, it's not. And I apologize for being a dick to some people. We're all guilty of saying mean and hurtful things. But, I'm not going to apologize for being human, jeez.

I'm sure you've been a dick too, at times. But, I'm not going to hold that against you.