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U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2024 Nevada Ballot Questions

U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2024 Nevada Ballot Questions

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The United States Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party offer the following statements of position on the ballot questions currently before Nevada voters in the 2024 General Election.

Summary
Nevada State Question 1 – Remove Constitutional Status of Board of Regents Amendment: Neutral
Nevada State Question 2 – Revising Language Related to Public Entities for Individuals with Mental Illness, Blindness, or Deafness Amendment: Neutral
Nevada State Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative: Strongly Support
Nevada State Question 4 – Remove Slavery as Punishment for Crime from Constitution Amendment: Support
Nevada State Question 5 – Sales Tax Exemption for Diapers Measure: Support
Nevada State Question 6 – Right to Abortion Initiative: Neutral
Nevada State Question 7 – Voter Identification Initiative: Oppose

Nevada State Question 1 – Remove Constitutional Status of Board of Regents Amendment

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove certain provisions governing the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education and its administration of the State University and certain federal land grant funds and to provide additional legislative oversight of public institutions of higher education through regular independent audits, without repealing the current statutory election process or other existing statutory provisions relating to the Board of Regents?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are generally neutral as to the structure of oversight over educational institutions and so do not take a strong position as to whether Nevada universities are overseen by a separately elected Board of Regents or directly by the Legislature. Furthermore, Ballot Question 1 would not actually dissolve the Board of Regents, but rather would place it under the oversight of the Legislature instead of its powers being provided for in the Nevada Constitution. Therefore, the day-to-day governance of Nevada’s State-funded higher-education institutions may not be changed in significant ways.

BallotPedia notes that “An amendment to remove the constitutional status of the Board of Regents was also on the 2020 ballot in Nevada. Voters defeated this amendment by 50.15%-49.85%.”

The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party were similarly neutral on Ballot Question 1 in 2020. There was a favorable component of the 2020 Ballot Question 1, which is absent from the 2024 Ballot Question 1, and which would have mandated for the Legislature to provide by law for “the reasonable protection of individual academic freedom at Nevada’s public higher education institutions” –. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are supportive of strengthening protections for individual academic freedom and regret that the current iteration of Ballot Question 1 did not preserve that aspect. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party do see some potential risks of politicization of higher education that may arise from Ballot Question 1 if a Legislature interferes directly in overseeing the content taught or the manner of individual expression permitted on a university campus, without specific protections for individual academic freedom being provided for by law.

However, the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party would generally consider the issues involved in the structure of university governance to be outside the purview of specifically transhumanist political advocacy. Therefore, members are encouraged to vote their conscience on this ballot question by consulting their own individual understandings of the relevant matters.

Nevada State Question 2 – Revising Language Related to Public Entities for Individuals with Mental Illness, Blindness, or Deafness Amendment

Wording of Question: “Shall Section 1 of Article 13 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to: (1) revise the description of the persons who benefit from institutions that the State is required to foster and support; (2) replace the term “institutions” with “entities”; and (3) add entities for the benefit of persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities to the types of entities that the State is required to foster and support?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are ultimately neutral on Ballot Question 2. Question 2 proposes to replace the current reference to “Institutions” with “Entities” and the current reference to benefiting “the Insane, Blind and Deaf and Dumb” with “persons with significant mental illness, persons who are blind or visually impaired, persons who are deaf or hard of hearing and persons with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities”. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party do not take a strong position on revising language solely with the intention of appearing more sensitive, or avoiding terms that some might perceive to be offensive, although this should not be the sole motivation for a change, and Section XL of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform does oppose “the doctrine of censorship, now prevalent on many college campuses in the United States, in the name of […] avoiding subjectively perceived offense.” Wording revisions to a Constitution, however, are not in themselves censorship, in that the expression of any idea by anyone is not being forcibly suppressed, and there may instead be a genuine attempt to determine what superior, more accurate, or more generally palatable wording to describe a particular subject matter might be.

There is a more substantive possible aspect to Ballot Question 2, which ultimately addresses which institutions or entities the State of Nevada would be constitutionally obligated to support. For instance, not all “persons with significant mental illness” might fit under the older category of “the Insane”, and the category of “persons with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities” is a new addition, as such persons should not rightfully be referred to as “Insane” under any framework. Proponents of Ballot Question 2 may consider it worthwhile for the State of Nevada to provide financial support to entities treating individuals with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities. However, the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform and Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0 ultimately do not take a position on whether such support should be governmentally provided. Article VII of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0 states, “All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care. A system of universal health care does not necessitate any particular means, policy framework, source, or method of payment for delivering health care. A system of universal health care may be provided privately, by governments, or by some combination thereof, as long as, in practice, health care is abundant, inexpensive, accessible, and effective in curing diseases, healing injuries, and lengthening lifespans.” Therefore, it remains the decision of individual members of the U.S. and Nevada Transhumanist Parties regarding whether they would consider governmental support for treating individuals with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities to be the best means for overcoming those disabilities. It is possible for an individual member to agree with this, but it is also possible for another individual member to consider private institutions or individually motivated action to be more effective in overcoming at least some intellectual or developmental disabilities than State-funded institutions or entities might be.

Section XVIII of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports work to use science and technology to be able to eliminate all disabilities in humans who have them.” However, it is not clear whether any additional entities that would receive State support as a result of Ballot Question 2 would be focused on actually eliminating disabilities or only on helping people adapt to those disabilities. The latter may be a goal toward which some individual members of the U.S. and Nevada Transhumanist Parties may be sympathetic, but it is not a sufficiently or specifically transhumanist goal, nor is it one that the U.S. Transhumanist Party or Nevada Transhumanist Party take a position on – other than to express the hope that the individuals who are currently adapting to any disability will someday be freed from that disability through medical cures or technological augmentations that render the disability irrelevant to their day-to-day functioning.

Nevada State Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to allow all Nevada voters the right to participate in open primary elections to choose candidates for the general election in which all voters may then rank the remaining candidates by preference for the offices of U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Controller, Attorney General, and State Legislators?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: In the view of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party, this is the single most important ballot measure in Nevada political history, as it has the potential to break the stranglehold of the duopoly on Nevada politics. Voters already approved Ballot Question 3 once in 2022, by a vote of 52.94% in favor. However, the Nevada Constitution requires any ballot measures that provide amendments to the Constitution to be passed by voters twice. This 2024 election is therefore decisive for Ballot Question 3, and the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage all Nevada residents who care about having genuine electoral choices to vote in support of Question 3.

The plurality of Nevada voters are independent of the major political parties, and yet they are currently unable to meaningfully influence many local races where a major-party primary determines that party’s nominee, who then receives no meaningful competition at the ballot box in the general election. Moreover, Nevada, as a “battleground” electoral state, often features great pressure applied on voters to support the “lesser evil”, despite many Nevada voters being rightly disillusioned with both the Republican and the Democratic “options” provided to them. Ranked-preference voting eliminates the incentive to vote strategically or for a “lesser evil” to the exclusion of one’s genuinely preferred candidate, since one can provide a complete rank-ordering of one’s preferences rather than limit oneself to one choice.

Section XXX of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current ‘winner-take-all’ electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived ‘lesser evil’ rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.” Thus, support for ranked-choice voting is directly embedded in our Platform. Furthermore, Section XIX of the USTP Platform reads, in part, “The United States Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of ‘third parties’ in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements.” Allowing open access to primaries and enabling ranked-preference voting in the general election would certainly lower the barriers to entry to candidates who do not belong to either of the duopoly parties.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party has successfully implemented ranked-preference voting in multiple of its internal votes. There is every reason to expect that ranked-preference voting could be implemented with similar success for the much simpler top-five ballots in Nevada general elections that would be developed if Question 3 were to be approved by the voters (twice, the first time this year). The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage every Nevada voter to support Ballot Question 3.

The opponents of Ballot Question 3 have included both the Republican and Democratic Parties and various politically connected special-interest advocacy groups; this should be quite revealing about what these establishment factions find to be threatening to their power. A ranked-choice voting system would break the ability of these powerful interests to manipulate the public through “lesser evil” arguments; politicians, to receive serious consideration, would actually have to at least pretend to be for the greater good rather than merely a lesser evil!

An astonishing and disgraceful plethora of misrepresentations about Ballot Question 3 have been propagated by the opposing establishment interests:
· Opponents claim that ranked-choice voting would be confusing to voters – as if people do not intuitively know how to rank-order their options; to suggest this is to insult the intelligence of nearly voter!
· Opponents claim that people would be forced to rank-order multiple candidates, when the text of the proposed Constitutional amendment specifically would allow a voter to “mark as many choices as the voter wishes” (Article 15, Section 18, Paragraph 3).
· Opponents claim that ranked-choice voting would violate the principle of “one person, one vote”, when in fact every eligible voter would still cast one ballot and would have the option to rank-order as many candidates as that voter wishes – from as few as one to as many as five. If a voter only chooses to indicate one candidate, or any number fewer than five, that voter is not disenfranchised by that voluntary decision, just as a person who is eligible to vote but chooses not to vote is not disenfranchised by their own choice. No serious argument can be made that the principle of “one person, one vote” is violated just because some people choose not to vote. By extension, no serious argument can be made that this principle would be violated just because some people would choose to rank-order fewer than all of the candidates.

For an extensive discussion of how ranked-choice voting works, the USTP encourages everyone to view our Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kit Muehlman and FairVote Washington, as well as a subsequent, in-depth presentation by FairVote Washington on the technical workings of proportional ranked-choice voting.

Nevada State Question 4 – Remove Slavery as Punishment for Crime from Constitution Amendment

Wording of Question: “Shall the Ordinance of the Nevada Constitution and the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove language authorizing the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party support Ballot Question 4. The Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0 states in Article XXV, “No sentient entity shall be held in slavery or involuntary servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” There are no exceptions provided for the prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude in the Transhumanist Bill of Rights. Question 4 would align the Nevada State Constitution with the Transhumanist Bill of Rights.

It has been noted in the various explanations of this ballot question that it would not result in the abolition of prison work programs, which may, if administered properly, have benefits such as enabling prisoners to learn marketable skills and to have a path toward integration into peaceful and productive economic life upon their release from prison. However, the prohibition of involuntary servitude would mean that prisoners would have the prerogative to opt into those work programs, and that prison labor would not be used as punishment for an offense in and of itself. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party would concur that prison work programs should be voluntary for the prisoners and should be offered as opportunities, not as punishments.

Nevada State Question 5 – Sales Tax Exemption for Diapers Measure

Wording of Question: “Shall the Sales and Use Tax Act of 1955 be amended to provide an exemption from the taxes imposed by this Act on the gross receipts from the sale and the storage, use or other consumption of diapers?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: Section XXXVI of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform expresses support for “a flat percentage-of-sales tax applicable only to purchases from businesses whose combined nationwide revenues from all affiliates exceed a specified threshold.” The U.S. Transhumanist Party, in its most recent Exposure Period, considered an amendment to Section XXXVI, which would add the language, “This tax would not be imposed on life necessities, defined as goods that are consumable in the near term and whose primary purpose is to facilitate human survival.” The Nevada Transhumanist Party already included this language on July 26, 2024, within Section V of the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform.

Currently, the State of Nevada lacks an income tax and has a state sales tax, from which various goods considered to be necessities are excluded. Diapers can be considered to facilitate the survival, with a basic amount of dignity, of certain humans who need them. Based on the principle that the cost of necessities should be excluded from any manner of sales tax, which already appears to be reflected in Nevada law and in the Nevada Transhumanist Party Platform, and which also did not meet any opposition during the Exposure Period for Platform Vote #9, the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party support Ballot Question 5.

Nevada State Question 6 – Right to Abortion Initiative

Wording of Question: “Should the Nevada Constitution be amended to create an individual’s fundamental right to an abortion, without interference by state or local governments, whenever the abortion is performed by a qualified healthcare professional until fetal viability or when necessary to protect the health or life of the pregnant individual at any point during the pregnancy?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are intentionally and conscientiously neutral on the question of abortion, which is one of the most divisive and intractable issues in American politics today. Its intractability stems from the existence of an inherent conflict of rights, which cannot be resolved using contemporary technology.

Section LXXXIV of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform offers a potential future solution to this divisive issue in the form of ectogenesis, “the ability of organisms to be incubated and to grow to the point of independent survival, within an artificial environment that provides such organisms with all the necessities of biological survival and development.” Ectogenesis posses the promise of “alleviating the burdens of human pregnancy and rendering the divisive debate over abortion obsolete by reconciling the right to life of a fetus with the freedom of a woman to choose not to carry that fetus.”

However, ectogenesis for humans is not yet available. During the present time, abortion is being utilized to an escalating extent by both major political parties as a wedge issue designed, through the extreme responses to it from both sides, to polarize and divide the population over situations that are unlikely to affect most people personally. It is for this reason that the U.S. Transhumanist Party de-emphasizes the abortion issue in its Platform and rhetoric. Under the status quo, this issue cannot be constructively resolved. We need technology, such as ectogenesis, to render abortion, and especially the abortion debate, obsolete.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party’s founder, Zoltan Istvan, who is personally a supporter of abortion rights, articulated this point of view in his August 3, 2019, editorial in the New York Times, “The Abortion Debate Is Stuck. Are Artificial Wombs the Answer?”

The U.S. Transhumanist Party also recognizes that its members have a broad spectrum of views on the abortion issue. The USTP, in striving to be a big-tent organization, has intentionally avoided creating any manner of litmus test on this issue vis-à-vis its membership.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party does note, by way of a factual observation, that abortion is currently legal in Nevada statute up to 24 weeks (6 months), and thus if Ballot Question 6 is defeated, this would not affect the status quo in regard to the legality and availability of abortions in Nevada. Ballot Question 6 proposes to establish a right to abortion within the Nevada Constitution and would extend the timeframe of legal abortion “until fetal viability or when necessary to protect the health or life of the pregnant individual at any point during the pregnancy”. If enacted, Ballot Question 6 would thus likely broaden the timeframe during which abortions would be legal, in many cases substantially beyond 6 months.

Accordingly, individual members are free to vote their conscience, or to abstain from voting, on Ballot Question 6, however they may choose.

Nevada State Question 7 – Voter Identification Initiative

Wording of Question: “Should the Nevada Constitution be amended to require voters to either present photo identification to verify their identity when voting in-person or to provide certain personal information to verify their identity when voting by mail ballot?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party seek to render it easier, not harder, for people (and sentient entities more generally) to be able to vote in elections. As a party with the broadest franchise of any organization known to it – extending the prerogative for Allied Membership to “any being capable of logical reasoning and of the expression of political opinions” (U.S. Transhumanist Party Constitution, Article II, Section X) – and enabling Allied Members to vote in its internal elections, the USTP is supportive of making voting as accessible as possible to as many sentient entities as possible. The USTP practices this in its internal voting processes, where electronic, ranked-preference voting has been used with significant success and with robust verification that only genuine USTP members (and not, for instance, non-sentient bots that serve a particular special interest) have been the ones casting votes.

While it is not inherently in conflict with the USTP’s values to require some manner of identification to render a person eligible to vote, the USTP does not consider a requirement of voter identification at the time of voting to be necessary for this purpose. When an individual registers to vote, it is already the case in Nevada that one of several listed forms of identification needs to be produced to demonstrate that this person is a U.S. citizen residing in the district where this person is seeking to register to vote. It is not necessary, once a person is registered to vote, to duplicatively require the same voter identification when that person seeks to cast their ballot. Per the official Arguments Against Passage of Question 7 on the Nevada Sample Ballot, “impersonating someone else at the polls [almost] never happens. One study found that that out of more than a billion votes cast, it happened 31 times – statistically zero. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.”

Furthermore, requiring hard-copy voter identification at the time of voting reinforces an already-obsolete paper-based voting system which should, as soon as the technology is viable and deployable at scale, be replaced with an electronic, blockchain-based system using which people could securely verify their identities and vote from the comfort of their homes.

In practice, Ballot Question 7 would limit who is able to vote in Nevada and would, through procedural barriers, deprive some number of U.S. citizens who are legally eligible to vote and properly registered to vote from being able to vote in practice. The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party view such an outcome as contrary to their support for enfranchising more sentient entities. Accordingly, the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are opposed to Ballot Question 7.

U.S. Transhumanist Party Candidates Tom Ross and Daniel Twedt Respond to Free and Equal Debate #2 Questions

U.S. Transhumanist Party Candidates Tom Ross and Daniel Twedt Respond to Free and Equal Debate #2 Questions

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Tom Ross
Daniel Twedt
Gennady Stolyarov II
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Jason Geringer

On Sunday, July 14, 2024, the U.S. Transhumanist Party 2024 U.S. Presidential Candidate Tom Ross and U.S. Vice-Presidential Candidate Daniel Twedt responded to the questions posed during the Free and Equal Elections Foundation Presidential Debate #2, which was held on July 12, 2024, at FreedomFest in Las Vegas.

The Ross-Twedt ticket received the same questions as posed to Chase Oliver (Libertarian Party), Jill Stein (Green Party), and Randall Terry (Constitution Party), and had the opportunity to express their positions and respond to the other candidates’ comments. Afterward, the panelists and audience provided feedback on the Free and Equal Debate and the Ross-Twedt responses.

Watch the July 12, 2024, Free and Equal Debate #2, held at FreedomFest in Las Vegas: https://rumble.com/v56o6np-free-and-equal-presidential-debate-at-freedomfest-2024.html

***

Timestamps

5:23 – Tom Ross’s opening statement
7:57 – Daniel Twedt’s Opening Statement
10:45 – Question 1
14:17 – Question 2
21:08 – Question 3
28:06 – Question 4
32:01 – Question 5
36:45 – Question 6
40:49 – Question 7
47:11 – Question 8
51:44 – Question 9
53:30 – Question 10
55:18 – Question 11
57:57 – Question 12
1:01:14 – Question 13
1:04:25 – Tom Ross’s Closing Statement
1:06:00 – Daniel Twedt’s Closing Statement
1:09:11 – Tom Ross’s and Daniel Twedt’s feedback regarding the candidates at the July 12 debate
1:17:48 – How Daniel Twedt and Tom Ross would address the Economic Singularity
1:20:36 – How to reduce the fear of transhumanism
1:26:05 – The best way AI can mature
1:29:48 – How transhumanists can build bridges with the religious
1:36:08 – How transhumanists can build bridges with other belief systems
1:41:23 – How the future could be bright
1:53:24 – Closing thoughts

***

To learn more about the Tom Ross / Daniel Twedt 2024 Presidential Campaign, visit the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s Candidates page, recently updated with additional resources, interviews, and campaign videos: https://transhumanist-party.org/candidate-profiles/

Visit Tom Ross’s campaign website at: https://tomross.com/2024.html.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside: https://transhumanist-party.org/membership/


U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2022 Nevada Ballot Questions

U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party Positions on 2022 Nevada Ballot Questions

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Gennady Stolyarov II

The United States Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party offer the following brief statements of position on the ballot questions currently before Nevada voters in the 2022 General Election.

Summary
Nevada State Question 1 – Equality of Rights Amendment: Support
Nevada State Question 2 – Minimum Wage Amendment: Neutral
Nevada State Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative: Strongly Support

Nevada State Ballot Question 1 – Equality of Rights Amendment:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended by adding a specific guarantee that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this State or any of its cities, counties, or other political subdivisions on account of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party consider it necessary to support Ballot Question 1 because of the broader commitment to universal rights expressed in the Transhumanist Bill of Rights – Version 3.0. Article I of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights reads, in part, that “All sentient entities are entitled, to the extent of their individual decisions, to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, social, or planetary origin, property, birth (including manner of birth), biological or non-biological origins, or other status.” The text of Nevada State Ballot Question 1 recognizes equality of rights for a subset of the above-listed sentient entities and is therefore a step in the correct direction. In the prohibition on governmental entities denying or abridging rights on the basis of the attributes mentioned, Ballot Question 1 expresses the essential principle that individuals should be treated as individuals, not members of larger, mostly circumstantial identity groups. This is affirmed in Article X of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, which states, in part, that “Morphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves.” The rights of an individual should therefore not be abridged, especially by governments, simply because the individual happens to belong to a broader category whose definition is many times outside the scope of that individual’s personal choices.

Nevada State Ballot Question 2 – Minimum Wage Amendment:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended, effective July 1, 2024, to: (1) establish the State’s minimum wage that employers must pay to certain employees at a rate of $12 per hour worked, subject to any applicable increases above that $12 rate provided by federal law or enacted by the Nevada Legislature; (2) remove the existing provisions setting different rates for the minimum wage based on whether the employer offers certain health benefits to such employees; and (3) remove the existing provisions for adjusting the minimum wage based on applicable increases in the cost of living?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are neutral on Ballot Question 2, as both of our parties’ Platforms are silent on the issue of the minimum wage, whether it should exist at all, whether higher or lower amounts of the minimum wage are preferable, and whether or not the presence of any health benefits should be able to count toward satisfying a portion of any minimum-wage requirement. Accordingly, our members in Nevada are encouraged to vote their conscience on this ballot question by consulting their own individual understandings of the relevant matters.

Nevada State Ballot Question 3 – Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative:

Wording of Question: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to allow all Nevada voters the right to participate in open primary elections to choose candidates for the general election in which all voters may then rank the remaining candidates by preference for the offices of U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Controller, Attorney General, and State Legislators?” (More information on BallotPedia.)

Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party: In the view of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party, this is the single most important ballot measure in Nevada political history, as it has the potential to break the stranglehold of the duopoly on Nevada politics. The plurality of Nevada voters are independent of the major political parties, and yet they are currently unable to meaningfully influence many local races where a major-party primary determines that party’s nominee, who then receives no meaningful competition at the ballot box in the general election. Moreover, Nevada, as a “battleground” electoral state, often features great pressure applied on voters to support the “lesser evil”, despite many Nevada voters being rightly disillusioned with both the Republican and the Democratic “options” provided to them. Ranked-preference voting eliminates the incentive to vote strategically or for a “lesser evil” to the exclusion of one’s genuinely preferred candidate, since one can provide a complete rank-ordering of one’s preferences rather than limit oneself to one choice.

Section XXX of the U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform states that “The United States Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current ‘winner-take-all’ electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived ‘lesser evil’ rather than the candidates closest to those voters’ own preferences.” Thus, support for ranked-choice voting is directly embedded in our Platform. Furthermore, Section XIX of the USTP Platform reads, in part, “The United States Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of ‘third parties’ in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements.” Allowing open access to primaries and enabling ranked-preference voting in the general election would certainly lower the barriers to entry to candidates who do not belong to either of the duopoly parties.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party has successfully implemented ranked-preference voting in multiple of its internal votes. There is every reason to expect that ranked-preference voting could be implemented with similar success for the much simpler top-five ballots in Nevada general elections that would be developed if Question 3 were to be approved by the voters (twice, the first time this year). The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage every Nevada voter to support Ballot Question 3.

For an extensive discussion of how ranked-choice voting works, the USTP encourages everyone to view our Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kit Muehlman and FairVote Washington, as well as a subsequent, in-depth presentation by FairVote Washington on the technical workings of proportional ranked-choice voting.

 

2022: The Year of the Great Filter – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

2022: The Year of the Great Filter – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

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Gennady Stolyarov II

2022 is the year of the Great Filter. There has never been a more dangerous time for our species before, and there will not be again, if we survive this year.

The war in Ukraine has brought the world to the edge of nuclear calamity, because neither side wishes to negotiate or make concessions. The Russian regime makes reckless nuclear threats, Western/NATO powers recklessly ignore them, and continue to supply offensive weapons to Ukrainian forces, whose ideology favors recklessly dying for their country instead of prudently choosing to live for themselves. The risks of especially unintended, accidental escalation continue to accumulate the longer this war drags on with no clear end in sight.

The one ray of hope in all this is that I am firmly convinced that this is a unique, non-repeatable situation. If humankind can avoid extinction arising from reckless escalation here, then our species will never be in this much existential danger again, at least not from manmade causes. Here I provide my top ten reasons for holding this outlook.

1. Vladimir Putin’s misguided ideology and complete misunderstanding of the military and geopolitical situation in Russia and Ukraine led to this disaster of an invasion, but Putin is not in good health and thus his days in office are numbered. Any other person in power would not be locked into Putin’s must-win situation and may likely try to undo the damage and even try to bolster his reputation for doing so. The key is to avoid escalation while Putin remains in power, to prevent Putin from seeing no reason not to take the world down with him. If we wait this out, Putin will either succumb to his illness or be “encouraged” to retire by his inner circle. But in order to avoid the scenario where he behaves like a cornered rat, we need to allow this to happen on its own.

2. The stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a uniquely insane climate of public opinion, including in the West (while also contributing to the irrationality of Putin). Norms of civility and the valuation of peace have been significantly eroded, particularly among the neoconservatives, the establishment Left, and nationalists of all stripes (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic, et al.). Accordingly, the preponderance of warmongers among the populations of Europe and America is at a historic high. However, in the coming years, as the pandemic recedes and people gradually regain a sense of normalcy, war fervor will subside, since most of the same people were not advocating war 10 years ago and, under the right circumstances, could become largely peaceful again. Americans were overwhelmingly tired of war through 2021. If we wait this out, war fatigue will become the dominant view again not too long from now.

3. We were on the verge of the Transhuman Era circa 2015 based on the trajectories of various emerging technologies. This, however, was derailed by the Left-Right hyperpolarization from late 2015 onward, by the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onward, and now by the war in Ukraine in 2022. All of these developments benefited the legacy ruling elite, whom the Transhuman Era would render obsolete; they used these crises to turn ordinary people and innovators against one another, when we should have all been working in concert to build the Transhuman Era. However, if we avoid world war and nuclear annihilation now, then the progress of emerging technologies will still gradually displace the legacy ruling elite and inaugurate the Transhuman Era, at which time humans will become too prosperous and enlightened to be willing to tolerate the risk of species extinction.

4. Averting nuclear war in 2022 will lead to the widespread recognition of how close we came to calamity from the potential of a pointless local conflict to engulf the world. The phrase “Never again” will henceforth be applied to nuclear brinkmanship, and a concerted push for worldwide nuclear disarmament could be made by a coalition of activist groups who are already sympathetic to this cause. They will have a lot more political capital once people are able to take a breath and come to their senses.

5. Artificial intelligence and nanotechnology will never pose the same existential risk as nuclear weapons, because their modes of functioning are much more sophisticated, and thus there will be many more places along the chain of events leading to calamity where human intervention could stop that chain of events. AI and nanotechnology of the future will be “smart”, which will make them safer. Nuclear weapons are “dumb”, combined with awesome destructive capacity, which makes them the most dangerous technology of all history, past and future.

6. Climate change, too, is a much milder and even non-existential risk, compared to nuclear war. This is a risk that will play out over decades, allowing for mitigation and reversal through emerging technologies, as well as adaptation to any lasting climate shifts. This is not to say that climate change would inflict no damage, but rather that the damage would be far from enough to destroy the species or even significantly slow down our technological and economic progress. If we can avoid nuclear war in 2022 (which would also bring about the worst climate change of all – a nuclear winter), then it will be much more feasible to devote more resources toward the development and deployment of technologies that would counteract climate change.

7. For all of the irrational panic regarding the alleged threat of China, the fact is that China has orders of magnitude fewer nuclear weapons than Russia or the United States. The Chinese government knows that it would lose any nuclear war decisively. Hence, China will never attempt or provoke a nuclear war. When it comes to the risk of civilization-ending nuclear war, only a conflict between the United States and Russia would pose that risk. Moreover, China is so globally interconnected through trade, especially with the United States, that it would never risk a military conflict which would be tantamount to economic suicide.

8. If nuclear war is avoided in 2022, Putin’s regime will atrophy by 2025 (as long as the Western powers do not try to overthrow him or invade Russia, an attempt which would paradoxically strengthen Putin’s regime, just as the sanctions against Russia have done by rallying Russians through a sense of being attacked and targeted by the West). Once Putin’s regime atrophies and is discredited within Russia, it will be possible to support more humane politicians in Russia, who might continue the policies of Gorbachev and seek at least a phased nuclear disarmament. As noted above, among geopolitical conflicts, only the US-Russia nuclear standoff poses an existential risk to the human species. Nuclear disarmament of Russia, or even a determined move in that direction, would essentially resolve that risk.

9. With enough time during which peace prevails, the Transhuman Era will see the creation of technologies that would help avert other existential risks, such as asteroids, supervolcanoes, and any yet-unforeseen consequences of future technologies. Existential risk will decline with each peaceful year from now on.

10. Surviving 2022 will give humankind an impetus to pursue the rejection of the Cold War mentality, of militant nationalism (especially ethnic nationalism, which is the most pernicious), and of Left-Right polarization. Getting rid of those three terrible mindsets will be largely enough to render most of humankind constructive again. It is only because of those mindsets that we have not reached the Transhuman Era already. Just as the aftermath of World War II rendered certain ideologies unacceptable, so I hope that the narrow avoidance of World War III will render Cold Warriorism, Left-Right militancy, and ethno-nationalism unacceptable in America and Europe at the very least. (The rest of the world could help us in overcoming these perilous mindsets. One consequence I hope to see in the coming decades is a multi-polar world with a greater prominence for Asian, African, and Latin American countries, to broaden our perspectives on the considerations that should matter for the future of humanity.)

So, essentially we just have to survive 2022 without a nuclear war in order for history to turn toward the long arc of progress once again. However, we absolutely have to survive 2022 – and this will entirely depend on whether public opinion will be able to restrain the war fervor of Western hawks in particular. A combination of reckless overconfidence, intransigence, and moral self-righteousness (on both sides) has placed our species into unparalleled danger. Perhaps this was the kind of moment from which many alien civilizations have not been able to emerge successfully – hence, one potential explanation for Fermi’s paradox. Will we have enough prudence and basic love of life to avoid that fate? We will find out in the next several months. If we pass this Great Filter, a future of boundless possibility and growth awaits our species. Do not throw this future away over a local conflict. What humans do now will be most consequential for the future of the entire universe.

This essay may be freely reproduced using the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License, which requires that credit be given to the author, G. Stolyarov II. Find out about Mr. Stolyarov here.

Gennady Stolyarov II and John Kerecz: Reflections on 2021, Anticipations for 2022

Gennady Stolyarov II and John Kerecz: Reflections on 2021, Anticipations for 2022

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Gennady Stolyarov II
John Kerecz

On January 14, 2022, U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II was interviewed by U.S. Transhumanist Party Director of Energy Issues John Kerecz on OSH Radio, for a retrospective conversation about how 2021 turned out relative to prior anticipations, as well as key developments to watch for in 2022. Subjects discussed included the precarious nature of contemporary civilization, the immense and ongoing perils of deadly diseases, how technology has affected both the opportunities and the constraints of contemporary life, the problems of political polarization and the two-party system, the need for a new paradigm of an abundance economy and society, the U.S. Transhumanist Party’s aspirations and projects, the Virtual Enlightenment Salons (John Kerecz is scheduled to be a guest on January 23, 2022, to discuss his 2014 flight to the edge of space), some reminiscences about earlier USTP history, and contrasts between in-person and virtual interactions. In this interview Mr. Stolyarov discusses his understanding that we live in a make-or-break moment in human history, and that the future trajectory of the human species will depend on what we do in 2022.

Watch this video on YouTube here and on Odysee here.

References

– “A Simple Plan to Solve All of America’s Problems” – Article by Derek Thompson – The Atlantic – January 12, 2022 –
– U.S. Transhumanist Party Free Membership
– U.S. Transhumanist Party Website
– U.S. Transhumanist Party on Twitter
– U.S. Transhumanist Party on Instagram

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Zach Richardson, Jason Geringer, and Ben Ballweg – July 25, 2021

U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Zach Richardson, Jason Geringer, and Ben Ballweg – July 25, 2021

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Jason Geringer
Ben Ballweg
Zach Richardson
Gennady Stolyarov II
David Shumaker
Art Ramon Garcia, Jr.
Alexandria Black

The U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Zach Richardson, Jason Geringer, and Ben Ballweg of July 25, 2021, is now available for viewing on Odysee here.

On Sunday, July 25, 2021, at 4 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited its new Officers, Zach Richardson (Director of Publication), Jason Geringer (Legislative Director), and Ben Ballweg (Director of Longevity Outreach), to discuss some of their ideas, planned initiatives, and perspectives on the current condition of the transhumanist movement. The discussion focused on improving the internal functions of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, attracting volunteers, and raising the visibility of transhumanist projects and causes. An interactive discussion transpired about ways to bolster the publication and legislative-tracking activities of the USTP. The conversation also extended to subjects of general interest to transhumanists, futurists, and those seeking to learn about the transhumanist movement.

Read about Zach Richardson here.
Read about Jason Geringer here.
Read about Ben Ballweg here.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free, no matter where you reside.

NOTE: Even though the U.S. Transhumanist Party is staunchly pro-vaccine and expressed such views during the Virtual Enlightenment Salon, YouTube algorithmically censored the video, most likely with no serious human involvement, and algorithmically rejected our appeal as well. The U.S. Transhumanist Party strongly condemns such censorship but also sees an opportunity here by encouraging people to watch and spread this video for the purpose of overcoming arbitrary barriers put forth by unintelligent and unaccountable algorithms.

 

Ben Ballweg, U.S. Transhumanist Party Director of Longevity Outreach
U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II’s Update Interview on the Archer Report – July 24, 2020

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II’s Update Interview on the Archer Report – July 24, 2020

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Gennady Stolyarov II
Steele Archer

U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II’s July 24, 2020, appearance on the Archer Report with Steele Archer, was an opportunity for a fascinating 130-minute conversation about the forthcoming U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Dr. David Hanson of Hanson Robotics, Charlie Kam’s 2020 U.S. Presidential campaign, concerns about public reactions to the pandemic, and major issues with the contemporary media ecosystem, both with legacy and social media.

References

“Trump challenged by radical presidential candidate hoping to REVERSE ageing” by James Bickerton. Daily Express. July 6, 2020.

Free U.S. Transhumanist Party Membership

Homicides in the US Fall for Second Year as Murder Rate Drops in 38 States – Article by Ryan McMaken

Homicides in the US Fall for Second Year as Murder Rate Drops in 38 States – Article by Ryan McMaken

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Ryan McMaken
December 28, 2019
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As 2018 came to an end, politicians and media pundits insisted that ” gun violence ” was growing and hitting crisis levels .

While a homicide rate of anything greater than zero is an measure of very-real human misery, it nonetheless turns out that fewer people were murdered in 2018 than in the year before. Moreover, 2018 was the second year in a row during which the homicide rate declined.

According to new homicide statistics released by the FBI last month, the homicide rate in the United States was 5 per 100,000 people. That was down from 5.3 per 100,000 in 2017 and down from 5.4 in 2016. In 2014, the homicide rate in the US hit a 57-year low, dropping to 4.4 per 100,000, making it the lowest homicide rate recorded since 1957.

 At 5 per 100,000, 2018’s homicide rate has been cut nearly in half since the 1970s and the early 1990s when the national homicide rate frequently exceeded nine percent.

The regions with the largest declines were New England and the Mountain west where homicide rates decreased 18 percent and 12 percent, respectively. The only region reporting an increase was the Mid Atlantic region, with an increase of one percent. This was driven largely by an increase in homicides in Pennsylvania.

 At the state level, the homicide rate went down in 38 states, and increased in 12.

The states with the lowest homicide rates were South Dakota, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. The states with the lowest rates were nearly all found in New England and in the West. For additional context, I have graphed US states with Canadian provinces (in red):

Indeed, when we map the states by homicide rate, we can see some clear regional differences:

In American political discourse, it is fashionable to insist that those places with the most strict gun control laws have the least amount of violence.

This position, of course, routinely ignores the fact that large regions of the US have very laissez faire gun laws with far lower levels of violent crime than those areas with more gun regulations. Moreover, if we were to break down the homicide rates into even more localized areas, we’d find that high homicide rates are largely confined to a relatively small number of neighborhoods within cities. Americans who live outside these areas — that is to say, the majority of Americans — are unlikely to ever experience homicide either first-hand or within their neighborhoods.

We can see the lack of correlations between gun control and homicide, for instance, if we compare state-level homicide rates to rankings of state-level gun laws published by pro-gun-control organizations.

For example, using the Giffords Center’s rankings of state gun policy, many of the states with the lowest homicide rates (South Dakota, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Utah) are states with the most laissez faire gun policies. The Giffords Center naturally ranks these states the lowest for gun policy, giving Maine and Utah grades of “F” and “D-“, respectively, although both states are two of the least violent places in all of North America.

Homicide vs. “Gun Violence”

As is so often the case when dealing with gun statistics put out by pro-gun-control groups, the Giffords Center attempts to fudge the numbers by measuring “gun deaths” rather than homicides. By design, this number includes suicides — which then makes violence rates look higher — while excluding all forms of homicide not involving guns.

Thus, a state with higher homicide rates overall — but with fewer gun homicides — will look less violent than it really is.

Meanwhile, a state with little violent crime, but with relatively high homicide rates, will be counted as a state with many “gun deaths.” These nuances are rarely explained in the public debate however, and the term “gun deaths” is just thrown around with the intent of making places with looser gun laws look like they have more crime.

Moreover, the attempt to use suicide to “prove” more guns lead to more suicides is easily shown to be baseless at the international level: the US has totally unremarkable suicide rate even though it is far easier to acquire a gun in the US than many countries with far higher suicide rates.

Mass Shootings

As the total number of homicides in the US has gone down in recent decades, many commentators have taken to fixating on mass shooting events as evidence that the United States is in the midst of an epidemic of shootings.

Mass shootings, however, occur in such small numbers as to have virtually no effect on nationwide homicide numbers.

According to the Mother Jones mass shootings listing, for examples, there were 80 deaths resulting from mass shootings in 2018, or 0.5 percent of all homicides. That was down from the 117 mass-shooting total in 2017, which was 0.7 percent of all homicides. And how will 2019 look? This year, there have been 66 mass-shooting deaths. On a per-month basis, mass shootings have so far been deadlier in 2019 than in 2018. But we could also note that although there have been 66 mass shooting victims this year, the total number of homicides in Maryland alone fell by 68 from 2017 to 2018.

And then, of course, there is the issue of crime prevention through private gun ownership. Since averted crimes are not counted in any government database, we only know how many crimes actually occur. We don’t know how many are averted due to the potential victim being armed. Nor does the homicide data differentiate between criminal homicides, and homicides committed in self defense. Thus, sloppy researchers will simply report all homicides as criminal killings. But this is not the case.

As one might expect, pro-gun-control advocates insist that the number of crimes averted due to defensive weapons is very low. But, again, there is no empirical evidence showing this. Some gun control activists will point to studies that conclude more homicides occur in areas with more guns. These studies may be getting the causality backwards, however, since we’d expect more gun ownership to result in areas that are perceived to be more crime-ridden.

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. He has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Politics Drops Its Pretenses – Article by Jeff Deist

Politics Drops Its Pretenses – Article by Jeff Deist

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Jeff Deist
December 28, 2019
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Can the increasing politicization of life in America be stopped, or even slowed?

To be sure, average Americans do not want this. Most people prefer not to lead overly political lives, beyond perhaps voting once in a while and grumbling about taxes or potholes. Most people prefer to focus on work, family, hobbies, sports, or a million other pursuits instead of politics. We watch the game instead of attending the Tuesday night city council meeting. But increasingly we all feel the pressure, drawing us inexorably into a highly-politicized world which demands we take binary “sides” on Trump, impeachment, abortion, guns, climate change, and far more. This politicization seeps into our jobs, family lives, neighborhoods places of worship, social interactions, and even our sports and entertainment.

The most salient feature of national politics in 2019 America is its lack of pretenses. The two political Americas, represented by Red and Blue teams, no longer pretend to share a country or any desire to live peaceably together. Much has been made of this cold civil war on both the Left and Right, and much of what has been made is probably over-hyped. Americans, after all, are materially comfortable, soft, addled, diabetic, and rapidly aging; the over-65 population is set to double in the coming decades. Hot civil wars require lots of young men with nothing to lose who are not busy playing Fortnite. But the overall mood of the country is decidedly hostile and suggestive of irreconcilable differences.

So how does our political system address this? By throwing gasoline on the fire, in the form of another national election in 2020. That looming contest already tells a story, it’s not about healing or coming together. Today the political class is more open about its desire to hurt and punish opponents; in fact, revenge and punishment feature prominently in the political narratives that fill our media feeds.

Hillary Clinton recently quipped that maybe she should run against Donald Trump in 2020 and “beat him again,” openly positioning her personal vendetta as the rationale for seeking the presidency. “The issues,” such as they are, take a distant backseat to her more pressing goal of defeating both Trump and his voters in a visceral way. Her 2020 candidacy, should it materialize, will coalesce around revenge: voters failed her not once but twice, in 2008 and 2016. Her campaign, almost by necessity, will be a scorched-earth exercise in revenge against the Deplorables.

Her potential Democratic primary rival Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, appeared last week at an LGBT equality town hall—organized by CNN for the express purpose of further politicizing sex and sexuality (so much for pre-political rights). In response to a softball question about gay marriage (likely planted), Warren sneered that a hypothetical religious man should marry a woman “if he can get one.” Needless to say the audience loved it, which tells us less about Warren’s safe, vanilla views than it does about the setting and mood of attendees. Identity politics is required, not optional.

These presidential aspirants, like Trump, no longer care to maintain a facade of representing all Americans or smoothing over divisions when elections are over. Nobody runs for president to represent all Americans, and of course, nobody could in a far-flung country of 330 million people. Candidates who give lip service to the idea, as Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang have, gain little traction in the media-driven bloodsport. The presidency is about winning either Red or Blue America, not both, and presidential candidates will be far more open about this in 2020—and with their hostility for the Electoral College. They are in the business of winning at all costs, not persuading. 51% of the electorate will do, and the rest deserve to suffer for not going along with the program.

The standard explanations and justifications for politics are breaking down. Democratic consensus and needful compromise and good governance were always empty bromides, but today our political overlords understand and pander to an altogether different mood. The Trump presidency, like the Brexit vote, was never accepted by the same elites who spent the early 21st century gushing about the sanctity of democracy. The entire pretense for democratic politics, ostensibly the peaceful transfer of political power and the consensual organization of human affairs, now gives way to new and uncomfortable questions. What if we cannot vote our way out of this? What if the structural problems of debt and entitlements and central banking and foreign policy cannot be solved politically? What if the culture wars are unwinnable? What if we have reached the end of politics as an instrument for keeping American society together?

Democracy and politics will not alleviate our problems; only committed individuals working in the intermediary institutions of civil society can. Democratic elections can work locally, and in small countries or communities; Switzerland’s system of express subsidiarity comes to mind. And clearly the best hope for America’s survival will come through an aggressive form of federalism or subsidiarity, one that dramatically reduces the winner-take-all stakes of national elections. But mass democracy, in a country as large as America, is a recipe for strife, bitterness, endless division, and much worse.

Murray Rothbard said in Power and Market that “ballots are hailed as substitutes for bullets.” But in modern America, politics leads us closer to war, not closer to peace and justice and comity. Why should we accept weaponized mass politics when we have civil society, markets, and non-state institutions?

We need an anti-politics movement just as surely as we need an antiwar movement.

Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute, where he serves as a writer, public speaker, and advocate for property, markets, and civil society. He previously worked as a longtime advisor and chief of staff to Congressman Ron Paul, for whom he wrote hundreds of articles and speeches. Mr. Deist also spent many years as a tax attorney advising private equity clients on mergers and acquisitions.

This article was published on Mises.org and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution United States License, which requires that credit be given to the author.

Trump Flip-Flops on Syria Withdrawal Again – Article by Ron Paul

Trump Flip-Flops on Syria Withdrawal Again – Article by Ron Paul

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Ron Paul
December 28, 2019
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President Trump is reversing his foreign policy decisions so quickly these days that it almost seems like he overturns himself before making the decision in the first place. In October 2019, he was very clear that the US was pulling its troops out of Syria. “Bringing soldiers home,” he said. “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.”

But then he overturned himself later in the same speech. He said: “We’ve secured the oil and therefore a small number of US troops will remain in the area where they have the oil. And we’re going to be protecting it and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

Where does President Trump think he gets the legal or moral authority to send US troops to illegally occupy foreign territory and determine what that foreign country can or cannot do with its resources? After eight years of Obama’s disastrous “Assad must go” policy, during which the US provided weapons and training to radicals and terrorists with a half million people killed as a result, President Trump had the opportunity to finally close that dark chapter of US foreign policy so the Syrian people could rebuild their country.

Instead he sat down on Thursday with Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been wrong in every foreign policy position he’s ever taken, and decided to follow Graham’s advice to take Syria’s oil. Even though Trump himself has said many times that ISIS is 100 percent defeated, he claims we must take Syria’s oil to keep it from ISIS.

The real reason the neocons want the US military to occupy Syria’s oil fields is they are still convinced they can overthrow Assad by carving out eastern Syria for the Kurds. They don’t want to keep the oil from ISIS, they want to keep it from the Syrian government. They don’t want the oil revenue to be used to help rebuild the country because they still want to make life more unbearable for the population through sanctions so they will overthrow Assad. They don’t care how many innocent civilians die.

So instead of bringing the troops home like he promised, President Trump has allowed himself to be convinced to actually expand the US presence in eastern Syria! Instead of ending a foolish mission, he’s giving them an even more foolish mission – and sending in more troops and weapons. Instead of removing the approximately 200 troops in that region as promised, Trump is going to add more troops to equal about a thousand. He’s also sending in tanks and other armored vehicles, according to the Pentagon.

If President Trump believes following neocon advice on Syria is going to produce results different than the past eight years of following neocon advice on Syria, he’s naïve or worse. This new mission is going to cost tens of millions of dollars per month and will only serve to inspire the next generation of radicals. Trump is right that the people of the region, including Russia, Iran, Syria, and Turkey have all the incentive to keep ISIS at bay. So why does he fold like a cheap suit every time the neocons strong-arm him into another dumb foreign policy position?

Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.