United Liberty

The Republican horse-race heads to the South

Thoughts from the after-hours news desk…

Americans love to gamble. And because of that, Mitt Romney stomps out of New Hampshire like a prize beast entering the last leg of the Triple Crown — with a flowing black and gray mane, 500 degree genitals and a frothing anus in victory. If he were about to enter the Belmont I am sure that the odds would be in his favor. The elderly like him because he ‘looks like a president;’ not black. And the rest of the folks like him because he looks like a sure thing.

There will be no mint juleps for Rick Santorum however, and nobody has even considered placing a wreath around Newt Gingrich; not that Gingrich would wear one, or Santorum would even consider drinking it. There is something very real and untrustworthy about a man who wont have a drink at the races, and Santorum is that man. American’s can see that. It doesn’t matter if Gawd really did choose him for this mission, or if all of us will be further damned if he isn’t elected. Pigs are here for bacon, whiskey for the races, and American politics to protect us from delusional, grandiose paper champions like Rick Santorum.

If I were to keep with the the horse racing theme, I would probably make some quip about how Newt Gingrich better not break so much as a news story less the public looks the other way while his handlers put his campaign out of it’s misery. The truth, however, is that I am just as confused by Newt’s trailing as he is. In my eye’s Newt Gingrich is everything conservative America should be rallying behind this election. He’s sharp-witted, experienced, and calculating, (spiteful, unendearing, and jaunty); and other than Paul is probably the only person who could get America to make the nut. He is religious, but unlike Santorum he isn’t 100 yards and a grease pencil away from being the Tebow of the Republican party.

Looks like Obama is going to have a tougher time getting back in the White House next year, according to WMAL:

A report released Wednesday by the centrist think-tank Third Way showed that more than 825,000 voters in eight key battleground states have fled the Democratic Party since Obama won election in 2008.

“The numbers show that Democrats’ path to victory just got harder,” said Lanae Erickson, the report’s co-author.  “We are seeing both an increase in independents and a decrease in Democrats and that means the coalition they have to assemble is going to rely even more on independents in 2012 than it did in 2008.”

Amid frustrating partisan gridlock and unprecedentedly low party-approval ratings, the number of voters registering under a major party is falling fast, but it is also falling disproportionately.

In eight states that will be must-wins in 2012 — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — Democrats lost 5.4 percent of their registered voters while Republicans lost 3.1 percent.  The number of independent voters in those states jumped 3.4 percent.

This is not really news; voters have been fleeing both major parties over the past decade due to overactive hyperpartisanship, a greatly expanded bounty of information from blogs and social media that have destroyed “big media“‘s credibility, and that neither party is actually focusing on delivering a consistent message and consistent policy, but has been playing too much politics. What is interesting is that more are fleeing Democrats than Republicans—at least in these states, and I think that has to do with a couple of things:

The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.” - Thomas Jefferson

Today is Constitution Day, a day set aside by Congress, a body that largely ignores our nation’s founding document. What were once viewed to be basic natural rights, the concepts of life, liberty and property are subject to the will of the mob for the benefit of the “common good.”

This isn’t something that happened when Barack Obama or when Democrats took office, it has been going on for some time (more on that in a second). Not only are Democrats and Republicans to blame, but “We the People” also deserve a share of the blame,

While testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in 2008, Bob Barr warned, “Every administration that comes in takes the powers that it inherits from its predecessor as a floor, not a ceiling.” During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama promised to reign in the power of the executive, including some of the expansions claimed by his predecessor. However, we seen a further erosion of esstential liberties and limitations placed on our government by the Constitution.

There’s a basic economic concept: incentives. The best way to get someone to do something is by giving them a reason to do so. Advertisers do this by providing a “free” issue of a magazine before they charge, or giving a massive discount to the first purchase of a product, only to charge full price in the next bout.

America’s energy consumption isn’t sustainable, and it’s one of the aspects that ties every issue together. Our involvement in the Middle East and the environmental disaster in the Gulf both reflect the consistency of energy in our political storyline, as does the coincidence that most prominent conservative politicians for the last generation (including GOP poster girl Sarah Palin) have come from large oil-producing states.

President Bush made several speeches about America’s problem, declaring that “America is addicted to oil.” No presidential declarations can change individual behavior, however.

In his speech last night, Barack Obama made several comparisons to our need for clean energy: our building a large degree of planes and tanks during World War II and our putting a man on the moon. These are apt analogies, but as he presented them, they lacked historical context. We went into massive industrial capacity during WWII because we had to destroy Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and we built the first nuclear weapon in just years because it was imperative that we do so before Germany, Japan or Russia did it first. We put a man on the moon because, starting with Sputnik, we were in a massive space race that was a public relations war for the hearts and minds of the world. The incentive to compete with other powers were incentives to end all incentives.

Some non-shocking but nonetheless ridiculous news about the people we pay to oversee offshore coastal drilling:

So what were the staff members at the Minerals Management Service—the Interior Department division in charge of regulating offshore drilling—doing instead of their jobs? Watching pornography, according to a report from the Interior Department’s inspector general, as well as a slew of other offenses, including at least one inspector who used crystal meth and may have been under its influence at work. Staff members also accepted tickets to sporting events and free lunches from the oil and gas companies they were supposed to be overseeing. “[W]e discovered that the individuals involved in the fraternizing and gift exchange—both government and industry—have often known one another since childhood,” the inspector general wrote.

A libertarian friend of mine (what a shock!) said brilliantly of the administration’s regulatory policy: “If the people you’re trying to regulate are endorsing your policy, the chances are you’re not doing it right.”

And seriously - crystal meth? When I hear stories like this or political leaders having secret affairs with fellow males (often when they’re stomping on gay rights), I just have to sit and wonder. Doing hard drugs and having gay love affairs are not everyday trivialities that everyone engages in like jaywalking or even shoplifting. If you’re engaging in these activities, it’s emblematic of something else.

I came across this piece on Friday right before heading off to a retreat with the young adult ministry I am a part of, and I must say it is one of the best I have read about what kinds of actions a Constitutional President would take once in office.

The article, titled “My Plan for a Freedom President - How I would put the Constitution back in the Oval Office” originally appeared in Young Americans for Liberty’s recent publication that goes out to college campuses and other organizations all across the United States.

I think it is safe to say some people think Paul is “too extreme.” What is unfortunate, and what he points out at one point in the article, is that a Constitutional stance is hardly extreme. What is extreme is year after year passing budgets that increase rather than decrease spending while our nation is in extreme debt.

What I think is most important, though, is that this article should calm any fears that Paul’s presidency would be extreme. To the contrary he is very sympathetic to those who have become dependent on the welfare state through such programs as social security. He does not believe in pulling the rug from underneath those who have become dependent, but giving younger people at MINIMUM the ability to opt-out starting at a certain date.

Paul realizes the limits of what can be done immediately, but that does not mean there is nothing a President can do. I particularly respect his stance on foreign policy:

During a recent event sponsored by the University of Chicago Law School’s Federalist Society, former US Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and John Yoo, whose legal opinions paved the way for the Bush Administration to subvert the Constitution and Bill of Rights, squared off for a debate on national security and individual liberty during wartime.

Here is the debate in its entirety:

I know what you’re thinking: man that Pete is a positive guy. I like to describe myself as realistic, with a bit of fatalism throw in. Either way, I find it hard to look at the economic landscape and have any hope. It is especially dreadful when politicians have to get re-
elected, AND said politicians consult certain “economists”.

Economists have for years looked at what is happening in a society and sought to come up with solutions as to how an economic crisis can be “fixed”. The problem is, like in all fields, you have good economists, and you have the not so good (The latter seem to be the ones that always find their way onto the public payroll).

In extremely broad terms economists can be split into two categories:

If you are a student of American history your eyes should be opening as to which economist is most often chosen by our elected officials. The real question is “why”?

Well, why wouldn’t a politician pick economist #2?

Over the weekend, I happened to catch a link on Twitter pointing a libertarian ranking of Presidents of the United States. It caught my eye because we don’t often see a thoughtful review of our nation’s presidents from our philosophical prespective.

As libertarians, we tend to believe that a good president is one that stays close to constitutional values and the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately for liberty, the mainstream view, both in the press and by historians, is presidents that expand their office are general classified as the “greatest presidents.”

In this particular post written by Xavier Cromartie, the five best presidents are (in this order):

1. Martin Van Buren
2. Grover Cleveland
3. John Tyler
4. Calvin Coolidge
5. Zachary Taylor

Cromartie provides his reasoning for naming these presidents from best to worst, including a list of the good they did or the marks against them.

I don’t necessarily endorse the list, but it’s as accurate as we’ll see from someone that shares our libertarian view. Although I can say that Grover Cleveland is my favorite, as Thomas DiLorenzo once called him, our libertarian president.

The 46th Vice-President may be out of office, but he’s still in the news:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.