United Liberty

Denial. It’s not a river in Egypt.

Still, as President Obama and D.C.’s majority legislative leadership strain our belief in a rational governing and representative body, it’s difficult to deny that something has gone terribly awry.

Not to belabor a point so many have made over the last year – and in some cases, decade(s) - but these Democrats don’t seem so concerned with my ability to access affordable, adequate health care as they do their ability to decide without me just what exactly defines adequate, affordable and accessible care.

So I’d like to report that their collective voice raised so stridently on my behalf (declaring as they do my “right” to all the government largesse they propose to provide) no longer has the power to shock my libertarian sensibilities. Yet day after day I find myself wondering how these men and women, whose primary attribute seems to indicate an infinite willingness to pretend two and two equals zero, were ever elected in the first place.

And therein lies the rub.

The Alan Graysons, Nancy Pelosis, John Lewises, Charlie Rangels, Harry Reids and other idealogical heirs to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy were all elected by the people and for the people. We may not like what they’re doing but someone voted for them just as they did Obama.

How did it happen? Good question and one with a plethora of philosophical and political answers. But the most important reason is too close to home for comfort. Thus, we can continue to play the blame game, or we can stop denying the unpalatable truth.

I must admit that this is a subject I wanted to stay away from but the continuing “uproar” saddens me. I want to like Sarah Palin but she makes it hard sometimes . At some point she is going to have to stop playing the victim card and act like a big girl.

I heard the Rahm Emanuel “retard” comment before Palin responded to it (I actually agreed with him). But something told me somebody would say something. Somebody would be offended. Somebody would act like a speech Nazi. Somebody would express an opinion that would attack the natural right of free speech.

As a former member of the GOP I can remember getting into debate after debate with “lefty” Statists on the subject of language. I guess because of who I am and how I was brought up I feel like I have a right to speak my mind and if you’re the “political correct” type you can get over it (Being raised in NYC probably contributed a ‘lil as well). I am not offended by anything that comes out of somebody’s pie- hole. Many people say things that alarm me, but being offended is somehow being “hurt” by what is said. Ms. Palin kept referring to her “thick skin” on the campaign trail. Did it somehow disappear?

I’ve already heard other people make the point that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck use the word “retard” on their shows and Sarah hasn’t criticized them. Blah, blah, that isn’t nearly the issue here. The fact that the “Right” is now acting like the language police leads me to believe I left the GOP at the right time.

Let me create a scenario for dear Sarah and see how she would handle it.

Recently I was prompted by an anthropology student at the University of Washington to answer several questions about libertarianism. The exchange was great, and provided a means to clarify several things that have been otherwise muddled.

Basic Questions:

1. How do you define a libertarian?

To me a libertarian is someone who believes in a limited government, which provides basic needs that most people believe to be necessary but does not try to stuff ideology down the citizens’ throats, the freedom of the individual to become whatever it is they want to be and a free market that allows great deals of mobility and ingenuity.

2. What influenced you to become and/or remain libertarian?

I love this country (for the ideals it was founded on, not because of nationalism, regionalism or nativism), and when I entered college, it became very clear that other students and professors didn’t. A bit of a blanket statement, I know, but it’s relatively true. I found myself defending slanderous left-wing statements about this country’s history, and in that process I realized I was libertarian. Liberty is the foundation of American society and government, and even if they don’t call themselves such, I think most Americans who love their country and find it exceptional are libertarians to a certain extent.

Free Market Justice by Gaslight.

It is axiomatic that whatever the state can do the private sector can do better, and this lesson is rarely illustrated better in literature than in the stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  As it was said by Doyle’s brother-in-law E.W. Hornung, there is no police like Holmes.  With the new Sherlock Holmes movie set to be released on Christmas day, we will no doubt see a resurgence of interest in the original Sherlock Holmes stories, movies and television programs.  Viewers and fans would do well to note the prevalent anti-state themes that course through these stories like the famous cocaine through the veins of Holmes himself.

The relationship between Holmes and the official London police force showed the marked contrast between a skilled master and a team of public investigators usually barely maintaining the status quo at least a few steps behind the criminals.  Scotland Yard reeked of a smug incompetence that amused Holmes, even as he gave them the credit in most cases.  They were frequently on the wrong path, lecturing Holmes about him wasting time chasing his fancy theories which ended up being correct.  While Inspector Lestrade and the rest were so easily duped by the scheming criminals, Holmes did what the police should have done, what they were getting paid tax payer money to do.  In “The Case of the Red Circle” we even see that a constable on duty at a murder scene is easily manipulated by a housewife.  Like so many other instances in real life, the private market yielded results where the public option brought errors, gridlock and confusion.

Last Sunday the Washington Post ran an op-ed from Maggie Mahar, health care fellow for the left-wing think tank The Century Foundation.  Her concern?  That eventually a conservative Republican administration running a government health insurance option or, worse, a single-payer system, might shut off access to abortion, end-of-life care, birth control, or fertility treatments.

Mahar has, perhaps unwittingly, revealed the problem with having government run anything.  Depending on government for anything means depending on whomever is running that government.  Administrations, Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress (though not often enough), and budget priorities change.  Too many people think only of the here and now when considering the greater implications of policies, but they should be thinking longer-term.

Before ceding any power to government (especially the federal government), just ask yourself one question:  Would I trust my greatest political enemy with this power?  There are some exceptions to this rule (only government can provide national security, raise a military, etc.), but consider longer-term implications to any policy being proposed.  If you don’t trust Democrats with the power to use surveillance on the American people, then don’t give that power to a Republican administration and Congress.  Likewise, if you don’t trust Republicans to run health care to your liking, don’t give a Democrat administration and Congress the power to run your health care.

Me?  This is why I don’t trust government with, well, any of it.  In the words of John Galt, leave me the hell alone!

Racist, Nazi, greedy bastard, angry mob, AstroTurf, brown-shirt, unpatriotic, goon, heathen, liar, rich, skinhead, moron, gun nut, ignorant fool, manipulator. Those are sixteen words and phrases used to describe me, used by the media, in person, on the phone, and on the Internet in response to my opposition to ObamaCare. I think that I should note that these are the ones I can publish due to the tameness of language. Of the sixteen, I find only two to be accurate: angry mob and skinhead (only because I cut my hair REALLY short). Friends and acquaintances who have seen or heard these suggest that I collect them as trophies for my efforts. Needless to say, I have a thick skin when it comes to name-calling, mostly because I know what it really means. It means only one thing: I. Am. Winning.

Pete Eyre is the former “Crasher-in-Chief” at Bureaucrash and former Director of the Campus Network at the Institute for Humane Studies. Pete is now part of the Motorhome Diaries, currently traveling around the country spreading the message of liberty.

The Motorhome Diaries (MHD) is a project that places me and Jason Talley (as the crew) and Adam Mueller (our current fellow-traveler) in a RV to film an almost-real-time documentary while traveling across North America in search of freedom. Jason and I had worked in the DC think tank world for a number of years and thought that we could have a greater impact advancing the freedom movement through a project such as MHD.

By: Dr. David Beito

What is happening in the cradle of the modern civil rights movement? Jimmy McCall would like to know. ‘It was more my dream house,’ he laments, ‘and the city tore it down … It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.’ In 1955, Rosa Parks took on the whole system of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus. Today, McCall is waging a lonely battle against the same city government for another civil right: the freedom to build a home on his own land.

World Net Daily is reporting that a North Carolina judge has ordered that three homeschooled children must start attending public school in the fall, despite the fact that the children test well above grade level and appear to be well-adjusted socially.

The parents are going through a divorce, and though the children have been homeschooled for the past four years and, according to the judge, “thrived” in that setting, the judge has ruled in accordance with the wishes of the father, who believes that it’s time for the children to return to the public school system.

The only thing missing from Fred’s shooting range in North Carolina is John William’s score from The Patriot.  You’ve got the rag-tag assortment of American everymen, you’ve got the red coat targets, and you’ll even feel a little of the same sense of urgency the American militiamen must’ve felt in the mid-1770’s.

Spending a weekend at an “Appleseed” rifleman school is not only a wise investment of money and time, it’s a whole lot of fun!  Hosted by the Revolutionary War Veteran’s Association (RWVA), the Appleseed program is acutely in touch with the importance marksmanship can have on history, as they refer to April 19, 1775 (the day of the “shot heard ‘round the world”) as the day “marksmanship met history, and heritage was born.”