TLP Position on Restoration of Civil Rights for Felons

Restoration of Civil Rights to Felons

Position of the Tidewater Libertarian Party

 

In general, the Tidewater Libertarian Party strongly supports the restoration of Civil Rights, including the right to vote, serve on juries and to keep and bear arms, to those convicted of felonies when they have completed their incarceration and probation, have made restitution to their victims when feasible, and demonstrated rehabilitation.

However, this must be accomplished consistent with the Virginia Constitution and the Rule of Law.

A government which will not be restrained by the Rule of Law is a far greater danger than any felon.

TLP General Meeting – Speaker George H. Mears on Climate Change

Have you heard both sides of the issue of Climate change? Probably not. For a skeptic’s view, come to the Tidewater Libertarian Party General Meeting Saturday morning February 7th, 2015.  Breakfast at 8:30, program begins at 9 AM.

George Mears is a local environmental engineer and project manager who lives in Suffolk and is employed by the Federal government. Attended U of Wisconsin, Madison, in the late 60s on and NROTC scholarship, graduating with a BS in Geology. While at UW, he studied Mid-­‐Atlantic Ridge and Arctic deep ocean cores as a research assistant analyzing temperature and salinity proxy data and magnetic orientation of core samples over tens of thousands of years. Flew over 5,800 flight hours in the Navy but over 1,000 as a pilot and Mission Commander during the late 70s in a squadron sponsored by the Naval Oceanographic Office that deployed with joint Navy & civilian science (Johns Hopkins, Scripps Institute, Woods Hole) crews to conduct worldwide ocean current, magnetic variation, Arctic & Antarctic ice and polar study and hurricane tracking and penetration missions.  Following the Navy, he completed a    Masters (Environmental Engineering, ODU, 1994) and has been employed since as an engineer and project manager performing environmental remediation, ocean, and civil engineering project work in both public sector A-­‐E and Government engineering organizations and for clients that have included DOD, municipalities, EPA, Fish & Wildlife, the National Park Service, NOAA, and NASA.

Upcoming TLP and VBTA event Oct 16

Change of location!!   The event will be at the same time, but has been relocated to the Virginia Beach Central Library Auditorium.

 

We’re Skeptics, not Deniers

Note: the following was submitted to the Virginian Pilot as a guest editorial. They chose not to print this one. It only guest editorial I have submitted that they chose not to run. I guess the debate is over at the Pilot.

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” – Richard Feynman

NASA astronomer James Hansen first used the term ‘Deniers’ to describe those who questioned the orthodox view of global warming in 2006 in a transparent attempt to smear skeptics by associating them with Neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers, going so far as to suggest that scientists and officials who disagreed with the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming be tried in Nuremberg style trials for crimes against humanity. Such is the civility of the climate debate.

The Attorney General’s Duty

The Tidewater Libertarian Party has released the following Statement on Attorney General Mark Herring’s decision to oppose, in Federal Court, the State’s Amendment refusing to recognize same-sex marriage.
OUR UNFAITHFUL SERVANT
The Tidewater Libertarian Party strongly opposed Virginia’s Amendment refusing to recognize same-sex marriage before it was ratified, and continues to advocate its repeal. Until that happens, it is the law in Virginia and an expression of the will of the people of the Commonwealth. If the Amendment were to be struck down as in conflict with the US Constitution, we would celebrate its fall. But until that happens, it remains Virginia’s law.

Mark Herring ran for and narrowly won the office of Attorney General, effectively, Virginia’s lawyer.  It is his duty to represent the will of the people of Virginia, even if he disagrees with their choice.

Economic Distortions of Medicaid Expansion

A Statement by the Tidewater Libertarian Party

The financial risks and costs of Medicaid expansion for Virginia are well documented in other sources, so leaving those aside, we, in the Tidewater Libertarian Party will address the objections to Medicaid expansion based on economic principle.

Currently, through Medicare, Medicaid and current and veteran Military health care programs, government at all levels controls 45% of health care in the United States. Medicaid expansion will further increase the government share of health care control.

Simplistic Economics on the Minimum Wage

President Obama has called for an increase in the Minimum Wage,making the claim that it would be good for business because those receiving the higher wage would have more to spend. Higher demand would lead to increased consumption. That boon is easy to see, but serious policy makers must also consider the less visible consequences.

Where does the money for the raise come from?

No business has a money tree from which to pluck dollars, the raise must be accounted for either by reducing the wages of other employees or the number of employees, reducing their consumption, or raising the prices of the company’s products or services, leaving the customers with less to spend somewhere else, or from the business owner(s) pockets, reducing their consumption, or investment in their own business, or those of others through stock purchases, reducing the consumption of those businesses or their employees.

In every case, the increased consumption by minimum wage earners comes at the expense of reduced consumption by someone else. There is no net benefit to the economy.

Increased wages can bring true increases in consumption and economic growth only if they are the result of increased wealth creation by the employee.

Either the President is being guided by extremely simplistic economic theory or he is simply pandering and hoping no one will notice the fallacy. Neither option is encouraging.

The President’s advisers should point out to him that ‘pulling oneself up by his bootstraps’ is only a figure of speech.

http://tinyurl.com/oo7eptl

The Warren Buffet Lie

From the President down to the water cooler, we hear that Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. That is simply untrue.

The fallacious statement is based on the assumption that his secretary pays about 25% of her income in FICA and income taxes while Buffet pays a 15% rate on capital gains and qualified dividends. It sounds terribly unfair, but it ignores the double taxation of investment income.

The Virginia Constitution Forbids Charity By Force

I know this notion ruffles the feathers of our state senators for Fairfax, but the rules are very clear. Ken Cuccinelli’s “opinion” was not earth-shattering or “irrelevant.” He simply quoted Article II section 16 of our Constitution. The General Assembly obeyed this section all the way up until 2006 (debunking our wonderful state senators’ claim that we have always done this) which prompted delegates to ask the Attorney General for a ruling on the matter. He sided with the Virginia Constitution and there are good reasons for him doing so.

In 2008, former national LP chairman Bill Redpath and Virginian came to speak to the Tidewater Libertarian Party. He was running for US Senate at the time and he said something that really stuck with me:

“We won’t begin to address the fundamental problem of government overspending until the American People position government as an agent for justice, not an agent for good, as there is an infinite amount of good to be done in this world”

Guest Editorial on Eminent Domain Abuse

The Virginian Pilot ran my most recent guest editorial today on Eminent Domain Abuse.

The case referred to in the article, the ODU University Village land grab comes to court in January.

Links to 0ther Pilot Guest Editorials by Don Tabor