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The Campaign for "Liberty"
by Jim Davidson
jim@vertoro.com

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

It looks like the people running Campaign for "Liberty" are no longer committed to non-intervention. They have endorsed through their Colorado branch a virulent war monger named Ken Buck. Their senate candidate in Connecticut, Peter Schiff, says he would bomb Iran given "credible evidence" that they are building a nuclear weapon. Their senate candidate in Kentucky, Rand Paul, was just endorsed by neo-conservative Sarah Palin, and says he wants to continue the war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul pretends his arm has been twisted by the Texas GOP to endorse all the incumbent Republicans in Texas. Including virulent war mongers and neo-conservatives like Lamar Smith who voted yes on war with Iraq, no on withdrawing troops from Iraq, yes on sanctions for Iran, yes on FISA. Ron Paul endorsed him. Kind of a kick in the pants to Stephen Schoppe, a liberty activist working to unseat Smith in the primary. Site is schoppe.us which seems to be down, crushed perhaps by Ron's carelessness.

Here's a link with Ron Paul's endorsement of Smith. Scroll down for the actual endorsement letter—no mention of how wrong Smith is on anything.

Oh, he pretends the Texas GOP twisted his arm, but since when does Ron Paul put his power ahead of his principles? Apparently, from now on. Last month I was ready to make excuses for Ron Paul. Okay, so he won't run as a Libertarian candidate, can't argue with that. As the squirrel says to the moose, "that trick never works!" So he wants to run as a GOP candidate, he has to do this thing. He says.

He stood alone on a stage of other GOP presidential hopefuls in 2007 and told them the war in Iraq was wrong. Why can't he endorse Lamar Smith and say the same thing?

Meanwhile he didn't have to endorse Ken Buck, nor have the Campaign for "Liberty" support him. Buck isn't in Texas and isn't an incumbent.

Here's the amount C4L spent: $350,000 [LINK]

If Ken Buck doesn't seem like a neo-con to you, check out these facts, from his wikipedia page.

"In 1986, he was hired by then-congressman Dick Cheney to work on the Iran-Contra Investigation. Following that assignment, he worked as a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C. In 1990, Buck joined the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado where he became Chief of the Criminal Division."
[LINK]

What do you want to bet he enforced drug crimes and gun crimes?

How do we know he's pro-war? He wrote, "We definitely need to continue a major effort in Afghanistan. We are told this effort will take at least 10 years. It will require both military and civilian personnel to help build up the country. The generals on the ground tell us we are likely to be in Afghanistan for the long term with a difficult and complicated mission." [LINK]

With me so far? We have Ron Paul endorsing a violent, neo-conservative, war monger Lamar Smith over a liberty-oriented candidate in Texas. We have the Campaign for "Liberty" in Colorado endorsing and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the campaign of a violent, neo-conservative war monger, Ken Buck.

Let's look at some of the other candidates prominently identified with Campaign for "Liberty." They have Peter Schiff running for US senate in Connecticut. He wrote to me in December to say, "In the first place no one that takes that position will ever be elected to the U.S. senate. In the second place, just because we may have contributed to the problem does not mean that we should compound the error by not doing anything at all to protect Americans against terrorist attacks, especially those that may involve nuclear weapons."

No one who took a consistent anti-war stance on Iran could be elected. (Er, I guess, except for Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul and a few dozen others?) So it is all expedience with him. He's just trying to impress people he think will give his campaign money.

Here's Peter on video declaring his allegiance to bombing Iran:

Here's a video with Rand Paul explaining how pro-war and anti-freedom he really is:

So, no, I do not believe John Tate, president of C4L, when he says that the campaign is committed to peace. They are not. They are just as willing to sell peace down the river as any other position. There is no principle here, no ethics, only expedience. And if what I wanted was a group of really expedient people who would sell out everything for money and power, why not be an Obama Democrat? At least that way, nobody would confuse me with the racists, sexists, xenophobes, and homophobes who support war from the GOP side of the street.

No, I cannot ally myself with these people. I cannot close my eyes and send money to Ron Paul ever again. And because I cannot do these things, I cannot ask any of my friends to do these things.

The path of agorism is not easy. There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Politicians and bureau-rats got us into this mess. They won't get us out of this mess.

Ron Paul is not a saint. Obama is not a saint. JFK was not a saint, though being dead he is a safer candidate for cult of personality foolishness. Jefferson was exactly right when he said that if you do not believe that each individual can and should govern himself, if the individual is not sufficiently moral, sufficiently enlightened, sufficiently informed to run her own life, then where are we to find angels in the shape of kings to rule us?

There are none. Scum like Ron Paul are wrong on the border policy. Scum like Rand Paul are wrong on the occupation of Afghanistan. Scum like Peter Schiff are wrong on the bombing of Iran. Scum like Ken Buck are wrong on everything. Scum like Sarah Palin are endorsing scum like Rand Paul. I'm sick of it.

Tell me where this crap is getting us. Tell me. The Libertarian Party promised to create a groundswell of support for smaller government through education and party politics. In just 39 years the federal government has grown eighteen-fold, from $210 billion in budget to $3.8 trillion in budget.

If it were going to be effective by now, wouldn't there have been some success? Couldn't we point to, say, Alaska, or Orange County, and say, "Look, the Libertarians are successful there, let's build on that success." Some LP candidates were elected in Alaska, have they built on that success? Or is it still the land of welfare hand-outs funded by big oil? Oops. There are more libertarians per capita and in raw numbers in Orange County than anywhere else in the world. And is Orange County, California a bastion of free market capitalism and low taxes, a new Hong Kong? It is not.

The political approach has failed. It isn't successful. Not there, not here, not anywhere.

And in 2008, everyone was saying, "See, the Campaign for 'Liberty' has activated hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts. They have fired up young people. They are going to revitalise the liberty movement." And I wanted to believe. But I also wanted to wait to see the other shoe drop.

Well, it has dropped. The Campaign for "Liberty" has betrayed the freedom movement. They have abandoned non-interventionism as a policy. They have sold us down the river to get campaign contributions from the military industrial complex death merchant defence contractors. Why?

If it isn't for the money they can get from big military and big banking and big pharma and big agri-biz, then what is this betrayal for? It is clear that the vast majority of Americans are tired of war after 9 years. Polls suggest that 58% want the war in Afghanistan to end. It is clear that the vast majority of Americans, including a great many who won't vote, don't want more war. Don't want more terrorists coming here to blow things up because the USA military is in their countries blowing up their families.

But Rand Paul wants to be over there. Rand Paul seems to want to massacre little children in Afghanistan. Rand Paul's continuing war will slaughter women and civilians in Afghanistan, and let American soldiers fight and bleed and die and kill and suffer in military hospitals, because Rand Paul is an evil war monger.

Peter Schiff wants to send bombers over Iran to bomb women and children if they happen to be in the way of bombing purported nuclear weapons sites, notwithstanding that in 2003 the Iranian government gave up its nuclear ambitions. Peter Schiff doesn't care who gets hurt in his pursuit of policies conducive to a stronger Israel and a weaker America. Kinda reminds me of Jacob Schiff and the build up of the Japanese Navy back before 1905, and a $20 million check to the Bolsheviks a while later.

Ken Buck, gosh, do I have to? Just look at his web site. Or his wikipedia page. Buck worked for Dick Cheney covering up the Iran Contra mess. He's been a prosecutor for the DoJ. War on drugs anyone? How about his white collar crime task force—victimless crimes anyone?—as Weld county district attorney. "We definitely need to continue a major effort in Afghanistan." No matter how many children have to be slaughtered.

I'm sick of it. There's no sign that the Campaign for "Liberty" is interested in liberty. They want as much money as possible from big death merchant companies. They want to ignore the pleas of countless Americans for an end to these senseless wars.

At this point, repudiating Lamar Smith, Rand Paul, Peter Schiff, Ken Buck, and Sarah Palin would not be good enough. I'd have to see some real contrition here. I'd have to see, say, John Tate, crawling on his hands and knees over broken glass to every veterans hospital in the country to beg forgiveness for abandoning the policy of non-intervention. And I'm never going to see it. So why bother?

I was never happy with Ron Paul on border policy. A border wall big enough to keep everyone out is big enough to keep everyone in. The recent experience of Peter Watts being beaten and arrested while trying to leave the USA makes it clear that my warnings for the last 15 years were rational. The new border policy is the new Berlin Wall.

I was never happy with Ron Paul on abortion. Women have a right to remove trespassers from their property. No, his "solution" of having the several states erect various prohibitions against abortion would push the activity back into the black market, make it far more dangerous, far more expensive, and far more widely available. Any effort to ban it would be the most egregious police state ever built in order to monitor every pregnancy and prevent every abortifacient drug from being used. A war on abortion would be worse than the war on drugs. Worse, it would delay for decades all research into pregnancy transplantation and artificial wombs which hold the possibility of dividing the ending of pregnancy from the loss of life.

But, yes, I admit, I was willing in 2007 to support Ron Paul despite his bad positions on these two things because he was right on non-intervention, because he was anti-war. War is so much bigger, so much more horrid, so much worse than anything else. And he lied to me.

He lied to me about the Campaign for "Liberty" being principled about opposing war and occupation and intervention. He betrayed my trust.

Jim Davidson is an author, entrepreneur, and anti-war activist. His 1990 venture to offer a sweepstakes trip into space was destroyed by government action as was his free port and prospective space port in Somalia in 2001. His 2002-2007 venture in free market money and private stock exchange was destroyed by government action in 2007. He's going to Mars if he has to walk. His second book, Being Sovereign is now availble from Lulu and is expected within a few weeks to be available at Amazon. His third book Sovereign Self-Defense will be released for Kindle next week. His fourth book Being Libertarian will be available for free download as a .pdf, being a compilation of all his essays and letters in "The Libertarian Enterprise" since 1995. Contact him at indomitus.net or houstonspacesociety.org.

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