Labor Party Convention - SPRING 2020 - Kalawao, Hawai'i

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

xTimTurner

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Nay

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I am dead-set against voting for an amendment that calls for opposing gentrification. I am willing to and welcome an amendment that avoids mentioning gentrification but calls for endorsing YIMBY policies designed to increase supply and thus reduce overall rents.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

True fact: plenty of PoC have benefited from gentrification.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

1. Every person has the right to quality healthcare free-of-charge. Nobody should be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

2. People should take priority over profit, and therefore every worker must be paid a fair wage with guaranteed benefits including paid sick leave and vacation time.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

3. The wealthy must pay their fair share in taxes, and a progressive tax system should exist to increase wealth equality while ensuring those at the bottom aren’t unduly hurt.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

4. Every student has a right to a good, free, and public education. College tuition costs should be drastically reduced or eliminated and there should be more incentives and funding for other alternatives such as trade schools.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

5. Which wording should be used?

Option 1: Jobs should never be outsourced overseas. Trade agreements should protect workers on both sides.

Option 2: Jobs should never be outsourced overseas. Trade agreements should protect workers on both sides. However, at the same time, we believe that tariffs are not the best approach to protecting our workers, and we prefer renegotiating agreements that don't favor our workers rather than resorting to protectionist measures, like tariffs.


[ ] Option 1
[1] Option 2
[2] Neither
[ ] Abstain

6. Large corporations need regulation in order to avoid the harmful consequences of unregulated capitalism and neoliberal dogma.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

7. People have a right to privacy and as such should be free from unwarranted government surveillance. Government censorship of media and communications should not exist for any reason.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

8. All people should be free from discrimination as much as possible. Businesses and the government should not fire or deny service to people based on their race, gender, or sexual orientation.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

9. Prisons should focus on rehabilitating offenders, not locking them up and forgetting about them. Prison conditions should be improved and for-profit prisons should not exist.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

10. Drugs should be federally decriminalized and anyone convicted of drug possession should be pardoned.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

11. All of the rights and protections enshrined in the Constitution should be defended.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

12. Combating climate change, pollution, and the degradation of natural resources is important for the health of the environment and all people.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

13. The Labor party believes the regions should protect access to abortion throughout the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

14. The Labor party is welcoming to all immigrants and would generally oppose efforts to mass deport undocumented immigrants or build/expand a border fence or wall.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain


15. The government needs to strike an appropriate balance between gun rights and protecting public safety.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

16. No Atlasian should be forced to live on the streets because they can't afford housing. The government must act to curb rising rents and prevent gentrification.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

17. A national energy policy should place the needs of the many in a changing planet ahead of mere profit. The government should act to establish collective ownership of energy by the creation of an Atlasian Energy Authority founded on the principles of democratic governance and local control.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

18. The government should act to establish collective ownership of the railways.

[ ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ X ] Abstain

19. The incarceration pandemic in Atlasia must end. Maximum sentences must be decreased for all but the most serious crimes. Life imprisonment should be used sparingly.

[ ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ X ] Abstain

20. Large banks should be broken up and a public bank should be established in each region.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

21. Nobody is worth a billion dollars. The wealth should be redistributed from the richest of the rich to the people as a whole.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

22. The right to free speech should be protected - including in schools and in the workplace. The right to assemble should not be hindered by fees or permits.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

23. The means of production should belong to the workers who use them.

[ ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ X ] Abstain

24. The ultimate goal of the Labor Party is to establish a stateless, classless, communist society.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

25. The Labor Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

26. Banks that are too big too fail are too big to exist. We recognize that large banks took down our economy during the Global Financial Crisis, and we believe that such large banks should be broken up. Also, we believe that high-risk investments in the stock market should come to an end. At the same time, we support expanding the power of the Federal Reserve and favor giving organizations like the SEC and other watchdog agencies greater power to regulate and intervene in the stock market.

[ ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ X ] Abstain

27. The American government's military aggression against Iraq and use of torture on prisoners of war, prior to the establishment of the Republic of Atlasia, were crimes against humanity. Former U.S. President George W. Bush, and any Atlasians responsible for the atrocities committed during these conflicts, must be criminally prosecuted.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

28. We endorse a wealth tax, we also support a progressive tax system to help fund an expanded welfare state to held our most left behind citizens.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

29. Atlasia is not the world's policeman, and our military spending should be drastically reduced. The presence of Atlasia's armed forces abroad, except where absolutely necessary, should be eliminated.

[ ] Aye
[ X ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

30. A national energy policy should place the needs of the many in a changing planet ahead of mere profit. Emissions regulations must be tightened to protect the Earth from damage brought upon by greenhouse gases. Additionally, the government should facilitate new renewable energy construction and work with the private sector to create new renewable energy solutions and phase out fossil fuels.

[ X ] Aye
[ ] Nay
[ ] Abstain

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Proposed planks:

The Labor Party believes that policies such as upzoning are the primary means for which the dream of having a long-term residence either by owning or renting may be made more realistic for poor people, by increasing the amount of supply in the housing market.

The Labor Party believes in revitalizing our cities by helping deal with entrenched cost-of-living issues made especially acute by NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) policies on local and state level. Atlasians of all income levels ought to not be confronted with outrageous cost-of-living levels in the vibrant urban centers they dwell in.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I apologize for insufficient proofreading of my second plank. I can't believe I overlooked that. I did not intend for the second sentence to read as a wishy-washy statement praising the difficulties people have living in a city.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

30:
Aye

31:
Aye

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Changing my vote to Aye on 31 as the wording has been fixed.
Thank you MB.
Muchos gracias.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I nominate Chicago, Illinois, and Newark, New Jersey.