Once again, I have to ask is the purpose of the LP Blog to be a chat spot for Libertarians. Or is it an outreach tool?

If it is for outreach, postings to the blog shouldn't have a "preaching to the choir" tone. For example, using the phrase, "it's for the children", without explaining that it is a very common justification for all kinds of overreaching laws. Or assuming that the reader doesn't agree with the lawmakers' rationale in this particular example; if this is an outreach blog, please explain why "gun grabbing" is a bad thing.

Off topic, but this is urgent:

Representative Kucinich of Ohio will soon be introducing legislation to require the FCC to enforce the Fairness Doctrine. This doctrine would essentially end the talk format on both radio and television. Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and all the rest would be immediately removed from the airwaves and replaced with bland, generic hosts who would be required to take alternating calls from conservatives and liberals, with any Libertarian voices likely forever silenced, banished from any appearance on TV or radio.

We must fight this with every ounce of strength we have. If this passes, we won't have a voice to fight anything else. The "Fairness Doctrine" must be stopped at all costs.

Practically speaking, back in the Fairness Doctrine days, there were talk shows and it was used to get libertarians on the air since the host had to "be fair." Even if it was on a proportional basis - getting .005% of the air time is probably much more than we are getting now!

Anything called the Fairness Doctrine is clearly going to be legislation to take away freedom.

Odd that the LP site doesn't have any mention of former LP Presidential candidate Ron Paul forming a committee to run as a Republican. If the LP had any sense (which I've concluded over the years there is very little common sense in political operations) they would be all over this and Paul should be a front runner to gain the LP nomination. Unless things have changed it will be only a few months prior to the general election that anyone will have even heard of the LP choice.

Fairness doctrine bill:

I don't think it's that urgent. Do you suppose it will clear both houses of Congress and be signed into law?

Kucinich, like Ron Paul, introduces many bills that have no chance of passage.

I agree with Mike Laursen's post. You should've mentioned DC's high crime rate.

JMann, The best the LP can do right now is dissociate from Paul until he inevitably loses the GOP nomination. Nothing makes a serious candidate look less credible than conections to supposed "fringe" groups.

We are less of a fringe group every time Republicans whine about us costing them the election. We will continue to cost them elections so they will have to be less socially conservative, more fiscally conservative, and maybe we catch a break somewhere. I'm not saying Ron Paul is the answer but we can make a mark here if we are vocal about supporting him, vocal about renouncing all the religious right and war factions of the GOP. Let them lose another couple elections and maybe people start to give up on them. We can take advantage, if we're not lazy. I still haven't heard anything from party leadership about what we're doing to get the word on on a large scale.

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."
-- George Washington

"If the LP had any sense (which I've concluded over the years there is very little common sense in political operations) they would be all over this and Paul should be a front runner to gain the LP nomination."

For starters, Ron Paul has not indicated that he wants the LP nomination - he has formed an exploratory committee for the Republican nomination.

If he ends up running third party, which is far from certain, it may well be the Constitution Party.

We've tried running Ron Paul before; I don't think the results would be substantially different this time. For reference, also see Pat Buchanan's Reform Party run in 2000 along with Ron Paul's LP run in 1988.

The best thing the LP can do is nominate a true Libertarian who actually wants the nomination, and actually takes libertarian positions on important national issues like immigration.

For added bonus, that candidate should be able to reach out more effectively to the left - all or almost all our previous candidates have spun libertarianism in such a way as to be more appealing to disaffected conservative Republicans, and this has been much to the detriment of our party and movement.

This time, the candidate with the best chance of doing so is Steve Kubby. He's just getting started putting together a campaign, but already announced to a cheering crowd of 50,000 people (how many LP candidates have ever done that?).

http://kubby2008.com/

"please explain why "gun grabbing" is a bad thing."

For several good reasons.

One is that the courts have ruled repeatedly that the police are not under any obligation to protect ordinary Americans from crime.

In millions of cases, privately owned firearms have detered violent and property crimes from taking place, in the vast majority of cases without being discharged.

Numerous books and studies show that privately owned guns help prevent crime. Criminals will always have guns, whether they are legal or not - they are criminals. Only generally law abiding people can be disarmed by "gun control," thus better making it known as victim diarmament.

Another, increasing problem is that of corrupt, abusive and brutal rogue police.

http://copwatch.com/AAAindex.html

Victim disarmement puts ordinary folks, especially (but not only) in high crime areas, at the mercy of two classes of thugs - violent criminals and rogue police - who as a result of victim disarmamnet have little reason to fear that their victims might be able to defend themselves.

Another big reason that gun grabbing is dangerous is that it often leads to dictatorship and tyranny. As governments disarm their citizens, they have less to fear by taking away more of our civil rights and liberties, and thus - just like ordinary criminals and rogue police - tend to become more violent and abusive towards the rest of us as a result.

In the 20th century alone, various government of the world killed 200,000,000 of their own citizens - plus many millions more in wars between governments - and they invariably started by enacting gun control.

Private ownership of firearms acts as a deterent against domestic tyranny as well as foreign invasion - during WW II the Japanese studied the idea of invading the US West Coast, and concluded that the American insurgency would be just too much to handle because too many Americans own guns.

High rates of gun ownership among the Swiss have played a big role in keeping them from being invaded over several centuries in the midst of wars all around them, including the Napoleonic Wars and both World Wars. They also have among the world's lowest rates of crime.

Rather than thinking about how government can make us safer by disarming citizens, we should be thinking about how we can make ourselves safer by demilitarizing the police and by withdrawing the US military from being the world's policeman.

We need to decriminalize self defense. Too many innocent people that are trying to defend themselves IN THEIR OWN HOMES are not only victims at the time of the crime but they also can be sued by their invader if that person gets hurt on their property. We need to make sure our legal system does not make criminals out of people that are defending their homes and families, even if they do so with a gun, knife, or shish kabob.

The main point of "arms" is to allow the population to overthrow the government if it becomes tyrannical. For this reason I feel we shouldn't limit private ownership of weapons to just (sporting) guns - let it be nuclear weapons if need be.

Very informative comment, paulie!

"The best thing the LP can do is nominate a true Libertarian who actually wants the nomination, and actually takes libertarian positions on important national issues like immigration."

Sure the LP can do what they always do and nominate someone like Badnarik with almost no political experience and it is questionable whether he is qualified for dog catcher much less President of the United States. They can wait until 3 or 4 month prior to the election to nominate a candidate after all but 10 percent of Americans have made their choice.

Of course they could take advantage of the fact that there is a libertarian looking to run for President, is actually qualified for the job, is going to be on national tv participating in debates 12 months or more prior to the general. There is nothing that prevents Paul from being the Republican and Libertarian nominee regardless if he seeks the LP nomination.

Keep doing what you've always done and you will always have what your already got. Which is nothing outside of some local offices. As with Republican religious freaks and Democratic socialist wack jobs the LP is controlled by a handful of purist that won't compromise one ounce of ideology for political gain.

It is clear that about 1/3 of American voters consider themselves to be libertarians but only about 3% of that third can support the LP.

JMann,

You miusnderstood me. I am not in any way shape or form an advocate of doing what we have always done.

Badnarik, like all or almost all LP candidates in the past, is a former Republican/conservative who appeals most stongly to libertarian-leaning conservatives.

We need a candidate who reaches out to the growing numbers of libertarian-leaning people on the left.

Unfortunately, Badnarik's appeal was nothing like this:

http://lastfreevoice.wordpress.com/2007/01/17/taxes-of-evil/

or this:

http://lastfreevoice.wordpress.com/2007/01/15/steve-kubbys-mlk-day-message/

As Charles Johnson writes, "
Historically, libertarianism was a movement of the economic and social left, associated with wildcat unionism, opposition to mercantilism, and anti-imperialism, as well as abolitionism and radical feminism. Some (Benjamin Tucker’s circle) went so far as to describe themselves as “anti-capitalist” or “voluntary socialists.” For various reasons, a few of them good and most of them quite bad, libertarians drifted from their roots in the left into intellectual and political alliances with the Right during the 1930s-1950s onward. There are many of us making deliberate efforts to reverse this trend, for both theoretical and strategic reasons. (I happen to think that trying to pitch radical change to the existing cultural elite is a damned fool project. I also happen to think that anti-racism, feminism, wildcat unionism, populism, anti-authoritarianism, etc. are the right positions to hold, and essential parts of any sane politics.)"

Additionaly, from Brad Spangler:

"Genuine libertarianism is very much left wing. It's revolutionary. The long and tragic alliance of libertarians with the right against the spectre of state socialism is coming to a close, as it served no purpose after the fall of the Soviet Union and so-called "conservatives" have subsequently taken to letting their true big-government-on-steroids colors fly…. [I]n the period since the demise of the Soviet Union, both the radicals and moderates among the left have been subconsciously seeking a new radical creed to orient themselves upon to replace Marxism…. I believe that radical libertarians … will be most effective when they overcome any lingering right wing cultural contamination of their libertarian views and embrace their inherent radicalism — which is most at home on the left. For as the radicals go, so do the moderates grudgingly follow in small step. It's time for libertarians to stop fighting the left and take up the challenge of leading the left."

Much more on this issues covered in my last comment at:

http://mises.org/story/2099

Long, but well worth it.

While it would be wonderful to see libertarians "leading the left," I can't imagine that this will ever be practical. There is simply too much agreement among the majority of lefties that, at some point, force -- usually government force -- must be used to guarantee political correctness, wealth redistribution, the "social safety net," etc. Even among the anarchist-communists or those influenced by them on the left, there was some agreement that a strong government would be necessary as a transitional device, on the way to a purely "voluntary" socialism. Look how well that turned out.

I certainly think that anti-mercantilism fits with libertarian thought (as well as the idea that government-granted monopolies and special privileges are a bad thing), but anti-capitalism and forced wealth redistribution do NOT fit. Those two ideas are so firmly entrenched in the left, that they don't seem to leave much room for truly libertarian leadership.

Just my 2 cents. Of course, I want to have libertarians everywhere; the more libertarian thought is represented in the bastions of left and right, the better off for all. But a true libertarian would have to support a lot of statist garbage to be elected and rise to power in today's right and left. How much destroying the village in order to save it can a sincere libertarian put up with, I wonder?

[[There is nothing that prevents Paul from being the Republican and Libertarian nominee regardless if he seeks the LP nomination. ]]

Is too. Party Bylaws.

Article 12, Section 2:
No candidate may be nominated for President or Vice-President who is ineligible under the United States Constitution, who has not expressed a willingness to accept the nomination of the Party, or who is not a member of the Party.

I also believed there was a provision requiring any endorsed candidate to run as a Libertarian, partisan-wise, but I am not finding this specific and may be mistaken.

The reason most leftists support the welfare state is because they are bleeding hearts and want to help the poor, yada yada yada. If we cna just speak to them rationally so they see that capitalism in its truer form is much more beneficial to the poor and needy than government inefficiency then we can gain their support. If we do not convince those that agree with us to agree with us more, then how can we expect to change someone's mind who disagrees with us? It's worth a shot, but they must understand that taxation in all forms harms the poor more than the rich.

Many candidates run on more than one party's line on the ballot box. Is there anything against the law preventing Ron Paul from joining more than one party so as to qualify for both party lines on the ballot? If we have to change our party bylaws to support a candidate most of us would vote for isn't it worth it? The goal here is political change. We've seen what happens when laws (or bylaws) get in the way of progress. We argue against them all the time.

The LP needs to strongly consider going to a Presidential Preference Caucus system for choosing its candidate. I would recommend the format used by the Democratic Party in Iowa, that being open voice voting for candidates. Perhaps have a day or days in March. Have delegates selected in the caucuses meet in convention in April, with delegates selected in the state conventions meeting in National Convention in May.

Currently, the LP nomination system is little more than a smoke filled room.

Libertarians are neither left nor right and thus preferring alliances with one side or the other is illogical. We can ally with the Left where we have common ground, mainly with personal freedoms. We can ally with the right in the area of economic freedom. At the same time, we must strongly dissassociate ourselves from the socialism emanating from the left as well as the mercantilism emanating from the right. Particularly, we need to strongly condemn neo-conservatism on the right.

If Ron Paul wins the GOP nomination or is on some other party's ballot and the Libertarian Party runs a candidate, it will split the vote. That's the last thing we need to let happen. When the Republican vote was split in 1912 between moderate Taft and socialist Roosevelt, extreme socialist Wilson (Democrat) was elected president and went on to become the worst president in American History. We're actually fighting to repeal laws that were mostly passed by Wilson and his spiritual successors FDR, LBJ, and GWB. We cannot risk splitting the vote because Hillary Clinton or John McCain will be there to capitalize.

"Is too. Party Bylaws.

Article 12, Section 2:
No candidate may be nominated for President or Vice-President who is ineligible under the United States Constitution, who has not expressed a willingness to accept the nomination of the Party, or who is not a member of the Party."

1. Ron is a card-carrying, dues-paying Libertarian; and

2. As a Republican candidate (assuming he has a shot at the GOP nomination) he could still accept the LP nomination - in short, he would appear on ballots twice, as both the GOP and LP nominee.

Nick- The left are the ones who got rid of capitalism in the first place (FDR). Because under capitalism (as under anything) some people suffered.
The left thinks that somehow man can create a utopia where no one suffers. So capitalism will fail them every time because someone will always be suffering (oh how my heart bleeds).
Regardless of how much their own choices led to that suffering the left wants to make us all suffer just as much. I can work with them on some rights issues (gay rights, drug prohibition, etc.). But to expect them to ever listen to logic on economics is faulty.
Any one can look and see that when the government tries to alleviate suffering it only causes more. It is government intervention in health care, education, poverty that made problems grow. The left isn't interested in results but showing that they care more than you.
Of course they don't refrain from using your money to care with.
The fact that the republicans are joining the anti-second amendment bandwagon just goes to show they have no idea who they are. When I was with them gun rights was one of the few things I could count on them to support. Boy am I glad I left before this.
"It's for the children" has been way overused by politicians for years. Every time Clinton passed more cigarette taxes, Reagan (my hero except on this issue) passed tough drug legislation, and on and on.
If people can't see that the Dems and Reps are playing on their emotions than they are getting the government they deserve.
Coach Jim- RIGHT ON about the main point of "arms" being the right to resist. Whether it be the government, foreign invasion or the police the fact that someone is armed makes you think twice. How different would the history of the Holocaust have been if the SS had to worry about Jews blasting them when they came to round them up for the camps? When I was in Kosovo I saw this first hand.
It was the (I'm sorry to say) US-led arms embargo that hurt the balkans the most. The Serbs already had weapons from the old Yugoslav army. The other ethnic groups were unarmed and defenseless so the Serbs could rape and pillage at will.
By not selling the defenseless arms we only extended the Serbs advantage. This led to our intervention there. If those other ethnic groups had arms to defend themselves maybe the Serbs wouldn't have been so keen to follow Milosevic. Just like a playground bully, they only pick on the weak.

John B, I know what the left is about, but I think that is a wishy washy position on their part and some of them, not all of them, can be convinced of logical economic capitalism for everyone's benefit. No one has yet told them in a sensible manner otherwise. I'm not so naive to think they all will, but Democratic leadership are the politicians of "we don't really have any ideas of our own so we'll jump on any public opinion bandwagon" and some of their party members, the regular folks that are registered Democrats or especially those that are independents but often vote Democrat can be convinced if we are smart about it, just like I think Republicans or those that are independents but tend to vote Republican can be convinced that social babysitting causes more problems than it solves (drug war - I know you're with me on this one). I have hope for young people that are trying to find their political ideal that if we can get to them before they become too cynical that we can move this country in the right direction. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't be here. I could be a "small l" libertarian and find another hobby, but because I believe if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I want to change things for the better, so I will try to educate Average Joe Democrat and Regular Guy Republican that ours is a better way.

Back on the Republican Gun Control topic, my campaign for State Senate just sent a press release about this and I have posted to my blog a sound clip from the press release. One of the speakers started off his speech by saying "If the matter were left up to me, I would require the registration of all firearms in the whole United States."

So this isn't just about the so called gun show loophole, this is one of those many incremental steps that will lead to gun registration and then confiscation.

I'm hopeful that we Virginians are better than this, the rumor is this bill will likely die in committee.

Read more and hear the sound clip here:

http://arinsime.com/blog/default.aspx?bpc=BRC8B2Y479&bc=XZ5D9Z93K7

I meant to say that the sound clip on my blog is from the press conference promoting this bad bill. Regardless, I hope you'll check it out.

Brad, I think we are seeing the worst president of all time right now in King George. Was Wilson really worse?

Given the choice of offenses, the lesser of two evils, I would rather have redistributed wealth (welfare, unemployment, medicaid, etc) instead of military aggression. They seem to cost the taxpayers the same, but one is benign in intent and the other is malignant no matter how you slice it.

I just want government to quit overlapping with other institutions and just be a government. Quit running charities, quit building playgrounds, quit preaching morals, etc.

Here's a good piece:

http://hyper2.com/essays/smallergov.html

Lincoln was the worst president. By far. Slaughtered over 600,000 of his own citizens. And many other crimes.

However, this is not the place for that discussion. If ya all want to go over to www.lpstuff.com and start a worst president thread on the forums, might come up with some interesting responses.

Actually, we need to be having a lot of these side discussions over there, rather than here. The forums on lpstuff are official forums of the LP established for just such reason. They have been far too quiet as of late and we could use some fresh ideas there.

Okay, forget the "worst president" argument and just go with "I want the government(s) to quit overlapping with other institutions"

And what does this blog-site have against elipses? . . .

An armed citizen is one who is the final set of checks and balances. I agree that violent felons should not be allowed to own and use firearms. Howevor, this is but a long line of legislation in the past two decades to disarm the American Populace, and make us all victims to the only two groups that are able to own guns, criminals and the Government.

Indoctrinating children on a socialist, leftist, anti-gun agenda is wrong. The 2nd amendment is a right afforded to all law abiding citizens and should remain so as long as we expect to have the rest of the bill of rights.

James,

"Just my 2 cents. Of course, I want to have libertarians everywhere; the more libertarian thought is represented in the bastions of left and right, the better off for all. But a true libertarian would have to support a lot of statist garbage to be elected and rise to power in today's right and left. How much destroying the village in order to save it can a sincere libertarian put up with, I wonder?"

None at all. The idea is not to rise to power in today's left, but to lead it in a libertarian direction by taking advantage of the common ground, which is entirely possible by simply changing what we emphasize. Have you read the link right above your last comment? It explains the startegy and its historical context in great detail.

For a practical example see the "taxes of evil" link a little ways above.