I’ve always been a fan of Drew Carey. I thought his show was for a few seasons, a better shown than Seinfeld. Now, not only is he the host of the Price is Right, but he is also an outspoken libertarian. The video I’m liking to is his take on immigration. It’s smarter than just about anything you’ll hear out of Washington.

Apparently, Bush and Congress have fixed every problem in America. Why else would Henry Waxman be asking the Attorney General to pursue purgery charges against Roger Clemens. Must be nothing else to do.

Ralph Nader has announced yet another run for the presidency of the United States. As in 2004, he’s made some overtures to the Green Party, but fell short of fully embracing the party. The Green Party, though, will be instrumental in getting Nader on as many state ballots as possible. If you are a Nader supporter (and I’m not), you must wonder, where has he been the last four years? I’m not sure, because I don’t really care about Ralph Nader, but in some quick scans of weekend news stories, I can’t find any reference to any groundwork for a serious run at the presidency. If he is so serious about running as a third party candidate and changing Washington, you’d have to think he’d start sooner.

Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy in January 2007, Barack Obama in February 2007, and John McCain has essentially been running for president since 2004. They’re all running within the two party system and they still had to dedicate at least two years to their campaigns. Can Ralph Nader really be serious if he thinks he can just swoop in eight months before the election, with virtually no infrastructure, and be a serious candidate? Even if you agree with him about the problems with a two party system (and I actually do agree with him on that point), his method of challenging the system is weak and pathetic. This has got to be a vanity run for him, so he can put “Five Time Presidential Candidate” on his tombstone. I’ll bet that Ron Paul will get more write-in votes than Ralph Nader in the election.

Ralph Nader is over seventy years old now, and probably has had any real effect on policy in over twenty years. He loves to bash on corporate greed, but he himself is a multi-millionaire who has mutual funds flush with shares in “evil” corporations. I know he claims to live off a small percentage of his income, while donating the rest to various charities, but he’s never releases his tax returns, so we don’t know for sure. I’m not calling him an outright hypocrite, and I never fault anyone for wanting to make a buck, but it makes his rhetoric on “evil” corporations sound a little more hollow when you realize he depends on corporate earnings to fund his lifestyle.

I think based on the lack of groundwork, his understanding of the modern campaign is limited. Ron Paul, douchebag extraordinaire, who is also over seventy years, has had a working internet presence for at least a year. His cult-like followers have raised more money that Ralph Nader ever will, all without corporate money. I hate to keep bringing up Ron Paul, but the two are very similar in that they rail against a lot of the same things, have no shot at the presidency, they are both running for vanity, I would never vote for either of them, and they are both old white men.

Will Ralph Nader be a “spoiler”? Nah, he will get so few votes, he won’t matter, but even if he did, who cares. As far as I am aware, it is up to candidates to convince people to vote for them, not cut quid pro quo deals with voters to ensure they keep power. So let Ralph Nader run, if it will stroke his ego. I just can’t take him serious though.

Because I am neither a Democrat or Republican, and since I moved to Missouri not even technically a Libertarian, I get asked who I will be voting for in this year’s election. The truth is, I have not decided who I will vote for. However, I’d thought I’d list some basic thoughts on requirements I would like in a candidate:

It’s clear to me from the recent Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act that federal and state governments are completely unable to legislate this issue in any non-religious way. There is no such thing as a “partial-birth abortion”, it’s just a term that pro-life groups invented to create an emotional response from people otherwise on the fence about the issue. The government, state or federal, has no business making medical decisions for women and/or doctors. I will only vote for a candidate who believes the same.

There is no logical reason to be against gay marriage, and as long as the federal government chooses to give tax benefits to married couples, we should be making gay marriage a national issue. The state issue seems like a weak issue to me. It’s funny that anti-gay marriage people love to tout how important marriage is to a society for all of history, and yet they want to make it just a state issue. Seems like the same approach used before Brown v. Board of Education.

If you don’t believe in the theory of evolution, you are either too uneducated, too dumb, or too lacking in critical thinking skills to be President. Period.

We already have a bazillion gun control laws on the books, and they rarely help. We don’t need any more.

Let me post a little of what the author of the first amendment said about church-state separation:

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In the strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation?

Too often right-wing Christians invent this narrative that the Founding Fathers intended a melding of government and religion. I think this quote pretty much puts that myth to rest, if James Madison himself considered government chaplains to be a violation. I myself have waffled on this particular case, and now I see what the correct answer surely is.

It is in the realm of possibility I suppose that our government is running in top efficiency and there is no dollar being wasted, but I doubt it. Until a candidate promises to audit and streamline government to the same level you would expect a business to be, I can’t justify raising taxes on anyone. Furthermore, don’t just cut taxes without cleaning up the books first as well. That’s almost as bad as raising them, if we continue to run deficits.

I differ with many libertarians in that I see a definite federal role in the environment. If one state is polluting the air, we all breathe it. The environment knows no state borders. That being said, we need to formulate policies based on sound science, not political action groups. In some cases that means corporations won’t always get what they want and environmental groups won’t always get what they want. For example, corporations need to be monitored closely for pollution, and they won’t like that. Environmental groups hate cloning and GM crops, but they’re dead wrong when it comes down to the science. So in short, scientists in, lobbyists out.

The climate is changing, and we’re partially responsible. While I personally doubt our ability to predict the actual changes, I don’t think it’s any reason to keep polluting. See answer on environment.

There should be no limitations on any non-public broadcast, and the fines should be drastically reduced for public broadcasts. The internet should be completely free of government regulation of speech.

I’m not sure how what the best way for the government to manage the energy policy of this country is. However, there is no doubt in my mind that it is an issue of national security. I don’t want the federal government to be regulating the power industry itself, but perhaps we need to dedicate more money for research. Wars have been, are being, and will be fought for natural resources used for energy.

We should legalize all drugs. Period.

I’m not sure the best way to deal with Iraq is just to leave and let the people fend for themselves, but our rebuilding effort over there has been horrific. I think we need a President who is looking to be free and clear of Iraq within ten years, with troop levels close to nil in two years. More focus needs to be on corruption connected to the rebuilding effort.

I’m against a federalized program of health care or health insurance. I think this needs to be done state by state for efficiency purposes. I’m not taking the position of “screw the sick”, but I don’t think the federal government (certainly as it runs now) can adequately provide healthcare. Individual states need to work on developing their own solutions instead of waiting for the federal government to swoop in and fix everything.

The John McCain plan (pre nomination McCain) is the one I would support. There is no gain in rounding up illegal aliens and shipping them out. An actual border fence is just a dumb idea. Let’s create a worker’s visa program, let them come, give them a chance to get integrated, and welcome them. I don’t care if they are brown, black, red or green. They obviously want to work hard to support their families, and that’s a quality we should invite into this country.

The federal government is too big. We have so many duplicated departments that waste resources. We have a Pentagon who can’t track its inventory. We spend money on programs that have no demonstrable effect, but because they are warm and fuzzy sounding, we continue to fund them. We rarely keep track of where money goes, and programs are almost never cut for lack of success. On the contrary, most government programs that fail claim its due to lack of funds, so we give them more money. When they keep failing they ask for handouts.

We have dumb subsidies for businesses. Why are we paying money to shrimp farmers? If they can’t make money on their own, who cares. Let the industry die. The worst that can happen is the industry collapses and we stop overfishing. Stop subsidizing oil companies, farmers, steel workers, shrimp farmers, and god knows what else.

This amendment is one of the most powerful amendments. It extends the Bill of Rights to the states and guarantees equal protection under the law. It’s one of the greatest amendments ever passed, and any candidate who doesn’t see this, doesn’t deserve my vote.

Well, that’s it for now, I will maybe expand upon each one of these at a later time.

This week we saw the end of Ron Paul as a viable candidate. Sure, we’ll still see Digg spammed by Ron Paul zealots. Paul will still be campaigning his message of right wing Christian values. However, the Ron Paul movement took a big blow when The New Republic dug up a ton of Ron Paul newsletters filled with racism, homophobia, paranoia, and downright nuttiness. Paul claims to have not written any of the articles in question, but his campaign has seemingly given different answers. It’s been reported that Paul claims only to have not written the offensive ones, where on CNN with Wolf Blitzer he claimed to have never written or ready any of them.

In 1996, when the newsletters came up in a local race, Paul claimed the newsletters were being quoted out of context. He even defended the “black youths are fleet of foot” sentiment in one of the newsletters. In 2008 on CNN, though, he claimed never to have read them, so I don’t know how he could have understood the previous context before without reading them. He claims now to not have any idea who wrote the articles, and shockingly, doesn’t care to find out. Not many people, outside of the true blue Ron Paulbots, believe him on that one. I, for one, don’t think he wrote every article, but he knew what was in them and he’s lying now. The New Republic also featured a campaign donation solicitation letter from Ron Paul, that in addition to being filled with kookiness, asked people to buy his newsletters. You have to be almost blind to believe he didn’t know what was in there.

For fun, I though I’d give my responses to some common responses from Ron Paulbots over this issue:

Paulbot: This is old news. He already took moral responsibility for this
me: It’s old news to some people, most of the nation hasn’t heard this before. Also, never before have we had the actual newsletters to read ourselves. Before it was just a few quotes. Oh, and for the record, in 1996 Ron Paul took “partial moral responsibility.” Way to man up, Ron.

Paulbot: Ron Paul is no racist. As soon as he found out, he fired the editor
me: I’ve found no evidence to support the idea that he fired anyone. Quite the contrary, he has claimed to not know what was going on.

Paulbot: What he said was just the truth.
me: I feel sorry for you.

Paulbot: This is just a hit piece by the MSM/Republican Attack Machine/Establishment/International Bankers!
me: He’s running for President of the United States. I don’t think publishing newsletters a candidate was “morally responsible” for qualifies as a hit piece. They didn’t have to make anything up.

Paulbot: He’s still the best one out there!
me: Sorry, racism is more important to me than the gold standard. I feel sorry for you.

Paulbot:It was only one one newsletter. What’s the big deal?
me: The racism, homophobia, paranoia, and kookiness was on a lot of newsletters. You just have to read them.

Paulbot: Libertarians can’t be racist!
me: Really? David Duke isn’t a racist?

Paulbot: Ron Paul is a man of integrity. He wants to blah, blah, blah.
me: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard the stump speech. Now let’s see some actual contrition about calling African-Americans “animals”.

Paulbot: We can’t shoot the messenger! We need to spread the message of freedom!
me: As a libertarian, I want to have high standards. Otherwise, why aren’t you supporting David Duke and other states’ rights, “pro-freedom” white separatists?

Paulbot: You’re just a liberal!
me: I’m a libertarian. A real one, not the fake kind that wants states rights to be racist, misogynistic, and homophobic.

Paulbot: You’re just a republican!
me: I’m a libertarian. A real one, not the fake kind that wants states rights to be racist, misogynistic, and homophobic.

Paulbot: You’re just a neocon!
me: I’m a libertarian. A real one, not the fake kind that wants states rights to be racist, misogynistic, and homophobic.

Paulbot: You’re stupid!
me: Thank you for the reasoned and thought out response. I shall take a long retreat and contemplate how to assimilate such startling insight.

Looking forward to new Paulbot-isms!

Update: I meant to put this in, but because of Ron Paul’s self-immolation, this will be my final Ron Paul post. Everyone knows he’s kook now.

Once again, Islam (like all religions) has put a blight on our record as a human society. After a teacher, who let a students name a teddy bear Muhammed, was “only” sentenced to fifteen days in prison, Islamic godbags decided to stage a massive, violent, threatening “protest.” To highlight how stupid the whole incident is, one of the students who voted for the name Muhammed was naming the bear after himself, who was named…Muhammed. It’s just absolutely moronic. I’m sure some Christian godbags will be jumping up and down yelling “See, I told you so, they’re savages.”, as if Christianity has some pure history free of hate of stupidity. Anyone who’s read or even skimmed the bible know how much hatred and bigotry it’s filled with.

I’ve hard Ron Paul described as many things. He’s a constitutionalist, he’s a libertarian who is in the Republican party just to get in the game, blah, blah, blah. Today, while driving past a billboard that used to have a Ron Paul ad on it, I heard my first Ron Paul radio commercial. The headline of the ad was loud and clear: Ron Paul is a real Republican. He’s out of the closet now! That’s how he himself is now portraying himself: the only real Republican choice. Finally, he has admitted what I’ve known to be true all along. After all, look at his positions on social issues:

* Against a woman’s right to choose at any point in the pregnancy
* Has been known to laugh at the concept of gay marriage (how respectful)
* Has tried his damnedest to use his *federal* power as Congressman to allow states to push religion into our daily lives
* Has a monthly newsletter bearing his name that has published quotes like “If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”, “We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”

Yep, definitely sounding like a Real (Southern) Republican now.

Update: As some Ron Paul-bots pointed out, Ron Paul has not been a senator. I wrote that when I meant Congressman. Post has been updated

Apparently 105 million dollars.

In tonight’s overhyped, but better than usual, debate, a lesbian couple asked the candidates if they support gay marriage. The only candidate who had the correct answer was Dennis Kucinich. Bill Richardson was close by saying he thought he could realistically achieve civil unions, but not gay marriage. Christopher Dodd and John Edwards flubbed by by saying they didn’t support gay marriage but support civil unions.

Also, a reverend asked why it was okay to use to use religion to deny people their civil rights. John Edwards blew the question with a mostly idiotic answer about his own personal problems with *gasp* the though of a same sex couple being treated any old married couple under the law. If he can’t get past such bigotry, I suggest he drop out of the race and go back to guilt tripping juries into giving him huge sums of cash.

As a party, the Democrats are pretty pathetic when it comes to the issue of gay marriage. Most of them claim to support gay rights, but only with a “separate but equal” policy. Why do they push this antiquated concept? Either they are too weak to stand up to “Big Religion” in this country, or they have been permanently tainted by religious bigotry.

The issue is simple: Marriage in a church, civil unions under the law. That’s it. That’s how it should be. We shouldn’t have two different kinds of state contracts depending on your sexual orientation. That’s blatantly bigoted. If you want to get “married” and have it blessed by Jesus, Ganesh, or some pagan tree god, go for it. Knock yourself out. Just leave everyone else alone.

To all you anti-gay marriage crusaders out there, stop pushing your conservative, outdated, Abrahamic beliefs in the family structure on every else. Oh, and to the rest of the Democratic party, stop raising my taxes.

I have to ask the question because I’m finding myself agreeing with Dennis Kucinich on an issue. Actually, that’s kind of an exaggeration. While I disagree with most of Kucinich’s platform, he is right on abortion and mostly right when it comes to the drug war. His positions on civil liberties are also mostly right. Where I disagree with him is his economic and foreign policies. I find them to be unworkable and extremely unrealistic. Not sure we need a “Department of Peace” either, when we already have the State department with the capacity for peaceful diplomacy.

But I digress.

What I agree with Kucinich this time, is his outrage at John Edwards and Hillary Clinton for their comments after an appearance at the NAACP. Kucinich has all the details here. (By the way, more props to Kucinich for using Drupal to power his campaign website.).

If Kucinich is being marginalized within his own party, and a major one at that, imagine how hard it is for third party candidates to get national recognition. In 2004, the Libertarian Party had their candidate on 48 of the 50 state ballots for the Presidential election, but were left out of any national debates. The Green Party was also left out, and was actively attacked by the Democrat Party and removed off of some state ballots. The two parties have locked up the system making it very hard for third parties to get any national exposure.

Do I think the Libertarian or Green party candidates had a shot at actually winning? No, I don’t. However, they did have the power to influence the other parties, and they clearly have wide ranging appeal. They should have been allowed in the presidential debates in 2004.

Now, I realize that we can’t let every presidential candidate in on the debates. There must be some objective criteria, like being on the ballot in a certain number of states or receiving a certain percentage of the vote in the last election. Otherwise, we would have Gary Coleman and Gallagher in the debates. I’m not sure yet what the criteria should be, but what we have now is ridiculous.

This might be the first and last post where I write how I agree with Dennis Kucinich, but on an issue like this, it’s easy.