The American Guesser

The Schaumberg Freedom Coalition explains itself:

The Schaumburg Freedom Coalition is a group of concerned citizens who are keeping tabs on the government of the Village of Schaumburg to ensure that the people’s rights are protected from overreaching government. We focus on issues such as corporate welfare, tax policy, government transparency and eminent domain abuse.

And their “blog” is organized like a news organization Website. And the reporting on freedom-related issues is top notch, including this piece that provides evidence against the benefits of stop-light cameras.

Cross posted to Peoria Pundit.

An interesting post on The Boston Tea Party, found via IPR:

Earlier this year, I was asked by my good friend Thomas Knapp to help him with a problem. He wanted to keep the Boston Tea Party going, but most of its national committee had gotten bored or left for other reasons. After some reflection, I concluded that it was a good thing to do.

It turns out that Tom and I were right to keep the group around, because after the Libertarian Party nominated Bob Barr, we had a surge in membership. Activists from all over the country have joined our party, which now boasts nearly 700 members. We’ve formed state affiliates in a dozen states this year, and we’ve helped dozens of candidates with our endorsement, volunteers, and campaign contributions from our members. We even elected two public officials this year, both members of the Boston Tea Party and both in non-partisan races.

So, after all, there’s really no need for the LP to come to grips with its traditions of secrecy, abuse of power, corruption, and mistreatment of members. After all, libertarians now have choices when they look for a political party.

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 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.

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 [tag]Ron Paul[/tag], 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.

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.

[tags]harry browne,libertarian party[/tags]

If you listen to the Big Two — the Republicans and the Democrats — they do. When Libertarians, Greens, Independents, Refomers and even the Natural Law party are allowed to field candidates, it’s the same thing as squirrels getting into the bird feeder. They think every vote cast should — by devine right of kings — belong to one or the other.

A newspaper in Minnesotta dared to allow a Libertarian to express an opinion on this issue.

But truthfully, can alternative parties take away votes? In some cases they do compete. For example, the Green Party tends to pull from the Democrats in many elections because they consider themselves “liberal” or “progressive.” Republicans might lose votes to the Constitution Party because they describe themselves as “ultra conservative.”

The only exception is the Libertarian Party. Libertarians are neither conservative nor liberal. Libertarians believe in liberty on all the issues. They believe in personal freedoms/civil liberties and economic freedoms, whereas the Republicans want to control many social freedoms, and Democrats want to control many economic freedoms.

[tags]Libertarian,Libertarian Party,Sue Jeffers[/tags]

I’ve always suspected that Rob Smith — the notorious Acidman — was both a libertine and a libertarian at heart. This post on numbskulls who want to re-establish a national speed limit provides the evidence:

If every driver on the Interstate is going 80 MPH, then going 80 MPH is a safe speed. Want to know who is DANGEROUS in that situation? The fucking dipstick doing 55 MPH in the left lane, that’s who. Or the flaming asshole who is oblivious to everything around him because he’s got a got-damn cell phone stuck to his ear. Or the pussy princess peering into her rear-view mirror while she applies makeup.

THOSE are the people who’ll kill you on the road, because they are unsafe at ANY speed. If we simply MUST have nanny-laws to protect us on the highway, let’s have one that might actually work.

My local daily newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star, used a libertarian-esque reason to oppose changes in how the Federal Communications Commission regulates cable companies, namely to require them to offer channels ala carte in addition to so-called packages:

Cherry-picking content might lower monthly bills, though it could have the opposite effect. In any event, a federally forced a la carte option does carry a price: unwarranted government meddling in the private market.

Trust me, this newspaper pushes a strong liberal/progressive message (just ask this guy). They are not ideologically libertarian.

The real libertarian position would be to call for the elimination of the FCC, or to at least drastically reduce the scope of its duties to assigning frequencies to radio and television stations.

None of it really matters anyway, because it won’t be that long before all our entertainment needs will be met via broadband Internet. What we need to do is fight like Hell to keep the Fed’s grubby hands off of it.