A Caveat About the Election for Libertarians

I know a lot of libertarians are still gaga over Ron Paul—an affliction which I don't understand considering Ron's regular ultra-conservative pronouncements, his inconsistencies, and his close affiliations with some extremely unsavory groups and individuals. People shouldn't forget that he endorsed the so-called Constitution Party in the last election—and they are nothing but a crazy Right party filled with racists, bigots, anti-Semites and theocrats. They openly proclaim they want to impose "God's law" on America.

But when Ron comes teetering out onto stage the saliva glands of some libertarians go into hyperdrive requiring many to attend his meetings with drool bibs securely attached to their Ron Paul shirts, as they wear their Ron Paul hates and cling to their Ron Paul action figure in the rumbled suit.

I personally consider Ron a paleoconservative, little different in policy matters from the odious Pat Buchanan. And some prominent Ron Paul advocates had previously prostituted themselves on behalf of Pat Buchanan. I don't mind people pimping themselves out, but I do criticize their lack of taste.

A lot of libertarian entertain the following utopian fantasy. In their dream Ron Paul will fight valiantly till the end, lose the Republican race, and then turn around and endorse Gary Johnson as the Libertarian Party candidate.

I'm not so sure. The grapevine told me that Gary Johnson went to let Ron know he was running in the Republican primary. This was long before Ron had even indicated a desire to run and was hinting that he wouldn't. Remember Gary had previously supported Ron and was paying a courtesy call, which was not necessary. I'm told that when Gary finished the sentence about running that Paul glared at him and stood up and walked out on him. Gary himself has never said anything negative about Paul, other than that they have some disagreements. Yes, they do. Gary is a libertarian, Paul is paleoconservative and those are some disagreements. Gary has been nothing but a gentleman and spent time praising Paul during his campaign. Paul has pretended that Johnson didn't exist.

While some libertarians think Paul is the messiah, I consider him a crafty politician who has held together a coalition of contradictory views by cleverly phrasing things so that both right-wing statists and conservative leaning libertarians hear what they want to hear. I fear his votes, for the most part, go to social conservatism and not to libertarianism, at least when those issue are up. And his votes on immigration and free trade also lean in the paleoconservative direction even while he spouts libertarian rhetoric. Libertarians have always got the words while paleoconservative got the votes—but that seems to be enough to buy off the libertarians.

The dream vision says Ron will fight to the end and then endorse Gary and that Gary will win a few percentage points pushing the libertarian idea.

I am not sure that Paul will not sabotage that vision. It is possible but I think it the least likely of four scenarios—though all are possible. Here are the possibilities.

1. Ron runs till the end, drops out, and then announces he is running a Libertarian and wants the LP to dump Johnson in favor of himself.

2. He may do this just prior to the LP nominating convention, thus not running to the end, and sucker punches Johnson at the very last second. I think the fund raising is just too damn good for Ron to want to put an end to the money bombs. And, under federal rules, his excess funds can be donated to any nonprofit of his choice and he happens to have a couple under his control.

3. Ron may have it in mind that he can get the VP nomination with Romney. Even the media has noted Ron's lack of criticism of Romney, even while he was dumping on the other Republican candidates. Romney has to pick someone. He can't pick Huntsman, that would look too much like a Mormon take-over. Santorum is far too repulsive and I doubt he wants Gingrich. I don't think he will go for the Blanche or Jane Hudson of the GOP: Bachmann or Palin. But, in spite of his own theocratic tendencies Ron doesn't appeal to the Christian appeal—though he has tried.

4. Ron could just let his true colors out and once again endorse the Constitution Party.

I think it less likely that Ron will graciously endorse Gary Johnson. I don't get that vibe from Ron. All you have to do is ask him a question he wants to avoid—and there are plenty of them—and you'll see how he glares at you and responds. While, I wouldn't care if he endorses Gary or not, I'm not expecting it. Nor am I confident that we want to attract a large number of the fringe right types that are rallying around Ron. But then, the LP seems riddled with them as is, so I'm not sure it would do any additional harm.

I think the sad thing is that Gary Johnson, while clearly the best candidate in this round, is in the unenviable position of having to run as a Libertarian Party candidate. He would be the best candidate the LP has ever offered, perhaps with the exception of Ed Clark, but he is far too good for the vehicle he will be driving. The LP ceased to be a party of principle long ago. It sadly runs neocons and conservatives (like Wayne Root), racists and bigots and crazed conspiracy mongers. The party simple is so desperate for any help that it exercises poor judgment in who it allows into positions of influence. When Birthers, Truthers, and Birchers are welcomed with open arms, then the party has become a political toilet and needs a good flushing. Gary Johnson would just give them more credibility than they possibly deserve.

If you thought the Libertarian Party couldn't sink any lower.

This blogger has held that the Libertarian Party is a hopeless venture and is often more conservative than libertarian—especially after a Root infestation that continues to plague the party. The only decent candidate they had seeking the presidential nomination was Steve Kubby, but Kubby simply would have been a lousy candidate, no matter how good he might be on issues. Otherwise there simply wasn't a candidate seeking the office that could be trusted. They all were deficient, if not ideologically, then ethically.

Today it is being reported that State Rep. Daniel Gordon, of Rhode Island, has joined the Libertarian Party to serve as an LP state representative. Gordon, made a name for himself for some nasty anti-gay remarks directed at a high school's Gay Straight Alliance. Like most extreme Right bigots he mischaracterized the support group made up of students by calling it a "sexual meet-up" group and then asking "Is it really more important for our children to get sexed-up, than learning advanced math?" Of course the main purpose of the GSA groups is to provide support for gay students on campus, many of whom are suffering bullying. As we just saw, a 14-year-old boy in New York just killed himself because of school bullying. So yes, Mr. Gordon, the club is important and no, they aren't there to get sexed-up.

But, according to Gordon, gay students who get bullied probably deserved it. He said, "I don't think there would be much of a problem with bullying if students weren't flaunting their sexuality in school." Hmm, I guess women who get beat up by their boyfriends deserve it as well. (Gordon might say so for reasons that will become obvious in a minute.) Gordon said that the Gay Straight Alliance should be banned.

The mere fact that this man could publicly make such statements indicates he is not a proper fit for the Libertarian Party. But the LP has been taken the garbage the Republicans throw out for a long time. According to a pro-war, anti-gay site run by a former Ron Paul staffer, Gordon called the LP National Direction Wes Benedict that he was sending in his dues and joining the party. This site claims that Gordon is leaving the Republican Party over a "controversy stemming from a drunk driving conviction in Massachusetts a year ago."

In fact, Gordon was thrown out of the Republican Party. All members of the LP national committee were told, with some excitement, that this bigot wanted to join the LP. Now, what is the "controversy?"

Mr. Gordon is drunk driver. Actually he has been convicted three times of drunk driving. Of course, the Republicans wouldn't throw him out merely because he is an anti-gay bigot. Virtually all their candidates for president are anti-gay bigots with the exception of Gary Johnson and perhaps, Jon Huntsman.

Gordon tries to weasel out of it by claiming that he wasn't drunk he was "self-medicating with alcohol." Jesus, that is like the sleazy Republican who took close up photos of his sphincter, posted them on a gay site, and then when caught, said the photos were to document weight loss. Even if the "self-medicating" bullshit was a legitimate excuse, driving while self-medicated puts the lives of others at risk.

Now, the Libertarian Party may miss the bullet on this one. Unless Gordon sent in his dues for LP membership almost immediately after calling the LP, it might be some time before he can mail that check in. And, he actually might need the money for a good lawyer.

Apparently he was arrested and is in state prison and will be there until arraignment on Monday. He is charged with driving with a suspended license and also failing to appear in court to face charges that he had tried to elude a police office.

Gordon had gone to the police to try to file complaints about "cyberstalking" because "people were saying things about him on blogs." Apparently, not only is he weak on rights for gay people, but he doesn't understand free speech either. Yep, sounds like a Republican to me. Of course, he calls himself a Constitutionalist. I find that to be one of the major excuses used by conservatives when they try to claim they are really libertarians. Apparently if they can concoct a claim that constitution is in favor of violating rights, then that trumps their libertarianism.

But while Gordon was trying to get bloggers arrested the police were running his name and found he had "a very extensive record in Massachusetts" and they found that he skipped out on a 2008 trial and that there was an arrest warrant out for him.

It gets worse! The Providence Journal reports that he was previously in jail for five months "on charges of attempted murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and for assaulting and threatening to kill his girlfriend." The paper says the arrest records are in storage but that what they were able to find indicates "there is no question that Gordon has exhibited a propensity for violence."

Apparently in 1996 Gordon was arrested on assault charges and discharging a firearm. He served time on those charges. Then in 2001 he assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to kill her. He pleaded guilty and served a brief sentence and was put on probation. In 2003 a warrant was put on him on charges of car theft, along with a slew of traffic offenses connected to the incident. Next, in 2004 he was arrested for attempted murder and assault, again on a woman, who told police, "He tried to kill me." This was another girlfriend, so apparently assaulting romantic partners, is not unusual for him. She was upset because he didn't have a job and called him a loser so he tried to strangle her. He was in jail for two weeks that time.

So, just about the time I thought the LP couldn't sink lower in attracting Republican rejects Mr. Gordon comes along. Of course, with all the negative publicity that this is likely to get, the LP may get nervous and refuse his membership. But then, some of their National Committee members aren't adverse to con men. So, will they actually balk at men who act violently toward women, as well as a slew of other problems? We'll see.

But, let's recap this man's "libertarian" record. He has assaulted women. He drives drunk, putting others at risk. He was charged with car theft and attempted murder. He is anti-gay, wants to ban a group, apparently opposing freedom of association and freedom of speech. At least he would make Wayne Root look good—well, only briefly.

More Crazy in the LP

It does the future of libertarianism no good, and much harm, when libertarians attempt to prove their own insanity through public statements of the most absurd kind. Too many of these loons are now associated with the Libertarian Party and the Party deserves the death spiral it is in as a result.

Consider the Libertarian Party of Alaska, once a party of relatively sane individuals who actually managed to win seats in the state legislature.

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is trailing an opponent in the vote count for the Republican primary. The Anchorage Daily News reports:

There is a possibility that Murkowski could run on the Libertarian ticket in the November general election if she loses the Republican primary. The Alaska Libertarian Party is discussing the possibility and its Senate candidate, David Haase, has said he is open to talking to Murkowski about him stepping aside.

Apparently the LP remains an option for has-been Republicans, which effectively dooms it and prevents it from taking a truly libertarian position, as it is a sanctuary for unemployed conservatives.

As bad as this may be it seems the Libertarian Party's current candidate for U.S. Senate is actually even worse. He's a conspiracist of the mentality of the Birch Society. The paper reports that LP candidate David Haase would consider stepping aside for the losing Republican but says he "would surely press Murkowski on the Federal Reserve, which is his focus. 'Let's take the Federal Reserve, nationalize it and take that income earning capacity and turn it over to the people to finance Social Security and Medicare."

What we have here is bad thinking squared. Haase holds several viewpoints simultaneousl—all of them wrong. He has been reading the bullshit from books like The Creature from Jeykl Island or perhaps even worse, the rantings of Eustace Mullins. Haase manages to combine the insanity of Birch Society conspiracy theory about the fed, with Marxist sounding rhetoric about nationalizing what is fundamentally a national institution already.

There are member banks to the Fed but the politicial powers in Washington ultimately control the Fed. As for this "earning power" where does he think the "profits" are going today? The Fed doesn't make much in the way of profits and what profits there are go to the federal government already.

Member banks simply have no control over monetary policy, which is the major function of the Fed. What member banks do is manage the day-to-day workings of the system at the local level. Policy is determined by the Board of Governors of the Fed all of whom are political appointees.

As for the crazy that the Fed could fund Medicare and Social Security consider the "profits" of the Fed. The Fed buys government bonds which pay interest. So the government pays interest to the Fed, as it would to anyone who owns the bonds. A substantial portion of the interest paid the Fed on those bonds is then given back to the government already. What is paid out to member banks is a relatively small portion of Fed income and well below what would be necessary to fund a highway expansion, let alone fund Social Security and Medicare together, or alone.

Then consider this "libertarian" solution to "nationalize" the Fed. Even if the Fed were private nationalization is a socialist viewpoint not a libertarian one. Nationalization likek this tends to be the view of Marxists and conspiracy cranks. The "free banking" alternative has historically been what libertarians prefer. Of course, I contend that what is happening to the LP is that is serving as a retirement center for disaffected conservatives, John Birchers and Tea Party crazies. It is no longer a home for libertarians but a refuge for every Right-wing crank in America. A lot of the bad thinking about the Fed comes from them.

Haase manages to combine numerous false premises into one sentence. Consider them:

1. The Fed is, for all practical purposes, already nationalized.
2. Even if the Fed were truly private, nationalization is not a libertarian solution.
3. Even if the Fed were private, and if nationalization were a libertarian option, then the "profits" would NOT fund Social Security or Medicare.

The talking points used by Haase are pure right-wing crank theory, they are not factually accurate, historically accurate, or even libertarian.

Here is an excellent talk on the Federal Reserve by Steve Horwitz. Steve explains the real problems with the Fed, which have little to do with the Bircher type thinking that is being promoted by the Right. In fact, I would argue that the conspiracist theories about the Fed actually insulate the Fed from valid criticism. If people focus on non-existent problems they do so to the exclusion of real problems. The conspiracist theories of the Fed are relatively easy to debunk which makes it appear that the Fed is actually a good idea. The focus ought to be on the real problems with the Fed, not the fantasies of the Right. Steve's video lecture is about 90 minutes but well worth watching.

Fake libertarians propose alliance with conservatives.

The con man from Vegas is still lurking around the shell of the Libertarian Party trying to promote a conservative agenda for the LP. Wayne Allen Root, a conservative, keeps promoting himself as the leading LP contender in the next election. The only evidence for that, to date, is his own fertile imagination where he constantly imagines himself as being what he is not.

Root wants the (formerly) Libertarian Party to officially become part of a conservative coalition “to take back America from Obama and his socialist agenda.” Really, only a moron thinks the problem is a socialist agenda. It isn’t. Sure Obama wants socialism. But the problem is a statist agenda, a desire to have Big Government. And the conservatives, who had power for much of the last 30 years, have NEVER pushed through smaller government.

Root wants a coalition of conservatives, who by definition are statists, to join the LP. How will the LP manage this? Clearly the only way to appeal to conservatives is to strip the last vestiges of libertarianism from the party. The LP, to a large extent, has become nothing more than a home for failed conservatives who haven’t a clue.

Root defines “moderate Republicans” as part of the problem. So apparently those Republicans who are not “moderate” are to be our coalition partners. Who exactly would that be, Mr. Root? Root promises that his right-wing book, the misnamed Conscience of a Libertarian, explains what issues the coalition will run on. Remember that book—the one that avoids the war on drugs but worries about gambling (because Root made his living conning gamblers into buying his “advice” on how to lose money more efficiently). His was the book that didn’t mention foreign policy at all.

Libertarianism, under the make-over from Root and the traitors who run the Party, is libertarianism stripped of its non-interventionist foreign policy and with civil liberties underplayed to such a large degree that it is a joke to pretend they are even there. Root wants a libertarianism that is just another version of the failed conservative policies that destroyed the Republican Party.

Roots new policy on immigration is one, which he says, will allow only “skilled upper middle class immigrants [well you can't come out and say "whites only" anymore] with assets of $250,000 or more, to move to America—thereby ending our foreclosure crisis, housing crisis, and national debt crisis, all at one….” Let’s explore this piece of bullshit for a minute.

First, why exactly should only “upper middle class” people be allowed to immigrate to America? That policy, I note would have kept out Root’s own ancestors from America—okay, so that’s a point in its favor. But the same policy would have meant that Milton Friedman would have been born under Soviet control and Ayn Rand would have died in World War II. Interestingly the jobs that go unfilled in America are not the high-paying jobs for the upper middle-class but the more menial work that many immigrants yearn to do. But Root's racism, which is never far below the surface, won't let them in—after all, they're, you know, brown people.

What is Root’s solution? He wants to start pumping up the housing bubble again by forcing immigrants to spend at least $250,000 on a home in order to be allowed into the United States. The whole purpose of this is to use state coercion to force people to purchase houses and to try to push the values back up. State intervention created the housing bubble and Root, in the name of libertarianism, wants to use more state intervention to re-inflate the bubble. The housing crisis he refers to is the bubble created by political hacks pandering to popular wants—which is what Root is doing. The foreclosure crisis hits those people who were pushed into buying property which they weren’t ready to purchase, by the easy terms of government. That problem, sadly for the people involved, has been solved.

How will forcing another group of people to buy houses, that they apparently don’t want, do anything to help the people who lost homes? And how does this end the debt problem? I also have to ask how Root thinks this ends a “Social Security crisis”? The way to end a social security crisis is to end social security. What is Root’s view? Save it with reforms.

In fact Root says he doesn’t want to end several major failed government programs at all. That’s the old libertarian view, not the new Root view. He says he wants to “reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid…” Like the conservatives who sold out America, Root wants to reform Big Government, not end it. George Bush told conservatives that big government was their friend. Root is doing a watered down version of the same thing with libertarians.

In one of his supposedly glib moments Root did touch upon “sin,” by which it appears he means social freedom. He described the Nevada “approach” as “legalize it, regulate it, and tax it.” So Root apparently thinks regulation and new taxes are the way to promote social freedom.

Root has also been publicizing an “endorsement of his book” by John Hospers, who was the LP presidential candidate in 1972. That campaign didn’t mean much at the time. Hospers was on only two ballots. Dogcatchers got more votes than Hospers. And Hospers was inactive in the LP from that point onward. Hospers constantly drifted to the Right and fought libertarian impulses. Today, I fear he has few such impulses.

He has always been a weak libertarian, even at his best. His natural inclination is toward conservatism and in his senectude he has literally gone off the deep end. What value Hospers once had, has been more than undone by his war-mongering attitudes, views that have only beome worse as Hospers ages. Now in his 90s, he has basically repudiated libertarianism in practice.

Consider Hospers’ previous endorsement. Before Hospers was praising Root, he was sending out praise for another one of his heroes: George W. Bush. Hospers, who has joined the anti-immigration racists, did criticize Bush for “failing to protect our borders.” Consider, however, that so-called border protection has made it harder for Americans to travel freely. Not a single terrorist crossed our border illegally. but by “securing our borders.” Hospers and other conservatives have stripped Americans of their freedoms. Thank's John, we appreciate it. Now go away.

Hospers praised Bush for taking steps to “protect us” from “weapons of mass destruction, including ‘suitcase’ nuclear devices.” In other words, Hospers repeated the lies told by the Bush administration to justify an attack on a nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Hospers went so far as to basically exonerate the odious Patriot Act, saying that opposition to it was “based more on hysteria and political opportunism than on reality.” This is not libertarianism. John Hospers may have written a book on the topic when he was much younger, but the John Hospers of today is NO libertarian, but a hawkish conservative. His endorsement of Root ought to be an indication of just how bad Root is. As I see it Hospers endorsed Bush, the Patriot Act and Wayne Root. Three destructive forces to liberty, what a record John!

That Root is proud of the support he is getting from Hospers is an indication of how clueless Root is about the history of libertarianism. Otherwise he would know that the last endorsement from Hospers was for the disastrous, destructive George W. Bush. But, no surprises there, Root had endorsed Bush as well. This is how far the libertarian movement has sunk.

Hospers, closer to 100 than to 80, was never that good. So, at least his advanced age gives him an excuse for making stupid decisions. He can call it a "senior moment." Unfortunately, his "senior moment" has lasted decades. Root, was never a libertarian, so that he gets libertarianism wrong is no surprise either. But what excuse do the party hacks at the national level have for betraying libertarianism and trying to turn the LP into a haven for has-been Republicans, who want the “libertarian” label but not libertarian policies?

Under the current national chairman and some of the officers who run the party, the Libertarian Party has ceased being libertarian. It is unlikely it will ever become libertarian again. My guess is that is headed for a long, steady decline (though that has been obvious for some time). The type of candidates that the LP runs will become more statist with each passing election. Some will be outright bigots, but that has already happened. The LP will adopt the hateful message of social conservatives and try to win the Religious Right over to their side by abandoning all support for civil liberties and social freedom. It will eventually become the last haven for the dying remnants of the Moral Majority, a retirement home for has-been theocrats, social conservatives, klanners and sundry bigots and hate-mongers. These are the disgusting types that Root is already getting cozy with. For another example of Root's barely concealed racism go here.

Oddly, in that sense, the LP may save the Republican Party. As the LP moves further away from libertarianism, into the intolerant, Right-wing camp, it will start to attract the dwindling numbers of fundamentalists that are in the Republican Party. The LP will basically draw out the infection that ruined the GOP. Unfortunately the LP will continue to destroy the “libertarian” brand in the process. But with the poisonous bigots and religious morons in the LP maybe the Republicans will discover small government. I wouldn’t count on it, but it might happen. Either way the LP is irrelevant, and the fastest way for the party to prove that it is a destructive force for liberty, is to endorse a conservative like Root.

Photo: Wayne Root along with some of the national officers of the Libertarian Party, discussing how to make the LP more fragrant to the public.

The Conscience of a Bullshit Artist.

I have the unpleasant task of reading Wayne Root’s misnamed book, The Conscience of a Libertarian. The title is, of course, just a rip-off of The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. There was no need to change titles since Root’s work is clearly the work of a conservative, not a libertarian. Root remains a pretender, a conservative in libertarian clothing.

Early in the book Root defines himself as a “Libertarian conservative.” That is more telling than he would care. First, note that the term “libertarian” is modifying the term conservative. His main identity is that of a conservative not that of a libertarian. A “conservative libertarian” is someone who says they are foremost a libertarian with some conservative sentiments. A “libertarian conservative” is the opposite: someone who is mostly a conservative with some libertarian sentiments.

There is another telling point to Root’s self-labeling. He uses the term “Libertarian” instead of “libertarian.” A big L libertarian is merely a member of the Libertarian Party and these days that is no indication as to whether or not they are libertarian in political terms. The small l libertarian is someone who is a libertarian philosophically. Root identified himself as a “Libertarian conservative” not a “libertarian conservative.” This is even weaker that what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Here he is not actually claiming to be a libertarian philosophically, merely a Libertarian Party member who is a conservative.

Of course, the whole thing could be imprecise writing and bad editing. Root is no intellectual and it shows. He is a loud-mouthed, brash, self-promoting individual with all the charms of a cross between a used car salesman and Richard Nixon, just without the principles.

Early in the book, Root dismisses discussing issues that separate libertarians from conservatives: social freedom. He does talk about taxes, and taxes, and more taxes. Social freedom is not something he talks about, but then he doesn’t want his conservative, anti-libertarian views too obvious while he tries to con the desperate and dying Libertarian Party into nominating him for President. Consider how Root addresses social freedom:

As a Libertarian, I believe that social and personal freedom issues are quite simply States’ Rights issues. …These issues are none of the federal government’s darn business. Voters should decide these issues on the state and local level.”

There is nothing libertarian about that position. That is a conservative through and through.

Libertarians, by which I mean philosophical libertarians, not LP members, believe in individual rights not states’ rights. No decent libertarian would argue that the rights of anyone should be put up to majority vote of the public. But Root is no decent libertarian; hell; he’s not even an indecent libertarian.

What Root is doing is trying to hide social conservative values by sweeping that entire category of issues under the rug. We will hide social issues behind the mantra of “state’s rights” instead of addressing them. Libertarians have NEVER supported the violation of rights as long as it is the states that are violating those rights. That view is classic conservative thinking and was quite popular with the Dixiecrats, the racist Democrats who wanted to use state law to oppress blacks. Root is speaking in the tradition of Strom Thurmond, not Lysander Spooner.

Root is also ignoring an important question: what should the states do about these matters? Even if he is merely a Libertarian, and not a libertarian, the LP still has state affiliates and those affiliates must take stands on censorship, equality of rights for gays, separation of church and state, and other issues that Root avoids. What stand should they take, Mr. Root? When Root first floated the idea that he was the great savior of the LP, his web site did take stands on social issues and the stands I saw were very conservative. That was losing Root some support. So he pulled the same sort of trick pioneered by that other social conservative, Ron Paul. He called social freedom a state’s rights issue and then ignored it. Easier to keep conservatives happy and hide his true views.

Mr. Root also seems to be taken aim at the many agnostics and atheists that are in the Libertarian Party—including most of the LP presidential candidates, until the conservatives took over. Root says he is “comforted by the idea of our electing public official who are religious God-fearing and love men and women.” Apparently atheists like John Hospers (the first LP presidential candidate) or Ed Clark (the most successful LP presidential candidate) make Root uncomfortable. Worse, Root then equates morality with religion implying that non-religious people are immoral and corrupt. He says that electing “God-fearing” candidates is good for America “because moral people are less likely to bring about a corrupt government.” (Sort of like the non-corrupt, good government of George Bush, right Mr. Right?)

Never before has someone, who was an LP national candidate, taken a swipe at non-believers, implying that because they are not religious they are more likely to be immoral and corrupt. Elsewhere, Root claims he is the perfect candidate because he isn’t an atheist. “I’m the perfect political figure to lead this fight because of who I am. I’m not an atheist. I’m not a liberal, I’m not anti-religion. To the contrary, I’m a proud family man and patriot who strongly supports God, religion and prayer.” Notice he did not include, “I’m not a conservative.”

Root then goes into a discussion of marriage where he proves he is historically as adept as he is philosophical adept. In other words he is totally incompetent. He claims “After the abolishment of slavery, some states began licensing marriages in order to prevent blacks and whites from marrying each other. Prior to this, marriage was a religiously defined institution.” Both of these claims are false. State regulation of marriage goes back to the 1500s and was pushed by the Protestant Reformers who said marriage was a state institution more than a religious one. It was not the result of the abolition of slavery.

And prior to the Reformationists inviting the state to take over, marriage was primarily a non-religious, secular event. It was governed by custom and the will of those involved but not regulated by either church or state. Martin Luther wrote: “Since marriage has existed from the beginning of the world and is still found among unbelievers, there is no reason why it should be called a sacrament of the New Law and of the church alone.” Luther wanted state control over the matter but acknowledged it was primarily a non-religious institution predating the church. Root doesn’t know his history any more than he knows libertarianism.

In Root’s long diatribe about God and morality he seems to be saying that it is a bad idea to have government enforced morality. But how does that jive with his claim that these are all state issues? At first it appears he is saying that government, at any level, should not take on the role of moral enforcer. But that is not the case. He actually qualifies his position by saying: “Do not ask or demand that the federal government impose your choice and values on the rest of us.” It is only Nanny statism at the federal level that offends him. This remains consistent with his stated position that voters have the right to dictate morality at the state level. In the world of Wayne Root, individual rights may be determined by popular vote at the state level.

Social freedom issues are not quite entirely ignored, though they may well have been. He has a short section on medicinal marijuana but little about the destructive effects of the war on drugs as a whole. There appears to be one paragraph in the entire book on this topic. He does have a chapter called The End of Prohibition but that isn’t about drugs. That is about the laws regulating gambling. Root is in the gambling business so his “ principled” stand here is not surprising. True principled libertarians defend the rights of people they don’t like. Mr. Root never does that.

Root has almost nothing to say about civil liberties and social freedom. Also missing is any discussion of foreign policy and the war on terror. Surely the war and the hysteria about terrorists have justified more big brother measures in recent years than anything else. And Root has not a single word to say about them. He doesn’t defend the traditional libertarian foreign policy of non-interventionism. But then Root was a pro-war cheerleader before, who only shut up about it when he realized it might hurt his desire to be an LP candidate. There is nothing condemning the Patriot Act, nothing condemning torture of individuals by the US government, nothing about indefinite incarceration of prisoners by the federal government.

The only things Root talks about are conservative talking points. He avoids most social issues and all issues of foreign policy. He will rant about affirmative action, which pales in significance to foreign policy. He spends page after page on taxes but says nothing about repealing the Patriot Act and bringing the troops home. Root’s book is purely a marketing gimmick. It is not meant to explain libertarianism. How could it? Root has no idea what that term means. The whole purpose of the book is to convince conservatives to complete the take-over of the Libertarian Party and nominate the con man from Nevada for President.

UPDATE: This con man conservative is now trying to become the National Chairman of the Libertarian Party. As hopeless as that party is, no one deserves that fate. The selection of candidates running is not a very good one. But then who really wants to captain the Titanic at the last minute? George Phillies appears to be the best of the lot even though I think he's wrong on global warming and boring as shit. Mark Hinkle is someone I've personally liked but I believe he may be too closely allied with some of the worst, most unprincipled elements in the LP, but I might be wrong on that. Ernie Hancock has more loose screws than your local hardware store. The one merciful thing about a Root win in that race would be that it would speed up the demise of the party. The damn this is dead already, for god's sake bury it and get on with something productive.

The scum seeking the Libertarian Party nomination.

If you think Bob Barr was a disaster, his con man second in command, Wayne Root is even worse. This man is NO libertarian, never has been, and I suspect, never will be. Root is merely a self-promoter with no self worth promoting. He thinks he deserves the LP's nomination. He deserves a kick in the ass but little else.

Radley Balko, an editor at Reason, recently spoke to the Nevada LP convention. For some reason the Nevada LP decided to scrap the bottom of the barrel and have Root as a speaker. Here is Balko's report and his views on Root.

At both events, my own speech was preceded by a speech from Wayne Allyn Root, the party’s candidate for vice president in 2008, and who has apparently already made himself a candidate for the 2012 nomination.

I won’t comment on the bulk of Root’s speeches, because I was invited to both events as a speaker, not as a journalist or a blogger. But I will comment on one thing Root mentioned in both speeches, because it’s essentially public information. In touting his ability to win high-profile media coverage, Root mentioned in both speeches that he is now a weekly commentator on Michael Savage’s weekly radio show.

I’m not a member of the Libertarian Party, so perhaps my advice doesn’t mean much to them. But I’m going to give it, anyway:

Stop this, now. Either persuade Root to stop going on Savage’s show, or show Root the door. I’m all about building coalitions where appropriate. But there’s nothing remotely appropriate about Michael Savage.

Michael Savage is a raving bigot. He regularly uses phrases like “turd-world countries” and “ghetto slime.” He once wished rape on a group of high school girls who make trips into San Francisco to feed the homeless. He’s a blood-thirsty warmonger, and a feverish culture warrior. He once said on the air that, “”When I hear someone’s in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-15!” On social issues, he’s far to the right of just about every elected Republican official I can think of. He has wished AIDS and death on homosexuals. He regularly denigrates drug users. He is virulently anti-immigration. In short, there’s nothing remotely libertarian about him.

If Root’s aim is to take the LP in the direction of Michael Savage, the LP should distance themselves from Root right now.

There’s nothing honorable to be gained from this.

MORE: It’s worth noting that Root features his Savage commentaries at the very top of his website. I don’t really care how many listeners Savage has. He’s vile, and hostile to any reasonable conception of libertarianism.

For some more background go here. We should be clear, Mr. Root is not remotely libertarian. He is a far right conservative who opposes libertarianism. He was brought into the party by a handful of cockroaches at the LP national office and National Committee. What stars they are for stabbing libertarianism in the back. I personally believe the LP is not just worthless it is now destructive to libertarian ideas. That a bigoted bullshitter like Root can run around LP circles says enough. Per my previous article on regrets --- I deeply, deeply regret ever contributing a dime to the LP, I deeply regret having ever been an LP candidate. I deeply regret helping petition to put LP candidates on the ballot. I deeply regret ever voting for the party. None of this will ever happen again.

I urge you to let your local Libertarian Party know that if they support Root that you will oppose the party with all your might. The LP is a fucking embarrassment.

For the record. Our state LP needs voter registrations to retain ballot status. Even though I had the registration card in front of me I refused to do it. If you are registered to vote as a Libertarian you can change to independent, and let the LP know why. The LP needs to lose ballot status is as many states as possible. Maybe they'll wake up. My guess is that bigots like Root, however, will keep trying to use the party for self-promotion. One thing about losing so many elections is you end up attracting losers.

Libertarian Party infected by SARS, spreads fear

We all know about Swine flu but does anyone know about SARS? I mean, Sudden Acute Republican Syndrome. This disease infects the mind of alleged libertarians and suddenly turns them into Acute Republicans. Known carriers are Bob “Typhoid Mary” Barr and Wayne Allen Root.

Some time ago the headquarters of the (formerly) Libertarian Party suffered an epidemic of SARS. This is one reason that party officers used their positions to push the Barr campaign. This infection of SARS is the prime reason that I have severed any and all connections with the Libertarian Party. More importantly I consider the LP to be engaged in a campaign of “brand contamination” which destroys the value of using the word “libertarian” to describe a pro-liberty position.

Like many SARS victims the LP is exhibiting signs of delusionary thinking, most particularly in the form that more government control is a libertarian position and can solve the woes of the world. In a recent press release the LP demanded that Obama “more closely monitor crossings at the United States’ border with Mexico, and keep out persons infected with “swine flu.”

Apparently this “swine flu” has the swine in the LP office very worried. One such swine, Donny Ferguson, who is a paid pimp for the Republican-lites who run the party, says, “Libertarians support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a threat to security, health or property.”

The LP demands that the government use its “authority over the border to control entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a threat to our health by spreading the virus into areas where it does not exist.

Why is it that health professionals have almost all opposed the quarantine solution that the LP wants? Mainly because it is will do virtually nothing to stop the spread of the flu.

Even the LP, with its bout of SARS pushing it to embrace more energetic government once again, only whines about “foreign nationals” infected with the flu. But the main conduit for the flu into the United States has not been foreign nationals but American tourists. The LP, engaging in unsubtle xenophobia wants to prevent foreign nationals, but not US citizens, from coming into the country.

Last I knew the flu could spread from a citizen as easily as from a foreign national. So why single out foreign nationals? It isn’t to stop the spread of the flu since the LP is happy to allow infected Americans to cough inside our borders as much as they want. Amazingly, just as the Republicans are suffering a collapse due to their far Right agenda, which targeted minorities, the LP seems to be embracing a similar strategy. This may be a good thing, the sooner the LP collapses the sooner it will be that libertarians can start using the label libertarian again without being confused with the Republicans who have taken over the LP.

Instead of being a voice for reason and sanity the LP is trying to cash-in on the fear mongering that the media loves. Scary stories about global disasters get air time. But nothing in this outbreak of flu is significantly different than previous outbreaks of flu. Every year about 36,000 Americans die from the flu. Already an estimated 13,000 Americans have died of flu this year, totally unrelated to the current situation. This strain of the flu is no more virulent or deadly than the regular outbreaks of flu that we regularly see, in fact it may well be more mild than many. Yet rarely have we seen calls for increased border security—especially from alleged libertarians—over these routine cases of flu

The only difference I can see is that this outbreak started in Mexico where some children were the first to become infected. But anti-Mexican sentiment among xenophobes and racists is rather high, so they welcome anything that can be used to smear Mexicans or immigrants with open arms. If the flu had originated in Canada would we hear as much about the ethnicity of the first cases? I have my doubts.

What is troubling about this LP press release is that it is really an attempt to pander to the bigots. They want increased border scrutiny at Mexico but only applied to “foreign nationals,” i.e. Mexicans. I assume that the flu virus in Mexicans is clearly more problematic than the same virus carried across the border by American tourists.

Consider the main outbreak of flu in the United States today: New York City. In just a few days over 660 kids at St. Francis Preparatory School were ill—as were two dozen staff members. It spread to family and friends and soon over 1,000 were ill. In a few days the case numbers dropped and the infections seemed to stop. This has health officials baffled. But news reports indicate that a group of high schools, who had gone to Cancun for a vacation, had brought the illness back with them and it spread from there. And while many students got sick, tests indicated that many were ill with a completely different strain of flu altogether. Some didn’t have flu at all.

In other words, the biggest breakout of the flu virus would not have been stopped by the LP’s measure, even if fully implemented. It wasn’t busboys or hotel maids from Mexico infecting school kids. It was American teens who had travelled to Cancun for a vacation. Under the LP recommendation, those kids would still be admitted back to their home country. Imagine the outcry if they weren't.

The Centers for Disease Control say that one-third of all US cases of the flu were in people who contracted the illness while in Mexico. American tourists, not foreign nationals seem to be the main means of transmission of this virus. The CDC says that almost all US cases have been mild and only 13 people have needed hospitalization.

What makes the flu outbreak in Mexico sound so horrifying was the death rate but that death rate simply doesn’t transfer to America. The main reason for this difference is wealth. Mexicans, living on lower incomes, are more reluctant to pay for medical care when they become ill. They may wait longer to seek treatment than they should. The first death in Mexico was a woman who was ill for some time but didn’t want to spend money on health care until she was extremely ill—by then it was too late. While there were some 1,000 suspected cases in New York City none died. In Mexico, it should be noted, only 19 people have died from the disease—this is hardly the Black Death.

The unfortunate, but simple truth, is that the death rate in Mexico is higher because of poverty. The same disease, among wealthier Americans, has only a negligible impact.

So why the fear mongering by the LP? Why are they sounding like paranoid Republicans about gays or the crazed Left screaming about global warming? Using the politics of fear is an old tactic but usually one shunned by sane libertarians. Fear is simply not conducive to liberty. And this call is proof of it. The LP, when it was actually libertarian, tended to avoid fear campaigns because fear is always the tool of tyranny. Now, with Republican-lite leadership the LP is simply a Right-wing party with statist tendencies. For the most part those tendencies are less than what is found in the GOP but this LP press release shows they are willing to go head-to-head with the worst fear-mongers in the Religious Right.

Ask yourself exactly how border agents, who are not qualified in the medical sciences, are going to enforce the LP’s call for stepped up scrutiny. Harry Browne used to warn people that just because they think a government program is good, it doesn’t mean the government will run the program the way they want. Look at the crude, rude and often violent methods of the Travel Nazis who now police our airports. Consider how the Homeland Security thugs beat up a Baptist minister for mentioning his Constitutional rights.

We have elements of the government inclined to use violence at a drop of a hat. I could just imagine someone getting beat up because they sneezed near a border thug—it was for the good of the country and the person appeared to have assaulted the officer with a deadly weapon—his sneeze. Fanciful, but the government has killed people for less and then exonerated the thugs who did it. Do we want the same violence-prone thugs to be empowered to make on-the-spot medical evaluations and then take the necessary action to prevent "infections?" Why trust these thugs to get that right when they routinely get other things so very wrong?

But the LP now wants these same thuggish elements to have the power to conduct medical evaluations. You better suppress that cough at the airport lest the newly empowered thugs pull you aside as a threat to American health. These people are already getting their jollies frisking people and poking around their bodies, under the pretext of stopping suicide terrorists. They are already empowered to do strip searches merely on the hunch that it may be necessary. So the LP wants them to be able to justify such measures simply because of a sneeze, a cough or a sniffle. You may be tired from an international flight but the instant doctor at the border thinks you look sick so you are whisked off for further evaluations and scrutiny. And the LP call itself the party of “smaller government!” Jesus, they sound more like George W. Bush every day. And that’s no compliment.

We shouldn’t forget what happened the last time we allowed “swine flu” to panic us into demanding that government take action. Dr. Kevin Cahill, a top specialist in infectious diseases, warned “that in the last swine flu outbreak in the U.S. in 1976, more people died from taking the vaccination for the flu than the flu itself.” Yes, government often is literally the “cure” that is worse than the “disease.”

Consider what Dr. Marc Siegel, at Fox News said, “When all is said and done, it is looking more and more like H1N1 (a designation which describes two proteins on the surface of the flu virus which help it spread) will end up being a mild, over-hyped virus despite the fact that it is new.” Has the LP sunk so low that it is even more hysterical than voices at Fox News?

Siegel is the author of False Alarm: the Truth About the Epidemic of Fear. He says:

In 1976, when a swine flu virus appeared to kill a military recruit and then be present in the blood of 500 others (who never got sick) this led to a massive hysteria and vaccination program for a pandemic that never occurred. Forty million Americas were vaccinated and ascending paralysis (also known as Guillain Barre Syndrome) was associated with recipients in close to 1,000 patients.

Back in 1976 the prevailing theory was that pigs had been the source of the 1918 Spanish Flu, which was later disproven but served as an impetus for the hysteria at the time. In 2005, the knowledge that the 1918 scary virus was “bird-like” led the fear mongers to point a finger at an equally scary H5N1 virus that was killing millions of birds. But lost in the panic was the knowledge that human pandemics had likely never been caused by an H5 virus before.
In the current swine flu scare the virus is assumed to be a more powerful human killer than it actually is. In reality it appears to losing virulence as it spreads human to human and is not that transmissible, and is NOT becoming widespread.

Siegel sanely warns his readers that “H1N1 is another pandemic mostly of fear—something that is stronger and more infectious than any virus.” It is a crying shame that the (formerly) Libertarian Party has turned itself into an engine for deceptive fear mongering, demanding more vigorous government control. When the Libertarian Party, instead of debunking fear campaigns, begins to employ them for their own publicity it is time for the party to close up shop. They are spreading something infectious themselves, something which, long term, will do more damage than the flu. They are spreading the virus of big government while destroying the brand name of libertarianism.

More troubling for the LP's hysteria is the story that epidemiologists are investigating the earliest cases of this flu in the United States, cases that predate the outbreak in Mexico!

Michael Shaw, associate director for laboratory science for the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the flu theoretically could have appeared first in California, but he cautioned against drawing any conclusions since the strain also exhibited genetic characteristics traceable to Eurasia.

The first case discovered in California was a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County, who fell ill with a fever March 30.

So, there is some possibility that the disease was first manifested in the United States and spread to Mexico from here. If this were the case, what would the LP be suggesting then? Would they demand that US border agents use force to prevent Americans they suspect of being ill from leaving the country? If Californians first got sick would we have government agents preventing ill-looking residents from visiting any of the other 49 states? If not, then why not? Based on the premises the LP used in their press release the logical conclusion would be that we need government also preventing Americans from moving around the world, and their own country, merely on the suspicion that they might have the flu.

Somehow, though, I suspect that the LP wouldn't be calling for border agents to prevent Californians, who sneeze, from visiting Mexico. The reason for that is relatively simple: there is no organized anti-Californian movement to pander to.

Below is a film of some of the government propaganda from 1976 urging people to get inoculated from swine flu. Remember the inoculations were more deadly than the flu.

We don't need no stinking social liberty around here.

The (formerly) Libertarian Party has had a birthday. It is now 37 years old. In my view the LP is a zombie -- the living dead. It walks and moves about but it is a corpse for all practical purposes.

LP National Chairman Bill Redpath has issued a list of promises that the LP has never backed down on -- or so he says. Now, for the record, I have no personal grudges with Mr. Redpath. We have met socially and never had cross words. I know almost nothing about what he has done, or hasn’t done, as national chairman. But I do know what a debacle the national offices of the LP was and how corruptly it acted during the presidential nominating convention. And I have to hold the national chairman partially responsible for that. I don’t know if Mr. Redpath was a Barr supporter or not. So I have no known disputes with him behind what I’ve stated.

That said I found his list of LP pledges very disappointing. It was certainly redundant. He promised the LP would “promote free market alternatives” and “protect a free and competitive market”. He said the LP will let “you keep the money that you earn” and will “work towards the repeal of the income tax.” He promises to “fight for less government” and to “cut the size of government.” He is against “bailouts” and “subsidies”. He is saying the same thing several times and counting each new time as if it were another pledge.

I have no problems with what he pledges at all. He basically says: no bailouts; promote free markets; less government; no new taxes, etc. All good things I think.

But what is shocking is what Mr. Redpath has left out. There is not a single mention of the LP fighting the war on drugs. Of course they pushed a drug warrior for president in the great Denver sell-out. There is no mention of civil liberties of any kind. Mr. Redpath doesn’t mention anything outside the realm of economics. He wrote a list of promises that the ultra-Right John Birch Society could sign. There is no mention of foreign policy at all.

Apparently Mr. Redpath doesn’t want to pledge the party will support a non-interventionist foreign policy. Why? He doesn’t want to discuss government interference in marriage rights. Why? There is nothing about abortion, censorship, or sexual freedom. There is nothing offered that will appeal to anyone Left of Bob Barr, nothing for the millions of civil libertarians. Redpath's pledge list is meant to appeal only to free market conservatives and no one else.

Has the (formerly) Libertarian Party given up on civil liberties and a non-interventionist foreign policy?

Mr. Redpath’s pledge list was another example of how the LP has become a Right-wing, conservative party and is no longer a libertarian one.

I can’t see him accidentally leaving off all references to civil liberties and foreign policy. This is not an oversight but appears to be a conscious decision to disassociate the LP from any policy that conservatives would find offensive. Mr. Redpath only confirms my reasons for disassociating myself from the LP. His lack of even a token reference to civil liberties speaks volumes.

Why did the weasel cross the road?

The (formerly) Libertarian Party nominated conservative Bob Barr and the promise was that Barr would do substantially better than previous LP candidates. That Barr didn’t have the ability to do better was indicated by the necessity of a series of dirty or corrupt tactics used by his campaign and his top supporters.

With so many people unhappy with the status quo it should have been a good year for the LP. Normally LP votes go up when the presidential race isn't’ close. When it is close people fear voting for a third party. So with voter dissatisfaction so high, with the race clearly favoring one candidate over the others, the LP had a golden opportunity to increase their totals.

Barr didn’t do particularly well. He has not even received 500,000 votes nation wide. LP candidate Ed Clark, who was actually a libertarian, received 921,128 votes. In 1996 LP candidate Harry Browne received 487,798 votes which is 1,761 more than Bob Barr got with his conservative campaign. While Barr’s vote total may inch up slightly as more results come in there is nothing in his campaign to applaud. He was a dismal failure.

The LP sold out principles in order to put this Republican carpetbagger on its ticket. The trade-off was supposedly going to be principles for votes. Nominate Barr, and his buffoonish vice presidential candidate, and the LP would be taken to new heights. They talked about a $30 million campaign and massive increases in votes. What they got was a campaign that didn’t live up to what the LP did 28 years ago.

The strategy of the Barristas was slightly different than what they said it was. Their goal was to punish the Republican Party for not nominating a far right nutter. They weren’t out trying to support the LP which is one reason they ignored LP activists. They were out to get the GOP in the belief that, if they were the margin of difference causing the GOP to lose, then that party would revert to Barr’s conservatism. They didn’t even manage to do that. Why did the Georgia weasel cross the road? He didn’t, he got run over before barely stepping foot on the pavement.

Note: Apparently the sell-outs who pushed Barr seem to have forgotten something. The reason the LP was founded was to promote libertarian ideas not to win votes. If vote totals are the goal then they should have nominated Obama and they could be crowing about a major victory. What made the LP the party of principle was that it put principles above vote totals. With Barr they put vote totals above principles and ended up with neither.

Hurricane Bob leaves destruction in his wake.

When conservatives took over the Libertarian Party the promised that their candidate, Bob Barr, would practically walk on water. He's sinking faster than any other candidate in recent LP history. They promised that Barr's selling out of libertarian principles would attract swarms of dissatisfied conservatives to vote LP -- as if the real goal of the LP was merely the increase of votes and NOT the increase of liberty. Apparently none of the promised benefits are materializing.

The Barristas told the LP that their candidate could raise funds. He certainly raised millions when he was showering the money on Big Government Republicans just prior to his nomination. But he is still below $1 million raised for his own campaign. This is hardly path breaking funding. Other, lesser known LP candidates, have done better.

Instead of doing the hard work of a campaign Barr engages in court room stunts. When a church held a forum with Obama and McCain it was Barr who sued them to try to force his way into a church forum -- something no real libertarian would do. No tax funds were involved so it was private and Barr's actions were inherently statist -- no surprise there. Now he is trying to push a law suit to take McCain and Obama off the Texas ballot with the silly idea that he believes, that if successful, he will win the state. He won't succeed.

But while he was playing court room games in Texas his campaign was neglecting other states and losing ballot status there. It was recently announced that the LP will not be on the ballot in Connecticut -- though party officials are now scurrying to try to appeal the ruling that they didn't have enough valid signatures for ballot status. Barr's campaign is putting the LP in fourth place when it comes to ballot access with Nader on the ballot in 49 states and Barr only managing 44 states -- the worst LP showing for some time. Even the lacklustre Michael Badnarick campaign managed ballot access in 48 states. Harry Browne managed 50 states. Andre Marrou managed 50 states, Ed Clark managed 50 states. Certainly when it comes to ballot access Barr has managed to undo decades of progress.

We were told by the Barristas that running an Right-wing Republican would attract a large number of unhappy conservatives and thus Barr would set new vote records for the Libertarian Party even if they were voting for a libertarian. And we were told that one place we would see this would be the Georgia race where Barr could actually tip the race their in Obama's favor. That was the goal, of course, the election of Barack Obama. The far Right in the GOP, which is where Barr is most comfortable, wanted to punish the Republicans for not anointing someone they approved of. Barr's goal was to punish the Republicans not build the Libertarian Party -- he doesn't give a damn about the Libertarian Party.

But even the Georgia race isn't living up to Barr's promises. Barr isn't taking enough votes away from McCain to punish him and change the race in Barr's own state. The latest Rasmussen poll shows McCain with a comfortable 11 point lead. As for Barr they say: "Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, who served in Congress as part of Georgia's Congressional delegation, receives very little support from voters in the state." That's Barr, the more you know him the less you support him. The smarmy little weasel isn't going anywhere. He has the most name recognition in Georgia and he will be lucky to actually poll 3% there. I suggest he'll get less than 2% and this will be his stellar state. It's all downhill from there and the incline will be pretty steep.

Hurricane Bob swept into the LP and it blew away a lot of infrastructure that was built up over decades. It knocked down the principled positions of the LP and it hurt many of the leading activists over the years. The conservative coup leaders talked about rebuilding the area and that "aid" would come sweeping in from the loony Right. As in the case of Katrina it didn't materialize. All that happened was a lot of destruction. I have concluded that is a good thing as the Libertarian Party is the wrong tactic for spreading liberty and ought to die. But the people who betrayed party principles to secure Barr's nomination actually think political action will work. These shinning stars ought to hang their head in shame as they have done more damage to the LP in a short few months than anyone or anything in the past.

The Barristas in the LP sold out principle. They engaged in some pretty dirty tactics. They lied, they misused offices they held, and they acted like the gutter politicians they seem to admire. They took the party to new lows and some of them continue to act this way, especially a few from California. And in the end they will have done vast damage to the party they claim to support. Perhaps they really do love the LP and love liberty. If so, then Oscar Wilde put his finger on it:

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

My first election projection.

Here is my first projection as to how I think the presidential race will turn out. Obviously there is a lot of time left and anything can happen. But, if things remain pretty much as they are, I am estimating that John McCain will handily beat Barack Obama.

The red states are those that I believe will favor McCain and the blue are those that will favor Obama. I do not believe that Florida will be a close state this time. And I doubt that Ohio will be tight either.

If we compare this year’s projection to the 2004 results here are the major changes I am seeing. The Democrats will pick up Iowa and New Mexico, with 7 and 5 electoral votes respectively. But this gain of 12 electoral votes will more than be offset by their loss of Michigan with 17 electoral votes. In the electoral college the Republicans will do better in 2008 than they did in 2004.

The bad news in this election is that either McCain or Obama will win. However, given that I don’t see the Democrats losing control of the House or the Senate. Since that is the case the least bad situation overall is a Republican president. Gridlock is the best government we can expect, keep the bastards at each other’s throat and they don’t have time to grab our throats.

In regards to the (formerly) Libertarian Party my projections are dismal. Bob Barr won’t do particularly well. His actual vote totals will be well below what his campaign had been projecting. The LP sold their soul to win votes and I doubt they’ll actually succeed in doing that. I suspect that the upside for Barr would 1.5%. I think it more likely he’ll score under 1%.

His problem is manifold. Ron Paul won’t endorse him and Barr has pretty much insulted Paul and alienated him through his antics and those of his underhanded staff members. Barr has alienated large numbers of LP activists and members with his unlibertarian positions and compromises. And his ability to raise funds has been very poor.

Just because he and Richard Viguerie could manage to squeeze a majority out of the Denver LP convention doesn’t mean he can get the LP faithful to rally to his cause. If anything his shying away from the Libertarian label in his own campaign has pretty much pushed Libertarians away. If you go to Barr’s campaign web site the main page doesn’t have the word libertarian anywhere on it.

Personally I think that is good. Barr is no libertarian so he shouldn’t call himself one. But some of the really nasty types in the LP, who yearned for power and Starrdom, tried to push the bullshit that Barr would increase name recognition for the LP. He could have -- of course the problem was that the LP brand would be associated with the petty conservatism of Bob Barr and not with libertarianism. Barr partially solved that problem by abandoning the libertarian label in his own campaign. But then most of Barr’s main campaign staff are not even remotely libertarian themselves.

In the end the Libertarian Party managed to create huge divisions by promoting a smarmy little career politician, abandoned core principles, and alienated its core supporters. All the party got in return was a smirking little candidate. Barr has all the appeal of a pit viper and is as cuddly as a cactus. What he has managed to do is get a lot of Libertarians talking about whether they will vote for McCain or Obama on purely strategic grounds.

I doubt that any of the Third Party candidates will do particularly well. I especially hope that the theocratic thugs in the Constitution Party do as badly as possible. I emphasize that anyone who says they have much in common with the Constitution Party or their leader Rev. Chuck Baldwin, is not even remotely close to being a libertarian. And I don’t care if they do come from Lake Jackson either.

PS: If you want to enlarge the electoral map above just click on it.

Tin-foil hats and the Fuhrer principle.

Here are a couple of short updates from the asylum that is the (formerly) Libertarian Party.

In Wisconsin the tin-foil hat brigade won a primary to nominate conspiracist Kevin Barret as the LP candidate for Congress. Barrett is one of these obsessive lunatics who is convinced that the US government was behind 9/11. I meet the man and he is obnoxious and agressive about his crazy theories -- but that is often the case with the lunatic fringe.

The LP also attacked Ron Paul’s idea of some sort of unified third party effort around Paul’s agenda. I would have done so as well since Paul’s position ignored many important issues for the sake of unity. And the points just happen to be Paul’s hobby-horse issues which certainly avoid social freedom issues. What was wrong with the LP rejection wasn’t the rejection but some of the reasoning behind it.

The comment that screams of latent authoritarianism is this one: “The liberty movement needs a single leader, not a nebulous consortium of strange bedfellows.” Pardon me, but when did libertarianism become the Third Reich?

Root humiliates libertarianism again.

Loudmouth conservative, Wayne Allan Root, in another bout of verbal diarrhea, has launched an attack on Barack Obama. Mr. Root once again demonstrated why he ought not be the Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate. At the same time, he again showed why Bob Barr, who wanted Root as his VP candidate, is bad for libertarianism. It should be noted that Mr. Root has not attacked Mr. Obama’s policy proposals. Instead, he has launched the typical Right-wing smear campaign -- something that libertarians have avoided, preferring to concentrate on the issues.

Of course Mr. Root is often bad on the issues himself. He is an intellectual lightweight with little understanding of libertarianism, a rabid self-promoter always looking for a way to tell everyone how fantastic he is. As for me, if I ever shook his hand (not likely) I’d count my fingers before leaving.

Let’s start out with the absurd comments Root made in an interview with Reason. Please note that motor-mouth may later deny comments previously made since his mouth is frequently in fourth gear while his brain is still in neutral. He said: “A vote for Obama is four years of Karl Marx...” Really? He also outrightly claimed: “He’s a communist! I don’t care what anybody says. the guy’s a communist... And his mother was a card-carrying communist.” Thank you Mr. McCarthy!

Next Root went into overdrive with his unthinking attack. He claimed that he was smarter than Obama and wants to bet a million dollars on it. And he thinks the only reason Obama went to Harvard Law School was because of his race. I note that conservative and libertarian law professors at Volokh Conspiracy have actually said that Obama was a good professor when he taught law.

Motor-mouth then argues that the “most dangerous thing you should know about Barack Obama is that I don’t know a single person at Columbia that knows him...” So, according to the odious Mr. Root, Obama didn’t know a single person at the university he attended. Why? Well, again Root has zero evidence but he has lots of accusations, all meant to pander to the racist Right. He says that perhaps the reason no one every heard of him was because “he was involved in some sort of black radical politics.” Does that seem contradictory to you? I mean, if Obama were involved in “black radical politics” at Columbia I would think it raised his chances that people would have heard of him. This is what I mean about his mouth running off while his brain is still in neutral. Surely a “black radical” at Columbia would be more likely to be remembered.

Root's argument is that the "most dangerous thing" about Obama is that none of Root's friends knew him at Columbia? What sort of logic is this?

Notice Root offers no evidence for his claims just wacky theories. But that doesn’t stop this sorry excuse of a candidate from making more unfounded accusations. He then offers another reason that no one heard of Obama: “Maybe he was too busy smoking pot in his dorm room to ever show up for class. I don’t know what he was doing!” The last sentence, I am sure, is accurate. Root doesn’t know what Obama was doing, which is why it is unethical for him to invent stories as if he does know. Mr. Root is not presenting libertarian ideas at all, he doesn't know them. He is trying to smear Obama with unsubstantiated claims meant to appeal to racists.

Root also tosses in this sort of racial politics claim:

I mean, when I went to Columbia, the black kids were all at like tables going "Black Power!" We used to walk by and go, "What the hell are they talking about." And they didn't associate with us and we didn't associate with them. So if you track down a couple of black students, they'll probably know him. But nobody white's ever heard of this guy. It's quite amazing. Nobody remembers him. They don't remember him sitting in class.

Ah, yes, your nobody till somebody white loves you. Perhaps the Libertarian Party is going after the Stormfront vote. Am I to understand that all the black kids at Columbia were “at like tables going ‘Black Power!’”. Root says “all of my buddies are white”. So, since Root would only hang around whites and he never saw Obama that means Obama must have been a black radical -- but as he said “the black kids were all” shouting “black power” so apparently every black on Columbia was a radical according to Mr. Root. Does this man wear his sheets under his suit daily or only on special occasions?

Certainly when I went to university I found it rather difficult to not know black students. One had to go out of their way to avoid them for that to happen. Was Mr. Root trying to avoid blacks? Maybe they didn't attend his meetings of the White Citizen's Council Youth Faction. Now, I don't know if that was the case but no one I know actually ever knew Root then. So maybe he was attending White Power meetings with David Duke?

Matt Welch, from Reason, is baffled by Root's description of Black Power movements at Columbia and asks: “Black power in ‘83?” Diarrhea mouth then spouts off more conservative nonsense: “Ha, ha. That’s Columbia. Columbia’s radical, always was. There was gay power over here, and pot power over here, and black power over there, and Hispanic power over here, and feminism.” Note he means all this as an insult. He really is pandering to the most hateful side of the conservative movement. He goes after blacks, gays, pot smokers, Hispanics and women in one paragraph.

Then Root whines that he was told, presumably as a white guy, not to apply for Harvard Law School because he can’t get in. He says this was true for the law school at Princeton as well -- except, as Reason notes, Princeton doesn’t have a law school. From this irrelevant piece of trivia Root then concludes that “he [Obama] got in based on the color of his skin.” The Vegas shyster then says: “Does anyone doubt that possibly Barack could have gotten into Harvard with a C average because he's black, where as I, white, couldn't get into the same school with a B-plus, A-minus average?" Please note that Root doesn't know if Obama had a "C average" at all, he just assumes this has to be the case because no one in his exclusively white circle knew Obama. And he appears to be implying that black students can't get good grades because they are black.

Some more race baiting follows: “I say the whole problem with America is we are racist against people because of the color of their skin. We're helping people because they're black. We're helping people because they're minority. We're helping people because they're poor. In reality only those who have the most skill and talent should get into Harvard, not because of the color of their skin.”

Root has zero evidence for any of his claims and he knows it. But the only way he can conceive that a black guy can get in to Harvard, while he, a white guy, couldn’t, is through affirmative action. Obama must have lower grades than Root but the only reason he offers for this is that Obama is black and he’s white. He whines: “I don’t know the answer but I’m pretty sure I know the answer. He had a lower average than me and he got into Harvard and I didn’t.”

Then he launches into how America did him wrong: “Has America really been unfair to minorities? No it hasn’t. It was unfair to me. A white butcher’s kid, whose father had no money, but nobody gave me a break. And do I have a chip on my shoulder? You’re damn right I do. And I represent millions and millions of poor people in this country who weren’t luck enough to be poor and black, they were unlucky enough to be poor and white, and they can’t get into Harvard.”

Wow! One is lucky to be poor and black. And America, yes, the whole country, was unfair to Root because he didn’t get into Harvard. However, from the way I read his racial rant he never actually applied for Harvard. Of course, if Harvard did admit Root I'd think far less of the university as a result. What sort of morons would admit Root into anything? Oh, right, the Libertarian Party!

Root continued with his attempt to win over the Klan vote: “Anyway my point is, for those of us in America who want to fight for talent being the determinator of who’s successful or not, I’m your representative. Obama’s the wrong representative. And for those who disagree, I say: I’m for affirmative action -- I think the NBA should be 80 percent white....” Did the NBA reject Root as well?

Is Mr. Root running for vice president or Grand Cyclops?

I’m glad I left the Libertarian Party. This was just humiliating. Unfortunately the LP has become a haven for every unhappy conservative around and Root is one of the worst of the lot.

I was glad to see that Reason readers are as disgusted with Root’s appeal to bigotry as I am. Below are some of the comments they left. Apparently the typical libertarian reader at Reason has the same conclusion about Root that I have: the man is an asshole. At least that seems to be the most frequent label they use to describe him, and it is accurate.

“Wow, Wayne Allen Root is an asshole.”

“This is the Libertarian’s VP candidate? Are you fucking serious?”

“Can they lock him up in a poker room in Vegas for the campaign?”

“Is this supposed to be funny or is Mr. Root just being an asshole?”

“That was an ugly interview. What a flaming blowhard. Asshole even.”

“God, another hyperactive loudmouth with a case of AngryWhiteGuyitis.”

“Whatever you think about affirmative action, that man was being an asshole.”

“If you keep this bullshit up, you’ll cause more harm than good to real libertarians. You guys lost me vote when you tried to sue the church, and these kinds of shenanigans will only cause you to lose more.”

“Root is the sort of candidate that gives the LP the reputation it so richly deserves.”

“OMG! You really needed this interview to come to the conclusion that WAR is an asshole? Really?”

“Root is a red-baiting, race-baiting asshole.”

“That interview was an embarrassment.”

“Was he drunk??? Way to help out the Libertarian party, ass.”

Libertarian Party embraces language nationalism.

Some bureaucrat at the Libertarian Party office has put out an email attacking Obama's vice presidential choice, Joe Biden. Of course, Biden is a politician and an advocate of big government, most the time, so there is much to criticize.

What is interesting is that apparently this LP functionary thinks that one reason to attack Biden is that he "voted against making English the official language of the United States." Since when did the LP demand that government impose an "official" language? Is this part of the rebranding of the LP so it can appeal to racists and bigots in the Minutemen? I know the party is rapidly becoming conservative, and throwing out libertarian principles as fast as they can, but this was a new one to me.

Instead of asking government to stay out of people's affairs this is asking them to come into it. There is no need to have the state involved in language at all. Here is what I find hilarious. Half the morons pushing English as the official language are barely literate in it themselves. Go to one of the Right-wing rallies of "good ol' boys" and you will hear them mangling the language in the worst way. These are the types who love words that don't exist -- like "ain't". And they don't use it for effect, they use it all the time. Or they indulge in double negatives such as: "We aint' got to let no Mexicans take our jobs."

If they actually picked up a pen, or a keyboard, their written English would even be worse. But then they don't pick up pens. And the only time they use keyboards is looking up sports results and porn. But apparently this ignorant mass of nationalistic bigots is part of the LP's new target audience. Pity liberty if the Libertarians ever gain power.

A friend has said to me: "Power corrupts. And the Libertarian Party today proves that even the mere whiff of power corrupts."

I just don't fit in the Libertarian Party anymore. See, I'm still a libertarian, though the way the movement is going, I'm not sure why I bother. And I still prefer to sleep on my sheets instead of wearing them.

Now, if English is the "official" language, does this mean we will have a government agency approving words? My take on "official" languages is that they often reflect a nation in decline. The French are particularly rabid about having French as their "official" language. Of course, once that is done then you have to police language along the way lest non-official words start to creep into the culture. The French do that. They ban English words that are adopted or prevent shops from posting signs in any language but French.

Once the language is "official" then the camel's nose pushes further into the tent. So they start making demands on policing language in order to make sure that English is protected. This is the way other countries have gone when they embraced language nationalism.

I just never thought I would see this sort of nonsense proposed by the Libertarian Party. But then the LP has surprised me quite a bit lately. I just wish they'd abolish their dishonest slogan about being "the party of principle." They are the party of second-rate and third-rate politicians who think abandoning principle will give them power. But for what purpose do they seek office? It sure as hell isn't to promote liberty anymore.

I know they protest loudly that they are still advocating freedom. But when pushed they merely compare themselves to the authoritarians they oppose. In the end they think that because they aren't as authoritarian as Obama or McCain they are doing just fine. They still talk about loving liberty all the time. But talk is cheap. And it was Oscar Wilde who warned:

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold.