The American Guesser

From Newsday.com:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A high school newspaper in California was disbanded after it published a front-page photo of a student burning an American flag, triggering criticism that the administration was stifling free expression.

Shasta High School Principal Milan Woollard said the school year’s final issue of the student-run Shasta High Volcano was embarrassing.

“The paper’s done,” Woollard told the Record Searchlight newspaper of Redding. “There is not going to be a school newspaper next year.”

This is what happens when you let kids actually read their civics textbooks. They learn all sort of uncomfortable concepts, such as the one that says they have to right to an opinion, especially if the opinion, if expressed, might cause the principal to have to answer a few phone calls.

A Portland, Ore., mom is all upset because her precious little snowflake isn’t being forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at a promotion ceremony:

“I was sad,” said parent Briana Reese. “The flag was sitting up there, you know. Two of the kids went up and they said ‘Everybody rise,’ and we rose, and I thought for just a second ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to put our hands on our hearts and we’re going to salute the flag’ - but no.”

Reese had heard that the principal planned to take the pledge out of the ceremony.

“I think that’s what they should be doing - telling kids you should be pledging your allegiance to this country,” Reese said. “This is a great country. You’re here for a reason.”

The pledge was instead replaced with a singing version of the preamble to the Constitution.

Kudos to the principal for getting it. The pledge is nothing more than a blind loyalty oath to a piece of cloth that symbolizes a nation. And thanks to tinkering over the years, it’s been turned into a form of state-mandated prayer.  At least this kids are being exposed to the idea that the United States is a nation governed by laws and that the people have rights.

Conservatives and liberals like the pledge, but don’t have really warm feelings for the Constitution because, when properly followed, it tends to get in the way of whatever flavor of Nanny State nonsense they want to foist on the public.

I’ve never decided who I am going to vote for in the upcoming election. I see the good and bad in both Obama and McCain. There was no way in Hell I would vote for a bastard like Ron Paul — he polluted the Libertarian Party with a bunch of white supremacist rationalizations.

The question that I guess I’ve been asking myself is this: Can I, a guy who arrived at libertarianism because the Democratic Party wasn’t protecting civil liberties anymore, vote for a guy who arrived at libertarianism because the Republican Party was letting him down on other issues?

I think I might have an answer:

Q: How will Congressman Barr’s Campaign differ from that of Dr. Paul’s?

A: It will still retain the philosophical core of Ron Paul’s message, while making better political calculations and compromises where needed to advance the candidacy. For example - the issue of donations from white supremacists that plagued the Paul Campaign came up this week in the Barr Campaign. Congressman Barr chose to not accept their donations rather than give a philosophical argument about why he should not return the donation - as Ron Paul did. Point being, Bob Barr knows how to play politics and knows when to stand firm and when to compromise. By doing so Bob Barr will be able to lend political credibility to our ideas and thus create an environment where they can be spread much deeper into mainstream America. Bob Barr’s campaign will also be run by professionals. Ross Perot’s campaign manager is going to be Bob Barr’s campaign manager. Expect 48-51 state ballot access.

More thinking and research is needed, I think.

Via Oregon Live“

The newest candidate in Oregon’s U.S. Senate race is a former Republican who once campaigned for Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and now sounds like he’s channeling Ron Paul.

Dave Brownlow, who received the Constitution Party nomination this weekend, could attract conservatives disaffected with Smith.

Yep. That’s all a “third party” candidate is good for, swiping votes away from the legitimate candidates.

I’m NOT a Green, but I favor ballot access for all. That way, the voters decide. But Illinois’ Big Two parties are scared to death of letting voters have that choice. So they keep kicking alternatives off the ballot. Case in point, from Ballot Access News.

On June 9, Illinois elections officials removed four Green Party nominees from the November ballot. They are Iain Abernathy in the 8th district, David Kalbfleisch in the 10th district, Robert Hill in the 14th district, and Troy Dennis in the 17th district. All four districts are fairly competitive between the two major parties, and all four Greens had been nominated by party meeting after the February primary was over.

Illinois regulates political parties to a great extent. The Green Party followed state law, but it supplemented state law with its own Bylaws, especially in cases in which no Greens had run for party office in the February primary in certain counties. It is not clear if the Green Party will go to court to fight for these nominees. But case law, more and more every year, establishes the right of political parties to control their own nominations process.

Because, as you know, society will grind to a halt if counties were forced to pay to have one or two extra candidates appear on the ballot. Horrors!

Whatever you say, commissars.

Via The Washington Times:

Tom DeLay will vote for John McCain but the former House Republican leader said his wife, Christine, is planning to vote for Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr.

“I’m trying to convince my wife not to do that,” the Texas Republican told editors and reporters at The Washington Times on Friday. “She said it publicly yesterday.”

Mr. Barr’s candidacy is an issue conservatives appear to be grappling with since he won the Libertarian party’s nomination on the sixth ballot at their May 25 convention in Denver. Early polls suggest Mr. Barr could draw small but significant support in key states such as Georgia and North Carolina, potentially complicating the electoral picture for Mr. McCain, Republicans’ presumed presidential nominee.

“Potentially complicating the electoral picture” … that’s one way to describe it.

Listen folks, your vote doesn’t BELONG to either one of the Big Two parties. It’s yours, and you can use it to vote for whomever you want. If more people voted for the person they really wanted to get the job this nation would be better off. But we’ve let the parties and the press brainwash us into voting for candidate A because heaven help us is Candidate B wins. The fact is that Candidates A and B, while different, are pretty damn close.

Myself, I can’t get to enthused about Barr’s libertarianism, considering how focused he was on Bill Clinton’s Penis. There were good reasons to impeach Clinton (lying under oath at the head of the list). But Barr was focused on the sex part during who impeachment mess. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

*ahem*

Hat tip to Third Party Watch.

Professor Glenn Reynolds says he wants a party that combines “GOP economic-libertarian strands with the Dems’ social-libertarian strands.” I want a party that does that too, but that pays attention to immigration issues, doesn’t blame America for what’s wrong with the world and recognizes that there are times you fight back, even if you have to strike the first blow. Oh, and he bitchslaps Trent Lott and his ilk wanting to destroy on talk radio for gettin’ the public all riled over the amnesty bill. Lott should be dead to any GOPer with the slightest libertarian bent.

Hat Tip: JAWA Report.

Does this count as initiating force?

Libertarian Greg Graziani isn’t worried about being politically correct.

His campaign commercial for the state [South Carolina] Senate District 46 seat is a testament to that. It features him tackling a young man on Folly Field Beach.

Not a big deal if he was playing football or rugby.

But the commercial implies Graziani is knocking over an illegal immigrant.

Graziani then walks away from the man, who is belly-down in the sand and appears to be handcuffed, and addresses the camera:

“I’m Greg Graziani, and I’m tackling tough issues like illegal immigration.”

[deleted]

Graziani believes one way the state could curb the flow of illegal immigrants is by cutting off the public aid they receive, such as not paying for emergency room visits or schooling. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that approach unconstitutional.

Graziani’s response? Amend the Constitution. And if that fails, he said in a recent interview, do it anyway.

“Another good thing about our system is that you can just do something and wait for the courts to rule on it because they are very slow,” he said, “and, in that time, you can see where you can get going.”

I am convinced that illegal immigration is going to be a hot button issue in the 2008 elections. Politicians from any party (except the Greens, who eat this stuff up) who tell voters that amnesty (or amnesty by any other name) is a good thing are going to lose votes. Middle America just ain’t buying it, for various reasons.

At my job, I work right next to people who weren’t born here. All of them entered the nation legally. I have absolutely no problem competing with them for jobs. I reject the bigots who say immigration (not just illegal immigration) is poluting our nation’s culture. Our nation’s culture is derived from the things immigrants brought here.

But illegal immigration is bad for the nation’s security. It also drives down wages, takes money out of the nation, props up the nation’s entitlement programs so the problems are not addressed and is unfair to those peoeple who follow the law.

And I’m glad to see Libertarian Party candidates ignoring all this silly open borders nonsense.

My mind isn’t quite made up about Ron Paul, the libertarian-minded fellow who’s running for the Republican nomination. He’s stronger on border security than most libertarians, which I like, but he’s also one of the folks who tends to blame America’s “alliances” on the War on Terror. I think that’s bullshit, since American is the natural enemy of Islamofascists whether we are friends with Israel or not. I would argue that being a friend of liberty automaticall requires us to be friends of Israel anway. And he’s a right-to-lifer, which n my mind, tells me he thinks the Nanny State out to be in control of women’s bodies, which is an un-libertarian stance to take.

Anyway, here’s Paul’s Vox Popoli is here.

Technorati Tags: Ron Paul

Harry Browne, an uncompromising advocate for individual liberty and a two-time Libertarian Party candidate for president, died yesterday from Lou Gherig’s disease.

The trouble with being uncompromising is that it doesn’t win elections. By putting Browne at the top of the ticket, the LP was saying that achieving ideological nirvana was more important than winning at the ballot box and making any real change.

Consider this post by Brian Doherty on “Hit and Run:”

Browne was a controversial figure in the LP, at first because he had for years been one of the loudest anti-political voices in the movement before changing his mind and seeking the presidential nomination, and winning it, in 1996. He had been so loud and firm an anti-political voice, in fact, that the term “Browneing Out” was used in the 1970s in libertarian circles to mean retreating from any commitment to further libertarian goals through political action, or any sort of action.

Hat tip: Peoria Pundit.

Technorati Tags: harry browne, libertarian party