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L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 323, June 12, 2005 "News From The Belly Of The Beast"
Send Letters to editor@ncc-1776.org
Re: "Idle Voters", by Lady Liberty http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle322-20050605-06.html In this weeks edition of The Libertarian Enterprise Lady Liberty made some excellent points about the need to vote and get involved in the political process. However she then said that 2005 is not an election year. In many parts of the country it IS an election year; a local election year. All politics is local. If we want our country back we can't afford to overlook opportunities. This is One of the major problems with the Libertarian movement. We get so wrapped up in the big stuff we often ignore what's right in front of our face. Please, get involved with your local LP, run for office or help those who are. Sure it might be "sexy" to run for Congress or Senate but it's a lot easier to win at the local level. Build a strong foundation and the rest will follow. Because nothing succeeds like successes.. Brandon M. Magoon
The quality of the Letters to the Editor section has been really disappointing, in the last few issues. What's with all the vile personal abuse? And, Lord knows, there's nothing quite so charming as a "libertarian" deciding that someone should be "abused by the police until he reforms." Sheesh. Is there an editor in the house? Tom Hanlin
[Nope, just little ol' me. -- Mr. Ed] I am inviting people to the new group called the Revolutionary Coalition. It's unique purpose is the assembly of a "Super Third Party", a coalition of independents, non-voters, and current third party members and sympathizers devoted to establishing a constitutional republic. The subscription address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheRevolutionaryCoalition/ You may also apply by subscribing through email at [email protected]. Note that is the a group devoted to doing the act, not a group devoted to debating whether to do the act. You can debate whether to do it all over the place... this group is for the purpose of getting it done. Their intro page states the following, below: "Uniting the third parties, the independent voter and the non-voter into a New Super Third Party is our goal, bringing all interested parties to the negotiating table to win elections. These three groups are all together, roughly 60% of America. The Democrats and Republicans together, only total 40% of America. They are not the majority of America. The fraud, deceit, and lies of U.S. politics has destroyed our republic that was based upon Constitutional rule of law. All of America's problems would be solved with a return to the Constitution, the nation's heritage and birthright restored. The platform is one single line: "To defend our God given, unalienable, Constitutionally protected and guaranteed rights... This forum is not for posting chat, news or any kind of general information that you think others would be interested in. There are other forums for that. This forum is specifically for networking to unite. If one cannot agree on this one single platform issue, they are not welcome in the Revolutionary Coalition. We recognize that rights do not come from government. They are "natural" or they are from our "creator", hence the term God given rights in the single platform. If "your" rights come from government, this forum is not for you. Objecting to the platform is reason enough not to join with us. Atheists and believers in God can work together on this forum if they respect each others beliefs. Uniting people who believe in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of America is the goal. Uniting is the key to stopping the Police State of America. We believe that our country and government has been overthrown from within..." Liz Michael
Dear Libertarian Enterprise, I wrote a letter to the editor urging people to support a pro-gun candidate for Alderman in Chicago, a few years ago. The letter appears online at: http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2003/libe211-20030217-01.html#letter8 I've learned a lot since then. The first thing I've learned is that if someone says he's 100% libertarian, and there is no verifiable record of physical things that that person has done to support libertarian ideas, then he's at best 50% libertarian before elected, and 5% libertarian after being elected. The guy I suggested you support then simply lacked the ability to get his ideas heard, although his credentials made him appear to have a chance. The second thing that I've learned is that, in electoral politics, the battlefield means as much to winning the battle as who shows up to fight. (In the case of the candidate for alderman, I was right that it was the biggest possibly winnable race in IL, but the culture of illinois' voters is just too hoplessly socialist. They can't imagine what a 'self' is, much less self interest.) That's why I completely support the principles recently expounded on by Boston T. Party regarding the western Free State movement. The socialist areas of the country have chewed up libertarians when they've tried to run serious campaigns. Take R. Scott Bludorn for instance, running a state house race in IL. The man ran a great campaign, he spent $30,000+ dollars much of which was his own. He did personal outreach, and got former Republicans on his bandwagon, many of whom had previously worked for the incumbent. —But he was running as a libertarian in a hopelessly socialist and non-thinking area. In Alaska, he would now be an elected State Legislator. Maybe the same is true of Boston T. Party's choice of Wyoming (although I may not be up-to-date about what Boston thinks). Before the dealine for ballot access in New Hampshire, the National Libertarian Party was assured that the NH LP had ballot access under control. I was told not to go to New Hampshire, even though that would have assured Badnarik a place on the ballot. So I went to Alabama, and helped put them on the ballot. And NH, "The Free State" was one of 2 states that Badnarik did not appear on the ballot. You can't bring liberty to a place where, even with knowledge about us and a good campaign, less than 50% of the voters want their freedom. That's why I moved to Alaska, and not New Hampshire. I am not concerned with anything other than how much freedom is possible, given the confines of objective reality. Here in Alaska, we have the problem of too few viable candidates, but an electorate that's possible to work with. We need the Bludorns and others to move to Alaska. Or Wyoming. In either state, there are so few voters that we can target market to them, and communicate to each of them in any given district 2-7 times before any election. This is a winning strategy, and it is the only possible winning strategy open to us. If all it took for the founding fathers to win the revolutionary war, without fighting, was for them to relocate to a different area, they would have done it. Instead, they picked up guns and risked violent death. The next time you see flashing lights in your rearview mirror, and you know that you are about to be robbed by a thug in blue, consider this article. Consider moving to Alaska, where you can buy any gun you want to with no records at all, not even federal ones, if it's from a private dealer. Also keep in mind that if you pay the stupid $200 tax, and get federally fingerprinted, you can own a fully automatic whatever. A full-auto mac-11 goes for around $1000. To go shooting there are no range fees, just drive out of town. There are 5 guns for every Alaskan. There are gun grabbers here, but they get to feel like they are on the wrong side whenever they open their mouths. The culture is different enough from the rest of the fascist USA right now that we can still win elections. This might not be the case after 5 years more of Anchorage importing socialist goons from the lower 49. If you decide to move to Alaska now, the freedom movement gets the benefit of deciding before it's too late to make a difference. With at least a few elected Libertarians in state office anywhere, it will be possible for us to correct the damage before it's too late. At very least, support those who run local elections contesting less than 20,000 votes as predicted by the previous election. Thanks, Jake Witmer
What an interesting issue. First, we have an excellent article on the ZAP by Jonathan David Morris, an equally-good article on people of faith by Ron Beatty, and the usual excellent contributions by Lady Liberty and Wendy McElroy. Then we have an article by someone who promotes shoplifting and vandalism, and another article that repeats the lie that some people were arrested for reading the bible in public. Yes, that's right, the lie. Quoting from http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/inpublic.asp: "Pennsylvania Christians Face 47 Years in Prison for Reading the Bible in Public," the title most often accorded the e-mail, calls to mind mental images of God-fearing folk rounded up and thrown in jail for quietly partaking of a bit of Scripture as they munched on their noontime sandwiches in a public park before heading back to work. Yet that was not the case of it -- the "crime" the eleven were arrested for had nothing to do with Bible reading but everything to do with being disruptive of the peaceable assembly of others to the point that it looked like they were attempting to incite a riot." Are prospects for articles that bad, that we're stuck with those kinds of contributors? Bill Hartwell
[I takes what I can gets and smiles -- Mr. Ed]
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