This is a statement of my personal political beliefs. It is not a news report, and it does not speak for every person in my community.

I would describe myself as a democratic socialist, progressive, and leftist.

The label matters less to me than the values behind it.

I believe society should be organized around human well-being, dignity, fairness, and reducing unnecessary suffering — not around maximizing profit for corporations, protecting extreme wealth, or treating people as disposable when they are no longer useful to the economy.

I believe people should be able to work hard, build businesses, create things, take risks, earn money, and be successful. I am not against markets. Markets can create innovation, competition, opportunity, creativity, and independence.

But I do not believe markets should decide whether someone gets to survive.

I do not believe a person's ability to access health care, housing, food, education, child care, safety, or a clean environment should depend entirely on how much money they have or whether a corporation can profit from their need.

That is where I draw the line.

I am not against success. I am against exploitation.

I am not against markets. I am against greed controlling society.

I am not against freedom. I want freedom to include dignity, safety, health care, housing, education, and equal rights.

Markets Should Serve People, Not Rule Them

Unchecked capitalism concentrates wealth and power.

It rewards people for extracting more from workers, charging more for necessities, cutting corners on the environment, avoiding taxes, buying political influence, and treating human needs as business opportunities.

That is not freedom for most people. It is freedom for whoever already has the most money and leverage.

I believe markets can exist, but they need strong rules. Workers need rights. Corporations need accountability. Communities need power. Wealth needs to be taxed fairly. Public services need to be protected from profit motives.

No person becomes a billionaire alone.

Extreme wealth depends on workers, consumers, roads, ports, schools, courts, public research, public safety, infrastructure, natural resources, and the stability created by society as a whole.

That is why I do not believe billionaires should exist while people are homeless, rationing medication, drowning in student debt, working full-time without being able to afford rent, or raising children without reliable child care.

A society wealthy enough to create billionaires is wealthy enough to make sure people can survive with dignity.

Basic Needs Should Not Be Luxuries

I believe health care should be a right.

People do not choose cancer, diabetes, disability, accidents, depression, addiction, chronic illness, pregnancy complications, or the health conditions they are born with. No one should go bankrupt because they got sick.

I believe housing should be treated as a human need. A person should not be left outside because they lost a job, escaped abuse, struggled with addiction, developed a disability, or could not keep up with rent in an economy designed around profit.

I believe education should create opportunity, not a lifetime of debt. College, trade school, career training, and certification programs should help people build stable lives — not trap them under loans before their adult life has even started.

I believe child care, paid family leave, food access, clean water, safe communities, and healthy environments are not luxuries. They are part of what a decent society owes its people.

That does not mean everything is free.

It means we should fund these things publicly and fairly, the same way we fund roads, schools, fire departments, libraries, airports, ports, Social Security, Medicare, and national defense.

We already pay for health care, housing instability, untreated addiction, poverty, and lack of access. We pay through premiums, deductibles, copays, debt, emergency rooms, higher insurance costs, homelessness services, incarceration, and lost potential.

I would rather build systems that prevent suffering than keep paying for the damage after people are already in crisis.

I Believe Workers Deserve Power

I support strong unions, higher wages, safe workplaces, paid family leave, affordable child care, and worker protections.

Working hard should be enough to survive.

If someone works full-time and still cannot afford rent, food, health care, transportation, child care, or an emergency, that is not a personal failure. That is a sign that the economic system is failing them.

Workers create the value that keeps businesses operating.

The people cleaning facilities, fishing, processing seafood, teaching children, driving trucks, caring for patients, building homes, maintaining equipment, stocking stores, working docks, serving food, and raising families are not disposable parts of the economy.

They are the economy.

I Believe Freedom Means More Than Being Left Alone

Freedom should not only mean the freedom of a corporation to maximize profit or the freedom of a wealthy person to avoid responsibility.

Freedom should include the ability to see a doctor without fear of debt. It should include the ability to find housing, raise a child, attend school, live without discrimination, make personal medical decisions, and exist safely in public.

I support reproductive freedom because I do not believe the government should force someone to use their body to carry a pregnancy.

I support LGBTQ rights and trans rights because people deserve safety, dignity, privacy, and equal protection under the law. Gay and trans people are not responsible for high rent, low wages, failing health care systems, addiction, or political corruption. They are often used as scapegoats by people who do not want to address the real problems.

I support Indigenous rights because history still affects the present.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives have faced genocide, displacement, forced assimilation, boarding schools, land theft, cultural destruction, and long-term government neglect. Those things were not ancient history with no lasting effects. They shaped families, communities, language, land access, health, education, and opportunity.

Indigenous sovereignty, language, culture, land protection, and self-determination matter because dignity and justice matter.

I Am Secular, But I Support Religious Freedom

I am not religious because I do not see convincing evidence for supernatural claims.

I trust science, biology, evolution, evidence, and reason as the best tools we have for understanding reality. I do not believe morality requires religion. People can be good because they care about others, understand suffering, value fairness, and want to reduce harm.

I support freedom of religion.

People should be free to worship, pray, believe, organize, and live according to their faith.

But I also support freedom from religion.

Someone's religion can guide their own life. It should not control everyone else's rights, medical choices, education, marriage, or legal status.

America is not supposed to be ruled by one religion. Laws should be grounded in rights, evidence, democracy, and equal protection — not one group's theology.

I Believe Democracy Has Been Captured by Wealth

America has enough wealth and resources to solve many of its biggest problems.

The issue is not that we cannot afford health care, housing, education, treatment, infrastructure, or environmental protection.

The issue is that too much wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of corporations, billionaires, lobbyists, and political elites.

I believe corporate money has far too much influence over government. I believe lobbying gives wealthy interests access that ordinary people do not have. I believe elected officials should not be able to trade stocks in industries they regulate. I believe public office should not be a strategy for building private wealth.

I oppose the Electoral College because I believe one person, one vote should actually mean one person, one vote.

I believe voting access should be expanded, not restricted. I believe democracy works best when ordinary people have more power than billionaires and corporations — not less.

I also reject personality-driven politics built around cruelty, anger, scapegoating, and loyalty to one powerful person.

Cruelty is not honesty.

Confidence is not truth.

Strength is not bullying people, blaming vulnerable groups, or acting like empathy is weakness.

I Believe Environmental Protection Is About Survival

Environmental protection is not an attack on working people.

Clean water, clean air, healthy oceans, stable climate conditions, protected habitat, and functioning ecosystems are necessary for life. They are especially important in Indigenous and fishing communities, where the environment is tied directly to food, culture, work, safety, and survival.

Destroying the environment to create short-term profit does not create real prosperity.

It creates costs that get passed down to future generations.

We should be able to build, work, innovate, and create opportunity without poisoning water, destroying habitat, ignoring climate risk, or treating land and ocean as disposable.

What I Support

• Universal health care
• Affordable housing and stronger tenant protections
• Free or affordable college, trade school, and career training
• Strong unions and worker protections
• Higher wages and paid family leave
• Affordable child care
• Reproductive freedom
• LGBTQ rights and trans rights
• Indigenous sovereignty, rights, language, and cultural protection
• Addiction treatment, mental-health care, and housing-first solutions
• Environmental protection and climate action
• Gun reform that protects responsible ownership while reducing mass-casualty risk
• Fair taxes on extreme wealth and large corporations
• Stronger anti-corruption rules
• Limits on political stock trading
• Campaign-finance reform
• Voting-rights protections
• A democracy where ordinary people matter more than billionaire donors

What I Do Not Believe

I do not believe the government should control every part of life.

I do not believe every business is bad.

I do not believe success should be punished.

I do not believe people should be denied the right to work hard, build something, earn money, own property, fish, farm, create, innovate, or pursue a good life.

I believe success is good when it is built without exploiting people.

I believe business is valuable when it serves customers, treats workers fairly, pays its share, respects communities, and does not build wealth by creating suffering for everyone else.

Questions I Hear Often

"Socialism means the government controls everything."

That is not what I support.

I support a mixed economy where businesses and markets still exist, but where basic needs such as health care, housing, education, and child care are not left entirely to profit-driven systems.

My view: I am not anti-market. I am anti-greed.

"You will run out of other people's money."

I do not think the wealthiest people and largest corporations should be able to benefit from public infrastructure, public resources, public workers, public research, and public stability while avoiding a fair contribution back.

The question is not whether wealthy people should pay every dollar they have. The question is whether extreme wealth should come with responsibility.

My view: Workers create wealth. Extreme wealth should give back.

"Billionaires will just leave."

Billionaires and corporations benefit from access to workers, consumers, infrastructure, legal protections, public stability, and markets. They cannot separate their wealth from the society that makes it possible.

A fair tax system should be designed carefully, but fear of wealthy people leaving should not mean ordinary people carry every burden forever.

My view: Public wealth should not exist only to protect private fortunes.

"Free health care is not free."

Correct. It is publicly funded.

But we already pay for health care through premiums, deductibles, copays, medical debt, taxes, emergency-room costs, and higher prices across the system.

I would rather pay through a fair public system than let people suffer or go bankrupt because they got sick.

My view: No one should go bankrupt because they needed care.

"Capitalism creates innovation."

Markets can encourage innovation. So can public investment, universities, public research, infrastructure, and cooperation.

I support innovation. I just do not believe innovation requires poverty, medical debt, exploitation, or billionaires.

My view: Innovation does not require suffering.

"People are poor because they are lazy."

Millions of people work hard, including full-time workers, and still cannot afford rent, food, child care, health care, or emergencies.

That is not laziness.

That is an economic system that fails to provide enough security for the people doing essential work.

My view: If full-time work cannot cover a basic life, the system is broken.

"Why help people struggling with addiction?"

Addiction is often tied to trauma, poverty, mental illness, isolation, despair, disability, and years of instability.

Punishment and shame do not cure addiction.

Treatment, housing, counseling, community support, and real opportunity give people a chance to recover.

My view: Addiction needs treatment, not abandonment.

"Health care is not a right."

I believe it should be.

Sickness and injury are part of being human. A wealthy society should not treat medical care as a privilege reserved for people with the right job, income, insurance plan, or family support.

My view: Health care should serve patients, not shareholders.

"College should not be free."

Education benefits everyone.

We need teachers, nurses, electricians, mechanics, welders, biologists, counselors, fishermen, marine technicians, pilots, builders, health workers, and skilled tradespeople.

Education and training should create opportunity, not trap people under lifelong debt.

My view: Education should be an investment, not a debt trap.

"The government should control abortion."

I do not believe the government should force someone to use their body to carry a pregnancy.

People deserve bodily autonomy, privacy, medical care, and the right to make deeply personal decisions with their doctors and families.

My view: The government should not control someone's body.

"Guns do not kill people. People kill people."

People matter, but tools matter too.

I believe responsible gun ownership can exist alongside stronger background checks, safe-storage rules, meaningful due process, and limits on weapons or equipment designed to make mass harm easier.

My view: Public safety and responsible gun ownership can exist together.

"America is a Christian nation."

America has religious freedom, not Christian rule.

People are free to follow Christianity or any other religion. They are also free not to believe. Laws should protect everyone, not enforce one religion's beliefs on the whole country.

My view: Your religion can guide your life. It should not control everyone else's rights.

"Without religion, there is no morality."

I do not need religion to know that suffering is real, cruelty is harmful, and people deserve compassion.

Morality can come from empathy, fairness, responsibility, and a desire to reduce harm.

My view: I do not need religion to know suffering is wrong.

"Talking about racism divides the country."

Ignoring racism does not make it disappear.

America was shaped by slavery, segregation, land theft, Indigenous genocide, discriminatory laws, and unequal treatment. Being honest about history is necessary if we want to build something better.

My view: You cannot fix what you refuse to acknowledge.

"Environmental regulations hurt business."

Environmental destruction hurts everyone.

Healthy water, healthy oceans, clean air, stable climate conditions, and protected habitat are not obstacles to life. They are the foundation of it.

My view: Protecting the environment is protecting future generations.

My Basic Belief

I believe people matter more than profit.

I believe freedom should be real enough to include health care, housing, education, safety, dignity, equal rights, and the ability to build a future.

I believe America has enough wealth to solve many of its problems.

We do not lack resources.

We lack a system willing to put people ahead of corporate greed, extreme wealth, and political corruption.

That is why I call myself a democratic socialist.

Not because I want government to control everything.

Because I believe a society as wealthy as ours should make sure people can live with dignity.