Mitch Davilo for IL01 [SUSPENDED]

It’s a human right. It’s embarrassing that the nation that spends the most on healthcare in the world allows “medical debt” to exist for citizens. Universal healthcare is not a radical communist idea, the United States is just so anti-communist that anything that would help citizens is “commie bullshit” if it’s government run and taxpayer funded. Nonsense. Universal healthcare is not a left-right issue, but a humanitarian one.

I lumped them together for a reason

I believe in the right to bear arms. I think the right to be able to protect yourself and have a deterrence from harm with you is beneficial. But I have lived my whole life in the city of Chicago. I know the issues of gun violence that plague our city. I’d like to point to Texas: Texas has the most registered gun owners in the country, a number totally four times as many as we do. Guns aren’t avoided, instead addressed. They are taught how to use a gun, how dangerous a gun is, the importance of gun safety, etc.

On the flip side, they also teach abstinence only sex education, leaving them in the top 10 for highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. Maybe you see where I’m going with this?

In order to get to the heart of the problem, we need to be focusing on the education aspect. Teaching people to simply “Stay away, it’s bad” isn’t educationally valuable enough to make a difference. Guns are a weapon that is made even more dangerous by allowing ignorance and stigma to be at the forefront instead of teaching why guns are dangerous and how to use them properly. Likewise with sex, telling sexually curious teenagers to “Keep it in their pants/wait until marriage” isn’t going to stop them. Worse, it’ll lead to accidents and further unplanned pregnancies before folks are mentally and financially ready and stable enough to be a parent and have children.

Proper sex and gun education, respectively, should be taught in to prevent careless, life-altering mistakes from happening. As uncomfortable as it might be for some, proper education on said topics will pay dividends in the longrun.

None. Not acceptable. I understand that it was unlikely a corporation would ever donate to me, a candidate from the anti-corporation, working-class-first United State Pirate Party. However, it’s a precedent I hope constituents expect out of their elected representative. You shouldn’t be running to collect campaign donations. You don’t need $1000 donations to run for office. The working class of #IL01 have never had a member of the working class representing them. I hope to change that.

No one elected to Congress will call the United States for what it is: an empire. What does an empire do? It invades, installs military bases, and blackmails the development of these economically and politically weaker countries, but resource rich. Our military spending has effectively enriched military contractors and our corrupt elected official, while preventing US citizens from having universal healthcare or education. If we truly want to say our brave men and women are protecting our country, then let’s bring them home. Our military has bases in 70 countries. 69 of those countries do not need our military playing peace maker. Those enlisted did so to serve and protect the United States of America. So let’s bring them back and make sure they are truly serving that purpose.

When the topic of abortion comes up, it is often: are you pro-choice or pro-life? “What are you going to do about abortion?” The answer is actually very simple: nothing. We should do nothing about abortion itself. Instead, we should be working towards investing money in society that will see the need for an abortion dissipate. The issue of terminating a pregnancy should be, is now, and shall always be between the pregnant and their physician. It is not for anyone else to make that choice. Kick the issue of the abortion itself down the road until it becomes an absolute, no other choice option. Instead, I propose:

• Further development funding and research be placed into artificial wombs
• Foster care reform
• Easier pathways for adoptions
• Providing contraceptives’ and teaching responsible sex education in Public Schools
• Ensuring financial means is never the rational to get an abortion

The War on Drugs is long, expensive, racist, and has caused more suffering than it is worth. Addiction is not a crime. Those that do drugs are not inherently bad or criminal. The War on Drugs was an effort to criminalize what was common among the black community and the “hippies”. What good has it done this country? It has led to more black men in jail for drug related crimes than ever under slavery. It has led to an opioid epidemic which is only getting worse. It is time we take the right steps to end the War of Drugs:

• Destigmatizing addiction as a medical issue and not a consequence
• Decriminalizing drug use for all drugs (see Portugal in 2001)
• Proper education of harms and risks involving drugs and abuse (think D.A.R.E. but successful)
• Federally legalizing marijuana and expunging the records of those who have marijuana-related charges

People from the United States of America are Americans, but so are people from Mexico, Canada, Greenland, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Suriname, Guyana, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay & the Caribbean countries. In Spanish, someone from the USA is a “estadounidense”, essentially a “United Statessian”, if you will. In English, we say we are “American” and disregard every other American country as different. We are not the only Americans. An American is from the Americas. As such, the United States Empire has done an amazing job of convincing Californians, Texans, New Englanders, Floridians, etc. that THEY are the only Americans and everyone else on this continent is not. The US Empire’s relationship with Latin America must be reconciled. Our ties with Europe cannot be ignored, but we are not a European country. We must strengthen our continental ties and build up the Western Hemisphere.

You should have control over how your taxes are spent. Every cent you pay in taxes. Don’t want to fund Planned Parenthood? You should be able to choose whether your tax dollar does or doesn’t. Don’t want your tax dollars to go towards war and the military? You should be able to choose whether your tax dollar does or doesn’t. You, not some bureaucrat in Washington DC, should get to decide how your tax dollars get spent. If taxes are an unavoidable aspect of society, you should get a say in how society uses those taxes.

The working class has been crippled under unfair taxes for too long. As of 2018, labor has been taxed at a higher rate than capital. That is unacceptable. As it stands, a tax on your income when your income is labor based is asinine. You exchanged your labor for that capital, therefor you shouldn’t be taxed on it. What if we made a maximum wage. What if we set it to one million a month, 12 million a year. Your first million dollars go untaxed, while everything from there is taxed 90 cents to the dollar. Who couldn’t live on 1 million a month, 12 million a year? The working class mustn’t bare the brunt of the tax burden. No more raising taxes on the working class.

Everyone works but the land. The way to solve the landlord problem, the problem keeping the working class from bettering their lives and existence, is a Land Value Tax. The property taxes leveled at the property owners serve as punishment for wanting to improve your home. A land value tax will punish those sitting and hoarding unused land, allowing opportunities for more home ownership small business owners to arise. Abolish property taxes for land value taxes. In fact, make land value tax the only tax applicable to all citizens. That is the Georgist way.

Autogestión, or “self-management”, (inspired by the Carlist Party of Spain), is a means for institutions and communities to operate based on autonomy and decision-making capabilities of people. Autogestión, in all its forms, demonstrates the following characteristics:

• It implies self-criticism, awareness.
• It is individual and collective: Justice and Solidarity.
• It criticizes all forms of despotism and manipulation.
• It allows the creation of a more egalitarian society.
• It empowers social, territorial and food sovereignty.
• It shows the path of transformation of everyday life.
• It is the spring of change in society.

Autogestión encompasses all aspects of our lives, including:

• Ideological – Ideological pluralism is a good thing, not only because it represents respect for people’s freedom, but also because ideas constantly present society with other matters of dialogue, other visions that foster evolution and prevent ideological stalemate.
• Territorial – We believe in a territorial model that must be built from the bottom up, in a totally democratic and supportive way, where peoples have the capacity to decide and can freely manage themselves.
• Political – We consider the establishment of a participatory democracy at all levels, allowing citizens to make decisions in the politics of their community, essential.
• Economic – We believe that the central pillar of the economy must be based on cooperatives, labor democracy where the management of the company itself is decided by the workers themselves. This concept autogestión allows workers to return control over the means of production. In this way, the workers will no longer be servants of capital, but rather the reverse, with capital being a tool in the hands of the workers. All this must be combined with a democratic and flexible planning of the economy, with the aim of rationalizing it and orienting it towards the needs of society.

In accordance with United States Pirate Party doctrine, I will:

• Limit the copyright to five years for electronic media and fourteen years for tangible objects,
• Make sure that all non-commercial copying, sharing and remixing are legal and
• Ban DRM software.

There is no reason for copyright to continue until 70 years after death.

Housing is a human right. Being a landlord is not a job. Corporations should not own single family homes, condos, apartment complexes, etc. A single person should not own property just for the intent of renting it out. A person buying a house with a $1800 monthly mortgage and renting it to someone for $3000 is not an entrepreneur. They are not “providing housing”; they are providing housing like ticket scalpers are “providing tickets”. Call them for what they are: leeches.

Human rights are things we cannot live without, among them: water, healthcare and housing. To profit off of a human right is a crime against humanity.

Let us never forget the position: House of REPRESENTATIVES. Not a House of Partisan Votes or a House of Corporate opportunity. Yet, nationwide we treat elections like a battle of Red vs Blue. It is ridiculous that we only have two choices in every district in every election. That’s by design. Our major parties have made sure to make politics a team sport, where you MUST vote for the GOP or DNC if “you want to win”. Everyone else is “unqualified”. Since when has this been a competition? Where in the constitution say you need “qualifications”? In our current system, we’ve allow people to enrich themselves by playing for the Red or Blue team, where corporate donors can donate to specific candidates to sway votes and get leverage. We’ve heard so much of “voter suppression” this midterm election cycle, but you never hear about how hard Democrats work to keep Greens off the ballot. Now, as made evident upon redistricting, Illinois congressional candidates can run in districts that do not live in. That is undemocratic, a loophole we hope to exploit so we can end. We must have easier laws to run for office, regardless of party affiliation, and provide more choices to voters across the country. Citizens deserve a true opportunity to send someone they feel represents them.