By Masudur Rahman

Senior Reporter

Eighty-year old Jack Kevorkian is campaigning as an independent without any party affiliations to get elected for U.S. Congress, but he’s going about it in an unusual way: he doesn’t want anyone to vote for him.

In fact, he doesn’t want anyone to vote or even register to vote in any election, as long as there are the two main political parties (Democratic and Republican) on the ballot because he thinks that party politics are “extremely harmful” to America.

“Nobody showing up to vote — that will send a message to the tyrants,” he said in a town hall meeting Thursday, Aug. 21. He described tyrants as “the people that control your lives.”

The meeting was held at Troy Community center and, other than members of the media, it was attended by about 12 people.

Another unusual component of his campaign is his vow not to accept political contributions or donations from anyone.

“Fame,” Kevorkian said, when asked how he will run his campaign without much money.

Kevorkian gained local and national notoriety in the 1990s, when he was nicknamed “Doctor Death” for helping over 100 patients near Oakland County commit assisted suicide, continuing even after his medical license was revoked for his actions.

In 1999 Kevorkian was found guilty of second-degree murder and delivery of a controlled substance based on a video he made and let air on CBS’s show 60 Minutes that showed Kevorkian injecting a voluntary patient with lethal chemicals that killed the patient.

Kevorkian was sentenced to 10-25 years in prison. In June 2007, he was released on parole for good behavior.

At the meeting Thursday, Kevorkian refused to discuss the topic of assisted suicide besides stating that he still believes it’s a basic human right and that he’s “not allowed to” talk about it any further.

According to MSNBC, one of the conditions of his parole is that he not discuss the specific methods of assisting suicide, but he is still allowed talk about it otherwise.

At the meeting, he also called candidates and politicians “corrupt cronies” as well as “cowardly and dishonest.”

Even if Kevorkian somehow does get elected, he vowed that he will only serve for one term and not run for any more, because he’s “not trying to make a job out of ” politics.

Rather, he says that despite whether he wins or loses, his real goal is to make the 9th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution known. The 9th Amendment is usually interpreted as guaranteeing Americans all natural rights that are not specifically listed in the Constitution.

He asked people to read the short book that he said he wrote in prison called “Amendment IX: The Cornucopia of Rights.” He didn’t have any printed copies for sale at the meeting, but the 43 page booklet is available for viewing for free on www.glimmeriqs.com/amendmentix.pdf.

Kevorkian declined to give his views on education reform but he said that prison reform and crime control is high on his agenda.

He also said that illegal drugs like marijuana and others should be legalized not only because of “our natural rights” but also because it “creates organized crime.”

As for immigration, he said that the government should “drop the idea of a fence” and of creating “bilingual schools to make it easier for [Spanish-speaking] immigrants.” The solution is simple, he said, “we have laws, we just have to enforce them.”

He said that the way to make universal health care available to all is to tax the “excess profits of pharmaceutical companies — maybe 10 percent” and use it to pay for all Americans’ medical insurance.

“The real patriot isn’t the one that waves the flags and lapel pins — it’s the one that criticizes the government,” said Kevorkian. “And that’s what I am: a real patriot. I think America is a rotten country.”

One audience member said that he supported all of Kevorkian’s ideas and urged him to reconsider telling people not to vote for him, but Kevorkian berated him for several minutes, calling him a “helpless, hopeless case” who “doesn’t get it.”

Kevorkian is running for the 9th Congressional District, which represents most of Oakland County in the House of Representatives. Also running is incumbent Republican Joe Knollenberg, who held the seat since 1993, Democrat Gary Peters and Libertarian Adam Goodman.