How many powerful Lobbies WOULDN'T Barkey piss off as President?

I kind of had an idea for a little game via a discussion we had in the Ron Paul thread..

Politically, I'm pretty much a centrist in the fact that I pick and choose the ideas that I feel are best from both sides of the political spectrum. I oppose extremism in 99.9 percent of its forms, and in general like to weigh the opportunity cost of any decisions I would have to make.

So lets do a simulation, Barkey just got elected president and we're operating under the assumption that up to a certain point, he can get the things he want done. What ripple effects would this have when it comes to lobbyists and the powers that be? How likely am I to get assassinated? How soon? What would kick it off? Be sure to add to the list of people who I would piss off, as they are too numerous for me to name. If you aren't sure, ask me for a position on something so I can let you know for sure that I will in fact, piss them off.

The National Rifle Association

I'm sure this a shocker to some, what with the fact that I'm fiercely pro-gun. To a point. I firmly believe in background checks for all gun owners to track legitimate gun purchases and who is responsible for them. I believe that to own a gun, you should be able to demonstrate to a qualified rangemaster that you know all the sorts of things you should know about handling your gun safety, and should have to be able to fire it a few times without at least hitting yourself in the face or dropping it. The cost of this test would not be prohibitive, and you would be able to take it as many times as you wished.

Conceal carry permits and open carry permits: Legal in all states, if you can get them. The test wouldn't be a gun safety test, you already passed that to buy the damn gun! Law Enforcement and Military Police would automatically get this after passing their Academy. Why only Military Police? Infantry folks know how to use guns just fine right? Well this test would be a Use of Force and Powers of Arrest class, the type that you have to take to become a Private Security Guard. This class essentially explains to you what your rights are as a citizen to perform a citizens arrest in the state you are applying for a CCW/OC permit, as well as the same rules regarding shooting somebody that Law Enforcement are taught. This test would be very specific and difficult, and it would vary state to state, but if you knew the information well and studied, you could pass it. Once again the fee for the costs is not prohibitive, and you would be able to try again every 6 months.

I would also push for an amendment that the government could never come after your firearms to seize them unless you met the criteria for being outlawed from having them, such as being a felon. Illegal transfer, purchase, or sale of firearms would be punished in an extremely draconian fashion. As far as what you could have? I'd drop the Assault Weapons Ban like a sack of fucking bricks, and replace it with something better... You can't have anything crazy like an RPG or any of that, magazine limits would be 30 rounds to a magazine, submachineguns would be illegal. They are not only fully automatic, but easily concealable. That is a no-go. Fully automatic weapons require you to have a CCW permit to purchase, but you cannot open or conceal carry any weapon that is not a handgun, you are only allowed to have a long gun out when you are on private property, in your home, hunting, camping, or at a firing range. Armor piercing rounds are illegal, and the same punishments and laws that apply to illegal sale/transfer et cetera apply.

Anyhow, obviously some of this is willing suspension of disbelief here, and I have plenty more I want to write about several policies and parties. Some policies that I personally support:

Environmentalists

I support Nuclear Powerplants.(With a Government funded FEDERAL agency, similar to Federal Police, which would make Powerplants have some pretty tyrannical security measures to keep them safe.)

Abortion

I could be convinced to outlaw it in cases that did not involve rape, life threatening conditions for the mother, or terminal illnesses/crippling disabilities in the child if proper evidence was put forward that it would improve the overall quality of society and not diminish it.

Religion

Thou Shalt Not Interfere With Our Secular Government. That Is All.(But the government won't persecute you either. God can stay in the pledge, but it is illegal to punish someone for not swearing on the Bible in a court of law, and you may respectfully decline to say the pledge, or to specifically decline to say under god.)

'Freedoms and Rights

The right to Assemble/Demonstrate/Protest does not apply on private property unless the owner specifies that it does. This condition extends to all Churches, Cemeteries, Clinics, Hospitals, et cetera, even those which are not private property. Pre-Meditated disruption of a funeral is a federal offense, organizations will be fined and a three strikes rule will be imposed, after which offenders will be charged with a felony offense and given jail time.

Drugs

Marijuana legalized for home use, and use in specific parlours that obtain a license to let people use them to smoke. Being in public or driving under the influence of marijuana will result in the relevant Public Intoxication or Driving Under the Influence charges. Hardcore narcotics which are deemed a threat to society that cannot be properly relied on to keep users from harming society will be banned. Use will be a misdemeanor with a fine of community service and recommendation for rehab. 3 strikes and you are forced to go to rehab. Distribution or Sufficient Quantities that demonstrate the intent to distribute are a felony offense.

Defense Spending

Most research and development projects will be completely cut, military research must be approved by at least 3/5ths of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or must be demonstrated to result in possible knowledge or technology that has civil uses which would greatly improve society. Contracting will be completely absent from the military, and all needs will be met by military members so it can be self-sufficient in its entirety. Equipment and training will be held to a specific standard not to be significantly lower or higher than that established standard. The Joint Chiefs of Staff must pass a 3/5ths vote to change specific parts of the standard, upon which the request is forwarded to Congress for ratification.(The goal of this is to cut cost, and cut fraud/waste/abuse, while still keeping an absolutely first rate military, just one that doesn't involve a bunch of dickwaving over having the best Useless Gadget In The World. I'd aim to have a practical and economical military that also kicked ass. Expect lots of A-10's, Cobras, Pave-Lows, AC-130's, and F-16's.

Government Corruption

No Lobbyist is to be within 100 feet of a member of Congress, State Legislature, Governor, President, Vice President, or member of the Presidents Cabinet without a prior appointment during which several third parties must also be present. Trying to clandestinely cooperate with a Lobbyist without a proper appointment routed through an officials office is a misdemeanor, with a 3 strikes rule to turn it into a felony. The fines for the misdemeanors apply to the group the Lobbyist speaks for, and not the individual unless no credibility is found that the Lobbyist speaks for a specific group. After 3 strikes the individual lobbyist is jailed, and the group or company involved is fined an even heavier amount.(I'm trying to figure out verbage that could effectively keep anyone who's ever been the head of, or high up in, a large corporation from running for any of these offices.. Still thinking.)

edited 6th May '11 2:56:08 PM by Barkey

Do you exist?

Do you have guts to stand your grounds?

If yes to both of those, then congrats, you've pissed off at least half of them.

edited 6th May '11 2:54:58 PM by Usht

Is there a list of lobbyists anyway?

Well, you don't piss me off.

:D

I have officially won over the Mr. AHR demographic. One vote for me.

Heh, wonder who this is for

I'd vote for President Barkey.

I'm not even American.

That's actually a very good question Medinoc. I'd need to revise the language a little to allow for things like that for weapons manufacturing. I'd just rather we took advantage of the companies presenting, say, a new assault rifle to replace the M4/16 series, as opposed to the other way around.

"We like your rifle, but if you won't give it to us for X$$ contract, we're gonna just go talk to those Bushmaster guys over there... That ACR is pretty nice.."

"Hey Bushmaster, here's our terms, if you aren't cool with that, we're going to FN for the SCAR."

All companies contracted by the government would have a performance goal that they are required to meet. If they do not meet the required broad goals in the required amount of time, we legally subsidize all their research on the project, all the intellectual property rights, and we go shopping for a contractor who will get us those results.

We should be ripping off corporations, not the other way around.

^^

Just be glad I couldn't find a legal way of saying "If someone kicks your ass for doing committing this crime, they cannot be held liable" I also made sure it was a felony after a specific point. If someone commits a felony in front of you, you have the right(and in some states like Minnesota, a legal obligation) to make a citizens arrest of the individual. So legally, if it was a felony, regular citizens could throw all the westboro bastard on their faces and wait for the cops to bring in a few boxes of handcuffs and a bus.

edited 6th May '11 3:07:59 PM by Barkey

Wouldn't "punishable by writ of outlawry" or something in this style be a "legal"(-ish) way?

PS: In France, the Army doesn't rip-off the corporations: It owns the corporations. That's why all their names are in the style of "Weapons factory of (location)" (MAS, MAT, AMX...)

edited 6th May '11 3:11:19 PM by Medinoc

It'd be pretty hard to get that to fly... But if it's as unbelievable as my chances of getting the rest of this to work, sure, why not!

I'd probably be assassinated within a week.

Political assassinations just aren't what they used to be.

Well, yeah, because obviously you'd have to be an evil super-villain to get elected.

It would be entirely justified.

President Barkey, why do you hate America?

Seal Team 6 would come crashing into the oval office.

Kidding, they'd hire Blackwater to do it.

Also kind of kidding, but anyhow.. Not sure if you guys can tell, but most of the things I suggest are related specifically to things I feel are mistakes that need to be prevented from happening again, or corrected after negative changes occurred through legislation, examples:

The Assault Weapons Ban: Didn't make crime go down, took freedoms away from private citizens. The additional gun control will make firearms accidents go way down, gun running in the US will become risky and prohibitively expensive as a result, and the streets will be legitimately safer. One major crime(The LA Bank Robbery) was the catalyst to this legislation, and the police are now outfitted to counter a threat that does not exist. The threat of the big scary black guns with tacticool accessories will be present once again, but it still is in most states anyway, and they haven't fallen into the sea of chaos and discontent.

Corruption: I want to ensure that corporate lobbyists don't have even half as much influence on key members of government, and the mistake I had in mind when it came to people who rank high in companies obtaining key positions in government? Well, Dick Cheney was the VP of Halliburton. Who cashes in more than any other company in the Iraq war via a series of outrageous no-bid contracts that could be considered fraud/waste/abuse? Halliburton did.

I think my Westboro Baptist Church example speaks for itself.

Religious interference? Maybe I should just be a dick and try to make it illegal to use the words "Christian/Family Values!" in any courtroom or legislative meeting by a member of government.

Then again, all you need for running for president is that funding of/ove parties collapses(read: gets banned), then the 2 party system is abolished in some way(most likely some radical voting and election reform), and that everyone gets a equal ground for running for leading the nation.
Does not sound too shabby, the problem will be to find enough people willing to follow your lead in Congress.

^

Exactly. It's funny how the only thing that even makes all this stuff fall under Willing Suspension of Disbelief is the fact that our congress is so mired in Lobbyist influenced corruption to begin with.

That reminds me! Anonymous political donations, illegal. If you want to support a political cause, you shouldn't have any reason to be afraid of people knowing you support it. Also, only individuals can donate, not companies. And those individuals positions in committees, jobs they hold, et cetera, cannot be held anonymous or misrepresented.

Also, political donations received by a candidate would be capped at a reasonable amount TBA based on the scale of the political office that they are running for. Satellite organizations made for the purpose of also taking donations and thus inflating past the cap would need to somehow be nipped in the butt.

Electoral college? Fucking gone. Makes no sense that if the popular vote is obtained, the individual who gets it is not made president. Why even do the popular vote in the first place?

edited 6th May '11 3:32:32 PM by Barkey

Barkey; You got my vote. You would step on the toes nearly the entire military industrial complex, their backers, and the people in the pentagon. So yeah damn near anyone with access to vicious killers.

But those vicious killers are all enlisted dudes who would be like "Wait a minute.. An E-5 for President? FUCK YEAH!"

And I'd have all sorts of accidental slips of language and publicity stunts to encourage that I got 2.5 million absentee ballot votes from the military.

Seal Team 6 would be all like "Fuck you Sir, we voted for him. He called FEMA a 'Clusterfuck' and the Department of Homeland Security 'Redundant and fucking useless'. He constantly makes references to Private Murphys Law too."

edited 6th May '11 3:41:14 PM by Barkey

Lol. Yeah just remember those groups all have their died in the wool "American" fanatics.

He died of a hangnail that caused a spontaneous aneurysm.

Terrible accident, now please everybody rise for President Jackson Jefferson Johnson III.

Yeah, but finding an entire team of guys like that? Not so easy a task.. There's usually at least one sane individual who gets slipped into the mix..

That and my Secret Service CPD would have to pass a battery of psychological tests and questions to ensure that we got along. Sense of humor is required.

Hmm...You may have the Aondeug demographic as well...

May.

MAY.

So long as my pansexual bigendered insanity is not outlawed.

edited 6th May '11 4:57:55 PM by Aondeug

Thing is, you wouldn't be able to do it. I mean literally, the President doesn't have the powers to make half of that stuff you describe happen on a whim. But I can't say I'd mind your platform too much. The only real changes I'd make are a) allowing municipalities to determine their own level of gun restrictions, since cities and rural areas have different levels and types of crime, thus justifying different gun laws, and b) specifying that any new nuclear plants build MUST be IFR or comparably efficient and safe 4th gen technology.

For stuff I'd do that you probably wouldn't, well, I'd boost the education budget significantly and try to triple the funding for public schools and universities. I'd switch all agricultural subsidies to environmental stewardship bonuses (as in, we pay the farmers to keep their soil clean and fertile rather than per productive output, which means they can rest easy knowing that even in the case of a poor crop they'll get a solid amount of cash each year as long as they take care of the land). I'd probably introduce a carbon fee-and-dividend system. All lobbyist work on Capitol Hill must take place between the hours of 12 noon and 8 pm, and be fully televised on public television and internet streaming. Establish a government department that exists solely for the purpose of organizing and informing nonviolent extrapolitical activism, i.e. teaching people who's buying off who and how to mount effective boycotts and strikes against them, to put a bit more direct democracy back in the system. Knock the loopholes out of the tax code and spend as much money, time, and effort fighting white collar crime as we now spend fighting illegal drugs. Oh, and I'd allow states to establish full single-payer or double tier public health care at their own initiative, an opt-in public option.

Or rather, I wouldn't be able to do any of that, because everyone in Washington would tar and feather me. In the end though, I'd piss off a lot more people than you would. No worries about assassination, though; I'd either befriend a grizzled ex-Special Forces vet or buy me a nice giant robot, that should keep me safe.

Barkey, will you please run for president?