The American Solidarity Party believes in a government that respects and supports the principles of human dignity and brotherhood. The Bill of Rights and later constitutional amendments have recognized rights stemming from these ideals, including the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and assembly, a fair justice system, and equal protection under the law. In addition to protecting civil liberties, the government should take steps to promote free inquiry by curtailing consolidation in the media and intellectual property.

• We support the vigorous defense of the rights of public assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, understood through the tradition of ordered liberty.

• We oppose conscription into the armed services and other forms of compulsory government service, except in cases of clear and present necessity during declared war, as described in our Foreign Policy section. We support the rights of conscientious objectors. We oppose the mandatory registration of women in the Selective Service system.

• We maintain that the government must not use “national security” to justify expanded censorship and secrecy. Our commitment to civil liberties includes the total repeal of the Patriot Act and the reinstatement of basic civil rights, including the right of citizens to a speedy trial in civilian courts. Secret tribunals such as the FISA court must be abolished, and military courts must be returned to their proper role. Foreign non-combatants must not be detained in American facilities or remanded by agents of the federal government to foreign prisons.

• We oppose the enclosure of science and culture through unduly restrictive intellectual property laws. We call for the review of existing copyrights and patents, and a change of rules around the granting and enforcement of copyrights and patents in order to lower prices on necessary resources. Legitimate copyrights and patents must be leased at market value. We support increased public funding and accountability for scientific research, especially in public health to increase emergency preparedness for pandemics.

• We call for more non-commercial ownership of the airwaves for the continuance of public arts, entertainment, and media. We call for the strict regulation of advertisement in public spaces to limit its ubiquity.

• We regard the Internet as a public utility and advocate for net neutrality to protect users from tech-company abuses. We support the creation of local, public Internet service providers (ISPs) and universal wireless access to the Internet. Browsing histories and other user data collected by ISPs should be destroyed unless retention is specifically required by a court order.

• We believe that, while the government has a responsibility to curtail media consolidation, it must not use its resources to censor the media or the Internet, or to violate digital privacy itself. There should be no indiscriminate and unauthorized collection of data from the telephones and computers of American citizens or foreign nationals. The government must reform laws and trade agreements that allow the monitoring of personal Internet usage for non-criminal offenses, such as copyright infringement.

The American Solidarity Party believes that political economy is a branch of political ethics, and therefore rejects models of economic behavior that undermine human dignity with greed and naked self-interest. We advocate for an economic system which liberates people from being cogs in a pitiless machine, instead creating a society of widespread ownership, or distributism.

• We believe the American economy should be reordered to place human dignity first and to recognize that the family is the basic unit of economic production. We are committed to policies that emphasize local production, family-owned businesses, and cooperative ownership structures.

• Policy should encourage and incentivize families who run their own small businesses and help them to provide just wages to their workers. Government policy must not favor large corporations, help them to outcompete small businesses, or encourage administrative bloat.

• In order to discourage the overexpansion of corporate power, businesses should be progressively taxed for each location and for the expansion into varied types of merchandise and services.

• We call for the expansive use of antitrust legislation to break up “too big to fail” multinational corporations and banks. We also call for the breakup of media conglomerates, big technology companies, and over-concentrated industries that leave the United States particularly vulnerable to industrial accidents and disruptions. We support limiting the political power wielded through the legal construct of “personhood” for organizations and corporations.

• We call for the restoration of the requirement that corporations must serve a public good in order to be granted the benefit of limited liability. We support the prohibition of corporate bylaws and the repeal of state legislation requiring shareholder profit to trump considerations such as employee well-being and environmental protection. We seek to limit the political power wielded by organizations and corporations.

• We recognize that “one who oppresses the poor taunts one’s Maker.” Economic rentiers and speculators who produce nothing, but only extract money through corrupt relationships with public power, need to pay their fair share through taxes on land and financial transactions. We call for increased regulation of the banking industry and stock market to prevent corporate bailouts; instead, we favor distributing ownership shares of capital to the common people.

• We call for community-oriented, non-interest-based lending practices and mutual-aid organizations supplemented by countercyclical social credit to replace predatory lending agents that target working-class communities. We must reject a financial system based on saddling workers with debt and interest payments, and instead embrace one that encourages productive activity. We call for greater legal responsibility on the part of creditors and vendors for vigilance against fraudulent activity, such as identity theft. We support initiatives for a debt jubilee and other forms of debt relief.

• We call for the end of foreign ownership over domestic farms, real estate, and industry. We seek increased support of small family farms, cooperative farms, agricultural land trusts, and community gardens. We also call for the end of punitive zoning laws that unfairly target our poorest citizens by preventing them from engaging in small-scale agriculture and animal husbandry. We call for a program of family gardens, distributed animal husbandry, food-handling education, and food-preservation education based on the World War-era “victory gardens,” in order to end food scarcity and instill resilience in supply chains.

• We acknowledge that natural monopolies and the common inheritance of the natural world need to be closely managed and protected by the public, not surrendered to oligarchs. We call for policies that deliver citizens their fair share of our common wealth so as to widely distribute private property and for the inheritance of natural resources in the form of a citizen’s dividend and baby bonds. Land-value taxes should be imposed to fund infrastructure projects rather than bond payments and property taxes so that those who benefit the most from public works shoulder the burden and land improvement isn’t penalized.

• We support the right-to-repair movement. When possible, products should be made with the possibility of adding, modifying, or removing parts or software so that people can repair rather than replace the product, and this should be incentivized with regulatory policy.

• We call for the Surface Transportation Board to ensure railroads meet the needs of their customers and to forbid railroads from participating in stock buybacks and dividend payments if they do not meet a satisfactory rating. Precision-scheduling policies that have stripped railroads of the personnel needed to safely operate trains must cease. We call for an expansion of rail networks to connect more communities in order to reduce our reliance on long-distance trucking logistics and to provide alternatives to air and car transport for personal transportation. Toll roads must be scaled by vehicle weight and size in order to appropriately account for maintenance costs.

• We recognize that it is dangerous and harmful to have large portions of our supply chain reliant on foreign powers. We call for an interventionist industrial policy to return manufacturing to our country.

The American Solidarity Party believes that we have a responsibility to advocate for just wages, working conditions, and working relations, along with public assistance for those in need. We believe that while work has inherent value and dignity, it alone does not and cannot provide everything that is essential to human health and flourishing. The state should thus reasonably ensure that work is justly compensated, safe, and does not unreasonably impinge upon those other aspects of life that are essential to the flourishing of the individual, the family, and society. Our goal is to create conditions that allow single-income families to support themselves with dignity.

• Labor market regulations, the expansion of employee ownership, support for caregivers, and policies that address the cost of living should all aim to make a family wage a reality.

• We recognize worker-owned businesses can bring about freedom from wage slavery. Where imbalances of power between owners and management of corporations and their workers exist, these imbalances must be mitigated by the right of workers to unionize. We support independent contractors’ right to form representative bodies that share in company decision-making. We support regulatory and tax support to transition workers to share in the ownership and management of their production, such as trade guilds, cooperatives, and employee stock ownership programs.

• We support legislation mandating a maximum ratio of compensation between the lowest and highest paid employees, calculated to include benefits severance compensation.

• We support policies that encourage both the reformation and strengthening of labor unions, with an eye towards recovering earlier zeal and participation by the average union member as opposed to administrators and lawyers. This need for reform in order to better involve workers in decision-making is especially evident in the public sector. Efforts by private entities to prevent union activities or to retaliate against workers who organize for their rights must be resisted at every level.

• We support conscience protections for workers to engage in political activities without the fear of reprisals from employers. Workers should not fear termination for their political activities while not on the job or using employer resources.

• We insist that any company wishing to outsource production must offer the workers in the affected factory the first right to purchase the factory and to run it themselves. The government shall help workers in this endeavor with financial support and preferential access to government contracting.

• We call for unemployment benefits to include the option of allowing beneficiaries to take their benefits in the form of start-up capital to start or purchase businesses or create cooperative enterprises that help them to escape poverty on their own terms.

• We recognize that to deprive workers of their wages is a “sin that cries out to heaven.” Governments must investigate all cases of wage theft and fraud in a swift manner. Unjust employment discrimination and poor working conditions hinder career advancement and financial stability and represent an affront to human dignity. We insist on legal protection for occupational safety and fair compensation, good faith in hiring and retention, and paid leave for illness and child-rearing.

• We support labor laws that ensure workers have reasonably predictable schedules and consistent days of rest wherever possible, with priority given to reinstating Blue Laws, with mandatory overtime for workers obliged to work on those days, and special protection given for all faiths’ days of religious significance.

• We support telecommuting in situations where work can be completed remotely. We further support the right of workers to disconnect from work-related communications outside of their scheduled work hours.

• We maintain that government agencies working with disabled individuals must ensure that financial benefits are applied fairly and consistently; they must also make a greater effort to incorporate disabled persons into employment by ensuring that appropriate training, vocational connections, and accommodations are provided. We must prioritize inclusion of people with disabilities in recreational and civic life, including volunteer programs.

• As extended families provide relational support in a way that no government agency can, we call for state governments to make direct payments to families based on the number of elderly and disabled persons they care for as primary caregivers, as well as making it easier for these extended family members to be included onto healthcare plans, ease the burdens of transferring assets and ownership of family property during inheritance, and reduce property taxes for multi-generational households.

• We advocate for social safety nets that provide for the material needs of the most vulnerable in society. These programs need to also help the most vulnerable find a path out of poverty by providing them with the tools they need in order to fully participate in their communities with dignity, and not trap them as subsidized labor for private interests. We oppose state and federal cuts to food-stamp programs, social security, public assistance, and educational programs that exclude a workable model to reform them in the interests of the beneficiaries. We call for an end to the FICA tax cap to restore long-term solvency to the Social Security trust fund.

• We support better training, updated computer systems, and prepared reports on what is required for welfare, social security, and tax agencies to make these systems function with less frustration for all.

The American Solidarity Party believes the Biblical admonition to welcome the stranger creates an obligation to migrants and refugees seeking entry to our country. We must enact policies that reconcile the legitimate interest of Americans in secure borders with a core commitment to human dignity. This effort will require addressing not only the crisis at our borders, but also the root causes of migration, many of which concern our country’s use of its military, political, and economic power abroad.

• We maintain the federal government has the responsibility to implement safe, secure, and orderly borders. This means that adequate and humane facilities to house and process migrants need to be established, for God abhors cruelty to the vulnerable. Border crossings outside of these locations need to be prevented in order to combat human trafficking and smuggling. For-profit detention centers must be abolished. The legal system that oversees the processing of migrant and asylum claims needs to be adequately resourced to rapidly determine which claims are valid and not keep migrants in a state of legal limbo.

• We propose a path to citizenship for “Dreamers” brought to the United States as children and advocate for reasonable accommodations for unauthorized immigrants without a criminal record who seek permanent residency.

• We support a variety of bridge-building efforts between communities and newly-arriving immigrants, including offering lessons in civics and English for immigrants.

• We call for a generous policy of asylum for refugees from religious, political, racial, and other forms of persecution. Asylum claims must be evaluated with a view to integrating refugees into American communities.

• We support extending labor protections to all workers, regardless of legal status, to prevent their exploitation. We call for immigration enforcement to prioritize curtailing illegal hiring practices over mass deportations. Temporary visa programs must also be reformed to prevent companies from exploiting temporary workers or putting their American counterparts in skilled occupations at a disadvantage.

• We call for equitable trade agreements that will help to make immigration a choice, rather than a necessity, by addressing economic deprivation in developing countries.

The American Solidarity Party believes that the flourishing of civic life requires more self-governance for local communities, zoning policies friendly to community-oriented businesses, fair housing prices, and accessible transportation policy.

• We support and encourage measures that allow local communities to limit the power of outside interests in managing their land. Tenant unions, community land trusts, and community-oriented development are to be supported in the effort to ensure the availability of affordable housing with rights against capricious landlords and unjust eviction. We also seek policy by local communities to build more housing units, and different kinds of housing in the same neighborhoods, in order to increase housing availability and decrease prices.

• We acknowledge that state governments should support the flexibility local governments can wield in policy matters and not supplant them. We believe that higher levels of government are accountable to lower levels. We oppose “race to the bottom tax credits”, which incentivize external commercial interests to dominate communities. And we call for audits of public officials to become a matter of course. We believe that municipalities must support public, local user ownership of entertainment they subsidize, such as sports teams and art centers.

• We support local planning policies that will build strong and resilient communities, including ending highway expansion and parking mandates and subsidies. We believe in state support for well-functioning public transport and sidewalks, particularly to ensure more accessible communities. We support community wealth building through incentives for neighborhood small businesses and localized financial institutions. We call for policies that privilege local production, and for the reform of zoning laws and development policies in order to discourage urban and suburban sprawl, allowing communities to thrive without the requirement of private automobiles.

• We support zoning laws which favor small businesses and conservation over large-scale corporate investment and shut down vice businesses such as strip clubs and casinos. We call for local ordinances which limit the operating hours of businesses in order to promote time for rest, worship, and family and community life.

• We call for job programs to prevent “brain drain” from low-income areas.

• We insist that public resources must remain public, including transportation services, toll roads and bridges, community policing and parking enforcement, prisons, and energy and water utilities.

The American Solidarity Party believes that outdated election laws and procedures have contributed to an ossified political oligarchy, polarization, and gridlock. It should be easy to vote and to run for office, as well as for voters to effectively choose third-party and other lesser-known candidates. Electoral reform is vital to deliver political power from the hands of the few to the many.

• We call for the House of Representatives and the lower houses of state legislatures to be elected by a system of proportional representation. We propose all elections be held using either a ranked-choice system or approval voting. We support laws to ensure that voters are able to easily register and vote. We oppose laws that impose unreasonable burdens on voter registration.

• We call for access to impartial information on candidates and ballot initiatives to be easily available in public print and broadcast media.

• We insist that independent and minor-party candidates for public office must have fair and equal access to ballots. This right must not be infringed by burdens such as exorbitant voter-signature requirements and filing fees.

• We support pilot programs in various states that make voting, officially designated as ballot delivery and return, available through an electronic system for members of the military and disabled voters. We support such a system to be made available for all voters, with special care for technical and security concerns, while retaining in-person and vote-by-mail options.

The American Solidarity Party believes the United States should be committed to a more peaceful world through international cooperation and restriction of the use of military force to a strict understanding of just war theory. Peace is not merely an absence of war, but the positive presence of justice and charity among people and among nations. Administrations of both parties have pursued a policy of reckless overreach, at great cost to both ourselves and other nations. We oppose this tired elite consensus and believe the United States should use its influence to promote an international order that respects the dignity of the human person through means other than aggression.

• We believe that just war requires that war should only serve as a last resort against grave acts of aggression and must be undertaken with clear goals and due regard for unintended consequences. The conduct of war must be governed by norms of proportionality and respect for human life. Military interventions by the United States have rarely complied with just war principles and have usually been counterproductive. We call for an end of the exertion of military hegemony over the world.

• We insist that the United States must end unilateral military intervention in foreign countries, except as a response to an actual or imminent attack on the United States or to a catastrophic threat to international security for which there is no multilateral response and we have no formal declaration of war. We reject the use of lethal drones against civilian populations or in neutral countries.

• We oppose the fueling of foreign conflicts through American arms sales.

• We call for Congress to reassert its war-making powers granted by the Constitution and the War Powers Act. We reject overly-broad authorizations for the use of military force that have given presidents of both parties legal cover for launching new conflicts without checks and balances.

• We call for a deliberate reduction in military bases abroad, except for those required to protect diplomatic missions or to meet explicit treaty obligations.

• We support providing the necessary resources needed to fulfill our collective obligations to veterans, fallen service members, and their families.

• We call for the United States to lead the effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons through the use of arms-control initiatives, non-proliferation treaties, and unilateral steps to reduce our nuclear weapon stockpiles. In particular, the United States should reforge the Iran nuclear deal and should negotiate an update to the lapsed Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia and include China or develop an independent treaty on that model. We reject the use of nuclear weapons and should not seek first-strike capabilities. We call for the US government to apologize to Japan for its usage of the atomic bomb, and to all other countries where it has targeted civilians.

• We support multilateral treaties and negotiations to peacefully resolve global environmental problems and seek to reverse environmental degradation.

• We call for trade agreements with friendly nations that preserve labor rights, protect the environment, and benefit our domestic industry. Favorable trade status should be removed from countries where worker exploitation is unaddressed.

• We seek to remedy past humanitarian and environmental tragedies caused by American intervention. We call to end support for corrupt governments. We support development aid to focus on creating self-sufficient local communities rather than furthering corporate exploitation and cultural imperialism.

• We call for the United States government to cease assisting other countries in committing extrajudicial killings, acts of torture, and other human rights violations. We further call for the immediate closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of the Americas.

• We support reforming international agreements to support local producers instead of multinational corporations. We support reforming financial-lending practices to developing nations and reducing their financial stress. We support reforming international intellectual-property treaties to prevent corporate control over seeds and agriculture. International economic institutions such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund must be reformed or replaced in the interests of transparency, accountability, and fairness to all nations.

The American Solidarity Party believes that we are responsible for caring for God’s creation so that present and future generations can enjoy the benefits of a healthy environment, including clean air and water, and the rich biodiversity that is our heritage. The American Solidarity Party rejects the notion that environmental stewardship requires either diminished workers’ rights or population control. Maintaining our environment will require individuals, businesses, and local communities taking responsibility for their contributions; however, due to the national and global nature of our natural resources, we see an appropriate role for our federal and state governments in adopting and enforcing evidence-based policies regarding pollution, climate change, and alternative forms of energy.

• We support the strengthening of public infrastructure and planning to ensure that no home in America lacks easy access to clean drinking water and fresh food.

• We call for reviewing environmental laws to ensure that their impacts do not disproportionately impact the poor and marginalized. Poorer communities impacted by these measures need to be supported to protect vulnerable citizens. We support policies that implement equitable development in order to explicitly avoid gentrification while ensuring under-served populations receive environmental benefits. Resources such as community resilience mapping need to be made available to all localities to help them best assess and address their particular needs.

• We cannot address our environmental issues without also addressing our overconsumption. We should teach habits of conservation to our children both at home and in our schools, and we should implement measures that show promise for effectively reducing consumption.

• We oppose corporate manufacturing processes that lead to faster obsolescence and lower-quality products, especially in clothing and appliances. Such practices are large contributors to resource waste and landfill increase. We call for public support for landfills, subsidies for composting, and an end to the exportation of garbage and recycling to poorer countries.

• We oppose neighborhood policies that incentivize chemical-saturated, water-intensive lawns or forbid outdoor clotheslines. We oppose the use of street lights so bright that they disrupt natural circadian rhythms or animal migration patterns and support Dark Sky initiatives.

• We oppose federal subsidies for fossil-fuel exploration and extraction and call for such funds to be diverted to research into carbon sinks and non-geological carbon sequestration. We insist that the federal government must institute pollution taxes and low-price cap-and-trade systems in order to fund public investment into sustainable energy so that the energy industry will be funding its own transition to clean energy.

• We support workforce-retraining programs and tax-incentivized hiring preference for workers adversely affected by the transition to green-energy production, and environmentally-friendly modes of production. We call for the transition to cooperative ownership of new, sustainable energy sources, with government infrastructure support for those that require it, such as nuclear. We call for an end to technology and green energy manufacturing processes involving the exploitation of lax environmental laws, labor, and natural resources in other countries.

• We oppose the loss of wetlands via land-use change permitting development in such areas. We call for the creation of natural land trusts that will allow communities to control and utilize natural areas with minimal ecological disturbance. We call for states and communities to restore natural lands and to re-establish the concept of creation as a commons that we all have a right to roam and a duty to responsibly steward.

• We call for a strengthening of our laws against environmental degradation, which steals from our common inheritance. We call for the ban of neonicotinoid pesticides, which destroy agricultural ecosystems and lead to declines in both native and domesticated honeybee populations, and for tax relief for farmers affected by the transition to common but less harmful pesticides.

• We call for state and local initiatives to combat droughts by supporting water retention through natural means, such as improving soil water retention and groundwater banking, or through artificial means, such as water-retention ponds and water-retention facilities. We also support the use of greywater strategies supported by large-scale public infrastructure projects, where rainwater and non-drinking water sources are used for basic irrigation, toilet flushing, and other needs. We call for an end to federal and state water use laws that encourage and subsidize agriculture in unsustainable environments.

• We support strengthening the specific rights of animals against abuse and neglect at the hands of those meant to steward them, recognizing them as more than inanimate property. We seek to regulate more strictly animal research, especially pound seizures. We call for stricter regulation of factory farms and stockyards, and the repeal of food-disparagement laws and so-called “ag-gag” laws that prohibit free speech regarding animal agriculture. We support local and family-owned farms and farming cooperatives as essential to ethical, sustainable, and humane consumption.