Kevin Craig, Libertarian

Kevin Craig

Click here to hear Kevin Craig answers questions 1-3.

1) Where do you see Missouri’s greatest opportunity for private-sector job growth and how do you see Congress’ role in supporting it?

I don’t know where Missouri’s greatest private-sector job opportunities are, but I do know the best way that the best way for Congress to support it is to let Missouri’s private sector keep it’s money and invest in jobs. Any time Congress with either raises money by taking money through taxes or raises money by competing in the credit markets by going into debt, it diminishes the capacity of Missouri’s private sector to succeed. All three candidates in this race agree, we need to cu government spending. It’s not enough to cut taxes if you don’t cut spending because that means the government’s either going to print up the money or go into debt for it. So the most critical thing is to cut government spending. I think I’m the only candidate that really has a consistent and passionate desire to do that. The other candidates…they say in their campaign rhetoric, ‘We need to cut government spending.’ But at the debate at Willard last week, I asked Billy Long if he planned on sponsoring legislation to keep the promises that the Republican Party national platform made in 1996 when Roy Blunt was first elected…they had a laundry list of unconstitutional and wasteful bureaucracies that they were going to cut…and in the years that succeeded, they didn’t cut a single one. In fact, the called for the abolition of the department of education, and they doubled the federal budget for education from what it was under Bill Clinton. That was during the years that the Republicans controlled all three branches of government. In the last few decades, the Republicans have shown – the party leadership in particular – they’re really not dedicated to cutting government spending. They’re interesting in creating government jobs for Republicans, just like the Democrats are interesting in creating government jobs for Democrats. And that means jobs in the Missouri private sector will not be created because the money will be funneled to Washington DC instead of being left here where it can do the best for Missouri.

2) What, if anything, would you change about current federal agricultural policy?

I believe that one of the foundational principles of our government…it’s stated in our Tenth Amendment, it was stated by Madison, the father of the Constitution, it’s been restated in Supreme Court decisions, and that is that the Constitution creates a government of enumerated powers. That means that the federal government can only do what we the people tell it it can do in the Constitution. If it’s not in the Constitution, the federal government can’t do it. There really isn’t anything in the Constitution that says the federal government should be calling the shots for Missouri agriculture. The whole Department of Agriculture is really unconstitutional, and that pretty much covers it.

3) To what extent are you worried about climate change and how do you think Congress should respond to the issue?

I’m not worried about it at all, and I don’t think Congress should do anything about it. The most radical proposals to deal with climate change, some which are behind the cap and trade proposals, involve cutting carbon dioxide emissions back to a level something like the late 1800s, which is a huge drop in our standard of living. I think it would result in loss of life, to say nothing of loss of economic activity. And yet, even that most radical proposal results in a change of temperature of fractions of one degree. I think that proves human emission of carbon dioxide is not the cause of whatever arming or cooling trends might actually exist because the most radical proposal to cut emissions does not cut global warming. I think we can deal with global warming, whatever warming occurs. I would note that in the last 10 years, there’s been a cooling trend, and that’s why they’ve changed it from global warming to climate disruption, or whatever the latest label is.

I think behind these calls for policies to alter or deal with global climate change is a radical environmentalism that frankly hates human beings. It believes that human beings are a cancer, a virus. It wants to eradicate human beings. It believes that wilderness is better than a garden – that man and reason and technology and industry are the evil and the good is completely unmodified natural environment. I think that’s anti-human. It’s basically a call for billions of lives to be disposed of in favor of this primal, undomesticated nature.

 

Click here to hear Kevin Craig answers questions 4-6.

4) What is your take on the current state of war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Would you advocate any major changes to our current approach?

Oh yes. Major, major changes. I’m absolutely, passionately opposed to U.S. military intervention overseas. America’s founding fathers made it very clear what they thought of foreign policy was. Jefferson said: “Peace, commerce…honest relations with all nations and entangling alliances with none.” And U.S. foreign policy has been a series of entangling alliances with all kinds of dictators and foreign nations that we have no business being involved with.  George Washington said that

our policy should be to extend commercial relations with all nations, to have as little political connection as possible. That would mean, for example, the elimination of all government-to-government foreign aid. And it certainly means we don’t engage offense intervention in other countries.

I like to this picture: If the Supreme Court had given the presidency to Al Gore instead of George Bush, and Al Gore had invaded a Mideast nation that had the largest Christian community in the Arab world, because it was one of the few Arab nations that allowed freedom for Christians to worship and even to openly evangelize, and invaded that nation and either killed or made homeless hundreds of thousands of Christians, and did so based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, and then turned that country into an Islamic theocracy under Sharia law, Al Gore would be one of the most hated presidents of all conservatives…And killing thousands of U.S., and over the course of the last two decades, millions of Iraqis… Clinton’s secretary of state was asked on 60 Minutes whether she thought the price of the whole Iraq policy was worth it because more children had died in Iraq as a result of U.S. sanctions than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, She said, yeah, she thought it was worth it. I don’t think it was worth it. And I certainly don’t think conservatives would have supported that if it had been pursued by a democratic president, and I don’t think American’s founding fathers would approve of that either.

I think we should bring our troops home from Germany and Japan – let them defend themselves – even South Korea. Instead we should pursue commercial relations because when we start selling or goods and services overseas to other nations, other nations like America because that helps raise their standard of living. So I strongly follow Washington and Jefferson’s advise, extend commercial relations and no government relations with those other nations.

Every single department can be cut. There are groups like Citizens Against Government Waste that have analyzed the budget and you can slash 10-15 percent just right off the top for waste. Then there’s the issue of which of these agencies are completely unconstitutional. The Republicans in the year Roy Blunt was first elected, 1996, said we should cut education, energy, commerce, department of housing, urban development. There are lots of cabinet-level bureaucracies that should be abolished because they are completely unconstitutional and divert resources that can be better used on the state level. Then I mentioned the military.

we can slash hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget if we’d bring our troops home. We have military bases in over 100 countries, which creates fodder for recruiters. That was the reason Osama Bin Laden said he issued a fatwa, a declaration of Holy War against the United States, because we had military bases on holy land in Saudi Arabia, and because we were bombing Iraq and because we were supporting Israel against the Arab Palestinians, all of which those are true. A lot of people are angered because of military intervention and our dropping bombs. That’s what terrorist recruiters use to inspire people to engage in anti-American violence. So we can slash hundreds of billions of dollars from the defense budget. And right there you have $1-2 trillion worth of government spending. The Republicans have their big, bold pledge to America, in which they promise to cut $100 million or $200 million dollars. I’m talking ten times more than that could be cut.

Oh yes. Major, major changes. I’m absolutely, passionately opposed to U.S. military intervention overseas. America’s founding fathers made it very clear what they thought of foreign policy was. Jefferson said: “Peace, commerce…honest relations with all nations and entangling alliances with none.” And U.S. foreign policy has been a series of entangling alliances with all kinds of dictators and foreign nations that we have no business being involved with.  George Washington said that

our policy should be to extend commercial relations with all nations, to have as little political connection as possible. That would mean, for example, the elimination of all government-to-government foreign aid. And it certainly means we don’t engage offense intervention in other countries.

I like to this picture: If the Supreme Court had given the presidency to Al Gore instead of George Bush, and Al Gore had invaded a Mideast nation that had the largest Christian community in the Arab world, because it was one of the few Arab nations that allowed freedom for Christians to worship and even to openly evangelize, and invaded that nation and either killed or made homeless hundreds of thousands of Christians, and did so based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, and then turned that country into an Islamic theocracy under Sharia law, Al Gore would be one of the most hated presidents of all conservatives…And killing thousands of U.S., and over the course of the last two decades, millions of Iraqis… Clinton’s secretary of state was asked on 60 Minutes whether she thought the price of the whole Iraq policy was worth it because more children had died in Iraq as a result of U.S. sanctions than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, She said, yeah, she thought it was worth it. I don’t think it was worth it. And I certainly don’t think conservatives would have supported that if it had been pursued by a democratic president, and I don’t think American’s founding fathers would approve of that either.

I think we should bring our troops home from Germany and Japan – let them defend themselves – even South Korea. Instead we should pursue commercial relations because when we start selling or goods and services overseas to other nations, other nations like America because that helps raise their standard of living. So I strongly follow Washington and Jefferson’s advise, extend commercial relations and no government relations with those other nations.

5) What is your assessment of current federal spending levels? So you see any areas of federal government as primed for cuts or redesign?

Every single department can be cut. There are groups like Citizens Against Government Waste that have analyzed the budget and you can slash 10-15 percent just right off the top for waste. Then there’s the issue of which of these agencies are completely unconstitutional. The Republicans in the year Roy Blunt was first elected, 1996, said we should cut education, energy, commerce, department of housing, urban development. There are lots of cabinet-level bureaucracies that should be abolished because they are completely unconstitutional and divert resources that can be better used on the state level. Then I mentioned the military.

we can slash hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget if we’d bring our troops home. We have military bases in over 100 countries, which creates fodder for recruiters. That was the reason Osama Bin Laden said he issued a fatwa, a declaration of Holy War against the United States, because we had military bases on holy land in Saudi Arabia, and because we were bombing Iraq and because we were supporting Israel against the Arab Palestinians, all of which those are true. A lot of people are angered because of military intervention and our dropping bombs. That’s what terrorist recruiters use to inspire people to engage in anti-American violence. So we can slash hundreds of billions of dollars from the defense budget. And right there you have $1-2 trillion worth of government spending. The Republicans have their big, bold pledge to America, in which they promise to cut $100 million or $200 million dollars. I’m talking ten times more than that could be cut.

6) Using spiritual and/or philosophical sources, cite a couple passages on life and/or leadership that you feel have shaped your core personality and approach to politics.

I can’t think of anything specific. However, I’d say my campaign theme is “Liberty under God.” As far as spiritual or philosophical sources for my thinking, it’s first foremost the Bible. I think it’s important to note that the federal government says that it’s unconstitutional for public schools here in southwest Missouri that he Declaration of Independence is really true. The students can be taught that a bunch of dead, white males used to believe it was true. But they can’t teach that it is actually true that the existence of God is a self-evident truth, that our rights are the product are of intelligent design, that here are moral absolutes – the laws of nature and nature’s God – that we will all stand before the supreme judge of the world, and that we can have a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, which is better than the protection of Washington DC. All of those truths, which are Christian truths, spiritual truths, philosophical truths, are all those truths are unconstitutional because of the myth of the separation of church and state. All of those things are what inspire me to run. Those are what I want to restore – those truths. I’ve summed up the Declaration of Independence with those just three words: Liberty under God. My chief inspiration I think is the Bible.

Related posts:

• Julie Stone, Libertarian
• Steve Mosbacher, Libertarian
• Congressman Todd Akin, Republican
• Greg Cowan, Constitution Party
• Robert Praprotnik

Posted by Rebecca Townsend on October 28, 2010. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry