Trick or treat?
Posted in Tuma's Toons by R Lee Wrights on October 31st, 2009 Archive for October, 2009
Posted in Tuma's Toons by R Lee Wrights on October 31st, 2009 
Ballot access is job one
Posted in LFA Flashback by R Lee Wrights on October 30th, 2009 by Sean Haugh
The mission of the Libertarian Party is to move public policy in a libertarian direction by electing candidates of the Libertarian Party to public office.
To fulfill our Mission Statement, Libertarians have long debated whether it is better to run as many candidates as possible, or take care to only run good candidates. I have always asserted the obvious answer is “both!” This has been a false dichotomy from the beginning.
Well, now I have rock solid proof that I was right all along. Specifically, the truth is that running as many candidates as possible naturally leads to running candidates of high quality. But that’s only the beginning of the benefits you’ll receive by pursuing a full slate strategy.
Here in North Carolina in May, we had a lobbying day for our Electoral Fairness Act (EFA). The EFA would lower our ballot access signature and retention requirements to a quarter of what they are now, moving NC from one of the three hardest states for ballot access (according to Ballot Access News) to the national median.
Little did I know that I would receive a powerful revelation on this particular trip to Raleigh.
I knew it was a big deal when we ran 145 candidates last year, including 13 of 14 Congressional seats and a majority of seats in both houses of our state legislature. And I knew it was an even bigger deal when we won six races in 2002. But until that Tuesday, I still had no idea just how big all that was.
Mt. Rushmore
Posted in Straight Shooter by R Lee Wrights on October 29th, 2009 by Jessi Winchester, author of From Bordello to Ballot Box and America: The Final Chapter
“A man’s worth is estimated in this world according to his conduct”
- Jean de La Bruyere, French Author; 1645-1696
I stood in awe before our most anticipated vacation destination. Before me, in massive grandeur, were four presidential faces deemed important enough in our nation’s history to receive a place of honor on Mt. Rushmore … Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. All four were, after all, only human beings with all the virtuous as well as flawed traits of any man, yet each of the easily recognized likenesses before me had accomplished something extraordinary that made them stand out from others. I contemplated the characteristics that made them human but was most interested in the principal achievements each had accomplished to be honored in such an impressive manner.
The somber face of George Washington seemed to convey the heavy burden he shouldered as the first leader of the new Republic. A celebrated war hero who presided over the Constitutional Convention, he took on the difficult task of forging a blueprint for the Office of President of a new nation. Despite evidence Washington allowed elitist Alexander Hamilton to have too large an influence on decisions Washington made as president, the mere fact Washington was the first to occupy the top office of the land makes him a natural choice for residency on the mountain.
More public surveillance means less liberty
Posted in Student Union by R Lee Wrights on October 28th, 2009 by Lance Newman
The use of public surveillance cameras to fight crime has been a heated topic for quite some time. The issue was reignited last August when the city of Denver used federal funds to purchase an additional fifty High Activity Location Observation (HALO) cameras from the original thirteen cameras at $25,000 a pop to fight crime. Increasing the number of surveillance cameras may create a marginally safer environment, but at a significant cost to civil liberty.
The pervasiveness of security cameras throughout the city of Denver is creating a growing concern for individual liberty. The ACLU has taken up the public surveillance issue, saying that HALO cameras are a violation of the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act. The activities recorded by the cameras are used exclusively by public safety and law enforcement officials. Hard working Coloradans contributed their time and money in the form of tax dollars to make the camera installations possible. Therefore, it would only be fair for contributors to have the option of seeing what they paid for. But, that’s the not the view held by many government officials.
In response to a records request made by CBS4 in February, the Denver Department of Safety refused to hand over video recordings of a brawl that erupted in downtown Denver on February 14. A representative for the Department of Safety was quoted as saying “Because you are not affiliated with a public safety or law enforcement agency, your request for access to any videotapes obtained from a HALO camera is accordingly denied.” So HALO recordings can be viewed solely by the government? Because someone does not work for public safety or law enforcement, they somehow don’t have the credentials to view what they diligently worked for? Equal rights? Well, if someone can tell you that you can’t reap the benefits of something that YOU rightfully paid for, contrary to your wishes, then that would make some people “more equal” than others. John Edwards was half correct when he said there are two Americas. Not the Edwards version of the rich and the poor, but rather the governed and those who govern.
Rushing Limbaugh from the NFL: Never satirize liberals, never question the approved aggrieved
Posted in The Freedom Beam by R Lee Wrights on October 27th, 2009 by Roderick T. Beaman
Over the past few weeks it emerged that Rush Limbaugh was to be part of a group of investors in the St. Louis Rams. The firestorm was as intense as it was predictable.
Weighing in were the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It always amusing to see those two in action. They’re to politics what Nehru Jackets are to fashion. Bell bottoms and platform shoes may come back. Neither Jackson nor Sharpton can get over that their days have passed. Al Sharpton called Limbaugh divisive. This is a man who gave us that Tawana Brawley hoax and never apologized for it. He’s put himself at the center of just about every possible event that could even be remotely considered racial.
Tawana Brawley was the teenager in Wappingers Falls, New York who claimed that she was kidnapped, raped and sodomized by a group of white men, among them a part-time cop who would commit suicide. Investigators found that, at the time of the claimed event, he was in the company of Assistant DA Steven Pagones and State Trooper Scott Patterson. Sharpton then accused Pagones of being one of the participants and that Pagones had murdered cop to silence him and that the report of a suicide was part of a big cover up. Nothing is ever below Al Sharpton.
The case caused a media sensation and the usual suspects lined up to exploit it; Phil Donahue, Louis Farrakhan and Bill Cosby. Despite occasional lapses into reason, Cosby usually resides in the fever swamps of the lunatic left. Sharpton was eventually sued, successfully, by Pagones but he resisted paying anything until he was bailed out but some heavy duty black millionaires.
Meet Joe Kennedy
Posted in Stand Up For Liberty by R Lee Wrights on October 26th, 2009 by George Phillies
Dues-paying National Libertarian Party Member Joe Kennedy is running for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. He’s running in our January 19 special election to replace the late Senator Edward Kennedy. You can count on national media attention.
Take a look at Joe’s web site. Read his stands on issues like the war on Iraq, Afghanistan, marijuana, gun control, welfare, and education. Time after time, you’re going to read sensible libertarian ideas presented effectively to a wide audience.
Joe is a real libertarian, running on our sound libertarian ideas. That’s why the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts endorsed him: Joe is a real Libertarian. That’s why the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts put $1000 of our treasury into his campaign: Joe is a real Libertarian.
Joe Kennedy writes of his politics:
“In College, I would have considered myself a Democrat. I would not have considered myself active in politics at the time, however, I did work on Tom Harkin’s run for presidency by collecting signatures for him in New Hampshire.
Government’s contribution: Immoral violence
Posted in Liberty's Friend by R Lee Wrights on October 25th, 2009 by Larken Rose
It’s inefficient, it’s corrupt, it’s horrendously expensive, and it’s bad at almost everything it does, not only failing to solve problems, but constantly making them worse, and making new problems at the same time. Yet so many people still insist that this thing called “government” is needed, even if only for a few particular tasks.
So what, exactly, does “government” add to society? What can it add? If we start with lots and lots of people, living on a big piece of dirt, what does “government” have to contribute to the equation? Well, it contributes no talent or skill, no knowledge or ingenuity–things which come only from individual human beings. “Government” is merely an organization of people, imagined to have the right to rule everyone else. It can’t have any abilities or productivity to offer that could not already be found in the people of whom it consists. Calling a group of people something different (i.e., “government”) can’t possibly add any talents or qualities that the people in the group didn’t already possess.
Every “law” and “program” administered by “government” is administered by people. Since organization, cooperation, ingenuity and creativity are all possible without “government”–since those all come from people–how could we possibly need “government” for anything? Since it’s just a group of people, how could there be anything which people could do as “government,” which those same people, with all the same talents and know-how, couldn’t do without it?
Year after TARP: $700 billion down the drain
Posted in Back Door Politics by R Lee Wrights on October 24th, 2009 by Randall G. Holcombe
TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, is a year old now. On Sept. 19, 2008, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the need for a $700 billion program to purchase toxic assets held by banks to prevent a financial meltdown, and after some modification Congress rapidly approved TARP on Oct. 3. Looking back after a year, was TARP necessary? Did it work?
The answers are No, and No.
To look at the first question, consider what TARP was designed to do. Secretary Paulson said interbank lending had dried up because banks had toxic assets (mortgage-backed securities) clogging their portfolios. Because nobody knew what they were worth, banks were uncertain of the financial security of other banks. This uncertainty caused a reluctance to lend and prompted the financial markets to lock up.
The solution, Paulson argued, was to approve TARP and use $700 billion to buy the toxic assets. Replacing the assets with Treasury securities would fortify bank balance sheets and interbank lending would resume.
It is easy to say the program wasn’t necessary, despite Paulson’s arguments, because the TARP money wasn’t used to buy toxic assets. TARP money was instead used to buy preferred stock in banks, shoring up their balance sheets by giving the federal government part ownership of the banks.
The Second should be the First
Posted in LFA Flashback by R Lee Wrights on October 23rd, 2009 by R. Lee Wrights
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
- George Washington
Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows of my great respect and genuine affection for the founding fathers of this country. I not only admire the men and women of the American Revolution as individuals; but moreover, I admire what they stood for and what they were willing to sacrifice in order to become free individuals governing themselves. I am loathe to criticize them at all because I honestly believe they did the very best they could with what they had, even to the point of risking fortune and life to achieve what they coveted most - precious Liberty. However, in my opinion there is one glaring mistake that the framers of the Constitution made when they collective ratified the first ten amendments in a document that would come to be known to all Americans as the Bill of Rights. They put the wrong amendment first.
Now, I understand why the founders of our country made the right to free speech the First Amendment to their newly-penned Constitution. After all, for as primitive as they lived by today’s standards the founding fathers considered themselves to be some of the most civilized men in the world. And as far as they were concerned, civilized men talked out their disagreements and only resorted to violence under the most extreme necessity. They looked upon themselves as enlightened individuals, as they certainly were indeed. Reason and logic were their preferred weapons of battle, and the gun was only to be used if both of those failed and life, liberty and freedom were at stake. So, it only seems natural that the right to free speech became the first amendment of ten included in the Bill of Rights.
War is a racket
Posted in Walking Towards Liberty by R Lee Wrights on October 22nd, 2009 by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few — the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
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