I'll Be Dipped!

I'm stunned. Happy, but stunned. For the first time in a LONG time, the Libertarian Party actually nominated a ticket that might have real appeal to real voters. Granted, there's a very good chance that the Barr/Root ticket will gather it's usual 400,000 - 600,000 votes nationwide and fade into obscurity, but as someone who's watched the ideological purists and holier-than-thou "radicals" in the LP serve up exciting and savvy presidential candidates like Michael Badnarik and David Bergland, it's nice to think that IF, by some miracle, Bob Barr gets into a presidential debate or gets an opportunity to present the LP message on TV or radio (or on the internet, for that matter), at least he won't embarrass himself and the party (which ... in fact ... is an OLD LP tradition).

This isn't to say Bob Barr is a perfect candidate. He's certainly no Ron Paul. Whereas Ron has been a libertarian pretty much from the first time he stepped into the Capitol, Bob was a pretty typical statist Republican. He certainly did some unlibertarian things (i.e. the Patriot Act and the Defense of Marriage Act, among others). Do I really believe that he's changed his mind and seen the light and become a "real" libertarian??

Could be. It's certainly possible. At least he's learned to look and sound like one. He seems to have grasped the philosophy. He carries himself professionally with a certain amount of dignity and class. And since the function of an LP presidential campaign is to spread the message and attract new members, that's good enough for me.

On top of this, it's been nice seeing the "purists" take it on the chin again. I don't get this "purist" thing. I never did. All the through the 80's and 90's, when I was very active in the LP, I could never get over the fact that the "purists" were more concerned about keeping the LP a small, ideologically pure club rather than building it into a real political party. Real political parties work to win races. Everyone doesn't have to agree with everyone else about every issue ... it's about getting to the point where you win enough votes to do something productive. If there's one thing we should have learned from the Ron Paul campaign this year, it's that people respond to libertarian ideas when they're communicated as compact, individual issues. The smarter voters (i.e. the overwhelming minority) may actually recognize there's a coherent, reasonable philosophy behind libertarian ideas. If they do, great. But if streamlining libertarian thought into compact, digestible sound bites motivates the dumbmasses to vote for us .... even better!! Votes are what political parties need to get the power to make change happen.

And then, I read proclamations in the blogosphere that run like this: if Bob Barr is the LP nominee, then I'm going to vote for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. What? Bob Barr isn't libertarian enough for you, so you're going to support the candidate of a party that is christo-fascist beyond even the GOP? Read the CP platform, then read the LP platform. If you really think that the Barr/Root ticket makes the LP "just like" the CP, I want some of whatever you're smoking.

The LP now has a platform that is quite libertarian, but not fodder for journalists looking for crackpot ramblings. There are signs that the national party leadership is professionalizing. The LP has a credible presidential candidate. And since (most unfortunately) Ron Paul isn't going to win in Minneapolis this summer, come November there will only be one libertarian candidate to vote for: Bob Barr.

It may not be the "purest" vote you'll ever cast, but it's a hell of a lot closer to Ron Paul than any of the other rabid statists out there.

Time For New Slogans

So ... after large victories in West Virginia and Kentucky we hear that Hillary does better with "older, white and blue-collar" voters than Obama? That's what CNN says. She also does better with people who are not college educated (what a surprise).

I think this is interesting for one reason: as a collectivist / socialist, she's made a career out of pandering to group identity politics. You'll never hear Hillary utter words like "individual" or "self reliance" unless she's describing the enemy. She's all about group identity and communal "rights" (i.e. 51% of the population can gouge the other 49% at will ... and screw the Constitution). Besides, she was supposed to be the anointed persecuted minority group candidate this year, and this upstart member of another officially sanctioned minority group had the audacity to not only run for the Democratic nomination, but he's actually beating her in the process. Things are tough in group identity land.

Being a Clinton, I have no doubt that she's completely comfortable with the fact that she's the clear choice among the people she'd normally distance herself from: racist peckerwoods, reactionary old farts, and beer-swillin' blue collar types who go to church and mean it. But being a Clinton also means being about power for the sake of power. To this end, I'd like to offer some potential slogans for Hillary to use in the coming weeks that may help her reach out to this new source of votes:

• Hillary 2008: At Least She's Not A N****r!


• Hillary 2008: Fre Edjukashun & Helth Kare Fer Awl!


• Hillary 2008: I'm Old -- Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie!


• Hillary 2008: She May Not Have A Pecker, But Close Enough!


• Hillary 2008: She's Found Jesus .... Again!


• Feminists for Hillary: Vote For Her Or You Hate Women!

So go get'em Hillary -- ever forward on to Democratic National Convention and beyond!

Afterthought:
Needless to say, I can't wait to see how this all plays out in the next month. The American-Idol-Watching, literacy-eschewing, knee-jerk-deciding, magic-man-in-the-sky-worshipping dumbmasses in this country will roll the dice and vote for their favorite statist to run the Imperial Federal Government. And I have no doubt that they'll get the government they deserve.

For A New Tolerance

Some things in life are just disturbing. For instance, did you ever notice that although you can agree with people on a given issue, when you actually come together with them you also discover that many of them are downright frightening? This probably first struck me back in about 1992 when I was still a political activist, but it struck me again after visiting the website of the Middlebury Institute.

In a nutshell, the Institute is an intellectual gathering point for people who advocate the peaceful secession of their states or regions from the Empire of the Imperial Federal Government. All things being equal, I would prefer to deal with a local tyrant rather than a national one, and I do think that an honest review of American history in general (not to mention Constitutional history) shows that the founders of this nation understood that secession was a natural right. Granted, the cult of Lincoln has worked hard to pretend that none of this is true (just as Lincoln was happy to kill anyone who disagreed with his interpretation), but I invite you to actually look at the source documents yourself (and if you want a quick summary, get yourself a copy of Thomas DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln).

But my sympathy for and support of the right of states to secede from the union in no way prepared me for actually listening to the ideological underpinnings of the secessionists. What a colorful collection of interesting people! One little video laid out the following points of view:

• There's a bunch of christo-fascist wingnuts who want to make South Carolina into a place where "paleo-conservatives" can do their thing (which probably means they would institute an Iranian or Saudi form of government -- the only difference being that Jesus would get the credit for their 14th-century worldview rather than Mohammed)


• There's the League of the South, who according to their website aren't a "Christian organization" but nonetheless "...recognise (sic) the legacy of Christianity and the universal sovereignty of the triune God. Most League members are Christians, and we base our movement on Christian principles. Trinitarian Christianity can not be separated or removed from Southern society or culture without both ceasing to be Southern."


• A couple of guys who, respectively, claim that Hawaii and Alaska aren't really states (guess they were kidnapped or something??)


• Several more people who sound a lot like tree-hugging moonbats -- going on about creating a "sustainable economic future" or "direct democracy" or "social justice" or some other such commie-sounding collectivist ramblings

And I'm listening to this thinking to myself "What a bunch of loonies!"

However, upon further reflection, it struck me that they had, in a way, hit on the true meaning of tolerance. Unlike the commonly understood meaning of the word (i.e. "tolerance" = letting people do whatever they want at public expense and sentencing critics to diversity or sensitivity training), these guys -- nuts though they may be -- get it. Tolerance actually means respecting each other's space. As Mr. Garrison pointed out on an episode of South Park, if you tolerate something "it can still piss you off", you just grit your teeth and bear it.

With that thought in mind, I must confess that a north American continent consisting of 50 independent states (or however many confederacies, unions or collectives things eventually shook out into) might not be such a bad thing -- as long as the individual entities respected the rights of the other ones, and people were free to move between them. Of course, this assumption is predicated on the hope that trade would continue between each group -- we'd just choose to live with people who were more or less on the same page as we are (which means, for instance, that I won't be going anywhere close to South Carolina should the "paleo-conservative Christians" get their way).

Do I really think this will ever happen? Nope. Not in a million years. Unlike my friend Neal, I have absolute faith that the Imperial Federal Government would in fact roll in tanks and physically occupy any state or group of states that attempted to succeed. The folks in Washington DC aren't pikers: they're out to maintain and expand their power, and will use whatever means are necessary to "preserve the Union" (gee ... haven't we seen this already as a matter of fact?).

But, in the true spirit of guerilla libertarianism (and as a professional linguist with an axe to grind), I think we need to take back the word "tolerance". We need to show, through our actions, that we can disagree with someone (intensely, in many cases) but respect their right to be an idiot as long as they are willing to grant the same right to us. No nonsense about "mutual respect" -- just tolerance of the other person's right to be an ignorant fool.

Before we can even begin a meaningful political discussion of many important issues, we first have to stop giving in to the compassion fascists and language Nazis and sensitivity trainers. We need to establish again that tolerance means neither approval, nor any willingness to subsidize another's silliness. It just means that we all agree that First Amendment is a good thing, but it doesn't protect you from being offended.

That would be a step - albeit a small one - on the road to making 1000 flowers bloom.