Andy Horning: Libertarian candidate for Indiana US Senate

Andy Horning: Libertarian
for US Senate Indiana

In 2008 Andy Horning's Indiana gubernatorial campaign garnered over 57,000 votes (2.1%), which was--as near as I can calculate it--probably the 7th highest vote total for any Libertarian running for statewide office that year.

That's a working start.  Today Andy is running for US Senate in Indiana, and he aspires to do considerably better.

Here are a few quotes from his new (and still partly under construction) website:

We should have laws that are few enough to know, simple enough to understand . . .

and important enough that every one of them is to be obeyed equally, by everybody without exception, all the time.

The Republicans are supposed to be protecting our wallets, the Democrats are supposed to be protecting our rights, but none of them are doing that any more . . .

they're protecting themselves.

Andy is an individual who has thought out his views very carefully.  Even when you don't agree with him, he will make you think.  For example, Andy sees himself as both a Christian and a Libertarian, and doesn't see any conflict there.  He thus reasons very carefully on issues like same-sex marriage:

What we call gay marriage is not (I repeat, NOT) about a church recognized covenant between a man, a woman, and God.  No, the church gave that unto Caesar a long time ago.  That’s why the minister says, “…by the power vested in me by the State of…”

Marriage, my fellow Americans, is politics.

Now, marriage is about Social Security, bereavement pay, visitation rights, property rights, work rules, tax rules, and more rules, rules rules from the Great Caesar’s Golden Calf.  Marriage is legal, contractual, corporate, political privilege, rights, guardianship and healthcare.

So, those who now want to claim the moral high ground on traditional marriage have wallowed into the preposterous role of promoting disparity in matters of simple justice.

I propose we get politics entirely out of marriage.  From the Christian perspective, we should take from Caesar what is God’s. From the secular perspective, we should make policy and law that does not involve sorting, allocating and denying rights based upon abstract and arbitrary political categories. 

Same endgame: get government out of the marriage business.  Same middle game--if secular marriage is going to confer rights, then it must confer them to everyone.  Different path to get there:  I'm OK with that.

Sometimes Andy is, perhaps, too honest for the voters, but he brings up questions that need to be discussed:

To me, the cornerstone and hallmark of a working civil society is peace.

And I must say something that will be very unpopular to some (who’d not likely vote for me anyway):

I do not “thank a soldier” for my freedoms.

Our freedoms were won by citizen soldiers fighting the professional standing armies of that age’s global superpower.

Think about it. Who ever takes away liberty but the professional armed forces/police of the political elites?

Let us stop fooling ourselves about the nature of armed forces. They do what they’re told to do. We’ve been very lucky, so far, that they’ve not been told to do what is historically typical, and seen around the world still today.

Having spent 21 years in the US military I would like to believe Andy's wrong, that American soldiers would not obey illegal orders with regard to the occupation of their own country.  But having also met the officers who plan for that very eventuality, and have witnessed on multiple occasions that which is characterized as "civil disorder training," I am not at all sure he is wrong.  We have traded in, somewhere along the way during the Cold War, for a standing army and all it implies.

Andy Horning is a strong Libertarian voice, and I endorse his candidacy.