Small Government Blog

Patrick Buchanan concurs with and elaborates on the subject of my previous post on the matter of Barack Obama’s position on Afghanistan.

He asks, “Has Barack thought his way through to how this war ends in victory and we withdraw all U.S. ground troops from Afghanistan? For this writer cannot see anywhere on the horizon any such ending.”

The answer, of course, is that WAR PROMOTER Barack Obama does not possess the option of “[thinking]…his way through…”. Instead, we hear:

“let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel. Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation.”

[from Obama’s Speech at AIPAC]

The Afghan war is, and will be, a going concern when Obama would take office.

And for the MIC-dominated political system in Washington, contrary to the asinine, juvenile rhetoric of the War Party’s MORE strident candidate, John McCain, it’s not about “winning” or the “glory” of American greatness-affirming “victory”, it’s simply about having on-going war, “winning” or losing matter not in the least. It’s whether you continue to play.

The military-industrial complex would gain nothing even if the simpleton nonsense McCain dishes out had any relevance in the real world. They merely need wars-in-progress.

And as the aspiring new front man of the Washington war machine, Obama can hardly be expected to not assure it’s beneficiaries. (more…)

This article from the New York Post, was published on the The Miami Critical Mass Meetup Group, along with a link to the video of the incident.

In response, I added the following comments:

At the risk of giving this matter what may seem too broad an interpretation, what we see in this video is just another example of what has come to be a pervasive attitude amoungst law enforcement agents at all levels of government.

Compare this description of airport security.

The parallels should be obvious. In both cases, the private citizen, minding his own business, perhaps engaged in an activity that puts them in a position of interaction with authorities, finds themselves treated with disdain, suspicion, fear—and yes, even violence.

With the excesses of expansion of authority comes the inevitable conflict of those holding authority with the private individual who is both the source of their power, and the greatest threat against it.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

—The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence, of course, is the core and founding document of the American Republic. With these words, it both charges the citizenry with the responsibility to overthrow tyrants and sanctions their right to do so.

This street incident may seem far removed from the recently passed FISA Amendment Act, for example. But in passing this law, the congress does the legislative equivalent of Pogan decking Long. (more…)

The Westphalian nation-state model is a failure; obsolete at best, it’s simplistic geography-bounded identity no longer pertinent in the modern day technological reality.

But there are certain regions of the world to which it never pertained. One such region is Afghanistan.

The British failed to impose it there.

The Soviets failed to impose it there.

They failed in the face of public opposition.

Today, we look hopefully to the presumed end of the horrific bush administration.

But a dark cloud looms; it’s name, Barack Obama.

Today, we look hopefully to the end of the war in Iraq—georgewbush’s war.

Four years from now, perhaps it will be Obama’s war—Afghanistan.

—The Bikemessenger

Every political candidate should be talking about http://www.PickensPlan.com/. Energy independence for the US will do more to improve our economy, strengthen the dollar, bring peace, and ensure our security than anything any politician has ever mentioned. T. Boone Pickens is a true American patriot in the style of George Washington, Sam Adams, and Thomas Paine.

If T. Boone Pickens were running for president, he’d have my vote.

Wars are traditionally fought over scarce resources — lately it has been oil (which was also a significant reason the Japanese began World War II). Will Libertarians be smart enough to recognize that Pickens’ Plan is the real peace and prosperity plan? I hope so.

The calendar, if not the clock, is beginning to run out on the bush administration. Barely more than six months remain.

Assuming, of course, that in some manner, he does leave office at the appointed date.

Three times in recent memory, someone has commented to me in public, or posted a comment somewhere I frequent on the internet to the effect that it’s “too late” for impeachment.

I walked into a supermarket wearing my “Impeach Bush and Cheney” T-shirt; someone in a checkout line shouts to me “I like your shirt, but it’s too late”.

“No!” I responded—“It’s never too late.” (more…)

Perhaps I’m showing my age, but there was a popular song many years ago (released in 1979) by Rupert Holmes which started off “If you like Pina Coladas…” Many years later, I saw Rupert Holmes on a TV talk show and he made the humorous comment that every time he met a woman, sooner or later, she would end up saying, “I have a crazy idea — let’s go get a couple of pina coladas and…” Every woman he met thought she was having an original idea. So it is with Libertarians and the “Money Bomb.”

Ron Paul supporters invented the “Money Bomb” concept to raise enough money in one day that the media would have to pay attention to him. The goal was not “raise X dollars by November 5″ it was to “raise $10 million dollars on November 5.” And the purpose was two-fold. One to raise money, a useful campaign activity, and two, to raise enough money so that they would be noticed.

Mike Munger says I have my “little boxer shorts all twisted up in knots” because I take issue with his lack of understanding of the meaning of “Money Bomb.” And he still misses the point. In the Ron Paul money bomb, they didn’t even meet half their goal, but it was still so large that they got large amounts of media coverage when they announced the results.

Munger wanted to raise $3,000 and raised over $7,000 — over twice his goal. I’m very happy for him — I encourage all candidates to go out and raise money. But raising $7,000 will not get him media attention, so it is fair to say that as a “Money Bomb” (or even in his case “Money Grenade”), it was a failure.

And that is the real point of this post and my previous post on “Money Bombs.” Raising $7,000 in a fundraiser labeled a “Money Bomb” is more likely to get you NEGATIVE media attention. The “money bomb” is as much about media attention as it is fundraising.

The Republican’s who have taken over the national LP attempted to destroy the instructional material that earlier LP administrations put in place. However, I managed to save the material. People like Mike Munger would be well-advised to read things like, Raising your first $2,500 in 7 days and From 0 to $250,000.

The old saying applies, “if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Clearly Munger and the other campaigns using “Money Bombs” lack the tools/knowledge to fundraise appropriately. The links above will provide them with two more tools. Maybe with this additional information, they will quit using bombs when the appropriate tool is a firecracker — or maybe even a telephone.

Thrusday afternoon I participated in the monthly “Unhappy Hour” honk-n-wave; a protest against war. I was a bit disturbed by all the “Obama for President” enthusiasm I observed, intermingled, as it was with sincere anti-war sentiment.

Sheldon Richman writes about Barack Obama:

“With a peace candidate like that, who needs a warmonger?”

Obama supporters who identify themselves as “peace advocates” must make a choice.

They must choose between being peace advocates and supporting a candidate that overtly favors a continuing state of war. (more…)

Res Ipsa Loquitur…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ”

–The Declaration of Independence

I happened to check out the Libertarian Party web site today (something I do less and less frequently). I saw a link to a blog entry on the front page, Differences in Denver. For some reason, it caught my eye so I clicked on it and read it. It was comparing the Denver environment for the LP Convention with the anticipated environment for the Democratic Convention (must have been a slow news day). Among other things, it said:

Absent from the coterie of freedom-loving Libertarians was the presence of judges, chicken wire and a bastion of ACLU attorneys.

Such will not be the case when Democrats come to town for their convention in late August.

We all know that the national LP office has taken a dramatic shift to the right in recent years, and in true conservative fashion, they seem to be denigrating ACLU attorneys.

But wait! Haven’t we repeatedly been told that presidential candidate, Bob Barr, is no longer a mere conservative, but a true Libertarian because (among other things) he has worked as an attorney for the ACLU? I’m just a little confused — are ACLU attorneys in fashion or out of fashion this week?

Finally, I got two responses yesterday to my notice to the LP of Michigan that I would be taking back my domain name. One was direct, the other indirect.

The direct one emailed this message to me, “I am as frustrated with the current LEC as you are. They seem to have a serious communication problem. Maybe they just want to shrink the membership to a few dozen people they can control completely.” (LEC is the LP of Michigan Executive Committee).

The indirect response was an article in their weekly online newsletter that said:

This is the last edition of the weekly LPM Online newsletter. We are starting a new monthly newsletter that we hope will be informative and timely, but not repetitive. We will also begin to e-mail special announcements and alerts on an as-needed basis, so watch your in box for important notices from the LPM.

Please send articles and calendar items for the monthly online newsletter to LPM Secretary Emily Salvette at salvette@umich.edu by the 25th of each month. The newsletter will be posted on the 1st of every month.

We are currently assembling a mailing list for this newsletter from the names currently subscribed to LPM Online. If you or your activists want to make sure you’re on that mailing list, please send an excel spreadsheet with the email addresses you would like added, or for individual requests, an email with the word “subscribe” in the subject line, to VoteBillHall@aol.com

I wrote the software (you can have the same software for a one-time fee of $99) for generating their weekly email newsletter and the administration of it is handled at their old web site. They seem to think that loss of a domain name means loss of the server and all the associated software. So, they have opted to take an automated process that was working well, and turn it into an manual process.

The other issue worthy of note is not only their computer/web-hosting/software incompetence, but their marketing incompetence. They now boast that their new newsletter will not be repetitive. In advertising and marketing, everybody knows that repetition is key to getting your message across.