This morning, in a not unusually pensive mood, I was mulling over Barak Obama's impending presidential candidacy and what it would mean for the aspirations not only of his for presidency, but of Hillary Clinton's. As I considered the possibilities, it struck me as ironic that basically two different camps of political correctness would effectively be doing battle here: eg, the feminist movement vs. the Civil Rights movement. My mind started reaching for analogies that I could fit inside an artic...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243200,00.html In the 2008 GOP primaries, voters may have a name on the ballot that they recognize from 20 years ago. Ron Paul, a 9 term lawmaker from Texas, ran as the LP candidate for president in 1988 and received over 400,000 votes. Paul, who has stayed true to his Libertarian roots in his role as a US Congressman, never lost the attention or loyalty of the party he has served so faithfully as a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus in the year...
Talk about flashbacks. In a flashback worthy of the most intense acid trip ever, I am reliving 1994. Remember then? The year of the Contract with America? The year when the GOP promised sweeping reforms that would lead to a balanced budget and reduced deficit? The year that would prompt Bill Clinton two years later in his reelection campaign to declare the era of big government to be over? Well, guess what? This year's the year the DNC is promising to reform government in new and innovativ...
Saddam Hussein is dead. Or, at least that's the official story. And, frankly, it's the story I buy because I see no compelling interest for our government to keep the man alive. As he heads to whatever Valhalla awaits mass murdering evil dictators, bloggers like me who possess more free time and bandwidth than we do wisdom will write on the subject. And in the processing of their thoughts, many of these writers will parade words like "justice" across their blogs, in a sense demanding that the...
I was reading Brad's article about Barak Obama, and one of his comments got me to thinking: should imprisonment be about rehabilitation? My answer is simple: Yes...and no, See, it's not really as simple as a black and white issue. This is an area where there are quite definitely shades of grey. And it would be in our best interests to acknowledge them. Brad is absolutely, 100% right that the PRIMARY purpose of prisons is to get bad guys off the streets. And that primary purpose should t...
I did something yesterday that I didn't want on my to-do list. It wasn't my favorite choice, and I'd rather buck the system, but as the old saying goes, you have to pick your battles, and it would be absolutely insane to fight this one too far when we have a VERY winnable front at this point. I broke down and applied for medical assistance. The first thing I noticed, for those who care to note it, is that I am actually eligible for NOTHING, medical assistance wise. The state of Texas, quit...
On a recent blog, the following comment was made: Feeding your own children is good, but not as good as feeding the same number of children who aren't related to you. While this may, on the surface, sound like a truism, I'd like to address this from the point of view of one whose father lived out that philosophy. At 16 years old, my childhood journey of being shuttled about between divorced parents and foster homes was through. I would spend the remainder of my childhood years in a fo...
Democracy, like communism, like capitalism, and like many other theories that seem so sound, seem so solid, is a paper standard, and cannot exist in its purest form. The theory of democracy is, of course, one man, one vote. The idea that you have the control over your political destiny. And it sounds good in theory, and in fact, may work in small groups where the goals are common and the group fairly cohesive. But it does not work well on a larger plane because of the reality of politics. ...
Link I ain't makin' this up, folks. A Florida voter sent in an absentee ballot with what one of the most well known collectible stamps as postage. In a snafu worthy of a "Simpsons" episode, the voter, who unfortunately sent in his ballot sans identifying information (thus invalidating the ballot, which is in itself not an unusual occurence in this particular state) with some older stamps worth a face value of about 87 cents as postage. One of those stamps was the famous 1918 "Inverted Jenn...
The following is the news release from the Libertarian Party of Texas. Good news about the direction of our party, at least in TX. While we have a ways to go, it's fair to say we're making quite a bit of headway for political "outsiders": Texas Libertarians make major gains, break records AUSTIN - November 8, 2006 - The Libertarian Party of Texas (LPT) showed major improvement in the 2006 general election, relative to its performance in previous years. The party h...
As we have been debating the issues of whether or not policies such as universal health care are or are not Libertarian in philosophy, an interesting subject came up, one that is not unique to the individual advancing the argument, and should not be ascribed solely to that individual, but rather to a flaw in the thinking of many Americans. The argument was that he didn't trust the private sector to provide health care...but he DID trust the government. This statist attitude is as common as it...
As the discussion has raged on about what is or is not a Libertarian, I feel it necessary to rehash some Libertarian platform issues. Although no member of the LP is bound in any way to adhere to these platform issues, these issues are pretty much in line with the LP philosophy of smaller government. Of particular concern to me are the questions that have been raised about Social Security and Universal Health Care. I'll list the party platform position along with my personal comments to ...
Recent GOP scandals have left many liberals dancing on the grave of the GOP. But while the scandals seem to be coming fast and furious, it's fair to say the dancing is premature. The old maxin "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" has never been proven truer than in the realm of American politics, especially in the most recent era. The power that our leaders are too freely given becomes a corrupting influence once they obtain it, and the chips seem to fall on the left and t...
I am sick of hearing Democrats claim that Republicans are the enemies of free speech. While the Republicans certainly have done their part to limit the exercise of free speech, they hardly have a monopoly on the concept. The Democrats, however, have the added burden of hypocrisy as they make a point in condemning Republicans for doing the same thing they're doing. For a recent example, witness the efforts to silence the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11". The push has come almost exclusively fr...
OK, I was going to point this out as another inconsistency of the left, but I'm going to be fair on this one, as not all libs fit the bill on the issue, but... I was talking with "ol' bluehair" (see my article on "the culture war" for more on this biddy) about politics, and where I offended her was in my refusal to call George Bush a war criminal and condemn him for everything he's ever done (ironically enough, however, Woody Guthrie, the person with whom we share a common interest, was NOT a...