“What does it stand for?”
a woman asked.
“It sounds aggressive.”
“It is aggressive,” I replied.
“It stands for agression against
those who started this war.”
♠
The War Party
believes all public elections should be conducted
by paper ballot only,
whether at the polls,
or absentee by
surface mail.
Electronic intrusion in
the election process should
be held to an absolute minimum.
It’s common sense.
Salesmanship of computerized
election devices or software has no place
in the fundamental process of free elections,
any more than computers would be welcome
in the performance of a wedding or a funeral.
Computers and their programs can be hacked.
They can by thwarted. They can be rigged.
If we invite the violation of our elections
by computerization,
we have no one to blame but ourselves
when thieves, saboteurs and enemies
take advantage of
our stupidity.
♠
The War Party
stands for
a suspension of all new highway
construction in the State of Wisconsin,
because the State of Wisconsin does
not need new highways that cost double
what they were estimated to cost
when plans were approved and
cost overruns have gone
unchecked over a decade.
It stands for
using manpower, equipment
and a fraction of the money to inspect,
prioritize and maintain
existing roads and highways,
especially repainting and resigning
so motorists can see and know
where they’re going.
It stands for a complete audit
of the State Department of Transportation.
♠
The War Party
stands for a reduction in taxation
affecting citizens sixty-five years of age
and older so the decision whether
or not to remain in their own homes is not taken
away from them by a crushing financial burden.
♠
The War Party
stands for state supported health care as
government’s rightful responsibility
toward its citizens with the added
incentive that businesses and individuals
will relocate to Wisconsin for the benefits
they most desire to lead happy,
productive lives. Money for health care
can be found in any funds otherwise allocated
for construction, hardware and accessories
of government. Health comes first.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” is
the guiding light of jurisprudence.
Let “Eligible until prove ineligible”
be the watchword of government toward
the needs of its people.
The people owe government nothing.
Government owes the people everything.
♠
The War Party
advocates strip mining
of landfills and obsoleted
dumps for the extraction of
metals and potentially
recyclable sources of
manufacture and energy.
♠
The War Party
stands for abolition of the
Wisconsin State Lottery,
because gambling is bad business
and worse when applied
to government.
All lottery funds undistributed at
the time of abolition used
for tuition and job training.
♠
The War Party would
abolish trapping in the State of Wisconsin.
♠
Public education
in the State of Wisconsin
is in disarray. Once the pride
of our people and the promise
of our future, the crisis and
the challenge now stands before
us in the person of any international
student, age sixteen, who comes
to our state and can speak,
read and write English
as well as their own language fluently,
who study mathematics, science,
history and culture
in their own country
from seven o’clock in the morning
to nine o’clock at night six days a week,
who play violin and piano and will be told
if they may enter college not based on
money or available scholarships,
but based entirely upon their academic
achievement. This student knows
discipline and respect and knows
how to claim the future
confidently with a smile.
If the State of Wisconsin wants
to share that future, not own it
or dominate it in the classroom of
the world, then education here
must do its homework and stop
playing hooky from real learning
with the distractions of hardware,
software and technique that teach nothing
but cubicle skills and substitutes
programming for education.
Without successful students
and their ability to conduct their own lives
and contribute to the society
they learn to love,
the State of Wisconsin
and the nation in which it stands
will fail.
♠
The War Party believes
all elections of public
officials should be conducted
by paper ballot only,
whether they are cast in person
or by utilization of the postal
system. Electronic ballots
and tabulation of returns have
always been acknowledge as
susceptible to interference
and unlawful intrusion.
The risk is unacceptable
and unnecessary,
predicated entirely on the
fashion and failures of
electronic media.
♠
The War Party
stands for mandatory incarceration
for first and second offense conviction
of driving while intoxicated and mandatory
lifetime revocation of license on third
offense conviction. You still think its fun?
All fines and forfeitures for
first, second and third offenses quadrupled.
♠
The War Party
stands for establishment
of a Wisconsin State Peace Corp,
the equivalent of the Civilian Conservation Corp
of the Depression era to accomplish public works
using unemployed adults, disadvantaged and
volunteers.
♠
The War Party
stands for the separation
of Sex and State.
Although the separation
of Church and State is a given,
laws regarding sexual relations are
typically the result of religious
indoctrination, therefore no laws shall
be enacted relevant to private sexual relations
which are love relationships between
consenting adults including marriage.
Cowards, thieves or bullies who use physical or
psychological force to obtain sex
are felons.
All such aggression, especially
toward children, the disabled
and those unable to
competently decline or accept
will be brought to justice,
not on the basis of sex,
but on the basis of assault.
♠
The War Party
stands for insurance reform.
Rates based upon no claims
are false parameters. Policies
cancelled and rates raised
upon claim, insurance companies
dictating both method and extent of
treatment or practice to individuals
or institutions are real issues.
So is government’s involvement
with insurance companies
and insurance companies
involvement with investment capital.
♠
The War Party
stands for Double Trouble.
All criminal penalties upon conviction
of any crime committed against
any person with a disability,
any child or any senior citizen
are double those otherwise imposed.
It’s the same as a Work Zone
on the highway. You speed through
there and risk the lives of those
who cannot see you coming,
you got Double Trouble.
♠
Abolish personal income tax
in Wisconsin and replace it
by commensurate sales tax.
A percentage of every sale
is easier to understand and
accurate every time a cash drawer opens.
People see the percentage and know
this is the cost of government.
It’s self adjusting.
Those with more money who purchase
more pay more tax. Those with
less money who purchase less
pay less tax.
♠
In 1853 Wisconsin abolished
the death penalty.
Re-instate it.
♠
All correspondence in reply to agencies
of the State of Wisconsin
provided with First Class
Postage Paid envelopes.
♠
The War Party
stands for establishment of
regional homeless shelters
which provide as requisites for
occupancy both educational and
vocational classes with visits
from representatives of social service
agencies on site to rehabilitate residents.
The shelters issue diplomas
to residents for successful
or meritorious involvement
in the program.
You have to start somewhere.
♠
The War Party
is a family more than a party.
The party is over with regard
politics as usual. We are hung over
and staggering and cannot find
our way, belligerent and ready to fight,
arguing with one another because
we don’t like the way the other guys talks
or looks or holds his drink.
We are full of vain pride and conceit,
and we don’t know how to stop and step
back away from the bar.
We haven’t got the guts to be humble or
nearly as great as we say we are
and just go back home, get sober
and go back to work.
♠
So the War Party
would be made of American
Indians, the tribes of Wisconsin,
who know deprivation and disappointment
better than anyone, yet maintain their
dignity and honor with compassion
toward even those who have caused
their suffering, who care for one another
because they are of the blood
and of the spirit which preceded
the blood.
♠
The War Party
would be made of the
disadvantaged and disaffected,
the minorities, the ones who know
power doesn’t like them, just
tolerates them and gives them
crumbs to keep them from starving,
but doesn’t like them asking for seconds
and sure as hell won’t give them a place
at the table unless they’re serving
the ones who own the table.
♠
The War Party
would be made
of the disenfranchised,
the ex-cons, drop outs,
social outcasts, veterans,
disabled, disadvantaged,
clinically depressed
souls who wake up trying to make a living
or trying to just get out of bed
who can’t understand
why the State of Wisconsin which proclaims,
“Forward” and points the way
won’t let them go “Forward”
no matter how hard they try.
♠
The War Party
would get all dressed up to vote.
Instead of being cynical
or apathetic or watching it all
on television, the War Party
would go to the polls in full regalia
and sing and shout and dance
and wear paint and feathers
and dye their hair and
celebrate the fact that with
simple marks of black
on white paper,
winning every single election
they enter and passing
every single resolution they introduce
as though fighting for their lives,
the lives of their families
and the lives of generations
yet to come,
the War Party
would change the world
and save the world
it is changing.
♠