No Wasted Votes

This year we have an excellent Libertarian Party Presidential candidate, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, but realistically, he is not going to carry Virginia. Worse, Virginia is a battleground state this year, and a significant vote for Johnson could well swing the state, and the Presidency, to Barack Obama.

Still, it is very important that Gary Johnson gets a good share of the vote nationwide if we are to make progress toward the day when we will be competitive. So, what is a Libertarian to do?

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”

Political Super Fans

When I meet people, I like to ask the about their political beliefs without sharing mine. I probe their convictions with questions to try to understand their point of view. I have found talking to most people about politics is like talking to Bill Swerkski about sports. Of course Jordan is going to average 100 points per game and Da’ Bears are going to 8-peat as Super Bowl Champs. Who would win in a battle between a hurricane and Coach Ditka?? Ditka! No amount of evidence will make him consider otherwise. Individuals root for their team which can do no wrong and that they will support with their dying breath.

Look at all the Redskin fans here in Virginia or all the Raider fans in my native Northern California. It doesn’t matter what idiotic moves their front offices make, you’ll just hold out hope that a new coach or touted draft pick will turn around an otherwise bad and underperforming team. Support will not waiver. Works the same for the Republican and Democratic parties. At least with elected officials (unlike Dan Snyder and Al Davis), you get a chance to fire them, which may feel good but has done nothing to improve the team. They are replaced with a clone.

Health Care, Time to Choose

Liberty or socialism? Choose one.

If we choose to nationalize our health care, we have taken the fork in the road that leads inevitably to socialism, make no mistake in that. This post is intended to serve as a ‘Table of Contents’ for four previous articles on Health Care, which, because of the nature of Blogs and their being written over a period of about a month,have become scattered in the blog and appear out of their logical order.

This series is by far, the most timely I have written.

Obama’s Soak the Poor Tax

Though it is masked as a measure to save the Earth from Anthropogenic  Global Warming (which is equivalent to saving the Earth from equally non-existent Martians) President Obama’s largest tax increase, his Carbon Cap-and-Trade Tax is aimed squarely at those who can least afford it.  But what else should we expect from an administration which subordinates economics to ideology on every single issue? So, how did the President set out to tax the poor, and middle class, to destruction? By placing a huge tax on those nasty coal and oil companies.

OK, the Trial is Over, What are we going to do about it?

Not about Ryan Frederick’s fate, that is his attorney’s job, but this trial has left us all at far greater risk than before.

Instead of learning form the experience, the police, if their FOP leadership is typical, feel vindicated in their dangerous tactics. The precedent established by this jury’s verdict will not likely be limited to those who are involved with drugs, so everyone will be inhibited in their willingness to aggressively defend their homes. Criminals engaged in home invasions will be emboldened by the knowledge that those upon whom they prey will have to consider the risk of prosecution if they do not allow criminals to enter their homes before resisting.  So, what do we do to set things right?

Candy Coated Hate

Am I the only one who has noticed that racists are trying to find new ways to disguise their hate? I’m speaking, of course, of the tendency of your typical white racist to substitute “Muslim” for “Black.” If you give these people half a second, they reveal themselves to be nothing more than your garden variety racist with their nonsensical statements.

Here’s a clue.

Barack Obama is Christian. If you disagree with his pastor for things he said, I agree. If you think that Obama got a pass on his associations with those preaching hate because of his skin color, I think that your assessment is disturbingly accurate… his race has been used to stifle debate.

If, however, you start ranting about how he’s evil and how he’s just “one of those Muslims”, I’m going to call you out. Hell, man… why don’t you just say what you really mean? You know… “I ain’t voting for one of those ‘N-words’!”

That’s what you really mean, isn’t it?

Should Congress get the Pink-Slip?

Last night I was talking politics with my pops. He, like most people is very frustrated with the direction of the country. He is fed up with the business as usual politics of Washington and is fed up with both major political parties.

 

Can you blame him? I certainly don’t.

 

Dispelling Libertarian Myths, Part II

This goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway. These are my views. They do not represent libertarians as a whole.

In this second installment of the Libertarian Myths arc, I’d like to address some of the “problems” people see with libertarian philosophy. There are as many different intepretations of libertarianism as there are libertarians, but when we boil libertarians down to their base elements we should be able to agree on at least a few points. Namely:

1) Libertarians believe that government should stay out of the private lives of its citizens. Government ought to be small and ought to fill certain specific roles, as defined by that individual’s philosophy. I believe that the federal government should be performing the functions outlined in the Constitution, with other duties the responsibility of the states (and further defined by each state’s Constitution). While there are libertarians who are both “purer” (they do want to limit power beyond the limitations in the Constitution) and those who operate in greater shades of grey (they want to add some implied powers in with the explicit powers), the constant is that all libertarians believe in individual freedom over governmental control.

Dispelling Libertarian Myths, Part I

This goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway. These are my views. They do not represent libertarians as a whole.

One of the common arguments against libertarianism I hear is that the libertarian philosophy is a philosophy that “tosses the poor into the street”, and that by advocating a libertarian philosophy, I’m advocating “social darwinism.” While I can see where someone might get that impression, it’s just not true.

What one must understand, here, is that a libertarian (or rather, this libertarian, as I hardly speak for everyone) isn’t saying that all charity should stop. The average libertarian is saying that government should not be in the business of charity because the government isn’t particularly good at it, but more importantly, because the Constitution does not grant the federal government the right to redistribute the wealth of its citizens for charitable purposes. We don’t want to let someone freeze to death any more than you do… we just believe that WE should be the ones to choose where to spend that money. We’re not particularly keen on programs that seem to reward those who simply do not try at the expense of those who are victims of circumstance. When we choose where to spend our money, we can avoid giving to organizations that waste money on the small minority of leeches.