New Public Policy Poll substantiates Libertarian impact in North Carolina

Public Policy Polling continues to find Libertarian Candidate Michael Munger garnering a solid 6% in the North Carolina governor's race.

This Libertarian factor is becoming critical, because Democrat Bev Perdue has now opened a 9 point lead over Republican Pat McCrory, and Munger is capturing a full 8% of the GOPer vote, and he's also polling higher among African-Americans than McCrory [8% to 7%].

Munger's numbers are probably actually being deflated in this poll. Reason? He scores substantially higher among men than women (9%-4%), and the poll numbers are significantly biased toward women (54%-46%); this suggests that Dr Mike might do a couple percentage points better in the general election.

(Besides, when NC voters really get the chance to see Munger in the October 15 debate, I'll bet his numbers among women go up. He presents well on issues that matter.)

What's even more interesting is that this poll shows Munger's running mate for Lieutenant Governor, Philip Rhodes, is also pulling 6%, but that Rhodes is attracting different voters than Munger.

Munger's voters, as mentioned above, are primarily male (9%), Republican (8%), and age 30-45 (11%).

Rhodes' voters are primarily female (7%), Democrat (7%), and age 18-29 (10%).

I'm not sure, in practical terms, precisely what this means, or why it's happening. Theoretically, it could be a survey artifact, but it doesn't feel like one. It feels like Munger and Rhodes--both Libertarians--are somehow appealing to two different but overlapping constituencies. This defies a lot of thinking about the nature of Libertarian voters.

One final note for Munger, Rhodes, and other Libertarian candidates. Dr Mike is running most strongly among voters concerned with immigration (12%) and education (11%). The problem is that in this poll only 6% of the voters selected either of these categories as their most important issue in Statewide races. Not surprisingly--given the real estate bust and rising energy prices--47% of the voters polled chose Economy and Jobs as their number one priority. Only 6% of those people are supporting a Libertarian.

To break through, then, my proposition is that Munger and Rhodes have to start hitting economy, energy policy, and jobs much harder. I know that Mike's positions on all those issues are both sound and salable, but obviously the voters don't know that.

Time to let them know.

Hands-free cell phones and fact-free science

I love the way that Nanny State legislation works.

Here's the story from AOL Auto about the increasing number of states enacting "hands-free only" cell phone laws for drivers:

Law enforcement officials in six states can now give you a ticket for talking on your cell phone while driving, so that hands-free device you should be using for your cell phone is going to become your best friend. If you don't have one then you should ask yourself why and get to the store to buy one. Some important information on why and what to look for is below. The reason you may need to start wearing that dorky Bluetooth-integrated ear piece is actually quite startling and sobering. Distracted drivers cause 80 percent of all road accidents, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. In fact, a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California shows hands-free laws have the potential of saving 300 lives in California each year and perhaps thousands if similar laws were enacted in all states.

"I wouldn't be surprised if more states enact laws much like California's new law," said Elliot Darvick , Celebrity Car Parade editor for MyRide.com, whose recent survey results show 70 percent of people agree that driving and cell phones don't mix. However, only 23 percent of respondents say they refrain from talking or texting when driving.

To date, six states have enacted statewide hands-free laws and 20 states have active hands-free law legislation on the books.

"I certainly don't want to see people on the road texting or talking," Darvick said. "I'd rather they have their hands on the wheel."

Now this sounds all well and good: distracted drivers cause accidents and "hands free" save lives, right?

Until you actually go look at the studies....

The Insurance Information Institute is an industry lobbying group that has every interest in having hands-free laws passed. Why? Because if you can be cited for that and later you get in an accident, chances are your insurance company can find a loophole to bail on you. Point being: the III is interested in citing research that backs up hands-free laws, so you can consider them a hostile witness.

So let's look at what they say.

That Public Policy Institute of California survey predicted that 300 lives could be saved, but "researchers concluded that the ban will reduce traffic deaths by about 300 a year, but only in adverse conditions, such as on wet or icy roads."

Oops, that's just a tad different than what the AOL article says, isn't it?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study in 2007 found that hand-held cell phone usage while driving is decreasing in statistically significant terms, even in places that don't have hands-free laws. Imagine that.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance conducted a dangerous driver survey that found that 73% of people talk on their cell phones while driving, but did not correlate this with any increased chance of accidents.

Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) conducted a study of teen drivers that found teens reporting cell phones as their number-one distraction, but again did not report any causal or correlational data to accidents.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Australia did report a correlation between cell-phone use and accidents, one of the few studies to actually do so. But it's embarrassing for a different reason: "The results, published in July 2005, suggest that banning hand-held phone use will not necessarily improve safety if drivers simply switch to hand-free phones. The study found that injury crash risk didn't vary with type of phone."

Oops, changing over to hands-free doesn't make you safer? Wonder why AOL Auto didn't talk about that one?

In fact, almost as an afterthought, III reports that multiple studies have challenged the idea that hands-free cell phones are any safer than hand-held.

The 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study, conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) focused on driver distraction before accidents, discovering that "the most common distraction is the use of cellphones, followed by drowsiness," but also that " cellphone use is far less likely to be the cause of a crash or near-miss than other distractions, according to the study. For example, while reaching for a moving object such as a falling cup increased the risk of a crash or near-crash by nine times, talking or listening on a hand-held cellphone only increased the risk by 1.3 times.".

Funny, badly designed cup-holders come in almost every car I've ever owned, but even New Jersey doesn't plan (that I know of) to ban Big Gulping While Driving.

This is followed on the site by this: "These findings confirm an August 2003 report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that concluded that drivers are far less distracted by their cellphones than by other common activities, such as reaching for items on the seat or glove compartment or talking to passengers."

The question would be, then, where's all the data that (a) hand-held cell-phone usage is so dangerous, and that (b) hands-free cell-phone usage is any safer?

Oh. It's not there. Right.

I'm sure everybody has both (a) an opinion on the necessity for such laws, and (b) at least one anecdote regarding stupid drivers texting while driving. Or shaving while driving. Or reading the newspaper. Or putting on make-up. Or getting blow jobs.

There's a law in virtually every State right now that covers this: it's called inattentive driving.

So here's the deal: go ahead and push for all the Nanny State laws you want, but please don't try to make the case that you're basing public policy on science.

Because I hate it when you lie to me.

When Reagan said, "Starve the Beast" he meant the government; Los Angeles means its own (poor) citizens

From the AP (with h/t Thoughts on Freedom)

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a low-income area of the city.

The moratorium unanimously approved Tuesday is a bid to attract restaurants that offer healthier food choices to residents in a 32-square-mile area of South Los Angeles.

Councilwoman Jan Perry says residents at five public meetings expressed concern with the proliferation of fast-food outlets in the community plagued by above-average rates of obesity.

Nearly three-quarters of the restaurants in South L.A. are fast-food outlets. That's a higher percentage than other parts of the city but the restaurant industry says the moratorium won't help bring in alternatives.

So we will refuse to allow people to have access to restaurants that apparently provide the food people want to eat and can afford because Councilwoman Perry wants them to blow a month's wages at Ruth's Chris Steak House (assuming someone is stupid enough to open one in the middle of a neighborhood where the residents can't afford the appetizer salads).

Apparently eliminating trans-fats and forcing restaurants to post calorie counts didn't satisfy Nanny.

This is Statism in its most naked form: those ignorant (did I say, fat) poor people can't resist pigging out on Big Macs, so we'll force them to eat salads.

Being careful not to take kavips out of context (at 10, 2, or 4)

WARNING: long wonkish post alert. Skip this one if you're expecting concise, pithy, political news.

kavips latest post on the salmonella scare is not only thoughtful and informative about the issue itself, but it contains what I might call a meta-message.

Far too often we end up in these kinds of discussions stuck between two poles of opposition: the Statist view that everything could be solved if only the FDA has more money, more inspectors, and more authority; and the Libertarian view that if we just leave them alone market forces will solve everything.

There usually isn't even a continuum: you're at one end or the other.

Which is why it is so refreshing (in a Dr. Pepper sense, natch) to read this piece.

kavips is a progressive, and kavips believes in the need for the public sector to have oversight of critical infrastructure items like our food supply.

On the other hand, kavips is also intellectually honest, and admits that the evidence suggests with respect to food traceability that the private sector is the one leading the way:

When asked what problems this outbreak illuminated for the Produce Marketing Associations, Bryan Silberman of Newark, Delaware said that the tight grasp on information being held tight to its chest by the FDA, made assisting in the investigation difficult....

So what is needed? Dr. Acheson of the FDA, laid it out specifically: more money to inspect. more money to train. Often the field investigators showing up at farms, came from other FDA departments such as pharmaceuticals. These people hadn’t a clue of what to search out, and had to call there on the spot, their department head in order to get the right questions needed to ask the farmers…

One trend currently occurring is that as American companies go to Mexico, they are taking their best practices with them and insisting that their practices be enforced within that local market…

Whereas private industry has stepped up with innovation, the weakest link in our defense against pathogens on produce, is the underfunded FDA which is struggling under the Bush cuts.

The industry’s current estimate is that more than 50% of produce companies have their data on electronic records… Mandatory tracing is something that the entire industry could reasonably adjust to. Tracing was not the problem. Within hours or days we can trace right up to a single farm. But at what cost? That is the limitation. Agencies, federal and state, with no funds cannot send agents out into the field. So far no proposed legislation has been proposed

Florida growers informally and voluntary adopted a tomato model of tracing distribution which will be implemented by the agriculture department of Florida and may perhaps be used nationwide someday…

Notice that in this presentation both the growers and the bureaucrats are presented as being genuinely interested in reaching a workable solution to the problem of putting healthy food on the tables of American citizens. Aside from the fact that the growers stand to lose (or go out of) business if their products are not trusted, I have this silly thesis that people who grow food don't get into that business to poison their customers.

This raises two important issues for thoughtful people at all points on what used to be a continuum of interest:

1) Recently most of our news coverage and political punditry around industry/consumer/government issues--especially in terms of issues that involved questions of safety, regulation, and testing, have been presented in diametrically oppositional terms. That's in part because of the nature of the industries which have been subjects of the debate: tobacco and oil, especially. It's easy (and sometimes even justified) to create the mental label BIG TOBACCO or BIG OIL to use in those sorts of discussions. But it's not very helpful, because it fosters a common misconception that large industrial, manufacturing, or agricultural sectors of the economy have a decided interest in producing inferior products or harming their own customers. In reality, it's not in the interest of growers to do things that make people distrust food, it's not in the interests of auto makers to produce unsafe vehicles, and it's not in the interest of pharmaceutical companies to market unsafe medications.

In fact, big food voluntarily pours millions into its own inspection processes, big auto spends millions of producing safety innovations, and big pharma spends millions on medical research...

Yet all of these bad things do happen (remember the Ford Pinto's gas tank and Vioxx?). Why? Because while market forces and the profit motive will resolve most of these problems in the long run, that short run can involve lots of death and other harm. Leading me to....

2) The primary difference between industry self-monitoring and government regulation is (no, strike that, should be) the time frame of response. Industry self-monitoring, driven by market forces, is generally an excellent, cost-effective vehicle for dealing with long-term trends and establishing routine systems of accountability. But the market does not turn on a dime, and the market does not react to anomalous emergencies. There has to be a third party organization capable of reacting quickly to short-term emergency scenarios. And--much as I viscerally hate to admit it--there are times when somebody has to have the legal authority to shut things down in the short term, without argument and without respect to market forces.

This observation, kavips, is not going to win me any points from other Libertarians. But you have come a long way out of the normal progressive mindset, so in good faith it's important to meet for a real discussion.

Ideally, from a Libertarian perspective, such interventions might, in a future world, be handled by private foundations that are independent of the government. But there currently exists no road to get there from here, and the world of the past in which governments played no role in (to be situationally specific to our topic) agricultural product quality control is an imaginary past created for ideological purposes

I encourage anyone who disagrees with that statement to read and digest Fernand Braudel's three-volume Civilization and Capitalism, wherein you will find that at least since medieval times city, regional, and State governments have always been involved in monitoring and regulating the quality of food supplies.

But what Braudel reveals (possibly without realizing it--he's dead, so I can't ask him) is that governments had fewer powers to use in that regulating, and the systems that evolved were--in the modern political sense--hybrid, dynamic systems that involved balancing the roles of the State and the Market against each other. Neither entity had the ability to dominate the system.

This is not true today. Over the past two centuries the power of government has dramatically expanded, and while the wealth of corporations has also ballooned, it is indicative of a changed balance that corporations must work through influence (either above or below the table) because if mobilized they cannot withstand the regulatory power of government.

This has led (in a highly condensed, simplistic sentence) to the development of an "either/or" ideological breakdown: either government regulates everything (Statism) or government regulates nothing (Libertarianism). Approaches that might be considered "in the middle," like so-called managed capitalism or China's experiment with limited economic freedom in an authoritarian state have not been exceptionally successful because both are still solutions being imposed by a government that lacks many serious limitations to its regulatory powers.

The Framers of the US Constitution did a bang-up job in the late 18th Century of erecting limits around government while still trying to give it sufficient power to balance against the market. But over the past two centuries, as the times and the technologies have changed, we have little by little eroded those limits in response to specific situations. Then those specific erosions have become precedents, and we have depended upon them rather than having new conversations about the powers and limitations of government.

This is critical. Far too many of our discussions about the powers of government or the role of market forces are conducted not with an overall view of the nation, but with respect to specific crises or specific industries. Those debates tend to become highly politicized, and less rational the longer they continue.

That's why the nuanced understanding of kavips' original post (see, you thought I'd rambled off and forgotten it, didn't you?) made me happy. Finally, here's a liberal progressive willing to discuss the joint responsibilities of State and Market, and to report as objectively as possible what each is doing well and poorly.

It's not an end in itself, but it could be the beginning (at least here in Delaware, where we all know each other) of a mutually profitable discussion.

Conserve gasoline so that we can tax you more? Makes perfect sense if you are a Statist

According to the Wall Street Journal, for the second straight month the number of miles driven by Americans has declined in the face of high gas prices: 1.8% in April, 3.7% in May. That's 5.5% in two months, nationwide--in the East the cutback has actually been higher [see map]. (I believe that's also called the impact of market forces.)



If you read or listen to automotive ads, they're trying to give the damn things away now. I just saw a VW Beetle on a car lot on Kirkwood Highway with a sticker in the window offering no money down and 2.9% financing for 72 months. That's six years, right?

What this all means to the government, however, is less tax money for highway maintenance and mass-transit projects:

"We were losing ground to these incredible increases in construction costs, but then to see the erosion in driving -- it's a double whammy," said John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. On top of the federal gasoline tax, currently 18.4 cents a gallon, the states charge their own gasoline taxes, which are typically slightly above the federal rate.

Obviously, this will lead to the government scrambling to find any number of revenue enhancements in order to repave roads, repair bridges, and construct new light rail systems (when the only functioning passenger rail system in the country can only survive through massive taxpayer subsidies).

Or, as in North Carolina [reported by Big Bend Bikers for Freedom], the government could take it out on mo-ped riders.

A lot of people are suddenly ditching their cars in favor of gas-sipping mopeds. There goes car registration money, vehicle transfer taxes, gas tax revenues.... What to do, what to do?

What to do is to manufacture BS fears that untrained mo-ped riders are a potential safety hazard on the roads, so that then you can justify passing legislation that forces them to take a $130 training class.

See, here's the problem: the so-called public sector is not an honest broker--and this is not something that can be blamed on Dubya.

For decades a variety of government policies have been put into place that both passively and actively encouraged Americans to consume more and more fuel. Then the same government based highway and bridge-building decisions on models of fuel consumption (and therefore tax revenues) that would keep expanding forever.

In the process they've let the nation's transportation infrastructure decay to an alarming point:

About 25% of bridges in the U.S. are either "functionally obsolete" or "structurally deficient," like the Mississippi River bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis last August, killing 13 people.

Moreover, the pavement is rated "not acceptable" on one of every seven miles of the nation's roads, according to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, whose job is to assess infrastructure problems and recommend fixes.

Overall, the commission estimated, $225 billion a year is needed to meet the country's transportation infrastructure needs. Current spending is about 40% of that level.

Curious question that I don't see answered anywhere: There are a small but statistically significant number of toll roads and bridges across the country, some owned by the government, some in a public/private partnership, and some actually owned by private enterprise. I wonder what kind of shape, comparatively speaking, are the parts of our transport infrastructure which have been paid for primarily with user fees?

You're probably not going to find that answer, either.

But in the meantime, expect any number of nanny state assertions that because you've started conserving energy it's time for you to pay more taxes.

Libertarians in Kentucky forget how to breathe?

As Lee at A Secondhand Conjecture said in a post I quoted earlier, the Libertarian Party of Kentucky's 9-0 Executive Committee decision to dump genocidal, race-baiting Sonny Landham as their Senatorial candidate was good, but hardly outstanding:

Given the psychopathic nature of Landham’s views, I feel a little like I’m congratulating them for breathing.

Obviously, a few breathing lessons are in order, as Paulie Cannoli reports for Last Free Voice:

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky will reconsider its endorsement of Senate candidate Sonny Landham Wednesday evening, just days after initially disassociating their party from his bid. This news comes after the office of Kentucky’s secretary of state announced yesterday that Landham would need 5,000 new petition signatures to secure ballot access to run as an independent.

“We’re really stuck,” said Libertarian Party chair Ken Moellman. “We don’t necessarily want to kick him off the ballot.”

Granted, ballot access rules for third parties in Kentucky are grossly unfair--so what? They are everywhere.

Here's the situation made real simple for the 12 members of the LP Executive Committee in the Bluegrass State:

You screwed up by letting a real nutball on the ticket in the first place. The man is Lyndon Larouche mixed with David Duke.

The damage that one Sonny Landham can do will undo all the advances made by serious, thoughtful LP candidates in North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Michigan.... The list goes on.

It's time to take one for the team.

Eric Schansberg proves again why Libertarians aren't Republicans (or Democrats)

Headlined from the Libertarian Party of Indiana [with h/t to Last Free Voice]:

Schansberg congratulates President Bush and Democratic Congress on world-record budget deficit

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- Just in time for the Olympics, the White House has predicted a $482 billion deficit for 2009—which if successful, would allow the President and the Democratic Congress to set a new world record. A $482 billion deficit would smash the current record of $413 billion in 2004.

The 2009 deficit will extend the current national debt to more than $10 trillion. On top of that, unfunded liabilities—most notably, for Social Security and Medicare—add tens of trillions of dollars in debt.

Dr. Eric Schansberg, a professor of Economics and the Libertarian candidate for the 9th Congressional District in Indiana, noted that current debt necessarily leads to higher future taxes. And Schansberg pointed to massive increases in spending as the cause: "Tax revenues, as a percentage of GDP, are well within historical ranges. But spending has increased dramatically. With hundreds of billions of dollars for a housing bail-out, a banking bail-out, the 'macro stimulus package', the farm bill, our on-going efforts in Iraq, and so on—after awhile it adds up to real money."

Schansberg pointed to the subtle costs of the profligate spending: "The dollar has depreciated about 40% since 2002. This leads to a host of problems—most notably, higher costs of imported oil and thus, gas prices. If the dollar was as strong as it was in 2002, we'd be paying less than $3 per gallon—and there'd be very little discussion about gas prices right now."

In terms of his campaign, Schansberg observed that he is the only fiscal conservative in the race: "If you look at the data from NTU, CAGW and Club for Growth, it is obvious that Sodrel is a fiscal moderate and Hill's claim to be a fiscal conservative is laughable. If we're going to restore fiscal sanity in the federal government, we need to send principled, fiscal conservatives to Washington DC."

Note: Sodrel and Hill are Schansberg's Demopublican opponents. One is the incumbent and the other used to be in Congress. I forget which one. Does it matter?

Maybe, Eric, we just need to send a real economist to Congress.

Just another one of those wild Libertarian ideas.

The howl of the Coyote and other Libertarian thoughts...

Liberalgeek and I have been continuing to discuss his formulation (originally posited impromptu in a thread on gun control):

I am in favor of sensible restrictions on things that can be easily misused.

And because I am trying to move the discussion forward rather than lampoon his position, let's also include this comment:

Indeed, I see your point. As a geek and a liberal, I abhor the whole library censorship thing. I think that often they are inspired by people that don't understand the fact that information is like water in a basement. It will find a way to get out there. This applies to predators, bomb-making and sexual perversions. You cannot stop.

I can see your point fully. My quote was, I believe, regarding putting restrictions on guns. There are certainly parallels and I have not thought about it in that way before. I will consider this and get back to you if I can formulate a counter. I am pretty well stumped. For example, I suspect that shoulder-launched SAM's should not be available for purchase, but I cannot necessarily make an analogy to Internet access.

So I found this on Coyote Blog, which seems germane (although I'm working on explaining exactly how):

Everyone is a libertarian when it comes to his or her own choices:

My speech should be legal (though those other guys are over the line)

My choices, diet, lifestyle should be legal (though those other guys need to be protected from themselves)

My personal interactions are fine (but those other guys are all racists, threats to children, indecent, etc)

My business is great (but those other guys are all evil exploiters)

The hard part about defending freedom is not defending it for oneself. The hard part is defending other people's right to be free.

Apropos of something, even if ... I'm not sure ... exactly what.

This is why the Sonny Landram affair matters to Libertarians nationwide...

A Secondhand Conjecture is not a Libertarian blog, although it certainly displays some pretty consistent libertarian leanings.

As I read this post analyzing the Sonny Landham flap and the Libertarian Party of Kentucky, I think Lee hits it right on the money:

Looks like the Libertarian Party of Kentucky has dumped Sonny Landham, previously their clinically insane pick for US Senate. Good for them. Even if given the psychopathic nature of Landham’s views, I feel a little like I’m congratulating them for breathing.

While the Obama campaign might like to think that the LP could pose a serious threat to John McCain in Georgia, the Landham misadventure only reminds me yet again of the extraordinary amateurishness that seems to characterize almost all Libertarian Party political campaigns. There’s simply no excuse for failing to properly vet a candidate you intend to challenge for the seat held by the Senate Minority Leader.

As a former Hollywood actor and convicted criminal, it wouldn’t have been particularly difficult to uncover Landham’s violent imagination or deplorable associations with rightwing hate groups. A simple YouTube and Google search might have sufficed in fact.

I recently quoted a representative of the Libertarian Party of Texas noting that we need fewer paper candidates, and more people out there actually campaigning. True. But we also have to stop feeling so needy that we open our arms to accept people who are not only not Libertarians, but whose calls for bombing other countries over trade issues make us look like total losers.

Keeping Rachel Hoffman's memory alive ... because it matters

I blogged about Rachel's story back in May, recounting the shameful story of how Tallahassee police blackmailed a college student caught for marijuana possession into serving as a confidential informant, and then let her get killed through negligence and apathy.

Over at Delaware Curmudgeon, Shirley has the update, provided courtesy of RC at Big Bend Bikers for Freedom.

RC is now leading a full-court press to force the Tallahassee Chief of Police to resign over the incident. His coverage is awesome.
Read it; and send a message.

Becky, the Girl in Short Shorts, also places Rachel on the continuum of other American citizens who have gotten killed due to police involvement in the drug war. Her final dry comment is pointed:

But Gee Whiz, you have to expect a little collateral damage now and then.

After all, there is a drug war going on, and it's worth it to rid the nation of the scourge of marijuana.

ABC's 20/20 has even done a piece on Rachel.

[And I can't forget that I first picked up her story from Drug War Rant.]

I have one question: when are YOU [yeah, you, reading this] going to decide finally that getting some American citizens killed and ruining the lives of countless others with prison is NOT an acceptable price to pay for ridding the nation of the scourge of Reefer Madness.

When the hell are YOU going to demand candidates who will take a stand against it?

Allen Buckley explains gravity (I think)

In what has to be one of my nominations for least comprehensible news story title of all time, the Duluth [GA] Weekly puts up Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Buckley explains gravity on deficits report in light of baby boom entitlements.

I'd say, "What the F?" here, because i think that's the point: the word "on" was probably supposed to have been the word "of."

Anyway, after going through all the debt and deficit numbers in the new budget [which I would cite but they would only start your day off badly], this appears:

All of these debts are being incurred just before the massive baby boomer entitlements start. The first batch of baby boomers-those born in 1946-will be eligible for Medicare in 2011. Each year thereafter, a new batch is added.

Allen Buckley, a CPA and attorney, and the Libertarian Party’s candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, said the following regarding the situation: “As stated by the GAO on many occasions, we are on an imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path. I’m the only candidate in the U.S. Senate race in Georgia who will address these problems, and propose workable solutions to the problems. I ask the media to help me notify the public of these facts.”

Mr. Buckley’s website is www.buckleyforsenate.com . He can be reached for comment at (404) 962-1042.

Every little bit of publicity helps--even when you're explaining gravity.

Why we're all taking the wrong approach to climate change...

... and also why you should elect me king of the world because I think of this stuff.

The answer is because none of the models take into account either technological change or massive intentional human impact on the environment. [Yes, you read that correctly.]

Point one: technology

I recall watching the old Walter Cronkite specials on the future way back in the late 1960s. We were going to have household robots and you would get in your car, turn it over to the traffic control system, and doze your way to the Beach. Well, half the drivers on the road each weekend appear to be dozing their way to the Beach, but none of that ever happened.

Why?

Robotics in the Star Trek android/Terminator sense has so far turned out to be a dead end. And neither dear old Wally or his advisors even sensed the oncoming information revolution.

Rapid technological change (especially knowing which technologies will actually be feasible on a large scale) is essentially unpredictable.

Let's consider three examples from this week's news.

I posted the other day an update on India's Tata Nano. All the environmentalists are giving Mr. Tata crap for developing a cheap car that will enable millions of Indians to get off those damn motor scooters, and thus potentially screw up all the carbon emission forecasts. Except that Mr. Tata is apparently going to have the last laugh, as industry insiders report he will soon announce a Tata Nano fueled by the world's first compressed-air engine that generates little or no pollution.

So technology has potentially allowed Tata Motors to reduce carbon emissions in India by selling more cars, because the compressed-air engine will actually produce less pollution than the gasoline-powered motor scooters in use today.

Example two: from this week's issue of Discover, concerning ultra-capacitors:

Capacitors have the handy ability to store and release electrical energy very quickly—much more quickly than the batteries and fuel cells already being used in electric and hybrid-electric cars. Unfortunately, typical capacitors have been able to store only tiny amounts of charge, making them useless for driving the power-hungry engines these cars use. Not so ultracapacitors. While they still can’t store as much total energy as a fuel cell or a battery, ultracapacitors—also known as electrochemical capacitors—can supply the burst of energy needed to accelerate up a hill or around another car on the highway. They can also soak up energy that would otherwise be lost during braking, storing it for later use.

Such ultra-capacitors are now being field-tested; Toyota and Honda are looking closely.

Acceleration has always been an issue in hybrid or all-electric cars. Potentially the solution is closer than we think.

Example three; from the New Scientist regarding graphene:

The carbon supermaterial graphene is already known for its exotic electronic properties. Now two studies suggest that the material is also one of the strongest, most elastic and stiffest materials known to science.

Graphene crystals are atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms connected together in hexagons, like chicken wire.

Graphene flakes are produced every time we put pencil to paper – the graphite in pencils is simply a 3D structure comprising multiple stacked layers of graphene. And yet graphene was only isolated for the first time in 2004.

In the graphene "gold rush" since then, scientists have scrambled to uncover the material's properties and discover potential applications. The large surface-to-volume ratio and high conductivity already suggest uses in ultra-small electronics.

But researchers are also looking at bringing graphene out of the microscopic world:

"We are limited only by the size of graphene flakes available," says Booth. "There is no reason that the method will not scale up to much larger flakes."...

Graphene could be added to polymers to form super-strength composites, Booth says.

One of the most significant problems with automobiles is controlling weight (more pounds equal more energy necessary to move them). Suppose that with compressed-air engines, ultra-capacitors, and super-strong graphene we could build pollution-free automobiles that were light as a feather but safe in collisions while using very little energy....

And this is only one facet of the technological explosion occurring right now.

Point two: intentional massive human impact on the environment.

So far what we hear about in the media has to do with averting climate change, or reducing our carbon footprint (I personally like to leave carbon footprints on the ceiling to amaze my guests), but the reality is that we're very near to being able to intervene in the environment in a BIG way.

Again, back to Discover, looking at the sidebar to an article on ocean acidification and its threats, Three Bold Plans to Save the Seas:

1 One proposal, first suggested in the late 1980s by oceanographer John Martin of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in California, involves seeding ocean surfaces with iron to promote phytoplankton blooms that will soak up carbon dioxide, eventually exporting it into the deep ocean. The plan has the added theoretical benefit of reducing atmospheric carbon....

2 A second tactic under consideration at places like the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the University of California at Santa Cruz is to neutralize the seas—possibly with limestone from, say, the White Cliffs of Dover....

3 Last year a team of scientists led by Kurt Zenz House, a doctoral candidate at Harvard University, proposed something they call engineered weathering, inspired by a natural process in which slightly acidic freshwater is neutralized by exposure to alkalizing minerals. Under House’s proposal, hydrochloric acid would be harvested from the ocean by a specialized electrochemical treatment and then exposed to silicates, resulting in a net alkalizing shift....

There are, of course, technological drawbacks to all of these plans. And then there is the difficulty of funding them or achieving international consensus to pursue one or more of them.

But they are all inherently feasible with existing technology, and they represent only the smallest sample of scientists THINKING BIG.

Thinking small will get us lives that are, ultimately, nasty, brutish and short (with no apologies to Thomas Hobbes--he's dead and it has long since been in the public domain).

Thinking big will leave us scrambling to deal with the new consequences of our own actions.

But that, combined with the potentials of rapidly changing technology, suggests to me that we are mostly being far too passive about the potential for dealing with climate change.

Humanity has always succeeded best not when it adapts to given circumstances, but when it is the adapting agent.

Jason Gatties, won't you puh-leez come to Delaware and be a university trustee here?

For reasons both personal and professional that I won't (can't) detail, this letter to the editor (published by the Niles Michigan Daily Star) by Jason Gatties, the Libertarian candidate for Lake Michigan College Board of Trustees makes me crave elected trustees in the First State for UD, DSU, and DelTech.

Which ain't gonna happen.

[Reading this, understand that millage refers to the LMC ability to raise taxes--ala our own public education system--to support itself via referendum]:

To the editor:

As both a candidate for Lake Michigan College Board of Trustees and concerned taxpayer, I urge your readers to once again reject LMC's millage proposal that will appear on the ballot this November. The Board of Trustees may try to justify the need by saying the millage increase will be less than $25 per year for those who own a $100,000 home. However, the Board of Trustees must stop "begging" for taxpayers money and stop "threatening" to end certain programs and start acting fiscally responsible.

Under my plan, we could avoid a millage increase by thinking "outside the box." I call for the privatization of certain non-academic services, combining departments and the elimination of non-essential administrative positions. I would also explore other ways the private sector could donate to the school without forcing another millage. We are a very charitable community, those of us who can afford to give will do so, but do not force that action upon us with another tax increase.

It is not the fault of the taxpaying public for your continued mis-management of school funding. Don't ask the public to clean up the mess you helped create.

Jason Gatties

St. Joseph

An Open Letter to Anti-Death Penalty, Prison Reform and Anti-Drug War Organizations/Advocates on behalf of Mike Munger

Two weeks ago I had the good fortune to interview Dr. Michael Munger, the Libertarian Candidate for Governor in North Carolina. My initial question to him involved the top three initial priorities for a Munger administration.

I'd like to share the first two of them with you [the other one concerned attracting jobs]:

First priority: I issue an executive order placing an immediate moratorium on capital punishment in the state. Then I commute the sentences of everyone on death row to life in prison without parole.

Third priority: I would create a study commission to check over the cases of all citizens incarcerated in NC's prisons for purely nonviolent crimes. (Embezzlement is violent, by the way, even though it is theft by stealth.) These crimes would include: possession of small amounts of any drug, prostitution, etc. And then I would take the resulting list of nonviolent offenders, after it had been checked to make sure that NO crimes of violence had been committed by anyone on the list, and commute their sentences to time served. The money saved by reducing the number of folks in the steel hotels of our state would be spent on treatment and addiction programs, and adjustment programs to try to reduce recidivism.

You (or your organization) has a demonstrated track record of favoring either (a) the elimination of the death penalty; (b) prison reform; or (c) the scaling back/eradication of the Federal war on drug-users.

My guess is that you are unaware of Dr. Munger's positions and his unique qualifications to bring these issues to the forefront in North Carolina. He is not the usual third-party candidate who can be dismissed by the major parties or the mainstream media. He is the Chair of the Political Science Department (with a joint appointment in Economics) at Duke University, a former official with the Federal Trade Commission, and the well-respected author of numerous books on economic regulation. Dr Munger led the ballot access initiative in North Carolina that secured over 108,000 signatures for the Libertarian Party, and has been invited to the October 15, 2008 gubernatorial debate with the Democratic and Republican candidates. He is currently polling between 2-6%, with the difference between Bev Perdue (D) and Pat McCrory (R) being only about 2-3%.

Polls in North Carolina show that at least 38% of the voters feel that life imprisonment would be a more just and humane sentence than death.

Your organization contacting Dr. Munger's campaign, publicizing his positions on the death penalty/prison reform/drug war, and even endorsing Dr Munger's candidacy would not only improve his chances, but would provide a vehicle for your message to reach North Carolina voters in time to have an impact on this year's governor's race.

I urge you to visit Dr Munger's campaign website, and to consider providing him with publicity and an endorsement to help him take your common fight before the public in North Carolina and across America.

Sincerely,

Steve Newton, Publisher
Delaware Libertarian

This letter has been sent (at least) to the following:

http://victimsoflaw.net/

http://realcostofprisons.org/

http://www.demaction.org/

http://www.cdpl.org/

http://deathwatch.wordpress.com/

http://www.pfadp.org/

http://www.ncmoratorium.org/site/default.asp

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/

I urge all readers of this post who support Mike Munger, and feel that the death penalty, prison reform, and the drug war are important political issues, to contact these or other organizations on his behalf.

Feel free to quote this letter in whole or in part.

Please note: I have no formal association with the Munger campaign, and have not been asked to do this. Nor has Dr Munger approved this post. (Hell, he'll be just as surprised as anybody.)

kavips always makes me think...

... and that may or may not be a good thing, depending on the day or the issue.

The latest edition of Outside the Perimeter: Fragments delves into the question of whether the Delaware blogosphere is becoming more fragmented and less cohesive than before. kavips is difficult to excerpt, because s/he develops complex arguments that defy short quotations, so go read it for yourself.

Then come back and read on.

kavips stimulates me to two responses:

1) The blogosphere is a self-organizing network that is inherently non-linear and chaotic. Translation: a bunch of people with too much time on their hands, an inflated sense that the world needs to hear their opinions, and vastly different interests have a common medium for inflicting themselves of willing victims. I suspect that cohesion (such as the DE blogosphere experienced long-term over windpower and short-term over eminent domain) is the exception rather than the rule. Too much of the rest of the time our interests don't coalesce, because (thankfully) there's nobody directing the band. I tend to look at such occasional disappearance of fragmentation as a valuable rarity; I don't expect more.

2) I think we still over-value our own importance. If you take the five political blogs in Delaware with the highest daily traffic, I suspect (and I have some preliminary research to back up the suspicion) that you would find fewer than 1,000 absolutely unique visitors reading those blogs. Some of those visitors--maybe Mascitti or Selander--are in a position to take something they read to a broader audience; most aren't. Those thousand people (not all of whom will be from Delaware, by the way), are a wide spectrum in themselves, with widely different political and social views. Some read for entertainment, others love to stir the pot. The actual activists and doers among them are a small percentage.

Until we find a way to increase blog readership in Delaware to a daily average of, say, 5-10,000 visitors, we will not see any form of consistency emerge. And that form of consistency will emerge as a market-driven product. Those blogs producing the kinds of material that people want to read will gain high readership. Without a band leader or (thank God) a fairness doctrine for blogs, it could not happen any other way.

How do we increase that readership? Tricky question. Pretty much only some form of advertising or marketing will do so (hence the proposed radio spots over at DL). Free media is going to be tough, because neither the Snooze Journal or the State Rag really wants to give a plug to its competition. Why read the Snooze when you already know what it will report about state politics two days earlier if you read the blogs?

And increasing readership will bring its own changes, not all of them comfortable to this small community, where everybody pretty much knows (and knows how to insult) everybody else, from sock-puppets to trolls. The very edgy feel that we all enjoy--including the inside jokes and the freedom from censorship of offensive humor--is probably going to disappear as success fills the pages with members of the Women's Temperance League.

It's a complicated question, for which I neither have an answer nor a good closing line for this post.

Caution: NGOs are bad for your country's health

Libertarians take so much crap for opposing large-scale, intrusive government on the national scale that we rarely even get around to the same argument with respect to the UN and the whole host of related NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) spawned by, or associated with that august body.

So it is only a time-out here to make note that New Scientist reports on a study which finds that the International Monetary Fund is hazardous to the health of the countries to whom it lends money.

I am quoting liberally from the dead-tree edition, as the current issue is gated:

Plenty of anecdotal evidence exists for the negative impact of IMF loans. A decade ago, frustrated African doctors were calling it the Infantry Mortality FUnd because of what happened to child survival rates when it started guiding government spending.

This week comes news that tuberculosis deaths, a sensitive indicator of the quality of public health services, climbed in 21 countries during IMF programmes... In addition, deaths correlate with the length of IMF involvement and the amount loaned. The effect did not appear to be a statistical anomaly, nor the result of other factors affecting TB: the IMF is clearly in the frame.

OK, so how could the IMF be causing increased TB deaths by loaning money to developing nations?

The International Monetary Fund lends money to countries with financial problems and in return requires them to cut spending to control inflation. Others have long charged that this in fact reduces spending on healthcare and so promotes the spread of disease...

The team also found that for each year of a country's involvement with the IMF, the TB death rare increased by 4 per cent, on average.

Of course, IMF doesn't believe this:

William Murray, a spokesman for the IMF, says that the organization advises countries to spend on healthcare, and that the increases in TB and mortality are due to something else.

That's a highly technical term: something else.

Before anyone feels empowered to launch into a neo-colonialist diatribe about corrupt government and poor infrastructure in African nations, I should point out that the study focused on IMF-funded countries in central and eastern Europe.

IMF has always been a contradiction in terms: an organization that so fervently believes in free-market capitalism that it imposes a particular form of freedom of choice from the same cookie-cutter on all countries and cultures regardless of their level of infrastructure, industrialization, or social set-up.

See? When you get intrusive nanny-state government coming in with sweeping powers, it doesn't even matter if it's your government.

It could just as easily be an NGO like the IMF.

If you have a New Scientist subscription, then go here to read the whole article. Otherwise you can wait about two weeks and read it for free.

And here's one reason Libertarians are not Republicans...

... in the legislation proposed by Illinois Republican Mark Steven Kirk that would create a Federal ban on internet access to MySpace and FaceBook in America's libraries.

Here's the story from Switched:

First, libraries were forced to start filtering out obscene content in 2000. Then came the Patriot Act, which granted the government the right to examine the books you checked out and the sites you visited on a library's public computers. Now, lawmakers are trying to ban children from accessing MySpace and Facebook on library PCs in order to keep the kids safe from sexual predators.

The heavy-handed legislation -- a bill introduced by Representative Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois -- is, of course, being fought by the American Library Association. The library wants to protect people's privacy saying that it is essential if a community is to utilize the library for intellectual pursuits.

You may remember that I took issue a week or two back with liberalgeek's belief that:

I am in favor of sensible restrictions on things that can be easily misused.

While I don't want to paint LG as favoring this particular piece of nanny state insanity (feel free, geek, to take a stand on it whenever), I would like to reprise a tiny part of my rebuttal:

The higher the level of government imposing the restriction on any item, the more sweeping the restriction will be, and the less ability there will be for local conditions to moderate that restriction. It is a direct corollary of this that if the Federal government imposes a restriction for one purpose, it will soon find other purposes for which to use that restriction, purposes that will generally be to the detriment of the civil rights of individual American citizens.

This proposed legislation certainly meets the first criterion: a rigid, inflexible, and sweeping answer to a question that either parents or localities should be answering on their own.

With respect to the second: given advances in cookies, how long will it be before the Feds want to be able to force libraries to track all interactions with their computers and report them to, say, the FBI?

Given that the FBI has already, within the last two weeks, attempted to strong-arm information from a librarian without benefit of a warrant, this hardly seems like a ridiculous slippery slope argument any more, does it?

Everything (of course) is bigger in Texas ...

... including the Libertarian Party.

I am reminded of a Cold War era joke: Seeking to impress and intimidate the Americans, the Soviet politburo orders one gross of three-foot-long condoms from a company in Texas. The Texians fill the order, packing the condoms in a crate marked "medium."

There are 173 Lone Star Libertarians running for office this election season.

One way you can tell that the LPT is doing well is by the fund-raising numbers:

The Libertarian Party of Texas (LPT) has reported $81,765.81 in contributions for the first six months of 2008. That is up from $54,204.57 for the first six months of 2007, and $55,454.24 for the first six months of 2006.

Equally important, however, is the urgent requests of Texas Republicans that Libertarians get out of their races, as reported in the Austin-American Statesman:

The Libertarian Party of Texas is not ready to be king, but it expects to be kingmaker — or spoiler, depending upon your point of view — in the state's most competitive legislative races this fall.

The state's perennial third party, hoping to draft behind the momentum of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's failed presidential run, counts Central Texas as its stronghold in the Lone Star State.

"It used to be nobody looked at us; now they are looking at us," said Pat Dixon, the party's state chairman and a Lago Vista City Council member. "We can swing votes. We're going to be a factor in more races."

Even before Paul's emergence on the national stage, Libertarians were kingmakers at the local levels. In 2004, Libertarians were credited with helping Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, beat Republican incumbent Jack Stick. The Libertarian candidate received 2,390 votes; the margin of victory was only 569 votes in the north Travis County district.

By the Libertarian Party's count, its candidates in 2008 have a "high" probability of being a deciding factor in four state House races and a "medium" possibility in four more.

In some election cycles, a handful of House races might not matter much in the bigger picture. This year, however, the control of the House — and House Speaker Tom Craddick's hold on the leadership — are in play. A few seats could make a difference.

In 2006, Central Texas was the Libertarian Party's highest performing region in statewide races (averaging 5 percent of the vote or better). Party officials credit the region's entrepreneurial and tolerant bent, plus the party's local efforts in fielding candidates for races ranging from the courthouse to the state house....

"Our preference is that Libertarians, by Election Day, will come back home and seek to find common ground with Republicans," said Joe Gimenez, a Travis County GOP spokesman.

LPT Chair Dixon also emphasized a critical point, not just in Texas:

Dixon acknowledges that Libertarians need more candidates who raise money and actively campaign as opposed to being just "paper candidates."

[By the way, if you think this is just hype, pay attention to the note of peevish desperation at The Texian Online, a noted conservative blog:

The LP is threatening to knock out some of the best Republicans in the Lege. -- that should be the last thing a small government liberty minded voter should want.

Note for the Texas GOP: you don't own votes or offices in a republic, you have to earn them every time.]

Here are the most competitive Libertarian candidates in Texas, according to Austin paper:

Lillian Simmons, House District 52.

William Collins, House District 78

Todd Litteken, House District 96

Gene Freeman, House District 106

Alan Duesterhoft, House District 17

Paul Bryan, House District 11

Lenard Nelson, House District 32

Brandon Parsons, House District 107

For a complete list of LPT candidates, go here.

[Note 2: The Lone Texian is especially worried about Simmons, Litteken, Duesterhoft, and Parsons.]

[h/t Last Free Voice for the initial information on this piece]

Kentucky Libertarians dump Sonny "Bomb all the Camel-dung Shovelers" Landham

From Paulie Cannoli at Independent Political Report:

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky dumped Sonny Landham as its candidate for the U.S. Senate on Monday, one week after the former actor made several anti-Arab remarks.

In a nine-to-nothing vote, the party decided to withdraw its support of Landham. This means the party will not have a candidate in the November election.

Last week, Landham publicly remarked that Arabs should not be allowed to travel to the United States. He said Arabs should not be in America’s schools, and he said the United States should have bombed Saudi Arabia, Syria, and other Arab nations.

In a statement, the state party said it stands for tolerance of all people, regardless of race, creed, sex, and national origin.

Landham, as you may have read here earlier this week, is a nutjob who stood a chance at becoming our party's David Duke or Lyndon Larouche. Granted we have some colorful characters--and even some quaint ideas--but it is good to see that certain principles (non-aggression chief among them) survive.

I compliment the nine members of the LPKY for their guts and their judgment.

In which I attempt to commit the impossible....

I can recall with some pride as a Libertarian that this is what North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger said he would do first if elected:

First priority: I issue an executive order placing an immediate moratorium on capital punishment in the state. Then I commute the sentences of everyone on death row to life in prison without parole.

On the other hand, I read with emotions and thoughts that are difficult to describe the Question of the Day at Delawareliberal, Does not giving a crap if someone is dying and having nothing good to say about “said” dying person make you a bad person?, where I found comments like this:

[Dorian Gray] So everyone deserves our respect because they just so happen to have been born…like a blind compassion… now I understand why there are so many people who still believe this quaint religious shit.

[Joe M] I think it’s sad that a guy like Falwell died. Not because I thought he held any value as a human being, but for the pain of loss his loved ones will feel.

DV is restricting the question to compassion for the person who is dead/dying and I’m led to agree with him.

Sometimes the world is made better through the loss of someone.

[Sharon] "The point that DV is making is that compassion has to, to some extent, be earned."

The very essence of compassion is that it is unearned. But I guess if someone can’t understand that, then maybe it explains a lot of the comments.

[Joe M] Sharon, you are very much oversimplifying the idea. Consider LGs question: Do you have compassion for the death of Charles Manson (when it happens)? Jeffrey Dahmer?

I don’t mean compassion for whatever made them what they were, but simple compassion that they were humans dying?

How about Pol Pot? Would you weep for Stalin? Mao Tse Tung?

If not, then where’s your unconditional compassion?

[pandora] Unconditional compassion doesn’t exist. It’s just tossed out there when people criticize someone you like.

[donviti] oh ok Sharon,

so I get it, you get to be “sort of” a dick while you are alive and IF inflicted with some painful life threatening illness I can’t speak ill of you? got it, great. cool, it’s lifes equalizer.

being a dick + debilitating possibly life ending diagnosis = all forgiven

got it. Sweet. I’m hoping i get pancreatic cancer so you can say I was a nice guy.

And then I come to today's story of George W. Bush signing the first execution death warrant for the military that any President has signed since 1951.

And no doubt Spec 4 Ronald Gray is one of the scumbags of modern American history:

Gray was held responsible for the crimes committed between April 1986 and January 1987 in both the civilian and military justice systems.

In civilian courts in North Carolina, Gray pleaded guilty to two murders and five rapes and was sentenced to three consecutive and five concurrent life terms.

He then was tried by general court-martial at the Army's Fort Bragg. In April 1988, the court-martial convicted Gray of two murders, an attempted murder and three rapes. He was unanimously sentenced to death.

The court-martial panel convicted Gray of:

_Raping and killing Army Pvt. Laura Lee Vickery-Clay of Fayetteville on Dec. 15, 1986. She was shot four times with a .22-caliber pistol that Gray confessed to stealing. She suffered blunt force trauma over much of her body.

_Raping and killing Kimberly Ann Ruggles, a civilian cab driver in Fayetteville. She was bound, gagged, stabbed repeatedly, and had bruises and lacerations on her face. Her body was found on the base.

_Raping, robbing and attempting to kill Army Pvt. Mary Ann Lang Nameth in her barracks at Fort Bragg on Jan. 3, 1987. She testified against Gray during the court-martial and identified him as her assailant. Gray raped her and stabbed her several times in the neck and side. Nameth suffered a laceration of the trachea and a collapsed or punctured lung.

So I reached the decision a couple years back, based on both Libertarian philosophy and that quaint religious shit, that I oppose capital punishment.

There are plenty of people I think probably deserve to die, that the world would be better off without, and even some that I can sense in myself a quite visceral willingness to throw the switch.

But in a society that possesses the resources to confine Jeffrey Dahmer or the UnaBomber for the rest of his life, it is no more ethically acceptable to execute criminals than it is to order area bombing against a target of minimal military significance.

Which means, I think, that I am affirming the belief that even Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein was a human being worthy of unearned compassion. In my parish I have heard prayers offered for Saddam and for Osama, and I ascribe my difficulty in joining them wholeheartedly to my failings, not theirs.

I do not oppose the death penalty because it might take the life of an innocent person; I oppose the death penalty because allowing the State to impose boutique death along with mass mayhem diminishes us all.

I do not accept that the argument of the death penalty's effectiveness as a deterrent has anything to do with the morality of the death penalty.

Gouging eyes would also have a deterrent effect. (And please, don't start drawing the meaningless cruel and unusual distinction. It's not germane to the comparison.)

I realize that this is a somewhat (severely?) muddled post. The issue is a muddling one.

But when I come right down to it, I both agree and disagree with pandora (a position in which I too often find myself, dear lady), when she says, "Unconditional compassion doesn’t exist." She's right: it doesn't.

Yet it should--and I find it a worthwhile goal to strive for.

Executing Ronald Gray won't bring his victims back, and given that he was convicted twenty years ago, I have to face the lurking suspicion that all sorts of interesting political calculations went into finding a victim for the first military execution in half a century who wouldn't excite sympathy from anyone.

Except me, and the others who follow that quaint religious shit.

By the way: the military has also identified the second (and then presumably the third, and so on) person they want Dubya's approval to kill.

Things are apparently overcrowded at Fort Leavenworth.

The potential impact of third parties on the general election: what polling data shows

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Due to a screw-up in my source material I mistakenly listed Dave Krikorian as running in Oklahoma, not Ohio; it has been corrected.

I've just done a state-by-state run of most of the more recent polls, and I have excerpted general results below.

I have learned several things by doing this.

1) Adding actual third-party names (Barr, Nader, etc.) as Zogby does, really changes the response pattern. Not only did it break out that Other category, in many cases it caused a dramatic shift in the Obama-McCain numbers at serious odds with other polls. Usually this effect hurt McCain more--but not always. The question then becomes, which type of polling is more accurate? Polls that focus on the big two, or polls that add in all the other names and potentially sway voters with that choice? I have no idea.

2) Forget the confident projections of any particular outcome: several battleground states are swinging back and forth like crazy; where they swing in November, nobody today knows.

3) Bob Barr is having a distinct impact, though how long that will hold in a tight race is anybody's guess. Right now, if you believe Zogby, Barr is pulling at least 5% (and sometimes 7-9/10%) in 22 states! Nationally he's only showing at 3%, but for him to be having this sort of impact in nearly half the states is pretty damn amazing.

4) Ralph Nader is also having an impact, again garnering at least 2% in 14 states and 1% in another half dozen.

5) So if you take 3 and 4 together, that's a pretty hard 5-7% committed third-party vote across at least half the nation. Does it exist anywhere else? Without the polls, hard to know.

6) I've included all the poll results for named third-party candidates in non-Presidential elections where I could find them; some of them are really interesting, too.

Here are the numbers:

Alabama

Zogby has Barr at 4%, Nader below 1% and McCain up by 11%

Alaska

Ramussen has McCain up by 5%, with Other showing at 7%; Other in this case is Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin

Arizona

Zogby has Obama up by 3%, with Barr at 7%, Nader at 2% and Other (undefined) at 5%

Arkansas

The presidential polls are all over the place; Zogby has Obama winning 41-39 with Barr at 4 and Nader at 1, but Rasmussen has McCain at 47 and Obama at 37 with Other (undefined) at 5%--who the hell knows?

California

Zogby has Obama up 53-32, with Barr taking 5, Nader 1, and Other (undefined) 5

Colorado

Zogby has Obama leading 40-38 (but Quinnipiac has McCain up 46-44) with Barr at 8, Nader at 2, and Other (undefined) at 1

Connecticut

Zogby has Obama 48-32 with Barr at 5, Nader at 2, Other (undefined) at 3

Delaware

Doesn’t have an active poll since February—we rock, don’t we?

DC

Doesn’t have an active poll since February either; you’ll be glad to know that Hillary is losing.

Florida

The Presidential polls go back and forth, separating McCain and Obama by 2-4 points in either direction; Zogby has McCain up 43-39 with Barr at 6, Nader at 2, Other (undefined) at 4

Georgia

The State is going to have to move significantly if Obama is going to put it in play. Rasmussen has it McCain 48-39 with Barr taking 5%.

The Georgian Senate race is showing Saxby Chambliss with a comfortable lead over pretty much any Dem, but Other (which in this case means Libertarian Allen Buckley) is garnering 3-4% in Rasmussen polls.

Hawaii

Nothing since February.

Idaho

Nothing presidential since February. The Senate race is showing Independent Rex Rammell taking 6%.

Illinois

Zogby shows Obama winning (no shit) 52-32 with Barr at 5, Nader at 1, Other (undefined) at 3.

In Illinois’ 11th Congressional District, Green Party Candidate Jason Wallace is getting 6%.

Indiana

In presidential terms another seesaw, but Zogby right now has McCain up 40-39 with Barr at 7, Nader below 1, and Other (undefined) at 3.

In House District 9, Libertarian Eric Schansberg is holding at 4%.

Iowa

This is one place Barr seems to be killing McCain. The polls generally show Obama up by 4-7 points, but Zogby says Obama 42-38 with Barr taking 8, Nader 1, and Other (undefined) taking 3.

Kansas

Strongly McCain (52-32) according to Rasmussen with an undefined Other taking 9%.

Kentucky

McCain ahead 44-39 according to Zogby with Barr at 3, Nader at 1, and the undefined Other at 6.

Louisiana

Who do you trust? Rasmussen has McCain up by 54-35, but Zogby says it’s only McCain 47-40 with Barr at 4, Nader at 1, and Other at 3.

Maine

Rasmussen has Obama up 46-36 with Other at 7.

In the Senate race, Independent Herbert Hoffman (who is Other) is getting about 3%.

Maryland

Zogby has Obama up 54-30 with Barr at 6, Nader at 1, and Other at 3

Massachusetts

Zogby has Obama up (again, no shit) 54-29 with Barr at 5, Nader at 3, Other at 3

Michigan

All over the place.

Quinnipiac has Obama 46-42 with Other at 3
EPIC-MRA has Obama 43-41 with Nader at 3, Barr at 2
Rasmussen has Obama 47-39 with Other at 5
Zogby has Obama 47-43 with Barr at 6, Nader at 2, Other at 4
It seems obvious that Barr is costing McCain a shot at being competitive here; not so obvious is whether Nader is keeping Obama from putting it away.

Minnesota

Quinnipiac has the race tightening with Obama up only 46-44 with Other getting 2, but Zogby is more in keeping with what everybody else is showing with Obama up 48-32, Barr at 8, Nader below 1, and Other at 4.

Mississippi

Rasmussen: McCain up 50-44 with Other getting 3.

Missouri

Again Barr appears to be killing McCain, as according to Zogby Obama is up 42-40 with Barr taking 6, Nader 1, Other 4.

Montana

Rasmussen has this state having gone from McCain up 47-39 in May to Obama up 48-43 in July with Other at 4. Frankly, I have a hard time believing that in Montana Obama has accomplished a 9-point shift in two months without anybody noticing, but you never know.

In the Governor’s race, Libertarian Stan Jones is holding at 3%.

In the House race, Libertarian Mike Fellows is getting 5%.

Nebraska

No fifty-state strategy here, Barack. Rasmussen has McCain up 53-36 with Other at 6.

Nevada

According to Zogby it’s a dead heat 38-38 with Barr at 9(!), Nader at 2, and Other at 6. This could be intresting.

New Hampshire

Zogby has Obama up only 40-37, with Barr at 10(!! Of course he’s not on the ballot yet), Nader at 2, and Other at 7.

New Jersey

Zogby: Obama up 49-36 with Barr at 3, Nader at 2, Other at 3.

New Mexico

Zogby shows Obama up 46-33 with Barr at 9, Nader at 2, Other at 4; but the latest Rasmussen poll shows Obama only up 46-41 with Other at 5.

New York

Zogby: Obama 51-30, Barr at 4, Nader at 2, Other at 4

North Carolina

TelOpinion has McCain up 43-40 with Barr at 2; Rasmussen has McCain up 45-42 with Other at 5; Zogby has Obama up 47-38 with Barr at 4, Nader at 1, Other at 4.

In the Governor’s race, TelOpinion has (D) Perdue up 43-40 with Libertarian Mike Munger at 2; SurveyUSA has the GOP’s McCrory up 47-46 with Munger at 3. This is the only non-Presidential poll in the country where a third-party candidate is consistently proving to hold the difference between the major candidates.

In the Senate race, Libertarian Chris Cole has 2%.

In House District 8, Libertarian Thomas Hill has 7%.

North Dakota

This is a toss-up with Rasmussen Rating it 43-43 with Other at 7.

Ohio

This one goes back and forth: Rasmussen has McCain 46-40 with Other at 7, but Zogby has Obama up 43-38 with Barr at 7, Nader at 2, Other at 4.

In House District 2, Independent David Krikorian is drawing 6%.

Oklahoma

Zogby: McCain up 42-37 with Barr at 9, Nader at 2, Other at 5.

In House District 15, Independent Don Elijah Eckhart is getting 5%.

Oregon

Zogby: Obama up 49-33 with Barr at 6, Nader at 1, Other at 4.

Pennsylvania

Zogby: Obama 46-36 with Barr at 5, Nader at 2, Other at 4.

Rhode Island

Rasmussen: Obama 55-31; Other at 5.

South Carolina

Another madhouse.
Research 2000: McCain up 53-40
Public Policy Polling: McCain up 45-39 with Barr at 5
Zogby: Obama up 42-41 with Barr at 6, Nader at 1, Other at 3.

In the Senate race, former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride, running as an Independent, is getting 10%.

South Dakota

Rasmussen: McCain up 44-40 with Other at 7

Tennessee

Zogby: McCain up 41-36 with Barr at 7, Nader at 1, Other at 6

Texas

Zogby: McCain up 42-39 with Barr at 6, Nader at 2, Other at 4.

Utah

Rasmussen: McCain up 52-33 with Other at 8.

Vermont

Nothing since February

Virginia

A dead heat.
Public Policy: Obama 46-44
Rasmussen: 44-44 with Other at 5
Zogby: Obama 44-39 with Barr at 5, Nader at 1, Other at 4.
SurveyUSA: Obama 48-46

Washington

Zogby: Obama 48-35, Barr at 5, Nader at 2, Other at 4

West Virginia

Rasmussen: McCain up 45-37 with Other at 13 (!)

Wisconsin

Zogby: Obama up 48-38 with Barr at 4, Nader at 1, Other at 2

Wyoming

Research 2000: McCain up 53-40

I'm waiting to see a Progressive Party of Delaware emerge...

... and I'm serious.

I've been watching the brewhaha over Jack Markell and John Carney, not just with smug amusement at Democrat discomfiture (because, hey, I'm human), but also because jason and liberalgeek and pandora are right about this: Whichever one of them wins the primary will be my next governor, like it or not.

Frankly, my gut tells me it's going to be John Carney. The advertising story is off the front page of the Snooze Journal today, and for most voters who are not party insiders it is a blip on the radar. Bloggers are doing their best to give the story legs, but I am skeptical. (Although I'm always willing to be proven wrong.)

The problem is, I take my friends over at Delawareliberal at their word: the Delaware Democratic Party is full of entrenched party hacks, special interests, corporate interests, and union interests--all of whom seem to have more or less forgotten that the purpose of politics is supposedly large than lining their own pockets and those of their constituents.

They have the money, and the party organization, and the smaller Progressive organizations or the grassroots candidates like Karen Hartley-Nagle have no real shot because they're not playing ball.

In this milieu Jack Markell is an anomaly, because as an entrepreneur with strong UD connections to help in the fund-raising, he's almost the local equivalent of a Steve Forbes or a Ross Perot--an individual who can, at least once, muster the resources to take on the machine in an open fight.

But I think he's going to lose--which is a shame because even though I'm not a Democrat, if I have to choose between Markell, Carney, and Bill Lee it's going to be Markell I'd be voting for. A Carney-Lee election race boils down to the tools of two parties up on the stage as sockpuppets of their respective political machines.

On the other hand, Jack Markell--and yes, even Mike Protack--are making part of a very important point for us here in Delaware if we can only see it: issues are more important than the parties which have taken on a corporate (and I use the word in all its worst senses) life of its own. The parties as organizations, like any other large corporation, now respond to survival instincts rather than rational, political strategies.

So I think it's time for a few more of them.

We've already got the IPOD which, for all of its problems is a sign in the right direction: more parties equal more democracy, less machine, and greater responsiveness to the grassroots.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that my friends at Delawareliberal became the organizing cadre behind the Progressive Party of Delaware, a party that was completely willing to run fusion campaigns with the Delaware Democratic Party when the candidates and the issues matched, but also willing to take the battle to the ballot box when they didn't?

What would that mean?

For one thing, right off, it would mean that on occasion the Democrats and Progressive would split the vote and let a Republican or (my hope!) a Libertarian slip in. But to be honest, I doubt it would happen very often. If the PPD could even capture 10-15% of the currently registered Democrats, then the Democratic candidates would find themselves forced to move toward PPD stances in order to secure that fusion nomination and that critical percentage of the vote.

And if at least one or two "name" Democrats--let's just say Karen Petersen or John Kowalko for kicks and grins--could be talked into jumping ship to the PPD, that would give the party standing in the General Assembly and force the Dems to do a fusion ticket as well in some districts.

This is NOT a low-maintenance strategy. A number of people with whom I am involved are trying to bring back the Libertarian Party of Delaware from just about room temperature. It's not easy; hell, it's downright frustrating. And the LPD is currently a fragment of what could be garnered by a new Progressive Party.

But the beauty of the plan is that even if it doesn't work, it still works.

Even if the PPD lasted only a few years, or even a single election cycle, it would force the Democratic Party to actually get out and work to maintain its own voters. That's where the Democrats have gotten lazy over the past few years.

I'd actually prefer it worked. I honestly think that Delaware, with a Democratic, Republican, Progressive, Independent, and Libertarian multi-party set-up where each party had at least some area of the state in which it had a solid base, would be a stronger, better Delaware. Compromises that are now unthinkable would be possible. Backroom deals that are now commonplace would be much more difficult. To maintain a majority in either house of the General Assembly, you would have to be advocating ideas and policies that resonated with more than one party.

This is not generally a blog that stimulates big conversations, but I'd really be interested in your ideas.

(Credit where credit is due: kavips first, almost unintentionally, gave me the idea.)

Tyler Nixon to seek fusion Libertarian Party of Delaware nomination

Rightly, around the blogosphere and around Delaware, Tyler Nixon is seen as one of the good guys.

I think of Tyler and the defense of civil rights, resisting eminent domain, being right on Iraq, and championing open government.

Now, I am pleased to be able to announce that along with filing as the GOP candidate in the House 4th District race, Tyler is going to seek the fusion nomination of the Libertarian Party of Delaware.

Regular readers here know that Tyler is very much associated with the pragmatic libertarian view of this blog, and I consider it a major coup that he is willing to identify himself formally with the movement for less intrusive government, more open government, and greater personal liberty and responsibility.

In this case, he brings his cachet to the LPD in a critical rebuilding phase, rather than the other way around.

The process will require Tyler to attend the LPD annual meeting in late August, to ask for the party's endorsement.

I have no doubt he will receive it; he deserves it many times over. And when Tyler wins the 4th District seat, there will be--for the very first time as far as I know--a Republican-Libertarian in the House.

There will be more LPD news forthcoming over the next two weeks: details of our annual meeting and a Libertarian alternative to Mike Castle. Yes, we're underfunded (we should get as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield), but when KHN filed a report saying she was $700 in the hole, suddenly I didn't feel so bad.

Stay tuned (and Go, Tyler!)

Your heroic TSA Gestapo at work...

... and wouldn't Osama bin Laden be proud?

Look what he has caused us to do to ourselves.



This is a completely unnecessary quasi-Federal police force that gets scarier every day.

An update on India's Tata Nano

It has been a few months since I checked in on the buzz surrounding the imminent production of the world's cheapest car: Tata Motors Nano--a four-person mini- with a two-cylinder engine and a base price around $2,500.

Several items of note:

1) Rising prices are also pushing at Tata Motors; while it will still be the cheapest car in the world, the Nano probably won't stay under $2,500 by the time production ramps up.

2) You won't find the Nano available in America any time soon, according to Auto Observer. The vehicle doesn't have air bags, doesn't meet US crash test requirements, and has an emissions profile equivalent to EU III, which places it about 2-3 years behind what it needs to have to be certified in the US. Tata Motors promises to it EU IV pretty soon, but it will need to get to EU V to be considered for US entry. (And the crash test hurdle may also be overcome soon, as well.)

3) Environmentalists are still up in arms about the Nano, because it will encourage several million more Indians to drive automobiles, and that's not seen as a good thing. According to an article at Truthout:

Many environmentalists believe the new vehicle, with a price tag half that of India's current cheapest car, will simply clog up already busy and broken roads and add pressure to an infrastructure that is badly buckling. They stress the need to develop efficient, modern and affordable public transport, especially in cities such as Delhi, which now has a new metro system but where the bus service is overloaded and often deadly.

"My first reaction when someone says they need to buy a car is to say don't buy it," said Soumya Brata Rahut, a spokesman for Greenpeace India. "But people are buying cars, I cannot stop them. The revolution in small cars means there will be more and more."

Asked yesterday whether he thought India had adequate infrastructure to handle the hundreds of thousands of new Nanos that Tata hopes to shift when it goes on sale in a few months, Mr Tata said: "I think there definitely needs to be more investment in public transport [and] I think that India does not invest in our infrastructure." But he said such things were not the responsibility of his company.

4) Indian infrastructure aside, Mr. Tata may well have the last laugh on his critics, as his company is known to be moving ahead with the world's first non-polluting, compressed-air automobile engine for a future version of the Nano. Here's the scoop from EcoFriend:

In addition to the 33hp (25kW) petrol version, Tata is expected to release an air-powered model running a compressed air engine from MDI Enterprises. The engine emits one-third the carbon dioxide of conventional motors of the same size. Cold air, compressed in tanks to 300 times atmospheric pressure, is heated and fed into the cylinders of a piston engine. No combustion takes place, so technically there is no pollution actually produced by the car. But the compression of gases might still do that.

Even then the new engine is an absolute boon to the planet and hopefully all those buying this car will buy one with this type of an engine to power it. A Nano featuring the air-powered engine would be able to travel up to 200km for just $3 worth of electricity. This will also please the environmentalists who have been worried about more pollution since the Nano hit production. Tata has no official word on this yet, but it is just a matter of time.

This raises an important point: while it can't solve everything, market innovation can produce unexpected (and positive) shifts in technological trends that upset the predictions of the high and the mighty. Climate change modelers have always had to deal with the difficulty that their models do not (cannot!) take into account technological changes. If, instead of hybrids and electric cars, another option like the compressed-air engine becomes viable, even if only in the massive markets of China and India, the change to carbon output would be massive. So while some environmentalists were castigating Tata Motors for trying to meet an obvious market need, the company's engineers have been conducting research on a technology with potentially world-changing implications.

And for profit, too.

Will wonders never cease.

NC Libertarian Senate candidate Chris Cole on the mortgage bail-out

When you're running on a shoestring in the margins between Libby Dole and Kay Hagan, any notice is good notice, and I can only hope that Chris Cole's piece in the Huntersville Herald gets picked up by more North Carolina media.

Not being a gold bug, I am ambivalent about Cole's belief in the gold standard, but his analysis of the current Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bail-out is right on point:

No wonder the government no longer issues gold certificates, and no wonder our savings rate has fallen to about one-half of one percent. It is against self-interest to hold money that is worth less the longer you hold onto it.

Thus, we have the setup for our current credit and foreclosure crisis.

When money is saved, its owner intends its use in the future, and the bank uses it to make loans, which are used for tasks such as the creation of new businesses. More savings mean lower interest rates, which, in turn, send a market signal for businesses and individuals to invest for future demand. The real interest rates based on savings have been replaced by artificial signals from Federal Reserve-set interest rates, along with home- and land-ownership incentives by government. The result has been a market expectation of future increases in demand for homes and land, and thus, a real-estate price bubble. All of which was fine, as long as there was an actual demand in the future. What has happened is that demand no longer matches the fake interest signal, and the housing bubble has burst.

The solution offered by politicians, such as Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole, is to pump Federal Reserve loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac companies to finance more loans for folks who couldn't otherwise qualify for them, setting up another housing bubble and more foreclosures rather than fewer. Quick fixes can always be expected to result in long-term problems.

The long-term solutions are harder.

And I'm also in complete agreement with one of his preferred solutions:

Phase out government programs that subsidize home ownership. This must include setting a date for the revocation of the charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (I suggest four years), so that they will cease sending false market signals, without stranding current buyers and sellers.

That one's tough medicine. A lot of people will have the knee-jerk reaction that first-time home-buyers wouldn't be able to get into houses without government subsidies. But that's primarily because they have to compete with other buyers using government subsidized loan instruments.

None of that is the point, however. The point is: Chris Cole is yet another Libertarian candidate in North Carolina who is broadening the political debate. Even voters and candidates who disagree with his solutions have a better range of choices because he's there.

Brian Miller says it before I could, if not better than I would...

Here's a perfect Libertarian take on the massive wealth transfer that is the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailout, from Last Free Voice (with hopefully the retroactive approval of the author, right Brian?):

Yuppie Welfare Bill Passed

Did you buy a house you couldn’t afford, with a suicidal no-down-payment negative amortization loan about 10x your annual income, and then borrow tens or hundreds of thousands of additional dollars against your fake “equity” to buy luxury cars, expensive vacations, large-screen TVs, designer furniture, gold watches and other bling?

Or are you a “flipper” who committed mortgage fraud, getting several government-backed “primary residence” loans to buy houses, put $15K of Home Depot stuff in them, and sell them — only to discover the housing bubble popped and you cannot make your mortgage payments on the second, third, or fifth house you own?

If so, you’re in luck! The bipartisan bozos in Washington have signed a $300 billion bailout to make the payments on your loans and save Fannie/Freddie to keep the suicide loans flowing, positioning it as a “housing market stabilization bill.” Bush is planning to sign it “quietly.”

Are you a saver, someone who didn’t buy an overpriced house with a suicide loan and are waiting for inflated housing prices driven up by government largesse and the speculative flipper-bubble to return to the market price?

You, then, are screwed. With every tax payment you make, you’ll be paying for your insane neighbors’ Rolexes, Hummers, Danish modern furniture, pools, LG 64 inch LCD televisions, and Disney holidays. And you’ll continue to be priced out of the housing market, thanks to big government largesse.

Here's the bad part: the government was already in charge of regulating this market, and neither Republicans nor Democrats did a damn thing other than whistle occasionally and say, "You know, this bubble can't last forever."

Lovable Harry Reid discusses why American taxes are voluntary...

... and, in a very real sense, explains why the Democrat-controlled Senate hasn't accomplished a damn thing in two years.



There's really not much I can add to this.

Not all the foreign reviews from Senator Obama's Disney-like junket are glowing....

Like this one, from Al Jazeera:

Wow!

Wow!

Wow what?

Like so many I was wowed. What a rock star! Did you see how Obama drew a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin, how people were clamouring to take his picture and autograph?

What are you, a teenager?

Come on! Barack looked truly presidential during his Middle East and Europe trip - like really cool.

Yeah and he has Denzel Washington's teeth and Tiger Woods' smile! So what? What does "looking presidential" mean? Is he auditioning for the president's role in a new TV series? Martin Sheen certainly looked more presidential in the Kennedy series and more recently in The West Wing. For that matter, even Michael Douglas looked more presidential in the Hollywood epic The American President.

This wasn't just a Hollywood moment. He was able to handle himself very well with world leaders.

How do you know? The only thing we saw were photo ops - at gates, doorways and gardens. So the camera likes him, how does that make him commander-in-chief of the greatest power in the history?

The point is he was appreciated and respected by Middle Eastern and European leaders - Iraq's Nuri al-Maliki went as far as supporting his withdrawal calendar.

Here you go again! He's a presidential candidate with a good shot at the presidency so they were polite to him(actually al-Maliki retracted his remarks) but how does that make it a major success or make him suitable to be president?

Look, he made no gaffes, and that's strategic with the media scrambling to catch him screw up. He made no major mistakes, no slips, no flops - like, for example, McCain's "Iran support for al-Qaeda" flop, no "Dukakis in the tank" moment and no Howard Dean bedevilled by raging image.

So because he didn't fall down on his face or utter a political blasphemy, he's presidential?

No, no, not only that - he made excellent public appearances, press conferences and his speech was just magnificent! You saw that crowd cheering him on - cameras, t-shirts ... they were O'bamed.

Okay, so he's a great orator and his speech writers are excellent and his campaign makes good events but this is a political campaign not a rock concert - it's about the policies and the principles.

Wait a minute, in the US it's the media image that counts at the end of the day and he was a media blitz.

Whatever! If it's about media image the incoherent and stuttering George Bush would have never become president. In politics, policy, leadership and principles are what counts, not packaged media images and prepared scripts for popular consumption.

So you think that Bush was elected because of his principles and leadership qualities - give me a break! Obama's charisma, wise judgment and moral values are what attract people to this new type of leader. Didn't you read his books, trace his days as a political organiser ... didn't you hear him?

Now you're talking - that's the part that will eventually make him presidential and that's what we must judge him by, not through the superficial media cover up.

Of course. Needless to say he spoke of pulling troops out of Iraq, working on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian question from day one and wanting an environment-friendly world, free of nuclear weapons and free of walls between nations and states.

Yeah, maybe ... too many cliches though and sometimes he sounds like a beauty pageant contestant who wants world peace. I heard him and there is much to be desired.

Like what?

Like why he thinks the war in Iraq mustn't go on, while the war in Afghanistan should and will with more US troops! Why he spoke of the Berlin Wall and apartheid in South Africa but nothing of Israel's apartheid wall. He spoke generalities, nothing specific - no agenda, no programme, no overarching idea ...

I particularly enjoyed the commentator on Obama's shifting sands Iraq policy:

Look, Obama did insist on the paramount question of withdrawal from Iraq despite pressure from his rival about the "success of the surge" that he was against from the very beginning.

I am not sure about that. He seems to be running away from the question of Iraq, which polls tell him no longer seems to interest the American voters, instead concentrating on Afghanistan and even bringing it up as a central issue to reaffirming the Atlantic alliance with Europe ... when it's another un-winnable war ...

Point being: actually read world press accounts instead of just looking at the posed pictures, and you'll get a far more ... nuanced ... view of how people in foreign lands see Obama.

Success is always a two-edged sword: on the impossibility of avoiding the government in a Statist society

I'm truly thankful that readership here has gone way up, even if it brings out the complete ideologues.

You can visit my recent post on state-run health care and view the comments, which pretty much indicate that for allowing my adopted, disabled daughter and her son (scandalously born out of wedlock to a 20-year-old; yes, I know it happens, but to admit it--what could I be thinking?) to go on Medicaid, and then to write about how poorly the government administers the system, is ... well, it's just awful.

So for drew and josh and anybody else out there who's thinking similar holier-than-thou thoughts, cut the crap.

Let's dance.

We have arrived at a point in a Statist society wherein it is virtually impossible to avoid receiving benefits or subsidies from the State whether you want to or not. That is the problem.

You say you sent your children to private school? Great, but did you know that 99.9% of all private schools line up at the trough to accept their portion of the Title I funds for "non-public schools." They don't have to; they choose to do so. Moreover, in most States (like Delaware) the State (my taxes) subsidizes the school nurse in your private school. Or better yet, private school parents have been a powerful lobby in this State to keep the government from extending the legal lives of public school buses (Delaware has one of the shortest allowable lives for such buses in the nation) so that they can buy perfectly good buses at State surplus for their own children to use.

Oh, but you home-school your children, don't you? Of course most home-schoolers demand (and have even sued to get the "right") to have their children added to gym classes, sports teams, extracurricular activities, etc. etc. Independent, my ass.

Besides, most home-school parents want their kids to go to college. Tell me, please, that you don't accept the in-State tuition rate if your child goes to school near home. Otherwise you are accepting a government subsidy, because it doesn't cost my university one penny less to educate an in-state student--it's just that the General Assembly transfers tax dollars to compensate, so that everybody who doesn't go to college in-state helps pay for those who do.

You go to church and brag about the separation of church and state? And yet your church took full advantage of the tax code, didn't it? Probably even got preferential treatment on its mortgage by trading on its non-profit status, using--once again--government subsidies.

Send your children to day care? Do you make sure to seek out non-State licensed day care so you can avoid doing business with people who have accepted a government near-monopoly on their services?

Beginning to get the picture? This is not a progressive/liberal rant on why government should be providing these services or subsidies. I would like to see them pushed out of the way and replaced by better functioning market-based alternatives.

But at this point the government interference and intervention in our lives has become so pervasive that you can only minimize it--you can't get away from it.

And the people--especially radical libertarians--who claim they are somehow doing so are, for the most part, simply deluding themselves.

Dismantling this system of government-mesh is a long-term problem, and will start--if it is to be effective--in two ways:

1) We actually organize to elect people to office who will work to achieve some Libertarian goals--incrementally. I tend to believe than American imperialist foreign policy and government-mandated discrimination against certain American citizens are my first priorities, followed by drastically reducing the tax burden on American citizens. But, hey, you can have your own priorities.

2) We have to encourage people to begin to question the (a) the efficiency with which government provides the services it claims to provide, and (b) to reduce as much as possible in our lives the dependence on those services. Key phrase there: as much as possible. In my daughter's case she has been removed from a State facility that was keeping her institutionalized to the tune of $75,000/year. We have paid for all her additional educational needs. We have paid for vocational training. We have paid for day care. We have refused thousands of dollars of direct State subsidies to which the government said we were entitled, because we didn't want them to be able to tell us how to raise her.

Doing so has required, among other things, foregoing a number of luxuries and taking extra jobs. We did not dump her on the system when she became 21.

As for Medicaid: if the Statist government allowed inter-State competition in health insurance that was not tied to employment, the free market would have provided me an alternative that would have allowed me to bundle her insurance with mine at a rate we could afford. But it doesn't. Nor has the State allowed for changing license rules to allow nurse practitioners or physician's assistants to set up low-cost cash alternative services (Wal-Mart clinics). in fact, my State has moved to protect the insurance industry/pharmacy lobby monopoly on controlling drug prices by moving against internet pharmacies.

So a rational human being does the best he or she can, and works for change while trying to survive.

And gets shit from ideologues like you for trying to do so.

If you were to make a cost/analysis on the number of State and Federal tax-payer funded subsidies we have turned down in raising our daughter, you would discover that the number comes in the high six figures over just the past ten years.

How many of those subsidies have you turned down?

Libertarianism will never succeed in making any changes until we realize that it took us decades to reach a culture of government dependency, a culture so pervasive that most Libertarians don't even realize the extent to which they are relying on government largess. It will also take us years and decades to change this, because you don't change a culture back over night, especially when the corporations and bureaucrats who are profiting from the existing system are willing to throw in millions of dollars to secure the status quo.

You, sniping at a blog post and feeling self-righteously like you've done your bit in "calling out" someone else, are not part of the solution.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the student what that makes you part of.

I really hate it when consistency demands that I defend those with whom I disagree...

... but I try to do it anyway.

In this case, it's Eric Dondero of Libertarian Republican, whose views I generally find both ideologically repulsive and factually challenged. In the entire Sonny Landham case, Eric has consistently held to the belief that it is not only acceptable, not only OK, but actually desirable to come up with derogatory epithets like "jap," "gook," or "camel-dung shoveler," and that to call people out on this language is panty-waist political correctness run amuck.

I have already explained--both here and in the comments section of Eric's own blog--precisely how venal and idiotic I find such a stand.

But then, on Third Party Watch, someone using the handle Rudi Dekkers attacks Eric not because of his views, but because of his military service:

Oh yeah, Dondero: Did you know that Thomas Jefferson and many of the founders opposed the establishment of a professional government military? In a letter to Francis Hopkinson Jefferson said that the federal Bill of Rights must prohibit a “permanent military”. Nearly all of our state bills of rights prohibit standing armies. The federal constitution only allows armies to be raised in extreme emergencies, after Congress declares war, and only for a term of 2 years or less. The federal bill of rights says only a militia is a safe defense of a free state.

So, no thank you for your serving yourself to my tax money to pay you for participating in the biggest ongoing illegal welfare scam of the the last 2 centuries. Let me know when you’ve learned the conservative principle of being responsible for your actions and I’ll tell you where you can send the restitution checks.

OK, Rudi, let's dance.

1) You don't know your history or your Constitution. Neither the Bill of Rights nor the Constitution prohibits a standing army.

From Article 1, Section 8 [the powers of Congress]

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress...

This section prohibits not standing armies, but appropriations to support the army of over two years. It also clearly distinguishes between "Armies" and "the Militia."

And since the first military appropriations for a standing army (albeit one allowed during the 1790s to shrink at one point to a few hundred men) were all passed by Congresses containing a high proportion of men who had either participated in the Framing of the Ratifying of the US Constitution, it seems a bit ... idiotic (yes, that's the word I'm looking for) to contend that immediately upon writing and ratifying the Constitution the men who did so quickly gutted it.

As for Thomas Jefferson's ideas on militias and armies, let's just say Jefferson spoke for himself and not much of anybody else on such topics, that his views often changed, and that the politician who worried so much about expanding government powers as President engaged in one of the largest expansions of government powers ever in making the Louisiana Purchase.

So quote Jefferson all you like; it's immaterial here.

2) "So, no thank you for your serving yourself to my tax money to pay you for participating in the biggest ongoing illegal welfare scam of the the last 2 centuries."

Let me put this in simple words for you, Rudi Dekkers, so that you can understand it: welfare exists when someone receives a wealth transfer simply for existing, without earning it. The men and women of our armed forces, whether in combat or not, have paid dues in time and in blood that you obviously don't understand or appreciate. Eric, whether I think his politics stink or not, paid his share of those dues.

I've lost brothers and sisters in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in other shitty places around the world. I completely disown the militaristic, imperialistic nightmare that American foreign policy has become. I will not stand for you flouting idiotic historical fantasies and badmouthing their names and their sacrifices.

I spent 21 years in the US Armed Forces so idiots like you could have freedom of speech.

But I also spent that time defending my right to fire back.

A (seriously) non-partisan post about Health Care in Delaware

One of the statistics I recall, I think from Jack Markell's healthcare plan but it could have been elsewhere, is that roughly 27,000 Delaware citizens are not signed up for the Medicaid benefits to which they are entitled.

I don't know about you, but when I heard that it brought up visions of poor people suffering and not going to the doctor because they didn't know they actually qualified for state-sponsored health insurance. And I believe (but it's Saturday night and I'm way too tired to go check) that both the Markell and Carney health plans involve, as one element, making it easier to find these people and sign them up.

But I no longer think that's necessarily the case.

Keeping in mind that I understand it is usually dangerous to reason from the specific to the general, I want to tell you a story.

My eldest daughter is 26, unmarried, with a five-year-old son and one of those "full-time/part-time" jobs at a local assisted-care facility (which means they carefully keep her hours at just a tad under that which would require them to offer her benefits).

She's too old to cover on my health plan, so she and my grandson have Medicait (specifically, Delaware Physicians Care).

Every three months DE Medicaid sends out to my daughter (among a voluminous number of other pieces of useless correspondence) a notice that her status is to be reviewed. There is a page of questions to be answered about your job, your address, etc. The page is sent essentially without explanation, and--trust me--it is very difficult for a person with limited reading skills to decipher. Only in the fine print does it tell you that if you don't return this form within two weeks you lose your insurance.

If you don't return this form (or, if you return it and they lose it), you get one--count 'em--one notice that your insurance has been canceled, and an explanation of an appeals process that is more complicated to follow than Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity.

Periodically--let's say twice every three years--my daughter is summoned to appear before a case worker [whom she has never actually seen, given that Medicaid is the only State service she accepts] with her son carried along physically, because she must prove he still exists. The day and time for this is set by the bureaucrats without consultation with the clients--you either show up or they cancel your insurance on the spot. If you have to miss a day of work to verify your insurance, tough shit. This one is also delivered in an unmarked envelope and phrased in language that would have confounded Paul Dirac.

Ok, so we got used to all that. Then last week the bureaucrats running the State's Medicaid system showed us a new trick.

My daughter went in to pick up a refill of her depression medication, only to be told that her health insurance had been canceled, and that would be $248 for the Wellbutrin, please.

She called the current case worked [it required two calls just to find out who her current case worker was]. The case worker told her to call Delaware Physicians Care. DPC was sort of astounded by this, as they told her that the order canceling her insurance had not only come from the case worker's office, but had been signed off by the case worker in question.

Back to the case worker. Now, she says, "Oh, because you make too much money, and your status hadn't been reviewed in two years, your coverage has been dropped. There's an appeals process, but I don't think it'll do any good."

She said my daughter could come in and discuss it, but that she only worked until 3:15 pm every day. My daughter, I told her over the phone, works until 3:00 pm, and it would take her at least half an hour to get there.

"Well, then she'll have to take off work if she wants her insurance back."

So she did. Fortunately, I haven't raised any cowards. My daughter went down there to discover that the records were so out of date (despite her returning her required forms every three months) that they showed her simultaneously working all three different jobs she's held over the past four years, and thus making three times the amount of money she's really bringing home. (Exactly how they thought she was working three forty-hour weeks each week is beyond me.) She showed them her pay stubs, corrected their records, and they told her that her insurance would be restarted some time in the next 2-3 days.

During this conversation, she asked them if she had missed some notice about this review. No, they told her, for this kind of review they didn't send out notices [so you only found out your insurance had been dropped when the card bounced at the doctor's or the pharmacist's officer].

They also told her that these reviews were part of a regular, systematic attempt to purge people from the system in order to keep costs down, but they told her not to tell anybody that, "because that's not supposed to be public knowledge."

As a footnote, they told her that her insurance would be restarted, as promised, in 2-3 days, but it would take a week or more to get her new card. Without your card, you can't pick up prescriptions or be seen in a doctor's office, so I'm not real sure how you can say the insurance has been reinstated if you can't actually use it.

The point of all this: I no longer think there are 27,000 people sitting around Delaware unaware that they qualify for Medicaid benefits.

I think that possibly a large number of people were on the rolls at one time and have been discontinued by a system that seems intent on finding as many ways as possible to force people off. And I think most people in that category, who don't have advocates [and, by the way, the DE Medicaid workers go to great lengths to try to keep advocates from getting access to any information], just go away....

I think of people who don't read or write that well.

I think of people who actually believe what the bureaucrats (who go home at 3:15pm) tell them is the truth.

I think of these people now going to the emergency rooms at Christiana Care, or St. Francis, or Bay Health, and costing us extra thousands and millions of dollars each year, because they can no longer access the insurance to which they are entitled by law.

I am not going to do a Libertarian rant on government bureaucracies here (though I reserve the right to do so in the future).

What I'm doing here is a father's rant, and an attempt to explain to people that the problem with health care in this State, and in this country, is far more complex than any single, sweeping solution will fix.

Food for thought.

When you're trying to figure out the Delaware Democratic Party, where else would you go ....

... but to Delawareliberal?

There, in the spirit of the free-for-all between Lieutenant Governor John Carney and State Treasurer Jack Markell over the upcoming Democratic primary for Governor, I have learned a tremendous amount--not just about the constituency and goals of the Delaware Democratic Party, but about how the Democrats themselves view their own party. At least the ones who call themselves Progressives.

As usual, liberalgeek attempts to be measured:

I am saddened by the tone that this election has taken. It is pitting the progressive Dems against the traditional base. I suppose that is how it was always going to be, but we have to watch where we go with it. Bashing the unions and the city of Wilmington (Carney’s Strongholds) isn’t going to get us anywhere but hurt....

Either way, we are going to get a better Governor than what we have had for 8 years. And that Governor will be a Democrat.

jason, on the other hand, is moerpassionate:

In a way this is a kind of win/win situation for Democrats because Carney would not suck in the job. But I feel strongly that Markell would bring more to the table. I think even Carney people agree that Carney will be beholden to the system and people who enabled his rise. I believe Markell will be independent and able to make the changes in state government that we need.

And jason again:

I wonder why the only people who I know support Carney (besides geek) are people who feel that their state jobs might be at risk?

Here's Delawaredem on the current structure of the Delaware Democratic Party:

We need to bring progressive change to the Delaware Democratic Party. We need to open up its processes. We need to wean it from the influence of special interests. We must wrest control of the party infrastructure away from conservative and establishment Democrats who have been beholden to corporate interests for too long.

Then, of course, there's the open secret that the winner of the Gubernatorial Primary (assuming he beats Bill Lee in November, which looks like a good bet) will then turn around and nominate the loser to take Joe Biden's place in the Senate if then-President Obama picks him for Secretary of State--and if you think I made this up, again, liberalgeek and jason:

liberalgeek // Jul 25, 2008 at 3:46 pm

Sure, I’m game. Payable at Drinking Liberally in September. 3 weeks after the primary.

Let me also say this. When Biden takes a spot in the cabinet, Markell will make a fine Senator. I look forward to Gov. Carney appointing him…

jason330 // Jul 25, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Ha! Carney would pick Beau and you know it.

liberalgeek // Jul 25, 2008 at 3:54 pm

Not the case. I have sources...

This, then, is the Delaware Democratic Party as presented by some of the foremost bloggers in Delaware.

It's divided into an establishment wing that apparently consists of party hacks, union bosses, and city bosses, and is beholden to special interests and fond of smoke-filled rooms, and an upstart progressive, grassroots wing that has bloggers, the Greenville crowd, the UD alums, and whose heart is pure and whose advocates are repulsed at the horrible machine politics of the establishment.

Of course, nobody mentions that between them Carney and Markell could not have raised well over $4 million bucks for their respective campaigns without all those unfortunate special interests, unions, and corporations, and that the people who see Carney as a tool of said interests will nonetheless support him if he wins the primary, because having the Governor's Mansion held for another four to eight years by a tool of those interests will be such a good thing for the State.

And Markell? The principled champion of progressive interests? He's known all long that with Carney's superior name recognition and party connections he would have to get down and dirty at some point to take him in the Primary.

But what a golden parachute for our boy Jack: the US Senate!

So let me get this straight; the picture we get of the Delaware Democratic Party from it's own bloggers is one of a machine-driven, special-interest-dominated, back-room-deal-making collection of party hacks who are spitting on the candidate of the grassroots progressives (who can then be bought off to support the robot candidate with promises that their boy will become Senator, and--after all--John Carney won't suck as Governor).

Pandora I know would tell me (with some justification, I admit) that I am involving myself in a family feud, but in a State where the GOP has disintegrated, leaving the Dem primary virtually the election for Governor, that attitude won't wash.

These are the same people who rolled over on the eminent domain veto, who have never delivered transparency in government, and who can't clean up the impact of special and corporate interests in Delaware politics because that's who funds their campaigns.

These are also the people who have failed to protect the civil rights and marriage interests of gay Delaware citizens, and who are in such lock-step with the DSEA that both contending candidates for Governor gave exactly the same answers to all education questions.

Yeah, this is the party that will bring innovative change to Delaware, all right.

On Keeping Our Own House in Order: Sonny Landham and Camel Dung Shoveling Genocide

The conservative-leaning wing of the Libertarian Party/movement nearly creamed its jeans when former actor Sonny Landham announced he was pursuing the Libertarian nomination for Senate in Kentucky:

Landham leans towards the conservative end of the libertarian spectrum. According to other news reports, he is Pro-Life, Anti-NAFTA and stridently opposed to Political Correctness.

Then Sonny started giving interviews.

As published in Third Party Watch:

Libertarian Party of Kentucky candidate for US Senate explains his earlier statement:

“We should go and bomb those camel-dung shovelers back into the sand,” if they don’t lower their oil prices.

On the radio show “Weekly Filibuster,” Landham expands on his comment:

“I’m a pro-American all the way. The Arabs, the camel dung-shovelers, the camel jockeys, whichever you wanna call ‘em, are terrorists. And they are doing a terrorist act on this country with the high gas prices. They’re about to wreck this economy, not only our economy, but the world economy.”

Or, with more detail in Independent Political Report:

Sage Koontz: So are you calling for a complete genocide of the Arab race? Is that what you’re saying? Unless they raise the white flag?

Sonny Landham: When you are in a war, you kill every thing that moves.... [later additional comment] I call for outright bombing them back into the sand until they surrender and if they don’t surrender, then you continue the war. Because if you don’t, you will never have peace in the United States. Now do you want peace in the United States or do you want to live to some utopian ideals that are impossible in a world?

And as far as the Libertarian ideal of non-aggression might be concerned:

Sonny Landham: Uh, look, I’m the type of person that I have beliefs, core beliefs, and I won’t trade my beliefs for anybody. I’ll look you in the eye and tell you what I believe, and tell you what I think, and what I feel, and what I believe. And now unless, and I’m subject to change my mind on anything if you give me a rational argument, show me where I’m wrong and how we, what would be a better plan. I’m not carved in stone on things. But as long as I believe in something and I look you in the eye and tell you “this is what it is,” that is my word and I stick by it until somebody can showme a better way. And as any party, I don’t care if it’s Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, or whatever else party you can conjure up, will not change my beliefs. My belief is a better life for the people and giving the people an honest shake, an honest day’s work. In their government. That’s where I stand and I don’t care what anybody else thinks or doesn’t think as far as a party, now we’re talking as a party platform.

So, for Sonny Landham, the Libertarian Party is essentially only a vehicle for (wait for it) ... Sonny Landham.

None of this, of course, has more than slightly mediated the fawning over Landham in some circles. Eric Dondero's Libertarian Republican does not distance itself from the use of camel-dung shovelers, only for the use of camel-dung shovelers for all Arabs:

Derogatory terms for our enemies, most especially Islamo-Fascists, are quite appropriate and the use of such terms by Americans should be encouraged. But they are not appropriate when used for everyone of a particular race, ethnicity or nationality.

In other words, it's OK to call African-American criminals niggers, as long as you carefully avoid applying the term nigger to patriotic Middle-Class African-Americans.

This sort of vitiates Dondero's argument (which does have merit) that some of the people criticizing Landham most vocally are the same people who were involved in Ron Paul's racist newsletters.

Dondero believes that the Libertarian Party of Kentucky and Landham should simply correct/apologize for the broad sweep of his characterization of all Arabs, but continue to push forward with his call for direct action against any Arab nation perceived as working against US interests (and, naturally, to insure that when Landham talks about rag-heads, he's only talking about terrorist rag-heads.

Landham's candidacy has also further exposed existing rifts in the Libertarian Party. Many are calling for the LP of Kentucky to repudiate Landham's endorsement, but others are portraying Landham's nomination as the logical consequence of pragmatic or reform Libertarians calling for a broader-based party.

Apparently, to them, the world is divided between anarchists and minarchists on the one hand, and war-mongering racists on the other.

Here's the real deal: Sonny Landham is a racist demagogue of the type that emerges from time to time, and attaches himself to the fringes of a real political party or movement. David Duke claimed to be a Republican or a Democrat when it suited him. Lyndon Larouche's movement has repeatedly attempted to infiltrate Democratic Party politics.

Sonny Landham is an embarrassing offshoot of American politics that shows up from time to time.

Libertarians will only be besmirched or embarrassed by Landham if they remain silent about disowning him.

Among other things, Kentucky Libertarians need to think very carefully about supporting him, and about providing him campaign coverage on their website.

As for Bob Barr?

While I don't support him, I can sympathize in this instance, because Landham puts Barr in a very difficult situation.

Sooner or later (presumably sooner), Barr will be asked to endorse or repudiate Landham's words, as the Presidential candidate of any political party should be asked in regard to a Senatorial candidate from his own party.

I wonder how the Bobster will manage to go in both directions at the same time on this one?

The point is, you gotta get out there and hustle...

....like Jason Gatties in his race for Board of Trustees at Lake Michigan College.

Jason managed to get both local radio and newspaper coverage for his race this week.

What's really interesting is that he got the South Bend Tribune to do for him what newspapers usually only do for Demopublican candidates: cover his press release almost verbatim as if it were real news:

ST. JOSEPH — Jason Gatties, of St. Joseph, is seeking a seat on the Lake Michigan College board of trustees. The nonpartisan election will take place on Nov. 4.

Gatties is a member of the Libertarian Party of Southwest Michigan, where he has served as Berrien County representative, vice chairman and chairman pro tem in the past. He is employed by Rover Security Guard Agency in Benton Harbor, where he serves as business manager.

"I'm 100 percent against the proposed millage increase," he said in a written statement. "We must find alternative means to help fund this institution without increasing the tax burden on the public.

"If elected, I would seek to privatize certain nonacademic services and encourage the private sector to become even more involved by donating their time and funds to help train our young people. We are a very charitable community and those who wish to contribute, I'm confident they will do so. However, we should not have to depend on tax increases to accomplish the goal of becoming fiscally responsible."

If elected, Gatties says he would also work to improve communication between board members, staff members, students and the general public. He is also in favor of term limits for the board of trustees.

"I was unable to attend a college or university when I graduated high school and I've had to work very hard to get to where I'm at today. As a trustee, I would fight to ensure anyone who wants to gain a higher education will have the opportunity to do so. In today's society, having a college education is a must and we should never deny anyone the opportunity to earn a college degree."

Go visit Jason's website and discover just how neatly he's pulled this one off.

Note to Libertarian candidates: this ain't rocket science. Your opponents have known how to do this for a long time.

Way to go, Jason.

Another place we really need the government: policing Facebook and text messages...

You'd figure this story came out of Mississippi....

Ask any teenager and they'd probably say that they don't send messages to their teachers on social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook or via text messages ... it's just not cool! In Lamar County, Mississippi, there was a fear that students would try to socially connect to their teachers.

Earlier this month, the Lamar County school board prohibited this contact over initial concerns that it's unprofessional. The policy is designed to prevent students and teachers from sharing personal information over the web and through text messages. Students and teachers are still allowed to create profiles.

There is no word on what the penalty is for violating the policy. So far, there have been no penalities.

Umm, they forgot to make it illegal to purchase Valentines for your teacher, to send your teacher roses, love notes on little scraps of paper, or to hire sky-writing planes to say, Miss x, I'd really like to f**k your brains out, love little Johnny from third period.

Wow! Real Clear Politics actually mentioning two Libertarian names in a polling report

Of course it's in North Carolina...

Real Clear Politics reports on the recent Civitas poll that shows Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Michael Munger and lieutenant governor candidate Chris Cole both at 2%, actually mentions both by name.

I have my doubts about the validity of this poll, as it suggests that Munger is drawing 2% of Democrats, but no Republicans at all, which bespeaks a sampling issue.

Still, it is a major breakthrough just to be discussed.

Thinking about the NEW New Media

In the midst of a lot of thought in the Delaware blogosphere about the potential political influence of blogs, I found this post by Mike Allen on why the Dem blogs are currently kicking GOPer booty very intriguing.

It is intricate enough that I won't try to excerpt, but note that Allen argues that the Left is beating up on the Right by doing actual journalism on the blogs, while the Right is sticking with the analysis that is (for lack of a better term) .... sooo 2004.

I'm not sure I completely buy his argument, but it's worth a look.

And I think it also makes the point (even though Allen doesn't go here) why Bill Clinton, who was the best media-savvy politician of the 20th Century, looked like such a floundering fish during the primaries. The media is changing so fast that not just a decade later--but just 2-4 years later--what you thought you knew has already become obsolete.

Funny how that happened: Mike Munger NOW in a gubernatorial debate

Was it the press coverage--virtually unprecedented for a Libertarian candidate?

Was it the polls--that show Michael Munger persistently hanging in the North Carolina governor's race?

Was it the blogs--which have been stridently calling it to public attention that excluding one of three ballot-qualified candidates is an exercise in restricting political free speech?

Was it the Money Grenade--which went off on 3-4 July?

Was it the run of radio spots in major North Carolina cities?

Whichever it was--or all of them combined, hell has apparently frozen over; from the League of Women Voters to Michael Munger today [courtesy of Mike Munger]:

Dear Dr. Munger:

Congratulations to you on winning the nomination as the Libertarian Party candidate for Governor of North Carolina. WSOC-TV the ABC Affiliate and WTVI the Public Broadcast Station in Charlotte, in partnership with the North Carolina and Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters extend an invitation for your participation in a LIVE televised debate originating from the studios of WTVI in Charlotte.

The debate will be held on October 15, 2008. The debate moderators would be provided by WSOC-TV. Representatives of WSOC-TV, WTVI Charlotte and the North Carolina and Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters would meet with you to discuss debate format. The debate will be televised live 7:00-8:00 pm EDT and we have offered the debate to television stations statewide.

The partnership of WSOC-TV, WTVI Charlotte and North Carolina and Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters welcomes the opportunity to provide a debate forum for you to discuss your positions on important issues to voters. The collaborating parties feel it necessary to get planning underway immediately. May we expect a reply from you by Friday, August 1, 2008? Please make initial contact with Kay Hall, Program Director for WSOC-TV... Ms. Hall will coordinate meetings with you and/or your campaign representatives along with WTVI and the North Carolina and Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters.


We look forward to your positive response. We trust you will welcome the opportunity to share your vision for North Carolina's future with voters.

I can't wait.

The depth of the divide in this country, and why Barack Obama may end up as a polarizing rather than a uniting figure

This is a contract between the opinions of two people I respect.

I have known Waldo for over thirty years, and I have learned to respect his opinion the most when I initially disagree with it.

I have never met Becky, but have come to know her through her blog posts, which are consistently thought out to a depth to which other blogs should aspire.

Not surprisingly, Becky being a committed Libertarian and Waldo being a lifetime iconoclast, they often disagree.

This time, in their disagreement over Senator Barack Obama's appearance in Germany.

Waldo sees cultural sensitivity and homage to the Bauhaus style.

Becky shivers and summons up the image of Nuremburg rallies and the cult of personality.

Both are worth reading, and between them you get a sense of the divide in this country, not between ideologues and pundits, but between somber intellectuals with a wealth of historical, cultural, and literary information as the foundation for their interpretations.

In stark terms, Waldo and Becky represent opposite reflections of a common insight: as a country we are on the verge of a major paradigm shift, not just within this country but across the world.

Global warming, the end of cheap oil, the decline of Western world domination, the rise of competing economies in India, China, and Brazil, the specter of new technologies....

I have no idea what will kick-start the shift. If I knew that, if anybody knew that, it wouldn't be a true paradigm shift.

Unfortunately, such shifts--aside from being unpredictable--necessarily lead through difficult times, which is why people are necessarily susceptible to looking for guides.

The problem is using our brains as well as our hearts to figure out which ones are true guides, and which ones are not.

Guessing wrong is not an option.

I'm thinking about this one in technical terms: the new Bob Barr video

Remembering that I'm not supporting Bob Barr, I'm still obviously interested in how he's presenting the Libertarian Party, and in how well his campaign is doing.

So before you watch it, my initial reactions:

1) It's too long, although it certainly could be mined for shorter segments.

2) I think any number of people will be outraged at the use of Martin Luther King, especially juxtaposed with Ronald Reagan. I think it comes across as forced.

3) The overt appeal to Ron Paul supporters is a bit ham-handed, but we'll see how it plays.

4) Nobody outside the Libertarian movement and its most strident critics actually knows who Ayn Rand was, so it's a good play to the radicals, but they're not listening.

5) Ironically, the best sections of the ad occur when Bob Barr talks about the Obama and McCain. There's the nugget of a very good 30 or 60 second piece in here.



So what do you think?

Eric Schansberg on TV

How often do Libertarian candidates actually get real, substantive news coverage as anything but curiosities?

Well, apparently it happens in Indiana's 9th Congressional District:



After I recently published a post about Eric getting similar coverage in the local newspapers, I wrote the Daniel Suddeath (the author), complimenting him on his even-handed treatment of all three candidates.

His response was informative:

Our editors insist we provide equal coverage, which is what we should do. Dr. Schansberg is a great guy and has some good things to say.

Maybe, just maybe, there is change in the wind.

Jack Markell learns what it is like ... to be treated as a third-party candidate

A little context for those visiting from out of state:

Delaware politics, especially gubernatorial succession, has become a machine-driven, "wait your turn" process.

Our current outgoing guv--widely considered the worst governor in modern Delaware history--is Ruth Ann "Aunt Bee" Minner, whose last (we all hope) official act was to veto eminent domain legislation that would have protected First State property owners from the rather rapacious city of Wilmington.

But here's the rub. Given the current imbalance in voter registration and the collapse of the Delaware GOP mirroring that of the national party, the Democratic nominee will almost assuredly waltz into the Governor's Mansion in November.

The only problem? State Treasurer Jack Markell doesn't want to wait his turn.

This was supposed to be Lieutenant Governor John Carney's year, even though he represents the kind of robotic, machine-politician who cold give Hillary Clinton lessons in cold-hearted, steel-eyed walking up your backside. So robot-John lined up all the unions, the petty bureaucrats, and receivers of Democratic patronage, and strode proudly onto the stage to receive his nomination.

But the charismatic Jack Markell refused to sit back and put off his own run for Governor for the next eight years. So he dusted off his University of Delaware alumni connections, his loose network of open-government reformers, and a lot of other Democrats who reject the business-as-usual, and then proceeded to out-raise Carney and out-perform him in debates, even beginning to overcome his relative lack of name recognition vis a vis the Lieutenant Governor.

Even the vaunted education union--the DSEA--refused to endorse Carney over Markell, and said it would be happy with either candidate (which makes sense, given that they gave almost the same word-for-word answers in the education debate).

Ah, but then Carney puled out one of those big party tricks that the Demopublicans do to third-party candidates all the time. As the endorsed candidate of the party bigwigs, he's begun running advertisements paid for not by his own campaign funds, but from the general Democratic Party funds. Funds that, as Markell partisans like to point out, were raised to elect Barack Obama and put more Democrats in the State Legislature, but are now being used to support the candidate of one Democratic candidate over another.

Big stink in little old Delaware that you can read about with various stages of outrage, loud outrage, and (from the GOP side) amusement.

Of course, the party has the legal right to do this, because the party hacks wrote the rules like that to make sure that nobody interrupts their gravy train.

I'm not expecting any of the Democrats reacting with outrage to this turn of events to draw the conclusion that what's unfair in this sort of maneuver is is exactly the same sort of thing they've been doing to third-party candidates for decades with ballot-access rules and other mechanisms designed explicitly to protect the prerogatives of insiders at the expense of the democratic process.

That would be far too radical a conclusion for them.

But at least those of us who are Libertarians (and Greens or Naderites or Constitutionalists) will know that there's nothing personal in trying to exclude us from the ballots, the debates, and the polls....

They do it to each other, too.

Jan MacKay on why "somewhat adequately" representing your constituents is not enough

Again, Delaware Curmudgeon uses Shirley's personal ties with Jan MacKay (Libertarian candidate for North Carolina State Senate District 15) to scoop me on Jan's latest interchange with a writer who styles himself A Common Man.

I'll leave you to visit Shirley for the original letter, and content myself with part of Jan's reply:

In the last year, I have been fortunate to be represented "somewhat" adequately by the Senator I am running against. However, in two terms, he still hasn't found a way to become effective in working with a majority rule legislature. I believe he tried. For that, I cannot fault him.

I'm running because silence and just showing up in order to cast a vote is not good enough. It is frustrating to sit in the galleries, and see a great opening where someone on the floor, with fiery passion could stand up, speak with conviction, and make a big difference....

The Governor just came back from a really nice $170k trip to Italy. He and the first lady stayed at more expensive hotels than you and I would ever dream of staying, and the NC taxpayers footed the bill. Meanwhile people are losing their homes, and cannot even afford gas to commute to work, if they are fortunate enough to still have a job....

You have to pay taxes for everything you do, including paying for groceries, even though you already paid taxes on your income. You pay taxes when you buy anything, and pay taxes on any real property you are lucky enough to afford to keep, and now they want taxes even if you are forced to sell your home. Selection of protective gear on your motorcycle is a basic decision but you cannot make it. When moments count, cops are only several minutes away, and there are safety nannies who want to stop you from carrying anything larger than a pocketknife and sharper than a butterknife. Every level of government thinks they have the right to trespass on your land, and privacy is a thing of the past. There are too many things wrong with status quo, and this is no time for mediocrity.

When service becomes conscription....

What I find remarkable in all the coverage of Senator Barack Obama's discussion of his proposed national service agenda is that almost nobody ever quotes the part where the volunteering becomes, well, mandatory....

From the actual text of his speech in Colorado:

Finally, we need to integrate service into education, so that young Americans are called upon and prepared to be active citizens.

Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously. Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults. So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.

I've got nothing against encouraging volunteerism--I have encouraged my own kids with all sorts of dire consequences, but, hey, they're my kids.*

Last I looked, the government was not their parents.

So what happens when their school is required to have a service program or lose Federal education funds?

I get a note sent home that says, "Greetings...." for the kids?

Then I send back my reply that says, "Sorry. No thanks. We'll choose our own forms of service in the Newton family, thank you."

What happens then? One parent, one child, no problem. What about fifty or 100 parents and their children? What happens to the school district where enough parents refuse to place their children at the service of the State so as to endanger consolidate grant funding under Title I? At a guess, some school boards move to make pseudo-service a graduation requirement.

It will happen, because in this I'm completely with J. D. Tuccille at Disloyal Opposition:

If I'm covered by the proposed national service requirement, I plan to refuse to comply. If I'm not covered, I plan to counsel those who are covered to refuse, and to help them do so.

*I have a strong foreboding that many non-Libertarians who read this will see a refusal to participate in required "service learning" as another example of Libertarian selfishness. Quite the contrary. From Scouts to Church groups to bell-ringing for the Salvation Army and many others, we have raised our children to see that they have a social obligation to service. But it is not, damn it, the government's role either to mandate such service or to direct it into specific channels.

Mike Munger the Political Scientist (not the candidate) on Immigration and the Election

A short take of Dr Michael Munger (in his capacity as Chair of Political Science at Duke University, not Libertarian candidate for Governor of North Carolina) discussing immigration and the presidential election with a colleague:



Again, as I watch this, I'm pretty sure I understand why Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory don't want to debate him.

[courtesy Kids Prefer Cheese]

Public Policy Polling to begin including more Libertarian candidates in North Carolina polls

From the Public Policy Polling blog:

We'll include Libertarian Senate candidate Christopher Cole (as well as Lieutenant Governor candidate Phillip Rhodes) in our tracking poll for the first time next week.

The last two polls on the race have shown pretty different levels of support for Cole. A recent internal poll for Elizabeth Dole that her campaign leaked showed Cole at 6%. But the most recent Civitas poll showed him at just 2%.

We've consistently been showing more support for the Libertarian candidates than Civitas, so I thought that was perhaps somehow related to IVR. But the Dole poll doesn't support that theory. We'll see soon enough how Cole performs in our polling.

A heartfelt thanks to Tom Jensen and all the other good folks at PPP; for legitimate third-party candidates to stand a chance, polling organizations have to treat them like they're real.

Gas prices provide an entrée for Eric Schansberg into media debate with his opponents

One thing I know: Demopublicans really, really hate it when the media treats Libertarians like they were legitimate candidates for public office.

One thing I don't know (among many): precisely what city in Indiana's 9th Congressional District is the home base for the Evening News and Tribune.

But I know that this is paper with some intellectual integrity, as Daniel Suddeath proves in his article on how the price of gas has come to dominate the three-way race between Democrat Baron Hill, Republican Mike Sodrel, and Libertarian Erich Schansberg. The Demopublicans don't want to appear on the same stage with the Libertarian, and certainly don't want the news coverage of the issue to be framed around a third-party candidate, but hey....

When the Libertarian in the race is also the only candidate with a PhD in Economics, I guess you end up getting lectured:

When Eric Schansberg decided to run for Indiana’s 9th District U.S. Congress seat, he had “no idea” gas prices would be such a hot topic.

“It wasn’t even on my radar initially,” Schansberg said during a Wednesday press conference at Jeffersonville’s Warder Park.

The Libertarian candidate said as gas prices increased substantially in recent months, so did the interest level of Indiana residents.

“The price of gas has had a profound impact on the working poor,” he said. “Instead of political posturing and economic ignorance, we need public policies that will increase the supply of oil and strengthen the dollar as soon as possible.”

Schansberg has attempted to engage his competitors — Republican Mike Sodrel and incumbent Democrat Baron Hill — to a debate on gas prices, citing Hill’s insistence on a debate with Sodrel over fuel in 2006.

The debate hasn’t been agreed upon, but the three candidates are all focusing on gasoline.

Sodrel took a junket to ANWR, and Hill has been celebrating the Bureau of Land Management's decision to open up new public lands for drilling, but their problem (I'll say it again), is that they're dealing with an economist who actually understands the issue at greater than sound-bite depth:

Schansberg, an economist at Indiana University Southeast, suggests the main driving force for high gas prices may have little to do with drilling or speculation.

“The pursuit of spending and debt has weakened the dollar by about 40 percent over the past six years,” he said. “So, 40 percent of this problem has been caused by a devalued dollar.”

Schansberg — who refers to himself as the only fiscal conservative in the race — said getting a control on spending could have a great impact on gas prices.

Schansberg said that like Hill, he believes in reducing the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, though he thinks it will only result in a modest impact on market supply and price.

Schansberg believes an investigation into the high prices of Louisville gas being launched by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear will not yield the results residents are hoping for.

“The answer is almost certainly (Environmental Protection Agency) regulations, which dictate the sale and use of certain types of gasoline,” Schansberg said, adding the type of gas sold in Louisville is different from most other states.

“This results in otherwise surprising price differentials between counties and greater price fluctuations in these regulated markets.”

I picked this one up through Eric's website. Somehow I seriously doubt that either Sodrel or Hill have posted it on theirs.

Tyler, forgive me, it's just too good to pass up....

Tyler and Shirley are both Ron Paul advocates.

Waldo isn't.

And frankly, I couldn't resist this one, because Waldo in full rant is the reason you should read him every day:

Dr. Ron's Paulines are now planning a three-day extravaganza outside the gates of the Republican Convention. Good Republican that he is, Dr. "I hire all my kids but don't give my fundraiser health insurance" Ron will show up for a book signing, at which he will divest the suckers of their money in between their sessions on kum-bah-yaing, organizing for taking over the party by 2040, Star Trek, building solar-powered girl sex robots, and debating the merits of the 100% Ron Paul community in East Bumfuck Gulch, TX now or the Ebay founder's cities on spikes in the ocean later with each resident getting 350 square feet of independence apiece.

It's sad, really. All those people who don't realize that the airy way Paul say he has no idea what people are doing in his behalf can be interpreted as "they're a bunch of nitwits who'll buy my book no matter what" just as easily as it can be seen as some sort of cosmic call for the doctor to abandon his plow and come forward at the urging of 1.2% of the nation. Face it: you're organizing movement around a man who care so little about you he won't give up his seniority in Congress to come join you.

Somewhere, Patrick J. Buchanan is laughing his ass off.

An Open Letter to Strategic Vision polling regarding the Georgia Senate race

After reading the press release from Strategic Vision regarding its most recent poll of the Georgia Senate race, a poll that did not include Allen Buckley, I sent the following email to Ms. Laura Ward, SV's listed press contact:

Ms. Wood

I just read you firm's release of its most recent polling regarding the Georgia Senate race.

I cannot help but wonder why Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley has never been included in any of your questions.

Mr. Buckley scored 3.6% in his last state-wide run for office, and with Georgia being Bob Barr's home state I would think he stands a good chance at significantly increasing that.

Moreover, he has been receiving significant media attention from outlets like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Macon Telegraph.

Finally, I would note that given his positioning of himself as the "True conservative" in the race, it would be critical to Democratic chances for successfully challenging Senator Chambliss to know just how well Buckley was doing, and whether he was taking votes primarily from Republicans, Democrats, or Independents.

I would appreciate your consideration of this matter in future polls.

Sincerely,

Steve Newton, Publisher
Delaware Libertarian

As usual, I'll let you know if I get a response.

Al Jazeera not too impressed with the Obama global tour

If anything, Senator Barack Obama's whirlwind "I am the acting President for at least a decade" tour of the Middle East and Afghanistan, has not necessarily improved his standing with the developing world, as this commentary in Al Jazeera suggests:

Obama also committed to increasing the number of fighting brigades in Afghanistan.

That, however, is not so smart. In fact it is stupid, not because he never set foot in the country, nor because McCain makes the same promises, but because of the way the Democratic candidate has connected the two commitments.

His logic follows that Washington needs to withdraw troops from Iraq and re-direct them to Afghanistan - the centre of the "war on terror" - where the US military is over extended.

The presumably cultured liberal Obama failed to explain why killing more Afghans rather than killings Iraqis will make Americans safer, or how adopting the Bush-McCain rhetoric on the "war on terror" will win him the presidency.

It would have sufficed to take the moral high ground on the question of the unpopular war in Iraq instead of offering a pretext to widen an unwinnable and unnecessary war in Afghanistan seven years on.

Obama's opposition to launching a pre-emptive and destructive illegal war against Iraq leading to thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties has been wise not because it was politically savvy or popular, but because it was the principled position to take.

Targeting the centre

But it is an election year and candidate Obama must move to the centre to win the presidency. Right?

Well, true, but that does not mean the American centre is militaristic. If the last half century is any guide, Democrats have generally lost elections when they played into Cold War Republican militarism.

Remember, for example, how Michael Dukakis lost his double digit lead over George Bush Sr by playing the commander-in-chief role from the cockpit of an army tank, while Bill Clinton won the 1992 elections by steering away from the war rhetoric with the slogan 'it's the economy stupid'.
It is not clear why the senator from Illinois does not bother explaining to the voters that Afghanistan is as complicated a challenge as Iraq and that sending more military hardware and troops there is hardly the answer.

He also failed to explain why in light of the continuing deterioration and escalation of the war, he does not focus diplomatic energies on overcoming regional challenges for arriving at stability and peace.

Obama should have also distinguished between the Taliban of pre-2001 and the Taliban today and between the latter and al-Qaeda.

An important aspect he should have considered is that the Taliban, disagreeable as they may be, do not constitute a threat to the US as al-Qaeda does … unless Afghanistan is under foreign occupation.

And while a tougher military crackdown will likely not stabilise the country for long, alienating (or for that matter appeasing) Pakistan will also not de-escalate the violence in Afghanistan.

In fact, without Pakistan, it is impossible to neutralise the Taliban or deal seriously with al-Qaeda Central on the border between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government is bridled with corruption, ineptness and mismanagement.

Afghanistan has also been listed as one of the worst ten countries in the world in terms of living standards with drug traffickers, criminals and warlords running amok outside Kabul.

Cool-headed strategy

Candidate Obama needs to approach Iraq and Afghanistan with the same sane and cool-headed strategy of constructive diplomatic and regional engagement paralleled with military disengagement.

When he returns to Washington, Obama need not boast about how a few days in the region made him a fit commander-in-chief.

Ah, well, guess there's just no pleasing some people.

In the tank...

The "mainstream" (more like foaming rapids of bullshit) media has truly outdone itself over the last year, acting as a gushing flunky for the blank slate messiah (formerly of liberal persuasion). I am glad that McCain's campaign is pointing this out head-on.



If I were Obama I would be quite a bit leary of the obsessive white geekboy cult love for him amongst the blow-dried denizens of once-at-least-marginally credible "major" networks and "news" sources. They have a long history of backing losers and frauds, only to turn on them later.

Honestly, when was the last time Chris Matthews was right about anything?? His cheerleading for Obama reminds of his gushing for George W. not a few years ago. I thought Matthews was a finger-in-the-wind blustering ass, back then, and since then his asshattery has only multiplied in droves for Chicago O.

The Joe and Jane Q. voting public has a long history of hoisting the MSM liberal-bots on their pretentious petards, come November. We'll see if the same media that gave us "W"(ar) will prove successful in their most blatant intensive sales onslaught in history for the most slick, sloganeering, calculated, fabricated-from-whole-cloth pseudo-lefty cum DLC candidate we may ever see.

Many of us remember that these same people shoving Obama down our throats were the very same war cheerleaders and willing shills that Bush-Cheney-Rove played like chumps for years.

Personally I think their judgment sucks the high one and their ecstasies over Obama only prove it once again...and again...and again...ad violent nauseam. Matthews et al are not even worthy of the phrase "media whores". I think just plain "Ho's for O" is more like it.

Victor David Hanson at the National Review has an interesting look at what is becoming Barack W. Bush.

Georgia commentator predicts Allen Buckley could go as high as 9% in his Senate race

Senateguru, in crafting an endorsement for Democrat Jim Martin in the Georgia Senate race, tries to explain why Martin (currently 13-16 points behind Saxby Chambliss in head-to-head polling) could actually beat the incumbent Republican.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, the only chance of defeating Chambliss keeps coming back to ... Allen Buckley:

Second, third Party candidates will play a big role in Georgia on Election Day. The Libertarian nominee for President this year is former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr. While Barr obviously can't shave votes directly from Chambliss, the Georgia Libertarian Party is also running a Senate candidate, attorney Allen Buckley. Buckley was the Libertarian nominee for Lieutenant Governor in the same 2006 election in which Jim Martin ran. Buckley scored 3.6% of the vote. With Bob Barr creating a higher profile reason for disenchanted Republicans nationwide (and in Georgia particularly) to leave the GOP for the Libertarian ballot line, Buckley can expect to do even better in 2008. And, of course, it's very reasonable to expect that voters for the Libertarian Buckley would more likely have voted for Chambliss than for the Democratic nominee. Buckley could shave four or five or, heck, maybe eight or nine points off of Chambliss' right wing.

This does have a certain whistling past the graveyard sound, when you are expecting another candidate to carry you past a strong incumbent--but it does speak volumes for the potential growing support for Buckley.

More germane for Allen's chances, however, is the continuing coverage he's receiving in Georgia media, including yesterday's story about the Democratic challengers in the Macon Telegraph, which asked Buckley for his take:

Whoever wins the Aug. 5 runoff, which any registered voter who did not vote in the Republican primary this past Tuesday can participate in, will face Chambliss in the November general election. Libertarian Allen Buckley also is in the race, and he said this week that he's not impressed with either of the Democrats still standing, or with Chambliss.

"I'm certain I would make a better senator than them," said Buckley, who called himself "a real conservative" who vows to stay out of people's business and espouse conservative fiscal and foreign policies.

"I will have solutions to problems," Buckley said. "They will involve sacrifice."

With the Telegraph how having carried stories that reference the Libertarian candidate for several days running, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (which includes him in the weekly question for candidates), it might even be possible to see Buckley's name included in the polls one day soon.

Most current polls are showing 10-14% of the voters unwilling to accept either Chambliss or one of the Democrats as a preference; I suspect that with Buckley's name in the mix he would pick up at least 4% right now.

Of course, hell will have to freeze over before that happens....

Here's a graphic explanation of why most Americans will have no real presidential candidate in the General Election

Let's make one baseline assumption: most Americans are not ideologues.

As much as I might like to believe that most Americans--deep down--are Libertarians, the fact is: they're not.

As much as Liberalgeek might like to believe that most Americans are inherently liberals, the fact is: they're not.

And while RSmitty or David Anderson want to think the same thing with regard to conservatism, the fact is: they're not.

Most Americans are a walking bundle of political contradictions: gun nuts who favor universal health care, evangelicals who believe in the separation of church and state in the public schools....

Which is probably why presidential candidates traditionally run toward their bases in the primaries and back to the center in the general election.

But when the center is simply not where any of the major candidates feels comfortable, exactly what are we in for?

Here, from On the Issues, are the graphics charting the positions of major and minor presidential candidates (you can visit the website for the quotations and the scoring methodology upon which these graphics are based):

Senator Barack Obama is a Hardcore Liberal.



Senator John McCain is a Populist-leaning Conservative:



Former Representative Bob Barr is a Hardcore Conservative:



Former Representative Cynthia McKinney is a Hardcore Liberal:



Consumer activist Ralph Nader is also a Hardcore Liberal:



So I guess what I'm saying is that there are no moderates running for President.

All of which made me wonder, who qualifies as a Moderate?

This turned out to be a pretty difficult search, but finally I found two sitting Senators who qualify as Moderates, individuals who'd obviously be at the center of everything, individuals to whom everyone would look when it came time to build a consensus, right?

You tell me. My two Moderates were

Senator Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania:



Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut:



So what have I learned by all this?

I think we're in deep trouble no matter who wins.

Sometimes your Strange Bedfellows are just prostitutes....

Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr has, according to Third Party Watch, endorsed the Strange Bedfellows Accountability Now PAC initiative, which presents itself as a new, bipartisan rejection of the radical politics of the past eight years that have eroded the constitutional civil liberties of American citizens.

So I visited SB/AN to see for myself what the deal was.

Here's what I found:

August 8, 2008—this is the date for our Strangebedfellows MONEYBOMB on behalf of constitutional rights and civil liberties in America. Let's remove from power the key enablers of the tyrannical and lawless FISA 'compromise;' we can end the Patriot Act—and so much more. Join with us by pledging now—right here at AccountabilityNowPAC.com. Become a part of our transpartisan alliance of freedom lovers! Be a Strangebedfellow!

Who Are The Strangebedfellows?

Strangebedfellows is a unique and diverse left--right coalition which has come together to put a stop to the eradication of civil liberties in America. Modeled on a similar group in Britain, the initial Strangebedfellows group encompasses Ron Paul supporters (BreakTheMatrix.com, Rick Williams and Trevor Lyman), leading bloggers from the left (Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com) and many more who share the view that warrantless surveillance, telecom immunity and other such outrages of the lawless surveillance state MUST END—AND END NOW. Our group of Strangebedfellows is organizing a moneybomb on behalf of AccountabilityNowPAC, and we’re reaching out to friends and colleagues from across the political spectrum who believe in the Bill of Rights and freedom in America. So join us-- become a Strangebedfellow! Add your name and group to our list of backers, and enter your pledge today to donate to AccountabilityNowPAC. Let’s reverse these police state sellouts by our political leaders—FOREVER.

What really made my little shit-detecting antenna tingle was this:

What are you doing with the money you raise?

For a detailed explanation, click here.

So I clicked there, which took me to a Glenn Greenwood article at Salon.com, that did little other than repeat the paragraphs above in somewhat greater detail.

But how would the money be spent, I kept wondering.

Finally, after discovering that this organization had already spent some $350,000 on (no shit) robocalling Steny Hoyer's constituents, purchasing a single one-page ad in the Washington Post, and sending $1,000 each to ten Democrats (either incumbents or their challengers) who opposed the FISA compromise, I reached this paragraph:

The August 8 Money Bomb is intended to be used to fuel a long-term campaign and an enduring organization devoted to changing the behavior of the political class with regard to these issues. We intend to begin now actively recruiting and promoting credible primary challengers against the likes of Steny Hoyer and other key culprits; to target for defeat those members of Congress who continue to support policies of this sort, Democrat or Republican; and to find ways to affect the public discourse on these issues, which are jointly distorted and ignored by both the so-called "liberal Beltway establishment" and the crux of the Republican Party.

If that sounds suspiciously like double-talk (and another Moveon.org in the making), allow John Lowell (who made this perceptive comment in reaction to the first TPW story) to enlighten you:

Glenn Greenwald’s new initiative has all the authenticity of a George Bush promise. The Accountability Now/Strange Bedfellows “coalition”, when examined carefully, is nothing more than an attempt to syphon off potential third-party, independent and anti-system votes in the direction of the Obama candidacy.

Pretending to be in rebellion with fellow “progressives” and allied “libertarians” against those members of the Democratic Congress that have consistently sided with the Republicans on the war and on privacy questions, Greenwald’s out there to get them alright. Why he’s going to go right into their districts and run embarrasing ads, that’s what he’s going to do. But all of that outrage won’t have anything to do with the Obama candidacy. No sir, Obama, his FISA vote and his AIPAC grovelling are going to get a pass. As Greenwald himself explained it when first describing this sham undertaking:

“Speaking only for myself, anyone devoted to these issues ought to prefer an Obama presidency to a McCain presidency, and those are the only two choices.”

It never seems to occur to Greenwald – or to Barr – that any meaningful accountability is an accountability of the system, not simply isolated aspects of it. And no, “those” aren’t “the only two choices”, there are Nader and Baldwin besides.

Greenwald just has to be one of the most formidable self-promoters since Rush Limbaugh came on the scene and that requires his being system through and through, of course. In this respect, Greenwald never disappoints. With all the kvetching he manages about perfidious Democrats, when it really counts, Greenwald has no more courage than they do. Some vision for schlemeil, Bob Barr, to be supporting, eh?

As I said when I took a look at Freedom Slate '08 a month ago: if you're going to support a candidate or a cause, send the damn money directly to them.

Otherwise, you have only yourself to blame when you wake up the next morning, find that your Strange Bedfellow has already left the building, and that your wallet is strangely empty....

With luck, you'll still have both kidneys.

I know I'm going to get pooped on for this one....

OK, let's be clear at the start of this one: my children and now my grandson have always been cared for in one of the best licensed daycare facilities in the state--Limestone Hills Day School--because we work hard to be able to afford it.

Even so, I find the organization of a self-interested PAC by licensed day-care providers with the aim of shutting down their competition, to be downright ... well, I'd use the word "scary," but scare tactics is exactly what they're about here.

From an editorial in today's Snooze Journal:

Would you take your child to an unlicensed pediatrician? Would you put your child on a school bus with an unlicensed driver? What about your day care provider? Would you entrust your child all day to an unlicensed, potentially hazardous provider?...

There are about 1,300 independent licensed home day care providers now serving Delaware families. Licensed providers follow state regulations, take training classes and have their homes inspected each year. But there are also many homes -- no one knows the number -- where child care is offered by people who have no licenses and no training, and who are not inspected or regulated. Unlicensed facilities, headed by operators with uncertain backgrounds, can pose a threat to every child in these homes. Right now, the state is unable to shut down these dangerous facilities effectively. They are difficult to track down and, once found, difficult to enforce any sort of regulation upon.

Acknowledging that there is an issue here to be discussed, this editorial represents gratuitous fear-mongering of the worst sort, and Janet Nagengast, Sharon Strohm and Nancy Martin should be ashamed of the presentation.

Let's just start with the number of slick, unwarranted assumptions in the paragraph above:

1) Unlicensed day care providers "have no training." Really? How do you know? I know of several such providers who are LPNs and RNs, a standard of training that presumably exceeds that required for state licensed day-care providers. Whose responsibility is it to determine the acceptable level of training for the person who cares for your child, anyway? You, or the State? Will a State license make you entrust your child to somebody you inherently don't get a good vibe from?

2) Unlicensed day care providers are "not inspected or regulated." Beyond innuendo, where's the evidence that such inspection--beyond limiting the competition our authors face--is actually necessary or even a positive. Here's one example, provided to me by a licensed provider: State regulations are so contradictory that they often cannot be followed. Licensed providers are required to have a first-aid kit with certain items in it. One of the items required by one State agency in inspection is an anti-biotic ointment. But another State agency says you can't use that ointment on children. So the provider has to have a tube of that ointment in the first-aid kit, marked "do not use" in order to pass unannounced inspections. Yep, that State regulation is critical.

3) Unlicensed day care providers have "uncertain backgrounds," because they have not paid for background checks. Aside from the fact that public education proves every day across this country that background checks don't effectively screen out perverts and molesters, it raises a real question: who is responsible for deciding to whom I will entrust my children? I've known my next door neighbors for ten years--should I have a background check conducted by the State Police before I allow my children to be cared for in their house, for an hour, a day, or a week? You'll note what this article is short on: evidence of harm. While fear-mongering, all that the authors can come up with is a case from Texas, and not the slightest bit of evidence that the lack of background checks for unlicensed day care providers has caused any harm.

4) Unlicensed day care providers "pose a threat to every child in these homes." Really? What threat? What evidence? Tugging on my heart-strings is one thing, but let's get serious. I didn't bitch when the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Wilmington decided on its own to put all catechists and priests who work with children through background checks. There was a documented problem. Likewise, there have been documented problems in Delaware with foster parents, and changes in the regulations there. But to make the blanket accusation that unlicensed day care providers are a threat to every child they provide services for is a defamatory statement requiring evidence to back it up. And the authors have NOT provided any.

Ah, but we can't afford to wait for a problem, we're told:

That's why our group of licensed independent day care providers has organized a political action committee to effect change throughout the state and to protect Delaware's young. The Delaware Childcare Awareness Network has a mission to educate parents, the public and lawmakers. Our objective is clear: "Helping Providers, Protecting Children."

The state of Texas initiated a public awareness campaign to educate parents and caregivers after the tragic deaths of several children in unsafe unlicensed facilities. We don't want to wait for a tragedy in Delaware.

The Delaware Childcare Awareness Network is ready to partner with lawmakers, state agencies and parents to make changes and make sure Delaware kids in day care are as safe as they can possibly be.

This is followed by a list of all the wonderful things that licensed providers can give you that unlicensed providers don't.

I say this (and it will be lost in translation, I'm sure): I have no problem with licensed providers organizing a public awareness campaign [which would otherwise be called a "marketing campaign"] to demonstrate their superiority.

Let's be real, however, and discuss what's really at stake here: restricting competition in the lucrative day care industry.

There are 1,300 licensed day care providers in the First State. There are probably just as many unlicensed providers, though i suspect the unlicensed providers tend to care for fewer children.

What happens if our legislature passes the restrictions that this PAC wants?

1) A considerable number of new bureaucrats, social workers, and enforcement agents will have to be hired.

2) Thousands of parents will lose their day care options or become criminal accessories overnight.

3) The cost of day care at licensed providers will sky-rocket (and its already outrageous in most cases). Even at the higher rates, there will not be sufficient capacity to meet the need, and thus....

4) Many working poor families will be forced to turn to elderly grandparents, sibling care, neighbors, or even quit their jobs in order to take care of their children.

On a moral and ethical level, this initiative raises another critical question: who is responsible, ultimately, for making the decision about where my children shall be cared for? Me, or the State?

(As a dead giveaway about the motivations of these folks, look at what they tout: licensed providers assist the State in reporting on whether your child gets regular physical exams and immunizations [they can turn you in]; they pay income tax on their fees [waa-waa, we hate the underground economy]; they qualify for Federal tax credits and matching funds from upscale corporate employers [which tells you what middle-class fears we're playing on here]; and my personal favorite, "Are you sure the "Uncle Charlie" at your day care isn't a sex offender?")

The reality, folks, is that unlicensed day care exists because it meets a critical need: affordable child care. Licensed child care is a great idea for those who believe that State certification is what matters in determining who should care for their children, and also for those who can afford to subsidize the higher costs of licensing that are inevitably passed on to the consumers.

If you don't want your child in an unlicensed facility, here's a thought: don't send the little tyke there.

But please stop the fear-mongering until you actually have some evidence to back it up.

Munger (and his Money Grenade) covered in the Greensboro News-Record

"Too sane" to be governor? I think I'd take it if I were Michael Munger, Libertarian candidate for governor of North Carolina.

Here's Ed Cone of the Greensboro News-Record:

An update on Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger, described last year in this column as "maybe too sane for high office": North Carolinians put the Libertarian Party on the ballot for November, but Munger still is excluded from the gubernatorial debates. Munger's party has earned the right to compete with the entrenched duopoly in this marketplace of ideas, but the debate sponsors are ignoring their obligation to the public. Beyond the issue of fairness, it would be entertaining to watch Munger take on the professional politicians; he's smart, informed and funny, and he's got nothing to lose.

Last week, Munger took his case directly to the people, buying radio ads in the Triangle, Triad and Charlotte markets (sample line: "I'm not even asking for your vote yet, I just want a fair chance to compete for it.") The idea behind the ads is to boost his poll numbers quickly, as the League of Women Voters says it will include him in its debate if he has support from 5 percent of surveyed voters.

Munger got the money for the ads by holding a focused online fundraiser - a "money bomb," in the parlance of the Ron Paul presidential campaign, although Munger said his modest effort was more like a "money grenade." The goal was just $3,000, and the campaign netted more than $7,000 in donations. That's chump change, of course, compared to the money raised last quarter by Democrat Beverly Perdue ($2.3 million) and Republican Pat McCrory ($1.1 million), but the smart combination of new and old media helps Munger punch above his weight, and may even get him the place he's already earned in the debates.

[And thank you, again, for those Delaware Libertarian readers who helped out in the Money Grenade.]

[h/t to Peter Orvetti at Independent Political Report, who got to this one before I did.]

Let's also note that Freedom Democrats has picked up the same vibe from Chris Cole's unexpected 6% showing the in the NC Senatorial race against Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan that I mentioned here last week:

Public Policy Polling, a NC-based polling firm, summarizes the surprising polling numbers of a number of Libertarian candidates in NC.

Now, Elizabeth Dole's own internal polling shows that Libertarian Senate Candidate Chris Cole is pulling in 6%.

That someone like Chris Cole is registering at 6% in a state wide poll, when he really has no business breaking 1%, is fairly demonstrative that Barr and Munger are raising the tide for all Libertarian candidate boats in NC. Outside of Barr, Munger--who chairs the political science department at Duke--may be the most credible libertarian candidate in the country. It also worth mentioning, of course, that BJ Lawson, the GOP candidate in NC's 4th district, is probably the most credible candidate to emerge out of the r3VOLution.

As a NC resident, I can flatly say that the state LP has been hampered by oppressive ballot access laws through the years that the system and the 2-party duopoly are in no hurry to remedy. If either Barr or Munger can get 2% in November, the NC LP will be spared from having to repeat the arduous exercise of re-qualifying for ballot access(in 2010 and 2012), which is just a a drain on time and resources. Instead the NC LP could concentrate on recruiting a stable of capable candidates, a process made much easier when you already have guaranteed ballot access and Party ID registration.

From a libertarian political perspective, North Carolina is going to be an interesting laboratory of sorts to keep an eye on come this fall.

There, PPP notes, Libertarian Insurance Commissioner candidate Mark McMains is running at 9%, and Thomas Hill in NC Congressional District 8 is scoring 7%, to go along with the number's I've already been reporting for Bob Barr, Mike Munger, and Chris Cole.

Is this just a mid-summer fluctuation of the start of something really interesting?

I hope it's the latter, but stay tuned.

In the "Credit Where Credit is Due (sort of)" Department

This post by Eric Dondero at Libertarian Republican--Extreme Differences over Prostitution Legalization & Swingers Rights: This is why we're Libertarian Republicans and not Conservatives--mystifies me.

After praising Starchild's prostitution decriminalization initiative in California, Eric writes

Libertarians and most especially Libertarian Republicans are aligned with Conservatives more and more these days, on a variety of civil liberties issues. Conservatives have come around on smoking bans, seat belt laws, speed limits, free speech rights, and even in some cases on the gambling front. But they still seem completely out-of-touch on sexual matters, and hopelessly uncool.

And they wonder why young people are turning off to the GOP in record numbers.

Perhaps they should consider that it's their oldline prudishness that's more of a turn-off to younger voters than the War in Iraq. Solution: Let the Libertarians take the lead on issues such as legalization of prostitution and swingers' rights, and bring some hipness back to the GOP.

OK [he said slowly, drawing out the syllables in skepticism], but what about Eric's consistent refusal to consider the rights of gay American citizens, posted about two weeks ago in which he praised LP VP candidate Wayne Allyn Root for resisting the concept of supporting marriage rights for gays and lesbians:

Also in the interview Root outlines the libertarian stance on Gay Marriage, at variance with the liberal Gay Rights Agenda of special rights. Root says, Government should stay the hell out of the issue of Marriage altogether.

Just so we're clear on what Root was saying, here's part of his interview that got left out of Eric's post:

If Massachusetts or California and other progressive states legalize gay marriage, I say “great” and you as a gay person may want to go live there and feel more free, that’s great. If someone’s very deeply religious and they don’t want gay marriage and they therefore want therefore to choose to live in Alabama, Georgia or states with a more religious bent who don’t want to legalize it, then I say more power to those people who want to live in Georgia or Alabama.

[For fun, replace the words "legalize gay marriage" with "end slavery" and you get the point; arguing States' rights is still arguing for Statist control of human relationships, just at a different level.]

So, Eric, as much as I'd like to praise you for coming out in favor of Starchild, prostitutes, and the rights of (presumably hetero-) swingers in order to make Republicans more hip, I'm still struck by your continuing willingness to deny equal protection under the law and full faith and credit to American citizens of differing sexual orientations.

Is this where the debate over immigration has taken us--to complete dehumanization?

From The Curvature:

Juana Villegas DeLaPaz, identified as an illegal alien, was taken into custody by the Berry Hill Police Department (in the Nashville TN area), just as she went into labor...

...under armed guard handcuffed to by her wrist and ankle to a hospital bed. When she arrived at the hospital, the nurse asked the accompanying officer to step outside while Villegas DeLaPaz changed into her hospital gown - he refused, forcing Villegas DeLaPaz to unclothe before him. Then she was shackled on her legs whenever she went to the bathroom. The nurse asked that the shackles be removed because she wanted Villegas DeLaPaz to be able to clean up after childbirth and do other hygiene to prevent infection. Again, the attending officer refused. Her newborn was taken from her and did not receive needed breast milk for several days. She was re-jailed and denied a breast pump to express her milk. Nurses attending her were crying. She could not sleep in the jail because of the intense pain from her swollen breasts. She was not allowed to call her family so her husband could be with her for the birth.

Cara's comment is right on point:

Too many people seem to forget or attempt to erase the fact that immigration status has nothing to do with a person’s status as a human being.

The same comment could also be made concerning detainees in the war on terror, or even airline passengers with body jewelry or politically incorrect T-shirts.

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.

You say, "Creeping"; I say "Consuming"; let's just say, "Tomato," huh?

All of a sudden, Defense Secretary Robert "It doesn't take a brick to fall on me" Gates has discovered that Dubya has been using military interventionism as a surrogate for a real foreign policy:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Tuesday for greater funding for US diplomacy and foreign development aid, acknowledging concerns about a "creeping militarization" of US foreign policy.
"Broadly speaking, when it comes to America's engagement with the rest of the world, it is important that the military is -- and is clearly seen to be -- in a supporting role to civilian agencies," he said.

"Our diplomatic leaders -- be they in ambassadors' suites or on the State Department's seventh floor -- must have the resources and political support needed to fully exercise their statutory responsibilities in leading American foreign policy," he said.

He said he sensed bipartisan support in Congress for strengthening the civilian foreign affairs budget.

"It has become clear that America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long -- relative to what we traditionally spend on the military, and more importantly, relative to the responsibilities and challenges our nation has around the world."

Word has it that Gates has also recently discovered that the price of gas is creeping up.

kavips on the importance of third-party voices in political debates

I won't have to note this for Delaware readers, but for my out-of-state Libertarian visitors, progressive blogger kavips (who is rightly considered one of the intellectual heavyweights in the DE blogger mafia) has taken up the issue of third-party treatment (using Libertarians as the example) in the current political year.

From Don’t Even Say It: kavips found a Common Thread Between Libertarians and Dennis Spivack:

What I am comparing in my title above, are the numerous long articles detailing the plight of Libertarian candidates across this country, to the controversy reported ably in Down with Absolutes back in 2006, where candidate Spivack objected to allowing the Green’s third party candidate to participate in a debate. Spivack did not want his message watered down; Castle obviously benefited from having the Spivack message watered down, and a Green Party walkout ensued, which looked just petty. Spivack lost points in that exchange. Two years later, I think we can safely say: it was petty. Castle won that round…

But today Libertarians are facing challenges all across this country. Many of them are sharp candidates, better mentally prepared, than the party regulars with which they are competing…..

I think we can learn from this year’s unlimited number of Presidential Debates. The debates were better when there were more candidates debating. In fact, I remember someone feeling strongly that ABC should be boycotted for Jerry-Springertizing one of the later debates. Early in a campaign, ideas should be the star. Later its the candidates turn…. The best example of a third party influencing the entire election, would be the 20% Ross Perot garnered in 1992. He controlled the topics which were discussed, and neither candidate got a chance to derail the topic from what America needed to hear. To this day, I firmly believe it was Ross Perot who gave us our balance budget in 1999, by making it a campaign issue that had to be accepted by a major party, therefore get acted upon. I do not remember Bill Clinton having any intention of balancing the budget until he started getting outflanked by Perot….

The benefit of having a third party candidate, is that no gentleman’s or gentle-woman’s agreement “not to discuss” certain controversial topics, can continue. The issues seeking redress, get asked by the 3rd party candidate who has nothing to lose…… I have become convinced that limiting a third party candidate like Michael Munger in North Carolina, from speaking in debates, limits the quality of the entire campaign as a whole. There is no accountability with either of the two primary party candidates……

There are several hurdles that Libertarian and other third-party candidates must overcome before they get truly into the mainstream in open competition with the Demopublican monopoly:

1) Sustained, regular coverage of Libertarian candidates as serious contenders rather than curiosities in the mainstream media, such as is occurring in North Carolina and Georgia for candidates like Mike Munger and Allen Buckley, but is not yet happening for Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root.

2) Regular, reported inclusion in polls, which is happening in North Carolina (but not Georgia) and to the Libertarian presidential ticket.

3) Attention in major political blogs as legitimate participants in the public debate, which is beginning to happen everywhere, as the one ideal that seems to unite conservative and progressive bloggers alike is a commitment to open government and a fair electoral process.

4) Inclusion in the major candidate forums and debates, which has happened in Georgia and Wyoming, but not yet in North Carolina or the Presidential debates.

To kavips, to BlueNC, and to all the other bloggers who are not Libertarians, but whose sense of fairness and commitment to the best possible public examination of all options and candidates, please accept our thanks: you're helping us make a difference.

Delaware Libertarian makes the News Journal--at least in a small way

In today's News Journal Beth Miller has an important and thoughtful article about the Delaware child abuse reporting law and the issue of priestly sexual abuse in the Diocese of Wilmington.

You should read it all; I know that Beth put a remarkable amount research time into this piece, and I think it outlines the major issues quite well.

Of course, you'll understand if this is my favorite part:

The Diocese of Wilmington has not followed all the national patterns, though.

Neuberger, a relentless pugilist who spares few words when describing the failings of his clients' opponents, was surprised by Saltarelli's approach as settlement negotiations unfolded. And, as might be expected, Neuberger's tone changed dramatically after the diocese settled its first two cases without putting either plaintiff through the rigors of deposition and cross-examination.

"The bishop is not following the scorched-earth policy of some other dioceses," Neuberger said. "The big surprise was that the diocese went down the avenue of restorative justice."

Steve Newton, a history professor at Delaware State University who converted to Catholicism about four years ago, has appreciated Saltarelli's recent approach.

"I'm sure there are cases where the diocese has not handled it as well," said Newton, who writes the Delaware Libertarian blog. "But the bishop has led the diocese in assuming responsibility for dealing with this issue ... I think creating that window and that exception was a good thing. I think the legislature crafted a really good compromise for attacking a really difficult problem." [emphasis obviously added]

I thank Beth for the plug, but more importantly, I thank her for the story.

Contemplating the influence of blogs on state and local politics

Over at Delawareliberal there is an ongoing conversation about the impact that blogs can have on State and local politics; definitely worth reading and participating in.

Quite obviously one of my purposes here has been to give publicity to Libertarian candidates around the country, even at the risk of sometimes losing my non-Libertarian Delaware audience.

Most of the significance attached to political blogs (which are read--at most--by 1-2% of voters) has been discussed from a national perspective, but as I drive back from the beach tonight I'll be ruminating on the limits of the possible in other contexts.

Some questions on my mind:

If blogs become attached to particular candidates and aid their fund-raising, what happens to the intellectual independence of those blogs? (What do you do if the candidate you've been fund-raising for shits all over one of your favorite issues?)

How do you build traffic to get, maybe, 5% of the voters reading blogs?

How do turn those readers from passive recipients of your brilliance into activists?

How do you make some bucks (or should you) out of this enterprise in order to do more?

Not that I've solved any of these issues, but I do have some thoughts forthcoming tonight and tomorrow.

Now (sigh) to pack up the beach umbrella.

Allen Buckley in the Macon Telegraph

From today's Political Notebook:

LIBERTARIAN RUNS FOR SENATE

You know there are actually four people now running for the U.S. Senate in Georgia this year, right?

There's Saxby Chambliss, the current senator and the Republican. There's Vernon Jones, the DeKalb County CEO and top vote-getter in this week's Democratic primary. There's Jim Martin, the former state legislator and head of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, who polled second and faces Jones in the Aug. 5 runoff. And there's the Libertarian candidate, who tends to get short shrift when it comes to media coverage.

Well, not for the next few column inches, he doesn't.

Allen Buckley, the Libertarian Party's senate nomination, is a certified public accountant and an attorney living in Smyrna, according to his campaign Web site, www.buckleyforsenate.com. He must be a genius of compromise, since he lists degrees from both the University of Georgia and the University of Florida in his biography.

Buckley considers himself a real conservative and plans to pitch real solutions that "will involve sacrifice." Sounds popular, huh?

"It's a tough sell," Buckley said. "But a little bit of pain today - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Buckley links to Government Accountability Office reports on his site (the GAO is essentially the federal government's auditor), including one that warns that "our nation is on an imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path."

Buckley said the federal budget must be balanced every year.

He proposes a new tax structure: No taxes for anyone on income up to the federal poverty level, a 20 percent tax on the next $25,000 in income and an "X" percent tax on any income above that.

And "X" is whatever it takes to cover the costs of government, which he pledges to deal with as a fiscal conservative. There would also be four deductions: interest on your mortgage, charitable contributions, retirement funds (up to a limit) and basic health coverage.

Buckley said he also supports government incentive packages for a company that can produce working hydrogen cars in bulk. He sees solar power becoming more common in homes and said the country should pursue more nuclear, wind and water energy.

Props to Travis Fain and Matt Barnwell for some political integrity in a state that still won't include Buckley in polling.

And now Libertarians are on the ballot in Ohio

From the New York Times:

Ohio must include the Libertarian Party’s nominees on its ballot in November, a court has ruled, complicating Senator John McCain’s effort to win conservative votes in a hotly contested state rich in electoral votes.

The Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, formerly a Republican congressman from Georgia, will lead his party’s ticket, which includes the vice-presidential candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, and candidates for governor and several Congressional seats.

“Ballot restrictions are all designed to prevent competition for the Democrats and Republicans,” said Russell Verney, Mr. Barr’s campaign manager, who said inclusion on the ballot with a party banner should help attract more votes than if Mr. Barr were on the ballot as an independent candidate.

The court order, issued Thursday, directs the Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer L. Brunner, to disregard her office’s current guidelines for ballot inclusion, which require eligible parties to gather valid signatures equal to one-half of 1 percent of the total vote in 2006 or to have garnered at least 5 percent of the last election’s votes. The Libertarians submitted 6,545 signatures in March, far below the approximately 20,000 needed. Ms. Brunner’s office has not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

The deathknell for John McCain?

The latest Zogby results for Ohio

Barack Obama 43%
John McCain 38%
Bob Barr 7%
Ralph Nader 2%
Undecided 4%

Is Allen Buckley starting to break through in Georgia?

Lucid Idiocy posts When Common Sense Scares Me:

If I told you there was guy running for the United States Senate here in Georgia with a CPA and a law degree, who quotes from Government Accountability Office reports predicting "serious economic disruptions in the future" if we don't change our economic policies; who wants to drastically simplify the tax code and link the tax rate directly to spending; who wants to balance the federal budget; who has an energy plan; an immigration plan; and wants to reduce foreign intervention, how would all that sound?

Uh-oh, though, he's a Libertarian. And he's pitching solutions that "will involve sacrifice."

A longer rumination on Buckley will appear tomorrow in the Macon Telegraph's Political Notebook, courtesy of reporter Travis Fain, who is the Lucid Idiot.

Buckley is still not being covered in the polls, which is understandable. Most interest is focused on which of the remaining uninspiring Democrats will survive the primary process to take on Saxhole Chambliss, and the majority of polls are being funded by the Dems. So they don't want to hear about a third party candidate.

On the other hand, the AARP has joined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in reporting Buckley's opinions on the Question of the Week along the other hopefuls. As usual, Buckley sounds more realistic than Chambliss:

Something's definitely happening in North Carolina: Chris Cole at 6%!

The Tarrance Group now reports Libertarian Senate candidate Chris Cole running at 6% in North Carolina, thoroughly disrupting the Libby Dole-Kay Hagan race, in which the margin separating the two candidates is . . . only 7%.

Put this together with Bob Barr reliably polling around 5-6% for President and Mike Munger showing up at 3-6% (depending on the poll and the day), along with the fact that the Libertarian Party of North Carolina raised over $200,000 and collected 108,000 signatures for ballot access, and if this holds up....

You've potentially got the beginnings of real three-party politics in North Carolina.

[h/t Independent Political Report--whose site registration technical foul-up still won't let me post comments there.]

So who is this Libertarian trying to crash the party in Indiana's 9th House District?

In Indiana's 9th Congressional District, Dr. Michael Schansberg is doing something unprecedented: he's appearing statistically in polling for a US House race.

Current polling gives Schansberg 4% in what is an admittedly safe Democratic district, with Dem Baron Hill at 51-40 over GOP candidate Mike Sodrel.

So skeptics can, I suppose, dismiss Schansberg as a fairly meaningless protest vote totaling only about 40% of the margin separating the Demopublican candidates.

On the other hand, Dr Schansberg isn't a lightweight, either. He's Professor of Economics at Indiana University at New Albany and an anti-abortion Evangelical Christian candidate all at the same time.

This leaves him pretty far to the right of me, at least on social issues, but it appears that he's making his stand on basic economic issues, and he does it with some rare humor:

Baron Hill is a fiscal conservative — for a Democrat. (But that’s like saying that he’s among the best students who earned a D or F in a course.) Mike Sodrel is a fiscal moderate among Republicans (compared, for example, to fiscal conservatives like Mike Pence). That’s like going 7–9 in Big Ten basketball— and from what I understand, that's not good enough.

One might believe that we should have more police on the streets. How should we solve this? We could take your money; send it to Washington; have them take a cut of it and attach some strings; and then send it back to us— so we can hire more police. Or we could just hire our own police!

Hill is in a tough spot here since he argued that Sodrel should be blamed for the higher gas prices that occurred while he was in Congress. Of course, gas prices have increased much more since Hill returned to Congress and so he’s stuck with the silly argument he made two years ago.

On balance, I'd personally find it tough to become a real Schansberg partisan since I disagree with many of his social views, but I truly like his integrity (he doesn't mince words; I know where he stands), and he's got a lot to offer on economic issues.

Check him out.

The problem with polling for Libertarian candidates

Civitas has recently released its latest poll on the North Carolina governor's race, which shows Libertarian candidate Michael Munger at only 2%, not the 4-6% he's been garnering in the polls at Public Policy Polling.

The problem is one of high variability when you're polling below 8-10%.

The Civitas poll included 598 likely voters, of which only twelve expressed a preference for Munger. A total of 86 voters expressed no opinion. Sampling becomes problematic--hence the perennial qualifier of margin for error--at the 5% and below range. Had three more voters expressed a preference for Munger, he would have been rounded up to 3%. You have to wonder about the reliability and validity of such polls for third-party candidates.

However, there are two particularly interesting items in the Civitas poll: (1) the poll confirms that Munger enjoys stronger support among African-American men than might generally be expected from a Libertarian candidate; and (2) the poll shows Munger pulling 2% of Democrats and 6% of unaffiliated voters--but no Republicans.

Clearly the idea that the Libertarians in North Carolina are going to act as some sort of GOP spoiler needs to be examined more closely.

This is also the case in the new Survey USA 30 June Poll that gives Munger 4% statewide. This poll suggests that Munger voters are three times more likely to favor Barack Obama than John McCain for the Presidency. [Granted, this answer could also have been biased by the lack of an option to pick LP candidate Bob Barr.]

Survey USA also reports that Munger draws equally from Dem and GOPer voters (but twice as many independents). What's new here is that Munger voters are twice as likely to be pro-abortion rights as not, and spread themselves evenly over the spectrum of liberal-moderate-conservative.

Curiouser and curiouser....

Off to see Brooks and Dunn at the State Fair

It wouldn't be vacation without the State Fair, so we're off tonight to see Brooks and Dunn, with Rodney Atkins opening.

If there's any serious blogging to be done before tomorrow afternoon, somebody else will have to do it.

Libertarian NC State Senate candidate Jan MacKay challenges poorly written helmet laws, ah, ... head-on!?

Here's one Libertarian candidate that Shirley's Delaware Curmudgeon covers better than I can: Jan MacKay, running for NC State Senate in District 15. (But Shirley has the advantage of being a friend and fellow-biker.)

Still, if you take the time to visit the piece and read MacKay's brief about (specifically) poorly worded motorcycle helmet laws and (in more general terms) about vaguely worded legislation, you'll realize that this is a serious, thoughtful candidate for the NC State Senate.

Here's an excerpt:

How can motorcyclists ensure, with absolute certainty, that their helmet is compliant with federal motor vehicle safety standard "FMVSS 218?"

The federal government does not maintain a list of approved helmets, and by its' own admission, does not approve helmets. They do not test helmets prior to allowing them onto store shelves.

The standard calls for manufacturers to "self-certify" that each and every helmet they sell complies with the long list of requirements and specifications in FMVSS 218.

"If law enforcement suspects a helmet does not comply with the standard, rather than go after the manufacturer, they go after the consumer! This establishes a dangerous precedent, and should be of concern to every motorist and consumer. Imagine if they went after consumers to comply with all the hundreds of motor vehicle equipment items controlled by FMVSS.

Then, imagine if the FDA did this! It would take responsibility from the drug manufacturers, putting a burden of compliance on anyone who legally uses prescription drugs."

"Since the Governors office and the state legislators have no idea of how to answer that basic question of how to comply, for those lawful citizens who wish to abide by the statute, it is not right for them to leave this up to the citizens, and then ticket them for not complying.

The NC helmet statute is vague, because it points to a standard which is not meant to be adhered to by consumers. At present, it is arbitrarily enforced using ad hoc determination by law enforcement who cannot test a helmet for compliance or non-compliance during a roadside stop.

A Delaware Libertarian Exclusive: Interview with NC Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger

Dr Michael Munger, Libertarian candidate for Governor of North Carolina, does not dodge questions.

You may not like his answers, but as Toby Keith says, you'll know just where he stands.

Mike is so committed to keeping himself and his party in the debate in the Tarheel State this year that he was willing to take what must have been at least an hour out of his schedule to answer some detailed questions for me.

[An aside to my non-Libertarian friends, especially in Delaware: is there anything really fringe about these answers? You tell me. I'm specially asking you, geek, pandora, and Dana Garrett, because I'm really curious about your perceptions.)

At any rate, here are the questions and the answers. Some are quite long; other succinct to the point of web addresses.

All of them--it bears saying again--are responsive to the intent of the question.

I wonder how well Bev Perdue or Jim McCrory would do with these same questions.


1. If elected Governor of North Carolina, what would be your three major priorities for your term of office?

First priority: I issue an executive order placing an immediate moratorium on capital punishment in the state. Then I commute the sentences of everyone on death row to life in prison without parole.

Second priority: I announce a new task force, composed of development experts and economists, headed by North Carolina State University's Mike Walden [The Wm Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Agriculture], to look at ways to improve the attractiveness of North Carolina for new jobs. We would focus on the big three: improved education, at both primary/secondary and community college level; improved infrastructure in highways/utilities, and improved regulation/paperwork burdens for small businesses. Then, I announce ANOTHER new task force, composed of city planners and experts on road construction, to make recommendations for the use of the Highway Trust Fund. I would work to depoliticize road construction, using something like the Federal Base Closing Commission, to make recommendations about roads. And then I would publicize every instance where the legislature deviates from the expert recommendations. I actually think that lots of folks in the legislature would welcome the chance to be able to do the right thing, relieved of political pressure to bring home the asphalt bacon.

Third priority: I would create a study commission to check over the cases of all citizens incarcerated in NC's prisons for purely nonviolent crimes. (Embezzlement is violent, by the way, even though it is theft by stealth.) These crimes would include: possession of small amounts of any drug, prostitution, etc. And then I would take the resulting list of nonviolent offenders, after it had been checked to make sure that NO crimes of violence had been committed by anyone on the list, and commute their sentences to time served. The money saved by reducing the number of folks in the steel hotels of our state would be spent on treatment and addiction programs, and adjustment programs to try to reduce recidivism.

2. One of the big issues among Demopublican candidates this year involves promising some form of government-sponsored universal health care; what does the Libertarian Party offer people worried about lack of insurance or under-insurance?

The problem we have is that insurance is tied to employment. If you have a certain kind of job, your health care is "free," at least to you, at least at the margin. The reason health care is so expensive is that we have no competition to keep costs low. We DO have competition among HMOs and insurance companies to keep benefits low.

Look, health care is expensive. As it stands, we have a bizarre kind of socialized medicine, where emergency rooms have to treat people who got real sick because they didn't get preventive care or treatment earlier. Health care should not be free, and it should be provided at public expense in emergency rooms. We need PRIMARY care, PREVENTIVE care, available widely and cheaply.

My solutions:

A. Lower state and federal barriers to Physician's Assistants and other highly trained persons practicing primary care and diagnosis. Most people, most of the time, don't need a doctor. But barriers to entry force high costs and low service from doctors trying to pay off their college loans!

B. Encourage the use of generics and older medicines, rather than emphasizing the use of new drugs that cost ten times as much and are little more effective.

C. Allow competition among medical firms to provide lower cost and higher quality service. INCLUDING an incentive to be able to see a doctor within an hour of your so-called "appointment."

3. You have advanced an energy policy [available here] that looks, frankly, like a national policy. What would you do about energy-related issues as Governor of North Carolina?

Energy policy HAS to be national. At the state level, I would let high prices do their important work. I would work with local power generators and providers to expand capacity. And I would be perfectly willing to consider facilitation of another nuclear power plant in NC, if we can get approval from the federal government. Cheap, reliable power is one of the keys to economic growth.

4. The LP of NC was spectacularly successful this year in regaining ballot access, and you in particular are performing better than expected in the polls. What is your long-term campaign strategy for moving forward?

Any "third" party candidate has to rely large on earned media appearances, with some carefully placed ads on radio and in "town shopper" papers. I have been really fortunate in catching the attention of the media, particularly talk radio. I have been running paid radio ads this week, and will be starting with ads in local newspapers next week. It will build slowly, but the campaign is building!

5. Repeated poll results indicate that many of your supporters think immigration issues are very important; what would be your policy toward immigration as Governor of North Carolina?

Here is an article from the Durham Herald-Sun, from December 2007, which spells out my view.

Help the Governor with Law Enforcement
Michael Munger
Duke University

There is an old metal sign on my office wall. It's dated 1928, and says, "Help the President with Law Enforcement. Repeal the 18th Amendment. For Prosperity." The sign had hung on a barn wall in eastern NC for more than 75 years. I bought it at an auction, and had it framed.

The sign is old, but the message is timeless. The only reason that lots of things are illegal is that they happen to be against the law. We can spend more, and give up more freedoms, for enforcement. Or we can get rid of the law. The 18th Amendment of 1919 prohibited the sale of alcohol. But Prohibition proved too expensive, too intrusive, and too difficult to enforce. So we helped the President with law enforcement: Prohibition was repealed in 1933.

"Law enforcement" has been the key issue in the last few weeks for North Carolina's community colleges. On November 7, the NC Community College System issued a mandate that read, in part: "To comply with the State Board's regulation requiring an open-door admission policy to 'all applicants'...colleges should immediately begin admitting undocumented individuals." What? Why should illegal aliens be able to attend community college?

Because that's our policy, and Governor Easley has rightly stood by that policy. But we could "help the Governor," just like my old sign says. The problem is not with community college admissions. The problem is the law that makes folks "illegal" in the first place.

Political scientists refer to the coalition that kept Prohibition in place as the "the Baptists and the Bootleggers." The Baptists for moral reasons, and Bootleggers for economic reasons, wanted states to crack down on "illegal" liquor sales. Strange bedfellows, I suppose, but Baptists got their morality, and the bootleggers got a protected monopoly.

Well, the Baptist and Bootlegger coalition has come back. Demagogues like Lou Dobbs are playing to a resurgent nativist sentiment widespread in our population. We are all immigrants, but the ones who got here first want to pull the ladder up. "I've got mine! You have to stay out!" So they play the moralistic loudmouth role.

And the Bootleggers? Well, that role has been taken on by the giant agriculture corporations, and the meatpackers, and other companies that depend on keeping immigration illegal. We don't block immigration; we block legal immigration. That's the way we keep labor costs low to unscrupulous employers. That's the economic part.

Employment, welfare, insurance, education, crime....all these issues are dumped on the Governor, as law enforcement problems. One way to address the problem is to spend more money, and divert more resources, to a hopeless attempt to enforce a useless law. But the other way, the sensible way, to solve the problem is to change the law itself.

Allowing illegal aliens access to community colleges, at out-of-state tuition rates, is the right policy, but it's a baby step. The real way to help the President, and the Governor, with law enforcement is to change the law. The solution is complicated, but I think it has three parts. Remember, as it stands, we don't block immigration. Millions of people have crossed our border in the last decade. No, we just use paper barriers to prevent people from coming here legally.

The first step, then, would be to gain control of borders, giving us confidence that we can keep criminals, repeat offenders, and terrorists out. Second, start a guest worker program. Make it possible for people to be legal, and go through a probation period. Law-abiding, hard-working immigrants shouldn't be deported. And, if we have control of the border, deportations of the law-breakers and the chiselers would stick, because we can use fingerprints and retinal scans for positive IDs.

Finally, full citizenship for guest workers who qualify, after five years. In America, if you want to be an American, you should get a chance to be here legally. Help the President with law enforcement. Change the law, to achieve a comprehensive solution to the immigration problem.

6. What is your stand on medical marijuana and the Federal war on drugs?

The federal government should restore the police power to the states. The federal power grab on local drug policy is appalling.

States should be able to allow medical marijuana, or even full scale legalization, according to their own views.

I certainly favor decriminalization of marijuana possession, in NC. But as a federal matter, the feds should just back off.

7. What, if any, role should the North Carolina state government play in the current mortgage crisis?

Very difficult for the legislature to do the right thing in an election year. Too tempting to try to "help" in ways that would actually make the crisis worse.

People took risks. If they won, they got the profits. If they lost, they socked it to taxpayers. Bailouts don't help the poor homeowners who got hammered, and bailouts encourage mortgage gamblers to take too many
risks again next time.

To be fair, things aren't so bad in NC. Housing prices are not really falling in most places, and that is the problem that is hammering the urban areas of the northeast and the west coast.

8. In which areas of North Carolina do Libertarian candidates appear to have the most support?

Go here and find out.

9. Why is a vote for a Libertarian candidate in 2008 not a wasted vote in a close gubernatorial race?

No one vote "counts," in the sense that it determines the outcome. Even Florida, in 2000, a very close race for Electoral College Votes, was determined by more than 530 votes. If one person more, or less, had voted it would have been 529, or 531. Unless you think you are a Jedi, and can control weaker minds by how YOU choose to vote, ALL votes are wasted.

The reason votes, for most people, are NOT wasted is that they are casting a vote, expressing support, for a cause that they believe in.

So, WASTING your vote would be voting, again, for the lesser of two evils. WASTING your vote would be casting your ballot in a setting where you don't really like either alternative.

How can you make your vote COUNT? In NC, if I get 2% of the vote, just 2%, then Libertarians are on the ballot without having to worry about signature petitions or qualifying for the 2010 or 2012 elections! Your vote really, REALLY counts in 2008. Help me get that 2%. If you hear a third party candidate, and decide not to vote for her, then she has lost a vote. If you don't even get to hear that alternative, then YOU have lost a choice.

Strike a blow for choice, for fairness, and for democracy by helping me get that 2%. Don't waste your vote on business as usual, voting in a race where your ballot doesn't even matter.

Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, and hoping for a different outcome. Think about it: how has your choice to vote for the lesser of two evils been working out? NOT TOO WELL!

10. Can you explain why polling results suggest a strong appeal for the Libertarian message among African-Americans and those of "other" ethnicity? [PPP suggests that both you and Bob Barr poll more strongly among black voters than white voters right now.]

Think about it: A black man, walking on a city street. Police car pulls up. Black man thinks, "Oh, good, the nice policeman is here to give me directions. He must think I'm lost. Because this is a WEALTHY section of town." No! Blacks have been systematically mistreated by government at every level.

Understandably, this has resulted in attempts to control at least parts of government, to prevent discrimination and bigotry. And the strongest supporters of charter schools, and voucher programs, are the inner city poor, many of them African - American. As Frederick Douglass said, "It is easier to build strong children then to repair broken men." We have to do better in the schools. Many African - Americans are tired of waiting for someone to come save their schools. They can do it on their own, if they can just get some small part of the resources available to the wealthy suburban enclaves.

Thanks, Mike.

For those of you who find these views worthy of consideration by the voters of North Carolina, help keep Mike Munger and his Libertarian cohorts (I'm thinking especially of Chris Cole for US Senate, Jan MacKay for State Senate, and T. J. Rohr and Susan Hogarth for the State House) in the news, in the public view, and in the debate in '08 by insuring that any friends you have in North Carolina get to see this.

Guessing game: who wrote these?

Tom always gets to these first and fastest, and always spoils my fun.

So this time I have used quotations I am pretty sure are not on the Web, just to raise the stakes a little.

Here are the quotes:

Number one:

If we go it alone and depend on ourselves to defend ourselves we must be prepared permanently to surrender that democratic freedom of action which we habitually enjoyed in peace time. We must resign ourselves to becoming a socialist, largely authoritarian police state, with freedom of speech, freedom of occupation, and freedom of movement subordinated to military necessity, as defined by those in charge.

Number Two:

If you enter politics with honesty, ordinary sense, and a hope in your heart that you can help out, I am willing to trust my own future and the future of our children to the evaluations you will form and the actions you will take. Whenever the American people take their affairs in their own hands, instead of letting them go by default, I have no fear of the outcome.

We need never be afraid of the vote of informed Americans. It is only the ignorant voter we have to fear, ignorant politically, no matter how fine his house or how expensive his schooling. Such people have never experienced democracy; they have merely enjoyed its benefits. It is hard to explain what democracy is; it is necessary to participate in it to understand it.

Number Three:

From politics I have come to believe the following:

(1) Most people are basically honest, kind, and decent.

(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. They do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts, Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.

(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don’t want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don’t greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither money mad nor prying; we are easy-going and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses—but not with the Vanderbilts. We don’t like cops.

(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself—or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remain.

(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way—prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs, Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.

(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war that fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical yardstick of “benevolent” monarchy or dictatorship—there ain’t no such animal!

(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be extremely effective in politics.

I will give you two hints:

a) Upton Sinclair

b) All three were written c. 1946

Coming tomorrow: A Delaware Libertarian Exclusive Interview with Mike Munger

OK, so as the Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina trying everything to get into the debates, he'll probably talk to anybody.

But Dr Michael Munger agreed to let me have ten questions, no holds barred, and he provided extensive answers.

Answers that don't evade.

Answers that explain in great detail why the Chair of the Political Science Department at Duke University (who holds a joint appointment in Economics) is undoubtedly the best qualified candidate for governor of the Tarheel State despite (dare I say it?) the fact that he's a Libertarian.

I like Mike--everybody knows that. But I don't ask politicians easy questions, as George Phillies, Christine Smith, and Mike Protack (all of whom have chosen to answer my questions) can tell you.

The interview will be posting late tomorrow evening (wouldn't want to interfere with my beach time).

Shirley explains that Michelle and Cindy are far more similar than the MSM would have you believe

My favorite Curmudgeon has a thirty-second read that clears the smoke from Democratic attempts to portray Cindy McCain as an out-of-touch rich bitch in comparison to Michelle Obama's as the down-to-Earth socially sensitive type.

Succinct enough that I'm not going to excerpt it.

But please come back, anyway.

Libertarians in Michigan out front in supporting Scotty Boman

Mark Byrne, Chair of the Libertarian Party of St. Clair and Sanilac counties, scored a letter to the editor in the Port Huron Times-Herald this past week, supporting both Michigan Senate candidate Scotty Boman and Presidential nominee Bob Barr:

Did Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama sell out your freedom on July 9?

Obama voted in favor of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a bill that provides retroactive legal protection to cooperating telecom companies that helped the feds illegally eavesdrop on the overseas calls of American citizens in America. Until a few weeks ago, that would be shortly after the last primaries, Obama adamantly opposed the bill. "Unequivocally" was the word his people used.

"Believing Democrats are more adept at protecting American civil liberties is a mistake," Libertarian Party spokesman Andrew Davis said. "Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans, and have been a doormat to the Republican-led assault on our Constitution.

McCain also failed to vote against the FISA bill and protect your freedom.

So what are Americans to do if they want to protect their freedom? You can show freedom matters by voting in November for candidates who not only oppose the FISA bill today, but also will oppose the FISA bill when it comes up for a vote next time. Presidential candidate Bob Barr and U.S. Senate candidate Scotty Boman are vocal opponents of the FISA bill and other violations of the U.S. Constitution. Bob Barr is polling at 6% in a national poll by Zogby and his campaign has just gotten started.

All right, so I don't have the slightest idea where Port Huron is, or how big it is, but that doesn't matter.

In an internet age the amount of publicity that can be generated this way is virtually limitless--and any of us can do it.

According to On The Issues, Allen Buckley is a Moderate, Barack and Hillary are twins, and both McCain and Barr are conservatives (who knew?)

I reported a few weeks back that Allen Buckley, the Libertarian candidate for the Georgia Senate, had broken through at On the Issues with his own page of quotations (a first for a Libertarian candidate in a State race, I believe).

Now the VoteMatch section of On the Issues has placed Buckley as a "Centrist"--in the Moderate range just shy of Libertarian--on the Nolan Chart.


If you read their scoring, and you're familiar with Buckley's positions on the issues I think you'll agree with me that he should move up a couple squares into the Libertarian corner of the diamond, but then, let's look at good ole boy Saxby Chambliss' score...



I suppose the big surprise would be Bob Barr's rating, now that they've finally gotten him on the site. Of course, the problem is, which Bob Barr do you use for the scoring? If you read the positions scored by On the Issues, about half of them are old Barr positions before he saw the light and drank the kool-aid, while the other half are attributable to Barr since the LP convention. That's the problem:



Poke around in the site a little bit, and you will find (among other things) that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton received exactly the same score, and that John McCain actually comes out almost as conservative as Saxby Chambliss...



All good fun, right?

John McCain proves he can flip-flop like Obama (or maybe he's just studying Barr on DOMA)

Just days after coming out against gay adoption, Senator John McCain has sent out his staff with an Obama-like correction that could have been lifted from Bob Barr's supposed change of heart on DOMA:

From Politics1:

Speaking over the weekend to the New York Times, John McCain (R) said "I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption." On Tuesday, McCain's campaign spokesperson issued a formal statement clarifying (i.e., changing) the candidate's position. The new stance: "McCain could have been clearer in the interview in stating that his position on gay adoption is that it is a state issue, just as he made it clear in the interview that marriage is a state issue. He was not endorsing any federal legislation. McCain's expressed his personal preference for children to be raised by a mother and a father wherever possible. However, as an adoptive father himself, McCain believes children deserve loving and caring home environments, and he recognizes that there are many abandoned children who have yet to find homes. McCain believes that in those situations that caring parental figures are better for the child than the alternative."

This is more properly called the "Oops, Senator, we still haven't taken away their right to vote, so just in case" moment.

Explaining the Libertarian mindset to Liberals: the question of prior restraint

For some masochistic reason that escapes me, over at Delawareliberal both dv (sorry, can't call you Delaware's Hottest Blogger unless you actually win the competition) and jason have developed this penchant for baiting 2nd Amendment advocates and then bemoaning their appearance when they show up to argue.

liberalgeek appears to be reading these threads with a sort of accident-I-can't-look-away mentality, throwing in a comment or two from time to time, but mostly staying out of the crossfire (poor choice of words? go here and here; I think not)

But liberalgeek did say, in one comment lost among the chaos a critical thing that deserves more attention, as it is perhaps the best single-sentence definition of the difference between a Liberal and a Libertarian that I have ever read. (Geek: that's truly intended as a compliment.)

He said:

I am in favor of sensible restrictions on things that can be easily misused.

I want to unpack that a little bit, with the understanding that--as it appeared first in a gun-control thread--I am going to have to deal with firearms, at least a bit, but that this is NOT a post about gun rights.

[Geek: I am not consciously attempting to set up straw men based on your sentence; so please feel free to let me know if I have distorted your intentions.]

The two key elements of the sentence are "sensible restrictions" and "things that can be easily misused."

Sensible restrictions

Let's start with the question of who determines what's a sensible restriction? The courts? Local, state, or Federal government? Parents? Special interest lobbying groups? This is, as I think you are well aware, a devil-in-the-details sort of issue.

Some initial observations:

1. The higher the level of government imposing the restriction on any item, the more sweeping the restriction will be, and the less ability there will be for local conditions to moderate that restriction. It is a direct corollary of this that if the Federal government imposes a restriction for one purpose, it will soon find other purposes for which to use that restriction, purposes that will generally be to the detriment of the civil rights of individual American citizens. I give two examples (sorry again for lack of sophisticated links this week; still chillin' at the beach):

We take our shoes off in the security line at airports because of the guy known as the shoe bomber (was his name Reid?) caught back in what, 2001 or 2002. Federal agents and anybody who passed undergraduate chemistry knows that both the shoe bomb and the 3-ounce-shampoo bomb are fantasies; you can't actually pull it off outside the confines of 24. The TSA has essentially admitted that: dig deeply into its website and concurrent FBI websites and you will discover that you now take your shoes off at airports in an effort to curtail smuggling that has absolutely nothing to do with your safety on the plane.

Second example (a sort of negative reverse example): no sooner had the ink dried on the original Patriot Act in 2002 that the FBI was already using it in Colorado to infiltrate legitimate anti-war protest groups that (when compelled to release documents under FOIA) the Feds admitted that they had always known had absolutely no connections with Al Qaeda or any form of terrorism foreign or domestic.

So my first point: sweeping Federal restrictions tend to be far more sweeping than sensible, which is the primary reason, by the way, that millions of Americans suffer chronic pain and can't use medical marijuana, that it takes roughly 3 times as long to get new medicines approved for use in this country as it does in Europe, that gays are denied basic civil rights in terms of partnership benefits, and that threats are the order of the day when the Feds impose such restrictions (55-mile-speed limit and drinking age restrictions vs loss of Federal highway funds; Real ID vs loss of the right of your citizens to get on an airplane.)

[As an aside: I'd argue that this was precisely why the 2nd Amendment is second. The first two amendments were originally intended by James Madison as inserts into the Constitution in Article 1 (the Congress), and as such represented things that Congress was not supposed to be able to legislate. The right to bear arms, however, required a philosophical statement ahead of the prohibition in infringement, so it was placed in a separate amendment. Thus, in the original Constitution, the prohibition on placing restrictions on gun ownership was placed on the Federal government alone. However, the 14th Amendment, in reversing the basic roles of the Federal and State governments as protectors of the civil liberties of American citizens, left the 2nd Amendment out there in limbo. Supreme Court decisions regarding the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments in the 1930s created the precedent that the Bill of Rights also bound State governments, but the justices clearly were not considering the implications of those decisions on the 2nd Amendment.]

2. Bringing sensible down to the state or local level of government doesn't make such restrictions any more sensible, it simply makes them more variable. We in Delaware, for example, have just decided that it is sensible to enact legislation protecting patrons of the Bottle & Cork from copycat bands, but that it is not sensible to have either open government or protection from eminent domain abuse. Senator Margaret Rose Henry considers it sensible to require individuals old enough to have driver's licenses to be compelled to wear bicycle helmets on a twelve-speed.

Most States now consider it sensible to detail police officers away from working on solving or prevent crimes with victims in order to enforce motorcycle helmet laws and seatbelt laws.

In the 1970s I went to college in southern North Carolina, and actually worked in South Carolina. I carried a handgun in my truck. (I may have this next part reversed, but it doesn't make any difference to the story.) In NC if you carried a pistol in your truck it had to be in the glove compartment; in SC if you carried a pistol in your truck it had to be out on the seat in plain view. So, in theory, each time I crossed the NC/SC border I had to pull over, and either take the gun out or put the gun into my glove compartment. Makes a hell of a lot of sense, doesn't it?

In Georgia (as I found out two years ago when applying for a job) it is still considered sensible for public education officials to be able to strip search my child and to apply corporal punishment without any requirement for either pre- or post-event notification of the parents.

This sensible thing scares the hell out of me, because there is usually no way to quantify it, and because--however well-meaning the nannies are--they almost always want restrictions on citizens rather than government.

3. Sensible is usually a code-word not for a compromise or consensus reached after thoughtful public debate or the gathering and vetting of evidence. What sensible usually means is an ideological talking point buttressed with carefully cherry-picked evidence that is designed to play on emotion rather than logic. Liberals want sensible restrictions on gun ownership; conservatives want sensible restrictions on abortion; none of us really believes anybody on either side of these arguments is telling the truth (which saddens me immensely--and yes, geek, I believe you when you said you didn't favor general confiscation of firearms).

Things that can be easily misused

There's a slippery slope for you. Some day read a science fiction story from the late 1940s by Jack Williamson called "With Folded Hands," about the creation of a series of robots whose only mission was to protect human beings from harm.

The problem is that this category is basically a form of group punishment or group restraint. I remember being outraged in elementary school when somebody stole something and the teacher would say, "If the person who stole little Mary Sue's pencil doesn't admit to the crime, there will be no recess for the entire class for the rest of the week." This makes wonderful sense: one person has done something wrong, so we will remove rights and/or privileges from everybody.

Which is why I can't buy as much goddamn cold medicine as I want to.

Of course, the Liberal argument here is that we have to use public policy to protect the public from potential harm.

Unfortunately, this equates with taking away rights from those who have not done, or even contemplated doing, anything wrong rather than emphasizing the implementation of consequences for those who actually behave in a criminal manner.

It is really an issue of prior restraint--and this is the fundamental question upon which Liberals and Libertarians part company.

Liberalgeek would prefer, I infer, to live in a society wherein the government is the primary manager of risk and harm. He sees more advantages in the government being able to DO GOOD, by having the power to regulate firearms, fast cars, bad whiskey, ephedrine-laced Co-Tylenol, and consensual sex between teenagers.

I would prefer to live in a society wherein individuals are the primary managers of risk and harm, and the government is closely restricted in its ability to DO HARM by stepping on the rights of its citizens. I see more advantage in arresting and charging people for crimes they have actually committed than in making simple, everyday activities illegal on the grounds that they might conceivably hurt somebody someday.

I freely admit that I am willing to accept greater individual risk in a free society for myself and my family in exchange for greater individual freedom. Liberals would suggest that the object of society is greater individual security.

[Another long-winded aside: Dubya notwithstanding the Patriot Act could not have been passed in a society that did not already condone the War on Drugs which could not have existed without the National Security State necessary to maintain the Defense/Industrial complex to fight the Cold War. Demopublicans all enjoy using the power of government to impose the particular restrictions they think necessary on American citizens.]

The problem is that both of these arguments--this dynamic between security and liberty--not only have existed since the beginning of the American Republic, they have existed since the beginning of organized human societies.

And advocates of both positions have been like the Puritans and Pilgrims escaping religious persecution in Europe just so they could set it up in New England. [We have freedom of religion NOT because anybody was particularly open-minded, aside from Thomas Jefferson, in 1787, but because nobody really thought they could win and become the established church for the whole country, so their next fall back was religious plurality.]

Here's how this plays out with the gun rights argument (sans all the name-calling):

Advocates of sensible restrictions on gun ownership in America see firearms as mechanisms designed to kill and maim, with no real social value outside the possession of weapons by police and the armed forces. They point to all the societal harms (suicide rates, domestic violence, drug warfare, etc. etc.) created by firearms, and see few if any countervailing societal benefits from gun ownership. They believe themselves to be in the vanguard of progressive thought about establishing a society that moves beyond physical violence (risk being managed by the State), and that these sensible restrictions will do as stop-gaps until the maturity level of the rest of society catches up to their own perceptions of the correct way to run the country.

Radical supporters of 2nd Amendment rights are indeed clinging to tradition (and their guns) because they see infringements on gun ownership as definitive proof that Liberals wish to impose the complete Nanny State on them, and they see themselves slowly but surely losing ground in the protection of their individual rights.

Neither side can understand why its opponents cannot see simple logic.

This Libertarian (and here I certainly do not pretend to speak for a movement) sees guns and gun ownership as tools to be used or misused.

The States of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia legislated strict gun ownership laws (even gun confiscation) on free Blacks immediately after Reconstruction, leaving them defenseless in the face of KKK and other white violence.

The government of New York attempted to make gun ownership illegal for people renting rather than owning property in the 1820s at the behest of Hudson River landlords who were finding it difficult to collect extortionate rents.

The City of Oakland (in tandem with the FBI) tried to make it difficult if not impossible during the 1960s for adult African-American citizens to own firearms during one of the most racially oppressive police regimes in modern American history.

Not content with internment of Japanese-American citizens in World War Two, the Federal government and several States colluded to confiscate and destroy legally owned firearms from American citizens of German or Italian descent, many of whom had sons or daughters then serving in the US military.

In coal country Appalachia throughout the period 1880-1950 the coal companies lobbied hard for sensible gun ownership restrictions that would insure that their strike-breaking peace officers were the only people armed during labor disputes.

All of these restrictions were presented and approved as sensible restrictions on things that could be easily misused, but in reality served specific ideological ends that involving eliminating the rights of certain groups of American citizens.

So there are plenty of historical arguments that access to guns has been critical to maintaining the rights of American citizens throughout our nation's existence. So please, stop feeding me this line that guns are only devastating weapons of destruction. That sword cuts both ways. The absence of guns is also--sad to say, even in America--a potential pre-condition for exploitation, abuse, and tyranny.

I don't want to oversimplify this argument, and any essay as short (!) as this one always risks that.

But my point is this: if we are ever going to make any progress beyond jason calling people who support the Second Amendment retards while he's arguing that anybody who owns more than 20 guns must be selling them illegally, then here's what we have to do....

1) Admit that this is not an argument about guns, as much as it is an argument about how society should be managed.

2) Recognize that ultimate victory for either dynamic--public safety or individual liberty--would probably leave us with a society nobody here really wants despite their posturing. (OK, a few people on either side._

3) Stop throwing around all this high-sounding ideological moral crap and admit that we're talking about the plain old politics of compromise and arm-twisting on tough issues about which other American citizens whom we generally respect hold widely differing beliefs. (By the way, there goes that old our-diversity-is-our-strength bullshit.)

Libertarians in nationwide polling: looking beyond the Presidential race

The most amazing thing about political polling is that it is now also principally a tool of the Demopublicans and the Mainstream Media, which means it has a defined interest in keeping the two-party narrative alive everywhere except the Presidential race.

That's presumably why, even though there are numerous Gubernatorial, Senatorial, Congressional, and State races across the country where the Other category is garnering as high as 6-9% (I counted nearly sixty such races in a brief run through the DC Political Report), there are only six that actually have named Libertarian candidates attached, even though Libertarians are running in dozens of those races.

(The same can be said, on a slightly lesser scale, about the Greens.)

These races are:

Indiana House District 9: Eric Schansberg--4%

Montana Senate: Stan Jones--3%

North Carolina Governor: Michael Munger--8%

North Carolina Senate: Chris Cole--1%

North Carolina State Senate District 36: Thomas Hill--7%

Utah Governor: Dell Schanz--1%

Note that three of the six races--50%--are from North Carolina, a fact attributable to the existence there of Public Policy Polling, which actually places third-party candidates in its questions.

This is an interesting form of self-fulfilling prophecy: if you don't include the names of any other candidates in the poll questions besides the Demopublican contenders, then you insure that those third-party candidates get absolutely no traction whatsoever.

There is tremendous reason to think, for example, that Libertarian Senate candidate Allen Buckley in Georgia is polling somewhere around 4-6% right now (he has received 69-75,000 votes in his last two elections), but with the polls unanimously excluding him, he can't use this showing for credibility purposes.

Question: what needs to happen to get the major polling interests to actually use the names of the ballot-qualified candidates in their surveys?

If you live in North Carolina, ask yourself if anything Bev Perdue or Pat McCrory has done qualifies them as policy experts. . . .

. . . in anything.

Then consider Analyzing Policy: Choices, Conflicts, and Practice (W. W. Norton, 2000) by Dr Michael Munger, which has become a standard text for introducing students to public-policy analysis:

This readable and comprehensive introduction to the principles of public-policy analysis is the first book to integrate the tools students need to analyze politics with the common sense they need to understand how real policies are made. Analyzing Policynot only helps students learn the conceptual foundations of policy analysis, but it also helps them understand the conflicts between markets, democracy, and experts in political decision making. The book offers students the basics of the welfare-economics paradigm and cost-benefit analysis while highlighting the roles that policy analysts play. The analytical techniques presented in the text are applied throughout each chapter and in three chapter-length case studies. Students are challenged to apply these techniques on their own in end-of-chapter exercises and additional problems on Norton's supporting Web site.

Maybe now we know why they don't want him the North Carolina gubernatorial debates: Fear of embarrassment.

Scandal in the First State! Delawareliberal engaged in sexist contest!

Realizing that I am not by any means a Democrat, I support the idea of gathering funds for Tom Noyes to attend the Dem National Convention, if only out of state pride.

But I am appalled, I tell you, truly appalled, at the sexist miscogynist Delaware's Hottest Blogger contest being conducted without any shame whatsoever over at Delawareliberal, in which dv, jason, and liberalgeek are doing the equivalent of crotch-grabbing for twenties to be stuffed in their undershorts.

[Incidentally, I understand that there is plenty of room in said shorts, there being nothing else much in residence. Slimy liberals.]

What I want to know is where are the lovely cassandra and the enticing pandora, who--if the inferences to be drawn from their postings--are truly the people's candidates for Delaware's Hottest Bloggers.

I sense a sexist double-standard liberal plot here.

But you can venture over the Delawareliberal yourself (delawareliberal.net--sorry, can't paste in links on this public computer) and shake your head in disapproval.

cassandra? pandora? Surely you are not going to let these dweebs carry off the crown!?

Your essential hotness shows through in every post you write. Get out there and shake it ladies.

And everyone else, remember, the proceeds of all votes at the next Drinking Liberally on July 31 go toward sending Tom to Denver for the convention.

Update: LNCC actually funded two state candidates, sort of, probably

(Sorry for the absence of links in this post; we're at the beach and I'm using a public computer; besides the links George mentions below are difficult to work anyway.)

After reading my post on the dismal performance of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee, former LP Presidential cnndidate George Phillies did a little more digging. I utilized the FEC summary reports, which showed the $5,000 actually distributed in 2006 as going to Other disbursements rather than Libertarian candidates.

George went back to the original scans of the reports, and tells me that the $5,000 apparently did go to two Libertarian candidates--Hardy Marcia in Vermont and one other whose name he could not find.

So I stand corrected on that detail.

Notwithstanding that, an LNCC that consumes one-third of its contributions in overhead (and what, pray tell, do they have overhead for?) while disbursing less than 25% of the monies collected for candidates--and not even having a candidates' list on the apparently defunct websit--is hardly either (a) an asset or (b) something that anyone in his or her right mind would donate to.

There; Record corrected and still bad.

Update to update: be sure to read the comments and note the relationship of Hardy Marcia to the semi-mysterious M. Carling--apparent mastermind of the LNCC.

Mike Munger keeps taking the fight to the Demopublican fascists of North Carolina

Here's the 30-second radio spot that Dr Michael Munger, Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, has used your Money Grenade funds to run in Charlotte, Greensboro, and Raleigh in AM Drive Time:

Take half a minute and tune in.

Mike manages, in thirty brief seconds, to outline what the Demopublican fascists in the Tarheel State are doing to Libertarians, and at the same time to come across as a credible candidate about whom you'd like to hear more.

Libertarians across the country could take a lesson here.

Astounding: A Post in Libertarian Republican that I can actually recommend reading....

....although, sorry to say, Eric, you didn't write it.

I'm referring to Kevin Tracy's Libertarian Bob Barr will have an enormous impact on the Republican Party for years to come, even if he loses the race for the Presidency. {FYI, Kevin, got to cut down those titles].

This post is intriguing in that it parallels a Jeremy Lott argument about which I posted back in early June. There Lott argued that Ralph Nader's 2000 success in crippling Al Gore's campaign essentially forced the Democratic Party to spend the next eight years moving closer to his beliefs.

Tracy is essentially saying the same thing about the Barr candidacy: assuming that McCain loses and Barr is attributed with at least some major share of his defeat, the GOP is going to have to move in the direction of trying to win back the Libertarian wing it has shit on in favor of the social conservatives for the past decade or so.

This, in itself, is interesting, but the true value of Tracy's post may lie in a single sentence:

Well, believe it or not, most of the world doesn’t live under a “two-party system.”

By world Tracy means democratic nations, and his prime example is India:

In India, for example, there are countless political parties divided along political, ethnic, regional, and ideological lines.

As a result of the complex multi-party system, it is absolutely impossible for any single political party to take control of the government. So in order to accomplish anything, political parties have to come together, compromise, negotiate, and find a solid solution to whatever problem they are trying to solve.

At the same time, Indian politics still very much resemble ours. That’s because the largest political parties have organized “coalitions.”

This raises an interesting question: if Tracy is right, and in the aftermath of a McCain loss the GOP comes calling on Libertarians, wouldn't the most innovative response be: OK, you want us? Fine, but this time we're retaining our own party structure as a coalition partner.

What would happen if the Libertarian Party said to the GOP: we'll caucus with you in Congress, but the price is that you have to agree that in the following ten House districts you won't support a Republican against our Libertarian candidate.

Well, we all know what would happen. Still, it would be nice to see Karl Rove with an aneurism, don't you think?

The amazing things you find out about yourself on the Web

Maybe it's ego--OK, yes it's certainly ego--but every so often I google my name and "Libertarian" to see where I'll turn up. That's how I found out (albeit belatedly) that I had been quoted by Time.

Now I discover that my ditching of Bob Barr over his interview making DOMA a pillar of the new States' Rights Dixiecrat Libertarianism was actually carried over at Freedom Democrats, where--I am exceedingly pleased to note--I am carried in the same paragraph as Steve Kubby and Thomas Knapp:

Bob Barr's appearance on Fox News Sunday has triggered a backlash or sorts in the libertarian community, specifically with respect to Barr's comment regarding DOMA....

This prompted Steve Kubby to post “States’ Rights” is an Anti-Libertarian Concept. Steve Newton is now finished with Barr. Thomas Knapp posts that Barr is a Dixiecrat States Rightest in the tradition of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace.

Not that I'm in the habit of being a Barr apologist, but I believe this reaction is a bit over the top.

Imagine, lil' ol' me, famous for over-reacting.

Maybe I'm also over-reacting to Senator John McCain's homophobic views about gay adoption [h/t to Waldo for pouring through the transcript for this disgusting nugget]:

Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?

Mr. McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.

Q: Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents.

Mr. McCain: I encourage adoption and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents.

Q: But your concern would be that the couple should be a traditional couple.

Mr. McCain: Yes.

OK, this officially places McKKK-cain behind Bob Barr in my estimation. I suppose that's over-reacting as well.

What's intriguing about all this brew-haha over Libertarian politics, is that amazingly enough in places as different as Freedom Democrats and Eric Dondero's Libertarian Republican I have somehow acquired a reputation as a radical Libertarian.

I'm not quite sure how that happened: I came out against Mary Ruwart's candidacy on the age-of-consent issue, supported George Phillies for the LP nomination, and strongly held a "wait and see" attitude toward Bob Barr for several weeks.

If you examine the archives of this blog, you'll find that my political and philosophical positions are much more pragmatic than radical, and Tom--my local anarcho-capitalist reader--will readily tell you that I'm not willing to ditch as much of the government as he thinks I should.

So how did I become a radical?

I think that it is possibly the result of having a few positions in my inventory from which I will hardly budge.

I can think of two at the moment.

If you're in favor of continuing an interventionist foreign policy, replete with an empire of military bases around the world and a defense-industrial establishment capable of wagging the dog, then I'm not going to vote for you.

[Bob Barr passed that one; Barack Obama and John McCain both failed miserably.]

If you're in favor of institutionalized governmental discrimination (at any level of the government) against American citizens based on their sexual orientation, then I'm not going to vote for you.

[Barack Obama seems to be passing this one; Bob Barr and John McCain both fail.]

This would seem to leave me with Cynthia McKinney, except for provisional intractable position number three:

If your IQ doesn't appear to be measurable in at least the high double digits, then I'm not going to vote for you.

[OK, sure, that was in bad taste, but this is a f**king blog for God's sake--get over it.]

Point being: apparently holding non-interventionism and non-discrimination as core values makes one a radical.

If I'd known that, I'd have applied for my card a long time ago.

There is a Big Problem at the Border.....

.....and no one is addressing it. I never thought I would hear these words....listen....



Has the Mexican government forgot what happened the last time they started a war with us? From 1846-1848 we had a serious problem with the Mexican government, and it resulted in our occupation of the Yucatan Peninsula and acquisition of the southwest.

We should have peaceful trade all across the Americas, but military intervention and encroachment into our territory is a big problem.

Now this is clearly a case where the state is being exposed to danger from without.

What do you think should be done about this? If you were a governor of a border state, what would you do to protect the citizens of your state from this? From a libertarian perspective, what do you do when your state has foreign military agents in it?