Where I Stand

When Justin asked me to consider contributing to this blog, I immediately said yes and then almost as quickly said no. The topic of politics, in general, leaves me with an inherit feeling of depression, but I always jump at the chance to debate someone on them. Love Obama? Lemme bash him. Hate Obama? Lemme defend him. For me, that is simply entertaining, but to really break it down and think about politics… I can’t do it.

And why? Because it always seems to me that politics aren’t be played by men who care about me. That’s selfish. I know. But I expect that out of my politicians. This is fucking America. I want them to care. But I’m realistic enough—cynical enough?—to know that they just do not. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sarah Palin, George Bush, Ron Paul and even Bob Barr are all exactly the same. That’s my feeling. None of them care about me.

So why should I care about this Libertarian Party business that Justin keeps telling me about? Because if I can ignore the unavoidable facts above they might sound like the kind of people I could really behind? I guess the only way to know is to list what I want in a party.

1. I Want My Say

This is something the Republicrats simply do not do. How many of you have met your local representative, either in the local, state or federal arms of the big government tree? I bet very few of you. There are enough politicians in this country—or at least enough bureaucrats—that every single person’s every single complaint should be heard. However, as we all know, a single citizen—in a republic—cannot walk into a legislative body and propose an idea. That seems... un-republicish. I’ll be honest, I know this idea is wide-reaching and probably a bit unpractical, but if we’re going to call ourselves Free, these sorts of things not only ought to be readily available, they should be made well-known and heavily advertised. “Got an idea? Come to your City Council Meeting Tonight!”

However, that is not gonna happen, we all know that. Opening up discussions in Congress—which, hell, they don’t even get asked for THEIR opinions anymore—would dramatically reduce control of the Big and Rich. So, it won’t be. That simple. And, yes, I know it would slow down the democratic process if every idea and complaint was heard. But you know what? I don’t give a shnit.

Now, I am unaware of how the Libbys feel about this. I really don’t know how the Libertarians feel about anything. But, if they claim to be the party for Liberty, then can you ignore this? I do not think so.

I think that enough people have simply disengaged from the political process in this country, and that has allowed the vultures to sweep in and take up large quantities of land (freedom). But that’s another point for another post.

2. No Party Of Mine Will Reek Of Socialist

Oh, don’t you act all innocent, Mr. Elephant. Go stand by your cousin, Mr. Jackass Donkey. Both of you have enough Hammer and Sickle in you to drown me. The wave built up and up and up... and it’s crashing down, down, down. Literally the entire rest of the world is socialist, not in name, but absolutely in execution. They call it any number of catchy things: ‘Universal Health Care’ is the current one. Canada has it; you want a check up? Go ahead, call now, we’ll see you in June. England’s all Uni; tore up your knee? Call now, we’ll knife you in April. Isn’t that pleasant? Just wonderful, right?

It’s absolutely horrible if you are a regular guy like me, without all the benefits of large-scale back stabbing and ridiculous amounts of money. It’s amazing, I’ve always been taught that greed is a bad thing and will only lead to bad things... but it sure seems like greed is doing a hell of a good job for those that bathe in it.

Anyway, back to the socialist thing. Our President-Elect, Barack Obama, is a no-doubt socialist, as we know, and you’ll notice that even though a lot of people cringe when they hear the words Socialist or Communist or Marxist... they voted one into office overwhelmingly. There you go.

The Dems don’t even try and deny it anymore. They’re proud, and I guess they have a right to be. Right now, they shit is working. It may not forever, but it is right now.

The GOP is who I have the problem with. I’ll ignore the God-awful campaign you ran for John McCain. I’ll ignore the apparent lack of knowledge your VP candidate had. But the fact is, a GOP President, in office, right now, is doing more Socialist things with his power than any man since Stalin.

If Justin is right, and the GOP is dying and about to be buried... then good riddance.

3. The Monroe Doctrine Works

I totally agree with Rep. Ron Paul on this. The Founding Fathers realized that the rest of the world was full of crooks and evildoers—much like now—and decided that for as long as they could, the US would stay out of foreign affairs.

Anyone care to guess how many countries in the world currently station US troops? Well, we’ve got Germany, Bosnia, Japan, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan... that’s six, and we’re scraping the surface. Ever since Woody Wilson and FDR, we’ve started putting our hands down other countries’ blouses... and look were it got us. I’m behind the belief that something like 9/11 was less likely to happen if we weren’t constantly screwing with other people. The CIA has always and will always do much more harm than good.

But, Obama has already said he’ll meet with foreign leaders without any prerequisites. Killed six million people? Can’t wait to meet you!


4. The Handling Of The Financial Crisis

This one is simple. Leave it the fuck alone.

AD Adkins can be reached at brkville42ny@aol.com.

A Vote for McCain Was More Wasted Than a Vote for Barr

More from this crucial article that highlights the internal problems Libertarians face before we can get down to political business. This one's a real nugget that I want to delve into:

(For their part, Barr campaign workers blame Obama, or at least McCain's ability to frighten right-leaning voters of him so much that even if they liked Barr better, they felt they had to tactically vote GOP.)

I know numerous people right here in Pennsylvania who (claim they) would have voted for Barr except they felt like they had to vote Nobama (i.e., McCain). That's fundamentally broken, for several reasons.

1. The point right now, at least in a presidential election, isn't to win; it's to create and consolidate momentum. You claim you're 'wasting your vote' on Bob Barr, but what do you call it when you vote for a candidate you don't even support, just to stop an even less desirable candidate from achieving power? If everyone that claims they liked Barr better than McCain had voted for him, Obama would have won the election in a major landslide... and Bob Barr might have polled upwards of ten, twelve percent of the country at large. Obama would have become president, and the Libertarian Party would have become a national sensation, positioning itself very well for the future. People must be made to see this.

2. There is effectively no difference between Barack Obama and John McCain. They both will attack every conceivable problem in exactly the same way all Republicrats have for 100 years: By making the government bigger. By taking away, inch by excruciating inch, more and more personal freedoms (and more and more personal money). The only difference between Democrats and Republicans at this stage in the game is where they spend the money they forcibly rob the people of: Democrats like to waste it on social bureaucracies, and Republicans like to waste it on military/intelligence bureaucracies.

The Libertarian Party as a whole--Barrites and non-Barrites--massively failed to pound this into the national consciousness. What's more, I can't see that we really even tried.

3. John McCain was, from day one, doomed. He never had a single solitary droplet of a chance. The Republicrat media did a wonderful job of pretending, and tricking the populace, into believing the election was in doubt, when in fact it never was, not for a moment. There were a handful of individual states where one could justify voting for McCain as an anti-Obama measure--Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina--but mostly what we had was Libertarians or Libertarian sympathizers in places like Pennsylvania, where Obama won by 12 points and it was obvious for months he was going to win by 12 points, voting for McCain because they were afraid of Obama. It makes no sense. Voting for McCain was wasting your vote every bit as much as voting for Barr, in most states.

By the way, consider: Why do both major parties benefit from everyone believing the election is close? Because if people know the election isn't close, many more of them are going to be inclined to vote for third parties. If every non-hardboiled Democrat in the country knew Obama was going to win in a landslide no matter what they did (which was true and was always true), more than five percent of them would have voted for Bob Barr.

You see, one of the primary reasons the media spent months lying to us about the closeness of the election was specifically to keep the Libertarian Party down.

I'm going to write more on this later, but the Republican party is in deep trouble. I mean, deep trouble, trouble that's going to threaten its existence in the years to come. And we need to be the hyenas circling around and waiting for the right chance to jump in and kill it. A lot of us aren't comfortable with that, but the Republican party is where it is today because its leadership has betrayed its voting masses, stabbed them in the back. And we're the ones that need to be telling them about it. I don't feel bad about killing the Republican party, and you shouldn't either. The country is looking for a reminder of what 'conservative' means--IT MEANS SMALL GOVERNMENT, STUPID!--and if we don't show them, no one will. Ever.

I'll stop there since this is turning into something of a manifesto, and continue fisking this important article in the near future. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!