As the official nominee of the Libertarian Party in Oregon for Governor, I herewith present my voters’ pamphlet statement, which will appear in the Oregon voters’ pamphlet for the November 2014 election if I am able to secure the valid signatures of 500 registered voters by the last submission day of August 12, and deliver them to the elections division in Salem. As there is a good possibility I will not be able to secure the requisite number of signatures, I thought I should present that statement to the public, so that they may better know my positions, and so that it would not be lost to posterity as an example of a registered minor political party candidate’s platform.
The Statement runs thusly:
“Libertarianism is a branch of political philosophy dealing with property rights ethics. Its core axiom is: no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of any individual. It believes all men have inalienable natural rights which no government or individual may violate, including the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, to contract, and the quiet enjoyment of one’s property.
I am a Jeffersonian minarchist, or believer in minimal government, democratic majorities, and strict separation of church and state. I will spend less than $750 on my campaign and will not accept donations. I am running to reform and eliminate the many injustices in our political system.
My Libertarian platform includes abolishing the personal income and estate tax, increasing penalties for rape 50%, legalizing heroin for the terminally ill, controlling pitbulls, legalizing cannabis without taxation, pardoning cannabis prisoners, abolishing the death penalty, abolishing PERS, abolishing the State Lottery, abolishing the minimum wage law, outlawing Civil Forfeiture, abolishing most commissions and boards of examiners, removing marriage from the legal code, legalizing all drugs less addictive than caffeine, outlawing tobacco smoke within 20yds of children, legalizing prostitution and gambling, and implementing vegetarian diet in prisons.
I combine Libertarianism with a stringent environmental preservationism, and animal welfare proposals, for our environment has been so degraded by goverment mollycoddling and giveaways to corporate conglomerates, that free-market capitalism itself is threatened. I would place a moratorium on logging on all State lands, ban State spraying of pesticides, and ban atrazine, 2-4D, neonicotinoid pesticides, GMO crops, and fracking.
My animal cruelty prevention measures include outlawing vivisection, hunting, fishing, slaughterhouses, rodeos, and keeping of orcas and dolphins.
Create a non-violent revolution in American politics by voting for my radical Libertarian platform.
And that’s it. The State only allows 325 words, so giving a clear picture of one’s platform in such a truncated statement is difficult. Moreover, you cannot explain any exceptions to your bills in such a short statement. For example, legalizing cannabis doesn’t legalize DUI or giving it to children for non-medical reasons. Outlawing hunting doesn’t stop you from shooting the pitbull that is lunging for your child or you. The rape provision applies only to 1st and 2nd degree rape. The income tax abolition is for the personal and small corporate tax. Large corporations would pay their current rate, and huge, billion-dollar corporations would actually have their tax rates raised temporarily to the top current personal rate, until State spending was cut to the point where we could lower it to the current rate for them. Also, I almost certainly would allow the use of a pesticide in medical emergencies like the Black Plague, ebola virus, malaria, or some highly-lethal mosquito born disease, if a chorus of recognized medical experts told me it was absolutely necessary. Likewise, my logging moratorium would have exceptions for diseased, dead, and public safety hazard trees, or if I could be convinced that there was such a high fire danger in one area that thinning was absolutely essential. And my radical animal anti-cruelty proposals would need a voting majority of the public to pass. They would also probably require a redefinition of animals from personal property to some intermediate state between the full natural rights of a human being, and just mere property that you can treat in a way that, if it were a human child, would get you the death penalty.
The brevity of the statement also forces you to eliminate many other measures you’d like to mention but can’t. That’s one reason I write these blog posts — so the public can know exactly where I stand on all these issues in detail.
You can read my platform in detail or summary https://paulgrad4governor.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/paul-grad-libertarian-for-oregon-governor-my-platform or :https://paulgrad4governor.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/paul-grad-for-oregon-governor-platform-summary
Paul Grad, paulgrad4governor.wordpress.com
Paul Grad for Governor 
As a constituent of the district where you are campaigning, I am sending this questionnaire to ask your position on sex offender registration laws.
Please let me know your position on the following aspects:
1. Where do you stand on the issue of registration requirements governing those with a past sex offense conviction that took place prior to a current law?
2. Where do you stand on the sex offender registry being made available to the public, not just law enforcement, and its value or impact?
3. What is your thinking on the impact to our state budget due to state registration requirements?
4. Do you feel registration requirements should be based on any or all of these considerations?
a. The original offense
b. A current risk assessment
c. Empirical evidence from researchers and academics
5. What value do you place on residency restrictions for registered individuals?
I hope to hear from you shortly regarding my questions, as I will be posing the same to all candidates in the current election.
Sincerely,
Cheryl F. Floyd
Ms. Floyd –
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to ponder this issue. As a Libertarian, I think that after someone has completed their sentence, they shouldn’t need to do anything else, like sign on to a registry. But my gut reaction is that I wouldn’t object too much for individuals convicted of 1st degree rape, and certain cases of 2nd degree rape based on one participant being an adult and a certain difference in age — 3yrs or less I don’t think should be a crime. I also think the Federal Government should take over the incarceration of serial 1st degree rapists; build a rapist city somewhere way out, let the rapists out of the prison after serving their sentence, and they could lead normal lives within that city, but they could never leave. It’s my own pet idea.
As to your specific questions:
1) Requiring registration for crimes commited before a registration law came into effect sounds like an ex post facto law, which is illegal, so I’d oppose that.
2) First, I don’t know that I’d approve of any registry in theory, since we don’t keep registries for murderers, thieves, arsonists, etc. Once you’ve completed your sentence, you should be free, and having to register would be involuntary servitude. However, since our 1st degree rape laws are so absurdly light, my gut feeling is that 1st degree serial rapists and serious child molesters could be on a registry, which was available to the public. But that would probably contradict Libertarian theory, so I’d probably put such a registry to a public vote. When someone is mentally ill, they put them away for life. But when the mental illness is violent rape or child molestation, they let them out. I don’t agree with that.
3) Spending on such a mandated registry is detrimental to our budget. It also sounds like it violates a State’s Right to decide whether it wants these measures and programs, so it is probably unConstitutional.
4) The original offence only. Who decides, or who is qualified to decide the current risk assessment? Who is that wise? Empirical evidence from researchers and academics is worthless since we don’t know their qualifications, may not accept them as being qualified even if we did know they had some degree or other, and most importantly, a general empirical statistic has no relation to a specific case.
5) Not much, since if they were that dangerous, they wouldn’t be out of prison in a Libertarian society.
My first reaction is that there shouldn’t be a registry, but if there is one,it should be only for 1st degree rape, 2nd degree rape with a big age difference, and actual child molestation.
-Paul Grad
Mr. Grad, thank you so much for your very thoughtful reply. Your idea of a “rapist city” is intriguing. However, I can’t see how anyone could lead a “normal” life under such circumstances. Would the former offenders be allowed to have their wives and children live with them in such a city? Would that be a “normal” life for their innocent children? How easy would it be to get employers to locate to such a city, so that an effective economy could be established? Just some questions to ponder. I appreciate that you’re a responsive and thoughtful person.
Also, putting a “public” registry to a public vote is an interesting idea. The registries in most states are already public, which causes severe hardships and danger to registered citizens and their innocent family members because of rabid vigilantes. Have you read any news stories of registered citizens and their innocent family members being murdered by vigilantes who found their addresses on the public registry?
A public registry also pretty much guarantees that former offenders cannot get a job, because the registries in some states also publish the names of the employers of the registrants. This has a direct impact on the innocent children of the former offenders and indirectly on the states, which must provide various forms of assistance to indigent children.
Thank you once again for being willing to enter into a dialogue on these issues.
Ms.Floyd-
I envisoned a city where the rapists could live with their families, and it would run just like a normal American city, except there would be a fence around it, guards at the entries, and helicopters to prevent helicopter escapes. An economy would naturally grow up, since people all need goods and services. Since it would be a Federal project, I suppose they could supply the seed money for businesses run and owned by the rapists in the city, but I don’t know that other employers wouldn’t want to come it. They’d be dealing with rapists who had long ago committed their crimes, so I don’t know that they’d discriminate any more than they do now.
It would be unusual for the wives and children, but better than having the rapists jailed for life. It would be pretty much like any other city in America, except the only inmates would be serial first-degree rapists and their families.
I can see that there is a strong argument for not having the registry made public. I’ll study the issue more, and will consider adding to my platform a proposal to keep the registry restricted to law enforcement. I think it should be restricted in cases where there was no aggression against another individual’s person (mooning, urinating, masturbating in public, etc.)
What do you think? Do you think a rapist with several 1st-degree rape or child molestation convictions should be released, and not be on a registry?
-Paul Grad
Mr. Grad, thanks for another thoughtful reply. I don’t believe a former sex offender should be on any registry, if former murderers are not also on a registry. Why discriminate between serious crimes? In either case, I don’t believe any registry should be made public, but rather should be for law enforcement only. Although, even that is questionable.
Ms.Floyd-
I will research it if you don’t know, but do you happen to know the percentage of convicted 1st degree rapists who commit 1st degree rape again after they are released from prison? I’m not talking about the reoffense being probation violation or running from the police.
While I’d agree with the logic, as I said before, that if sexual offenders are required to be on a registry, then former murderers, arsonists, armed robbers, etc. should also be (and that would be the Libertarian position I think), I’d guess that the statistics for re-committing the same offense for 1st degree murder are far lower than 1st degree rape. Perhaps registries should be based on such a statistic. That is, let’s suppose that 1st and 2nd degree murderers recommitted murder after release at a rate of 1%, and arsonists recommitted starting fires at a rate of 65%, I could certainly see a pragmatic logic in keeping a registry of arsonists vs. keeping a registry of murderers.
There is also the Right to Privacy issue which Libertarians strongly support in principle. That would argue against any registries on anybody for anything,once they’d served their sentence. But with NSA keeping a registry on everybody, the Right to Privacy has been slowly destroyed under LBJ, Nixon, and their pathetic successors.
I can also see a potential blackmail problem with law enforcement being the only ones with access to the registry.
Perhaps the answer is to increase the number of registries to include any group with a reoffense rate of the actual crime above a certain percentage.That would eliminate the inequality under the law of one group having to register, but another group of former dangerous criminals not having to.(And who determines the correct percentage? Is the State so infallible?) However, that also seems anti-Libertarian at first glance.
Would you be in favor of a registry of forest fire arsonists if that recommit percentage were 90%?
Yeh, “registries” is quite an issue. I think I’ll ask what people think about it on the Libertarian Party of Oregon Facebook page and see what their responses are.
By the way, Libertarianism is just a modern term for the Classical Liberalism of the Jeffersonian philosophy behind the American Revolution. But there are about six different flavors right
now.
Again, thanks for raising this important issue, and making me think.
-Paul Grad