The Platform of the True Green Party
The True Green Party holds that a free people must be both armed and provided for: free to speak, to worship, to defend their homes and to live as they please, and free from want, from rent and from fear.
We speak for people who are seldom spoken for: those who could have voted for Bernie Sanders or for Donald Trump, for Zohran Mamdani or for Curtis Sliwa, and who found something true in each and a home in neither. They want an economy that provides for everyone, and a government that leaves free people alone.
The machine age will make abundance possible. Our purpose is to see that its wealth belongs to everyone, that the land and its creatures are kept in good faith, and that our liberties are handed on whole.
Liberty and Law
The Constitution belongs to the people, and the law exists to protect them, not to manage them.
Keep faith with the Constitution and the common law. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, to be followed and not worked around. We will defend the Anglo-American common law, with trial by a jury of one's peers, the right of appeal, and law that answers to the conscience of the community, against codes imposed from above.
Leave people free where no one is harmed. What harms no one else is no business of the law. Private morals, however sincerely held, are no ground for public policy.
Liberty is not a license to prey. Some industries are built to profit from weakness. We will ban sports betting and prediction markets, which trade on addiction and ruin.
Freedom of association, including the right to choose one's company. People and private businesses may choose whom they serve, whom they hire and with whom they keep company. Honesty about these choices builds more trust than pretending they are not made.
Freedom of worship. Every person has the right to worship the gods of their choosing. A plural society does best not by pretending to stand outside belief, but by engaging every tradition openly.
No papers on demand. No citizen should have to show identification to the police on demand. Stop-and-identify laws are unconstitutional, and we will challenge them to the Supreme Court.
The Right to Bear Arms
An armed citizenry is the oldest check on tyranny, and the great equalizer between the strong and the weak.
The Second Amendment shall not be infringed. Every law-abiding citizen may keep and bear arms, up to the arms a soldier carries. The misuse of a right by some is no reason to take it from all.
A trained and capable citizenry. Training in firearms and self-defense should be offered to every citizen, so that an armed society is also a skilled and courteous one.
The right of self-defense. Every person may defend themselves, their family and their neighborhood, and those who do so stand in the tradition of the militia. Damages are owed by the aggressor, never by the defender.
Abolish the ATF, and hold the states to the Constitution. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be dissolved, and states that defy the Second Amendment will face federal penalties.
Justice and Policing
A government that cannot protect its poorest citizens from crime has failed them.
Replace the police with accountable local constables. Policing returns to the communities it serves, through constables who answer to local voters and to no federal chain of command. Those who serve must take every report of crime seriously and enforce the law for rich and poor alike. Officers who abuse their office are removed.
End qualified immunity. Public officers answer for their conduct like everyone else, under independent oversight.
End cash bail, and reform civil asset forfeiture. No one should sit in jail because they are poor, and no one's property should be taken without due process.
Fewer prisons, once want is gone. When a guaranteed income ends the crimes of survival, the police, prison and probation systems will shrink to match.
The gravest penalty for the gravest crimes. The death penalty is kept, and extended to the gravest violent crimes: murder, rape and the abuse of children.
Drugs
The war on drugs has filled prisons and enriched cartels. We will end it.
Legalize cannabis nationwide. Cannabis should be legal, ordinary, and nobody's pretext for a search. For many it is medicine, and for some a sacrament.
Decriminalize possession, and abolish the DEA. Drug use is a matter of health and of liberty, not of crime. The Drug Enforcement Administration will be dissolved.
Legalize cocaine, fairly traded. Coca and cocaine should be legal, provided they are produced without forced labor, and free to return to the tonics and sodas they were once sold in.
Work and Wealth
The economy exists for people, and the wealth of the machine age belongs to all of us.
The glory of Israels Commonwealth is this, They had no Begger among them.
The necessities of life are not commodities. We are socialists in economics. A free market cannot be expected to lift everyone, so the public must see to it that no one is left behind.
How we pay for it. The United States issues its own currency, and the dollar's standing as the world's reserve currency lets it expand the money supply without runaway inflation. A guaranteed income is funded by public money creation and by tariffs. We will not pay down the national debt at the expense of schools and services.
Essentials first, then the income. Housing, utilities, healthcare and basic food are made free or nearly free before the cash payments begin, so that landlords and insurers cannot swallow the income. Getting the order right is how prices stay stable.
A universal basic income of $2,000 a month. Every American receives $2,000 a month, unconditionally, as a human right. As automation replaces wage labor, it keeps the economy alive and lifts every household to a comfortable, middle-class standard of living: a universal bourgeois income, with no poor, no beggars and no homeless among us.
Abolish the income tax and the inheritance tax. With public spending funded as above, the income tax is abolished. The inheritance tax, which falls on working and middle-class families while the very rich avoid it, goes with it, so that every family can build something to pass on.
Keep the welfare state generous. America's safety net has rescued millions. A basic income becomes its foundation, and no one is made worse off in the change: Medicaid, unemployment insurance and public housing remain.
No strings on what people receive. Benefits belong to those who receive them, to spend as they see fit. There are no work requirements for welfare.
Feed the people. The oldest purpose of government is to see that its people are fed. SNAP benefits will be doubled and opened to every household, whatever its income.
Work as a choice, not a sentence. No one should have to work to avoid destitution. We will improve labor until it can be left behind, and those who decline the wage system but live peaceably will be cared for, not punished.
Good work for all who want it. A public works program in the spirit of the New Deal will offer a job to everyone who wants one.
Fair pay and real rest. The minimum wage will rise automatically with inflation, tipping will give way to honest wages, and every worker will be guaranteed six weeks of paid vacation.
Finish the work of the labor movement. The fights of the past, from the Triangle fire onward, are unfinished. Debt bondage, peonage and exploitative contract labor are forms of servitude, and they will be abolished.
Public ownership of the common weal. Electricity, gas and water, the grid, the railways, public transit and the internet will be publicly owned and run for the common good. Natural monopolies belong to the people.
Protect American industry. Higher tariffs, an end to offshoring and limits on globalization will favor self-sufficiency. Chinese goods will carry heavy tariffs, and our allies in Europe and Asia will be offered better terms.
Rein in finance. We will reinstate Glass–Steagall and separate commercial from investment banking. Those responsible for the crash of 2008 will face a special prosecutor and personal liability, with no statute of limitations on systemic fraud.
Housing and the Land
Every family deserves a home, and the land is a common inheritance.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
A home for everyone. Government will build and provide public housing on a scale that gives every household a home.
Let America build. Zoning and permitting reform will let homes, including multi-family homes, be built wherever people need them.
Great cities. Cities are not the enemy of the land. Built with care and reverence for place, they could grow to ten times the size of New York or San Francisco today.
Restore the commons. Large tracts of public land, mountains and wilderness among them, will become common land where anyone may live rent-free for as long as they wish, build shelter, fish and improve the land.
Homes are for living in. Living from rents is not an honest livelihood. No citizen may own more than two homes, residential property may be owned only by permanent residents, rents will be controlled, and landlords who leave homes unsafe will be held to account.
The American Dream within reach. A modest house in a quiet place, with low property taxes, should be within reach of every family.
End homelessness. Every person without a home will be offered housing, healthcare and an income. Cities will stop destroying the belongings of people living outdoors, so that they can steady themselves and recover. Cities will run structured transitional housing with support for recovery, and humane long-term psychiatric care will be restored for those too ill to live on their own.
Public spaces for the public. Once a home and an income are guaranteed to all, no one need sleep on the street, and the laws against vagrancy can be enforced in good conscience.
Health
Health is a right, not a product.
Free healthcare for every resident. One public system, free to every resident, will cover medical, dental, vision, mental health and elder care, and replace private health insurance.
Medicine that cures. Drug makers will be rewarded for curing disease, not for selling lifelong treatment. Patent exclusivity will be shortened, the public will hold a stake in the research it funds, and clinical trial data will be open to all.
Know your own body. Genetic testing and brain imaging will become routine care, including screening for undiagnosed intersex conditions.
Abortion remains legal. Abortion is a grave matter, to be grieved and never celebrated, and it remains legal.
No eugenics. No government, federal, state or local, may decide under any circumstances who is born. Choices about reproduction and heredity belong to individuals alone.
Food as safe as Europe's. We will ban artificial food dyes and plastics in contact with food, and raise our pesticide standards to Europe's.
Answer violence at its root. Mass violence is a symptom of a sick society, and it calls for care of the mind, not the disarming of the public.
LGBT Americans
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex Americans are owed the same liberty as everyone else, and nothing less.
Marriage for every household. Marriage will be recognized federally for same-sex couples and for families of more than two, with its benefits tied to a shared life: living together, raising children or pooling finances.
Hormone therapy on informed consent. Any adult may begin hormone therapy on informed consent alone, taken in good faith, and public healthcare will fully cover transition-related care.
Legalize do-it-yourself hormone therapy. Adults who manage their own hormone therapy do so lawfully, and no one will be prosecuted for it.
Hormones over the counter. Estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and every other hormone, with the medicines that block them, may be bought and sold without a prescription, and the trade in them is legal.
Strike down bathroom bills. Laws that police which bathroom a person may use are unconstitutional and should be recognized as such.
No one disarmed for who they are. No one loses the right to bear arms for being transgender, and no one is committed to an institution without due process and trial.
Family and Children
A country that wants children must make family life possible.
Support every family, the nuclear family included. The nuclear family is among the most egalitarian and autonomy-respecting ways of life ever devised, and we will defend it. No single model will be imposed on anyone, because different people thrive in different households.
Make children affordable. Birth rates fall because families cannot afford children, and a guaranteed income is the remedy. Each child will bring four years of paid parental leave, shared as the parents choose, and daycare will be free.
No hitting children. Corporal punishment breaks a child's will and trains them for submission. Hitting a child is never acceptable, and it is a matter for child protective services.
Room to grow up. Teenagers deserve room and trust, and families are encouraged to give young people a monthly allowance so that they learn to manage money.
Education
Learning should be free, open, and owned by no one.
Parents, not the state, raise children. The state does not own children, and it holds no monopoly on their education. Homeschooling and school choice will be protected.
Free public university, through the doctorate. Public colleges and universities will be free at every level, as a gateway for the deserving and a home for research.
Cancel all student debt. All student debt, federal and private, will be canceled.
Learning for life. Adults will be offered free retraining, and a full range of vocational paths will stand beside the university.
Admission by interview, not by cramming. Entrance exams that reward cramming will give way to admission by interview.
Teach what religion is. A secular society should teach the study of religion broadly, so that people understand the traditions around them and do not unknowingly found new ones.
Free the scriptures and the classics. Sacred, classical and scholarly texts should be freely available to all, in their original languages and in independent translation, free of paywalls.
Government and Democracy
Government by the people, not by money.
Get money out of politics. Corporate personhood will be ended by constitutional amendment, reversing the precedent of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Lobbying with money will be outlawed, and campaigns will be publicly funded only.
End the two-party system. The two-party system keeps citizens divided and in line. Ranked-choice voting and a ban on partisan gerrymandering will open politics to new parties.
Make voting easy. Every citizen will be registered automatically. Election Day will be a holiday, and voting will be open for a month.
One house of the people. The Senate will be abolished.
Reform the Supreme Court. The Court will have fifteen justices, each serving an eighteen-year term. Its arguments will be broadcast live, and the abuse of the shadow docket will end.
Public servants, not a ruling class. Doctors, lawmakers and police serve the commons. Officials will wait ten years before working for the industries they regulated, and federal officials may not hold a second citizenship. We oppose rule by kings, nobles and technocrats alike.
Open government. Freedom of information will be strengthened. Policy advice will come from rotating citizen panels in open public hearings, and needless bureaucracy will be cut.
Watch the watchers. The intelligence agencies will answer to civilian review boards, with protection for whistleblowers and a prosecution unit for their crimes. Officials who misuse surveillance will face felony charges and long prison terms.
A generation of civic peace. We seek an end to the cold civil war between left and right, and twenty golden years in which honest parties of both work together.
America and the World
Restraint abroad, kinship with the English-speaking world, and self-determination for every people.
Disavow nationalism and supremacism. The True Green Party disavows nationalism in every form, and every supremacy of one race or people over another. Nationalism invents one people where there were many and punishes whoever will not be the same; we stand instead for every folk's freedom to keep its own language, customs and ancestry beside its neighbors. We reject white nationalism and every racial supremacy: America is a country of many peoples, not a race. The full argument is in Why I Wholly Reject Nationalism.
Anglo Union. The English-speaking nations will form a union with free trade, free movement and free association, a common currency, a common tongue and the common law, each nation keeping its own laws and elections. Ireland is welcome to join if it chooses. Before Britain and Ireland are admitted, Northern Ireland must become part of Ireland and the old conflict between them must be settled, because a divided island shames the English-speaking world. If Ireland, Wales or Scotland chooses not to join, we will respect that decision.
Restraint abroad. America will turn its strength inward and stay out of foreign entanglements and wars of choice.
No more conscription. Drafting eighteen-year-olds is the conscription of children. The draft will be ended, and conscience fully respected.
Self-determination for every people. We support Ukraine's victory, and the right of the peoples of the Russian Federation, from Siberia to the Altai, to govern themselves as free republics. We support statehood for the Kurds and for other stateless nations that would found plural or secular states.
Full rights for every American. Every American dependency will become a state, with full representation and rights.
Sovereignty for Native nations. Reservations will cease to be wards of Washington and become self-governing nations under the protection of the United States, free to choose their own form of government and their own membership.
Repair the wrong of slavery. We support reparations and land for Black Americans, whose story is at the heart of the nation's own.
Freedom to live apart. Opt-in communities, such as religious villages in the mountains, will be free to exist, and free to leave.
Farming and Animals
We owe the land and its creatures good faith.
End factory farming. Factory farming breaks the covenant between people and the animals in their care. It is a cruelty, an impiety and a breeding ground for disease, and the nation must reckon with it.
Stand with independent farmers. We will favor independent and local farmers, and farmers' markets, over corporate agriculture.
Farm for the long run. Regenerative and time-tested methods will replace farming that exhausts the soil and drives species to extinction.
Energy and the Environment
Clean power, wild places, and an economy that knows when it has enough.
A Green New Deal. Strong environmental protection and requirements for sustainable development will be written into law.
Thorium and the sun. Massive public investment in thorium nuclear and solar power will give the grid a clean and reliable backbone, taking the place of wind, which is too intermittent and too costly to the land.
Leave fossil fuels behind. Coal, oil and gas will be fully replaced by cleaner sources.
Trains for a continent. A national high-speed rail network will link every state, and public transit will be free to ride.
Protect the wild. Wildlife, wild places and the variety of life will be protected, and human society will live within nature's limits.
Enough is enough. Endless growth harms the Earth. Simplicity and frugality are virtues, not problems to be solved.
Technology
The machines should free us, and what they make should be shared.
Build AI, and share what it makes. Artificial intelligence is as consequential as the internet or the atom, and it will not be paused. America must build it, and its gains are the road to a basic income and a good life for all.
Welcome the end of drudgery. Automation that ends degrading work is a revolution to embrace, not an apocalypse to fear.
Fund the next energy. Public research money will be dedicated to low-energy nuclear reactions and quantum technology.
The right to repair. Owners will have the legal right to repair what they buy.
Break up Big Tech. The largest technology companies will be broken up.
Speech, Culture and the Press
A free people speaks freely and shares its culture freely.
Free speech, without exception. There are no thought crimes and no word crimes. Free speech includes the right to say what others find distasteful.
Free culture. Copyright will be abolished. Ideas and culture cannot be owned, and they should be free to all.
An honest press. News will be clearly labeled and kept distinct from entertainment and opinion. Foreigners may not own American media, ownership will be diverse, no one may own outlets in several media at once, and the deregulation of 1996 will be repealed.
Adults are free, and children are protected. Pornography stays legal for adults, and children are kept out of adult spaces.
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who then was a gentleman?