Why North Carolina Libertarians are making a dent in the Demopublican monopoly: candidates like Brian Irving

Brian Irving, a 25-year USAF veteran, former United Way communications director and Fayetteville City Planning Commissioner, is the Communications Director for the Libertarian Party of North Carolina and candidate for State Senate in District 17 (Wake County).

Here's the kind of position that makes Tarheel Libertarians like Irving an up-and-coming force in State politics:

North Carolina legislators succumbed to their addiction again by passing the 2008 budget with increased spending, funding for more boondoggles to buy votes for selected legislators, and increased debt for taxpayers.

Libertarians would offer the people a real economic stimulus package by the simple expedient of letting you keep more of your money. My fellow Libertarian legislative candidates and I would never vote for such spending.

↓↓↓No $857 billion more debt

Legislators are afraid to let taxpayers vote on bonds, so they increased debt through “certificates of participation,” which do not require voter approval. This scheme should be called “certificates of non-participation” because only legislators, lobbyists and special interests groups can participate

↓↓↓ No $90 million for ABC bonuses

A classic example of Catch 22: The State sells alcohol to the people, then arrests them for DUIs. The State shouldn’t be selling booze to begin with.

↓↓↓ No $30 million for ‘More at Four’

Despite the fact that this State-run pre-kindergarten program has never been evaluated and is barely monitored, it now costs $170 million a year.

↓↓↓ No $9.4 million for NC Health Choice

This is another State-run insurance program for low-income children. Another feel good program. Why not just give the parents of these kids the money directly, or better yet, let them keep more of the paycheck.

↓↓↓ No Corporate & Non-profit Welfare

The legislature approved several expenditures to improve the “quality of life” — especially for oysters, polar bears and horses — not taxpayers.

$12.9 million in non-voter approved debt for a Film School Production Design Facility at the NC School of the Arts

$4.3 million in non-voter approved debt for a “Research Oyster Hatchery”

$2.7 million in non-voter approved debt for the NC Zoo Polar Bear Exhibit renovation and expansion.

$2 million for an “Oyster Sanctuary Program”

$900,000 for the Hunt Horse Complex in Raleigh

$600,000 in planning funds for the African Pavilion at the NC Zoo.

$500,000 for “Green Industries Education and Promotion”

$500,000 for promoting the CIAA Basketball tournament in Charlotte

$450,000 increase funding for the North Carolina Symphony

The seat is currently held by Republican Richard Stevens, who not only signed off on the aforementioned budget deal, but--interestingly enough--does not even appear to have set up a website for his re-election campaign. Probably doesn't think it's necessary: he won his seat with 62% in 2002, 58.74% in 2004, and in 2006 did not have an opponent.

Go get him, Brian.

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

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