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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 390, October 22, 2006 "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans and Spam."
DIGG THIS
Repulsive Choices 2006!
Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise There are less than two weeks left before the 2006 "midterm" elections. Neither of the wings of the monolithic institution we call the "Boot On Your Neck Party" appears capable of offering the voters anything, for any office, anywhere, except mutants, monsters, and madmen. And madwomen, of course. Three competitions right here in Colorado illustrate the mess this entire country finds itself in at present, and why there's nothing that the Democrats or Republicans might do (i.e., are willing or able to do) to effect the changes that would even begin to make life in America worth living once again. More than likely, you're not from Colorado, but as you read through this, simply plug in the names of candidates running in your state, and you'll discover that everything I say here applies, just as if I knew who the candidates in your state are. Instead of simply what they are. Let's start at the top of the ballot, with the candidates for governor. Bill Owens, the present chief executive, is a feeble, pasty-faced cowardly excuse for a human being. He was widely known by the Second Amendment community, early in his first term, as "Governor Gungrabber" and "Backdoor Bill", the latter for a habit he quickly acquired of sneaking in the back door of whatever venue he was appearing in, so he wouldn't have to confront his critics—this was the heyday of the Tyranny Response Team—and answer their angry and embarrassing questions about his smug disregard for their right to own and carry weapons. Backdoor Bill's anointed successor is Congressman "Both-Ways-Bob" Beauprez, an individual so creepy and mean that it's written plainly on his face for anyone with one good eye and half a brain to see. Most of Beauprez's constituents, unfortunately, have considerably less than half a brain. He's wrong on all of the domestic issues in a typically neoconservative direction—immigration, abortion, equal legal rights for gays—and ducking Afghanistan, Iraq, and Bush's insane War on Everything. I have yet to hear Beauprez say anything about weapons ownership. His website gives bland Ashcroftian lip-service to the concept. Lately he's been pretending to be a cowboy (in fact, he used to manage a dairy farm), but he looks as ridiculous in boots, jeans, yoked shirts, big shiny belt buckles, and Stetsons as a CPA in a gorilla suit. I do understand that he's a sworn enemy of anything resembling individual liberty. If you don't care for the Constitution, he'll be happy to Bob it. Beauprez's principal opponent, former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter, makes this year's race a choice between nauseating and repulsive. Ritter is what the Brits call a "jelly"—a jellyfish—who makes his mistakes in a muddle-headed liberal direction, as long as "taking a stand" doesn't require actual possession of a backbone. I don't think there's a law on the books—except for Denver's illegal and irrational gun laws—the man hasn't been willing to evade enforcing. Beauprez's people recently discovered and disclosed that, as part of Ritter's 97% plea bargain rate, he reduced all kinds of felonies to "agricultural trespass" so he wouldn't be required to deport criminals who were Mexican nationals. No, I don't know why. Ritter's response to is that his opponent acquired this classified information—none of which he denies—illegally. (Irrelevant as it may be, that much is certainly true—and, to any admirer of Daniel Ellsberg—entirely commendable.) Ritter's limp-membered policies may seem like a good thing from a libertarian standpoint, except that the laws he's most enthusiastic about skipping over all happen to be the first ten amendments to the Constitution, in particular where the private ownership and carrying of weapons is concerned. Ritter is one of the rodents who have argued (and the Colorado State Supreme Court, one of the most corrupt and Constitution-hating in America, agreed with them) that, because Denver is a "home rule" city (a vile concept that allowed my hometown of Fort Collins to remain "dry" until the 1960s, more than three decades after Prohibition was repealed) it can disregard the Bill of Rights with impunity. Ritter is the Bill of Wrongs. I should mention here that the Libertarian Party candidate for
governor is Dawn Winkler Good luck, Dawn!
Next, Congressperson Marilyn Musgrave, a fat, middle-aged bleached
blond neoconservative who reportedly views preventing gay marriage as
her highest priority, versus one Angie Paccione, a fat, middle-aged
bleached blond liberaloid with a nasty New Jersey accent and a history
of liens and bankruptcy. Both specimens are a product of the state
legislature.
It's humorous—and instructive—to watch Musgrave distance
herself from the political poison of the Bush Administration while
Paccione displays photos of Musgrave being smooched on the forehead by
the Chimpanzee-in-Chief. At the same time, it's Paccione who puts the
emphasis on capturing Osama bin Scapegoat and prosecuting the War on
Everything. Anybody who still thinks things will get any better under
Democratic masters—that the Patriot Act will be repealed and the
Bill of Rights fully restored—needs a lot of very serious couch
time.
My personal favorite of Boot On Your Neck embarrassments here in
Colorful Colorado, is the race between Republican Rick O'Donnell, and
Democrat Ed Perlmutter. O'Donnell has had exactly one (count 'em) good
idea in his entire political career, and that was to abolish Social
Security.
I don't know what else O'Donnell said about it or why (it ought to
be sufficient that Social Security is a transparent confidence scheme
that should have seen its founders and instigators dancing at the end
of a length of hemp, or at least endungeoned until the sun burns out)
but it doesn't matter in the end. The very instant that Perlmutter's
campaign began whimpering about it, O'Donnell recanted, confessing
that he'd been young at the time (exactly like all those cute college
communists back in the 1950s) and hadn't really known what he was
saying.
"Those are my principles. If you don't like them ... I'll change
them."
O'Donnell also has an idea worthy of Bob Beauprez—that all high
school senior boys in America should skip their last semester and be
jerked into compulsory national service, mostly to defend the southern
border against the Brown Menace, neatly proving once again that the
real Slave Party in this country is the GOP, and has been at least
since slaves were employed to rebuild the capitol dome in Washington—at
the same time Dishonest Abe was claiming to free slaves in the
South.
Perlmutter, on the other hand, is a cartoon: tiny little man (at
least that's the way he appears on TV) with a bad comb-over, a great
big fat wife, and three great big fat daughters. He talks a lot in his
campaign advertising about how he loves them all and wants to pass laws
to defend them from nasty old violent video games and an even nastier
Internet. My question for family man Perlmutter is why, if he loves
his womenfolk so much, he'd rather see them raped in an alley and
strangled with their own pantyhose, than see them with guns in their
hands.
You might ask him if you see him.
There are, of course, other races going on, and other candidates
running, but these ought to give you an overall picture of one of the
most dismal years for personal freedom I've had to live through since
1964.
Remember that while all individual behavior is ultimately about
sex, all group activity is about eating. Remember, too, that ideology
is a blind; what government is really all about is stealing, nothing
more, nothing less. That's all it's ever been about or ever will be
about.
All that these conventional politicos, right and left, liberal and
conservative, Republican and Democrat, can do is take things away from
you, promising to share what they steal with their accomplices, the
voters.
All that these conventional politicos, right and left, liberal and
conservative, Republican and Democrat, can do is push the Productive
Class around, telling them—the Bill of Rights be damned—what
they can and cannot do with their own lives, what they can and cannot
do with their own property. Oh, yeah—and that what they thought
were their rights is a joke. The parasites who keep them in office
all love that sort of thing, the vicarious crunch of the boot on your
neck.
The one and only bright spot has been the "negative campaigning
this year. I love it—it's the only way you can ever learn what
these freaks and fourflushers are really up to. Which is why, of
course, so many of them and their camp followers in the media detest
it.
A word about the media. Denver has two major newspapers the way
America has two major parties. They belong to the same company and
should be called the Boot On Your Neck Gazette. Every time a candidate
is reported to have a fresh, new, creative idea, the Denver Pest and
the Rocky Mountain Spotted News report that it's a risky, dangerous
scheme.
Or that it's too "radical".
I resent that. The word has a meaning—"of or going to the root
or origin; fundamental; forming a basis or foundation"—and it isn't
what Denver's birdcage liners and fishwrappers want you to believe it
is. For a serious newspaper to suggest that the word means anything
else borders on criminal fraud. As an individual who has been proud to
call himself a radical for more than 40 years, and who promised
himself long ago to become more radical with the passage of time,
not less, I can assure you that not one of these Boot-On-Your-Neck
candidates is any kind of radical about anything.
As for "risky and dangerous", it simply demonstrates that these
publications and the candidates and parties they're pimping for take
Americans for what Jeffry Snyder called them years ago, a "nation of
cowards". From my own political experiences, I'm not convinced that's
true.
I do know the sorry strategies advocated by neolibertarian vermin
at Portland are doomed to failure. Forget elephants and donkeys. When
one major party models itself after vampire bats, and the other after
leaches, it makes no sense to try and imitate mosquitos. A bloodsucker
is a bloodsucker, and we're the party that's not supposed to suck
blood.
So what can be done this election year to minimize the damage
and prepare for future battles? To begin with, don't succumb to the
electoral pacifism advocated by many kindly, principled, but sadly
misinformed libertarians. When the statist tank rolls up over the hill
and heads toward you, you can't get away, and your only weapon is a
rusty .25 auto lying at your feet, will you sneer at this unreliable
and possibly ineffective weapon, or will you pick it up and try to use
it?
One of the best strategies is to "vote the air"—meaning, when
there's no libertarian candidate, don't vote for anybody in that
position. It's also called "casting a blank", and while it never gets
reported by the round-heeled media, it communicates volumes to the
politicians.
Vote the air.
Between now and 2008, buy and read Hope, a novel I wrote with
my friend Aaron Zelman a while back, showing how a truly libertarian
president would do things. It doesn't matter whether you think the
scenario is likely—although it was great fun to contrive, and I'll
never listen to "Stairway to Heaven" quite the same way ever again—what
matters is the policies, and the attitudes and ideals behind
them.
If you like that aspect of the book, buy a lot more copies—Aaron
will make you a deal—and hand them out all over, with the
object of raising folks' expectations of what a real president out to
be.
It's a small thing, I know. A very small thing. But think what
Harriet Beecher Stowe did with just one little book. Hope could be
the beginning of the end for the vilest form of slavery, we call
"democracy".
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