Interview With Joe Schriner

Before I go too far, I need to apologize. I actually got this via e-mail two days ago, planned to hold off until Thursday to post it, and then had computer problems and am just now posting it.

I have written before, very briefly, about “Average Joe” Schriner, now on his third Presidential run as an independent. If you’ve seen my comments on other people’s blogs, then you might have seen his name come up as someone that I’m considering supporting actively.

What I hadn’t told a lot of people was that I e-mailed Mr. Schriner and asked him if I could interview him by e-mail. He agreed. While he’s not yet had time to answer every question that I asked, he did give some great answers to the most important ones. I’m about to post those, without comment.

Before this, though, he asked me to add a note … he is looking for a running mate. He said that at this point, the running mate doesn’t have to do too much, but he’s looking for someone who fits the legal requirements (35 or older, born US citizen, etc.), who isn’t from Ohio (Mr. Schriner’s home state), and who shares with Mr. Schriner a Consistent Life Ethic. That will be defined pretty well through his answers, I believe.

I will comment on these answers some other time … for now, I want to present what he had to say in his own words.

1) A lot of people, be they punditry or voters on the street, talk about “throwing their votes away” if they vote for so-called longshot candidates. Within the two major parties this worked against Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich; a lot of people don’t even think about the third-party candidates, much less an independent.

What would you like to say to those voters?

If that continues, we will continue to have political winners tied to the “dominant paradigm.”  And then the salient question becomes:  Is the dominant paradigm working?  Some 4,400 babies killed in the womb every day in America, a nine trillion (and counting) dollar National Debt, 48 million Americans without health insurance, gang war zones increasing in the inner cities, global warming increasing exponentially…

2) What are you trying to accomplish, given that it is very unlikely that you’ll have a major role in the final voting?

I’m actually trying with all I have to win.  I have spent the past 15 years of my life traveling 200,000 miles through this country doing extensive research for each of my position papers.  I told the Jamestown Sun newspaper that: “This is a serious attempt by an average citizen to run for president.”  And it is… Concurrently, during a talk at Toledo University, I told the students that each time someone hears about something we’ve researched and try it in their own town — “…we get a policy enacted long before we ever get to D.C.”  So we’re campaigning, we’re helping change the country now.

3) Have you considered, or will you consider, running for a different office?

I’ve considered it.  But our quite broad brush, multi-dimensional platform would be best for the whole country, now.

4) What do you think should be done to improve ballot and/or media access for less-known candidates?

While there are some flaws, we’ve been treated relatively fairly by the media given we only have a modicum of support at this time.  I mean, we’ve been in some 2,000 newspapers, 175 regional network news shows, hundreds of radio shows…  As a former journalist, I know the media makes decisions about the amount of election coverage based on supporter bases, etc.  And often independent and third party candidates don’t have much supporter base, so consequently they get less coverage.

5) What do you think is the biggest challenge that will be faced by the next President of the US?

To move America, quickly, to much more of a Consistent Life Ethic.  That is, we have to increase, exponentially, placing value on the sanctity of Life as it relates to: abortion, war, poverty, pollution, crime… and anything else that can end life prematurely.

6) What do you think qualifies you to deal with those?

A Consistent Life Ethic is at the core of my personal/spiritual belief system.  And as mentioned earlier, I have spent 15 years criss-crossing the country looking for people who have developed creative projects to impact each of the “Life” areas, for the good.  I found them.  And as president I would point Americans to them.  (Just as I’m pointing Americans to them now as a presidential candidate.)  In this, a Culture of Life would start to take place.  Example:  We researched the Marillac Clinic in Grand Junction, Colorado.  It is staffed by volunteer doctors, volunteer nurses and other volunteers who do intake work, filing, janitorial…  If you don’t have health care insurance in Grand Junction, Colorado, you can get major surgery at the Marillac Clinic for: $5.  (We plant seeds about this all over the country.)

For my own part, I am pro-life, and I identify “pro-life” as meaning more than just anti-abortion. Looking at your positions, I think that you’re the same kind of person. Your site says that you’re against abortion and euthanasia, but also against the use of capital punishment and depleted uranium, in favor of health care for everyone, and living wages. This is going to put you on both the right and left, following the commonly-accepted parlance.

7) Do you think that a person can run a viable campaign without fitting into one of the commonly-accepted choices?

Yes.

You have called for amnesty for illegal immigrants working in the US.

8) How would you answer those who say that this represents a security risk to the US because terrorists could be sneaking across the border?

We walked the dusty streets of a slum with 200,000 people living in abject poverty at the border town of Juarez, Mexico.  Many cross over because their children are hungry.  A priest who runs an orphanage for the homeless children there (and there are many) gave us the tour and, at one point, took us to a ridge 10 feet from the border fence.  I asked him about immigration.  He said that was easy.  He pointed to El Paso to the north (which isn’t all that affluent, but looked like Oz in comparison to Juarez.)  Then he pointed to Juarez.  Then he pointed to the fence and asked.  “What do you think Jesus would do with the fence?”  That was an easy one.  So…  A ’security risk’ versus the ’spiritual risk’ of not doing something dramatic to help?  Speaking of Jesus, didn’t He say the best thing we can do is lay down our lives (or ‘risk’ laying down our lives) for another? 

9) How would you answer those who say that this corrodes respect for the rule of law, since we reward people for coming illegally?

Sometimes the ‘rule of law’ is wrong.  Take for instance, slavery.  Then later, Segregation Laws.  I can’t imagine that God would have agreed with either of those.  Just like I can’t imagine God would agree with the kind of American protectionism, slow bureaucracy getting into the U.S., etc.; while people in Mexico, Central America… go hungry, are in the midst of bloody political oppression, watch their children die because they have no medicine…

On your education page, you encourage giving that control back to states, and offering classes on race and culture, and about relationship building.

10) What role, if any, do you think that “school choice” should play in improving education?

Our genral platform is about moving America back to a decentralized society where people, for the most part, again shop locally, go to school locally, etc.  What should be ‘improving’ is education itself in each local school.  That means more teachers and better salaries, more teachers’ aids across the board, more creative curriculum choices, more service learning projects, etc.

11) Specifically, what about homeschooling? Vouchers?

We home school (or rather, motor home school) our chilldren, and obviously believe there should be a place for that in society.  As far as vouchers, I interviewed a former high school principal in the state of Washington who said he was against vouchers because it takes some of the top students from city schools, which are already in trouble.  Conversely, we’ve looked at the Urban Community School model in Cleveland, where top students from the suburbs come to school in Cleveland to sit side by side with the inner city kids.  While the transport part of this is antithetical to the decentralism we believe in, we do ask some of these same suburban families to move back into the city to reverse white flight and improve not only the schools but the city in general.  (Our family has done that by moving into a hardscrabble area of Cleveland to be with a group of Catholic Workers here trying to make a difference.)

In terms of Iraq policy, you said that you would not have gone into the war in Iraq.

12) How do you answer critics who point out what Saddam Hussein was a thug and a tyrant who went so far as to kill his own citizens?

Based on what I’ve read about Hussein, he was indeed oppressive.  So were we.  The sanctions against Iraq, which we helped enforce for almost a decade, accounted for hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths in that country because of malnutrition, lack of medicine, etc…  Using the strategy Ghandi did in India and Martin Luther King did in the South, I would have tried to inject operatives, if you will, into the Iraqi Society — that is, if they wanted them — to teach the people about strategies for non-violent protest.

13) What do you say to those who argue that apologizing for the war will weaken our standing in the world by making us appear to be weak?

It’s never ‘weak’ to apologize for being wrong.  The Bush administration said the primary purpose we went into Iraq, was not because Hussein was being oppressive with his people; but rather we went there to find Weapons of Mass Destruction — for our security.  Question:  What country has some 10,000 Weapons of Mass Destruction aimed all over the world?  Answer: U.S.  I said to an ABC News reporter from Toledo:  “What if we let the weapons inspectors into Montana?”  This is a tremendous duality that’s seldom talked about.  What’s more, while we pump billions into these warheads for, again, our protection, some 30,000 children starve to death every day in the world.  “But Lord, when did we see You hungry?”

 

… As I said, there were several more questions that hit on economic/tax policy, and looking for more insight to the man himself and his family. I hope to get those answers soon.

In the meantime, I hope that you check out his web site at http://voteforjoe.com/ and see what he has to say. I also repeat my oft-stated principle that you should vote for a candidate whom you believe is the best for the office, and whom you want to win … not just one served up by the party machines, and not one that you think enough other people will vote for so that he’ll win.

I hope to have more information about other “minor” candidates in the near future.

 

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