Guest post by Ruji | December 6th, 2016 at 8:08 PM PST

PREFACE: Since reading about politics typically makes me feel negative things ranging from confusion to analysis paralysis to fear that I’m not prepared enough for the apocalypse, I’ve given myself an illusory sense of control by pretending I have enough money to register my own political party called The Introvert Party.



Proposed platform (draft v0.1-alpha) of The Introvert Party:

(Does not represent beliefs of all introverts, just mine; “*” means “totally experimental and optional because I wrote this impulsively and with no understanding of the real-life ramifications.”)

–Respects professional journalists for their education and career achievements, but does not elevate their credibility above that of non-journalists.

–Makes space for all viewpoints and doesn’t expect every member of the party to vote the same way on everything.

–Prefers open discussion over censorship, except in cases of harassment, hate speech, violence, or other interpersonal abuses.

–Agrees to disagree amongst party members because dealing with inner conflict gracefully is The Introvert Party’s forté.

–Encourages independent research and fact-checking.

–Encourages non-authoritative co-education, in which every member of the party, regardless of status or demographics, is listened to as an equal when sharing, discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing with facts and ideas.

–Supports the human right to be left alone by the government in decisions about personal mind/body matters such as consensual sex, gender identity, abortion, vaccinations, and substance use.

–*Supports opt-in taxation for specific services that individual taxpayers can choose whether or not to support (e.g., tax for building a new school, cell phone tower, or military base that only some community members will benefit from), while allowing individuals who don’t benefit from or agree with said services to not pay taxes on said services even if they’re paying taxes on other services and/or paying a base tax.

–Supports taxing of corporations way more than of individuals.

–Supports taxing of corporations way more than of consumer products, especially products like tobacco that are more often purchased by poor people who are just trying to get by with a little help from a vice (that could be way less cancerous without all the non-tobacco additives).

–*Supports taxing of money donated to political campaigns.

–Doesn’t have a stance on gun control in the general population, but supports non-violent police training and stricter consequences for police who misuse their weapons.

–Supports full transparency of chemical formulae used in consumer products, aircraft emissions, public land structures such as oil pipelines, and pharmaceuticals.

–Supports open-source research and public panels to discuss independent research findings on issues that affect the public, whether or not said findings match up with government research.

–Supports the right of citizens to vote on uses of public lands as well as non-residential private lands near residential areas, including the right to vote against corporate or government construction projects such as oil pipelines and nuclear waste storage facilities.

–*Supports a public government watch list, so that citizens will no longer have to wonder whether they’re being followed or just being paranoid, along with a law that employers cannot discriminate against individuals for being on the list.

–Gets stressed out by the left-wing/right-wing binary, and thus calls itself “back-wing.”

FULL DISCLOSURE: I almost named it “The INFP Party” (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving, as in the Myers-Briggs personality type) but didn’t want it to sound too exclusive.

FINAL NOTE: This post is not related to Don Depresso comic #480, titled “Introvert Party” and starring Neurotic Nicole, from like three years ago.

(Image source: http://dondepresso.rujic.net/post/44867125490/introvert-party)