Fredrik Coulter: Difference between revisions

His political interests started at a young age.  During the Vietnam War, he went on strike at Princeton Middle School when the United States resumed bombing Haiphong.  (During this time, there was a mass walk out at Princeton High School.)  At the age of fourteen, he worked as a volunteer for the McGovern Presidential campaign.

Fred describes himself as an '''incrementalist'''.  He doesn't concern himself with the debates between anarchists, minarchists, limited government conservatists, fiscal conservatives, or other strains of libertarianism.  He isn't concerned about the final goal of the party, just that it's in the direction of significantly smaller government.  Also, as an incrementalist, he doesn't plan on a Great Leap Forward, rather focusing on a series of political battles shrinking the government.  In general, he is not a believer in "this first, then that" policy development.  The primary exception to this is in the realm of government finance.  He feels that cutting taxes cannot occur prior to cutting spending.  The deficit which occurs when taxes are lower than spending is merely a deferral of taxes, not a reduction of taxes.  As such, any focus on lowering revenues to the government prior to cutting spending is merely a postponement of taxes which will eventually need to be collected plus interest.

Despite his desire to significantly shrink the size of government, there is one area in which he would like to see additional spending.  That's in the area of space exploration and settlement.  While he supports all private activities in this area, he also supports governmental action in this area.  He describes it as a many eggs, many baskets approach.  In addition to the romance of exploration, he also feels that government grows less when there's a frontier for citizens to yearn for.  The growth in the size of the federal government which occurred after the closure of the American frontier is evidence of this.

In terms of party politics, Fred supports greater transparency and greater accountability from party officials.  His preferred methodology is policy and rule establishment.  He feels that an organization without common policies and rules isn't an organization but a mob.  It is too swayed by the leadership of the moment, and has no underlying rationale.  However, having dealt with large bureaucratic organizations, he is well aware of the dangers of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bureaucracy Iron Law of Bureaucracy].  It is too easy to become wedded to the existing policies and rules.  As such, all such policies and rules should always be reviewed to ensure that the goal of implementing the rule was met.

[[Category:Convention Committee Members]]

[[Category:Florida State Party Convention Committee Members]]