The American Guesser

Here’s a good rule of thumb: When someone mentions in a post on a blog or forum that they are “not normally a believer in conspiracies, but … ” you can rest assured that the poster is a wackadoodle and is going to spew forth a particularly idiotic conspiracy theory. No fact or argument presented to refute said theory will dissuade the original poster that his little theory is wrong. And soon, 90 percent of the replies will be from the original poster.

And that’s what happened on this thread on a Modern Whig Party forum. Basically, it’s a regurgitation of the Obama-isn’t-a-Citizen complaint that’s making the rounds. It’s all factually disproven bullshit, of course. Not that it matters, because no matter what argument is made against this theory, the response is that, well, it’s a conspiracy and if you look deeper, you will find the truth.

Hey, Whigs: You have GOT to keep this conspiracy crap off your forums and blogs. These people do not give a FIG about building your party or its platform. They see the MWP as a forum to spread their fantasies. The more this stuff appears on YOUR forums, the more the public assumes that is what the MWP is all about.

My advice: Delete these posts and comments as soon as your see them. Be merciless. If the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party want these idiots, let them have ‘em.

Why am I not surprised? Via IPR:

The Green Party of the United States calls for an immediate end to Israel’s bombing attacks on Gaza, which in the past four days has already caused at least 364 deaths, including Palestinian women and children, with hundreds more wounded. “It’s clear that President Bush gave a green light for Israel’s massive and disproportionate display of force.  The Green Party demands that the US seek a bilateral ceasefire, with immediate pressure on Israel to stop the bombardment and end the occupation,” said Rosa Clemente, the Green Party’s 2008 candidate for Vice President of the United States.

No word from the Green Party on their position on the rockets that Hamas was lobbing into Israel.

Oooo, I like the phrase used in this newspaper column about the nature of altruism:

“Altruism is an illusion when it comes to the government,” said Jim Maas of Rothschild, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin. “Americans are a generous people who donate to many worthy causes. … When misfortune or disaster strikes, Americans help out.

“Government is based on force, and force is difficult to reconcile with any meaningful concept of charity. When a government bureaucrat sends money to someone in need, it doesn’t make taxpayers compassionate and caring persons. It also doesn’t mean that the bureaucrat is a good and caring person, because he is doling out the money that the government has forcibly exacted from American taxpayers, not his own. To be meaningful, we must be free to give to those causes which appeal to us. There should be separation of charity and state.”

Now THAT is a great line.

A case can be made that from a policy perspective, that it makes sense for their to be some sort of safety net in place to keep people from starving and losing their homes during normal business cycles. Hungry and homeless people walking the streets isn’t going to be conductive to the free market because it will lead to more demogogury and more socialism, not less.

But when you have politicians using my money to make their constituents happy and beholden, and to create the illusion that the politician “cares,” then I call B.S.

And I feel the same way about calls for mandatory public service as a condition for graduation or some other service. It’s not public service if you have to do it.

Hat tip: IPR.

It’s just a promotional video, but it will open some eyes, I think.

The Big Two are competing against each other, and not really concerned abut the nation as much as promoting their brand.

The other “third” parties are more concerned about narrow points of ideology.

I think the Modern Whigs have a shot, it they stay strong and avoid being used by crackpots.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA-UW12gGAU[/youtube]

Every time I hear Republicans or conservatives claim to be “libertarians at heart,” I wanna reach for a barf bag. This is no exception.

A core conservative doctrine is the libertarian idea that we should drastically limit the size of government. In Ronald Reagan’s iconic words, “Government is not a solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

You’d think that few people would believe this anymore, but nearly half the electorate voted for Republican candidates who profess opposition to Big Government. So let us recall just some of the ways we need government.

Yeah. That was Reagan all right. A libertarian. That’s why he turned Ed Meese loose in our bedrooms and started the War on Druge, because he was so concerned about our individual rights.

And before you start, I know full well that this column was written by a Democrat. My point is still valid.

The Melting Pot Project on the Constitution Party’s embrace of the Obama-isn’t-a-citizen theme:

It’s almost as if the Constitutionalists want to remain a tiny, unimportant fringe group that will never have any hope of having any influence at all. Why not just run on a platform of ending the CIA’s mind control program and uncovering the moon landing hoax?

Which is why the Modern Whig Party is wants nothing to do with conspiracy buffs.

A U.S. Court in Utah thinks (.pdf file) so:

By itself, mere possession of a firearm in public is not unlawful and may well represent the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution….. See District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2799 (2008) (“There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.”)….. Salt Lake City’s asserted governmental interest in its police officers’ response to a report of a “man with a gun” in a public park cannot be weighed in isolation….there may well be more individual constitutional rights at stake than the Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Hat tip: Best magazine ever.

There’s an interesting piece in Reason (Best. Magazine. EVAR.) about eminent domain about a H. Walker Royall, private developer who sues anyone who is critical of his use of eminent domain.

So after thinking carefully about my potential legal exposure, I have decided not to say that Royall is an arrogant, thin-skinned cheater who thinks nothing of abusing the legal process and violating other people’s rights to advance his business interests and protect his vanity. Although that opinion is completely protected by the First Amendment as criticism of a public figure and speech about an issue of public importance, Royall still could sue me. And as the Institute for Justice, which is representing Main, Epstein, and Encounter Books, points out, even if defamation lawsuits against critics of eminent domain abuse fail in court, “the large expenditure of time and money associated with defending them all too often accomplishes the goal of silencing those who stand up for their rights.” With that in mind, I have decided to refrain from calling Royall a corrupt coward, a litigious leech, or a supersensitive censor. I encourage you to refrain from doing so as well.

Thank God for restraint.

In the past Peoria, has seen quite a bit of abuse of eminent domain laws. They’ve used it to take away private property and use it to build strip malls and baseball parks. But the most recent version of the Peoria City Council hasn’t even allowed this sort of thing to even reach the proposal stage. Yet.

Not so much in Schaumberg, according to the Schaumburg Freedom Coalition:

This property is home to a Sara Lee/Market Day outlet store that has given back hundreds of thousands of dollars back to the local community over the many years of its existence. This small store shown a great deal of concern for the people of our community that not many other local businesses can match.

It is also home to Hair Clip, whose owner escaped the oppression of communist Vietnam to live and work in the greatest bastion of freedom, the United States of America. Now that the Village of Schaumburg is looking to kick these people out of their businesses we are learning that the land of the free isn’t so free after all.

When private property can be taken away simply because someone with a lot of money wants it, then none of us are really any better off than serfs.

Even though the Kelo Decision didn’t go the way that people who care about property rights wanted, I think it did open a lot of eyes. I’m sorry it didn’t happen in Schaumburg.

But I’m worried that with the economy tanking and people in a panic, the politicians and the developers will be scaring people into turing a blind eye toward this kind of eminent domain abuse. After all, there are jobs at stake. 

Feh.

 

From the Wilson Quarterly:

Muscular moderation from our leaders, and a renewed faith among citizens, requires a new American nationalism, with national identity trumping party loyalty. The public’s frustrated yearning for a patriotic and civic revival fueled both Ronald Reagan’s success and Barack Obama’s meteoric rise. Both men captured Americans’ desire for greater faith in their leaders, their country, their system, themselves. The excitement about John McCain’s compelling life story likewise reflects a yearning for simpler, more patriotic times, rooted in self-sacrifice rather than self-indulgence.

We will start reducing the tension and reviving some faith in politics when we have leaders who understand that they must lead from the center, uniting Americans around core values and ensuring that politics are once again about being rooted in community and solving problems, not just rooting for one set of culture warriors over another.

This reminded me of why I’m a small-L libertarian, disenchanted with the Libertarian Party — not to mention others that claim to support a return to Constitutional liberties. The LP and the others attract single issue zealots and crackpots who are perfectly willing to fight and argue ad infinitum over tiny little scraps of philosophy. To do anything else isn’t “principled.”

That’s why I like the idea of a party that borrows the best ideas of both the Democrats and the Republicans.

Hat tip, The Whig.