United Liberty

According to Ann Coulter, libertarians are “pussies” for wanting to end the war on (some) drugs and for agreeing with the Left on certain social issues such as gay marriage. Coulter was a guest on Stossel at the Students for Liberty Conference.

Coulter elaborated:

We’re living in a country that is 70-percent socailist, the government takes 60 percent of your money. They are taking care of your health care, of your pensions. They’re telling you who you can hire, what the regulations will be. And you want to suck up to your little liberal friends and say, ‘Oh, but we want to legalize pot.’ You know, if you were a little more manly you would tell the liberals what your position on employment discrimination is. How about that? But it’s always ‘We want to legalize pot.’

[..]

Liberals want to destroy the family so that you will have one loyalty and that is to the government.

I have a new op-ed up on the blaze, the news website of Glenn Beck. In it, I focus on policies that conservatives and libertarians can push for to help out the poor:

Last week, Rep. Paul Ryan visited the Jack Kemp Foundation and gave an amazing speech. It was a speech that appeared aimed at Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark, which many commentators felt alienated the party from the poor in America. It was a speech about his concern for the “40 percent of all children born into the lowest quintile” who “never rise above it.” It is heartening to hear a Republican say such things. For far too long conservative Republicans have avoided this issue, letting liberals beat them insensate on it. They will always win on emotions to help the poor (versus not helping), yet their poverty programs don’t help the poor; they are always traps. A true free market approach, on the other hand, will bring enormous prosperity to those at the bottom of the ladder, as the 20th century showed. Regrettably, the Republican Party hasn’t always taken a true free market approach.

Can it be done? Can Republicans articulate a strong free market message that simultaneously looks out for the poor? Absolutely. Heres five suggestions:

You didn’t think I was going to post the whole thing here, do you? I have to get people to read it on the site! But I can give you a quick list:

One of the reasons that Mitt Romney and the Republicans lost Tuesday came down to one simple thing: people like free stuff. No, really. They want politicians to give them free stuff. The 47% comment rings true. It is, as Bastiat said, legal plunder, and people will totes vote for guys who will make sure they’re on the receiving end of the plunder.

Maybe conservatives and libertarians should go for more of this.

Okay, now that you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, having fallen there in shock, or reinflated your forehead, having violently flattened against your desk, hear me out. I’m not suggesting that conservatives and libertarians give up their principled stand for the free market and become socialists. Quite on the contrary, what I suggest has been supported and proposed by no less conservative/libertarian luminaries as Frederich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Charles Murray.

You can probably see where I’m going with this: I think it’s time we start to seriously discuss the idea of a basic income guarantee. In a nutshell, this would be an annual payout to all citizens, establishing a “floor” of sorts for people’s income. Charles Murray, an intellectual titan residing at the American Enterprise Institute, put this idea into book form in 2006 with In Our Hands. He explained his idea in a publication by the Foundation for Law, Justice, and Society in the UK [PDF]:

Scotland holds a very special place in my heart as it always does for anyone who has had the pleasure to travel there.  My wife and I lived in Scotland while I was at the University of Glasgow, and our time spent amongst those charming, funny, witty, spirited people will never be forgotten.  I still enjoy all things Scottish and look forward to my future visits to that amazing country.  It is because of my admiration for both the Scottish people and succession movements in general that I have been closely watching the Scottish independence movement and am eagerly awaiting the upcoming referendum.  I’d love to see a truly free Scotland loosened from the socialist, statist, bureaucratic chains of the United Kingdom.  I get goosebumps at the very thought.

We all know the fighting spirit of William Wallace who proclaimed that the enemies of Scotland may take their lives but never their freedom.  Statism and state-dependency have taken both from today’s Scotland.  As shown on the Drudge Report this week, Mrs. Ruth Davidson of the Tory party recently got into hot water by drawing attention to the fact that nine out of ten Scottish households take more from the government than they pay in.  In her words they are “living off of the patronage of the state.”  This should shame those nine out of ten households, but it won’t.  For the European lefty political class, there is no such thing as shame and they have passed this mentality onto their constituents.

Visual media is a powerful way to spread a message. In the modern era of the Internet, we’ve learned this quite well—there are entire websites devoted to silly images that absorb you entirely. In the spirit of the 21st century, then, I want to offer some images that I feel sum up our modern age. Let me know if you agree, and add your own suggestions in the comments.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is your world in pictures. And this is why those of us out here who can see this decide to fight.

How can you not see the madness?

Traditionally Conservative institutions like the New Republic, Fox News, Cato Institute, American Interest, and many more are being subsumed by the leftist creep of socialism. This is more, than just mere observation. Main editors at the New Republic are openly ‘Obama for America’ contributors and backers on their Facebook subscription sites.

Fox News has gotten monetary contributions, and is; heavily backed by billionaire investor George Soros (who also supports Occupy Wall Street movements throughout the US).

Stalwart think-tanks like the Cato Institute are changing hands, covertly, because main-stream establishment parties like the GOP, DNC are not content with ‘national’ philosophic currents. Even the beatdown ultra conservative American Interest magazine, is starting to run articles by Harvard liberal pundits like Fareed Zakaria, among others.

To me, these development are frightening. Pres. Obama was no joke when he announced in 2008 during his Chicago platform, that he wanted “to fundamentally transform America.”

Capitalism is not failing, never has, never will. But somehow, these fringe liberals, European socialists and ‘intellectuals’ are coming around on some shape of footing: I dare claim, that they are actually finding their warstance against the United States.

Make no mistake, while transformations are taking place; they are always hardest to pin-point, to frame. But they are happening. Like a plains-storm gathering.

What the left actually do, and what they are planning; go together symbiotically.

Americans are to be supplanted as guarantors of freedom around the world; and be replaced with ‘multilateral’ bodies, assemblies and parliamentary bodies, that can then be filled with all sorts of non-American interests: the UN, NATO, ASEAN, the EU, Sahel Zone, inmates, criminals for a puppet-Global Government.

You have to hand it to Students For Liberty. Every day I look around and grow despondent, seeing the tyranny that is promoted endlessly, the ever increasing burden of regulations and dominion, the corruption, the wars, and most importantly the bald-faced stupidity of the public, and I think we’re doomed as a country. But then I take a wild gander at SFL’s website, and realize that there are thousands of young people—both in the United States and around the globe—who have recognized the real problems that are facing us as a society and are working towards fixing them.

Not only, then, are we growing as a movement, but we’re also growing in the youth area, meaning we’ll have long-term and sustainable growth. Perhaps their greatest product has been their book series, edited by Tom G. Palmer, beginning with the knockout The Economics of Freedom and continuing withThe Morality of Capitalism. Now, SFL and Palmer are tackling a subject that I think libertarians have really failed to address adequately so far, in the latest book, After The Welfare State.

It’s not ready yet, but I really look forward to reading it. The first two books were substantive and informative, though simple and relatively lightweight (though considering this movement, I’m pretty much comparing it to Hayek, Friedman, and Mises, so there is a low bar there.) But the reason I really want to peruse this volume is because welfarism is one of our most pernicious foes.

Our U.S. Constitution is a remarkably efficient document. It is our only founding charter. Many times changed, rendered, adumbrated. But it’s essence is unshakable. Written in Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting, edited against his will, pored over, discussed, hushed about, while it lay about some small wooden tables in independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Americans believe, that the Constitution is the link between our government and our lives. Congress and the Executive, can not overstep the harmony that exists, by each American following his path of liberty. Unfortunately, too many harmful minds, want too much power in this country. Power never vested in the Constitution. Power never meant to be handled by bureaucrats or officials or committees. We need to change all this. The oath of office should be sworn on the Constitution. In the Capital Rotunda. Among the historicity of remains from past great ages of the United States.

Drones in our night skies. Unelected lawyers interpreting the U.S. Constition. Surveillance. Internet spying. Blackouts and Stasi-like encroachements. Torturing. Deaths and internment of American citizens. Socialization of medicare for the elderly, and healthcare for those in mid-age. Food stamps and deductibles for people who do not work. Taxation over representation. Data-accumulation. Groping at airports. Fumbling and nefarious Justice Department officials. Cronies. Welfare abuses. War and destruction as an industry, like Hollywood and Corporate America! Blame-games. Undermining of basic civil rights. Monetarism-mongering! Unaccountability and state-sponsored fear. Campaigns of division. Solutions disguised for self-created problems.

Republican voters are being put through the pincers. We are back to 2008. Heaps of strong candidates, but no consensus. Great speeches, but no substance. PAC money spent by the millions, but no conclusive results. GOP candidates are even welcoming Democratic voters, to smear each other, to add to their victories, or to just plainly embitter each other. The Republican race is not going to get any more civil. Once, we see these subterfuges, we can ask the real questions: what will it take to unseat Obama in November, and who can best do this?

In America the conservative movement has been changing. Neo-conservatives, who had for roughly two decades (1980-2000) held the strongarm of the party, are gone with the Bush Administration’s doctrine of “pre-emptive strike” and the PATRIOT ACT. We are in the midst of the dregs. Still trying to find out which direction this country will spill it’s spirit of changelessness.

For all his grandeur, Mitt Romney just has not taken his campaign to the next level. Rick Santorum has peaked, but more likely will not hold his miniscule leads. Newt Gingrinch’s populism and Ron Paul’s constitutionalism, so similar to each other, are self-negating. None is in charge. Marginal candidates can’t win delegates, nor the RNC party’s nomination. Mitt Romney, the ever-chameleon like business mogul, can’t strike a human touch to save his life and political prospects.

If Mitt Romney is the front runner of the wolves, ready to flay Obama; what is his version of the American Dream? How does he see this country, through which prism? Is it a legalistic, rigidly technocratic, institutional approach? It seems, his advantage is not his base, his character, anything as much as his warchest. He won’t run out of steam. Even if the delegate count gets close in Tampa, FL this spring; he’ll be able to resurrect himself, make the necessary promises and sail away with the nomination.

Let us make fresh.

The reason why Rick Santorum would not oust Barack Obama in November, is not his faith. It is simply that he is running a ‘social message’ of uniform decency against a ‘social message’ of uniform healthcare. Plainly, Obama’s health plan, is vital: but not more pressing than the economic calamity of bailouts, frauds, money-laundering, spending and public debt. These are focal issues of the 2012 election.

Santorum is the politician everyone can super-impose themselves on. He’s no CEO like Mitt Romney, no renowned speaker like Newt Gingrich, not intellectual like Ron Paul. No, he is a regular Pennsylvania lawyer, who argued some weird World Wrestling Federation cases. Somehow he is unspectacular enough, that he could almost be your town butcher, postal deliverer or stockyard piler. You would think this is a strength. But it is not.

Eventually, while trying to keep your political pronunciations to a minimum, to correspond to the widest social base possible, you hit a tollboth going 160 mph. Santorum is earnest, he surely is: means well to families and the elderly, but he has yet to prove his salt. His record is plain: he has taken massive amounts of Washington D.C. beltway funding, voted to raise the debt ceiling, is in cahoots with the (so-called) ‘military industrial complex’  and dislikes many anomalies of our population: young pregnants, migrant-labor, jobless, gays, blacks. He has been able to entrench his campaign in an atmosphere of rustic humbleness and simpletonness.