Sunday, June 13, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Libertarians aren't racists or rubes. Explore the deeper issues of liberty and freedom in a world stumbling toward tyranny.
We're still getting calls and emails about this offer; it's still available. And you may be hearing more about these books in the coming months: author James Walsh will be promoting them at the American Library Association convention in Washington D.C. later this month and at FreedomFest in Las Vegas next month.
America's federal government and public institutions have come unmoored from their traditional, limited roles in citizens’ lives. The time has come to put them back. The people inside the institutions know this…and they’re scared. That’s why they’re calling Rand Paul a racist. Here are two books that give you tools to fight back against such slanders:
Click here to get LIBERTARIAN NATION and LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES directly from the publisher for less than $10. That’s more than 70% off of the retail price…and the best offer available anywhere.
Statists and Big Government liberals are good at framing media coverage. That’s what they’re doing right now to Rand Paul. These books give you arguments that shatter those frames. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter on race in LIBERTARIAN NATION:
Race doesn’t exist. The pigment of your skin and acidity of your hair don’t have much to do with your personal identity. And they don’t make you similar to or different than anyone else. Race is a social construct. And an old one. The idea that people can be categorized into supposedly objective—or, more recently, “scientific”—groups has been around for as long as human civilization. It’s always been subject manipulation, usually by the state. And its categories are always shifting, usually according to the political needs of the people running the state.
When the ancient Greeks spoke of the various “races” of man, they had in mind distinctions that would be invisible to modern eyes. Socrates seemed to consider Cretans a different and lesser race than mainland Greeks. (This launched 3,000 years of jokey connotation of the term “cretin.”) Some archaeologists may argue slavishly that there were racial differences between those populations; but their arguments split thin hairs. The Cretans and mainland Greeks were substantially alike. So, why the intense distinction? The archons of Athens stood to gain by convincing their citizens that they were substantively—racially—different than other people around them.
Contemporary notions of race are more ... contemporary ... than most people (even some Nobel Prize-winning biologists) realize. Skin color wasn’t the controlling characteristic of race until the end of the 16th Century; and then it had something to do with slavery and something to do with the birth of colonialism. The states that stood to profit from the import of cheap materials and slave labor began a 500-year campaign to convince the world that Africans with dark brown skin were a different class of humans than Europeans with lighter brown or pink skin. They defined “race” to suit their needs. And their campaign took hold.
Americans—regardless of their political beliefs—sense there’s something crooked with their government and elected leaders. (They sense there’s something crooked with Big Business, too…but they’re accustomed to that. The troubling news is that Big Government seems to be enmeshed with Big Business.) This distrust results from one basic fact ignored by most media: There’s been a paradigm shift in American politics. And it's not the shift most people expected. The conventional Left-versus-Right axis has been replaced by a new one: statism-versus-liberty.
LIBERTARIAN NATION and LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES are guides to seeing the new paradigm clearly:
The current political debate that you see on TV and online is not a real exchange of ideas. It’s bread and circuses. They say generals are always fighting the last war—well, the same is true for TV news producers and newspaper editors. This nation has spent and borrowed its way to a crisis point. We’re losing our position as a world leader. And we need to get back to the philosophical roots on which the nation was founded. This won’t be good for smirking neocons or self-righteous liberals. They’re both yesterday’s partisans. But it is good news for ordinary citizens, who sense instinctively that times are bad. And who stand to profit from a return to an ethic of individual liberty.
Author James Walsh explains that GM’s recent, misleading ads about “paying back” government debt aren’t some shocking departure. The big automaker stumbled into its current circumstances after decades of dissembling. Specifically: GM has been “spinning” unsustainable compensation and benefits plans for its workers and retirees since the early 1970s. In this fatal approach, its management seems to have anticipated government bail-out of its labor costs. And five White House administrations signaled that the Feds would step in at some point, if necessary. This statist signaling creates moral hazard. And moral hazard had borne rotten fruit in the transfer of the costs of GM’s benefits programs to the U.S. taxpayer.
Everyone has an interest in a generally-reliable level of public health. …To put this in simple terms, every citizen needs to be reasonably sure that he can bring his goods or services to the marketplace without dying of typhus or contracting some other communicable disease. He needs to be reasonably sure that water is safe to drink, that air is safe to breathe. …These externalities are public, shared goods. They are too big and broad for a single person or firm to provide. They are a rightful responsibility of a limited state. ...But the state’s role doesn’t extend to providing each individual citizen specific medical procedures or therapies. It has no place determining whether Uncle Earl can have a triple-bypass surgery. …If the state claims charge of triple-bypasses and other procedures, it will end up rationing them. That’s all it knows how to do. …If you doubt this, just watch the British Prime Minister’s question hour each week on C-SPAN. Most of the complaints raised by MPs involve waiting lines, rationed services and too-few hospital beds provided by Britain’s National Health Service.
LIBERTARIAN NATION discusses how American academia embraced post-modernism as its core value system after the fall of Soviet communism delegitimized Marxism in the late 1980s. Post-modernism shares many traits and values with Marxism—and adds a few values that American will recognize. Chief among these: An emphasis on “tribalism” and identity politics. Back to race again. And quotas—along with the bureaucracies necessary to administer them.
On the matter of “illegal” immigration, LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES makes a clear point: people are human capital and a net immigration of people into a particular jurisdiction should be seen as a validation of that jurisdiction’s validity. “The problem isn’t that people want to come here to work. It’s that we’ve built a system of social welfare that makes residing here a net expense. This clouds the value of human capital,” writes Walsh. “If we reduce the social welfare system, it will be plain that having more workers in our economy is a positive thing.”
The latest Gulf oil spill is a problem—and one that should be addressed with greater emphasis on burning and skimming technology for when spills occur. But this point, too, is clouded by confused political debate. On this count, LIBERTARIAN NATION helps reasonable people make rational sense of “climate change” and the “Green movement.” In the book, Walsh writes:
The kerfuffle over so-called “carbon footprints” is based more on emotion than logic. The truth is that higher levels of carbon emissions, by themselves, don’t mean much….Some reputable climate scientists believe that the higher levels of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere may be caused by increases in solar radiation, a cyclical phenomenon that reaches back, deep into geologic history. …Other scientists point out that the geological record shows that some historical increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide were preceded by temperature increases and, therefore, could not have been the cause of those temperature increases. …These “alternative” theories and observations suffer from several political disadvantages to statist environmentalism. For one thing, their authors tend to be actual scientists bound by scientific method.
According to Walsh, the legitimate externality of having breathable air doesn’t require transfer payments from rich countries to poor ones. It doesn’t require bizarre family-planning schemes. And it doesn’t require pronouncements from people who think plants and lower animals should be accorded the same societal value as human beings. It simply requires mechanisms for measuring the costs of environmental impacts and funding those costs as efficiently as possible. The book recognizes the “Green” movement for what it is: a marketing ploy embraced and embroidered by statist politicians and their corporate cronies:
A reasonably clean environment is a legitimate externality; radical environmentalism and the demand for a return to pristine nature are politically-biased frauds. If you want to live in a pristine paradise, earn enough money to buy enough land in a distant enough place to live as you please. You shouldn’t rely on cheap melodrama to make yourself feel superior to others—or to coerce money from naive dupes.
This confusion goes beyond just matters of the environment. It’s endemic in a legal system so full of overlapping laws that even professionals can’t keep them straight. And so, Rep Henry Waxman beclowns himself by criticizing companies for following one law (that he supported) by reporting the real costs of another law (that he supported…and the costs of which he would prefer to obscure).
According to Walsh, these laws share a common—and troubling—trait: “you can draw a straight line from the Clean Water Act to the USA Patriot Act to the Wall Street and auto bailouts of the past two years. The theme is: government dictating how people should shape their environment. This is a perversion of America’s founding principles.”
LIBERTARIAN NATION has been reviewed and excerpted in various media outlets during its first weeks of publication. The most significant of these has been the mention given the book by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com. LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES remains a category bestseller on several ebook platforms. Both books are available in most book stores and major online retailers. James Walsh has appeared in documentaries about Big Government and white-collar crime on The History Channel and the BBC; he has been interviewed by The New York Times, Bloomberg and CNN.
Click here to get LIBERTARIAN NATION and LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES directly from the publisher for less than $10. That’s more than 70% off of the retail price…and the best offer available anywhere.
Libertarian Nation
The Call for a New Agenda
ISBN: 978-1-56343-886-8
Hard Back (6" x 9")
288 pages
$19.95 retail
Liberty in Troubled Times
A Guide to Laws, Society, Freedom and Rights in a Terrorized World
ISBN: 1-56343-778-3
Trade Paperback (6"x9")
$17.95 retail
© 2010 Silver Lake Publishing. 111 East Wishkah Street, Aberdeen, WA 98520. www.silverlakepub.com.
America's federal government and public institutions have come unmoored from their traditional, limited roles in citizens’ lives. The time has come to put them back. The people inside the institutions know this…and they’re scared. That’s why they’re calling Rand Paul a racist. Here are two books that give you tools to fight back against such slanders:
Click here to get LIBERTARIAN NATION and LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES directly from the publisher for less than $10. That’s more than 70% off of the retail price…and the best offer available anywhere.
Statists and Big Government liberals are good at framing media coverage. That’s what they’re doing right now to Rand Paul. These books give you arguments that shatter those frames. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter on race in LIBERTARIAN NATION:
Race doesn’t exist. The pigment of your skin and acidity of your hair don’t have much to do with your personal identity. And they don’t make you similar to or different than anyone else. Race is a social construct. And an old one. The idea that people can be categorized into supposedly objective—or, more recently, “scientific”—groups has been around for as long as human civilization. It’s always been subject manipulation, usually by the state. And its categories are always shifting, usually according to the political needs of the people running the state.
When the ancient Greeks spoke of the various “races” of man, they had in mind distinctions that would be invisible to modern eyes. Socrates seemed to consider Cretans a different and lesser race than mainland Greeks. (This launched 3,000 years of jokey connotation of the term “cretin.”) Some archaeologists may argue slavishly that there were racial differences between those populations; but their arguments split thin hairs. The Cretans and mainland Greeks were substantially alike. So, why the intense distinction? The archons of Athens stood to gain by convincing their citizens that they were substantively—racially—different than other people around them.
Contemporary notions of race are more ... contemporary ... than most people (even some Nobel Prize-winning biologists) realize. Skin color wasn’t the controlling characteristic of race until the end of the 16th Century; and then it had something to do with slavery and something to do with the birth of colonialism. The states that stood to profit from the import of cheap materials and slave labor began a 500-year campaign to convince the world that Africans with dark brown skin were a different class of humans than Europeans with lighter brown or pink skin. They defined “race” to suit their needs. And their campaign took hold.
Americans—regardless of their political beliefs—sense there’s something crooked with their government and elected leaders. (They sense there’s something crooked with Big Business, too…but they’re accustomed to that. The troubling news is that Big Government seems to be enmeshed with Big Business.) This distrust results from one basic fact ignored by most media: There’s been a paradigm shift in American politics. And it's not the shift most people expected. The conventional Left-versus-Right axis has been replaced by a new one: statism-versus-liberty.
LIBERTARIAN NATION and LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES are guides to seeing the new paradigm clearly:
The current political debate that you see on TV and online is not a real exchange of ideas. It’s bread and circuses. They say generals are always fighting the last war—well, the same is true for TV news producers and newspaper editors. This nation has spent and borrowed its way to a crisis point. We’re losing our position as a world leader. And we need to get back to the philosophical roots on which the nation was founded. This won’t be good for smirking neocons or self-righteous liberals. They’re both yesterday’s partisans. But it is good news for ordinary citizens, who sense instinctively that times are bad. And who stand to profit from a return to an ethic of individual liberty.
Author James Walsh explains that GM’s recent, misleading ads about “paying back” government debt aren’t some shocking departure. The big automaker stumbled into its current circumstances after decades of dissembling. Specifically: GM has been “spinning” unsustainable compensation and benefits plans for its workers and retirees since the early 1970s. In this fatal approach, its management seems to have anticipated government bail-out of its labor costs. And five White House administrations signaled that the Feds would step in at some point, if necessary. This statist signaling creates moral hazard. And moral hazard had borne rotten fruit in the transfer of the costs of GM’s benefits programs to the U.S. taxpayer.
Everyone has an interest in a generally-reliable level of public health. …To put this in simple terms, every citizen needs to be reasonably sure that he can bring his goods or services to the marketplace without dying of typhus or contracting some other communicable disease. He needs to be reasonably sure that water is safe to drink, that air is safe to breathe. …These externalities are public, shared goods. They are too big and broad for a single person or firm to provide. They are a rightful responsibility of a limited state. ...But the state’s role doesn’t extend to providing each individual citizen specific medical procedures or therapies. It has no place determining whether Uncle Earl can have a triple-bypass surgery. …If the state claims charge of triple-bypasses and other procedures, it will end up rationing them. That’s all it knows how to do. …If you doubt this, just watch the British Prime Minister’s question hour each week on C-SPAN. Most of the complaints raised by MPs involve waiting lines, rationed services and too-few hospital beds provided by Britain’s National Health Service.
LIBERTARIAN NATION discusses how American academia embraced post-modernism as its core value system after the fall of Soviet communism delegitimized Marxism in the late 1980s. Post-modernism shares many traits and values with Marxism—and adds a few values that American will recognize. Chief among these: An emphasis on “tribalism” and identity politics. Back to race again. And quotas—along with the bureaucracies necessary to administer them.
On the matter of “illegal” immigration, LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES makes a clear point: people are human capital and a net immigration of people into a particular jurisdiction should be seen as a validation of that jurisdiction’s validity. “The problem isn’t that people want to come here to work. It’s that we’ve built a system of social welfare that makes residing here a net expense. This clouds the value of human capital,” writes Walsh. “If we reduce the social welfare system, it will be plain that having more workers in our economy is a positive thing.”
The latest Gulf oil spill is a problem—and one that should be addressed with greater emphasis on burning and skimming technology for when spills occur. But this point, too, is clouded by confused political debate. On this count, LIBERTARIAN NATION helps reasonable people make rational sense of “climate change” and the “Green movement.” In the book, Walsh writes:
The kerfuffle over so-called “carbon footprints” is based more on emotion than logic. The truth is that higher levels of carbon emissions, by themselves, don’t mean much….Some reputable climate scientists believe that the higher levels of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere may be caused by increases in solar radiation, a cyclical phenomenon that reaches back, deep into geologic history. …Other scientists point out that the geological record shows that some historical increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide were preceded by temperature increases and, therefore, could not have been the cause of those temperature increases. …These “alternative” theories and observations suffer from several political disadvantages to statist environmentalism. For one thing, their authors tend to be actual scientists bound by scientific method.
According to Walsh, the legitimate externality of having breathable air doesn’t require transfer payments from rich countries to poor ones. It doesn’t require bizarre family-planning schemes. And it doesn’t require pronouncements from people who think plants and lower animals should be accorded the same societal value as human beings. It simply requires mechanisms for measuring the costs of environmental impacts and funding those costs as efficiently as possible. The book recognizes the “Green” movement for what it is: a marketing ploy embraced and embroidered by statist politicians and their corporate cronies:
A reasonably clean environment is a legitimate externality; radical environmentalism and the demand for a return to pristine nature are politically-biased frauds. If you want to live in a pristine paradise, earn enough money to buy enough land in a distant enough place to live as you please. You shouldn’t rely on cheap melodrama to make yourself feel superior to others—or to coerce money from naive dupes.
This confusion goes beyond just matters of the environment. It’s endemic in a legal system so full of overlapping laws that even professionals can’t keep them straight. And so, Rep Henry Waxman beclowns himself by criticizing companies for following one law (that he supported) by reporting the real costs of another law (that he supported…and the costs of which he would prefer to obscure).
According to Walsh, these laws share a common—and troubling—trait: “you can draw a straight line from the Clean Water Act to the USA Patriot Act to the Wall Street and auto bailouts of the past two years. The theme is: government dictating how people should shape their environment. This is a perversion of America’s founding principles.”
LIBERTARIAN NATION has been reviewed and excerpted in various media outlets during its first weeks of publication. The most significant of these has been the mention given the book by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com. LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES remains a category bestseller on several ebook platforms. Both books are available in most book stores and major online retailers. James Walsh has appeared in documentaries about Big Government and white-collar crime on The History Channel and the BBC; he has been interviewed by The New York Times, Bloomberg and CNN.
Click here to get LIBERTARIAN NATION and LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES directly from the publisher for less than $10. That’s more than 70% off of the retail price…and the best offer available anywhere.
Libertarian Nation
The Call for a New Agenda
ISBN: 978-1-56343-886-8
Hard Back (6" x 9")
288 pages
$19.95 retail
Liberty in Troubled Times
A Guide to Laws, Society, Freedom and Rights in a Terrorized World
ISBN: 1-56343-778-3
Trade Paperback (6"x9")
$17.95 retail
© 2010 Silver Lake Publishing. 111 East Wishkah Street, Aberdeen, WA 98520. www.silverlakepub.com.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Official: Mike Calpino is a Candidate for Wicomico County Council
Libertarian Mike Calpino filed today for Wicomico County Council's District 2 seat and will face incumbent Republican Stevie Prettyman. So far no other Democrats or Republicans have filed to run in District 2.
Mr. Calpino is looking forward sharing his vision and bringing his message of open and responsible government to the voters of District 2. He supports preserving the Revenue Cap and is calling for our school board to be elected.
Over the next few months the voters of District 2 will have the opportunity to get to know Mike Calpino and for what he stands.
Mr. Calpino is looking forward sharing his vision and bringing his message of open and responsible government to the voters of District 2. He supports preserving the Revenue Cap and is calling for our school board to be elected.
Over the next few months the voters of District 2 will have the opportunity to get to know Mike Calpino and for what he stands.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
An Open Letter to Salisbury Mayor Jim Ireton
Mayor Ireton,
I would advise you to remove the "Slum Property of the Week" from the City website. In my opinion as a resident and taxpayer of this city, I find it divisive, divergent, and embarrassing.
If we set out to attack and call business people names, it immediately creates a division between the city and the people who do business in his city. I would advise you to take a more moderate approach and open your door to business owners, including members of SAPOA. Listen, listen, listen. Working with business owners to face the many issues that face our city is one way to take a big step forward.
This division that has been created has only widened the gap between the "two sides" in this town. It has created a divergence in this city and it is affecting nearly every major issue, specifically crime. Pointing out the number of calls for service to a specific address is often times irrelevant and can draw attention to a citizen who is reporting criminal activity, placing them in danger. We want to encourage people to report criminal activity, not deter them from providing the police assistance and information. Discouraging people from reporting crime will only embolden criminals and increase criminal activity.
With the divisiveness and diverging the focus from the root causes of crime, it continually causes us embarrassment as a city. Salisbury is struggling to shake the reputation that has unfortunately plagued us for years. We need to all work together to find sensible solutions, be inclusive and not disrespectful.
This is the reputation we want to build here in our city. This is what the residents of our city expect from our elected officials and government.
Muir W. Boda
Executive Board Member
Communications Director
Maryland Libertarian Party
Standing On Principle
by Mike Calpino
On of the things that irritates people about the political process is that so few of the men or women who are part of it are principled, and even fewer are willing to consistently stand on their principles. First, allow me to define a principle. Webster’s defines it as a “fundamental truth or law, a moral rule.” I will also quote Ayn Rand’s definition, because I find it highly instructive.
“A principle is “a fundamental, primary, or general truth, on which other truths depend.” Thus a principle is an abstraction which subsumes a great number of concretes. It is only by means of principles that one can set one’s long-range goals and evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. It is only principles that enable a man to plan his future and achieve it.” (Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, p143.)
It is the lack of principles that have led, politically, fiscally and morally, to the situation in which we find ourselves. We have politicians we assume are corrupt and self-serving, debt we cannot repay, citizens who are content to be slaves whining for their basic bread from the hand of the state. Our political discourse consists of petty arguments over how to properly allocate billions or trillions of dollars to special interest groups in order for the politicians to secure their power and re-election. The only principle involved is that of power, gaining it and expanding it. The fiscal and moral health of the country, any consistency of program or policy, is all sacrificed on the altar of power. Power over the individual, the collective, over you and I. The power to determine every decision, the power to mold and shape minds, the power to control everything in society, for their own egomania. They happily sacrifice the freedom and rights of the individual on the altar of “the public good” or the “greater good” or “social justice.” The merrily go about confiscating the wealth of those who produce it for their own aggrandizement and the perpetuation of the perverse system that supports them. They speak the language of “compromise,” “fairness,” and “bi-partisanship,” but they are all lies to hide their true motives and the consistent advancement of their cause at the expense of our liberty.
There can be no compromise with evil. Strong word, you say? Any man or system that proposes to reduce or eliminate my God-given rights to life, liberty and property is evil. Any man who believes it is in his power to grant or abrogate natural rights is evil. Any system that believes it has first rights to the labor of our bodies and minds, that thinks it owns our production and our property, that it has the right to dictate every decision and action, that our liberty is inconsequential to their desire for control is evil. I state that unapologetically. Therefore the struggle of liberty and tyranny, freedom and state control is one of good and evil, the free state of man as God intended versus man as a slave of the state. To “give up essential liberty...for a little temporary security,” as Franklin said, is a false choice for a free people. To give up a natural right, or any portion thereof, reduces our humanity. Any compromise of our freedom is only a green light to the statists to take more.
In “the Anatomy of a Compromise”, Ayn Rand lists three rules about the application of principles.
1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.
2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.
3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden and evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.
Let us briefly look at each one of these in turn. In the first, the men involved purport to hold the same principles. However, if they disagree, one of them is inconsistent. For example, if two politicians hold the principle that job creation is important yet one supports government policies that have historically been demonstrated to drag the economy down, he betrays his true motivations and priorities. One of the reasons the Democrat party has been successful in moving the country ever closer to statism is because while both major parties believe in wielding the power of government, the Democrat party has been more consistent in its advancement and application while the Republicans have attempted to give lip service to limited government, while their actions demonstrate their inconsistency. The problem we have in America is that both the political powers hold the same principles-those that support government expansion-and the only way to reverse our progress toward totalitarianism is to change the principles upon which our politicians govern and the principles by which we the citizens expect our politicians to govern.
The second one states that in any collaboration between two different principles, the evil one wins. This is simply articulated by this quote from Atlas Shrugged. “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” The Bible says the same thing, “A little leaven works its way through the whole batch of dough.” Any compromise which betrays a basic principle, any policy that infringes on basic rights, no matter what the supposed “emergency” or “crisis”, is a victory for statism. We cannot save freedom by abandoning freedom. A little poison or a lot of it will still bring about the same result.
Finally, as we enter the debates in what could be the most important election in America’s history, an election that will put people in office who will be in a position to guide us through the most difficult times since our inception as a nation, who may determine the very survival of our nation and our way of life, we need to clearly define the issues. Platitudes, bumper stickers, sound bites and flashy smiles are not going to lead to the restoration of our liberty and the stability of our country. The statists will win if their true motives and the principles by which they govern remain hidden or they are allowed to evade answers to the crucial questions. Only the irrational would willingly vote for someone who said that their goal was to control every aspect of our lives, to confiscate all our wealth, that they believed the state owns our property and our very bodies, that it was only their desire for control that led them into politics in the first place. Yet those who support the status quo of our current government operation govern according to those principles. We need people to run for office who have the courage and the ability to articulate and apply the principles of liberty at all levels of our government. People who will consistently and unapologetically make the argument for the founder’s vision of America, a vision of limited government, individual freedom, God-given rights and laissez-faire economic policy that made us the “shining city on a hill” for so much of our history.
“The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.” Ayn Rand
Or, put another way, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Mike Calpino
Candidate for Wicomico County Council
On of the things that irritates people about the political process is that so few of the men or women who are part of it are principled, and even fewer are willing to consistently stand on their principles. First, allow me to define a principle. Webster’s defines it as a “fundamental truth or law, a moral rule.” I will also quote Ayn Rand’s definition, because I find it highly instructive.
“A principle is “a fundamental, primary, or general truth, on which other truths depend.” Thus a principle is an abstraction which subsumes a great number of concretes. It is only by means of principles that one can set one’s long-range goals and evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. It is only principles that enable a man to plan his future and achieve it.” (Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, p143.)
It is the lack of principles that have led, politically, fiscally and morally, to the situation in which we find ourselves. We have politicians we assume are corrupt and self-serving, debt we cannot repay, citizens who are content to be slaves whining for their basic bread from the hand of the state. Our political discourse consists of petty arguments over how to properly allocate billions or trillions of dollars to special interest groups in order for the politicians to secure their power and re-election. The only principle involved is that of power, gaining it and expanding it. The fiscal and moral health of the country, any consistency of program or policy, is all sacrificed on the altar of power. Power over the individual, the collective, over you and I. The power to determine every decision, the power to mold and shape minds, the power to control everything in society, for their own egomania. They happily sacrifice the freedom and rights of the individual on the altar of “the public good” or the “greater good” or “social justice.” The merrily go about confiscating the wealth of those who produce it for their own aggrandizement and the perpetuation of the perverse system that supports them. They speak the language of “compromise,” “fairness,” and “bi-partisanship,” but they are all lies to hide their true motives and the consistent advancement of their cause at the expense of our liberty.
There can be no compromise with evil. Strong word, you say? Any man or system that proposes to reduce or eliminate my God-given rights to life, liberty and property is evil. Any man who believes it is in his power to grant or abrogate natural rights is evil. Any system that believes it has first rights to the labor of our bodies and minds, that thinks it owns our production and our property, that it has the right to dictate every decision and action, that our liberty is inconsequential to their desire for control is evil. I state that unapologetically. Therefore the struggle of liberty and tyranny, freedom and state control is one of good and evil, the free state of man as God intended versus man as a slave of the state. To “give up essential liberty...for a little temporary security,” as Franklin said, is a false choice for a free people. To give up a natural right, or any portion thereof, reduces our humanity. Any compromise of our freedom is only a green light to the statists to take more.
In “the Anatomy of a Compromise”, Ayn Rand lists three rules about the application of principles.
1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.
2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.
3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden and evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.
Let us briefly look at each one of these in turn. In the first, the men involved purport to hold the same principles. However, if they disagree, one of them is inconsistent. For example, if two politicians hold the principle that job creation is important yet one supports government policies that have historically been demonstrated to drag the economy down, he betrays his true motivations and priorities. One of the reasons the Democrat party has been successful in moving the country ever closer to statism is because while both major parties believe in wielding the power of government, the Democrat party has been more consistent in its advancement and application while the Republicans have attempted to give lip service to limited government, while their actions demonstrate their inconsistency. The problem we have in America is that both the political powers hold the same principles-those that support government expansion-and the only way to reverse our progress toward totalitarianism is to change the principles upon which our politicians govern and the principles by which we the citizens expect our politicians to govern.
The second one states that in any collaboration between two different principles, the evil one wins. This is simply articulated by this quote from Atlas Shrugged. “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” The Bible says the same thing, “A little leaven works its way through the whole batch of dough.” Any compromise which betrays a basic principle, any policy that infringes on basic rights, no matter what the supposed “emergency” or “crisis”, is a victory for statism. We cannot save freedom by abandoning freedom. A little poison or a lot of it will still bring about the same result.
Finally, as we enter the debates in what could be the most important election in America’s history, an election that will put people in office who will be in a position to guide us through the most difficult times since our inception as a nation, who may determine the very survival of our nation and our way of life, we need to clearly define the issues. Platitudes, bumper stickers, sound bites and flashy smiles are not going to lead to the restoration of our liberty and the stability of our country. The statists will win if their true motives and the principles by which they govern remain hidden or they are allowed to evade answers to the crucial questions. Only the irrational would willingly vote for someone who said that their goal was to control every aspect of our lives, to confiscate all our wealth, that they believed the state owns our property and our very bodies, that it was only their desire for control that led them into politics in the first place. Yet those who support the status quo of our current government operation govern according to those principles. We need people to run for office who have the courage and the ability to articulate and apply the principles of liberty at all levels of our government. People who will consistently and unapologetically make the argument for the founder’s vision of America, a vision of limited government, individual freedom, God-given rights and laissez-faire economic policy that made us the “shining city on a hill” for so much of our history.
“The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.” Ayn Rand
Or, put another way, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Mike Calpino
Candidate for Wicomico County Council
Friday, May 28, 2010
Census workers can enter your apartment in your absence
6:00 am May 26, 2010, by Bob Barr
Thousands of census workers, including many temporary employees, are fanning out across America to gather information on the citizenry. This is a process that takes place not only every decade in order to complete the constitutionally-mandated census; but also as part of the continuing “American Community Survey” conducted by the Census Bureau on a regular basis year in and year out.
What many Americans don’t realize, is that census workers — from the head of the Bureau and the Secretary of Commerce (its parent agency) down to the lowliest and newest Census employee — are empowered under federal law to actually demand access to any apartment or any other type of home or room that is rented out, in order to count persons in the abode and for “the collection of statistics.” If the landlord of such apartment or other leased premises refuses to grant the government worker access to your living quarters, whether you are present or not, the landlord can be fined $500.00.
That’s right — not only can citizens be fined if they fail to answer the increasingly intrusive questions asked of them by the federal government under the guise of simply counting the number of people in the country; but a landlord must give them access to your apartment whether you’re there or not, in order to gather whatever “statistics” the law permits.
In fact, some census workers apparently are going even further and demanding — and receiving — private cell phone numbers from landlords in order to call tenants and obtain information from them. Isn’t it great to live in a “free” country?
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Susan Gaztanaga On The Mark Steiner Show
Maryland LP candidate for Governor Susan Gaztanaga appeared on the Mark Steiner show on WEAA-FM, 88.9. Below is the link to the audio from that segment.
http://www.steinershow.org/files/steinershow_052510_seg2.mp3
http://www.steinershow.org/files/steinershow_052510_seg2.mp3
Lorenzo Gaztañaga Answers the Questions Part 4
One of the toughest decisions Congress must make is whether or not to authorize the President to go to war. The two current military operations, Iraq and Afghanistan, are obviously two different situations. Would you have authorized the President on either of those situations? And why or why not?
I would never have authorized the war in Iraq under any circumstances. All the reasons for going in there were false. Anyone who has followed the history of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would have known that the executed tyrant was a secular Muslim with little more than speaking Arabic in common with Osama Bin Laden, and the fact that they both engaged at the time in killing innocent people to fulfill their agendas.
I would have authorized Afghanistan along the lines of a letter of mark with the specific purpose of routing out Al Qaeda, which was clearly based there at the time, and any Taliban that might get in the way. No nation building. All of the rhetoric in the world regarding the niceness of bringing democracy and representative government to people who don’t even see themselves as a nation is ludicrous, however well meant those words might be. The cost in life and treasure, the so-called “collateral damage” of civilians in-country is, simply put, unaffordable by any decent measure.
I would never have authorized the war in Iraq under any circumstances. All the reasons for going in there were false. Anyone who has followed the history of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would have known that the executed tyrant was a secular Muslim with little more than speaking Arabic in common with Osama Bin Laden, and the fact that they both engaged at the time in killing innocent people to fulfill their agendas.
I would have authorized Afghanistan along the lines of a letter of mark with the specific purpose of routing out Al Qaeda, which was clearly based there at the time, and any Taliban that might get in the way. No nation building. All of the rhetoric in the world regarding the niceness of bringing democracy and representative government to people who don’t even see themselves as a nation is ludicrous, however well meant those words might be. The cost in life and treasure, the so-called “collateral damage” of civilians in-country is, simply put, unaffordable by any decent measure.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Lorenzo Gaztañaga Answers the Questions.
Becoming a congressman is a position where great trust is placed in you. What changes in ethics rules that govern Congress would you work to change?
First of all, when we’re talking about ethics rules, let’s focus on the fact that rules and regulations that Congress makes regarding itself are aimed at the privilege that they give themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens. When it comes to this question, the first order of the day for Congressman Gaztañaga would be to strike down via legislation or jawboning anything that gives privilege to a member of Congress, whether it is a special gymnasium in the Capitol, a special health care plan, the outrageous pensions and salaries, or the ability to simply retire and go make a gazillion dollars as lobbyists—this particular one should have a twelve year moratorium. If you want to advise anyone; do it on your own dime.
I remember well, during the 1970’s when the gasoline shortage hit the nation, people had to schedule gassing up according to odd or even numbers on their license plates, etc. I was living in Washington, DC and I saw with my own eyes how the regular citizens of all social strata had to put up with the enormous inconvenience, but not Congress. They had an ample supply of gasoline that could be pumped at will, right in the garages of congressional buildings.
When it comes to campaign financing, I favor donations by individuals only—people who live and talk and eat. In other words, the likes of GE, UAW, etc. need not apply here. Any campaign donation by an individual over $100 needs to be reported. As long as it’s reported, there’s no limit. Is this a perfect system? No, but it would be a vast improvement over all the systems we’ve had over the years.
First of all, when we’re talking about ethics rules, let’s focus on the fact that rules and regulations that Congress makes regarding itself are aimed at the privilege that they give themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens. When it comes to this question, the first order of the day for Congressman Gaztañaga would be to strike down via legislation or jawboning anything that gives privilege to a member of Congress, whether it is a special gymnasium in the Capitol, a special health care plan, the outrageous pensions and salaries, or the ability to simply retire and go make a gazillion dollars as lobbyists—this particular one should have a twelve year moratorium. If you want to advise anyone; do it on your own dime.
I remember well, during the 1970’s when the gasoline shortage hit the nation, people had to schedule gassing up according to odd or even numbers on their license plates, etc. I was living in Washington, DC and I saw with my own eyes how the regular citizens of all social strata had to put up with the enormous inconvenience, but not Congress. They had an ample supply of gasoline that could be pumped at will, right in the garages of congressional buildings.
When it comes to campaign financing, I favor donations by individuals only—people who live and talk and eat. In other words, the likes of GE, UAW, etc. need not apply here. Any campaign donation by an individual over $100 needs to be reported. As long as it’s reported, there’s no limit. Is this a perfect system? No, but it would be a vast improvement over all the systems we’ve had over the years.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Susan Gaztanaga On The Mark Steiner Show
Maryland LP candidate for Governor Susan Gaztanaga will be appearing on the Mark Steiner show on WEAA-FM, 88.9, this afternoon.
She will be in-studio, and her segment will begin around 5:20 pm. I think it will go until 6 pm.
If you're interested in listening live, the program streams on www.weaa.org.
It will be posted as a podcast at the website, www.steinershow.org, after the show.
Bob Johnston
She will be in-studio, and her segment will begin around 5:20 pm. I think it will go until 6 pm.
If you're interested in listening live, the program streams on www.weaa.org.
It will be posted as a podcast at the website, www.steinershow.org, after the show.
Bob Johnston
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Wicomico County's Council Districts
Often mysterious and hard to find, here is Wicomico County's Council Districts.
Dodd's Do-Nothing Financial 'Reform'
by Mark A. Calabria
This article appeared in the New York Post on May 21, 2010.
Dodd's Do-Nothing Financial 'Reform'
by Mark A. Calabria
This article appeared in the New York Post on May 21, 2010.
Wall Street is heaving a quiet sigh of relief: All Washington is going to give us for "financial reform" in the wake of the collapse of 2008 is a law based on Sen. Chris Dodd's bill.
That thin semblance of reform will let Congress and the Obama administration claim they brought Wall Street to heel. But by dodging all the hard issues, this "reform" makes it likely that the next crisis will put the last one to shame.
Start with ending "too big to fail": Despite Dodd's floor statements (and improvements made at the request of Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on Dodd's committee), the bill actually further enshrines the special and privileged status of our largest financial institutions. It squashes whatever hope there was of bringing back market discipline to our largest financial institutions — and guarantees ever-increasing concentration in our financial markets.
Going forward, we are left with relying on only the discretionary wisdom of the same regulators who were asleep at the wheel last time. And though that crisis cost millions their jobs, the Dodd bill won't see even one incompetent bureaucrat lose his.
Yes, the Dodd bill eliminates the Office of Thrift Supervision — but it guarantees that all OTS employees will have jobs at the new bank regulator. How exactly is moving around boxes on the organizational chart going to prevent the next financial crisis? (Ironically, OTS was itself created in the "crackdown" after another Washington-sparked meltdown, the savings-and-loan crisis of the late '80s.)
Indeed, the real theme of the Dodd bill is: Give the bureaucrats more power and discretion, without any accountability. Its main achievement is to set up a new agency that will largely determine who, what and how it will regulate.
But the bill itself doesn't touch even blatant problems.
For example, with almost universal recognition that banks lacked sufficient capital going into the financial crisis, it should be a "no-brainer" to fix our flawed regulation of bank capital — in other words, to prevent banks from borrowing 40 times as much as their assets, as Lehman Bros. was doing shortly before its collapse.
Sorry, no: The Dodd bill simply proposes that its new "council of regulators" may recommend that the Federal Reserve impose more stringent standards. Yes, that's may. The bill doesn't even require regulators to change the current levels or framework for bank capital.
Even where Dodd claims to be the toughest, on issues of consumer protection, he simply punts to the regulators and the trial bar. That is, he orders bureaucrats to do better — and makes it easier for lawyers to sue.
The bill doesn't even eliminate zero-down mortgages — or any of the irresponsible lending products that plainly contributed to the crisis. Indeed, Dodd twice fought off floor amendments to require modest down payments.
Perhaps most insulting is Dodd's pretense that ordering up a "study" should count as addressing an issue. By my count, the bill requires the Government Accountability Office or the financial regulators to conduct no less than 28 separate studies.
What's Dodd's solution to the failings of the credit-rating agencies? A study.
His answer to the crisis in the auction-rate-securities and municipal-debt markets? A study. What to do about proprietary trading? A study. How about the flawed home-appraisal process that contributed to inflated housing prices? You got it, another study.
The worst of all; How do we protect the taxpayer from further losses from Fannie and Freddie? One more study, of course — although Dodd has assured us that this one will be a "tough study."
Our system of financial regulation is an embarrassing mess. But rather than restructure it, the Senate bill doubles down on the flaws and weakness of that mess.
It would be nice, just once, to see Congress make some hard choices and legislate — especially when the long term health of America's financial system is at issue.
This article appeared in the New York Post on May 21, 2010.
Dodd's Do-Nothing Financial 'Reform'
by Mark A. Calabria
This article appeared in the New York Post on May 21, 2010.
Wall Street is heaving a quiet sigh of relief: All Washington is going to give us for "financial reform" in the wake of the collapse of 2008 is a law based on Sen. Chris Dodd's bill.
That thin semblance of reform will let Congress and the Obama administration claim they brought Wall Street to heel. But by dodging all the hard issues, this "reform" makes it likely that the next crisis will put the last one to shame.
Start with ending "too big to fail": Despite Dodd's floor statements (and improvements made at the request of Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on Dodd's committee), the bill actually further enshrines the special and privileged status of our largest financial institutions. It squashes whatever hope there was of bringing back market discipline to our largest financial institutions — and guarantees ever-increasing concentration in our financial markets.
Going forward, we are left with relying on only the discretionary wisdom of the same regulators who were asleep at the wheel last time. And though that crisis cost millions their jobs, the Dodd bill won't see even one incompetent bureaucrat lose his.
Yes, the Dodd bill eliminates the Office of Thrift Supervision — but it guarantees that all OTS employees will have jobs at the new bank regulator. How exactly is moving around boxes on the organizational chart going to prevent the next financial crisis? (Ironically, OTS was itself created in the "crackdown" after another Washington-sparked meltdown, the savings-and-loan crisis of the late '80s.)
Indeed, the real theme of the Dodd bill is: Give the bureaucrats more power and discretion, without any accountability. Its main achievement is to set up a new agency that will largely determine who, what and how it will regulate.
But the bill itself doesn't touch even blatant problems.
For example, with almost universal recognition that banks lacked sufficient capital going into the financial crisis, it should be a "no-brainer" to fix our flawed regulation of bank capital — in other words, to prevent banks from borrowing 40 times as much as their assets, as Lehman Bros. was doing shortly before its collapse.
Sorry, no: The Dodd bill simply proposes that its new "council of regulators" may recommend that the Federal Reserve impose more stringent standards. Yes, that's may. The bill doesn't even require regulators to change the current levels or framework for bank capital.
Even where Dodd claims to be the toughest, on issues of consumer protection, he simply punts to the regulators and the trial bar. That is, he orders bureaucrats to do better — and makes it easier for lawyers to sue.
The bill doesn't even eliminate zero-down mortgages — or any of the irresponsible lending products that plainly contributed to the crisis. Indeed, Dodd twice fought off floor amendments to require modest down payments.
Perhaps most insulting is Dodd's pretense that ordering up a "study" should count as addressing an issue. By my count, the bill requires the Government Accountability Office or the financial regulators to conduct no less than 28 separate studies.
What's Dodd's solution to the failings of the credit-rating agencies? A study.
His answer to the crisis in the auction-rate-securities and municipal-debt markets? A study. What to do about proprietary trading? A study. How about the flawed home-appraisal process that contributed to inflated housing prices? You got it, another study.
The worst of all; How do we protect the taxpayer from further losses from Fannie and Freddie? One more study, of course — although Dodd has assured us that this one will be a "tough study."
Our system of financial regulation is an embarrassing mess. But rather than restructure it, the Senate bill doubles down on the flaws and weakness of that mess.
It would be nice, just once, to see Congress make some hard choices and legislate — especially when the long term health of America's financial system is at issue.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Less We Can!
Please visit his website and get a
good picture of what the Libertarian Party stands for on the issues.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
A Libertarian Rebel
What Ridley Scott's new film gets right about the legend of Robin Hood
Cathy Young | May 18, 2010
The new Ridley Scott film Robin Hood, which has opened to mixed reviews on its merits as entertainment, is also drawing some critics' political ire. In New York's leftist weekly, The Village Voice, Karina Longworth laments that "instead of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, this Robin Hood preaches about 'liberty' and the rights of the individual" and battles against "government greed"; the film, she scoffs, is "a rousing love letter to the tea party movement." On a similar note, the New York Times' A.O. Scott mocks Robin Hood as "one big medieval tea party":
"You may have heard that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but that was just liberal media propaganda. This Robin is ... a manly libertarian rebel striking out against high taxes and a big government scheme to trample the ancient liberties of property owners and provincial nobles."
Whatever one may think of Scott's newest incarnation of the Robin Hood legend, it is more than a little troubling to see alleged liberals speak of liberty and individual rights in a tone of sarcastic dismissal. This is especially ironic since the Robin Hood of myth and folklore probably has much more in common with the "libertarian rebel" played by Russell Crowe than with the medieval socialist of the "rob from the rich, give to the poor" cliché. At heart, the noble-outlaw legend that has captured the human imagination for centuries is about freedom, not wealth redistribution—and this is reflected in many previous screen versions of the Robin Hood story.
As scholars have noted, the earliest Robin Hood ballads, which date back to the 13th or 14th century, contain no mention of robbing the rich to give to the poor. The one person Robin assists financially is a knight who is about to lose his lands to the machinations of greedy and unscrupulous monks at an abbey. (Corrupt clerics using the political power of the Church are among Robin Hood's frequent targets in the ballads.) The Sheriff of Nottingham is Robin's chief opponent; at the time, it was the sheriffs' role as tax collectors in particular that made them objects of loathing by peasants and commoners. Robin Hood is also frequently shown helping men who face barbaric punishments for hunting in the royal forests, a pursuit permitted to nobles and strictly forbidden to the lower classes in medieval England; in other words, he is opposing privilege bestowed by political power, not earned wealth.
Later, the legend evolved and was adapted to more aristocratic tastes; by the 17th century, Robin Hood turned from an outlawed farmer into a dispossessed aristocrat and, eventually, a patron of the poor. Yet the fight for liberty and against tyrannical authority remained central to the story, particularly since Robin is often portrayed as a man fighting to reclaim his unjustly confiscated lands—and against high taxes. Indeed, even the hilarious Mel Brooks parody Men in Tights (1993), a send-up of Robin Hood movie conventions, has the hero (Cary Elwes) telling Prince John, "If you don't stop levying these evil taxes, I will lead the people of England in a revolt against you!" Tea, anyone?
Perhaps the most libertarian version of the Robin Hood story comes from an unlikely source for libertarianism—the BBC, in its 2006-2009 Robin Hood series, starring Jonas Armstrong. (This smartly written, excellently acted show that gave the medieval legend a quirky modern edge, unfortunately failed to find a large audience in the United States, where it aired on the obscure BBC America cable channel.) The series took thinly veiled digs at the idea that freedom should be abridged in the name of national security: the villainous Sheriff cited King Richard's war in the Holy Land as a justification for unusually harsh punishments to enforce law and order in wartime, and sometimes referred to the outlaws as "terrorists."
However, this Robin Hood's libertarian streak was not limited to civil liberties. Robin, a local noble back from the Crusades, first runs afoul of the Sheriff by suggesting that all taxes in Nottinghamshire be temporarily abolished so that the region's faltering industry and trade can be revived. His peasant followers are on the wrong side of the law because exorbitant taxes prevent them from making an honest living: "Taxes, we do not like," declares Little John. This Robin's robberies are directed primarily at tax collections and other ill-gotten gains; he also strives to stop a conspiracy by the Sheriff and Prince John to seize power in the King's absence and establish a tyranny that would trample "the rights of the free man." The Sheriff, meanwhile, is a miniature Stalin who revels in brute power: when a confederate says that England should be purged of "the weak and the dirty and the parasites," the Sheriff replies, "My dear boy, those are the ones who do exactly what I tell them to. We need those."
Of course, the idea of Robin Hood as an early socialist has had a lot of currency as well. Ayn Rand declared the fabled outlaw a symbol of evil—taking from the productive and giving to the parasites—in her novel Atlas Shrugged; on the other side of the political spectrum, a coalition of international aid groups in England recently made him their mascot when they proposed a "Robin Hood tax" on high-profit industries to help the poor in developing nations. But the original Robin Hood, while he has many different faces, is above all a fighter for freedom from tyranny—and that's what made him a legend.
Cathy Young writes a weekly column for RealClearPolitics and is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine. She blogs at cathyyoung.wordpress.com/. This article originally appeared at RealClearPolitics.
-- Post From My iPad
Cathy Young | May 18, 2010
The new Ridley Scott film Robin Hood, which has opened to mixed reviews on its merits as entertainment, is also drawing some critics' political ire. In New York's leftist weekly, The Village Voice, Karina Longworth laments that "instead of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, this Robin Hood preaches about 'liberty' and the rights of the individual" and battles against "government greed"; the film, she scoffs, is "a rousing love letter to the tea party movement." On a similar note, the New York Times' A.O. Scott mocks Robin Hood as "one big medieval tea party":
"You may have heard that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but that was just liberal media propaganda. This Robin is ... a manly libertarian rebel striking out against high taxes and a big government scheme to trample the ancient liberties of property owners and provincial nobles."
Whatever one may think of Scott's newest incarnation of the Robin Hood legend, it is more than a little troubling to see alleged liberals speak of liberty and individual rights in a tone of sarcastic dismissal. This is especially ironic since the Robin Hood of myth and folklore probably has much more in common with the "libertarian rebel" played by Russell Crowe than with the medieval socialist of the "rob from the rich, give to the poor" cliché. At heart, the noble-outlaw legend that has captured the human imagination for centuries is about freedom, not wealth redistribution—and this is reflected in many previous screen versions of the Robin Hood story.
As scholars have noted, the earliest Robin Hood ballads, which date back to the 13th or 14th century, contain no mention of robbing the rich to give to the poor. The one person Robin assists financially is a knight who is about to lose his lands to the machinations of greedy and unscrupulous monks at an abbey. (Corrupt clerics using the political power of the Church are among Robin Hood's frequent targets in the ballads.) The Sheriff of Nottingham is Robin's chief opponent; at the time, it was the sheriffs' role as tax collectors in particular that made them objects of loathing by peasants and commoners. Robin Hood is also frequently shown helping men who face barbaric punishments for hunting in the royal forests, a pursuit permitted to nobles and strictly forbidden to the lower classes in medieval England; in other words, he is opposing privilege bestowed by political power, not earned wealth.
Later, the legend evolved and was adapted to more aristocratic tastes; by the 17th century, Robin Hood turned from an outlawed farmer into a dispossessed aristocrat and, eventually, a patron of the poor. Yet the fight for liberty and against tyrannical authority remained central to the story, particularly since Robin is often portrayed as a man fighting to reclaim his unjustly confiscated lands—and against high taxes. Indeed, even the hilarious Mel Brooks parody Men in Tights (1993), a send-up of Robin Hood movie conventions, has the hero (Cary Elwes) telling Prince John, "If you don't stop levying these evil taxes, I will lead the people of England in a revolt against you!" Tea, anyone?
Perhaps the most libertarian version of the Robin Hood story comes from an unlikely source for libertarianism—the BBC, in its 2006-2009 Robin Hood series, starring Jonas Armstrong. (This smartly written, excellently acted show that gave the medieval legend a quirky modern edge, unfortunately failed to find a large audience in the United States, where it aired on the obscure BBC America cable channel.) The series took thinly veiled digs at the idea that freedom should be abridged in the name of national security: the villainous Sheriff cited King Richard's war in the Holy Land as a justification for unusually harsh punishments to enforce law and order in wartime, and sometimes referred to the outlaws as "terrorists."
However, this Robin Hood's libertarian streak was not limited to civil liberties. Robin, a local noble back from the Crusades, first runs afoul of the Sheriff by suggesting that all taxes in Nottinghamshire be temporarily abolished so that the region's faltering industry and trade can be revived. His peasant followers are on the wrong side of the law because exorbitant taxes prevent them from making an honest living: "Taxes, we do not like," declares Little John. This Robin's robberies are directed primarily at tax collections and other ill-gotten gains; he also strives to stop a conspiracy by the Sheriff and Prince John to seize power in the King's absence and establish a tyranny that would trample "the rights of the free man." The Sheriff, meanwhile, is a miniature Stalin who revels in brute power: when a confederate says that England should be purged of "the weak and the dirty and the parasites," the Sheriff replies, "My dear boy, those are the ones who do exactly what I tell them to. We need those."
Of course, the idea of Robin Hood as an early socialist has had a lot of currency as well. Ayn Rand declared the fabled outlaw a symbol of evil—taking from the productive and giving to the parasites—in her novel Atlas Shrugged; on the other side of the political spectrum, a coalition of international aid groups in England recently made him their mascot when they proposed a "Robin Hood tax" on high-profit industries to help the poor in developing nations. But the original Robin Hood, while he has many different faces, is above all a fighter for freedom from tyranny—and that's what made him a legend.
Cathy Young writes a weekly column for RealClearPolitics and is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine. She blogs at cathyyoung.wordpress.com/. This article originally appeared at RealClearPolitics.
-- Post From My iPad
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Candidate Spotlight - Lorenzo Gaztañaga
The work habits and rare appearances of congressmen and congresswomen in their districts seem to peak near election but the rest of the time you rarely hear a peep. What type of session schedule for Congress would you like to see? How would you schedule your appearances in your district and what would you focus on?
First of all, it seems that members of Congress spend too much of their time courting the special interests of the military industrial complex and the unions, both public and private, for funds, which pour in in the tens of thousands, if not the millions.
Recently, the incumbent, Ruppersberger, has been dodging, for weeks, a citizens’ group that has asked to meet with him by offering times and places that were ultimately canceled, insisting on a list of the people who were going to attend the meeting, indicating that questions regarding the recent so-called health care bill were not an agenda item—and these are all concerned constituents of Congressman Ruppersberger with legitimate questions regarding the direction that our country is going in.
That is a most objectionable work habit, which is clearly aimed at preserving his position in Congress by currying favor with those of outsized wealth as well as power and who are, in my opinion, co-dependents with our federal government in the unconstitutional and reckless behavior of those who decide what happens to our country.
I would try to schedule any appearance of mine at times when most working people can attend. I would take time to walk through the neighborhoods of the district, as disparate as they are because of the gerrymandering that caused the district to have its current bizarre geography. I would focus on telling people the same thing that I tell now—you’re not going to like everything that I have to say, but it is what I honestly believe.
One of the worst working habits of our current congress is the habit of creating legislation that no one can truly read and understand and that, at its core, reflects favoritism as well as a game of “gotcha.” I would never vote for a bill that exceeds 50 pages, and, as it is, I think 50 pages is way too long, but I’m willing to compromise on that.
Lorenzo Gaztañaga is the Maryland Libertarian Party's Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, District 2.
First of all, it seems that members of Congress spend too much of their time courting the special interests of the military industrial complex and the unions, both public and private, for funds, which pour in in the tens of thousands, if not the millions.
Recently, the incumbent, Ruppersberger, has been dodging, for weeks, a citizens’ group that has asked to meet with him by offering times and places that were ultimately canceled, insisting on a list of the people who were going to attend the meeting, indicating that questions regarding the recent so-called health care bill were not an agenda item—and these are all concerned constituents of Congressman Ruppersberger with legitimate questions regarding the direction that our country is going in.
That is a most objectionable work habit, which is clearly aimed at preserving his position in Congress by currying favor with those of outsized wealth as well as power and who are, in my opinion, co-dependents with our federal government in the unconstitutional and reckless behavior of those who decide what happens to our country.
I would try to schedule any appearance of mine at times when most working people can attend. I would take time to walk through the neighborhoods of the district, as disparate as they are because of the gerrymandering that caused the district to have its current bizarre geography. I would focus on telling people the same thing that I tell now—you’re not going to like everything that I have to say, but it is what I honestly believe.
One of the worst working habits of our current congress is the habit of creating legislation that no one can truly read and understand and that, at its core, reflects favoritism as well as a game of “gotcha.” I would never vote for a bill that exceeds 50 pages, and, as it is, I think 50 pages is way too long, but I’m willing to compromise on that.
Lorenzo Gaztañaga is the Maryland Libertarian Party's Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, District 2.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Candidate Spotlight - Lorenzo Gaztañaga
Lorenzo Gaztañaga is the Maryland Libertarian Party's District 2 Congressional candidate. In a series of 10 questions we have asked Mr. Gaztañaga he expresses some of hose views and where he stands on the issues. This is the first in that series.
Question: To be elected by the citizens of your district is a great honor. What is the reason that caused you to decide to run for Congress?
Answer: In close analysis, congressional office, if one follows the Constitution, is even more important than that of President. For one, Congress contains the direct representatives of the people of the United States. Congress is the body that can approve or disapprove the most serious act that any nation can carry out, and that is war. With the two current wars, that are illegal, and the Patriot Act a violation of the Bill of Rights, Congress has both abdicated its responsibilities and also circumvented its reason for being, in the process betraying the American people, specifically with the Patriot Act which potentially makes anyone a target as an enemy of the country and the state. After everything is said and done, whether taxes, commerce, free markets or the lack thereof, these three things—that is, the two wars and the Patriot Act—could potentially destroy the country and its very reason for being. We need an individual representing the Second District in Maryland who will address this cancer without mincing words or falling prey to the accusations that such an attitude will imperil our national security, someone who will reverse the path taken by the incumbent, Dutch Ruppersberger. Front and center, that’s why I’m running for Congress.
Question: To be elected by the citizens of your district is a great honor. What is the reason that caused you to decide to run for Congress?
Answer: In close analysis, congressional office, if one follows the Constitution, is even more important than that of President. For one, Congress contains the direct representatives of the people of the United States. Congress is the body that can approve or disapprove the most serious act that any nation can carry out, and that is war. With the two current wars, that are illegal, and the Patriot Act a violation of the Bill of Rights, Congress has both abdicated its responsibilities and also circumvented its reason for being, in the process betraying the American people, specifically with the Patriot Act which potentially makes anyone a target as an enemy of the country and the state. After everything is said and done, whether taxes, commerce, free markets or the lack thereof, these three things—that is, the two wars and the Patriot Act—could potentially destroy the country and its very reason for being. We need an individual representing the Second District in Maryland who will address this cancer without mincing words or falling prey to the accusations that such an attitude will imperil our national security, someone who will reverse the path taken by the incumbent, Dutch Ruppersberger. Front and center, that’s why I’m running for Congress.
LP Monday Message: Liability limits make oil spills worse
posted by Staff on May 10, 2010
May 10, 2010
Dear Friend of Liberty,
You've probably seen a lot about the big BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Libertarians are sometimes attacked for not having good answers to environmental questions. In this case, I think there are problems that Republicans and Democrats in Congress have created, and Libertarians would have handled things differently.
(If you're not particularly interested in detailed policy studies or arguments, it's always good to remember that Libertarians try to base our positions on fundamental principles of freedom and personal responsibility.)
I think a big problem here is the fact that federal law limits the liability of BP (and Transocean, the company that actually owned the rig.)
The New York Times has reported that federal law limits BP's liability to $75 million, and Transocean's liability to $65 million.
These kinds of artificial liability limits distort the markets, and basically create "moral hazard" by encouraging companies to act in riskier ways than they would otherwise. If BP's well causes damage to property, then BP should be fully liable for all of the damage. It is BP's reponsibility to "make whole" whoever gets damaged.
If Congress hadn't limited BP's liability, it's likely that BP would have acted differently. Knowing that a spill could cost them billions, BP might have demanded additional safeguards for their well, or tested their safeguards more thoroughly. These choices would have been expensive, but they might have prevented the huge costs that the spill area is now facing.
BP has said that it will pay all "legitimate claims," even if they go past the liability limit. The problem is that when it comes to property damage, a court should decide what "legitimate claims" are, not the offending company!
Of course, now we're likely to see a flurry of reactive legislation, as members of Congress try to pile on BP for political reasons. And, Congress will probably use the spill as an excuse to increase its market interference and shovel more subsidies into uneconomical "alternative energy."
(It's possible that if energy companies did not have the benefits of artificial liability limits, the market might decide that some alternative energy would be cost effective. But that's for the free market to decide, not Congress using taxpayer subsidies.)
As the Libertarian Party platform says, "Free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems."
Congress should take this opportunity to get out of the market, but instead they'll probably create new subsidies, special commissions and government agencies. It's just one more good reason to support Libertarian candidates in the elections this November.
Finally, be wary of politicians who make it sound like government can lead us to a utopia free of accidents. Even if a world with no man-made disasters were possible, natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and epidemics would still happen.
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
May 10, 2010
Dear Friend of Liberty,
You've probably seen a lot about the big BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Libertarians are sometimes attacked for not having good answers to environmental questions. In this case, I think there are problems that Republicans and Democrats in Congress have created, and Libertarians would have handled things differently.
(If you're not particularly interested in detailed policy studies or arguments, it's always good to remember that Libertarians try to base our positions on fundamental principles of freedom and personal responsibility.)
I think a big problem here is the fact that federal law limits the liability of BP (and Transocean, the company that actually owned the rig.)
The New York Times has reported that federal law limits BP's liability to $75 million, and Transocean's liability to $65 million.
These kinds of artificial liability limits distort the markets, and basically create "moral hazard" by encouraging companies to act in riskier ways than they would otherwise. If BP's well causes damage to property, then BP should be fully liable for all of the damage. It is BP's reponsibility to "make whole" whoever gets damaged.
If Congress hadn't limited BP's liability, it's likely that BP would have acted differently. Knowing that a spill could cost them billions, BP might have demanded additional safeguards for their well, or tested their safeguards more thoroughly. These choices would have been expensive, but they might have prevented the huge costs that the spill area is now facing.
BP has said that it will pay all "legitimate claims," even if they go past the liability limit. The problem is that when it comes to property damage, a court should decide what "legitimate claims" are, not the offending company!
Of course, now we're likely to see a flurry of reactive legislation, as members of Congress try to pile on BP for political reasons. And, Congress will probably use the spill as an excuse to increase its market interference and shovel more subsidies into uneconomical "alternative energy."
(It's possible that if energy companies did not have the benefits of artificial liability limits, the market might decide that some alternative energy would be cost effective. But that's for the free market to decide, not Congress using taxpayer subsidies.)
As the Libertarian Party platform says, "Free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems."
Congress should take this opportunity to get out of the market, but instead they'll probably create new subsidies, special commissions and government agencies. It's just one more good reason to support Libertarian candidates in the elections this November.
Finally, be wary of politicians who make it sound like government can lead us to a utopia free of accidents. Even if a world with no man-made disasters were possible, natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and epidemics would still happen.
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
Thursday, May 6, 2010
LP Monday Message: Don't Blame Immigrants
posted by Staff on Apr 26, 2010
April 26, 2010
Dear Friend of Liberty,
The recent legislation in Arizona has put immigration back in the news.
The Libertarian Party has a long history of defending immigration. Our website has an article discussing immigration. I think that if there's a problem with massive illegal immigration, then one of the best solutions is to make legal immigration easier.
From an economic point of view, immigrants are an asset, not a liability. Business owners usually understand that, but politicians often either don't understand or don't care. In an environment of fear, which is where many politicians seem to want to keep us, they use immigrants (both legal and illegal) as scapegoats so they can duck blame for problems caused by too much government. Republican George W. Bush gave us the enormously expensive Medicare prescription entitlement. Republican Senator John McCain famously put his 2008 presidential campaign on hold to rush back to Washington to bail out failed banks and businesses. When times are tough, focusing on immigrants helps distract from these homegrown threats to our economy.
Perhaps I have a soft spot in my heart for immigrants and foreigners. I've traveled extensively and lived overseas. I worked for six months in South Africa and was welcomed by blacks and whites into their communities. I've spent over six months of my life traveling throughout Mexico. Recently having lived in Texas, I've met and worked with a lot of Mexican nationals who were in Texas working hard in the construction industry. I can imagine that if I'd been born in Mexico or Central America, and the American immigration laws were so convoluted, I'd have found my way around them one way or another.
I realize immigration, legal and illegal, is a controversial issue both for Americans in general and for Libertarians. Obviously, some immigrants take advantage of our welfare system. (That's one more reason to get rid of government welfare.) And some immigrants commit violent crimes. (That's one more reason to get rid of victimless crime laws that waste police effort and fill up our prisons with people who haven't hurt anyone.) However, those aren't good reasons to stop people from coming to America. America was founded by immigrants, many of whom were escaping economic and religious oppression. I think support for immigrants, many of whom are poor and honest, shows our humanitarian side to those who want to characterize Libertarians as uncaring individualists.
I'm also very concerned that the immigration debate will be used as an excuse to impose a National ID card. (Let me see your papers!)
Now is the time to stand up for liberty. We must not let the federal government use immigration restrictions as a sneaky way to crack down on all Americans and take away our freedoms.
See this Cato study on the economic effects of immigration reform.
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
-- Post From My iPad
April 26, 2010
Dear Friend of Liberty,
The recent legislation in Arizona has put immigration back in the news.
The Libertarian Party has a long history of defending immigration. Our website has an article discussing immigration. I think that if there's a problem with massive illegal immigration, then one of the best solutions is to make legal immigration easier.
From an economic point of view, immigrants are an asset, not a liability. Business owners usually understand that, but politicians often either don't understand or don't care. In an environment of fear, which is where many politicians seem to want to keep us, they use immigrants (both legal and illegal) as scapegoats so they can duck blame for problems caused by too much government. Republican George W. Bush gave us the enormously expensive Medicare prescription entitlement. Republican Senator John McCain famously put his 2008 presidential campaign on hold to rush back to Washington to bail out failed banks and businesses. When times are tough, focusing on immigrants helps distract from these homegrown threats to our economy.
Perhaps I have a soft spot in my heart for immigrants and foreigners. I've traveled extensively and lived overseas. I worked for six months in South Africa and was welcomed by blacks and whites into their communities. I've spent over six months of my life traveling throughout Mexico. Recently having lived in Texas, I've met and worked with a lot of Mexican nationals who were in Texas working hard in the construction industry. I can imagine that if I'd been born in Mexico or Central America, and the American immigration laws were so convoluted, I'd have found my way around them one way or another.
I realize immigration, legal and illegal, is a controversial issue both for Americans in general and for Libertarians. Obviously, some immigrants take advantage of our welfare system. (That's one more reason to get rid of government welfare.) And some immigrants commit violent crimes. (That's one more reason to get rid of victimless crime laws that waste police effort and fill up our prisons with people who haven't hurt anyone.) However, those aren't good reasons to stop people from coming to America. America was founded by immigrants, many of whom were escaping economic and religious oppression. I think support for immigrants, many of whom are poor and honest, shows our humanitarian side to those who want to characterize Libertarians as uncaring individualists.
I'm also very concerned that the immigration debate will be used as an excuse to impose a National ID card. (Let me see your papers!)
Now is the time to stand up for liberty. We must not let the federal government use immigration restrictions as a sneaky way to crack down on all Americans and take away our freedoms.
See this Cato study on the economic effects of immigration reform.
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
-- Post From My iPad
Libertarians call for more finance industry freedom
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Friday, April 30, 2010
WASHINGTON - Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict issued the following statement today, regarding the financial regulation legislation in Congress:
"The Libertarian Party opposes the legislation currently in Congress. Instead of removing harmful regulations that reduce competition, create winners and losers, and stifle the choices of consumers and financial firms, this legislation merely adds to that heap of regulations.
"It is remarkable that so many people have blamed the banking and financial company failures on the 'free market.' The American finance industry is probably the most regulated industry in human history. It doesn't remotely resemble a free market, and that's been true for many decades. It would be much more accurate to blame the failures on government interference.
"The 2008 TARP bailouts were strongly supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both supported them--Senator McCain even 'suspended his campaign' to rush back to Washington and help push through the massive bailouts. On the other hand, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr firmly opposed those bailouts, and the Libertarian Party has continued to express our opposition since then.
"We're seeing the typical cycle of government regulation:
1. Add more regulations.
2. Watch the new regulations create new problems.
3. Blame the free market.
4. Go to step 1.
"The 2008 TARP bailouts were rationalized with the 'too big to fail' phantom -- the notion that if a big company goes bankrupt, then all financial activity will cease, and the world will basically end. It was one more example of government creating a 'fear of catastrophe' to get people to knuckle under to big government payouts.
"Another major problem with protective government regulation is that it gives consumers the false impression that 'everything's OK, the government will make sure you can't be hurt.' That causes consumers to stop doing their homework, and stop keeping an eye on the businesses they depend on. Then, when the government regulators fail in their job (as the SEC has repeatedly, for example), consumers get hurt much worse than they would if they had never been told the government was taking care of them.
"The problem isn't too little regulation, but too much. Banks, insurance companies, and other financial companies must be allowed to operate freely in a free market, and they must be allowed to fail. No other system will work. Heaping more regulations on top of the already enormous financial regulation pile will only lead to new problems."
Mark A. Calabria of the Cato Institute, writing in the New York Post, commented, "Far from protecting the little guy and sticking it to the fat cats, this bill keeps good, old-fashioned political patronage alive and well."
The Libertarian Party's Platform states: "We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types."
For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.
The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.
###
-- Post From My iPad
For Immediate Release
Friday, April 30, 2010
WASHINGTON - Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict issued the following statement today, regarding the financial regulation legislation in Congress:
"The Libertarian Party opposes the legislation currently in Congress. Instead of removing harmful regulations that reduce competition, create winners and losers, and stifle the choices of consumers and financial firms, this legislation merely adds to that heap of regulations.
"It is remarkable that so many people have blamed the banking and financial company failures on the 'free market.' The American finance industry is probably the most regulated industry in human history. It doesn't remotely resemble a free market, and that's been true for many decades. It would be much more accurate to blame the failures on government interference.
"The 2008 TARP bailouts were strongly supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both supported them--Senator McCain even 'suspended his campaign' to rush back to Washington and help push through the massive bailouts. On the other hand, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr firmly opposed those bailouts, and the Libertarian Party has continued to express our opposition since then.
"We're seeing the typical cycle of government regulation:
1. Add more regulations.
2. Watch the new regulations create new problems.
3. Blame the free market.
4. Go to step 1.
"The 2008 TARP bailouts were rationalized with the 'too big to fail' phantom -- the notion that if a big company goes bankrupt, then all financial activity will cease, and the world will basically end. It was one more example of government creating a 'fear of catastrophe' to get people to knuckle under to big government payouts.
"Another major problem with protective government regulation is that it gives consumers the false impression that 'everything's OK, the government will make sure you can't be hurt.' That causes consumers to stop doing their homework, and stop keeping an eye on the businesses they depend on. Then, when the government regulators fail in their job (as the SEC has repeatedly, for example), consumers get hurt much worse than they would if they had never been told the government was taking care of them.
"The problem isn't too little regulation, but too much. Banks, insurance companies, and other financial companies must be allowed to operate freely in a free market, and they must be allowed to fail. No other system will work. Heaping more regulations on top of the already enormous financial regulation pile will only lead to new problems."
Mark A. Calabria of the Cato Institute, writing in the New York Post, commented, "Far from protecting the little guy and sticking it to the fat cats, this bill keeps good, old-fashioned political patronage alive and well."
The Libertarian Party's Platform states: "We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types."
For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.
The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.
###
-- Post From My iPad
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