Hal Ridley, Jr.'s Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
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Hal Ridley, Jr. has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2020 Political Courage Test.
Texas Congressional Election 2020 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| I am generally against abortion, but it's not my choice. There are many things we could do to lower the abortion rate. Pre-birth adoption with aid, researching male birth control, a strong economy to lower economic abortion, etc. It's a devastating choice to be forced to make. There are better solutions but making a woman or her doctor a criminal for obtaining an early term abortion is not one of them. A man supplies one cell, a woman grows 27 trillion more cells to create and give birth to a new chance at life and risks her own. Pro-choice. | |||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| Yes | Do you support expanding federal funding to support entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare? | ||
| I am in favor of a progressive flat tax for all but the poor. A steep tax on billionaires, large corporations, and higher taxes on the rich. I believe everyone pays some taxes, even nonprofits and religious institutions. I do not believe in any property taxes on a modest homestead. With a fair legal reason all tax records should be accessible as needed. Public Officials = Public Taxes. Dishonest unequal tax laws are the nemesis of Democracy. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| I agree with regulations on all campaign contributions, however I am opposed to corporate personhood and contributions form any corporate donors. I am opposed to Citizens United. I believe in some free media advertising for candidates who have ballot access. The public airways should have some benefit for the public and not just the cash cow for a few corporate media monopiles, which I oppose as well. | |||
| No | Do you support the protection of government officials, including law enforcement officers, from personal liability in civil lawsuits concerning alleged misconduct? | ||
| I believe in "Equal Justice Under Law" and no one is above the law, especially those with the authority and power to take a life. Government officials and law enforcement should be held to the highest standard and never the lower bar. When authority holds itself to a lower double standard of justice, it's called tyranny. | |||
| No | Do you support increasing defense spending? | ||
| Eisenhower was a product of the military industrial war machine, and even he warned against himself. Our military is the largest war machine in history by far. This is not the common defense we are protecting, it's multinational corporations, and their ability to dominate the planet economically and militarily. Militaries for over 5,000 years have advanced warfare to the point that 10 or more countries can push a button and start the incineration of the entire planet several times over, how many times do we need to blow up the world before we are safe? That would be none. | |||
| Yes | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | Do you support lowering corporate taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | Do you support providing financial relief to businesses AND/OR corporations negatively impacted by the state of national emergency for COVID-19? | ||
| Federal spending to bail out too big to succeed banks and multinational corporations, or to inflate the stock market is an on going criminal enterprise and should be prosecuted to the fullest of the law for rapacious greed and mass theft. If we had law, the bankers from 2008 would still be in jail, then they wouldn't be able to re-inflate the same bubble, causing a far bigger, slow motion economic train wreck that's occurring now. We need to bail out 'We The People" and not they the masters, again and again. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| True education teaches critical thinking first and STEM as a close second. When local school boards decide teaching creationism as science and whitewashed history as true history, it's not education, but political or religious programing and propaganda. There is plenty of group think to dull the minds of students. We need invention, innovation, and entrepreneurial acumen in thinking to educate our students to excel and succeed in a world not yet imagined. The old ways are just that, old and obsolete. The technology of today, good or bad, did not come from group think, nor will it ever. | |||
| Yes | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geo-thermal)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| I have no chance to be elected to congress, I don't ask for money, no real campaign, but what I have is my free speech and hopefully a free press. An idea that needs government tax support is a bad idea, nuclear power, etc. A good idea stands on it's own. Everything we need to create the world we want from the world we have is here now or near. We must collect the best ideas, put them together in a holistic, synergistic model, and step into the new world. "Create a new model that makes the old model obsolete." | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| I believe in gun control regulation that does not infringe on the second amendment, as I believe in the Constitution. Much of the gun violence is economic, illegal drug trade, mental illness, or accidental. I can agree in complete background checks and a gun license with safety classes. A semi-automatic assault rifle is a rifle and the difference is cosmetic and a ban is infringement. The world is a dangerous place and defending yourself, your family, and possibly your property is the 2nd Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Several of those inalienable rights are already infringed. | |||
| No | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| Yes | Do you support requiring businesses to provide paid medical leave during public health crises, such as COVID-19? | ||
| Healthcare is a human right. Care that maximizes profit in corporate insurance, hospitals, and doctors is medical extortion driving mass bankruptcy. It's heartless and doing much harm, not doing no harm, a hypocritical oath. When insurance executives decide if my son gets an insulin pump, and insulin is 3 or 4 times the cost in Canada, we don't need to go to Canada, we need to bring expanded Medicare and Medicaid here. I have bills I can't pay. I twisted my foot, went to the emergency room for 45 minutes and was charged $4,000+ for no real care. | |||
| No | Do you support the construction of a wall along the Mexican border? | ||
| No | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| To have a country you need a border. Anyone can't just show up. The immigration problem is an economic problem. People escape grinding poverty who can. They work hard, cheap, without rights in a capitalist world economy driven by greed, both here and there. I drove through beautiful Chiapas a week before NAFTA, which destroyed their farmers market. They went hungry and started anew their revolution. Neoliberal economic slavery in all but name. The civil war didn't free slaves, it freed the masters with new economic chains and psychological slavery for all of us in bondage to this day. | |||
| No | Should the United States use military force to prevent governments hostile to the U.S. from possessing a weapon of mass destruction (for example: nuclear, biological, chemical)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support reducing military intervention in Middle East conflicts? | ||
| Iwo Jima memorial statue at Arlington Cemetery, of marines raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi. Around the base is carved a list of every battle marines fought since 1776. We have fought near constantly for 245 yrs everyone and anyone including ourselves. Our weapons can and will destroy our planet and us. If we cannot or will not find the way to live in peace, tolerance, and compassion with our brothers and sisters in this world, nature will surely go on without us. We won't be missed, as it should be. It's up to us to set us free. | |||
| No | Do you generally support removing barriers to international trade (for example: tariffs, quotas, etc.)? | ||
| International world trade will soon be done. It's a complete obsolete waste of energy, and is only good for the capitalist world order. Now and soon almost all manufacturing can be small scale and local but for some raw materials. With 3D Printing, Personal Robotics, Automation, AI, Machine Learning, Digital Currency, Block Chain, Hemp farming and a pile of other new or long ignored technologies laying around. Robotic Construction, Control Blowout Robotic Drilling for Geothermal Wells, solutions are here now but are suppressed by powerful vested interests bent on destruction for profit and their status quo. It's time for change. | |||
| Legalize Marijuana, decriminalize other narcotics, expand methadone program to cover other addictions, end the drug war. Empty prisons of nonviolent prisoners. I don't believe in a socialist government, but I think we should try a Democratic Republic first, if we can ever get one. Less provide the common defense much more promote the general welfare. Housing, Health Care, Education, Retirement. Work less, live better with time for family, and ourselves in art, music or what passion that brings life, liberty, and happiness. Much less competition and more cooperation. End war except for video gaming. We are our ideas! thanks -hjr2 |
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