We must end ESTA

Unaware to most Americans, the United States implemented the Electronic System for Travel Authorization as a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, which restricts non-overland travel to the United States for all countries except Canada, Bermuda, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia. It is claimed to improve our security, but in reality this is completely false. Over 99% of applications are approved in no time, and people are required to apply at least 72 hours in advance. The pass fortunately lasts for the validity of the passport, but it still does make it less convenient for people from highly developed and safe countries to come to the United States. This has been used since January 12, 2009, 8 days before George W. Bush left office.

Other countries have since adopted similar policies at the pressure of the United States, particularly Canada on 10 November 2016, one year after Harper left office (notice a pattern yet?), Australia adopted it on 27 October 2008, one year after John Howard left office (definitely a coincidence), and ETIAs will be implemented in Europe in 2021, 2 years after EPP suffered a crushing defeat at the polls, and most countries will have national elections.

Also, you can still come to the United States visa free from all of these countries, as long as you travel to Mexico first. If ESTA is really designed to screen all passengers to protect us from camera wielding, towel carrying German tourists, it's doing a terrible job at it.

Maybe it is just a coincidence that right wing governments want to implement restrictions of the freedom of movement, but far enough in the future that they will likely not be in office to see the coincidences of their actions until it becomes the new normal. They claim it is for the safety of the nation, with an utter lack of terrorist attacks from the targeted countries, but they absolutely refuse to implement it before their sorry booties are kicked out of office.

This is because their claims that these new visa programs improve safety are absolutely rubbish. It is as true as all of the lies which the Tories in the UK have been saying about Brexit. The problem for the Tories is Brexit is such an extreme level of economic destruction which they are currently causing that the true intentions of their isolationist policies are obvious to all but the most blind. The flaw in their plan is they managed to stay in government for its impact and will feel the full brunt of their evil.

If these pre-clearance programs really improved safety, they would be implemented quickly. If they really improved safety, they would have a lower approval rate than 100% (with a rounding error). If they really improved safety, they would have no loopholes.

This program targeting German tourists was implemented in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. The one country which has NOT had any consequences from the 9/11 attacks is still Saudi Arabia. 15/19 hijackers on 9/11/2011 were from Saudi Arabia, and the United States has done literally nothing to restrict access from that religious fundamentalist state which is the only country to successfully attack American soil since before my grandmother was born. If they really wanted to protect America from countries which have actually attacked the United States we wouldn't target Germany, we would target citizens of Saudi Arabia.

The US, Canada, Australia, and EU need to wake up, improve travel between our countries, implement real visa-free tourism for the countries in these programs, and pursue real policies which make us safe.

The ESTA is not a policy which keeps us safe. It actually puts us in more danger by making travel more difficult. People to people connections foster peace through trade, which is the only time tested proven way towards a world which has less war. People got used to being able to travel freely between free countries, and fascists could not increase real visas between our countries during the brief era of free travel reciprocity we enjoyed in the 2000s. They are chipping away at this freedom piece by piece, moving us closer to war. The first step of this was the PATRIOT ACT, which was the first chipping away at our freedom of movement. The next step is to increase the cost of it until it is as much as a regular tourist visa, and their goal of alienating us from each other will be far harder to reverse. We reached a level of peace in the 1990s relative to any other time in history so deep, with so many economic and travel connections between countries, that it would take at least 50 years to get us back to the military dominated society with major European nations going to war with each other, feeding the military industrial complexes with that racket with our tax payer dollars against our will, chipping away at our freedoms through voter restrictions, travel barriers, and economic restrictions which funnel money from the majority of people to the modern aristocracy. They will not get the level of war they want until they succeed by ending free travel.

We must end these expensive, disruptive, divisive, and alienating policies and move in the opposite direction towards policies which bring us together as a world and increase connections between the people of all nations. This is how we have peace, this is how we have prosperity. We need economic policies which move individuals towards economic prosperity for all, and increase the expansion of science, communication, and bridges between all peoples of the world. The Bush administration did everything they could to move us from this dream, and it is now up to us to undo their damage to our country.

The easiest first step towards the liberal dream is to kill ESTA and replace it with true visa-free travel.

2020 is our last chance

In 2000 the Presidential election was stolen from President elect Al Gore by vote rigging in Florida. I fully believe based on all available evidence this is the case. Vice President Gore was going to attempt to make monumental shifts in how America was going to tackle the biggest challenge of our time, which is global warming, and instead we got an oil man from Texas, which was followed up by invading one of the largest petrostates in the world America wasn't actively buying oil from.

In 2008 President Obama was elected, and he did everything he could to fight global warming, but given opposition from his own party, and the lack of proper messaging from the Democrats, the Republicans won in 2010 by portraying the Affordable Care Act as a socialist takeover, and the Democrats rolled over. Any chance of significant accomplishments to fight global warming at a national level ended on that day in 2010 for a decade.

In 2016 I worked with a group of young activists on what is to date the most progressive plan to fight global warming to date, and we were defeated by millions of dollars of money from big polluters and a large number of "environmental groups" and our Governor who opposed us and urged their supporters to vote no.

In 2018 the same environmental groups proposed their own plan which exempted the exact same companies who bankrolled the opposition to the initiative I worked on.

I don't believe in coincidence in politics as a rule.

In 2019 the same governor who opposed the initiative I worked on signed a 100% clean electricity bill which will cut up to 10% of Washington State emissions, and a few other bills with the most Democratic legislature in over 70 years.

2020 is the most decisive year for fighting global warming. The oil companies who opposed 732 are literally in high ranking government positions. The administration is rolling back as many environmental regulations as they can. We must stop them.

In Washington State we have an opportunity to pass a significant bill to reduce global warming emissions from every industry, an opportunity which will not come back for at least a decade. Democrats will probably lose seats next year. At the Federal level we need to ensure we have the best leaders we possibly can, because the clock is ticking. We need a President who firmly supports a carbon tax and has a long record of supporting it.

For Carbon Washington, Audubon society, and Citizens Climate Lobby, we have to present in the legislature through our allies and members a real significant proposal to reduce global warming causing emissions without exempting the worst polluters in America. We will force the hand of those environmental groups to put forward a counter proposal immediately, because we now know the main difference between 732 and 1631 was not where the money was going to be spent, but in who was not going to pay the tax AT ALL under 1631. Our opponents will HAVE to have a counter proposal, and if they don't we can point at how they were not transparent about their process, postponed their proposal as long as possible, until after Governor Inslee's bill had failed, not giving voters the information they needed to make an informed decision. This is a corrupt tactic. In 2020 if we put forward a proposal they will be forced to put forward a counter proposal immediately which all people who care about the environment will be able to see side by side, or assume they still want a proposal which fully exempts the largest polluters in Washington, which is unethical, counterproductive, and regressive.

If I am angry, it is because I love my planet. If you are not angry at this point, you are not paying attention.

2020 is probably the last year to put forward a real plan to fight climate change. Other environmental groups will have to support it or have a counterproposal ready, and with Governor Inslee running for President he will have to support it or drop out of the Presidential race.

In terms of the Presidential race, we need a candidate who fully supports an exemption free carbon tax, and the only candidate running who unapologetically supports such a policy who is either a sitting or former governor or Senator is Senator Bernie Sanders, and he deserves your vote. See also my political platform post I made from opinion polls, which is what he has been working for since before I was even born. No other candidate has the record of support for fighting global warming close to his, and many have had the opportunity. No other has both supported such proposals consistently AND openly state it on their platform.

If your car is compromised, it means it doesn't work. Politics is no different.

When it comes to how two carbon tax initiatives have failed, they failed because the mainstream newspapers in this state didn't accurately represent them, the estimates the Secretary of State published were incorrect according to independent reviews, and corruption from long existing self declared environmental groups betrayed their supporters and lied to voters. The majority of people in America support such a plan, the issue is we need messaging and have to fight corrupt organizations more effectively.
I urge you to work with us, so we can do what needs to be done. If we force Governor Inslee to support it I fully believe we can succeed, but we can probably only do it in 2020, and only with the best proposal we can possibly write.

I will be working over the next few months to build this policy with my crew, and talk to the legislators I know about how I believe this is our last and best chance.

How to do ranked voting for the President

I just had an idea as I am on the bus listening to Hamilton about how we could do the Presidential election using ranked voting.

The President is very obvious, we vote for the President and rank them by number using IRV. This is the most fair system since having more than 2 parties is far more likely than an election between two candidates which is within a 5% margin.

The Vice President is another question. We could do two different ways, either every Presidential candidate names who they will have as VP or we could do it with ranked voting from the Presidential race. We would calculate the winner for the Presidential race and then for the VP race eliminate the President, allocating their votes as if they were the lowest ranked candidate and run a normal instant runoff voting election. This would be similar to the original system where the vice  president was the runner up but also ensure it is someone the majority of Americans can agree on.

Reasons to be Pro-Choice

No intro, let's just get on with it.

1. It is fundamentally wrong to force a woman to give birth to a baby she doesn't want to. Enough?
2. If you are arguing you are killing a person, you need to go back to biology, because the fetus is not conscious separate from the mother until the third trimester.
3. No form of birth control is 100% effective. Sometimes people don't realize their pregnant until at least 6 weeks in.
4. Abortion is safer than giving birth and saves lives.
5. The vast majority of abortions are done in the first trimester, when the fetus hasn't even developed a brain. We regularly declare people who have lost brain function as "legally dead." Why is a fetus different? You are causing no pain to the fetus because it literally cannot feel when the vast majority of abortions are done.
6. Forcing someone to give birth can maker her life significantly worse.
7. Rape is ridiculously hard to prove. Any law restricting abortion except in the case of rape will have an unacceptably high false negative rate.
8. Laws against abortion are almost never coupled with increased punishment for rapists.
9. The same politicians who fight abortion access tend to be the same ones who fight against access to sexual education, health care, and education. The easiest way to reduce abortions is to increase access to all three, which anti-abortion laws never come with.
10. Laws against abortion are almost never limited to just the first trimester. There is absolutely no biological reason to have a legal restriction on abortions to only the first trimester ever in any circumstance. They argue abortion is about killing babies, but third trimester abortions accounts for a very small number of abortions, usually because of health reasons.
11. Why should a society force a baby to be born but doesn't guarantee health care to that baby once it is alive?

Donate to Planned Parenthood today.

The Path to Fair and Equitable Carbon Pricing

This morning, as I was eating my breakfast, I was thinking about global warming and carbon taxes as I usually do. We had some important progress done this year, and we can use the momentum we have gotten from this next year to pass significant legislation in 2020 in the Washington State Legislature.

Brief history of the climate fight in Washington State:

• 2014: A group of young activists, mostly in college, get an initiative to the legislature passed, jump starting the climate fight here in Washington State.
• 2015: The same group of activists (myself included) successfully gathered enough signatures to file Initiative 732, a progressive, exemption-free carbon tax whose proceeds would go back to tax payers to alleviate the most regressive tax code in the United States of America. Remember that income inequality was the big issue everyone was talking about in 2015. A large number of self-declared environmental groups break off at this point, saying we were doing it wrong, without giving specifics on what they would do differently.
• 2016: We work hard on trying to get Initiative 732 on the ballot, a number of self-declared environmental groups, newspapers, and Governor Inslee slander the bill by misrepresenting what it would actually do, and the only exemption free carbon tax proposal in American history to date was defeated.
• 2017: Governor Inslee proposes his counter proposal. The big difference is that he has exemptions for every industry from coal to natural gas to oil refineries, and is a much lower tax. After it is defeated the Alliance finally proposes their bill, which is very similar to Governor Inslee's bill in terms of who benefits.
• 2018: The Alliance's initiative is defeated. It neither succeeded to get big oil companies to reduce their opposition at the end through massive government handouts to them, and its lower rate combined with massive tax breaks to multinational fossil fuel producing companies, many of whom are also Fortune 500 corporations, fails to get enough environmental activists involved in order to pass.
• 2019: The 100% clean electricity bill is signed into law by Governor Inslee, along with several other exemption-free bills to mitigate global warming.

Here is where we are today, and in 2020 we have the biggest opportunity in a decade to pass major legislation. This is the time to fight for a proper exemption-free carbon tax. In the 60 day session we have 6 days per step, with 5 steps to get through each chamber. I believe several factors of our current situation make 2020 the year to get it done:

• The media was misleading about initiative 732, so people didn't understand what they were voting on, and we simply didn't have the manpower to correct what the Seattle Times, etc. were saying about it.
• More and more Americans are saying they are concerned about global warming. We have successfully moved the Overton Window.
• We are at a point in history where Carbon Washington has more political capital than ever before. We have thousands of members, and this is the time when we have the opportunity to use it. We must use it.
• Every single piece of climate policy which has passed has not had line by line exemptions like 1631 did. If we propose another bill without those line by line exemptions we can win.
• Governor Inslee has announced Global Warming as his main issue. We can use this to our advantage by proposing a truly progressive carbon tax like 732 in the legislature last year. If he supports it, he looks like a flip flopper because he fought against us in 2016, if he opposes it, he looks like he isn't actually serious about global warming, and a liar. He MUST support this bill, since being a flip flopper is better than being a liar, and he must actively fight for it if he is to have any chance of winning the Presidency. We MUST use this to our advantage.
• If the Alliance fights against our exemption free proposal, than they will lose support among their members. If they support it, they look like flip floppers. For the same reason as Governor Inslee, they MUST support this bill or stop existing. They are doomed no matter what because of their behavior over the last 5 years. They should go out better than they came in. It's up to them.

With majority support, and the fact that Governor Inslee and the Alliance have simply no choice but to support a good carbon tax bill we at Carbon Washington can propose through some of our supporters, likely Debra Lekanoff, Sharon Shewmake, Beth Doglio, and Joe Fitzgibbon, hopefully with one or two Republicans as well, I truly believe that we can pass a real carbon tax bill this upcoming legislative session. The Alliance and Governor Inslee have no option but to support it, and we will then have the phone banking power to pressure the chairs of the committees it will go through to get a hearing and a vote. If we get a few groups in the Alliance to phone bank their supporters as well, we will have even more supporters calling legislators, which helps significantly. It is also unlikely that 2021 will have better numbers in the legislature for climate action, so I believe this is the best shot we are going to have for a while.

The political action steps are simple really, and continuing what we have done before:

• June 2019: Start canvassing legislators, getting their support for a bill in the next session and getting their opinions.
• November 2019: Have a solid proposal with as many legislators giving verbal support for it as possible, with a final draft finished by the end of the month:
• January 2020: Two companion bill are proposed, one in each house, with as many cosponsors as we can muster.
• Day 6: Get it to a committee vote:
• Day 12: Get it to Ways and Means.
• Day 18: Get it to the Rules committee:
• Day 24: Passed out of committee.
• Day 30: Passed second house
• Day 36: Committee vote
• Day 42: Ways and Means
• Day 48: Rules Committee
• Day 54: Passed second house
• Soon after Day 54: Governor Inslee signs the first exemption free carbon tax in American History into law.

Since Trump will likely lose next year, given that he lost the House last November, and that we will not have a Governor who has announced climate change as his number one priority for his Presidential run after the 2020 election, the number of legislators who support acting on climate will likely go down after the next election, and more and more Americans are concerned about global warming than ever before, 2020 is going to be the best year to pass an exemption free carbon tax in the foreseeable future.

More on Open Border policies around the world, Part One

As I have described in previous posts, I have been looking at outliers for open border policy around the world.

Today I did a lot of work on it, improved my data, and now have a database of 208 borders in the world, with 124 different countries represented.

Let's dig into the data.

To refresh, my variables are:

• Corruption Perceptions Index
• Press Freedom Index
• Ease of Doing Business Index
• Homicide Rate
• Democracy Index
• GDP
• Population
• GDP per Capita
• The name of the open border treaty the country is in.

From this I have derived the  differences and averages for every country pair for each of these variables, and made a viability score, with the CPI, PFI, DBI, and homicide rates for every country averaged appropriately, with a higher viability score meaning a country which is more likely to have an open border.

Regressional Analysis

Ordinary Least Squares

Most importantly, what determines an open border? Well, after cleaning the data, dropping null values, and building a Ordinary Least Squares Regression, I was able to predict which countries had an open border with an R-squared accuracy of 0.589. The significant variables at 95% accuracy were the difference in GDP per capita (closer GDP per capita means you are more likely to have an open border) at a t score of 3.159. Ease of Doing Business difference at -3.697, an average Corruption Perceptions Index at a t score of 5.064, and finally an average homicide rate at a t score of 2.236.

In other words, be bordering countries with similar GDP per capitas, similar Doing Business scores, minimal corruption, and few murders. Given this, my model predicts you will have an open border.

Random Forest Regressor

A Random Forest Regressor was able to predict with 79% accuracy. The most important feature was having a low Corruption Perceptions Score at 0.5, followed  by having few homicides at 0.11. I'm seeing a trend here.

Random Forest Classifier

My Random Forest Classifier found having a free press, then low corruption, followed by few murders were the best predictors for having open borders.

Conclusion from Analysis

I am finding that safety and freedom are the two internal factors which are predictive of having open borders with your neighbors.

Corruption

I then sorted out all of the country pairs which have open borders leaving only those which have closed borders, and then sorted them by their corruption score.

The country pair with the highest average CPI (which is good) and a closed border is the United States and Canada (79.5), followed by Singapore and Malaysia (67.5). there are currently no plans to open the borders in these two country pairs yet. The next was Saudi Arabia and Qatar (61.5) which used to have open borders. All other closed borders in the world have a corruption perceptions index below 60.

Press Freedom

Sorting by Press Freedom, we again find the United States and Canada have the highest average press freedom (19.505) out of all country pairs with closed borders in the world, followed by:

• South Africa and Namibia (20.315)
• Argentina and Uruguay (20.805)
• Ghana and Burkina Faso (20.87)
• Costa Rica and Nicaragua (22.210)
• Costa Rica and Panama (22.285)
• Botswana and Namibia (22.765)
• Botswana and South Africa (22.840)

There are a good number of countries with a lot of press freedom which could open borders according to this metric.

Ease of Doing Business

When it comes to economics, the Ease of Doing Business Index doesn't seem to be a major factor when determining having an open border with your neighbors, but for interest, here are the results:

• Singapore and Malaysia (82.920)
• United States and Canada (81.005)
• Georgia and Azerbaijan (80.960)
• Malaysia and Thailand (79.525)
• Armenia and Georgia (79.325)
• Turkey and Georgia (78.805)

The Caucuses have made incredible progress on economic liberalization, which is part of why their economies have grown so rapidly over the last decade, particularly Georgia. The US and Canada is again one of the top candidates according to this metric. Singapore and Malaysia are Asian Tigers, so it is not surprising they appear on this list, as well as Thailand.

Homicide Rate

This is where we are really going to hit a rut in terms of potential visa liberalization.

• Croatia and Slovenia (0.760)
• Bhutan and China (0.875)
• Qatar and Saudi Arabia (0.940)
• Bulgaria and Greece (0.945)
• Ghana and Burkina Faso (1.025)
• Vietnam and China (1.070)
• Tajikistan and China (1.115)
• Bulgaria and Romania (1.195)
• Singapore and Malaysia (1.215)
• Croatia and Serbia (1.215)

This is the only list the US and Canada does not appear on because the United States homicide rate is so high. A visa free zone among ASEAN countries might be on the horizon, as this shows. Almost every country pair which has a low homicide rate and other variables which are potentially important already have an open border already. Croatia is in the process of joining the Schengen area, as is Bulgaria. There is no statistically significant impact of homicide on whether a country has an open border or not.

Corruption Perceptions Index

When I construct a decision tree classifier on my data, trying to predict the status of whether any two bordering countries have an open or closed border, I am able to predict whether a country has an open or closed border with 81.25% accuracy. This is really good, and I find that the Corruption Perceptions Index predicts 49.7% of the weight.

The less corrupt your country is, the more likely you will have an open border. The country pair which you see around 80? That's the United States and Canada at 79.5, followed by:

1. Malaysia and Singapore, 67.5
2. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, 61.5
3. Botswana and Namibia, 58
4. Israel and Jordan, 57

Average Score

I then calculated the average score by the equation Average CPI * Average Doing Business Index / Average Press Freedom Index * Average Homicide.
This gives us a relative score which tells us which countries have the highest likelihood of making open borders, we can also see which variables the countries can work on to make it a reality. The countries which do not have open borders which this model predicts are top candidates are:

• Croatia and Slovenia (Croatia is likely going to join Schengen soon)
• Ghana and Burkina Faso
• Bulgaria and Greece
• Canada and the United States
• Singapore and Malaysia
• Croatia and Serbia (Serbia is applying for EU membership)
• Romania and Serbia (Serbia is applying for EU membership and Romania is going to join Schengen soon)
• Bulgaria and Romania (both will likely join Schengen soon)
• Qatar and Saudi Arabia (currently closed to dispute on Qatari-Iranian relations)
• Croatia - Hungary (Croatia is likely going to join Schengen soon)
• Romania - Hungary  (Romania is likely going to join Schengen soon)
• Bulgaria - Romania (Bulgaria is likely going to join Schengen soon) 

Looks like my model is performing fairly well.  I get a 0.579 Pearson R squared coefficient between this model and the reality.

More Interesting Graphs

This makes it pretty clear that more democratic countries tend to be less corrupt, and tend to have an open border with countries close to them with similar freedom metrics, as well as wealth. We see that all of these variables are correlated to each other tightly, which leads us to a fundamental question in political economy, how do wealth and freedom effect each other?

This question is extremely important, because it has enormous implications on all types of domestic policy. For countries at the low end of the spectrum which are poor, authoritarian, and corrupt, will improving their economy lead the way to political reform or entrench the powers that be? Dr. christian Houle answered this question in his paper Inequality, Economic Development, and Democratization which he shared on his personal blog. The reality seems to be that inequality, economic development, and democratization all interplay with one another, and where one stands on these three scales implies different paths to the others.

This is a good overview for one blog post, and I intend on continuing this exploration later.

My backworks is available on my Gitlab repo