Archive for January, 2009

Reaction to Gillibrand proves Democrats still party of gun control

Posted in Power to the People by R Lee Wrights on January 31st, 2009

by CCRKBA staff

The hysteria-laden reaction from members of her own party to last week’s appointment of New York Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to fill the United States Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton proves that Democrats are still the party of gun control, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“Kirsten Gillibrand gets high marks from the ACLU and from the Americans for Democratic Action,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “She supports abortion rights, stem cell research and health care protection for children - all hot button issues for Democrats - but because she supports gun rights, members of her own party have chosen to excoriate her and Gov. David Patterson. Well, so much for being the party of tolerance and inclusion.

“Where does it say that gun owners in New York State should be deprived of a voice in the Senate Democratic Caucus,” Gottlieb wondered. “Gillibrand recently said she believes there can be much common ground between those who protect gun rights and those who believe in gun control. Isn’t that the same thing that the extremists at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence have been claiming? Isn’t that the same philosophy that gun control zealots on Capitol Hill have expressed in the past?

“The difference,” he continued, “is that Gillibrand has a 100-percent rating from the NRA, while too many of her fellow Democrats have made careers out of giving only lip service to the Second Amendment.

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments

Court action prompts resumption of WA alien firearms license program

Posted in Press Releases by R Lee Wrights on January 31st, 2009

from SAF

BELLEVUE, WA - The Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association this week have won a preliminary injunction against the Washington State Department of Licensing that requires the state to resume processing applications by legal resident aliens for alien firearms licenses.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle also ordered that license renewals and applications sought by three individual Washington residents participating in the lawsuit also be processed. Washington is the only state in the union that requires an alien firearms license be possessed by resident aliens in order for them to have a firearm. SAF and NRA said the state law discriminates against legal resident aliens who own firearms by violating their Second Amendment rights under the equal protections affirmed by the 14th Amendment.

“We are delighted that the court has ordered a resumption of the licensing procedure, which was suspended by the state over what amounts to bureaucratic red tape,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “The State Legislature has had ample opportunity to fix what amounts to a glitch in a law that should never have existed in the first place. The people affected by the alien firearms license requirement are residents here; they are part of our community and have abided by the law.

“One of the plaintiffs works in a Bellevue gun store,” he continued. “Without a renewal of his firearms license, he would not simply lose his firearms, he would lose his job.”

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments

What a mainstream Libertarian is, and is not

Posted in LFA Flashback by R Lee Wrights on January 30th, 2009

by Jason Auvenshine

It’s another election season, and with it comes the inevitable false stereotyping of “mainstream” and “hardcore” Libertarians.

To some “mainstream” Libertarians, anyone who doesn’t wear a suit must be wearing mustard-stained t-shirts on the campaign trail, driving a 20 year old “trashed” car and ranting away in unintelligible and unappealing jargon. Opposing them are certain “hardcore” Libertarians who suspect that any mainstream type in a suit and tie must be a lying weasel, ready and willing to sell out all principles at the first opportunity.

The latest round in this seemingly never-ending conflict was spurred by the characterization of our presidential candidate, Michael Badnarik, as “hardcore.”  This issue of mainstream vs. hardcore was one of the major motivating factors behind the Arizona LP split that resulted in the 2000 Harry Browne Arizona ballot fiasco. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Yes, there are a few Libertarians who don’t bathe, stink of pot and/or body odor, and are otherwise offensive in their appearance or demeanor. But this is not the majority of hardcore Libertarians, and certainly not Michael Badnarik. A little more common is what I call the jerk effect - some hardcore Libertarians do seem to think that being a jerk is some kind of virtue, at least when discussing politics. But I haven’t seen this trait in Mr. Badnarik either.

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments

Also known as

Posted in Random Thoughts by R Lee Wrights on January 29th, 2009

by Richard C. Evey

It has been written all over the World Wide Web, it has been talked about on non-MSM, it has been ignored by MSM but the true facts must be revealed. WE THE PEOPLE must be told the truth and shown the real evidence.

Is the messiah, aka Barack Hussein Obama, aka Berry Seotoro, aka Barry Dunham, aka Barry Obama, etc, etc, a natural born citizen, as required by the United States Constitution??

The US Constitution states in Article II, Section I (paragraph 6), “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;”

AKA official birth certificate will not be released by the state of Hawaii. AKA will not spend $12.50 for an official copy of his so-called birth certificate and have it made public but he will spend over $1,000,000.00 in legal fees keeping anyone from trying to obtain an official copy of his birth certificate.

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments (5)

Government and fraud

Posted in Back Door Politics by R Lee Wrights on January 28th, 2009

by Ron Paul

Billions of dollars were recently lost in the collapse of Bernie Madoff’s self-described Ponzi scheme, in which too-good-to-be-true returns on investments were not really returns at all, but the funds of defrauded new investors.  The pyramid scheme collapsed dramatically when too many clients called in their accounts, and not enough new victims could be found to support these withdrawals.  Bernie Madoff was running a blatant fraud operation. 

Fraud is already illegal, and he will be facing criminal consequences, which is as it should be, and should act as an appropriate deterrent to potential future criminals. But it seems every time someone breaks the law, politicians and pundits decide we need more laws, even though lack of laws was not the problem.

The government itself runs a fraud much bigger than Madoff’s. Our Social Security system is the very definition of a Ponzi, or pyramid scheme.

If the government truly had an interest in protecting people’s savings, they would allow people to opt out of Social Security altogether. We would cut wasteful spending, such as our overseas empire, to honor current obligations to seniors, and eventually phase the program out.  Instead, as with Enron and Sarbanes Oxley, I expect new, unrelated legislation to be proposed that further damages freedom in the name of protecting us, amidst loud proclamations that they have made the world safe.

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments (1)

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, it’s for the children

Posted in Sound Off Soapbox by R Lee Wrights on January 27th, 2009

by Mike Krause

In 2004, Coloradans overwhelmingly passed Amendment 35, a tobacco tax that helps expand state-funded health care for the working poor, the uninsured and children.

Amendment 35 also funds professional busybodies who use tax dollars to try and get people to quit smoking.

The busybodies must be doing something right, because smoking is on the decline in Colorado. This is bad news for uninsured children. Fewer smokers means fewer tax dollars for state-funded health care.

The obvious answer is that Colorado needs more smokers.

In its first year, Amendment 35 brought in more than $169 million. Since then, both adult smoking levels and the tobacco tax revenues generated by smoking have been dropping.

An article in the Rocky Mountain News on Dec. 3 reported that “budget forecasts show continued declines that could leave program recipients with $135.5 million in fiscal year 2011-12 — a 20 percent drop before inflation is factored in.”

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments (1)

The health care mess: Licensure and the con jobs

Posted in The Freedom Beam by R Lee Wrights on January 26th, 2009

by Roderick T. Beaman

Today, unrestricted licensure in medical care is limited to graduates of approved medical or osteopathic schools and completion of an approved internship or residency.  This protects the people, of course, from poor practice, or so they claim.

Every physician has heard the saying that a license to practice medicine is a license to steal.  Physicians everywhere often do it with a vengeance.  These stories of flat out larceny are undoubtedly a microcosm of what has gone on throughout the country.

One pediatrician built a practice out of flim-flamming mothers.  They drove from sixty miles away to their own Dr. John (not his real first name).  At the first sign of sniffles, he’d have the mother come to the office.  He’d examine the child and prescribe antibiotics that were usually unnecessary because those problems are usually due to a virus, against which antibiotics don’t work.  (Not only do they not work, they actually are dangerous because they increase antibiotic resistance among bacteria and patients.  Hence, the superbug, that is immune to antibiotics, in the wings.)  Then he’d hit the mother with a dramatic admonition that it was good that she brought the little one in when she did because, otherwise, it might have been too late.  The mothers lapped it up while other physicians and staff rolled their eyes at the con job.  He made millions.

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments (2)

An analysis of the LNC 2009 budget

Posted in LNC Reports by R Lee Wrights on January 25th, 2009

by Sean Haugh 

1. The Secrecy Surrounding the Budget Process

What should be a rather boring and unspectacular function of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) has turned into quite the controversy.  As reported by LNC At-Large Representative Lee Wrights in his article The Seduction of Silence, “…we have a national Treasurer who is refusing to release the details of the budget recently passed by the committee unless those of us seeking the information promise not to forward it to anyone, including other committee members.”

The very first duty of any member of any board of directors is to take responsibility for the fiduciary responsibility necessary for the health of the organization.  The LNC was elected primarily to properly administer the party and ensure that the money donors give to it is spent wisely and accounted for properly.

Such a cloak and dagger approach to the essential business of the board runs counter to the interests of the entire organization, starting with the board itself.  When you have a Treasurer who refuses to share the supporting documentation for the budget with other board members, how can the board possibly consider the document properly?  When that board supports the Treasurer in his secrecy, how can they possibly report to the membership and donors that their money was spent wisely?

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments (7)

Questions

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on January 24th, 2009

by J. Michael Jones

Among the many things I’m learning from talking with people is how their fears affect their decisions. As a former management instructor and administrator I’ve been interested in decision-making: how it’s done, factors, pitfalls, styles, bases, etc. As an Aikido and self-defense instructor I’ve been interested in fear as a factor in conflict situations. So, I’m fairly experienced in observing fear and its effects on dynamic situations.

I bring this up because I see people accepting our position that the War on Drugs is not working but then being fearful of legalizing drugs and what that might portend. Among the more fearful are those who state their fears and concerns in terms of how they think they might be affected by drug use. These fears are expressed in terms of what would happen if they tried cocaine or meth, or in terms of what might have happened earlier in their lives.

One person I spoke with got very excited and adamant about not legalizing drugs because he felt that if they had been available in his youth he would have, “… never made it…”. He is quite successful, quite wealthy, and philanthropic but he can’t wrap his head around legalizing drugs. Over the course of our discussion he consumed several double martinis but did not see the irony.

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments

Speed cameras trade real liberty for false security

Posted in LFA Flashback by R Lee Wrights on January 23rd, 2009

by Danny Brooks

courtesy of Kevin TumaPeople will accept just about anything that’s gradually implemented

In 1759 Benjamin Franklin said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Since 9/11, security has weighed heavily on most peoples’ minds. One of the hot topics in Charlotte is a bill that deals with this on a local level. The bill, which would permit the use of cameras to catch speeders, was passed by the N.C. House of Representatives Tuesday but requires Senate approval to become law.

We were told a few years ago cameras would never be used for this purpose. Some people grudgingly accepted red-light cameras in school zones amid cries of “if it saves the life of just one child …” Those of us who were awake — mainly Libertarians — knew it would not stop there.

Read the rest of this entry »

| Comments (1)

« Previous entries