Do you know that you're not old enough to run for President?
I am aware. I don't care (see Underage). I am asking voters to write my name in on their ballots and, as part of my platform, I am advocating the establishment of a new sovereign Californian nation (see Californication). If I won, we would draft a new Declaration of Independence and a new Constitution (one which doesn't have arbitrary age restrictions on candidates). If someone can get enough votes to be elected, how could it possibly matter how old they are? Age is arbitrary and so are too many laws. I aim to fix this problem as well as possible.
In the event that I win a majority not just in California, but in the entire United States, I think that would simultaneously precipitate a Constitutional amendment for the antiquated age limitation and it would put me in power (if not directly into the Oval Office). If everyone wakes up to a collective desire for change, a lot will happen quickly.
What would you do about our oil crisis and the increasing burden of gasoline prices?
I'm not sure yet. I would need to do a lot of research on what would be in my power to do and how I felt about each option.
Off-the-cuff though, I'd be inclined to play some hardball with the oil companies. The main problem is that the oil companies are making record profits and they are fleecing the public without any oversight. They are charging whatever price they want because we've all become so dependent on their products and our government is being run directly by them. They are wolves guarding the hen-house. I might tax their companies brutally until they lower their prices to a reasonable level and I'd use that money to give out gas coupons to the poor or something. I might also just take over their companies and have the government run them publicly and at cost. Gas would no longer be profitable at the corporate level. It would just be made to break even. I'm not sure what people would really want me to do about this problem. I don't like establishing taxes or regulating things but I'm willing to do both temporarily to the richest rulers of our society in order to right their wrongs. If I actually rose to power and they could not succeed in assassinating me, I'd bet they wouldn't want to fuck with me or the public as blatantly as they have been doing so far. We might decide to execute a controlled demolition of them just as they did to us on 9/11. If you haven't seen Loose Change, please do so at your next opportunity.
You claim to be concerned with individual freedom but how can you reconcile that with the increased risk your ideas pose to innocent bystanders?
I challenge your first assumption that risks are calculated accurately. I'm skeptical of risk statistics in general because they're supposed to be so convincing that some less-risky alternative is necessarily universally preferable. For the sake of argument though, let's assume that all risks accurately measure their subjects in an unbiased fashion. Then I contend that risk is not the real problem, only an abstract measurement of it.
Probably my best, and most controversial, example of this is drunk driving. I believe drunk driving should be legal. Similarly, I believe that speeding and swerving should also be legal. "Unsafe" driving should be legal. Each of the major laws regarding safe responsible driving are attempting to primarily mitigate risk of innocents getting killed or harmed by another driver. "Safety" is totally subjective. Some slow people think even legal freeway speeds are unsafe (and they may very well be for such people who have poor coordination, reflexes, eyesight, etc.). Some fast people think they can operate vehicles safely at double the speed-limit. The real offense that these laws are trying to minimize is the killing or hurting of someone else. The real harm itself should be the only offense that is punished. Arbitrary speed-limits, blood-alcohol-content levels, or judgements about the safety of lane changes are all subjective and, out-of-context, none of them can be proven to be obviously evil or bad. There are plenty of drivers who could drink alcohol and speed every night and never cause any harm but they are still punished under our current system when caught. That is not fair or right or good. People should be punished for the poor decisions they actually follow through on which then cause real harm, not just the likelihood or potential that they could have caused harm. Go ahead and point to the statistics that irrefutably prove legalizing drunk driving will kill everyone on the planet. Sure, more innocent people would be killed. More people would also be punished for what they really did wrong and fewer people would clog prisons and be demonized for the harm they might have caused but didn't. Everyone would be more free and responsible. Everyone would take driving more seriously because it is a dangerous activity. I believe when people stop expecting our roads to have perfectly enforced safety, they will actually become safer places because everyone will take more responsibility to pay attention and understand their limits. I consider that as far better than our current fear-based and risk-averse situation.
I don't want a phony sterilized world where people can't choose to hurt each other. Why not require everyone to wear helmets, knee-pads, bulletproof vests, life-preservers, and gas-masks every waking moment? Why not confiscate all guns, knives, lighters, box-cutters, ice-picks, shoes (because they might have bombs in them), sharpened pencils, nail-clippers, etc.? These regulations would all be for everyone's own safety because we can't be trusted to value our own lives or others properly. I know life is precious and fragile but... that's part of the fun! What good is life if it's all experienced from within some protective (and distorted) bubble? People should be responsible for the harm they actually cause, not the harm they could cause. I'm not saying I like so-called "innocents" getting hurt but I'd rather live in a world where it's possible to harm each other and where we're free to make our own decisions and where punishments fit the real destructive crime. Should we be free to kill each other even if we shouldn't use that freedom? Should we be free to measure our own risk and determine for ourselves whether we should wear a seat-belt or helmet or drive after drinking? I say a resounding "Yes!". Maybe nobody agrees with me on this. bleh
In your Californication text, it says you would want to interpret a facet of the one law as "Do not eat the flesh off living animals or torture them. They feel pain." Does this mean you want everyone to be vegetarian?
No. Do not eat the flesh *off* living animals. Don't eat them while they are still alive. That is cruel and unnecessary. So is torture. Eat meat if you choose to but don't be a complete ass about it.