by CCRKBA staff

Only days after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to one of the nation’s most egregious gun laws, a new Rasmussen poll shows waning support for stricter gun laws.

The Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today that the poll results indicate strongly that “America’s philosophical pendulum is definitely swinging back in favor of gun rights and individual liberty.”

“Whether Congressional anti-gunners like it or not,” observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “the American public has wised up to the fact that prohibitive gun control measures, like the gun ban in Chicago that is now being challenged in the Supreme Court, have not stopped violent crime and only disarm the victims. Americans are concerned about their personal safety and the safety of their families, and they have had it with Utopian gun bans that leave them defenseless against merciless thugs.”

Gottlieb, who co-authored the newly-released Assault on Weapons: The Campaign to Eliminate Your Guns with Gun Week Senior Editor Dave Workman, said the Rasmussen poll results are telling. According to Rasmussen, only 39 percent of Americans believe the country needs stricter gun laws. That’s down from 43 percent only six months ago. Democrats still emerge as the party of gun control, with 65 percent of respondents claiming Democrat affiliation supporting tighter gun laws while 69 percent of identified Republicans and 62 percent of independents do not support more gun laws.

“It’s ironic that the Chicago case just went to the Supreme Court,” Gottlieb noted, “while Rasmussen tells us that only 20 percent of adults believe city governments have a right to prevent citizens from owning handguns.”

Sixty-nine percent say city governments do not have that authority, and 11 percent were undecided, the poll disclosed.

“This suggests that those who support a handgun ban in Chicago are way out of the mainstream,” Gottlieb said. “Gun control is a losing proposition, for the public that wants to fight back against criminals, and especially for anti-gun politicians who cling to that failed philosophy as the nation leaves them behind.”

Copyright © 2009 Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, All Rights Reserved.

Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
James Madison Building
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005
Toll Free: 800-426-4302
E-mail: InformationRequest@ccrkba.org

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

“Hi, I’m from the government - I’m here to help you.” “Of course I will respect you in the morning.” Some lies are jokes because they are so obvious.

Sex will probably never change. But we can no longer accept dishonesty in politics.

Americans are frustrated with the seeming impossibility of electing candidates who follow through with the promises they make to raise money, win office, and get your vote. Elected officials who can resist the insanity now infecting government are an endangered species.

These sad facts have become truisms, with reams of jokes making the rounds that rely on what has become a fact of American life.

This is true today and it was true in the early 90s when the idea occurred to me to promote what I called the Liberty Pledge. The idea was inject accountability into the electoral system by allowing candidates to sign a pledge to their potential constituents assuring voters they would keep their campaign promises.

At the time I was helping out on a campaign for Dolores Bender White, Republican candidate for 20th State Senate in California. Dolores’s introduction to politics had come when she decided to declare at the last minute the election before. She lost, but learned a lot; Dolores was a quick study. She was determined to win and filed for the same race in the wake of the resignation in November, 1991, of long time State Senator Alan Robbins. Robbins had agreed to plead guilty to charges of racketeering.

Dolores filed to run in the special election that followed early in 1992. This time she faced a different incumbent. David Roberti, the god-father of gun control in California had, at least on paper, moved into the district. Roberti’s war chest was huge and not surprisingly, the barnacle-encrusted incumbent won handily.

The recall campaign qualified in April of 1994, just months before the regular primary.

It had been my pleasure to write the rather nasty, but funny, attacks to amuse, delight, and motivate conservatives and libertarians. They outraged liberals. Dolores ran the successful recall campaign against Roberti, the first in California in more than 80 years. Dolores was incredibly hardworking and persistent. Others have claimed credit, but unjustly.

The idea for the pledge really came about because of my experiences in the same district with State Senator Alan Robbins, the incumbent in that district for many years. I had run against him myself as a Libertarian in 1982 in a four way race. Naturally I lost.  I would have been horrified if I had won.

You could not be involved in politics there at all and not know how dishonest most of the office holders really were. I was actually reading the pot holder with Robbin’s name on it when it occurred to me that things could be different if politicians had to keep their promises. The pot holder was rather ragged, sort of like American political honor.

“What if they had to resign if they failed to keep their promises?” I thought to myself.

Never one to let grass grow under my feet I wrote up the Pledge, made some literature, had a banner made and took them with me to the next Republican Convention. I intended to take up the project in earnest after we got back but the death of my sister Anne of a heart attack in Japan intervened. At that convention I had shared the idea with an old friend of mine named John Fund. He asked me for a piece of the literature and I was delighted to share.

And that would be the whole story except for events that took place some years later. You can read about it here.

In 2000 many things had changed in my life. I had discovered that John Fund was honesty challenged like so many politicians; he had lied to me about his relationship with my daughter. She and I had gone through a period of alienation that had ended when I discovered that she was telling me the truth about Fund and her relationship with him. Many revelations, large and small, had been forthcoming. One minor, amusing, point had been that Fund had used my idea as the basis of what later became the Contract with America.

Initially, I did not mind. However, when it became clear that it was a contract on America this changed. There was no enforceability in the PR campaign they used to take the House in 1994, just oozings of rhetoric never intended to enact change.  Spin, spin, spin.   Newt is at it again today. This time spinning himself as an exemplar of good Christian values while married to yet another much younger woman, having dumped the wife who made his success possible.

Decoupling the accountability from the potential for profit became a trademark for the NeoCons as they converting the rhetoric of Libertarianism into the newest justification for corporate profit. It was a sad end to what we had thought would be a real revolution.

I had discovered in 1997 that Fund had a reputation for stealing ideas so I was not particularly surprised; many young policy thinkers had been urged not to send him their unpublished work. I learned that from the boy friend of another one of my daughters who was then worked at Reason Foundation.

Accountability and how to enact it grew as an issue for me through the next years. But again I was busy. I was, and remain, the full time caretaker for my eldest son who had suffered two major brain injuries, the result of first a motorcycle accident and then a suicide attempt in which he shot himself through the brain. I considered many approaches for redressing the frightening trend in politics. Then I unearthed the original artwork for the Liberty Pledge.

Recycling time.

Holding politicians accountable had even more appeal to me than it had in 1993. Thus was born the Honesty Bond.

The Honesty Bond is intended to provide voters with a way to enforce fulfillment of the promises that flow so lavishly from the lips of candidates before they have transformed themselves into elected officials. The Bond provides a means for removing from office those who deceive their trusting constituents.  If applied vigorously Honesty Bonds could turn the tide of dishonesty in American politics.

Politicians will not like the idea, a sign it would work.

This is really for their own good, you know. Some candidates are really honest people who will be relieved that there is a means to exact a simple standard for just doing the right thing. It will help the honest by creating a brand name. The honest should be encouraged. Others will appreciate the opportunity to win support over candidates who refuse to be accountable for their promises. These will be nudged into honesty and then forced to deliver.

Motives will not alter the fact that a tool will have been forged and placed directly in the hands of voters who desperately need a way to call government into account.

The Honesty Bond is a bond taken out to ensure a candidate for office complies with the promises made while running for election.  It remains in force the entire time the elected official is in office.  It is a bond just like those maintained routinely by such professionals as accountants, brokers, insurance agents, and house cleaners. The candidate pays for the bond themselves, accounting transparently for the source of the funds. The money is produced and the bond guaranteed at the demand of the constituents. It is up to us.

The amount paid out to create the bond will represent the cost of removing the honesty-challenged elected official from office if the official does not automatically resign.  You should also get them to sign a promise to do so. I feel very good about recycling this idea and denturing it with the teeth I originally intended it to have.

I hope you agree and start putting teeth in your own local group. Insist your candidates become bonded.  Do not vote for any candidate unwilling to stand behind their word, putting their money where their mouth is. Talk is cheap and this way they will respect us the day after they are elected.

Installing accountability 101 will be truly empowering to all of us. The truth.  Simple honesty. Transparency and accountability. We need them now more than ever. Get Honesty. Bond them today.

Melinda Pillsbury-Foster is the author of GREED: The NeoConning of America and A Tour of Old Yosemite. The former is a novel about the lives of the NeoCons with a strong autobiographical component. The latter is a non-fiction book about her father and grandfather. Melinda is an associate editor for Liberty For All and can be reached at the.melinda@yahoo.com.

by SAF staff

The Second Amendment Foundation today warned Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to heed the public rejection of a proposed gun ban at city parks facilities or face the consequences in court.

SAF obtained information from the mayor’s office that the overwhelming majority of citizens living both inside and outside the city turned thumbs down on the mayor’s plan to ban even legally-carried firearms in city parks facilities. Nickels has already been advised by Attorney General Rob McKenna that the city has no authority to enact such a ban, which would be illegal under the state’s preemption law.

Only 8 percent of Seattle residents commenting on the idea support it, according to figures from the mayor’s office. Ninety-two percent of Seattleites who opined rejected the idea. Only 2 percent of respondents who live outside the city support the proposed ban, and 98 percent oppose the idea. Deadline for comments was last Sunday. SAF has learned that the city received 1,088 comments via e-mail, and only 44 supported the mayor’s proposal. Ten more telephone comments were received, with only one favoring the ban.

“This is a crushing defeat for Mayor Nickels,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “His office has argued that nobody would be prosecuted specifically for violating the ban, but only be charged with criminal trespass if they refuse to leave a facility after being told to do so. That is disingenuous. It is still a ban and it is still a violation of state preemption.”

SAF has also learned that the mayor’s strategy now is apparently to have such a ban enacted by order of the director of Parks and Recreation.

“This controversy began with Nickels threatening to issue an executive order banning guns from all city property,” Gottlieb recalled. “He has now backed away from that, and apparently thinks he is being clever by having a surrogate sign an order to post city parks off limits to firearms. If that is the case, the chicken has, indeed, come home to roost.”

Copyright © 2009 Second Amendment Foundation, All Rights Reserved.

Second Amendment Foundation
James Madison Building
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005
Toll Free: 800-426-4302
Email: InformationRequest@saf.org

by author unknown

25. U.S. Post Office
They are pricing themselves out of existence. With e-mail, and on-line services they are a relic of the past. (refer to #9) Packages are also sent faster and cheaper with UPS. (Regular mail gets periodic, almost yearly, increases, but second and third class junk mail still merits a lower fee from the USPS, which delivers this unwanted crap to your home or business at reduced rates.)

24. Yellow Pages
This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodel Factors like an acceleration of the print ‘fade rate’ and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year — much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.

23. Classified Ads
The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifies are replaced by free on-line listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.

22. Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock was down considerably in 2008. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.

21. Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in
2008.  The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.

20. Phone Land Lines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had land lines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.

19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs
Maryland’s icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay. Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population. Over-fishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get the blame.

18. VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.

17. Ash Trees
In the late 1990’s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia. In less than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the Midwest and continue to spread. They’ve killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana. More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk.

16. Ham Radio
Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide) wireless communications with each other and are able to support their communities with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory… However, proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.

15. The Swimming Hole
Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. ‘20/20′ reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, NY, are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt they’ll sue. And that’s exactly what happened in Seattle. The city of   Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post ‘Keep out!’ signs.

14. Answering Machines
The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No 20 our list — the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It’s logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.

13. Cameras That Use Film
It doesn’t require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional’s choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market — only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.

12. Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.

11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys
US claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts, and gambling casinos.

10. The Milkman
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4% percent. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S., they are certainly a dying breed.

9. Hand-Written Letters
In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world’s population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?

8. Wild Horses
It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the United States. In 2001, National Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population has decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.

7. Personal Checks
According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit.  Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based payments — for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers’ recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).

6. Drive-in Theaters
During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there isn’t much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.

5. Mumps & Measles
Despite what’s been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually, truly are disappearing from the   United States.  In 1964, 212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded.

4. Honey Bees
Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing   America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary. ‘Colony Collapse Disorder,’ or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S. and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers — and along with it, their livelihood.

3. News Magazines and TV News
While the TV evening newscasts haven’t gone anywhere over the last several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. What they have today is half that.

2. Analog TV
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% — or 13 million individuals — who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air.  If you are one of these people you’ll need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.

1. The Family Farm
Since the 1930’s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn’t yet been published). Ninety -one percent of the U.S. FARMS are small Family Farms.

And, let’s not forget: Free individuals.

by GOA staff

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has something to say to gun owners:  “Own a gun; lose your coverage!”

Baucus’ socialized health care bill comes up for a Finance Committee vote on Tuesday.  We have waited and waited and waited for the shifty Baucus to release legislative language.  But he has refused to release anything but a summary — and we will never have a Congressional Budget Office cost assessment based on actual legislation.  Even the summary was kept secret for a long time.

But, on the basis of the summary, the Baucus bill (which is still unnumbered) tells us virtually nothing about what kind of policy Americans will be required to purchase under penalty of law — nor the consequences.  It simply says:

* “all U.S. citizens and legal residents would be required to purchase coverage through (1) the individual market…”;

* “individuals would be required to report on their federal income tax return the months for which they maintain the required minimum health coverage…”;

* in addition to an extensive list of statutorily mandated coverage, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be empowered to “define and update the categories of treatments, items, and services…” within an insurance plan which would be covered in a policy constituting “required minimum health coverage.”

ObamaCare and gun control

It is nearly certain that coverage prescribed by the administration will, to control costs, exclude coverage for what it regards as excessively dangerous activities.  And, given Sebelius’ well-established antipathy to the Second Amendment — she vetoed concealed carry legislation as governor of Kansas — we presume she will define these dangerous activities to include hunting and self-defense using a firearm.  It is even possible that the Obama-prescribed policy could preclude reimbursement of any kind in a household which keeps a loaded firearm for self-defense.

The ObamaCare bill already contains language that will punish Americans who engage in unhealthy behavior by allowing insurers to charge them higher insurance premiums.  (What constitutes an unhealthy lifestyle is, of course, to be defined by legislators.)  Don’t be surprised if an anti-gun nut like Sebelius uses this line of thinking to impose ObamaCare policies which result in a back-door gun ban on any American who owns “dangerous” firearms.

After all, insurers already (and routinely) drop homeowners from their policies for owning certain types of guns or for refusing to use trigger locks (that is, for keeping their guns ready for self-defense!).  While not all insurers practice this anti-gun behavior, Gun Owners of America has documented that some do — Prudential and State Farm being two of the most well-known.

The good news is that because homeowner insurance is private (and is still subject to the free market) you can go to another company if one drops you.  But what are you going to do under nationalized ObamaCare when the regulations written by Secretary Sebelius suspend the applicability of your government-mandated policy because of your gun ownership?

All of this is in addition to something that GOA has been warning you about for several months … the certainty that minimum acceptable policies will dump your gun information into a federal database … a certainty that is reinforced by language in the summary providing for a study to “encourage increased meaningful use of electronic health records.”

Remember, the federal government has already denied more than 150,000 military veterans the right to own guns, without their being convicted of a crime or receiving any due process of law.  They were denied because of medical information (such as PTSD) that the FBI later determined disqualified these veterans to own guns.

Is this what we need on a national level being applied to every gun owner in America?

Incidentally, failure to comply would subject the average family to $1,500 in fines — and possibly more for a household with older teens.  And, although a Schumer amendment purports to exempt Americans from prison sentences for non-purchase of an ObamaPolicy — something which was never at issue — it doesn’t prohibit them from being sent to prison for a year and fined an additional $25,000 under the Internal Revenue Code for non-payment of the initial fines.

ACTION:  Contact your two U.S. Senators.  Ask him or her, in the strongest terms, to vote against the phony Baucus bill.

You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your senators the pre-written e-mail message below.

—– Pre-written letter —–

Dear Senator:

You already know that the phony Baucus bill:

* Is predicated on $283 billion in phony “cuts” which have never, never ever been realized since a similar commitment to cut Medicare costs in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 — and will never, never ever be realized under the Baucus bill;

* Requires massive numbers of Americans to have government-approved insurance which the CBO predicts will be more expensive than current policies;

* Refuses to provide a cost for these policies, making it almost certain that more and more Americans will find insurance beyond their reach;

* Has no legislative language and nothing but a CBO “guesstimate” of the cost and benefits, based on a summary.

On the basis of the summary, the Baucus bill tells us virtually nothing about what kind of policy Americans will be required to purchase under penalty of law — nor the consequences.  It does say that the “Secretary of HHS [Kathleen Sebelius] would be required to define and update the categories of treatments, items, and services…” within an insurance plan which would be covered in a policy constituting “required minimum health coverage.”

This could spell trouble for gun owners.

It is nearly certain that coverage prescribed by the administration will, to control costs, exclude coverage for what it regards as excessively dangerous activities.  And, given Sebelius’ well-established antipathy to the Second Amendment — she vetoed concealed carry legislation as governor of Kansas — I presume she will define these dangerous activities to include hunting and self-defense using a firearm.  It is even possible that the Obama-prescribed policy could preclude reimbursement of any kind in a household which keeps a loaded firearm for self-defense.

This is, of course, in addition to the certainty that minimum acceptable policies will dump my gun information into a federal database — a certainty that is reinforced by language in the summary providing for a study to “encourage increased meaningful use of electronic health records.”

Incidentally, failure to comply would subject the average family to $1,500 in fines — and possibly more for a household with older teens.  And, although a Schumer amendment purports to exempt Americans from prison sentences for non-purchase of an ObamaPolicy — something which was never at issue — it doesn’t prohibit them from being sent to prison for a year and fined an additional $25,000 under the Internal Revenue Code for non-payment of the initial fines.

Please oppose the Baucus bill.

Sincerely,

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://gunowners.org

by Sean Haugh

There are a whole lot of good reasons to be against the death penalty. I’m sure you’ve heard them all: it’s inhumane; it’s used disproportionately against the poor; we could be executing an innocent man; it’s expensive; it really doesn’t deter crime; and so on. But here’s one that maybe you haven’t thought of before.

The death penalty is just another outrageously overgrown government program.

You see, from a Libertarian perspective, it is the nature of government to grow until it’s simply out of control. Just about every government initiative starts out as a great idea. Of course we all want feed hungry children, make sure everyone has a solid roof over their heads, keep the environment clean. Libertarians share these compassionate human goals. We just question whether another government program is actually going to do anything to solve the problem.

In the beginning, a government program is a wonderful thing. It offers hope, and maybe even does have a positive impact on the people it’s designed to help. But before long, the program has changed into an institution. What is right and good no longer matters. The new incentive is to keep the program growing.

Eventually the program becomes so bloated that it is actively harming the people its supposed to help. The only solution that ever occurs to our politicians is to take even more of our tax money and pass more laws in a desperate attempt to make the program work. And we wonder why people have become so cynical about government.

Every government program follows this life cycle, from good idea to porkbarrel monstrosity. The death penalty behaves no differently. Let’s start from the beginning.

Death penalty advocates say that it’s justified, even necessary, to execute cold-blooded killers. They say that people who have committed such heinous crimes, having so viciously denied the right to life to others, have forfeited their own right to live.

Take Ted Bundy for example. (I doubt I have to explain who he is, and even if I do I’d rather not. He was that bad.) OK, I say, let’s kill Ted Bundy. That’s a great idea. I doubt anybody really shed a tear when the state of Florida put Bundy out of everyone’s misery.

But what happens next? Now we have a public policy to kill multiple murderers, and we have given government the means to keep doing it. Like all government power, it starts to grow.

The first way it grows is that we start putting people to death for different crimes. It doesn’t just stop at Ted Bundy. Sometimes just one murder is enough for a criminal to prove how unworthy he is to live. What about serial rapists? I don’t think I’d miss any of them either. Some think “drug kingpins” have also forfeited their right to live. And let’s not forget that idiot that keeps getting drunk behind the wheel and then finally killed that poor little girl in a car accident. But hey, let’s not stop there. In fact, there are so many really bad things people do, the federal government alone authorizes the death penalty for sixty (yes, 60) different crimes.

The bigger the program gets, the more it protects the rich and powerful. As government gives protection to those who can afford it, it takes away protection from those who can’t. So you end up with situations where a zealous prosecutor, with all the resources of government at his disposal, has every reason to go for a conviction with a maximum sentence against some poor defendant who can hardly afford to buy lunch, much less hire a good lawyer.

Our nifty little government program has now gotten to where plenty of people can be executed, while O.J. Simpson can enjoy a round of golf at his leisure. Here in North Carolina, we have over 200 people currently on death row. You can’t tell me they are all as bad as Ted Bundy.

You can’t tell me they’re all guilty either. Once you have hundreds of people on death row, it’s a statistical certainty that at least one of them is innocent. In fact, North Carolina saw two cases within a week of each other in 1999 where men who were a very short time away from execution had to be set free because new evidence proved that they were indeed innocent. How many more people have to be released from death row before we realize we’ve gone too far in killing prisoners?

So we’ve gone from killing Ted Bundy, which we all agree is a great idea, to maintaining an ever-growing killing industry that often produces completely unjust results. A typical out of control government bureaucracy. Like all those other public policy pipedreams, the death penalty will never work. We need to stop this murderous boondoggle now.

Sean Haugh is assistant editor for Liberty For All. Sean is married to longtime Libertarian Pam Adams, and they have a family of three dogs and five cats.  Besides them, Sean loves God, Liberty, and Oklahoma Sooners football.  Write to Sean at seanhaugh@mindspring.com.

by J. Michael Bragg

“In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.”

- Voltaire

When my good friend and colleague Lee Wrights and I began the project that would eventually become Liberty For All, the number one gripe I had about government was the issue of taxation. Simply put - I DESPISE paying them. Now I know I am not alone in this hatred, as I am sure many of you likewise abhor this voracious system of revenue embezzlement. Yes, I did say embezzlement! In fact, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines the word as: “to appropriate (as property entrusted to one’s care) fraudulently to one’s own use.” Sounds like government to me! But in one respect M-W missed the mark in definition. Our Politicians do not see the money that they constrain from us “as property entrusted to one’s care.” They see the fruits of our labor as a disposable commodity-an endless blank check that they did not have to earn; that can be used to secure their entrenchment in places of authority; and, enslave those upon whom they depend for their power.

From Federal (including the mother of all scams dubbed Social-ist In-Security), State and Local, Municipal or County taxes, to sales tax, gas tax, cigarette tax and everything else you can imagine, taxes simply eat away not only at our Liberty, but also destroy the very fabric of our lives. In my opinion, there is not another intrusion that affects us to the extent that taxes do.

Our government has waged “wars” on other people, drugs, terrorism, poverty, illiteracy, and a throng of other pet “causes” induced and directed only by the political winds of the moment or the need to fix a problem they themselves created. They have dropped bombs on innocent civilians; lied and committed perjury to cover up their malevolent deeds; and, placed the bill for their misconduct at our feet.  Property has been seized without due process, lives have been ruined and lost-all due to their incessant yearning to grasp more and more power. Millions of non-violent “offenders” are jailed for no other reason than “we say so.” Yet, with the exception of the loss of life, all these examples of government gone very bad pale in comparison to the damage done by taxation.

Simply put, the scourge of taxation destroys our ability to live independently from government intrusion into our lives. The bottom line is that without this power to fund their misguided deeds our government loses the ability to do about anything. It is the sole source of their power over us. As the old saying goes, “follow the money.”

Chris Edwards, Director of Fiscal Policy Studies at the Cato Institute informs us in his piece “Top Ten Civil Liberties Abuses of the Income Tax” of some of the more intrusive aspects of our current system. They include:

Lack of Financial Privacy. The broad-based income tax necessitates a large invasion of financial privacy that a low-rate consumption-based tax could avoid. The IRS regularly gains access to a myriad of personal records, such as mortgage records, credit card data, phone records, banking and investment records, real property transaction data, and personal correspondence. This broad IRS authority to obtain records without court supervision has been referred to by the Supreme Court as “a power of inquisition.”

Denial of Due Process. The Fifth Amendment right to due process is ignored in many respects by the federal income tax regime. Due process requires that government provide accused citizens a clear notice of a claim against them and allow the accused a hearing before executing enforcement action. But the IRS engages in many summary judgments, and enforces them prior to any judicial determinations. Moreover, the very complexity and ambiguity of the income tax seems to violate due process. In 1926, the Supreme Court noted that a statute that is “so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application, violates that first essential of due process of law.”

Shifting of the Burden of Proof. For non-criminal tax cases — the vast majority of cases — the tax code reverses the centuries-old common law principle that the burden of proof rests with the accuser. Except in some narrow circumstances, the IRS does not have to prove the correctness of its determinations. When the IRS makes erroneous assessments, as it often does, citizens carry the burden to prove that they are wrong. Efforts to shift the burden of proof to the IRS in the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act did not accomplish that goal. In addition, the new rules do not apply to the 97 percent of IRS actions that are deemed administrative in nature.

No Trial by Jury in Tax Court. Despite Sixth and Seventh Amendment guarantees of trial by jury, the federal tax system carefully sidesteps such protections. To contest an IRS tax calculation prior to assessment, one must file a petition in the U.S. Tax Court. But since this is an administrative court, not an Article III court, no jury trial is required. To obtain a jury trial and related rights for civil tax cases, one must file suit in a U.S. District Court. But before that can happen, the alleged tax, penalties, and interest must be paid in full. And if the citizen wins, there is a burdensome route to retrieving the disputed money. For most people, those rules effectively eliminate the right to trial by jury in tax cases.

Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. In most situations, the Fourth Amendment guarantees that, before the government can search private property and seize records, it must demonstrate to a court that there is “probable cause” to believe that lawless conduct exists. However, the IRS’s summons authority under tax code section 7602 allows it to obtain records of every description from any person without showing probable cause and without a court order. There has also been an explosion in information reporting required by the IRS and a big expansion in its computer searching for personal records. Recently, the IRS won the power to access financial data on Visa cards issued by foreign banks. Many examples of abusive IRS searches and seizures were revealed in U.S. Senate hearings in 1997.

Forced Self-Incrimination. The requirement to file tax returns sworn to under penalty of perjury operates to invalidate the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Citizens face a legal dilemma. On the one hand, refusing to file a return would expose a citizen to prosecution for failure to file. On the other hand, disclosing information sought in tax returns constitutes a waiver of Fifth Amendment protections. The IRS can and does release that information to federal, state, and local agencies for both tax and non-tax law enforcement purposes.

Of course, the list does not end here, as this is just the tip of the iceberg that threatens to sink our ship of Liberty. If we are ever to regain a hold on our lives and escape the power of oppressive government over us, then this, in my opinion, is the number one issue we have to face. All others are based on this one issue because without the ability to fund their operations, they cannot exercise their power over us.

Originally published in Liberty For All April 8, 2007.

by Barry Poulson

Opponents of Washington’s Initiative 1033 are woefully uninformed about the Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) passed by voters in 1992. Critics of Washington’s ballot measure say I-1033 is similar to our TABOR, which they claim is a disaster for our state. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The best way to appreciate the positive impact of TABOR in Colorado is to contrast our experience with California’s. The Golden State’s GANN Amendment, a precursor of TABOR, limited the growth of state revenue and spending to the sum of inflation and population growth. In the late 1980s, under pressure from the education employee lobby, the California legislature abandoned the GANN Amendment. The rest is history.

Over the last two decades without GANN, state spending in California increased much more rapidly than personal income. To sustain the higher level of spending, taxes were increased to one of the highest levels in the country. Despite the higher tax burden, the state incurred a structural deficit that required even higher levels of debt. California created one of the worst business tax environments in the country. Business investment and jobs left the state for other states with better tax climates. Population left the state for other states with lower tax burdens. In short, California has experienced retardation in economic growth over the last 20 years.

Shortly after California abandoned the GANN Amendment, Colorado voters passed TABOR. It also limits the rate of growth of state revenue and spending to the sum of inflation and population growth. Surplus revenue above the TABOR limit must be rebated to taxpayers. From 1997 to 2000 state revenue grew in excess of the TABOR limit, and the state rebated about $3.25 billion in surplus revenue to taxpayers.

The TABOR Amendment has worked much the way it was intended, allowing Colorado citizens to decide how much government they want and are willing to pay for. If any jurisdiction wants to spend surplus revenue, or increase taxes or debt, it must have voter approval.

Many statewide ballot measures have been presented to Colorado voters since TABOR was enacted. Two of the six ballot measures seeking approval to spend surplus revenue were passed, and four were defeated. Eight ballot measures proposing tax increases were introduced, but only one of these measures passed. Of the four property tax measures introduced, two providing property tax relief to specific groups passed; two measures proposing property tax increases were defeated.

At the local level, however, many more spending or tax increases have been approved, usually because they were tied to specific local government programs to which the voters decided to give extra funds.

Critics often argue that TABOR forced the state to cut spending. The empirical record for state spending in Colorado refutes this claim. In contrast to California, state spending in Colorado has grown at roughly the rate in the private economy. From 1993 to 2007 real per capita state spending grew 28 percent, while per capita GDP grew 30 percent.

With an effective tax and spending limit in place Colorado has been able to lower tax burdens, creating one of the best business tax climates in the country. Colorado has attracted more business investment and jobs than most other states. Over the period since TABOR was passed Colorado has experienced one of the highest rates of economic growth in the nation, while California has experienced retardation in economic growth.

As California citizens and businesses leave for other states, such as Colorado, the evidence is clear. States that impose an effective tax and spending limit, and that pursue prudent fiscal policies, create a better business tax climate compared to states that pursue profligate fiscal policies in the absence of effective tax and spending limits. Critics who argue that state spending should not be constrained by tax and spending limits are really arguing that government should grow more rapidly than the private sector.

Polls reveal that Colorado citizens support the TABOR Amendment by a greater majority today than when it was enacted. Citizens support each of the TABOR provisions by a large majority: the cap on the growth of revenue and spending; the requirement for voter approval to spend surplus revenue; and the requirement for voter approval to increase taxes and debt.

Despite this success, politicians and special interest groups routinely attack TABOR because it doesn’t give them carte blanche authority to tax and spend. Washington residents would be lucky to have our TABOR amendment. It strengthens fiscal rules and policies conducive to economic growth and prosperity, and prevents the kind of fiscal debacle occurring in California.

This article originally appeared in The Bellingham Herald, September 26th, 2009.

Barry Poulson is a professor of economics at the University of Colorado and a fiscal policy analyst for the Independence Institute.

© 2009 The Independence Institute
13952 Denver West Parkway, Suite 400
Golden, CO 80401
303-279-6536
www.independenceinstitute.org

by Jessica Peck Corry

Sometimes, patriotism can be awkward. Especially when it means admitting to an international TV audience that your nation’s broken health care system forced you onto welfare, into adult diapers, and hobbling with a walker. And all before the age of 30.

Embarrassing perhaps, but for Canadian Lin Gilbert, the time had come to share her story publicly this week. Especially after her 15-year-old son was recently diagnosed with the same health condition leading to her suffering. “As a parent, I will do anything to help him. I will borrow the money, I will do whatever it takes,” she said. “If the Canadian system can’t take care of him, I’ll find a way.”

Specifically, Gilbert wants to prevent her son from enduring the agony of government waiting lists she has known all too well. After first encountering excruciating back pain in 2001, she was forced to wait six months for an MRI. Nearly three more years passed before she made it to the top of a waiting list for spinal fusion surgery. Even then, she recalls, one surgeon refused to operate because she “hadn’t suffered enough.” Another, however, saw things differently, lobbying for Gilbert to get the procedure and successfully performing it himself.

At 38, Gilbert is now off public assistance, owns her home, and manages a financial services business. Life is good, though she still suffers immense guilt from memories of being “an absent mother,” agonized by being unable to play with her kids, and struggling to remain coherent as she downed morphine to drown the pain.

Fortunately, Gilbert’s son faces better prospects. Enter Rick Baker, a Canadian determined to improve health care in his country. Baker joined Gilbert Monday at a Vancouver hotel to speak with American reporters as part of a health care dialogue organized by the Colorado-based Independence Institute, a free market think tank where I am a public policy analyst.

Baker began by offering a blunt disclosure. “I make my living sending patients to the U.S.,” he said. “This is medical tourism, but instead of sending someone to Thailand, we’re sending them to Delaware.”

Through an innovative partnership with 22 independent American surgery centers and doctors in 13 states, Baker and his American counterparts transport Canadians to the U.S. for timely care at cost savings up to 80 percent. The partnership operates largely outside the traditional health insurance system. And this isn’t just about helping Canadians. Baker now also provides a similar state-to-state service for Americans seeking more affordable or timely care.

Under Canada’s controversial federal health legislation, surgeons are prohibited from charging patients to provide “medically necessary” treatment. In addition, they are limited to performing surgeries to six hours a week. Gilbert recalled one surgeon telling her, “I spend six hours in surgery each week, less time than I spend explaining to sick patients why I can’t perform theirs.”

Currently, Baker is involved an Ontario lawsuit that could effectively eliminate such limits. “The Canada Health Act is responsible for more pain, more suffering, and more death than any other piece of domestic legislation in history,” he said. “Imagine a law that prevents you from taking care of yourself and preventing your own death.”

The Vancouver gathering came as President Barack Obama continues his push to radically expand the role of government in administering American health care. But participants weren’t just focused on bashing Canada as a role model. It was also about explaining that America’s health care woes don’t come from an absence of government, but rather too much government and not enough consumer choice.

“The Canadian system is a Ponzi scheme is that is just a little further along ours,” explained Dr. Keith Smith, an Oklahoma anesthesiologist who partners with Baker and manages his own outpatient surgery center. Baker believes real change will come only when patients are given the incentive to help control costs, freed from being forced to blindly abide by the decisions of insurance companies.

To attract patients, Smith lists the costs of all packaged surgery services on his center’s Web site, adding that if the center’s costs rise above the figures provided, patients aren’t required to pay more. “If we are wrong, we eat it.”

Smith hopes the model catches on. “It’s radical. But when people go to our competitor across town and pay $21,000 [for a procedure], and then find out we could have done it for a fifth of that, they start to ask a lot of questions, starting with ‘why didn’t my insurance company go there?’”

Smith says insurance companies opt to pay more at hospitals because of a “cartel” where both inflate the total costs of services as a way to increase profit. Smith’s approach, meanwhile, also includes a commitment to not accepting any federal funding, standing in stark contrast to the position espoused by the American Medical Association, which recently endorsed Obama’s plan. Smith was unsympathetic. “The reason the AMA is endorsing this plan is that 90 percent of its funding comes from the federal government,” he said. “Less than 15 percent of AMA’s budget comes from physician dues, so they are seen largely as irrelevant.”

Hospital lobbyists argue that surgery centers like Smith’s are given an unfair advantage in that unlike traditional hospitals, they are not required to take every patient coming to their door. But Smith rejects this, saying hospitals often exaggerate costs associated with treating uninsured patients as a way to gain political sympathy and more public funding. “They love to see the uninsured person come through the door,” he said. “They run a bunch of tests and say it cost them $80,000. Meanwhile, it probably really cost $1000.” And while Smith’s center is taxed, his “not-for-profit” hospital competitors are not, a distinction Smith says helped net those in his city net up to $100 million in profit last year.

Despite the intense political opposition they face, Smith and Baker are soldiering on, building a new system that is transforming lives one at a time. “I know it sounds a bit naive, but it’s true that reform is as simple as charging less for the delivery of health care,” Baker said.

Imagine that.

This article originally appeared in Human Events, October 1st, 2009.

Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@i2i.org) serves as director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project.

by George Phillies

For the past year, Massachusetts libertarians have worked with a new method of organizing their organization’s finances.  Our objective was simple: Make sure that money is spent where it should be spent, on doing real politics.

Our approach to managing spending put the controls where they belong: at the front end.

Massachusetts Libertarians have two major sources of money: dues and donations.  We also have two sorts of campaign accounts: State and Federal. Only state money raised under state funding restrictions can be spent on state campaign activities, such as supporting non-Federal candidates.  Only Federal money can be spent on supporting Federal candidates or on Federal Election Activity. The definition of Federal Election Activity is very wide. For example, if we register someone to vote within 90 days of the Federal election, including elections in which we do not have a libertarian candidate, it is Federal Election Activity.

The restrictions on raising state funds are much more rigid than the restrictions on raising Federal funds. We can accept single Federal donations of up to $5,000.  We can accept single state donations of no more than $500.

To control spending, we had to have a budget. However we have no idea in advance as to how many members will pay dues, we have no idea in advance as to how many members will give us donations. Those numbers have fluctuated wildly in recent years, so if looking at the past is a reasonable answer, the reasonable answer is: Your guess is as good as ours.

What we did was to invert the budgeting schemes used by other groups. We said: We know the missions we want to accomplish. We know that we have certain fixed expenses. What we will do is to allocate each dues payment and each donation as it comes in, and see what we can do with the money that we actually have. We also agreed that after six months we would revisit our allocations, and ask if they were working well.

To make life more interesting, we finally brought the state organization into the 21st century. We now offer electronic memberships, in which your newsletter is shipped to you as a PDF file. We now offer family memberships, so that if several people living under one roof are all members, and if they agree to share their newsletter, the extra family memberships are only charged at a minimum rate.  We charge $25 for a paper membership, $15 for an electronic membership, and only $5 for a family membership.

In allocating dues payments, we first said that $10 of each paper membership is put into a distinct financial account — the money is all in the same bank account — to be used only for printing and publishing the paper newsletter. That decision guarantees that there will always be enough money to print and publish a newsletter in each and every month. We then asked what are other costs were.

Like every state party we have certain fixed administrative costs. We rent a post office box. We own a list of URLs that must be renewed. We have a website and must pay for hosting. The web site offers e-mail forwarding, which could have come as an extra expense.  We have a list of Meetup groups subsidized by the State Committee.  These facilities are used for what is legally Federal Election Activity — whether we happen to have a candidate in the race or not does not legally matter — and must be paid for with Federal hard money.

We also have a range of objectives:

Membership renewal
Volunteer incitement and support
Fund raising and membership recruitment
Candidate recruitment and outreach
Candidate and issue support
Administrative costs and reserve funds

For normal memberships, supported by donations to the Federal PAC, the allocation of funds went Newsletter (if paper) $10.00. And of the remaining membership dues:

Membership renewal — 20%
Volunteer support 20%
Fund raising and membership recruitment 30%
Candidate recruitment and outreach 20%
Administrative and reserve funds 10%

For donations other than membership renewals, the allocation went:

Candidates and issues 50%
Administration and reserve funds 10%
Fund raising 40%

Our fundraising documents give members the choice of giving money for renewals or giving money as donations. However, if a member gives more than $100 in the calendar year, we give the member a one year extension on membership for each hundred dollars, up to a five year limit.  The expense is $10, and that only if the member is receiving the newsletter in paper rather than electronic form.  We also passed a rule that monthly donors of $5 a month or more are placed in a special membership category in which their membership does not expire so long as they’re a monthly donor. If they stop giving, they still have whatever months are remaining on their original membership.

We are allotting $3 per member for a renewal effort. That means that we can do five distinct mailings to each member. We’re currently up to three new mailings, and I expect we’ll do the fourth and fifth after our forthcoming state convention.  Fortunately, one of our members owns a Xerox Phaser, and is willing to print the newsletter so long as he is reimbursed his costs.  Those costs, with substantial use of color, are lower than the costs for commercial printer giving us black and white prints.  The Phaser has also given us upgraded full color brochures, brochures for candidates and neighboring states, and colorful recruitment flyers.

I am quoting the above numbers after we adjusted them a bit. At first we had allocated 30% to fundraising, and 20% to administrative and reserve expenses.  A 30% allotment to fundraising requires that for each dollar you spend on raising money, you bring in $3.40. That number turned out to be unrealistically high. We raised the fund raising percentage to 40%, meaning that for each dollar spent on fundraising we have to bring in $2.50. That number seems to be working.  On the other hand, a vigorous program of contacting former members and others, urging them to renew and coin, has meant that our membership decline has reversed; membership is now growing. That program is sustainable because we have a budget for membership recruitment.  With an increasing membership, our fixed costs are spread over more people, and therefore we were able to reduce the administrative cost allotment.

At some point you actually have to spend the money you have raised. Very recently, our State Committee agreed to spend a thousand dollars from the financial reserve to support the Joe Kennedy for Senate campaign. That’s close to half the reserve funds.  Joe Kennedy is a member of our national party, who volunteered and is running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of the late senator Edward Kennedy. He is not except very distantly related to the Senator.  Joe needs 17,000 raw signatures to get on the ballot, meaning that he needs about $17,000 or he will fail to achieve ballot access. If Joe does not raise the money needed to get on the ballot, his campaign is for naught.

But the decision to help support the Kennedy campaign was not without risks. If Kennedy fails to get ballot access, our members will justly complained that we threw their money away. On the other hand, if we had not supported Kennedy, our members would justly complain that we were failing to support the campaigns of our party members when they ran for office. Fortunately, our fund allocation scheme both assured that we had some money available to help support Kennedy, and assured that some of our money was locked away where we could legitimately explain why we did not spend it on his campaign.

The larger part of our money for Kennedy went to petitioning. A segment of our money went to sending a full color three page fund raising letter to all of our current members, all of our current national members, and a select list of strong-propensity-to-give past libertarian donors, urging them to support Kennedy. We also sent a nominating paper for signatures to each member of the state organization who receives the newsletter in paper form. The nominating papers must be printed on 60lb. canary yellow 8.5×14″ stock, so there was no utility to sending people electronic files of the nominating papers that they could print.

That’s the Massachusetts scheme for ensuring that dues money and donations actually gets spent on politics. The money is allocated to legitimate political purposes, and to administrative costs, when it comes through the door. Once allocated, it stays where it belongs.  When it comes time to do real politics, we know how much money we have for that purpose. On the other hand, because the money is pre-allocated particular accounts, there is no possibility that a huge administrative overhead will eat up all of our income, so that we are reduced to the point where we would have no ability to support candidates, do outreach, recruit members, or do any of the other political things that justify the existence of our organization.

As someone has let the kitten out of the yarn, it is no longer a secret that there is a strong effort to draft me to run for National Chair again. I agreed that I would run if there were a legitimate draft. When I explained this to the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire State Convention on Saturday, a majority of the delegates present voted that I should be the National Chair candidate to receive one pre-pledged delegate vote.

An important part of the leadership role of the National Chair is to ensure that our party actually spends money on doing politics, rather than on nonpolitical tasks that do nothing to advance us toward a Libertarian future.  If elected, I will strongly urge the National Committee to go over to some suitable variation on the Massachusetts scheme for budget allocation.

Obviously, there will need to be some variations. For example, a reasonably run a national committee will set aside $100,000 a year or a bit more for presidential ballot access. 50 state ballot access is a reasonable objective, but you can’t get there if you can’t pay for it. A reasonable budgeting scheme will help ensure that money is available when we need it for each of our purposes.

George Phillies is a contributing editor for Liberty For All. You can contact Dr. Phillies at phillies@wpi.edu.

by Peter Orvetti

“There is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing,” historian Richard Hofstadter wrote in November 1964.  “I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.”  Hofstadter said the representative of this movement “traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values.  He is always manning the barricades of civilization. …  Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish.  Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated.”

Forty-five autumns later, the paranoid style is back in style.

In the first chapter of his book “The Revolution: A Manifesto,” Rep. Ron Paul writes, “A substantial portion of the conservative movement has become a parody of its former self.  Once home to distinguished intellectuals and men of letters, it now tolerates and even encourages anti-intellectualism and jingoism that would have embarrassed earlier generations of conservative thinkers.”

These individuals work mainly within the Republican Party, but they are a faction of their own.  Theirs is a grand old paranoia.  They are the “Hofstadter Party.”

Oklahoma legislator Steve Russell, who called President Obama’s September address to schoolchildren “something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” is a member of the Hofstadter Party.  So is Sarah Palin, who wrote in August that “the America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel.’”  Ditto the “birthers”, who insist against all evidence that a president with a different skin color cannot possibly be a real American.  Also columnist John Perry, who wrote last week that “there is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the ‘Obama problem’” — a problem he does not define.  The Hofstadter Party’s rank-and-file are all of those who gleefully scrawl a Hitler mustache under Obama’s nose, visually equating his policies of profligate spending and dangerous deficit expansion to the roasting of six million human beings.

The emerging leader of the Hofstadter Party is Glenn Lee Beck, a former goofy drive-time radio host who has reinvented himself as a cheerful modern-day Father Coughlin.  On a recent episode of his Fox News program, Beck delivered a 19-minute monologue detailing what he called a “tree of revolution” linking Van Jones, “a radical communist revolutionary in the White House”; the “extreme left-wing” Apollo Alliance; and Bill Ayers, the Students for a Democratic Society, and other 1960’s radicals; and the Obama White House.  Another show started with Beck drawing a line between the President, White House aide Valerie Jarrett, ACORN, and a hammer-and-sickle.

Beck is less in the conservative tradition of Barry Goldwater than he is a spiritual descendant of another 1960’s politician, George Wallace.  In his book “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense,” he writes that Americans “know that SOMETHING JUST DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT, but they don’t know how to describe it or, more importantly, how to stop it.”  Like Wallace, Beck trashes big business and wealthy elites, telling viewers, “Wall Street owns our government.  Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged.”  He once went so far as to replace the stars on an American flag with corporate logos, in the style of the anti-corporate Adbusters Media Foundation.  Sometimes Beck comes off like a skinner Michael Moore.

MSNBC personality Joe Scarborough, himself a former bomb-throwing back-bench Republican congressman, has expressed his queasiness about the state of the conservative movement.  On his September 22 show, Scarborough cited Beck by name, and suggested those who “preach hatred” can inspire events like the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  Scarborough then vowed to create “a conservatives’ honor roll on this show.  I’m talking to you, Mitt Romney, and I’m talking about anyone who wants to be president in 2012.  You need to call out this type of hatred.”

In Sunday’s Washington Post, Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute lamented, “During the glory days of the conservative movement, from its ascent in the 1960s and ’70s to its success in Ronald Reagan’s era, there was a balance between the intellectuals, such as Buckley and Milton Friedman, and the activists, such as Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich. …  Today, however, the conservative movement has been thrown off balance, with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas.  The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news.  We’ve traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites.”

This is a sad state of affairs.  With great issues like health policy, government ownership of business, and multiple foreign wars on the agenda, this country needs a dynamic and thoughtful conservative voice.

Peter Orvetti was an early political blogger in the United States, running his Orvetti.com political news report from 1997 through 2002. He is a past editorial writer for the Cato Institute, served as Deputy Director of Communications for the Libertarian Party in the lead-up to the 2000 party convention, and has published commentaries in several major newspapers. Contact Mr. Orvetti at peterjorvetti@gmail.com.

from SAF

BELLEVUE, WA - The Second Amendment Foundation today joined with the Montana Shooting Sports Association in a federal lawsuit filed in Missoula to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA), which takes effect today, Oct. 1, 2009.

Lead attorney for the plaintiffs’ litigation team is Quentin Rhoades of the Missoula firm of Sullivan, Tabaracci & Rhoades, PC. The MFFA litigation team also includes other attorneys located in Montana, New York, Florida, Arizona and Washington.

“We’re happy to join this lawsuit,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “because we believe this issue should be decided by the courts.”

“We feel very strongly that the federal government has gone way too far in attempting to regulate a lot of activity that occurs only in-state,” added MSSA President Gary Marbut. “The Montana Legislature and governor agreed with us by enacting the MFFA. We welcome the support of many other states that are stepping up to the plate with their own firearms freedom acts.”

The MFFA declares that any firearms made and retained in Montana are not subject to any federal authority under the power given to Congress in the U.S. Constitution to regulate “commerce … among the several states.” It relies on the Tenth Amendment and other principles to exempt Montana-made and retained firearms, accessories and ammunition from federal regulation. Marbut’s group advises Montana citizens not to manufacture an MFFA-covered item until MSSA is upheld in court.

Earlier this year, Tennessee passed similar legislation and lawmakers in 20 other states have indicated that they will introduce MSSA clone legislation, Marbut said. Information about the Firearms Freedom Act movement is being accumulated and made publicly available at firearmsfreedomact.com.

MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. It can be found at mtssa.org. The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

Copyright © 2009 Second Amendment Foundation, All Rights Reserved.

Second Amendment Foundation
James Madison Building
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005
Toll Free: 800-426-4302
Email: InformationRequest@saf.org

by Larken Rose

Most people don’t think in distinct, specific concepts. They “think” (if it can be called that) in vague blobs of mush. They can’t follow simple trains of logic, and have a complete lack of what I call “clarity of thought.” For example, my wife just showed me an online poll, asking people whether they thought “healthcare” should be considered a “basic human right.” What a fine example of meaningless mush.

Most people answered “yes,” no doubt feeling very compassionate for having done so. Trouble is, none of those “compassionate” people have any idea what a “human right” is. They haven’t bothered to think about it, because merely feeling good is enough for them. Had they thought about it, they might have realized how stupid the question is.

What most people probably interpreted the question to mean is something like this: “Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone got the healthcare they needed?” Well, duh, of course it would. But that wasn’t the question. The question is whether the thing called “healthcare” is a basic “human right”–whatever that is. The implication is that if someone doesn’t get the healthcare they need, someone’s “rights” are being violated.

Let’s consider the following question: Are Snickers (the candy bar) a basic human right? If so, everyone who lived prior to 1930 (when Snickers came into being) must have had their human rights violated. Poor them. Furthermore, it would also mean that every time someone craves a Snickers, but doesn’t get one, his “human rights” are also apparently being violated. (By whom, I’m not really sure; the Snickers-makers, I guess.)

Think that example is silly? Yes, it is, but no more silly than asking if healthcare is a “basic human right.” If you hit a deer with your car, out on a country road at night, and careen into a ditch, there’s a good chance that you’ll be wanting some healthcare. So WHO, exactly, would be violating your “basic human right” to such healthcare when you don’t get any? (Try suing the deer.) And who has an obligation to supply you with the alleged “basic human right” of healthcare, when no one even knows you’re in need of any?

Sorry for stating the bleeding obvious, but you can’t violate someone’s “rights” unless you DO something to them. If you torture them, rob them, assault them, or murder them, you may very well be violating their “rights.” In other words, a “right” is a purely NEGATIVE concept: something that should NOT be forcibly interfered with by anyone else. “Rights” aren’t a bunch of goodies that someone has to provide for you; they’re the things that no one should STOP you from doing yourself. For example:

1) If you have a right to “freedom of religion,” it means only that no one should forcibly prevent you from practicing the religion of your choice, or force you to practice a religion you don’t want to. It does NOT mean that anyone has to make you a church, or listen to you pray, or pray with you.

2) If you have a right to “freedom of speech,” it means only that no one should forcibly stop you from speaking your mind. It doesn’t mean anyone has to give you a stage, a microphone, or an audience.

3) If you have a right to be free from unreasonable searches, or from being forced to testify against yourself, or from being imprisoned without a trial, or from being tortured–and the list could go on for ages–all it means is that no one should use force to STOP you from exercising your individual liberty.

So what would it even MEAN to say that “healthcare” is a “basic human right”? It means nothing, and makes no sense. A “right” cannot be something positive; it cannot be some THING that someone else should be FORCED to give you, like a house, or a job, or healthcare. To have such a “right” would require that someone else be FORCED to serve you. Unless you think you have the right to enslave others, you can’t possibly have the “right” to any service or any product. You have the right to be left alone, and that’s all. ALL true rights boil down to that.

The trouble is, collectivists like to hijack and mangle the concept of “rights,” in order to justify the INITIATION OF VIOLENCE–the exact opposite of what a “right” really is. For example, when people try to pass off “healthcare” as a “human right,” they are advocating the use of state VIOLENCE (via “taxes”) to FORCE some people to serve other people. For example, socialists like Obama are pushing a system in which the government can forcibly rob some people, and/or forcibly conscript doctors and nurses, to give out healthcare to other people. They are advocating nothing less than widespread government violence, under the euphemism of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” (Sound familiar?) And they have the audacity to talk about it in terms of “rights.” And the American people are so clueless they actually buy it.

(Apparently the old world slave-masters just needed better PR guys. Had they managed to pass off “affordable cotton clothing” as a “basic human right,” they might still have those slave plantations.)

Unfortunately, having been thoroughly indoctrinated for years, most Americans not only believe, but PROUDLY believe, that no one has a right to keep what he himself produces, but that everyone has a “right” to what his NEIGHBOR produces. And it’s hard to get any more economically idiotic, morally schizophrenic, and logically insane than that.

Find out more about Larken Rose at http://www.larkenrose.com

by Starchild

Examine the motivations behind all the wars and other forms of mass aggression in human history, and four great forces stand out in stark relief: Nationalism, Racism, Religion, and Socialism. [1]

These forces are such powerful motivators that they have long induced the majority of human beings to embrace what they would otherwise naturally find unacceptable - authoritarian governments running their lives and stealing and killing in their names.

Government, or the State, has been the tool through which the latent destructive energy present in the impulses of Nationalism, Racism, Religion and Socialism is converted into warfare, ethnic cleansing, political tyranny, forced starvation, and the other terrible violations of human rights that have been responsible for so much suffering, particularly in the 20th century.

Few people will argue against the proposition that one of the four forces, Racism, is inherently evil. I am inclined to place a second, Nationalism, in the same category. More on this later. But Socialism and Religion are not inherently evil. [2] On their own, they can be sources of great comfort and result in many positive human actions. It is only in the hands of government that they automatically become cause for alarm.

Some of the worst State crimes have been perpetrated when more than one of these forces have merged into a single ideology. Three of them were present in the Third Reich - Nationalism, Socialism, and Racism. [3] Racism and Religion as government policy were the cause of many horrible abuses during the Colonial period. 

The communists pursued Socialism to such a degree that it practically became Religion. This is evidenced by the fact that communist regimes in the Soviet Union and elsewhere tried their best to destroy competing religious organizations like the Catholic Church, and to eliminate the belief in a higher power. [4]

Libertarians recognize that most governments still enforce Socialism to varying degrees. Certainly of the world’s national governments (i.e. those at the top of the governmental food chain), none dispute the idea that it’s OK to forcibly redistribute wealth or for government to own or control some means of production. Indeed, the influence of Socialism remains so pervasive despite the collapse of the Soviet Empire that some libertarians have found it convenient to use “socialist” as a synonym for “authoritarian” when describing government repression. Since most such repression is justified in terms of socialist ideals, this is a fairly rational simplification. [5] But governments are more properly viewed not in terms of how socialist they are, but how authoritarian they are. One has only to remember the era of monarchy to realize that authoritarianism can have pretexts other than Socialism. [6]

The libertarian founders of the United States recognized the danger of authoritarianism, and some of its potential sources. They drew a line between government and Religion, so sharply that it was later explicitly recognized as the doctrine of “Separation of Church and State.” It is a great blessing that this doctrine has come to be widely recognized, in the United States at least, as a good and necessary safeguard.

America’s founders drew an equally sharp line between Socialism and State, but what they intended was not widely understood, perhaps because Socialism was not named until 1827, and the checks and balances they put in place to prevent the merger of the two were gradually eroded.

Some of the founders also recognized the evil presented by the merger of Racism and State, but unfortunately failed to act on their knowledge. This failing has seriously undermined their moral authority.

Since then, humanity has made great progress in separating Racism from State. The last explicitly racist government in the world, the apartheid regime in South Africa, folded several years ago under intense internal and external pressures. Racism is now so universally looked upon with repugnance that where it is officially sanctioned, in “affirmative action” programs and the like, it dare not speak its name.

Two of the other forces, Socialism and Religion, are currently the subjects of major controversies. Though few people besides libertarians advocate an end to the socialist welfare state, the degree to which the law will reflect socialist and religious values is hotly contested in many parts of the world. [7]

But one major force remains intertwined with government to such a degree that it is almost unnoticed, and that is Nationalism. Virtually no one, as yet, is calling for the Separation of Nation and State. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “nation” as “An extensive aggregate of persons, so closely associated with each other by common descent, language, or history, as to form a distinct race or people, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory.”

So what’s wrong with Nationalism? It is an ideology that encourages people to think of themselves as part of a collective, rather than as individuals. Divorced from the concept of the nation-state, nationalism is simply pride in one’s nationality or ethnic heritage. But compared to the charitable impulses of Religion and the cooperative spirit of Socialism, it’s hard to see national pride resulting in much concrete good. And lurking on the flip side of that harmless pride in “one’s own” is Racism, the hatred or downgrading of the “other.”

Given its role as a help maid to state power, Nationalism is more dangerous at present than Racism. A nationalist is a collectivist, and not part of just any collective, but a collective naturally owing allegiance (and subservience, in times of “national emergency”) to a national government. Right now, nationalism generated by the September 11 attacks is fueling the growth of an American police state. [8]

Being tied to particular nationalities has strengthened the hand of governments, allowing them to take advantage of patriotic sentiments and lending more legitimacy to their claims of acting on behalf of the people. According to the American Concise Encyclopedia, “The development of absolutism [defined by the encyclopedia as government under which the ruler has unlimited power] is closely associated with the emergence of modern nation states in the late 1400s.”

What would a modern world in which States were not based on this concept of a nation look like? Without States to serve as vehicles for dangerous Nationalist sentiments, the rivalries and antagonisms that have historically developed between people of varying heritage would become relatively impotent, resulting in less conflict and aggression. Being “French” could still have meaning in terms of describing a person’s native language, ethnic heritage, cultural customs, etc., but there would no longer be any political entity called “France” to command one’s allegiance.

A movement for the Separation of Nation and State might encourage secession on an economic basis, as a means for small regions to get out from under the thumb of wasteful central governments. In the homogenized world of today, new State jurisdictions not based around existing nationalities would be unlikely to develop a sense of nationality as strong as that of countries of long historical standing.

Ultimately, a goal could be to develop the idea of government existing independently of a particular piece of physical territory. Countries then might be more like businesses, having citizens scattered around the world rather than occupying a contiguous area, so that the seat of government mattered no more than the location of a company’s headquarters. You could have a choice of governments, each offering different services, without actually relocating.

The difficulty would be in figuring out a mechanism to maintain protection for life, liberty, and property under the rule of law without descending into the total power vacuum of anarchy. But one way or another, we must separate Nationalism, as well as Racism, Religion, and Socialism from government if we want a peaceful world free from legal aggression.
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1. My capitalization of the words Nationalism, Racism, Religion, and State Socialism within this essay is an effort to make it easier for the reader to think about these terms in the new sense I describe here of four world-shaping forces - the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, if I may be forgiven for borrowing a religious metaphor.

2. Voluntary socialism is widely practiced at the community level, especially within families.

3.  The continuing bloodshed in the Middle East is likewise fueled by three of the forces - Racism, Religion, and Nationalism.

4.  Instead of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Marx, Engels and Lenin were to become the spiritual guides of the people.

5. The actual reason for government repression has little to do with Socialism, of course - the major cause of tyranny is rampant power addiction among government leaders.

6. The Advocates for Self-Government Chart (aka the Nolan Chart after its creator David Nolan), the political model widely used by libertarians, is flawed in at least one respect: It gives the liberal-conservative axis equal weight with the libertarian-authoritarian axis. In fact it is doubtful that anything close to a perfect liberal or perfect conservative government could exist. It is inconceivable that a government could regulate all economic activity without meddling in the personal lives of those under its control, any more than a government obsessed with enforcing its views of personal morality could keep out of the economic sphere. Near-perfect libertarian and authoritarian models of government (or no government) are at least theoretically possible.

7. The current trouble with Al Qaeda and international terrorism is related to the deeper problem that fundamentalist Islam is the state religion in much of the Middle East. 

8. Indeed, were it not for nationalism, it’s unlikely the attack on the World Trade Center would have happened. Where is the incentive to blow up a privately-owned building in New York, except in the knowledge that it would be seen as an “attack on America?”

Originally published in Liberty For All August 31, 2002.

by Garry Reed 

Joan of Arc, contrary to legend, was not toasted at the stake for witchcraft.  She was char-grilled for heresy.  That may sound like abstruse hair-splitting, but thin sliced follicles were the stock in trade of medieval logic (how many angels can tap dance on a pinhead?)  At the risk of over simplifying, she was charged with the crimes of being headstrong and refusing to bow to the judgments of the power elites.

But this isn’t about the Maid of Orleans.  I mention her circumstance only as an historical reference point for modern America’s version of heresy - antitrust law.  The Microsoft antitrust trial-by-fire (there’s no attempt here to canonize St. Bill, so don’t have a bovine moment) keeps popping up in the news like a Whack-a-Mole game at Chuck E. Cheese’s.  As far as I can tell, MS hasn’t been charged with fraud or coercion, the only real crimes recognized by libertarians because they are the only kinds of crimes that involve real, bona fide, actual, tangible, objectively identifiable victims as opposed to various nonexistent abstruse collective plaintiffs such as “society” or “the people” or “the state” or “the children.”

If the Redmond crew took hostages at gunpoint or ran a pyramid scam (like Social Security) or planted a severed nag’s head on a prospective business partner’s spring fresh bedcovers to get his name on a contract, they need to be charged with felonies.  If they ripped off trademarks or copyrights there’s a whole lawyering class salivating to file lawsuits.  That’s what criminal and civil courts are for.  But the court of antitrust, a purely political artifice, has no double jeopardy protections.  If the feds don’t get you the states move in and resume the same Whack-a-Mole game.  How many times will Microsoft be tried for the same heresies?  Is a mass of money-grubbing mayors next?  Or a coalition of cash-hungry county commissioners?

So what actual high crimes and misdemeanors has Microsoft been accused of?  When you lash the charges to a stake and burn off the fat, they all boil down to being headstrong and refusing to bow to the judgments of the power elites.  Specifically, the power elite’s definition du jour of “unfair business practices.”  The antitrust concept of “fair,” like “heresy,” can mean anything anyone anywhere in any courtroom under any administration in any epoch wants it to mean as long as one gets, as Ste. Joan’s enemies got, the outcome one intends to get.  I quit donating to United Way when they started babbling that everyone should give their “fair share.”  Guess who decided what my “fair share” was.  And we still hear government addicts demanding that we pay our “fair share” of taxes.  Again, guess who gets to define “fair.”

Here’s the underlying medieval logic that goes into the abstruse concept of “unfair business practices.”  If your company sells products for less than its competitors, you’re guilty of trying to run them out of business.  If you sell for more than your competitors, you’re gouging the public.  If you sell for the same price as your competitors, you’re guilty of collusion, complicity, conspiracy, deception, price-fixing, racketeering, causing a plague of boils and molesting puppies.  Heresies all.

What about charges of monopoly?  The government isn’t concerned about monopolies unless it’s not one of their own monopolies.  Private monopolies are heresies.  Government monopolies are “fair.”  I don’t recall any Justice Department antitrust suits against the first class postal monopoly or the Amtrak monopoly or the various state lottery monopolies.  “Monopoly,” like “fair,” is whatever the power elites decide it is.

A lot of people harbor a witch-burning hatred of Microsoft, based not on any criminal wrongdoing involving threats of or actual use of fraud or coercion but rather on their hardnosed business practices.  What MS did was the same things any of their competitors could have done if they had been bright enough to do them first.  We used to admire business people for being hardnosed.  Now people want to punish Microsoft for being “unfair” based on their own subjective definitions of unfair.  Jeanne d’arc committed the heresy of being successful.  Microsoft committed the heresy of being successful.

If you don’t like Microsoft, fine.  Don’t like them.  But don’t cheer for the medieval witch burners who create abstruse hair-splitting definitions of “fair” and then apply them to whomever they or their corporate co-barbequers don’t like.

Libertarians know this: any government powerful enough to shish-ka-bob Microsoft is powerful enough to skewer us all.  Hold onto your marshmallows.

Originally published in The Loose Cannon Libertarian July 15, 2002.

Garry Reed is a contributing editor for Liberty For All.  You can contact Mr. Reed at Reedcannon@aol.com.

by Jessica Pacholski

I was recently told that I’m not a “real” anarchist by several people who call themselves anarcho or libertarian socialists. Most people like to think of themselves as being reasonable and logical, rarely is this the case. A side effect of this is that once they have an idea they are usually pretty dogmatic in their ideologies. Many accuse others of this same trait and are lacking enough self awareness to see how wedded to their own ideas they actually are, this is just the pot calling the kettle black.

As for me I am trying to augment my education, on my own time and under my own direction. The result is that I expand my mind and explore new ideas. As I learn I grow. However, once I find an idea that I see as logical and cogent I am tenacious about it. Is this rigidity? Maybe it is, however my ideas can be swayed if the counter point is reasonable and logically coherent. However, most of the debates I have had recently have offered nothing of the sort, they are emotional and reactionary arguments made by people who believe they are being logical. It’s a case of rationalization usurping being rational.

Recently I was called “authoritarian” because I am an agorist. According to my critic I am more a “classic liberal than an anarchist.” I would like to ask the question: And your point is? Classic liberalism is the basis of the libertarian philosophy when taken to its logical conclusion is market anarchy, agorism. It is the belief that people should not only be free politically, but economically as well.

The original leftist radicals were laissez-faire capitalists, they believed in the right to property, the free trade of goods and tolerance to diverse ideas. I am a believer in a totally voluntary society, I see the free market as the ecosystem where people are free to exchange goods and services according to any arrangement they wish. Agorism includes syndicates, co-operatives, straight barter, mutualism, etc., as long as it is peaceful and voluntary. Ergo, if a group wished a communitarian approach to their survival, I would not be opposed to that, as long as they respect my choice to own personal property. I have no wish to tell people how to live, on the contrary I want people to live however they want. So, if someone thinks that makes me “authoritarian” I would love to know exactly what is their definition of “authoritarian” or if it’s simply an accusatory they lob at anyone who disagrees with them.

I have also been accused of being pro hierarchy because I don’t believe in social ownership of all property. This is based on the premise that all hierarchies are bad, including voluntary ones. I ask, would you rather a nurse or a surgeon do brain surgery on your child? Or even better would you rather a doctor right out of med school do the surgery or the head of neurosurgery? Experience and talent count in most spheres and people are rewarded on merit. This doesn’t bother me, I do not waste my energy cursing all hierarchy, what I oppose is forced hierarchy.

If I choose to work for someone else, I enter into a voluntary association to our mutual benefit. There are times when another person has better judgment and expertise that I do not possess. I can earn a living by offering my skills and talents to an employer in exchange for not having the full responsibility of the company on my shoulders. If I choose to learn the skills of my employer, through such employment, I am being paid to learn them. In the final analysis I have bettered my own situation either way. How is this unfair or coercive? If I feel I am being mistreated I can leave and if I don’t perform my duties competently I can be dismissed. Those are all terms of the contract. The truth is there are situations that I think a chain of command is necessary, that someone with experience has to make decisions and there are decisions that aren’t subject to a vote. To deny that is to deny human nature and the existence of reality.

I was also informed that I advocate the use of “mercenaries” because I advocate private security. Of course I advocate private security, I’m an anarchist, who else would supply security without a state? It would be illogical to call myself an anarchist and support public policing and standing armies. Those are the functions of a state. There is a glaring lack of understanding involved in this, they don’t seem to understand that thousands of people and companies already employ their own security from private contractors and they don’t use them as mercenaries. All you have to do is look at all the private security firms already operating to see that this is an alarmist’s argument.

For the record it has been the state that has had a long history of employing assassins and mercenaries. Blackwater isn’t contracted by private citizens, it’s contracted by the government. Our military has long been used as mercenaries by the corporations and the central bank that own our government in this country, how exactly has the state stopped the use of mercenaries then? I don’t see the logic there. No one company in private sector could ever amass the wealth necessary to do this in a truly free market, that is why certain corporations have commandeered the mechanisms of the state for this purpose. They need our taxes to finance their monopolies and international dominance, the military- industrial complex is the unholy union of industry and state. It’s not capitalistic in nature it’s a result of a mixed economy, in other words we already have a socialist economy known as corporatism. Without this union the opportunity to control the peoples of this country, and others, would be impossible. It is the state that makes exploitation of the many by the few possible.

What I have found is that it’s those people who call themselves anarcho socialists that are not really anarchists at all, they still want a state structure and they are just deluding themselves. They just want to engineer a perfect society and as one critic told me he favors the Platonic idea of democracy and the people taking over the mechanisms of the state. How can you be anti state and pro Platonic social engineering?

I have come to believe that the whole premise of socialism rests on a hatred of humanity at its core, an idea that humanity is inherently evil and people must be made to act differently. This is why the ends of every socialist revolution have been tyranny and genocide, the means define the ends and the anarcho socialists have historically resorted to violence to advance their ideas. Emma Goldman found out the hard way where her beliefs led, she was horrified by the bloodshed. Of course Kropotkin made excuses for the brutality of the Bolsheviks saying that the “statists” had taken control but the syndicates would soon rise and help finish the evolution from state to anarchic socialism.

It never materialized, why? Because the fundamental idea of socialism and communism rests on public sector power, it has to, you cannot have common ownership without a common use of force to ensure compliance to the ideal. Collective use of force is government.

Ultimately socialism becomes the ultimate purveyor of public power, not personal power. It is the only outcome that can happen when your premise is that the whole is greater than the individual. It makes human life cheap, they are nothing more than eggs to break for the omelet of Utopia. When we lose our sense of unalienable individual rights all rights become provisional, this way of thinking leads not only fascism but to super fascism. That’s why I no longer believe that socialism is humanitarian or preferable to free markets.

From everything I have learned I’ve come to think that the free market is the only economic system that can keep people free, no other way is possible because there is no freedom of speech, press, religion, or right to privacy, without the right of private property and economic freedom. There is no greater good served if you are not protecting the rights of every individual. You cannot protect the rights of humanity when you don’t believe every human life is valuable, no matter what rhetoric you use.

“I know you are, but what am I?”

Jessica Pacholski is a 36-year-old mother of three beautiful girls who lives in Clayton, NC. She is a full-time mother and part-time writer who enjoys reading, painting and stirring the pot.  You can contact Jessica at jessicapacholski@gmail.com.

by Roderick T. Beaman

Barack Obama’s presidency is in complete disarray. His approval ratings are now in the high 40s. By this time next year, they will be in the low 40s or maybe even the high 30s. I have never witnessed anything like this in my entire life. His support seems to be eroding right before our eyes. The hostility expressed to his health plan at the Town Meetings across the country is unprecedented. He has now announced that he no longer regards the public option as crucial to his reformation plans for the health care system.

The willingness of the administration to exclude a public option is enraging his leftist supporters in the Democratic Party which constitutes at least 80% of the party. The extreme left is the most unyielding of any group in America. They will accept nothing short of their goals which is to socialize all that isn’t socialized yet.

Because he staked so much on reforming the American health system, he may never recover from this. Of course, in politics, even months are a long time, just ask Hillary Clinton who declined to run for president in 2004 and saw her 2008 chances evaporate before the juggernaut of an unknown who used his key mark speech at the ‘04 Democratic Convention to steam roller his way to the nomination and the White House. And, to be sure, Pres. Obama is getting a bit of a bounce from his speech to Congress last week but his presidency may never recover.

As usual, Obama gave an effective speech but a void, typical of his worst at its best. South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson made the bounce even greater by shouting out, ‘Liar.’ It’s not that Obama isn’t a liar. Wilson should have waited until the appropriate time to call him a liar and worse; what he truly is, a socialist.

A confluence of forces are coming that will likely see his approval ratings plummet Jimmy Carter style. In six months, Barack Obama will look like Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1994. Those forces include the long anticipated retirement of the Baby Boomers and their consequent burdens on both Social Security & Medicare, the second round of foreclosures from ARMs, commercial real estate foreclosures which are just beginning, the coming and under publicized Sally Mae defaults. The deficit for this fiscal year may reach $2 trillion. To solve the deficit, there are just two choices. The first is for the Federal Reserve to stop cooperating with the White House and allow this recession to go into a full-blown depression to or to monetize the deficit. The first would take courage so the second is the likely course. Such a huge monetization will result in rampant inflation.

The forces of freedom will have an opportunity unparalleled in history. This is the time that freedom lovers can bring their message to the people.

We must be willing to show them where our government, at all levels, not just federal, is in violation of The Constitution, logic and natural law.

Freedom lovers must be willing to ‘go to the mattresses’, to use a phrase from The Godfather. They must parade out The Constitution and especially The Preamble to The Bill of Rights (not the well-known Preamble to The Constitution that begins with ‘We the people’) that along with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments leaves no doubt that The Constitution was meant to be a strait jacket on the federal government. We must be willing to do that in the name of liberty and in the final hopes that these fifty republics that constitute the United States of America can survive.

No lie can continue forever. It dies. Whether it’s with a bang, like National Socialist Germany or a thud like Soviet style socialism, it dies.

The United States of America has lived a Big Lie and it is unraveling before our eyes as all lies do. It began in 1912 when the collectivists scored a Trifecta with the Sixteenth Amendment which permitted the income tax and Seventeenth Amendment which ended direct representation of the states in Congress and the Federal Reserve. It became the fully institutionalized with Franklin D. Roosevelt. It expanded in various ways with Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. It stalled for a while and has now taken accelerated again with the presidencies of William Clinton, George W. Bush and now with the liar to end all liars, Barack Obama. It is important to realize that no president since, perhaps Andrew Jackson, has left office with freedom better than when he took office. Ever. There hasn’t even been a status quo.

The following is from Karl Marx’s Manifesto:

“Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.”

Freedom lovers can begin a campaign of showing exactly how all of these things are in place in the United States. They can show how the country has actually eased into communism Barack Obama’s economic principles are Marxist with tinges of the fascism that arises from the first part of #7. There is also not a single provision in the list that he does not support nor for that matter does any Democrat of any standing.

Freedom lovers can say just that to the public and voters will respond. They are not ‘the booboisie’ and so many libertarians characterize them. Joe America understands simple economics and will even arrive at the correct conclusion of what constitutes communism and what constitutes the free market when shown the simple facts. It is for these reasons that freedom can win and exactly for these reasons why it won’t.

Freedom lovers, and among these I number libertarians, Libertarians, Constitutionalists and those such as I who are members of the Republican Liberty Caucus, RLC, and who are trying to work within the Republican Party to reassert the traditional values of the truest libertarian Republican of the twentieth century, Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio. There are others.

Within the Republican Party right now, the forces of the ‘less of same’ socialism and statism that has refused to fully confront the evils of Big Government prevails. Here in Florida, the state GOP is moving to purge members of the RLC from positions of leadership under the chairmanship of Jim Greer, a man whose appetite for his own shoe leather never ceases. If this doesn’t change in the nation’s fourth largest state, how will it change nationally.

Face it, the Libertarian and Constitutionalist Parties, the American parties of libertarian principle, can only succeed through influence on one of the national major parties, more likely the Republican Party. I have joined the RLC in what I knew was going to be a quixotic venture. We are going to fail because the Republican leadership in this country has grown fat and satisfied with the status quo and will refuse to confront the evil head on.

I stick by my prediction that, even with a wholesale likely Republican takeover of both houses in 2010, the country will break apart beginning in 2011 and that national elections will be suspended in 2012. This will be because they will not have enough time but also, they will not do what is necessary.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we have chosen between dishonor and upheaval. We chose dishonor. We will have upheaval.

The United States of America. R.I.P.

Dr. Roderick T. Beaman is an osteopathic family physician practicing in Jacksonville, Florida. Born in New York City, he attended New York University as an undergraduate. A recipient of a 2003 Ron Paul Liberty in Media Award, he has had dreams (delusions?) of becoming a writer. He has written a novel that he has given up hope of ever getting published and so has made it available for the asking through TheFreedomBeam@comcast.net.

by Peter Orvetti

US-Iranian relations are in meltdown.  Fears of a U.S. strike against Iran in the last unaccountable days of the Bush presidency - after John McCain’s defeat but before Barack Obama’s inauguration - gave way to a reassuring calm after Obama took office.  The new US president made diplomatic overtures to Iran, and kept a cool, careful distance during Iran’s summer post-election upheaval.  Now, Obama faces new pressure to use force against the Islamic Republic.

Earlier this month, former senators Dan Coats and Chuck Robb, and retired general Charles Wald, said in the Wall Street Journal that Obama needed a “new strategy” for Iran beyond peaceful diplomacy.  They said Obama needed to “begin preparations for the use of military options,” arguing that “only a credible U.S. military threat can make possible a peaceful solution.”

The murmuring about a U.S. attack on Iran is louder this week, after Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly revealed intelligence, dating back to last year, that Iran is constructing a second uranium enrichment facility.  Representatives of the US, Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia will meet with Iranian officials on Thursday, and could issue an ultimatum requiring total access to that facility, as well as other concessions, by the end of 2009.  If Iran does not satisfy the six powers, sanctions so crippling that they could be called an act of war would follow.  This, in turn, could result in military action.

During his run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden — who has since become the clearest voice for a U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan within the Obama Administration — said it best: “War with Iran is not just a bad option.  It would be a disaster.  We’re talking about a country with nearly three times the population of Iraq — 70 million people — and infinitely more problems waiting for us if we attack.  The regime is unpopular, but it has millions of fervent supporters it will mobilize for war.  If you thought going to war with Iraq would be a ‘cakewalk’ maybe that wouldn’t deter you.  But if you are a part of the reality-based community, it should.”

The notion that the U.S. should — or even can — eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and “liberate” the country through force betrays ignorance of Iran’s current state.  Iran has sought a nuclear bomb since before the 1979 revolution, and it has long been a goal of all the major factions within the country.  Mir Hossein Mousavi, who became a rallying point for protestors following his defeat by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the questionable June election, played a role in the Iranian nuclear program.

One of the great misconceptions of Iran’s summer violence — colored, perhaps, by American memories of the fall of the Soviet client states in Eastern Europe 20 years ago — is that the activists were “Western”-style reformers.  Cato Institute foreign policy fellow Leon Hadar compares them to another group of demonstrators from 1989.  “Many of the former Chinese student activists have become part of a rising Chinese nationalist movement,” Hadar warns.  “One shouldn’t be surprised if the secular democrats protesting against the ayatollahs today transform into fervent Iranian nationalists — and press for nuclear weapons — if and when they come to power.”

It was not too long ago that an American president enrolled Iran in an “axis of evil”.  One of the other members of that club has since been invaded by the U.S.  Two nations on Iran’s borders — Afghanistan and Iraq — are brimming with U.S. soldiers.  Both the U.S. and Israel have said repeatedly that the use of force against Iran is on the table.  Iran is a nation on the defensive, and America’s long history of meddling in Iranian affairs has fomented justifiable paranoia.  Like the third member of the “axis”, North Korea, Iran may see a nuclear deterrent as the only way of holding off aggression.

Foreign Policy magazine’s Stephen Walt writes, “If you want to reunite Iran’s disaffected population behind the current dictatorship and give Ahmadinejad a real jolt of legitimacy, dropping bombs on their country is a good way to start.”  Isolating or attacking Iran could simply radicalize the government further and drive it into North Korea-like isolation.  It would not stop the nuclear program, only slow it down.

Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute last week wrote that Obama “has shown some good instincts in foreign policy,” moving U.S. troops out of Iraq and keeping watch on public opinion about the U.S. in the Muslim world.  These instincts led Obama to prefer diplomacy over violence in dealing with Iran.  Despite the fresh pressures he faces, Obama should stick with these initial instincts.

Peter Orvetti was an early political blogger in the United States, running his Orvetti.com political news report from 1997 through 2002. He is a past editorial writer for the Cato Institute, served as Deputy Director of Communications for the Libertarian Party in the lead-up to the 2000 party convention, and has published commentaries in several major newspapers. Contact Mr. Orvetti at peterjorvetti@gmail.com.

by Kevin Tuma

by Sean Haugh

Objective journalism is dying, and it can’t happen soon enough as far as I’m concerned. It was always a crock anyway. What once was a sweet noble lie attempting to serve the facts has become the open enemy of truth and knowledge. People are instinctively recognizing this and starting to take their business elsewhere.

People act as if objective journalism is the only kind of legitimate journalism that has ever existed, when in fact the notion is only about 100 years old. It used to be that all journalists wore their biases on their sleeves and let a supposedly discerning reader sift through it to find their own opinion. Did you ever wonder why several small town newspapers still have names like the Democrat or the Progressive? Because when they were founded, that was their explicit editorial and reporting policy.

Truly objective journalism has always been impossible. To achieve it, one would have to write impractically long accounts including every single relevant fact. Yet the TV news is only on for 30 or 60 minutes. The first decision any reporter has to make is what narrow set of facts to include and which must be set aside. And that’s just for one story. All the news that is fit to print is far more than can fit in a daily newspaper.

Let’s face it, we’re biased creatures. The vast majority of news stories are written with a predetermined point to make. It is a very rare person who can give full balance to all points of view on any issue. The best any media outlet can do is offer a variety of reports and opinions to achieve any balanced coverage.

This of course assumes that balance is a desirable quality in news. It is one of the pillars of objective journalism. Yet by making balance a primary value, the news media has actually skewed the truth and elevated a lot of lone morons from well-deserved obscurity into national prominence.

Here’s a simple living example, just happened earlier today. Our town is searching for a new City Manager and our Assistant City Attorney is one of the three finalists. A reporter called me because I had said some positive things about him publicly and wanted to get a quote. At the end of the interview, she asked me if I knew of anyone who had any negative opinions of the man, so she could get a more balanced story. Honestly I had to say that I have never heard anyone utter even one critical or negative word about the man, and I have spoken with plenty of people about him. Imagine that.

The true story is that no one can think of a bad thing to say about the man. Everyone who has dealt with him professionally holds him in the very highest regard. But if we are to get the balanced story, surely we must dig up someone who will say something nasty about him. I’m sure if she looks hard enough she can find some old high school ex-girlfriend or a crackhead who will say anything for $20. I don’t think this particular reporter would even contemplate such a low tactic. But think about how much news these days is driven exactly by such poor witnesses.

Balance is the quality of journalism that allows a voice for idiots that nobody was paying attention to in the first place, like PETA or Barry Lynn. For every story you have to have somebody to take the opposing view, and sometimes the only person willing to do it is a complete yahoo. A yahoo who now has permanent work and a ticket to fame, thanks to objective journalism.

I probably shouldn’t complain, seeing as the “only no” strategy has worked for us Libertarians too. Sure, I love getting those calls from a reporter who thinks, “gee, who could possibly be against this wonderful new government initiative?” And I make sure they spell my name right too. I’ll play the game and manipulate the press as best I can, no shame in that. But frankly I’d rather make my own news.

And that’s exactly what people are doing. Much has been written about the explosion of blogging, as well as the far more opinionated news sites ranging from WorldNetDaily to IndyMedia to the humble publication currently on your screen. That Matt Drudge is a rightwing nut, sure if you insist, but you have to admit he keeps the rest of the media honest. The mainstream news types still attempt to cling to their mantle of fair and balanced objectivity, dismissing Drudge and the rest of the Internet news paradigm out of hand. What they should realize is that more and more people are coming to believe that this is how the news should be reported.

But there is still some confusion among the public on this point. We were raised in the golden age of objective journalism, and it can be difficult to dislodge its presumptions. I was on a call-in radio show recently, along with a representative of IndyMedia. We were talking about the recent vandalism at the state GOP headquarters and IndyMedia had published an article by someone who seemed to think it was a fine thing. One caller took issue with that editorial decision, claiming it was irresponsible and wondering why they hadn’t taken it off the site. One of the hosts mentioned that this caller was not alone in his opinion.

Of course such an article would have no place on a mainstream news website. Editors would worry that this could be mistaken for the opinion of the entire organization - what, does CNN really condone vandalism? But IndyMedia and the rest of the Internet is different. There it’s pretty obvious that this is just the opinion of one guy, and somebody at the site thought it was interesting enough to post it. If you don’t like it, there’s plenty more news out there to read.

What I love about Internet news is that so much of it is written in the first person. The reporter has become a storyteller again. The reporter was always a character in his stories, but now we embrace that fact instead of pretending it isn’t true. Instead of simply reporting, we encourage conversation. The Internet makes it much easier to talk back to us than, say, writing a letter to the editor. We want your comments. We want you to think.

Objective journalism has come to discourage thinking. The zeal for reporting a balanced set of facts has closed the door to analysis, except for a segregated half page in the back. What passes for news these days is simply regurgitated press releases. Sure, it’s another angle you want to work when seeking coverage, to make your press releases closely resemble a newspaper article on the chance that the lazy sods will just publish it whole. If they use it at all, you can at least count on being quoted with a straight face most of the time, as if you were speaking some unchallengeable fact.

At the same time, ownership of media outlets has become increasingly corporate. These multinational corporations have a lot at stake in how the news is reported. They have developed such a glaring conflict of interest that frankly they’d have to be insane to encourage any reporting which could adversely affect their political position or their profits. If these corporations have it in good with the status quo, and they always do, they have a very strong interest in keeping any questioning of it to a minimum.

The great thing about monopolies is that they are untenable. It wasn’t that long ago that the hold of objective journalism on the news seemed monolithic. One could simply not imagine how you could go into business and compete with CBS. But then it happened anyway. People made and distributed the technology to allow the competition to occur another way. It always happens like this. As soon as you corner the market on trains, someone’s bound to invent an airplane.

We’ve lived with objective journalism for some time, so it will take awhile for its effects to wear off. More likely it will mutate into a new form. After all, facts are still important, and the whole reason why objective journalism started in the first place.

The desire to let the facts speak for themselves is quite noble. But we have found it is not enough to feed the minds of an informed populace. It is far more honest for reporters to be forthright about their opinions and for editors to encourage their readers to peruse a variety of perspectives.

Instead of attempting to create some mythical prepackaged objectivity, we would be better served as journalists to allow the objectivity to occur in the minds of our readers.

Sean Haugh is assistant editor for Liberty For All. Sean is married to longtime Libertarian Pam Adams, and they have a family of three dogs and five cats.  Besides them, Sean loves God, Liberty, and Oklahoma Sooners football.  Write to Sean at seanhaugh@mindspring.com.