Brilivs

The Supreme Court overruling Roe v Wade was a mistake. We, as a country, had a status quo that I believe achieved a good compromise between the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life positions. There is a legitimate philosophical debate surrounding when life begins, and when a human being gains the rights associated with personhood. Those personhood rights, however, must be balanced against the rights of Women to have reproductive control over their own bodies. The cutoff for “elective” abortion should be around 16-20 weeks, in accordance to previous standards, because:
1). Most women find out they are pregnant at around 4-6 weeks thus giving them at least 2 months to make the best decisions for themselves and their family
2). This is around the time a fetus becomes “viable” and could survive outside of the womb, and thus has the capability of being an independent person
3). Viability occurs roughly when a fetus develops enough neurons to have their brain begin controlling bodily functions, and potentially has developed consciousness.

Gun ownership is cherished right for Americans. We have the ability to protect ourselves, our families, and our property from those who wish to do us harm. While guns cause a massive amount of death and destruction, we should not abandon the Second Amendment outright. There are plenty of reasonable steps we can take to promote gun safety while still protecting gun rights. While Assault Weapons Bans and Magazine Capacity Restrictions are often the policies advocated for by leftists, these policies are highly ineffective at reducing firearm deaths. Assault Weapons are only responsible for a miniscule amount of firearm homicides, mainly the mass shootings that dominate headlines, thus legislation focusing on them will only have a marginal impact. If we want to reduce crime overall with limited opportunities to pass legislation, we need better systems in place to track firearms and promote responsible ownership. Mandatory Licensing requirements and a National Firearms Registry would be much more effective in reducing gun deaths.

Immigration is a net positive for the United States. Like other nations with post-industrial economies, the birthrate in the US is dropping below the rates of replacement. We are going to need more workers to help keep our economy running smoothly. Luckily for us, as the world’s largest economy, millions of people try to move to the US every year. While we cannot let everybody in, we certainly can do much better than we are currently. There is a decades-long backlog for people trying to enter the country legally forcing people to cross illegally in the thousands, and our asylum and refugee processes have been disturbed by covid era policies such as Title 42. For the people who are here illegally we need to give amnesty, as these people have integrated themselves into the economy, and often pay taxes without receiving government benefits. While people may be nervous about losing employment, these fears are unfounded as immigrants typically take jobs native born Americans do not want to perform, or are highly skilled specialists who can help give the US a competitive advantage over other markets.

As an LGBT person myself, advocating for and protecting the rights of queer people is paramount. There is currently an attack on the transgender community by a reactionary “gender critical” movement. This opposition did not come from nowhere however. Anti-gay arguments are being recycled against the trans community. This is happening as a backlash to increased trans visibility in public spaces since 2014. While I believe the gender-critical movement is wrong, and a threat to the rights of all LGBT people, they do have legitimate concerns that motivate their beliefs and rhetoric. There is a legitimate discussion to be had about biological women’s spaces and transgender youth. 

There are absolutely  proper contexts where cis women should be able to have a sex exclusive environments. For example domestic abuse shelters should always be safe and comforting environments for the victims of domestic violence. If specific shelters wish to have exclusionary policies, they should be allowed to do so. I in no way advocate for sex exclusivity in all women’s shelters, but we should not prevent specific organizations from doing what they believe is best for their clients. Another place we should allow exclusivity is high-level athletic competition. For youth athletics, where the main goal is developing teamwork, leadership and responsibility, athletes should be grouped according to gender identity. Because winning and achievement are not the main goals we can promote the value of inclusion over fairness as we want all children to have the opportunity to gain the valuable skills youth sports promote. However when competition becomes more serious at the professional, and possibly collegiate, level fairness should be valued over inclusion. There are a highly limited number of spots on teams, records are more meaningful, and money is on the line. If a group of participants have an unfair advantage then the whole sanctity of the sport has come into question. Women’s athletics were created specifically to provide women a place to play as they had previously been pushed out of the world of athletics. There should be two divisions: an Open division, where any athlete may participate, and a Woman’s division for Biological Women. 

There are also legitimate concerns about children being transgender. This may be controversial, but young children do not yet know they are trans, they do not yet have the developmental capacity to fully understand the complex topics of personality and identity. They also are not in improperly sexed bodies yet, as they have not reached the age where sexual dimorphism starts to appear. In prepubescent children we should affirm their developing autonomy and identity by letting them choose their appearance and clothing choices as we would for any other child. If a male child wants to wear dresses and have tea parties, we should let them, if a female child wants to have a buzz cut and play football, we should let them. However, we should be reluctant to start transitioning prepubescent children as there is a strong possibility the gender incongruence will fade away. In pubertal children we can be more confident that their gender incongruence will persist into adulthood. These children should be allowed to start the social transition process, going by a new name and pronouns, and therapy should be started as soon as possible. If a child wants to go on puberty blockers and then subsequently HRT, they should have to be at least 14 years old and undergo counseling for at least 6 months to 1 year. Gender affirming surgery should not be performed on minors for any reason. For adults all transition related processes should be done through the informed consent model, with surgery requiring a letter of recommendation from a mental health provider who has had a relationship with the person for at least 1 year.

The United States has always been a multi-racial society. When European settlers first arrived on the American continent, they encountered native peoples. They later brought African slaves with them to help develop the pre-industrial economy. While the country was founded by and for the benefit of property-owning white men, we have done a fantastic job advancing past those initial goals and changing the fabric of this country to better represent all its citizens. Despite this tremendous progress we still have issues. Minority communities, on average, have worse economic opportunities and outcomes compared to the white majority. They also tend to live shorter lives, receive worse healthcare, and have less access to public resources all while enduring discrimination. We as a society must do our best to help “level the playing field” . I think the best way to help close this gap and assist minority communities is not programs that target specific minority communities, but rather enhancing the social safety net so ALL Americans have the ability to realize their potential. A policy that targets all Americans also has a much greater chance of being passed by Congress in a country as conservative as the United States.

The Supreme Court has become out of touch with the American people. We no longer live under the illusion that the Court is above petty partisan politics. The Supreme Court is inherently political: when a political question is in front of the court, they will issue a political decision. We cannot sit by and let an institution that has been captured by a party who transgresses all norms destroy the societal progress we have made over the past 100 years. We have two options at our disposal: we can either A.) pack the court with democratic partisans or B.) ignore the court and treat its opinions as advisory.

Capitalism is the greatest economic system human beings have created. While it is certainly imperfect, capitalism is the only system compatible with liberal-democratic forms of government. Capitalism won the Cold War, and it has lifted more people out of abject poverty than any other economic system in human history. It has driven us to create amazing technology that is continuously revolutionizing the way we live and interact. There are ways, however we can improve the capitalist system. I refer to such philosophy as Public Investment Capitalism. The Goal of PIC is to maximize economic productiveness of the entire society, for the benefit of the entire society. Companies need robust transportation systems for employees to show up at work, therefore we should support public transport to move more people through crowded urban areas, which are the prime drivers of our economic output. Workers who have to take care of children can spend less time at work, therefore we should implement universal preschool to ensure parents don’t have to worry about the costs and time loss of childcare .A capitalism that supports stakeholders as much as shareholders is a system that would make vastly more money for Americans.

The pandemic has shown how fatally flawed our current medical system is. While my state fortunately has one of the best healthcare systems in the country, not every jurisdiction had that luxury. Healthcare is also one of the largest expenses Americans have, with health insurance payments eating away at large percentages of workers paychecks. A better, cheaper solution would be replacing the several smaller risk pools and redundant administrative structures with a Federal single payer system that covers all Americans. That way we would have only one risk pool, making cost cheaper for everybody. Supplementary private insurances would still be allowed to exist, but everyone would have a baseline level of care provided by the state. While we would undoubtedly have to increase taxes for this across the board, people will most likely still be paying less for healthcare under a single payer system than a private, multi payer one.

While it is an unpopular policy position to fight for, we need to raise tax rates in the United States. Not only are we facing an ever growing deficit, but we need to urgently overhaul and expand the federal welfare system. This is going to cost money, and we can only increase our revenue with higher taxes. While nobody likes a tax hike, in the long run people would end up saving money as the services they received would be of far higher value than the tax money they pay in.

Unions are a cornerstone of the economy. They ensure workers are receiving fair pay and benefits for their labor. For too long the “union-buster” mentality has had a grip on the American psyche. The public itself is even hostile to unions. When union bargaining is being publicized, most people seem to side against the workers, seeing them as lazy and entitled. We as a country seem to defer to the wishes of the capital ownership class, and those in power tend to make deals favorable to them. We need to strengthen union protections to ensure unions have the right to hold fair elections and prevent intimidation tactics currently used by union busting firms. In order to have workers’ voices heard more clearly we should mandate unionization at the largest of corporations and mandate all Corporate Boards  to have ⅓ of seats reserved for worker representatives.

It should be a goal of the United States to promote democratic governments abroad. Now this can at times be difficult; we may need to ally with authoritarian regimes for geostrategic reasons, and other democracies may act in ways counter to the interests of the United States. However we should do our best to protect and promote democracies. If we must ally with an authoritarian regime, we should use all of our leverage to enhance civil liberties for their citizens, and work towards some form of limited democracy in the future.

The US should not be afraid to intervene in foreign conflicts when it promotes American interests and/or supports a democracy. We have the capacity to make the world a better place, and increase freedom for not just Americans, but for people around the globe. If the United States or an Ally is threatened we should always heed the call to help. We must also expand our network of regional alliances to better bolster American defense and ideals, via both NATO Enlargement, and the creation of other defense partnerships with strategic allies.

This is one of the most complex geopolitical issues of our time. There are a few truths that we must first acknowledge if we want to solve the problem. 

1). The Jewish People were exiled from their homeland in antiquity. 
2).  As a result of said expulsion, Jews have had to endure historical oppression. 
3). This oppression has continued into the present day. 
4). As a result of their oppression, particularly after their Genocide in the Holocaust, the International Community has given the Jews a mandate to establish a state in their historic homeland. 
5). The creation of Israel in 1948 is inextricably linked to the Palestinian Nakba, with Israeli forces committing acts of ethnic cleansing.
6). The Nakba created a cohesive Palestinian Identity from ashes of the proto-nationalism of the Arab inhabitants of Mandatory Palestine. 
7). As a population with a national identity, Palestinians have the right to form a state in their homeland.
8). The land Palestinians wish to build a state on, the West Bank, has historic and religious significance to the people and state of Israel. 

Following these truths there is only one solution that is viable and respects the rights of all parties involved: a 2-State solution. Everything else is pure fantasy. In a one state solution either the Jews or Arabs would be ethnically cleansed from the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel has been a sovereign state for over 75 years, it is not going to vanish because of the exaggerated injustices of the past. For peace to happen both sides must actively push for it. As long as groups like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Kahanists exist there will be no room for peace, and each side will be further radicalized by the extremism of their perceived opponents.

The United States should back Taiwan and its sovereignty at all costs. While we should follow their lead on the strategic ambiguity on its Independence, the US needs to maintain and further expand its military partnership with the island. Taiwan has grown to be a vibrant democracy in East Asia and has a large trading relationship with the United States, with it being our 9th largest trading partner. We should not let the Chinese Communist Party snuff out another Chinese democracy in our lifetimes. We let down the people of Hong Kong, and we cannot let the people of Taiwan suffer the same fate. The United States should defend the Republic of China from any invasion by the mainland with the use of military force.

Ukraine has every right to defend itself from an unprovoked invasion that has been ongoing since 2014. The people of Ukraine have, since the fall of the Soviet Union, have begged to be integrated into the European community and the West more broadly. Russia, on the other hand, is an authoritarian dictatorship hellbent on reviving its old colonial empire. The United States should continue to support Ukraine until it 1.) regains all territory illegally annexed by Russia: Crimea and the Oblasts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia 2.) Ukraine is offered NATO membership and 3.) Ukraine is offered EU membership. Slava Ukraini