Archive for January, 2008
I have officially come to the conclusion that Mike Huckabee has far too many glial cells and far too few neurons. When Ann Coulter called him “dumb as a stump”, I may well have found something upon which I can agree with her.
Tax Hike Mike had two particularly swell answers that made me roll my eyes:
1) When asked about an economic stimulus package, he answered that he would like to expand the lanes of a freeway. Granted, Paul has the only real stimulus package out there, but at least the other guys put together something that seems half way plausible. Mikey, I hate to tell you, building a road isn’t going to correct the fundamental problems in our economy. But economics is hard. Don’t bother thinking about it; just think up another sermon about Jesus.
2) When asked whether the invasion of Iraq was worth the blood and treasure, Mikey responded that we should be grateful to our president for having the courage to invade Iraq. Yep. Courage. Remember when he said of Iraq, “We bought it because we broke it”? I guess we should be very grateful that our president broke a country for us!
Every time I think of the people who vote for this man, my heart sinks. What are they thinking? Are they thinking?
I think it was pretty obvious that Romney shone during the debate. Ron Paul got his message out, which is as much as we can ask for at this point. The Libertarian movement has a long fight ahead of it.
On another note: I wish that the candidates would have asked more pointed questions of one another. The point of the questions segment is to try to make each other look bad, not to satisfy your curiosity about a finer point of their bankrupt philosophy.
I am still an ardent supporter of Dr. Paul, and I will be until he drops out of the race. If he goes independent or third party, I will support him then. He has, however, said many times that he has no intentions of running as the nominee of a third party, and I don’t forsee things changing.
Obviously, there is no other major party candidate for whom I could case a vote in good conscience. They are all statists, and they will all cause Americans and people around the world to suffer as they wantonly trod upon our natural rights.
For quite some time, I considered joining the Republican Party. I was excited about Ron Paul’s candidacy. I thought that the Ron Paul meetup groups would be able to run candidates and get them elected, and that they would also be principled libertarians. A large number of Paul supporters are principled libertarians, but there are also a lot of them who are just involved in the campaign in order to push various statist issues. What especially concerns me are those who have gotten it into their heads that Dr. Paul is the “anti-immigration” candidate. I think that these people’s idea of immigration reform is to take a shotgun and go hunting for brown people. Dr. Paul is against illegal immigration, but he is not against immigration, and he certainly doesn’t want to go hunt brown people with you.
In any case, it has become apparent to me that change is not going to come through the Republican Party. If we are to attempt to “march through the institutions” we will have to compromise our ideals, which really means becoming what we are fighting. We may win elections that way, but we will never win our freedoms. We need to build a party of principled Libertarians. As soon as this campaign is over, I’m right back there. The more the statists win, the more people will suffer, and the more people will listen to our message. We have the most solid, inspiring, and practical message of all: Freedom! Why should we ever compromise? (Aside: I see Dr. Paul’s stance on immigration as a compromise of our ideals)
I am, however, troubled by some of the leading Libertarian presidential candidates. Why? They aren’t Libertarians!
Here are some examples:
I propose an approval fee on all FDA approved drugs to be contributed by the drug companies to the US healthcare system. In addition, a percentage will be added to the wholesale costs of the drugs that are sold around the world that will be contributed back to the healthcare system. It is about time the drug companies support our healthcare needs to ensure healthcare for all American citizens run by we the people.
Need I say more?
From Root (whose slogan, “Root for America” is just dumb):
*I support dramatically reduced government entitlement programs.
So you support government entitlement programs????
*I support dramatically reduced corporate welfare
So you support corporate welfare???
*I support Social Security reform that creates ownership for senior citizens- I believe Social Security reform is a property rights issue. The money we pay into the Social Security system is our personal property. Each taxpayer should have ownership over that property- and therefore be allowed to leave that property in a will to their loved ones.
*I also believe in CHOICE as it applies to Social Security- all Americans should have the choice to create personal retirement savings accounts that give us ownership over our own retirement savings (the same right that federal employees and politicians enjoy).So, obviously, you think that at least some part of the current system should be kept in place!
*I love the smell of vetoes in the morning- I will pledge to sign more VETOES than any President in history!
What if you have a Libertarian Congress? This is just an irresponsible claim to make.
*I support Environmental moderation- I believe global warming is a danger to our planet earth, but at a rate far less dangerous, damaging and destructive than hysterical liberal alarmists and environmental extremists like Al Gore proclaim. I believe that we need to act to prevent further potential catastrophic damage to our planet. But I would not institute drastic laws, or agree to global standards that erode our way of life, damage our economy, or cost millions of jobs. Rather I’d invest in what Newt Gingrich calls a “Scientific Revolution” that promotes capitalism and creates more jobs- through tax breaks encouraging new breakthroughs in science, space, alternative energy, and the environment.
Yeah, a statist solution to a non-problem
*Let’s show our true colors by requesting that the Iraqi people vote on America’s role in Iraq. We are supporters of Democracy. We went to Iraq to build a Democracy. Let’s support an Iraqi national vote on whether the Iraqi people want U.S. troops to stay or go. If they vote “Go” we should leave. PERIOD.
Oh, OK, so now the Iraqi’s get to decide how we spend our tax dollars?
I can’t tell what Jingozian stands for. He has lots of platitudes on his website, which are nice and fuzzy and cute, but don’t do a whole lot to advance Libertarianism.
So far as I can tell, there are only two acceptable candidates for the Libertarian nomination:
Steve Kubby: A man for whom I have a profound amount of respect.
Christine Smith: I don’t know anything about her, but her insistence on sticking to our principles is right on the money.
Right now, I’d cast my vote for Kubby. We will see what happens. We need someone to advance our cause, not their own little vanity game!
After 25 dreadful hours of flying, I’m back in Antigua, enjoying the warm weather and STUDYING!!!!!!
I was quite disappointed with the New Hampshire results for Ron Paul. This doesn’t mean we stop fighting. As long as I live, I’ll never stop fighting for human liberty. This campaign will go on, and so will the freedom movement. The freedom movement is stronger now than ever, and it will only get stronger.
Those who know me know that I am no fan of conspiracy theories, and that I especially don’t like the “vote in sunshine” people who are using the Ron Paul campaign as a foil to push their own issue. The issue is a worthy one, but they are actually costing us votes. After the Iowa Straw Poll, they arrived at an insane conclusion that we had won and that our votes just hadn’t been counted. They based this on an “exit poll” which polled mainly Ron Paul supporters. Somebody didn’t take a statistics class in college!
I don’t like these conspiracy theories because they aren’t backed up with real evidence. I have received several dozen emails about voter fraud in New Hampshire. At first I ignored them, and then one caught my attention: a discrepancy between the hand counted ballot’s results and the machine counted results. To be fair, it could just be that there is a large difference in demographic between the hand counted counties and the machine counted counties, though it seems quite unlikely since 20% of the votes were counted by hand (this is a statistically significant percentage).
Before people jump on this and scream voter fraud: THIS IS NOT PROOF. This is a possibility. The best way to lose an argument is to overstate it. If you want to advance your cause, speak reasonably, and back up everything you say with evidence.
That being said, here is the evidence:
For the socialists:
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 40.121%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.703%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 35.756%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.785%
For the Republicans:
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.044%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.536%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.233%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.235%
This data is from: www.legitgov.org
I believe that this data is evidence enough to call for a complete recount of by hand. It is NOT enough evidence to accuse anyone of fraud. So don’t accuse anyone of fraud. Be responsible. Reason and evidence can be your friends–if you don’t ignore them.