United Liberty

“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” ~ former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

Writing in his book “The Life of Reason”, Spanish philosopher George Santayana declared “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

That axiom may be nowhere more true that in the portion of humanity that endlessly embraces authoritarian government despite its inglorious record of failure. The failure, according to the Left, arises not in the flawed philosophy itself, but in the improper application of it. Many of the greatest atrocities in human history occurred in the last century at the hands of leftist, totalitarian regimes around the world, yet like a dog to its vomit, the Left ignores the fetid stench of death and oppression and comes back for more.

Venezuela is just the latest example of this phenomenon.

Three years ago, in the left-leaning Salon.com, writer David Sirota praised the brilliance and virtues of corrupt Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, effusively extolling the “indisputably positive results” of Chavez’s brand of socialism, while minimizing or dismissing his human rights abuses and strong-armed tactics in the pursuit of power, arguing he was not as bad as his predecessor. He gushed that Chavez, who had stolen private property on a mass scale in the process of nationalizing the nation’s oil industry, had “racked up an economic record that a legacy-obsessed American president could only dream of achieving.”

Pestilence. Disease. Roving bands of criminals. Unfinished buildings dotting the landscape.

No, this isn’t the backdrop to the latest installment of The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner, this is the reality facing the city of Rio de Janeiro as it opens the 2016 Olympics this week.

In 2009, Brazil was awarded the bid for this year’s summer Olympics by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in part by using guilt and pointing out that Brazil was the only one of the world’s ten largest economies to have never hosted an Olympic Games, noting that North America, Europe, and East Asia had all hosted the games a number of times. Brazil desired mightily to prove that it was no longer an underdeveloped Third World country, but instead a model socialist utopia.

Mission most certainly NOT accomplished.

Like an South America’s own Baghdad Bob, the host country and the IOC have desperately tried to deny and dismiss the massive problems facing Rio in the months leading up to the opening of the games. And boy, are there some serious problems!

Since many #NeverTrump voters are apparently sticklers for one or two issues that Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson can’t satisfy, a new conservative savior announced his candidacy for president today. Evan McMullin apparently has the backing of some big Republican donors to get his campaign rolling. The initial reaction of most (“Who?”) is understandable, but the relative unknown may actually have a better path to victory than even Johnson.

Sounds crazy, right? There’s plenty of reason to think so. McMullin is a total unknown outside political wonk circles. He’s never run for or held elected office before and thus has no name recognition. Unlike even a third party longshot like Johnson, he has no existing party or campaign apparatus, no fundraising history, and won’t be on most state ballots.

Ballot deadlines have passed in AR-DE-FL-GA-KS-IL-IN-MA-ME-MD-MI-MO-NE-NV-NJ-NM-NC-OK-PA-SC-SD-TX-WA-WV-WI… https://t.co/RmTlFhYi3O

— Taniel (@Taniel) August 8, 2016

He may not need to be, even to win.

There’s one key state missing from that list: Utah. McMullin is a BYU alumnus and a Mormon (and conservative), which automatically gives him a head start in the state.

After CNN’s first Libertarian Town Hall for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in June, the consensus among at least the rightist pundit class was that it was an awkward at best introduction for the ticket to the national television audience. In the sequel that aired Wednesday night, both former governors made a much more refined, articulate case for what they term their “down the middle” approach between the two major parties.

Most compelling arg of #JohnsonWeld2016 is that libertarianism is actually in the middle, not fringe of both sides. #LibTownHall

— Matthew DesOrmeaux ⚜ (@authoridad) August 4, 2016

In the typical analysis, libertarians are seen as more socially permissive than Democrats, being more permissive on drugs and prostitution for example, and more fiscally restrictive than Republicans, seeking to cut government and rely on free market even more. This usually puts the Libertarian Party at the fringe on both spectrums.

There was bound to be a schism between Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and his more conservative and right-libertarian potential supporters before the election. This week it finally came, on the controversial but vital issue of religious liberty.

In an interview with Tim Carney at the DNC, Johnson set off alarms by calling the issue, especially in the context of the cake debates, a “black hole”.

Here’s the issue. You’ve narrowly defined this. But if we allow for discrimination — if we pass a law that allows for discrimination on the basis of religion — literally, we’re gonna open up a can of worms when it come stop discrimination of all forms, starting with Muslims … who knows. You’re narrowly looking at a situation where if you broaden that, I just tell you — on the basis of religious freedom, being able to discriminate — something that is currently not allowed — discrimination will exist in places we never dreamed of.

As a fellow left-libertarian, I think Johnson is exactly right, but read the whole thing for the full context. His campaign further clarified what he meant when asked by Taylor Millard.

The governor’s reference is to the fact that when you go down the path of legislating religious liberty, with the best of intentions, there is a very real risk of creating unintended consequences.

It is not in any way a suggestion that religious liberty and freedom is not essential — and protected in the constitution.

In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton beat out incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush for the presidency, successfully branding himself as a Southern, conservative “New Democrat” who could be trusted with major responsibilities like national security and the economy. Fast forward nearly a quarter century and this week the Democrat Party is hosting its national convention for the purpose of nominating Bill’s wife, Hillary, as its candidate for president, and to adopt a party platform. In doing so, the Democrats have swerved hard left and, while Bill is still immensely popular with the Democrat base, this year’s Democrat National Convention is nothing less than an utter repudiation of the Bill Clinton presidency.

The Bill Clinton Democrat Party of 1992 was a center-left party, but the 2016 Hillary Clinton Democrat Party is a motley amalgam of far-left radicals, socialists, racial grievance-mongers, and card-carrying members of The Hate-America Club. This is abundantly evident in the convention backdrops, the platform, and the rhetoric used by its speakers, perfectly captured by the sight of Bernie Sanders’ supporters angrily waving “America Was Never Great” signs.

Throughout the primary and now the general election campaign, observers have asked which line Trump crosses will finally doom his campaign. He launched his campaign by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists, and survived. He bragged about the size of his genitals in a televised debate, and survived.

The Onion perfectly summarized this widening gyre in December.

I realize it’s getting cruelly ironic at this point, but I think this time Increasingly Nervous Man (read: me) might be right.

At a rally today, the GOP nominee for president literally asked a foreign government to hack American infrastructure to reveal classified information to him to affect our elections. This is not just an offensive or crude remark; it’s treason.

Trump to Russia: I hope you find the missing Hillary emails (some of which could contain classified intelligence) pic.twitter.com/fy919ChGuE

— Justin Green (@JGreenDC) July 27, 2016

There was a glowing, arrogant consensus among smug Trump supporters yesterday, after RNC delegates officially nominated him to be president. #NeverTrump, the movement among conservatives and libertarians who vowed to never support the candidate, for many, varied, and sundry reasons, was through.

#NeverTrump is #NeverMore

— Chris Barron (@ChrisRBarron) July 19, 2016

Wow wrong. Someone needs to be reminded what the word “never” means.

Never. Not ever. Not even once.

#NeverTrump began in the Republican primary as an effort to deny Trump the nomination, once it became apparent that the polls were right and he was cruising toward it. It was by definition not designed to end there.

Many Trump opponents during primary season have since surrendered and endorsed or vowed to at least vote for him reluctantly. These people weren’t really #NeverTrump. The rest of us still are. And never means never.

On nearly every statistical measure, human society has improved dramatically over the last few decades. War, famine, disease, poverty, infant mortality are all down globally. Violent crime, cancer, teen pregnancy, abortion, drug use are all down nationally. Some of these truths come as a shock to people for one reason: media.

We have 24-hour news networks and social media that act like megaphones for tragedy. Every time someone gets shot, especially when multiple people do, it’s a breaking news event. And every time it’s tragic. But it’s not more common.

Gun deaths have been declining since the early 1990s. Mass shootings, depending on how they’re defined, are even more rare, though by definition prone to spikes.

Unfortunately this year might prove to break the trend on one unfortunate statistic: police gun deaths. Due mostly to the recent massacres in Dallas and Baton Rouge, on-duty police deaths are up nearly to their full-year level last year. Overall, cop assassinations have been on the decline for some time, so hopefully this horrific year will prove to be just an outlier and not the start of a reversing trend.

Texas, the land of liberty, proud former republic, happy to be left alone to grill meat and eat tacos until the end of the earth, is supposed to take care of its own and not demand federal government interference, even when times get tough. But that’s exactly what two bills just introduced by the Lone Star State’s senators do. Neither is necessary or advisable, especially in light of justice reform efforts that do the opposite.

After the horrific police massacre in Dallas last weekend, John Cornyn has introduced a bill to make killing law enforcement officers and other public officials a federal crime with a new mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years and option for the death penalty. While a reaction of this magnitude is understandable after Dallas and other recent attacks on police, in reality it’s much more of an overreaction.

Killing a police officer is already a capital offense in almost every state that has the death penalty, including Texas. The country is currently debating whether the states and federal government should have the death penalty at all; adding new qualifications for it should be out of the question, especially when states are handling it just fine on their own.