My friend Shaun McAlister and the DFW/NORML tribe have put together a great lineup for their Texas conference. Documentaries, speakers, How-To workshops and, of course, some rants. Hit this link.
My rant is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. June 8th, AND I GET TO INTRODUCE JUDGE JIM GRAY!!! Yes, that Jim Gray. The 2012 Libertarian Party VP nominee. Norris Conference Center. Downtown Fort Worth. Hope to meet some of you good folks there.
Also, check out the 2:30 Saturday afternoon speaker. Adrian Murray, Fort Worth Tea Party and 9-12 Activist. If Adrian Murray is on board with ending prohibition then we've won half the battle.
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Conference Agenda
This is the current agenda for the Texas Regional NORML Conference. All speakers are confirmed unless otherwise noted. Times are subject to change so check this page for the most up to date version.
Introductions by Shaun McAlister, Executive Director of DFW NORML
9:15 am
Cheyanne Weldon of Texas NORML
9:30 am
Keith Stroup, Legal Counsel and Founder of NORML
10:00 am
Russ Belville, Executive Director of 420Radio.org
10:15 am
Terry Nelson, Executive Board Member at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), former Border Patrol agent and Homeland Security Supervisor
10:30 am
Allen Patterson, Chairman of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party
10:45 am
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It:
Judge Jim Gray - 2012 Libertarian Vice Presidential Candidate and Retired Superior Court Judge
11:15 am
Meet and Greet with Judge Jim Gray, Keith Stroup and Russ Belville
11:30 am
Break for Lunch
12:30 pm
Film Screening: American Drug War 2: Cannabis Destiny
2:00 pm
Mike Hyde, father of Cash Hyde and Founder of the Cash Hyde Foundation
2:30 pm
Adrian Murray, Founding member of the 912 Project Fort Worth
2:45 pm
Joy Strickland, Founder of Mothers Against Teen Violence
3:00 pm
Using Drugs Religiously: Dr. Russell Elleven, Unitarian Minister
3:30 pm
Family Law Attorney Leslie Burgoyne
3:45 pm
Workshop: Cultivating Quality Medicine
Forest Scott and Nicole Pisut of Tinctura Coltivare
Introductions by Erik Altieri, Communications Director for National NORML
9:15 am
Stephen Betzen, Founder of the Texas Coalition for Compassionate Care
9:30 am
Workshop: Medicinal Alternatives to Smoking Marijuana Toni Ann Haskett-Mills, Patient Advocate for Medical Cannabis Patients with 28 yrs experience in Direct Patient Care
10:00 am
Larry Talley, Strategist for DFW NORML, speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and retired US Navy
10:15 am
Clif Deuvall, Co-chair of Texas at US Marijuana Party of Texas, Chairman at Texas Cannabis Party and Founder Norml of Waco Inc. at NORML
10:30 am
Jamie Balagia, Public Information Officer and Attorney at San Antonio NORML
10:45 am
Russ Belville, Executive Director of 420Radio.org
11:00 am
Hemp Fashion Show
11:45 am
Break for Lunch
1:30 pm
Workshop: Creating Concentrates
Forest Scott and Nicole Pisut of Tinctura Coltivare
2:00 pm
Derek Cross, Author of Hemp Healthy Today
2:15 pm
Workshop: Cooking with Hemp
Derek Cross, Author of Hemp Healthy Today
2:30 pm
Rob Kampia, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project (UNCONFIRMED)
3:00 pm
Margarita McAuliffe, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Texas Moms United
3:30 pm
Russ Buss Belville, Executive Director of 420Radio.org
If you can’t remember all of that, Google Fort Worth March Against Monsanto sometime tomorrow. My website’ll be in the top 5 search results. Come see me over here any time this afternoon. I’ve got flyers, bumperstickers, and other info, and I’d love to talk to you about freedom and the Libertarian Party.
Why would the Tarrant County Libertarian Party participate in a "March Against Monsanto"? We’re supposed to be the small-government party, right?
Here’s why…. Monsanto developed some hybrid life forms. That's not problem for many of us.
Monsanto wanted a monopoly on these plants and started suing people who used "their" seeds without their permission. One of Monsanto's former lawyers, Clarence Thomas, was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he eventually wrote a majority opinion in a 2001 lawsuit, stating that "newly developed plant breeds are patentable under the general utility patent laws of the United States".
Sorry, Clarence, but if someone purchases a John Grisham novel and then re-sells it to Half-Price Books, that individual can't be sued because he didn't mail John Grisham a check. The same thing goes for purchasing, and then re-selling a car, a stapler, "Beyonce's Greatest Hits", or "Milli Vanilli - Unplugged". It's called the "First Sale Doctrine".
I own me. You own you. And if you grow some soybeans, you have a right to do what you want with the seeds. It really is that simple. Farmers have been growing plants and re-using the seeds for thousands of years, and should be allowed to continue doing so, Clarence Thomas, Elena Kegan, and Barack Obama’s FDA be damned!
But if you want Big Government, what you’re seeing today is exactly and precisely what it looks like.
Government puts a monitor in place (the FDA, the EPA) and within 25 years, the inmates are running the asylum. When you get a chance, Google the phrase “Regulatory Capture”.
Now....we’re going to play a game called “Name That President”.
I’m going to give you the name of a Monsanto employee, and you’re going to guess the name of the president who appointed him or her to regulate organizations like…..Monsanto.
It’ll be fun.
Which president appointed Monsanto director William Rucklehouse as acting head of the FBI? – Richard Nixon
Who was president when Monsanto’s VP of Government and Public Affiars was appointed as Deputy Administrator of the EPA? Clinton and Bush
Who appointed Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s Vice President of Public Policy, as Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration? Obama
This is what Big Government Looks Like!!!
Which president appointed former Monsanto attorney Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court? Bush
William Ruckleshaus is a retired Monsanto Board member. Which president appointed him as the very first head of the Environmental Protection Agency? Nixon
Earle H. Harbison, Jr. was once President of Monsanto. Who was president when Mr. Harbison was working his way up to Deputy Director of the CIA? (It looks like Ford, Carter, Reagand and Bush)
Who elected Monsanto lobbyist Toby Moffett to the U.S. Congress? You did, if you voted for him.
Who elected Monsanto legal Counsel Dennis DeConcini to the U.S. Senate? You did, if you voted for him.
Who was president of the USA when Monsanto’s Chemical Lab Supervisor Margaret Miller was Deputy Director of the Food and Drug Administration? Daddy Bush and Clinton
This is what Big Government Looks Like!!!
Which president appointed Marcia Hale, Monsanto’s International Government Affairs Director to his White House Senior Staff? Clinton
Which President appointed Mickey Kantor, a Monsanto Board Member, as Secretary Of Commerce? Clinton
Which Presidents appointed Linda Fisher, Monsanto’s Vice President of Government and Public Affairs, as Deputy Administrator of the EPA? Bush, Clinton
Which President appointed Roger Beachy, the Director of Monsanto’s Danforth Center, as Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture? Barack Obama
Folks, I could go on and on and on. There are about a dozen others on the list.
I often wonder if you move back and forth from Monsanto to Government, does it even count as a job change?
This is what Big Government looks like.
I’m Allen Patterson, Chair Of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.
Someone named Tiffany who goes to a private academy in Dallas sent me some questions about the Libertarian Party Of Texas for a school project. Since I'm feeling lazy this morning, I'm letting it double as today's blog post. Thought it might shed a little light on how we work. The rant at the end has almost been finessed into a liturgy.
Tiffany,
I hope these answers are satisfactory. Let me know if you need any details.
-Does the Libertarian Party of Texas's platform differ from the national party’s platform?
The platforms occasionally differ in degree or in emphasis, but seldom in principle. There are two issues for which the core libertarian philosophy doesn’t provide easy answers. Abortion (two possibly conflicting sets of rights), and immigration in the context of a welfare state.
One of the best things about being a Libertarian is that our core platform really doesn’t change, whereas the Democrats and Republicans have swapped or otherwise changed their positions on several issues over the last 50 years.
-What do you do within the State branch?
In addition to acting as Tarrant County Chair, I serve on a committee called SLEC. This is the State Libertarian Executive Committee. Our core responsibilities are to ensure that we have ballot access, that the message of Liberty is spread throughout the state, and to oversee the state conventions every two years. There are several committees within that group, and I currently chair the Compliance committee. We ensure that all actions taken by the county groups and SLEC are done according to the by-laws, and can withstand any legal challenges.
-What is the Libertarian Party of Texas's main job/function?
The purpose of the Libertarian Party of Texas is to win elections.
-How does Libertarian Party of Texas work with the national Libertarian party?
We help coordinate and host events for presidential candidates. Our most recent presidential candidate, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, was very well-received in Texas, BTW.
We also elect and send delegates from Texas to the national conventions, where they select our presidential and veep candidates.
-Which candidates is the Libertarian Party of Texas currently supporting and which elections are you all currently preparing for?
All of the “off-year” elections are non-partisan. But because of his pro-liberty stance, we’re encouraging people to support Daniel Wood, who is running for Arlington City Council. Sybil Lane is running for the school board in Crowley and she seems to have some strong libertarian support. We’re also making phone calls for John Basham, Tim Nold, and Mary Kelleher, three of the candidates for Fort Worth Water Board. These local elections are extremely important to us, even though no one runs under a Libertarian Party banner. It’s a shame that so few people vote in them, because the local races are often more likely to have a direct impact on the citizens than the national contests do.
-How much money does the Libertarian Party of Texas raise for “party activities”? How much money do they raise for specific candidates?
Fundraising is often a struggle for us. The Big Two fund their campaigns by blatantly selling exemptions to the tax, import, and tariff codes. It’s difficult to raise large amounts of money by promising to merely leave you (and your competitors) alone.
Fundraising for individual candidates has almost become a theological dispute for us, with some libertarians insisting that the national, state, and local parties not get into the business of “picking winners and losers”, and others wanting to put 100% of our limited resources into just a few competitive races in hopes of winning more elections. At this point, the candidates are supported by their own fundraising events, with administrative and some logistical support from the county and state operations.
-On what does the Libertarian Party of Texas spend most of their money?
Publicity for the party, administration, educational events and conventions.
-What are two recent headlines/events with which the Libertarian Party of Texas associated?
The Tarrant County Libertarian Party recently hosted a presidential candidates debate featuring the six Libertarians vying for the LP presidential nomination. We also hosted a gun rights/2nd amendment debate at TCU this past weekend.
The state party recently hosted an activists forum about dealing with the Texas Legislature. Speakers from NORML, the ACLU, a gun group, a transportation lobby and others all gave their take on how to lobby the legislature, where they’ve succeeded and where they’ve failed. Since this is an off-year for elections, the county organizations have been more active and visible than the state level operation.
-Does the Libertarian Party of Texas face any obstacles?
The biggest obstacle we face is something called the “wasted vote fallacy”. This is the belief that unless you vote for a Democrat or Republican, your vote is wasted.
Please remember that your share of the national debt is $50,000.00, and even more if you intend to grow up and be a net taxpayer to the federal government.
Your share of the government’s unfunded liabilities is more than $350,000.00
The Democrats and Republicans got you this far into debt by working together, as a team, in a bi-partisan manner.
They are borrowing billions of dollars from China, to protect the South Pacific from…..China.
We have enough people in our military (45% of the world’s military spending) to put a soldier along every 20 feet of the borders of the United States.
According to author Michelle Alexander, Barack Obama now has more black men confined in steel cages (mostly for owning or selling a weed) than The Confederate States Of America did prior to the start of the Civil War. One million government jobs could be eliminated if we were to end the Drug War (which is why so many government employees support the Drug War.)
The Federal Reserve printing press on Blue Mound Road in Fort Worth is pumping an additional 65 billion dollars a month into the nation. You’ll soon see prices rising because of this.
The only “wasted” vote is a vote to maintain this disaster.
I'm gathering receipts so I can use them for tax deductions.
I'm going to claim every deduction that I can possibly find.
I think I'm the one who makes the best use of my money. There are some charities that get a substantial chunk of the household income, but I like being able to choose which ones. Knowing that I have a choice helps keep them honest.
It irks the heck out of me that my employer has to act as tax collector, child-support gatherer, healthcare provider, and immigration status verifier. I wish they could hang out a sign that says "Will swap money in exchange for labor" and go on with their business of making fruitstands. Think of the administrative savings!!
If we all had to write a check to Uncle Sam every month or every quarter, instead of having the money withheld, support for Mr. Obama's Dirty Little Wars on Brown People, Drugs and Prosperity would plummet. Collecting taxes should be John Boehner's job, not the job of someone you swap your labor with.
Government is the worst possible way of getting most things done. Possible exceptions are roads and other infrastructure, providing a courts system to enforce contracts and take care of externalities, and defending the borders (ours, not Korea's). I think that delivering the mail, education, jobs, healthcare, energy, innovation, and spreading Democracy are jobs best left to the private sector. (See: Eastern Hills High School, VA Hospitals, Solyndra, LightSquared and Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)
A lot of my statist friends fight tooth and nail to avoid paying any more than required. I respect them for that more than they'll ever know. I wish that I had the courage to take Uncle Sam to court.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway fund owes taxes going back to 2002. Buffett could simply do what he advocates: Write the government a check for 1.2 billion. I don't think he'll do that. IMHO, Warren Buffett believes that he and his shareholders will use the 1.2 billion more wisely than John Boehner and John Cornyn.
Anyway, back to my point. Those are my reasons for claiming every deduction that I can find.
If you disagree with me, what are your reasons for doing the exact...same...thing?
The income tax bumpersticker came from Richard Forsythe's truck. The pic of Buffett morphing back and forth between Capitalist Robber Baron and Capitalist Robber Baron Who Makes Pleasing Sounds For Obama came from here.
From "The Devil's Kitchen" blog. Mr. Devil writes from somewhere in the U.K. For NuLabour, substitute "Democrat" or "Republican", depending on where your bread is buttered. For QUANGO (Quasi-Non Governmental Organization), you can safely substitute The Fed, ACORN, SEIU, or any other Band Of Brothers living off the government tit.
It's one of the oldest strategies in the book: divide and rule. And few governments in living memory have been so adept at it as NuLabour: it has been at the heart of many of their policies. They have divided the peoples of the Union; they have divided, through QUANGOs and censuses emphasising differences, black, brown and white peoples of the Union. Through jealousy they have divided rich and poor.
"Fear not," says the government, "for the state—and only the state—can save you!" And then they proceed to divide some more.
Devolved governments (but with little power), harsher sentences for "racist" crimes, and the stealing of more money from "the rich" to hand out as gifts to the poor.
The brilliant bit about this tactic, as applied by NuLabour, is that it encourages people to think of each other group not as fellow human beings, but as people below or different from them. "They aren't a person like I am, they are just a toff/darkie/Muslim/Scot/Sassenach/Taff/idiot, etc."
And so people get angry and demand solutions, they demand concessions for their own particular group and guess what?—the state can help you, friend, for the state is the friend of everyone. The state is the righter of all wrongs, the great arbiter, the generous donor of largesse. And as each group is appeased so the jealousy and resentment of the others are inflamed and they demand special treatment for themselves and more shoddy treatment for "those others".
And so it is that the government have been able to put through some disgusting laws, by aiming them at groups that the other groups dislike. 42 days detention without trial?—well, it'll only apply to terrorists, and they're all Muslims or at the very least darkies, eh?
The scrapping of double jeopardy, habeas corpus and trial by jury?—well, that'll only apply to the eeevil criminals (no matter that they have yet to be proven such). Oh, and the darkies, of course. And the poor.
The confiscation of your assets before you are even found guilty, or reversing the burden of proof for the confiscation of assets? Well, that'll only apply to drugdealers and the like.
And none of these people are really human, are they? Not like me.
And that's how they get us; that's how they pass those laws. And, they say that they won't use them except in the most exceptional circumstances, and only against those people who aren't really human.
Via Samizdata, here's British M.P., Daniel Hannan:
The Tea Party, perhaps more than any other contemporary movement, brings out the 'Yeah, but what they're really saying…' tendency. The 'tea' stands for 'Taxed Enough Already' but, if you relied on the BBC and the Guardian for your information, you might not know it. Many Lefties pretend – or perhaps have genuinely convinced themselves – that the Tea Party is clandestinely protesting against immigration or abortion or the fact of having a mixed race president; anything, in fact, other than what it actually says it's against, viz big government. The existence of a popular and spontaneous anti-tax movement has unsettled the Establishment. They'd much rather deal with a stupid and authoritarian Right than with a libertarian one. Hence the almost desperate insistence that the Tea Partiers have some secret agenda.
I get especially p.o.'d about the race angle, especially when people like Alan West or Herman Cain or Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley were elected or are supported by a massive number of Tea Partiers.
It's really hard for The Left to change their script.
On a totally unrelated note, here's one of my favorite Daniel Hannan rants. It really gets crankin' at the 1:50 mark.
I'm reading magician/comedian Penn Jillette's "God, No". The chapter "Why I'm A Libertarian Nut Instead Of Just A Nut" is so good, so spot-on, that I was going to pound it into the internet this morning.
This guy beat me to it. So all I have to do is copy and paste.
I don’t speak for all Libertarians any more than Sean Penn speaks for all Democrats. I’m not even sure my LP membership card is up to date. I’ve voted Libertarian as long as I can remember but I don’t really remember much before the Clintons and the Bushes. Those clans made a lot of us bugnutty. When I go on Glenn’s show he calls me a Libertarian, I think that’s my only real credential.
There are historical reasons and pragmatic reasons to be a Libertarian, but there are historic and pragmatic reasons to be a Democrat, a Republican or a Socialist. I don’t know if everyone would be better off under a Libertarian government. I don’t know what would be best for anyone. I don’t even know what’s best for me. What makes me Libertarian is I don’t think anyone else really knows what’s best for anyone. My argument for Libertarianism is simple - personal morality.
I start with the Declaration of Independence: “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” So, essentially our government does what they do with my consent.
I know barely enough about Max Weber to type his name into Google, but it seems he’s credited with asserting the idea that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. I put those two ideas together (my consent and use of physical force) and figure we all give our government the right to use force. So, the way I figure, it’s not okay for our government to use force in any situation where I personally wouldn’t use force.
For example, if I’m not willing to kill a cute cow, I shouldn’t eat steak. I don’t have to kill Bessy right now with my bare hands, but I have to be willing to snuff her if I want to chow down on a T-bone. If it’s not okay for me, it’s not okay for a slaughterhouse. Asking someone else to do something immoral is immoral. If it’s not okay for me to break David Blaine’s hands so my magic show has less competition, it’s not okay for me to ask someone else to beat him up. Someone else doing your dirty work is still your dirty work.
If I had a gun, and I knew a murder was happening, (we’re speaking hypothetically here, I’m not asking you to believe that I could accurately tell a murder from aggressive CPR), I would use that gun to stop that murder. I might be too much of a coward to use a gun myself to stop a murder or rape or robbery, but I think the use of a gun is justified. I’m even okay with using force to enforce voluntary contracts. If I were a hero, I would use a gun to protect the people who choose to live under this free system and to stop another country from attacking America. But I wouldn’t use a gun to force someone to love something like say…a library.
Look, I love libraries. I spent a lot of time in the Greenfield Public Library when I was a child. I would give money to build a library. I would ask you to give money to build a library. But, if for some reason you were crazy enough to think you had a better idea for your money than building my library, I wouldn’t pull a gun on you. I wouldn’t use a gun to build an art museum, look at the wonders of the universe through a big telescope, or even find a cure for cancer.
The fact that the majority wants something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don’t want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, it’s not really a very good idea. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It’s just ganging up on the weird kid, and I’m always the weird kid.
People try to argue that government isn’t really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a thought experiment though -- suggesting someone not pay their taxes is probably a federal offense, and while I may be a nut, I’m not crazy.) When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force.
It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we’re compassionate, we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
I’m a Libertarian nut because I don’t want my government to do anything in my name that I wouldn’t do myself.
Here's another excerpt where Jillette explains the connection between his religious beliefs (none) and his Libertarianism. He doesn't believe that he knows. He has no freakin' clue what is best for you, sitting there in Clovis New Mexico, or Birmingham Alabama, or Birmingham England. He doesn't know what you need !! Neither does Barack Obama, or John Boehner, or Rick Perry, or David Cameron, or The Pope. They are ALL ordinary people that some of you good folks want to put on pedestals. Penn Jillette doesn't understand why.
“What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist — I don’t know. If I don’t know, I don’t believe. I don’t know exactly how we got here, and I don’t think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we’ll get more, but I’m not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I’m not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof. I’ll wait for real evidence and then I’ll believe.
And I don’t think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don’t even know what’s best for me. Take my uncertainty about what’s best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.
President Obama sure looks and acts way smarter than me, but no one is 2 to the 300 millionth power times smarter than me. No one is even 2 to the 300 millionth times smarter than a squirrel. I sure don’t know what to do about an AA+ rating and if we should live beyond our means and about compromise and sacrifice. I have no idea. I’m scared to death of being in debt. I was a street juggler and carny trash — I couldn’t get my debt limit raised, I couldn’t even get a debt limit — my only choice was to live within my means. That’s all I understand from my experience, and that’s not much.
It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.
People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
Here's a random Penn Jillette video on the merits of Libertarianism as compared to the other choice. If you are offended by F-bombs, don't hit "play". The F-bombs are, however, appropriate.
....But consider: Say I steal £1 off 100 people and give you the £100. Should I do it a second time? Apparently refusing to do it a second time is a greater crime, because I’m denying you £100 that you’re now expecting. The poor suckers who are losing the £1? It’s only £1 isn’t it? Hardly worth getting in a flap over.
If they knew how much you really really needed that money, they’d be happy to cough up, right?
See, whilst many (most of them apparently on Twitter) are psychologically able to ignore, or excuse, or basically discount altogether the taking money from people bit of public spending, there are some of us that just can’t.
One day it occurs to ask the question, “What exactly gives them the right to help themselves to whatever they want?” and the answer turns out to be because they can. Then you get a bit angry and frustrated, feel almost entirely helpless then, just to make things that little bit worse, everyone else in the world comes and slaps you in the face for even daring to consider such heretical notions.
The taking from me bit doesn’t count. I don’t matter. It’s the no longer giving bit that counts. Think about how people feel! Think about all the things they could do with that money, or that job, or learn from those people or achieve with the support of those others! Don’t you understand? Have you no feelings?
Apparently not. I just keep thinking, “But it’s not your money. How can you live with yourselves taking it?”
Here's a quick listing of all the things I can quickly think of that are more dangerous than a mosque a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site. IMHO, all of these are a much greater threat to your physical and economic well-being than the Ground Zero Wedge Issue.
1. Your Friendly Neighborhood Swat Team - They're starting to show up at the wrong houses, based on bad info, for ridiculous reasons. Then if you're lucky the worst thing they do is shoot your dogs.
2. Democrats - Their Senators and Representatives want to get between you and your doctor with ObamaCare. They want more of your money to give to their constituents.
3. Republicans - Their Senators and Representatives have no intention of repealing ObamaCare, otherwise we would have seen a "Contract With America" campaign based on doing so. They want more of your money to give to their constituents.
4. Saudi Arabia - To name just one. Almost all of the 9-11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. After 9-11, we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.
5. American military bases - They're costing us a fortune, advocates claim that they're for defensive purposes on American soil, and yet if a disgruntled Major wants to go on a shooting spree in the middle of one of them, nobody can find a gun to use in self-defense. That's a great use of your money, isn't it? Plus we have soldiers in 135 other countries. How would you feel about a Mexican military base in the middle of Dallas? Would it irritate you? Would it make you want to take up arms against the Mexican invader?
6. The Federal Reserve - The Dems and Republicans are on a spending spree like none other the world has ever seen. How are we going to pay for it? We're going to print our way out of debt. Your dollars are about to be worth a quarter. Unfortunately, this is hard to understand and is boring. Muslims in Manhattan are easy to see, and they typically dress differently. Great target for politicians who need a distraction.
7. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - They're still getting people into houses that they can't afford, with almost no down payment required. But it's ok if they default. Fannie and Freddie are there to step in and make it all ok between the borrower and the bank. (Using your money, of course.)
8. Our insane drug prohibition laws - The Texas/Mexico border is a very dangerous place because Mexican drug cartels are fighting each other for control of the drug corridor. Our border with Canada, however, is perfectly safe. But back during the era of alcohol prohibition, the U.S./Canada border was a very dangerous place because bootleggers were fighting each other for control of the moonshine corridor. Prohibition equals violence.
9. The other million or so Mosques, meeting rooms, houses and apartments within 20 miles of Ground Zero - There are already 9 Mosques in Manhattan, and I can promise you that the CIA and FBI have them infested with more bugs than the Iraqi embassy. If the bad guys are going to meet someplace to plot another attack on the U.S., it ain't going to be at the Ground Zero Mosque.
10. People who don't understand Liberty - Free Speech, Gun Rights, Freedom Of Assembly, and Property Rights aren't things that we vote on. They are things that we protect. We shouldn't even have to think about it. If our Muslim friends want to show up on their property (a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site) so they can study the writings and ravings of an illiterate pedophile, they should be allowed to do so.
Don't bother reading this rant. It's not consistent, and I have no idea what point I was trying to make. Here's Ben Smith, of Politico:
The rise of a new conservative grass-roots fueled by a secular revulsion at government spending is stirring fears among leaders of the old conservative grass-roots, the evangelical Christian right.
I agree with a lot of what Smith has to say in this post, but he truly screwed up his first paragraph. The old conservative grass-roots was probably centered around the Taft family of Ohio. They favored small, small government, but lost influence in the 1950's. The evangelical Christian right came along much later.
A reeling economy and the Obama administration’s massive bank bailout and stimulus plan were the triggers for a resurgence in support for the Republican Party and the rise of the tea party movement. But they’ve also banished the social issues that are the focus of many evangelical Christians to the background.
Yet another mis-statement. The Tea Party movement isn't hierarchical enough to "banish" anything. You'll see the occasional social issue sign or banner at a protest, but the movement is mostly about the size of government.
And while health care legislation has brought social and economic conservatives together to fight government funding of abortion, some social conservative leaders have begun to express concern that tea party leaders don’t care about their issues, while others object to the personal vitriol against President Barack Obama, whose personal conduct many conservative Christians applaud.
This is because many "social conservative leaders" aren't perceived as truly caring about their issues. Raise your hand if you think Newt Gingrich gives a rip about the anti-gay "sanctitiy of marriage" bidness. I mean, the guy was carrying on with god knows how many non-wives during the Clinton impeachment???
“There’s a libertarian streak in the tea party movement that concerns me as a cultural conservative,” said Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association. “The tea party movement needs to insist that candidates believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.”
Sorry, Bryan. Texas Republicans had a recent ballot proposition about whether women wanting an abortion should be forced to watch a sonogram of their fetus in the womb. It got a 68% "yes" vote, but every other ballot proposition scored in the high 90's. Abortion is only 18 percentage points away from being a losing issue for Republicans. It's not a good wedge issue any longer. It's over.
As far as I can tell [the tea party movement] has a politics that’s irreligious. I can’t see how some of my fellow conservatives identify with it,” said Richard Cizik, who broke with a major evangelical group over his support for government action on climate change, but who remains largely in line with the Christian right on social issues. “The younger Evangelicals who I interact with are largely turned off by the tea party movement — by the incivility, the name-calling, the pathos of politics.”
Give 'em time, give 'em time. Let them pay more taxes. Before long they'll be calling Barack Obama the dumbest dingleberry that God put guts in.
There’s no centralized tea party organization, and anecdotes suggest that many tea party participants hold socially conservative views. But those views have been little in evidence at movement gatherings or in public statements, and are sometimes deliberately excluded from the political agenda. The groups coordinating them eschew social issues, and a new Contract From America, has become an article of concern on the social right.
They just don't get it. Government has no business interfering in what we now think of as Social Issues. People have figured that out.
The contract, sponsored by the grass-roots Tea Party Patriots as well as Washington groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform, asks supporters to choose the 10 most important issues from a menu of 21 choices that makes no mention of socially conservative priorities such as gay marriage and abortion.
“They’re free to do it, but they can’t say [the contract] represents America,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a veteran of the Christian right. “If they do it they’re lying.”
Tony Perkins just doesn't get it. (I always wondered what happened to him after he taxidermied his Mama in Psycho.) Government has no business interfering in what we now think of as Social Issues. People have figured that out.
Groups such as FreedomWorks, said Perkins, bring a libertarian bias that doesn’t represent the “true tea parties.” Brendan Steinhauser, the director of federal and state campaigns at FreedomWorks, responded that the contract represents activists’ priorities.
"People didn’t come out into the streets to protest gay marriage or abortion,” said Steinhauser, who said that he hoped the Republican Party would follow the contract’s cue and “stop bringing up flag-burning amendments and the gay marriage thing when they’re not what people are focused on.”
Precisely ! Flag burning amendments don't go over well with people holding signs that say "SECEDE !". And "Wide Stance" Republicans like Larry Craig have shown Americans that it's hard to condemn gay democrats without doing some housecleaning of your own.
There’s little data on the disparate tea party movement. One small CNN survey of self-identified tea party activists found that 68 percent identify themselves as Protestants or other non-Catholic Christians, as opposed to just 50 percent in the general population. Only 9 percent of the activists say they’re irreligious, as opposed to 14 percent in the broader sample.
Get ready. Here it comes.
But an in-depth study of 49 tea party leaders by the free-market oriented Sam Adams Alliance suggested that the leadership consciously avoids social issues and plans to continue doing so.
Here comes proof that the Tea Party movement needs to come out against government involvement in social issues.....
“None of them chose social issues as the sole direction for the movement,” said the group’s marketing director, Anne Sorock, who oversaw the study.
Here it comes. Proof that the Tea Party has failed.
She said that while many of the leaders held conservative views on social issues, “they were completely adamant that [the issues] were not a part of their agenda for the long term.”
They may have been adamant, but they weren't adamant enough. Get ready for proof.
“Across the board everyone had the same answer: It’s so important that they achieve their goals that social issues cannot distract them, because they need to cast the widest net of consensus with the widest group possible,” she said.
Well, the group really can be too wide. There's such a thing as a tent that's too big. Get ready....here it comes....
The rise of the fiscal and economic conservative grass-roots has been cause for celebration in the socially liberal wing of the Republican Party.
Don't celebrate yet, guys. Get ready.....
“The folks who are upset about it are big government conservatives for whom the marriage with the GOP was never a good fit to begin with,” said Chris Barron, the chairman of the board of the gay conservative group GOProud.....
"Big government conservatives" = Republicans. But, I digress. Here's proof that the Tea Party needs to come down stronger on social tolerance. Get ready....
.....It’s easy to overstate the depth of concern on the part of social conservatives. Fischer, Perkins, and other figures were quick to add that they feel an affinity for the tea party movement.
It's finally here. Here's the money quote, in the next paragraph. Thanks for your patience. Here's proof that we need to sponsor gay and lesbian groups at the Tea Party protests. We need to pay them to show up. We need Jack Daniels and Budweiser to sponsor a pro-abortion rights tent, with a medical marijuana dispensary off to the side. Here's proof:
“The reason for it is fundamentally secular, but a lot of people involved in it are not secular,” said Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “I don’t see the tea party movement as a threat at all — I see it as additional allies and fellow travelers.”
If Richard Freakin' Land, the biggest headline grabber and media whore in the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land, the most pious political back-slapper that ever preached the joining of church and state, Richard Freakin' Land, Richard Land, Richard Land..... If Richard Land approves of what we're doing, brothers and sisters, if Richard Land doesn't fear for his agenda, we have truly failed.
But while Land and other Christians sympathize with the movement’s limited-government focus, they have been repelled by another aspect of the contemporary right: The vitriolic attacks on Obama.
Well, tax them some more until we're less repulsive. Do they want to take over my daughter's share of Obama spending? Do we have any volunteers? Anywhere? Then let the verbal floggings continue.
A prominent Atlanta evangelical public relations man, Mark DeMoss, recently wrote Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to denounce as “shameful” a fundraising presentation obtained by POLITICO that advised appealing to “fear” and portrayed Obama as the sinister Joker from Batman, over the word “Socialism” — an image drawn from a poster popular at tea party events.
Land said liberals can be equally faulted for demonizing Sarah Palin, but said that if he were an RNC donor, he’d stop giving.
And if I were still a Southern Baptist, I would suggest that Richard Land adhere to the traditional Baptist principle of keeping churches out of politics. But, I digress.
"What [liberal blogs] do with Sarah is just really unacceptable and dastardly, but that doesn’t mean we should respond in kind,” he said. Obama, he said “provides a tremendously positive role model for tens of millions of African-American men” and “seems demonstrably fond of his wife and children, which is a positive role model for people of all ethnicities.”
"I would want to be free to attack the character of President Clinton — but this guy, he gives every indication of being a decent guy,” Land said.
Personally, I'd prefer a scoundrel who left me alone to a virtuecrat control freak.
Worries about being out of step with the rest of the conservative movement surfaced most visibly last month in Washington during the Conservative Political Action Conference, which invited the gay Republican group GOProud to be a co-sponsor, and where one audience booed a speaker who criticized that decision.
Here's Ryan Sorba, the guy who criticized the decision to allow for tolerance:
I'll go ahead and predict that within 10 years, this dude gets caught in a massage parlor with gay prostitutes. I've seen it too many times.
Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee denounced the conference (with whose organizers he has feuded in the past) as a gathering that had become “increasingly more libertarian and less Republican.”
Gotta get to work. Don't have time to unleash vitriol on Mike "The Theocrat" Huckabee.
GOProud’s Barron, meanwhile, met with a warm reception, as he had, he said, during the giant Tea Party march on Washington last fall.
The veteran conservative activist Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said he found himself soothing social conservative fears about the Tea Parties at a recent gathering of the socially conservative Council for National Policy.
My favorite Norquist quote: "Government should be small. Small enough to drown it in the bathtub."
“They shouldn’t be nervous,” he said. “When the Republican Party and the modern conservative movement grows, that’s good for everybody.”
