Essay/Term paper: The new federalist party

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Political Science

The New Federalist Party

Part I


As the sole member of the New Federalist party, it is with great honors
that I now present to you the very first New Federalist platform.

PREAMBLE

The growing dissension between the two major political parties today has
drawn them away from the public's views. It has been determined that the
citizens of the United States cannot get what they want from the current major
parties. Because of this, a total reconstruction of the current political
structure is in dire need. In response to this need, the New Federalist party
has been formed.
The name "New Federalist" has been chosen to express the party's
foremost concern. This is to restructure the government into the form that the
framers of the Constitution meant for it to be in. The basis of this
restructuring comes from the 10th amendment and articles of the Constitution.
As you know, every major political party needs a symbol. After careful
consideration, the mythological hydra has been selected. I know what your
thinking, but it is effective in serving two main purposes. The first purpose
is that it is an ideal representation of the new structure of government that
will be implemented by the New Federalist party. The two heads represent the
two governing bodies, the federal government and the state governments. Both
"heads" do nothing more than serve or govern over the body, which represents the
citizens of the United States of America. The second purpose of the hydra is to
shift the focus from the representative party to the individual members of the
party. A political party should, like the hydra, should be nothing more than a
myth. Votes in an election should not be cast for a party but for the
individual candidates. The New Federalist party will be nothing more than a
collection of like-minded people seeking to better our great country.
In the following pages I have set forth the basic principles and various
policy stands of the New Federalist party.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES

PRINCIPLES

Federalism: "A political system in which ultimate authority is shared
between a central government and state or regional governments."1 The first and
foremost principality addresses the power of the federal and state governments.
The framers of the Constitution never meant for the federal government to grow
to today's tremendous size.
The 10th amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to
the states respectively, or to the people."2 This means that everything not set
forth in the Constitution as being regulated by the federal government will go
back to being regulated by the states.
The second principality is a criterion for election. Today's politician
is viewed as a person who is out to do nothing more that line his/her own
pockets. A character of honesty, integrity, and willingness to carry out the
public will shall be held above all other qualities when seeking nomination for
political office.

GENERAL POLICIES

Although the New Federalists main goal is a true federal government, it
is not by any means a single issue party. We try to take an independent stand
on all of today's political issues.
Crime: Recent Gallop polls have shown that 80% of the population favors
putting more police on the streets, and paying higher taxes to do it. The same
poll shows that 82% want to make it harder to parole violent inmates, and 79%
want tougher sentences for all crimes.3 Many things need to be done about this
epidemic that is sweeping our nation away. The plan we intend to implement is
divided into three sections, punishment, prison reform, and education.
Punishment will be changed across the board. Mandatory sentencing will
be fixed to all crimes and the penalties will be increased. A mandatory "three
strikes and your out" law will be implemented in all non-violent crimes and a
"two strikes and your out" law will deal with violent crimes. In violent crimes,
two strikes means life in prison with NO chance of parole. Life in prison means
just that, life, not 25 years. Prison will be your home for the remainder of
your stay on this planet.
Prison reform will mirror that of Alabama's new prison system under Ron
Jones. "Chain gangs, electrified fences, no coffee except on Sunday-all these
changes and more..."4 The New Federalists will also reform prisons by taking
out tv's, vcr's and other recreational equipment. We will leave some
recreational equipment in, but only to be used during designated times.
Educational programs will be set up to let kids know about the effects
of crime and drugs. It will also let children associate with actual police
officers and loose that inherent fear of cops that many kids have today.
Existing programs will receive more funds if they are needed.
Foreign Policy: The second main issue that will be dealt with is
America's foreign policies. There are many sub issues in foreign policy, but
the main ones we will be dealing with are NATO and our many military
interventions. Firstly, the New Federalists stand for a withdrawal from an
outdated NATO. There are just too many wars in Europe that have nothing to do
with the United States for us to get involved with. To put it simply, NATO is
no longer needed. Not only will we get out of NATO, we will also remove all of
our nuclear weapons from Europe. In addition, we will also pull all American
forces out of Japan, the Philippines, Central America and South Korea.
Next, the United States government will stop playing it's self appointed
role of 'Globocop'. Military interventions such as the situations in Somalia
and Bosnia will not be repeated. Unless a countries problems threaten our
national security and present a 'clear and present danger' we will not intervene
militarily. Any intervention will come through foreign aid.
Welfare: The last main issue that will be dealt with is welfare reform.
Welfare has helped millions of people become dependant on our government for
free handouts. Now is the time for a substantial change in the failing status
quo. Many tools will be utilized to reform this decrepit system. Among these
will include a full range of incentives to encourage recipients to re-enter the
work force.
Social Security: American social security could be the greatest joke of
our time. With the increase in fraud and bankruptcy of the current social
security system the New Federalist party will abolish current social security
expenditures. Those people that are currently dependant on social security that
can not work will continue to receive their benefits with no change. However,
those people who are able to work will see a 50% cut in their social security
checks. However, once a recipient can no longer work to support himself, then
he will again receive full benefits. The cuts will not take place overnight, 3
years will be allowed for all those that need jobs to find them. Those who are
not currently receiving social security by the day of implementation will never
be eligible to receive it.
Freedom of Religion: Consistent with the constitution, there will be a
definitive separation of church and state, whereby "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof..."5 No more, no less. This means that subjects such as prayer in
schools rests in the hands of the individual state governments. This section of
the first amendment merely prohibits congress from passing laws that sets up a
national religion or persecutes members of an existing one. Furthermore,
individuals are free to practice, or abstain from the same, any religion or
belief they please, provided that it is legal and does not infringe on others
rights.
Electoral College: The electoral college may have been a great idea
when it was invented, but now it is horribly out of date and can no longer meet
the needs of the American people. When a president is elected by the electoral
college yet does not get a majority of the popular vote, something is obviously
wrong. A constitutional amendment will be proposed to dissolve the electoral
college and elect the president by the popular vote results only. This new
amendment will basically repeal the 12th amendment.
American Reconstruction: Black, Indian, Hispanic. What's wrong with
these names? They're not politically correct. African-American, Native-
American, Latino-American, now those are "correct". To the New Federalist party
it's all a crock of inverted racism, where the minority sets it's own race apart
and anyone who does not call them by their new name is considered a racist. You
and I have both heard the phrase "Why can't we just be Americans again?" The
implications are so true. The New Federalist party will address the problem by
instigating "American Reconstruction". American Reconstruction is the process
to eliminate racism. The first step is getting rid of all hyphenated American
names such as African-American. The first step in regards to an uncooperative
person is to reduce that person's citizenship to one-half American and one-half
whatever. The individual will still have to pay full taxes (fees for living in
America without full citizenship) but will only reap one half of the rewards of
being an American. Such benefits include a complete drivers license, equal
protection under the law, and the right to vote. One of the most volatile
situations in America today is racism. This is just the tip of the iceberg in
dealing with it, but at least we've got the guts to take the first step and get
to one of the roots of the problem.

Part II

Crime: The biggest issue in politics today is crime. Therefore, the
New Federalist party will address that before all other issues at hand. The
first step to reducing crime is a complete overhaul of the prison system.
Today's prisons are no more than underdeveloped country clubs for socially
degenerate people. Doing something effective to reduce crime is not as hard as
one might expect, however, you MUST stand up for what will work and not back
down because of opposition, because there will be a whole lot of it. The New
Federalist party is ready to make this stand with a three sided attack on crime.
The first attack will be with punishment. The first step will be to
implement mandatory sentencing for all criminal acts. Sentences and fines for
non-violent crimes will be decided upon by state courts while capitol offenses
and violent crime sentences will be decided on by the Supreme court. The next
step is to pass a bill similar to the current "three strikes and your out" law
that is in California. However, the meaning of 'your out' will vary from crime
to crime. Third time offenders will get 10 years minimum no matter what.
Violent criminals will only get one more chance, the second violent act they
commit will put them behind bars, forever.
The new crime bill will not be the only bill sent, another bill will
accompany it, the Juvenile Crime Bill. The juvenile crime bill will be exactly
the same, in that it will contain the strikes laws and the mandatory sentencing.
The only thing that will differ is the mode of punishment. The juvenile crime
bill will set up the Alternative Schooling program. This program will set up
alternative schools in each state as needed. Instead of sending the juvenile
offenders to jail, they go to school. These schools will be run like prisons in
that all of the 'students' will be constantly monitored by guards and they will
have little freedom. Weekdays will consist of a rigid school/work schedule and
a few hours free time. Weekends will be open for limited visitation and
rehabilitation classes. In addition to the rehabilitation classes on the
weekends, one will be attended every day of the school week, just like a regular
class. If a student turns 18 years old and has not yet finished serving his
time he will be transferred immediately to a state prison where he will finish
out his sentence.
The next attack will be with prison reform. The proposed solution to
the high occupancy of America's prisons is hard labor and no luxuries. Chain
gangs will be used to clean up road sides, pave roads, dig ditches, grow food,
and anything else the warden can think up for them to do. The purpose of the
chain gang is to break hardened criminals and to teach them that prison is not
somewhere they want to be. Most of the changes that will be proposed are those
that Ron Jones has proposed in Alabama. By watching the results of his new
solutions we can decide if it is what we really want. The proposed solutions
are as follow... (1)Leg irons will be used while inmates are out in the prison
yard. (2)Electric fences will replace all other fences in the compound. (3)All
inmates will be manacled together whenever they leave the prison. (4)TV's will
not be used. (5)Radio's will only be used during designated hours. (6)Minimal
sporting equipment will be provided. Repeat offenders and inmates that are a
behavioral problem will be dealt with appropriately. (1)No smoking while
working (2)No soft drinks (3)Increased hard labor hours.
The final attack on crime come through education. Programs like DARE
have been tremendously successful over the years. More programs like them need
to be developed. Kids need to see police as being their friend, not people to
be feared. Cops need to be integrated into the classroom so that they can teach
children about the dangers of drugs, crime, gangs, guns, etc. On top of that,
more preventative programs such as assault prevention classes will be introduced
on the high school levels.
Welfare: Welfare has gone beyond reason. To put it as simply as
possible, the current welfare system is wrong. In 40 states, welfare pays over
$8.00 an hour. In 17 of those it pays more than $10.00 an hour. The yearly
value of welfare receipts ranges anywhere from $36,000 in Hawaii to $11,000 in
Mississippi6 The New Federalist party calls for a striking reform of the
current welfare state. The first thing you must see is that the current system
offers no incentives for a recipient to try to find work. Furthermore the
current system actually seems to encourage dependance through the added benefits
of having more children and not marrying.7 The first thing that must be done is
to encourage people to go out and find jobs. To get them to do this we must
give them incentive. Our proposed solution is to have a welfare dependance time
limit so that able bodied workers can not live off of welfare for a long period
of time. A reasonable amount of time would be about one year, assuming that the
person is actually looking for a job. Another incentive is to help with the
costs of taking care of a child while a single parent goes to work daily.
The next method of solution to the welfare state is to reduce the actual
number of recipients by having a better enforced application screening process.
There are many people out there that don't actually need welfare but they choose
to receive it because they don't have to work. These types of people will be
immediately rejected from the application process. By adopting a tighter
application process the number of recipients will be reduced.
Welfare fraud costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year. Florida
alone spends millions on ineligible welfare recipients each year.8 The only way
to put an end to welfare fraud is to enact tougher punishments and a better
screening process by the government of who they will buy back food stamps from.
There are many criminals out there that the government buys food stamps back
from simply because they have a license to receive food stamps from "customers."
Foreign Policy: There is one thing America should do with it's foreign
policy, and that is to dump it. Our president Clinton has embarrassed us enough
with his lame threats to third world countries that will not give in to his
wishes. The New Federalist party favors a withdrawal of all overseas troops.
Bring them back from Asia, Europe, and South America. Since there is no threat
to world stability there is absolutely no need for our GI's to be scattered all
over the world, we will bring them home.
The first thing America should get out of is NATO. Washington continues
to spend $90 billion a year on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.9 NATO
can no longer do us any good because the Cold War is over. The only thing that
can happen now is that NATO can entangle America in the numerous parochial
quarrels and conflicts of East European nations themselves.10 Staying out of
NATO allows the United States to form it's own opinion of European wars and if
it wants to get involved it will be by free will, not dragged in by NATO.
The next issue of foreign policy is our newfound love of being the
police nation (aka. Globocop). The United States, under Bill Clinton has stuck
our noses in other nations business and have therefore been dragged into the
mess. Somalia is a prime example. Even though human rights are very important,
it was simply none of our business. If we attempt the same thing with China we
might get hurt. Now Clinton is meddling with Bosnia, a disaster in the making.
The New Federalists's plan of action for the Bosnian situation would to not get
involved since the U.S. has no vital interests at stake in Bosnia. We can not
force the heads of the governments into a peace plan. The only peace plan that
would work would be one that they came into agreement with on their own. Under
no circumstances would we send troops into Bosnia to "keep the peace". Nor
would we advocate sending troops anywhere else on similar missions.
The U.S. foreign military policy in regards to nuclear weapons has gone
rather well. We advocate a lateral agreement between many different countries
to destroy some of their nuclear arsenal.