Libertarians

The Libertarian Party will have a presidential primary in NC this May which I think is a good thing. It shows that there is a hankering for choices other than the two traditional parties, I just wish we had more choices.

On a side note, I think this will help drive out votes against Amendment One. The party has come out against the amendment and while there aren't that many registered Libertarians (12,781), every vote will be vital.

read more: Charlotte Observer

How do we build the progressive brand and create demand for our policies?

The New York Times ran a piece recently about a study of pop song lyrics and other studies suggesting increasing narcissism in America since the 1980s. (Big news, huh?) They found "the words 'I' and 'me' appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there’s been a corresponding decline in 'we' and 'us' and the expression of positive emotions." This must make the Randians proud. Their world is all about them, and it's a view they have sold successfully for decades. Progressives will not change that outlook just by promoting programs people don't want to pay for, sponsored by a government they distrust, with benefits they would rather do without than see help neighbors they see as parasites.

A progressive America is less about me and more about we.

There's a new Fourth Amendment case before the Supreme Court (link). In brief, the police forced their way into an apartment because "they smelled burning marijuana" [good reporting would say "they said they smelled..."].

What really angers me is that I know exactly how the so-called "conservative" justices on the court will rule. The great defenders of the Constitution, the great Tea Party favorites, Scalia and Thomas will side with the police. Yes, they will side with the government. It's always this way with these people: that's why I use the phrase "so-called", because they simply do not believe in limited government power. Thank God to Kagen and Sotomayor for standing up against this attack on our Bill of Rights.

Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Mike Beitler told the North Carolina Latino Coalition Assembly yesterday that he supports amnesty for illegal immigrants and a pathway to citizenship. “I challenge my opponents to take the same stand,” he said.

“The role of government is to protect us from criminals, not immigrants,” Beitler said. “Immigrants, whether classified as legal or undocumented, are a benefit to North Carolina. They provide a much- needed work force, they are consumers who are spending their income in North Carolina and they are a great example to the rest of us of hard workers.”

This stuff almost writes itself.

Buncombe County Republicans lost everything in the November, 2006 elections, and it's been a bitter pill to swallow. While I don't pretend to know about the private machinations of the BCRP, the public faces of the party present a bitter struggle between conservatives and libertarians, and Party regulars.

In the fight to elect a County Chair to the Party earlier this year, Mike Harrison won over Chad Nesbitt. Harrison resigned shortly after his election:

"The chairman of the Buncombe County Republican Party on Monday said he resigned from the post after personal attacks on his character and his wife’s character.

Mike Harrison said in a written statement that he left the job May 1. He had hoped his election to chairman in March would bring the party together, he said, but that did not happen." - link

Harrison supporter, Tim Peck, got into a very public conversation with Nesbitt supporter, Don Yelton. Peck and Yelton gave us a glimpse of the beginning of each group's encampment in what may be a long war of attrition:

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If you've been following the moldy trail of crumbs being dropped by the writers at the John Locke Foundation, you've noticed a recent upsurge in the rhetoric around free-market fundamentalism. One after another, the Puppets march forth, spewing their simplistic delusions about the nature of our civilization and how the world should work. Their hatred of public service knows no bounds.

Of particular interest to me is their oft-repeated mantra that it's wrong for government to force people do things they don't want to do. And of course, the biggest thing the free-market fundamentalists don't want to do is pay taxes.

This is true not only for taxation, but also for nearly all the methods used by government to get what it deems to be desirable. The Endangered Species Act is enforced by denying land owners the right to cut down trees, build homes, or sometimes even walk on their property, again denying their rights to the “enjoyment of the fruits of their labor” and “the pursuit of happiness.” The minimum wage law denies the right to be employed to people who cannot find someone willing to hire them for at least the mandated minimum wage, denying them the right to gain fruits from their labor. Clearly this list is a long one and gets longer with every legislative session and every meeting of every city council and every government regulatory body.