"Be water my friend" —Bruce Lee

Working in technology all of my life has led me down the path of leveraging and advocating for open, transparent solutions to problems - see Free and Open-Source Software.

These concepts generally extend to other facets of my belief systems as well.

Fundamental Beliefs

• #MarriageEquality is a fundamental human right and does not belong to religion. You can keep your ceremonies - give everyone else the same societal rights.
• #AbortionIsHealthcare and needs protected nationally. Imagine a condom breaking while traveling on vacation with my wife and having no options available (including affordable healthcare to help with the cost of birthing said child.)
• #BlackLivesMatter but our social/political-support systems seem to indicate otherwise. If you can't even say this phrase, you may have a bigger problem.
• #PeopleBeforeProfit: the price of capitalism should be taking care of basic societal needs - before profits are sent off to shareholders.

Systems I Avoid

This is just a list of systems that I leveraged without understanding - and now I avoid them in hopes they will be improved one day.

My superpower is fighting the systems by not participating in them (or limiting participation)

• The Consumer Credit Rating system (we need a Business Rating system for consumers)
• The US Healthcare System (hope it's not something serious...)
• The Food & Drug Agency recommendations (look to Europe's standards instead)
• Credit Cards and other leveraged financial instruments built on consumer debt
• Marriage Ceremonies - Although, I'd be happy to legally marry you for free in the State of Ohio
• Taxes - I'm happy to pay taxes (and I do pay them), but the layers of complexity lobbied into fruition by the big-Tax industry need ripped out.
• Ticketmaster - Ripping off literally everyone: the artists, the venues, and the fans.
• Digital Marketing - I stopped using Google Analytics, and it's kind of freeing.

Political Beliefs

The political system in the United States is corrupt.

I strongly believe the current Republican party has lost any semblance it had to original conservative values - which, in my mind had always meant "not-excessive". They need a reboot.

The Democratic party seems to focus on the wrong things while never garnering quite enough support to get the right things done. They need a reboot, too.

I jokingly refer to Libertarians as "just bad-republicans" - but, if they could put some guardrails on their small-government crazy - they could garner real support.

But the real problem here, in my mind, is that we don't have enough political parties to represent the different interests and nuances that exist in America. Trying to label people into a political party these days is ...old-school thinking.

But also, attempting to vote for 3rd-parties in the US is weaponized against those who don't vote for the Democratic or Republican candidates.

Regardless of the backers, the ideas purported by the "new" Forward Party are pretty in-line with what I'd like to see (at a fundamental change level - they don't have a traditional issues platform):

• Ranked-Choice Voting
• Non-Partisan Primaries
• Independent Redistricting Commissions (with teeth)

Ultimately, I believe these things will naturally start the formation of political movements and parties that speak to the people they represent and lobby for those issues - instead of what the money brings.

I'm sharing these ideas because they can push change from the local and state levels and eventually break into the Federal levels - but it requires Americans to:

Update October 2022: I am volunteering for the Ohio Forward Party's State Leadership Team for Tech!

• Understand how these ideas help us get better representation
• Talk to others about abandoning Democrat/Republican duality
• Show up to vote (this is key)

The real revolution will be when more than 50% of registered voters actually show up to vote.