Liberty Maven

Isaac M. Morehouse posted an article over at the Ludwig von Mises Institute discussing the fallacious argument that the government can “create jobs” with expensive programs, in the sense that these programs create wealth:

Read the article here.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quotes of the Day:

NINTH AMENDMENT: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

TENTH AMENDMENT: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Subject: More progress on the “Enumerated Powers Act”

The “Enumerated Powers Act” would force Congress to cite its Constitutional authority for every law it passes. When we last reported to you in late July this bill had 52 co-sponsors in the House, and had just been introduced in the Senate by Tom Coburn, gaining a whopping 22 co-sponsors almost immediately.

Progress has slowed since then, but there is another new co-sponsor in the House. Representative Pete Sessions of Texas came on board on July 23, 2008, just a couple of days after we last contacted Congress about this bill. Maybe some of you made the difference with Mr. Sessions, so let’s keep pushing . . .

* If your Rep. or one or more of your Senators is a co-sponsor, please thank them (we’ve provided a list of co-sponsors below my signature).
* If one or more of your elected representatives is not on the list, ask them to please become a co-sponsor

You can send your message here.

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Here are the co-sponsors in the Senate . . .
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The recent Washington Post feature article about Bob Barr cements the suspicion many liberty seekers have regarding the delusionary hope for fairness for third party and independent candidates. It doesn’t matter that a candidate has the credibility of serving in the House of Representatives for eight years. All that matters is that he is not Obama or McCain and therefore must be stopped.

This treatment apparently is not even limited to third party and independent candidates. The media’s marginalization of Republican candidate Ron Paul reinforces that being a true “maverick” instead gets you the “extreme” or “crazy” label even if you are a member of one of the two major parties. The incredulous and almost laughable treatment of Ron Paul during his primary campaign inspired what became one of the most read articles here at Liberty Maven.

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My comment on Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty after reading David Nolan’s and Walt Thiessen’s recent Bob Barr pieces.

Originally published August 17th, 2008 by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution at http://www.nolanchart.com/article4520.html

You can reach Walt Thiessen’s article “Unreality at the Barr Campaign” from this link http://www.libertymaven.com/2008/08/15/a-scathing-review-of-the-barr-campaign/1489/

You can reach David F. Nolan’s article “The Barr Campaign at Halftime” from this link http://www.nolanchart.com/article4505.html

Dear libertarians, constitutionalists, and any other Ron Paul supporters,

I am writing because I think some of us do not realize the situation we are in.  We are struggling against what Ron Paul likes to term “the Establishment.”  We also need to be very wary of attrition.  First, we need to recognize that it is paramount to keep ourselves together and politically active.  Second, we need to patiently erode at the popular support for the Establishment and if possible flood the “hearts and minds” away from it.  Third, this Establishment is a hurricane that is destroying the freedom, money, jobs, economy and even the very lives of We the People.  That is what is trying to wear us down, and we need to bare our teeth into this storm, keep snarling our rejection back at it, and keep growing.

Don’t Get Lost!  Stay Together, Stay Politically Active

Principle-wise, this stuggle could also be termed a ‘war of attrition’ is no different from the colonists in the first American Revolution, no different from any other guerilla war of any minority versus a majority, of any battle of the weak against the strong.  We most likely number somewhere between the 83,000 at the Campaign’s website and the million-odd who voted for Ron Paul in the presidential primaries, but do not bet the farm on such a high figure.

Imagine Ron Paul as our general if you will.  He has planted his flag on this small hillock of Freedom called www.campaignforliberty.com.  We there all stand by him and his ideas of liberty and are basically throwing snowballs at passer-bys.  Some we whack in the face and they fire back. Some though will say, boy that stung! and perhaps become aware of some truth behind this Establishment and then join us.  Our job is to turn this little hill into a mountain, and eventually set off avalanches.  This is goal of the Revolution.

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In the typical faux liberty laden USA Bob Barr’s lawsuit claims against the Saddleback Church forum were denied. From CBS news in Los Angeles:

SANTA ANA, Calif. A federal judge Friday denied Libertarian presidential hopeful Bob Barr’s bid to be included in a presidential forum in Lake Forest with Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama or stop the event as a violation of federal campaign law.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter refused to issue an order on behalf of Barr and Wayne Root, his vice presidential running mate, that would disrupt the Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion scheduled to begin Saturday at 5 p.m. at Saddleback Church.

“Plaintiffs will lose out on a fair amount of exposure and the opportunity to express their views in a popular forum,” Carter conceded. “On the other hand, halting this event would deny the other candidates the opportunity to be heard and would deprive the public of an opportunity to see the candidates and hear their views.

“Forcing Saddleback to include another candidate at the last moment could cause serious logistical problems and take away from the presentations of other candidate,” Carter said. “This might well disrupt the planned presentation.”

Carter said Barr and Root “will have many other opportunities in the coming months to express their views and make their candidacy known.”

This is hardly a shock but sooner or later one of these fights will be won; therefore, it is important to continue the fight. Some called this effort a “waste”. Imagine if the Judge happened to be libertarian leaning. I’m told some of them do exist (See former Judge Andrew Napolitano).

The purist libertarian critics of Barr are attacking him for utilizing the court system in an attempt to block the Saddleback Church Presidential Forum where McCain and Obama were invited and Barr was excluded. This libertarian applauds Barr for this fight. He is utilizing their own rules against them, even if he himself wants those rules overturned. It is true that the church is a private organization and can invite whomever they want to such an event. However, Barr’s fight is based on current election law.

“It is our opinion that the Saddleback Church forum failed to publish any pre-established, objective criteria for inviting candidates to the event,” says Russell Verney, Barr’s campaign manager. “Because of Saddleback’s apparent failure to comply with campaign finance laws, the exclusion of Bob Barr appears to be an illegal, corporate, in-kind contribution to Senators Obama and McCain.”

Federal election laws stipulate that an event such as the one Saddleback Church is hosting must provide pre-established and objective criteria for inviting candidates.  A failure to do so can be considered an illegal campaign contribution.

I’m not sure Barr has much hope for winning this case, but it is rather interesting that he is using their own two party duopoly rules against them. He is merely requesting that the rule of law be enforced. Read the full Barr press release on the case and the LA Times coverage.

Much has been argued on both sides of the recent Georgian – Russian conflict. Over at a favorite read of mine Antiwar.com Justin Raimondo calls great attention to the fact that Georgia attacked South Ossetia first. He also points out that Georgian President Saakashvili didn’t exactly come to power democratically no matter what is said on the matter. He is the foil for the current anti-Russian “narrative” from the main stream media in the US.

Both the Russians and Georgians make “information warfare” claims of each other. It seems to me both of their claims are true. Georgia attacked South Ossetia for their goal of independence. Russia used that attack as an excuse to wage all out war with Georgia. A curious interview occurred on the FOX News channel where a 12 year old girl (and her mother) both had harsh words for Georgia for bombing South Ossetia. It was almost as if Vladimir Putin himself controlled puppet strings attached to the girl and her mother. The truth we may never know, but it is a perfect example of the word warfare inherent in this conflict.

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Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News’Hannity and Colms last night and speculated that if John McCain chooses Senator Lieberman for his running mate it would allow Bob Barr to pull away much of his conservative support and Bob Barr could end up with 15% of the vote.

GINGRICH: Well, I like Senator Lieberman a great deal. I admire him a lot. I think he’d be a great secretary of state. I think he would be terrific as an attorney general, but I think the idea of him being the Republican vice presidential nominee would split the convention, would probably mean that Bob Barr would get about 15 percent of the vote.

HANNITY: Wow.

GINGRICH: Because I think — I think that traditional values, right-to- life conservatives would walk. I mean I think they literally.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: [They] would walk out of the convention in a way that would be unmanageable by the McCain people.

If, for some reason, you’d like to see what else Newt had to say, you can see the full transcript on his web site.

Over at NolanChart.com, Walt Thiessen has written a critical article on Bob Barr’s Libertarian campaign for President.  It is a negative article that I, unfortunately, mostly agree with.  Thiessen makes three major points:

1. Although some polls put Bob Barr in the 6% range in June, all polls now put him in the 1-2% range.
2. Measuring up to Ron Paul’s, Barr’s fundraising is comparatively non-existent.
3. Barr has “failed to win over the party faithful”, and has failed to adequately explain his support of unconstitutional bills in his past.

I agree with him on the first 2½ points, but when he and other people continue to say that Bob Barr has done nothing to alleviate the concerns of those who question his part, I strongly disagree.  In every interview I’ve seen where people question his past support for the Patriot Act, the Drug War, etc., he has admitted his mistake, and explained how he seen the light and actually worked hard to reverse these things.  What else can the man do?  Only time will tell whether or not he is sincere or just being political expedient, but that’s not part of this argument.  Bob has worked tirelessly for the past 5 years against the Patriot Act and it’s successors, FISA, and has even joined up with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marijuana Policy Project in support of medicinal drug use.  What else can the man do to alleviate concerns? If you simply choose not to trust him, that’s one thing.  But to say that he’s done nothing is simply ludicrous.

Thiessen concludes by predicting Barr will get less votes in November than Badnarik’s 397,000 in 2004, which I feel is quite astonishing.  I certainly hope this won’t be the case.

Read the article at NolanChart.com here.

Reuters released an article (on their political blog) today asserting that Barack Obama is getting the most money from American troops (and military). They even mention Ron Paul.

According to a study released by the Washington watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics, U.S. troops, and especially those deployed abroad, are talking with their wallets and saying they want Democrat Obama as the next president.

Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than McCain and the “fiercely anti-war Ron Paul,” another Republican presidential candidate, CRP said.

According to the group, Obama received $60,642 in contributions from 134 troops deployed abroad. McCain only got $10,665 from 26 soldiers, while Paul received $45,512 from 99 troops.

Through June 31, CRP said contributions from all U.S. military personnel netted Obama $335,536, compared with $280,513 for McCain.

Ron Paul dropped out of the race officially in mid-June. The few months prior to that he hardly campaigned anywhere since John McCain attained enough delegates to be the GOP nominee. The study neglects to mention that Ron Paul received donations during a period when he wasn’t even campaigning yet he still managed to be only $15K shy of Barack Obama. It is also interesting that they neglected to mention the total sum of military donations for Ron Paul while mentioning the amounts for Obama and McCain.

I suppose the intent of the article was to use Ron Paul (yet again) as a baseball bat to beat up McCain in favor of Obama. The media’s love affair for Obama continues.