1. While the Supreme Court should not be in the business of making law, neither should it take away rights previously established for any reason.
Classic leftlib view but one I hold very dearly. Perhaps Roe wasn't the right way to go for the pro-choice side and dubious from a constitutional standpoint. But, neither should the courts be in the business of deciding you have a right and then taking it away half-a-century later. Dobbs and its aftermath is an important example of how a government that can give you anything you want can easily take everything away. In an instant. Same with student loan forgiveness.
2. The federal government is responsible for killing more innocent people than every person on death row combined.
This sorta goes without saying, doesn't it? "Guns don't kill people, the government does." And indeed, I need not list all the drone attacks and other ways the US government has killed or maimed people. But a well-armed citizenry is far less worrying to me than a country where only the government -- or people who are friends of the government -- can carry certain firearms that civilians can't.
3. "The rich are in possession of the goods of the poor, even if they have acquired them honestly or inherited them legally."
- St. John Chrysostom
4. Poverty builds more character than wealthiness.
Having grown up fairly affluent and privileged only to eventually end up in a homeless shelter has shown me both worlds, and I can easily identify the one which was harder but also built me up more than I ever thought possible. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
5. “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
This is a popular quote among certain elements of the right, but I think it actually makes sense if we reconsider what actually makes a person strong or weak, or at least distinguish what society tells us from what is true. See #4.
I still believe in all this but I will add some specific policy positions that are unpopular, since this doesn't exactly outline what changes I would make in the United States if I were a benevolent dictator (only on day one, of course):
1. Adopt the Nordic approach to criminal justice. Focus on rehabilitating criminals and lowering recidivism rates. Impose a maximum sentence of 21 years renewable indefinitely. I agree with Pope Frank that "life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty." That's not to say criminals should never get life imprisonment -- and the likes of Anders Breivik certainly never will see the light of day -- but a justice system oriented toward punishment and not the possibility of redemption is, well, a crappy justice system.
2. As explained in another thread, I support increasing funding for the police coupled with more accountability (see #3). The best way to fix the disconnect between police officers and the people they serve is to train them better. Requiring a Master's degree to become a cop should be considered.
3. People who've killed cops should be allowed to claim self-defense
if they can prove that the officer was acting in a rogue manner. Police officers do not deserve more immunity than the average citizen, and the knowledge that there are consequences for abuse of power will incentivize officers to be wiser with their actions.
4. The Second Amendment should be rewritten to be less ambiguous while retaining the fundamental right of people to keep and bear arms. The legal purchasing age for guns should be no higher than 18. If you're old enough to fight and die for your country with a gun, you're old enough to own a gun for personal use.
5. With that in mind, a license or competence test should be required to own a gun. Kids should be allowed to use guns for recreational use and hunting, but the caretaker who owns the license assumes full liability. Admittedly, I haven't put much thought into this. But I did invent a way to piss off the gun lovers and the gun grabbers simultaneously.
6. Under no circumstances is military conscription justified and it should be totally illegal. I'm just going to call the draft what it was here: military slavery. And slavery was still going on in the United States until the government chose to stop forcing young men, many of whom were poor or lower-middle class, into entering dangerous, unpredictable territory and being subject to Agent Orange.
7. The retirement age should be lowered to 60. The wealthiest country in the world is fully capable of this and can pay for this by means-testing Social Security and cutting back on freebies in the tax code. The very nature of work as we know it is changing rapidly and pretty soon there simply won't be enough jobs for people, because robots will have taken them.
On that note, I do not support a job guarantee like AOC and others on the left have advocated for. We shouldn't be paying people to paint rocks or become another cog in the bureaucratic machine. The decline of bullsh!t jobs will make society more efficient, not less. But we need to prepare our economy for that over the long term.
Every man a king, but no one wears a crown.
