One of the worse commentators on CNN has to be Roland Martin, and this week he did nothing to change my mind. I don’t want to rehash the whole Miss USA gay marriage answer debacle. If you’re against gay marriage, you might be thrilled at the answer Miss California gave, even if she sounded as inarticulate as she did. If you’re for gay marriage (or rather against state sponsored discrimination when it comes to marriage), you were probably appalled by both her answer and Perez Hilton’s douchey demeanor afterwards. Personally, I think beauty pageants are idiotic, and Perez Hilton is a lowlife purveyor of celebrity gossip trash.

However, it did indeed make news, so I’ve had to listen to a lot of gabbing about it on CNN. Today I noticed a commentary on how he appreciated the honesty of her answer (http://bit.ly/GWiQC). He defends her by comparing her position to Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, calling them the four of the biggest liberals in the country.

Yeah, whatever, Roland. I’m sure if she had said “The Bible tells me the races shouldn’t mix, so I’m against interracial marriage” you would be smiling and celebrating her honesty. Please. You’d be calling her a small minded racist Republican emblematic of the continued race problems in the United States. Because of your own religious beliefs, however, you’re just smiling and thanking her.

Look as a libertarian, I don’t think the state should have anything to do with marriage, however, that pipedream isn’t going to happen. The state has been in the business of regulating marriage too long to go back, so gays should have the right to marry, period. I don’t care what anyone’s particular translation of a 2,000 year old arbitrarily chosen set of fictional books says, gays have the Constitutional right to be treated equally under the law. If you don’t like that, well, you have some soul searching to do, because it was just two generations ago that people used the Bible to argue against interracial marriage, and even just interracial dating. As repulsive as that sounds now, I hope opposition to gay marriage sounds as repulsive when I’m old and gray and long retired.

Reference:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/22/martin.miss.california/index.html

(cross posted from The LD Network)

When President Obama ran for president, he ran on few solid issues or theories. He promised “Change” and told us to have “Hope”. Whether I liked the few policies he talked about or not, I had to hand it to him, he ran a great campaign. He was the right candidate at the right time with the right rhetoric. The press has swooned over Obama, repeating his calls for “Change” and “Hope”, while glossing over his lack of experience among other faults. No one could exactly call Obama a champion for gay rights, or a real sincere sounding voice for women’s rights, or a real stickler to keeping religion out of politics. The press didn’t call him out, but we at the Libertarian Dime did.

And now we have his presidency, a time for “Hope” and “Change” so goes the rhetoric. However, on the day after Obama was elected, I began telling people how disappointing he was going to be for those who either were looking for a far left agenda and/or the promise of change. For those on the right, I predicted Obama would “disappoint” them in the sense, that Obama will be far more centrist than the right was “hoping” for. I think on all counts I’ve been correct.

Obama has not been as liberal as some thought he would be. He has reached out to Republicans, he has increased the Faith Based Initiative programs, he has already put off for now allowing gays into the military, and in a moment of real symbolism, he waited until the day after the anniversary of Roe v Wade to overturn the “Mexico City Policy” that Republican presidents have enacted. When it came down to a stimulus package, those on the left were disappointed in the amount of “tax cuts” (I put that in quotes because there were no tax cuts in the bill, just tax credits). Some were disappointed that family planning funding was so easily cast aside to appease Republicans.

As for “Hope” and “Change”, well, Obama has failed to deliver either. From the first day of his presidency, he has been using the language of fear to ram the stimulus bill through Congress. When he speaks of the economy, he doesn’t talk about “Hope”, but instead tells everyone he can that unless we do “something” now, that the economy will become a catastrophe. Instead of inspiring Americans or educating Americans on how to deal with the recession, instead of talking about the great things that can come out of recessions, Obama has relied on fear, same as the Bush administration, to convince Americans to support his policies.

The Patriot Act was passed by using fear. The debacle known as TARP was passed by scaring everyone. Obama (and the Democrats) have not brought “change”. We’ve had eight years of encouraging people to buy by going into debt, eight years of budget busting spending, and eight years of “hit you over the head with it” fear mongering that has done little but expand the scope and power of government. Maybe the beneficiaries under Obama have different names, but from this libertarian’s seat, it all blends into the same non-change, non-hopeful blur.

Reason.com gave us a shout out here for our interview with Nick Gillespie:

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/130076.html

Just feels pretty damn cool to see our podcast up there.

Update

Just for posterity, I took a quick screen shot of the reason.com website to see our podcast up there. Click on the image to see it all:

On this past episode of the Libertarian Dime my co-host and I had the absolute thrill of interviewing Nick Gillespie of Reason.com and Reason.tv. It was a lot of fun, and he brought a certain intellectual gravitas that we haven’t had on so far. Since I initially screwed up the time at which I was supposed to interview with him, I was very glad that Nick was gracious enough to quickly reschedule the next day.

It is really amazing, when I think about it, all the cool people we’ve had the chance to talk to (and will talk to), just from doing the podcast. It’s also hard to believe that we’ve done 30 episodes, and it becomes more enjoyable each week we do it. It’s also spawned a lot of ideas for things to do, outside of the podcast that neither Jonathan nor I have thought about doing in years. The Libertarian Dime is really starting to achieve the vision that Jonathan and I had nearly 20 years ago but had no idea how to do.

Now that the election is over, we will be diving deeper into libertarian topics or topics related to the core philosophy of libertarianism. Look for shows on topics you probably won’t hear anywhere else in the libertarian spectrum. Well, I think so anyway.

Now for some show links:

http://thelibertariandime.mevio.com
http://www.mevio.com/shows/?sId=17755&mId=5563159
http://m.podshow.com/media/17755/episodes/131979/thelibertariandime-131979-11-08-2008.mp3

[cross posted at http://www.ldnetwork.tv]

and vote Libertarian!

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/129108.html

Crossposted from The LD Network site. I also sent this to the LP brass.

I have been a libertarian for many years, but only recently have I considered myself a member of the Libertarian Party. I supported Michael Bednarik in 2004 and I plan to vote for Bob Barr this year because I think the Libertarian Party is the party that best exemplifies true freedom for everyone. During this past year, however, I have had to answer questions about Ron Paul. Because he has wrapped his message with the language of liberty, many people have assumed (incorrectly) that he was a libertarian. He has a long association with the Libertarian Party including the 1988 botched presidential run. However, he has remained a Republican, even when the lack of an opponent in his House race gave him the opportunity to run as a Libertarian if he really wanted to.

And now, Ron Paul, because of a personal squabble with Bob Barr, has decided to endorse a non-liberty candidate from a non-liberty party. The reason for the squabble is simply that Barr wouldn’t pay Paul the “proper fealty” at Paul’s “historic” news conference September 10th. This supposed snub has caused a lot of consternation around the Paul organization and the Barr campaign, because of some undeserved exalted status some libertarians have placed upon Ron Paul.

I write this letter today, to the Libertarian Party, to say that it is time to just forget Ron Paul and move on. He is not a libertarian and he is not pro-liberty. Let’s recap:

* Ron Paul supports passing federal legislation to ban abortion because he believes it is a scientific fact that life begins at conception. One shouldn’t forget that Paul doesn’t support evolution, rock solid science, but does support homeopathy, which is junk science

* Ron Paul supports eliminating any chance the Federal Courts can review marriage law. This is done under the auspice of “freedom” but in reality it is an attempt to allow states to ban gay marriage

* Ron Paul doesn’t believe in a separation of Church and State, but instead believes in prayer in school and the Ten Commandments on federal buildings.

* Ron Paul believes states have the right to ban private acts between consenting adults as he angrily proclaimed in his response to Lawrence v Texas

* Ron Paul loves to talk about the Constitution but seems to ignore the 14th Amendment and the vast amount of case law behind it

* Ron Paul proclaims on his website the Constitution is “replete with references to God” when it is not

* Ron Paul talks a big game when it comes to presidential debate access, however in his own House primary, he refused to debate Chris Peden who was 6-8 times higher in most polls than Ron Paul ever was in his own presidential run

* Reason magazine has reported that Ron Paul laughs at the very idea of gay marriage

* Ron Paul has never once moved to impeach anyone in Congress or the President, while constantly talking about how everything is unconstitutional, because it would threaten his seniority

* In the last Congress, Ron Paul asked for more pork per constituent than Hillary Clinton, despite all the talk about spending

* Despite a reputation as “Dr. No”, Ron Paul has voted with the Republican party more than 70% of the time during his tenure, 76% in the last Congress

* Ron Paul has the third highest rate of missed votes in the House if you exclude people who have died or resigned

All in all, it’s a pretty pitiful record of liberty and freedom. What I haven’t mentioned yet, is that Ron Paul has never authored a piece of legislation that has made it to law. He has nothing to show for the cause of liberty.

One can not talk about Ron Paul without mentioning the newsletters he wrote in early 90’s. I don’t care to rehash what he has said since 2000, so I will simply quote an article from 1996, immediately after the newsletters first came to light:

Dr. Paul, who is running in Texas’ 14th Congressional District, defended his writings in an interview Tuesday. He said they were being taken out of context.
“It’s typical political demagoguery,” he said. “If people are interested in my character . . . come and talk to my neighbors.”

In conclusion, I see no reason why Ron Paul should continue to be revered inside the Libertarian Party. The party is doing itself a great disservice by linking itself with someone who only superficially supports the ideas of the Libertarian Party, and someone with such a shady past. While I hold no illusion that I hold any sway with the Libertarian Party, I simply ask that the party think deeply if it wants to continue to pay homage to Ron Paul

Sincerely,

Shane P. Brady

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.

This Sunday Jonathan and I will be recording the second episode of The Libertarian Dime, and this week we have a guest. We are interviewing Glenn Nielsen, the State Chair of the Missouri Libertarian Party. I will be asking him about what the Missouri chapter of the party is up to, how their policies are connected to the national platform, and a series of questions about specific issues I care about.

This will be my first ever interview of someone in the role of a “media” person. The goal is to get some information out there and not be boring. If I have to, I’ll bring up Ron Paul. That will surely create some fireworks.

There will be plenty of picking on Republicans later, but today I write about the utter stupidity of Howard Dean and the Democrats. Yesterday, Florida’s Democrats gave up on having a re-vote of the botched primary from January that didn’t count. At first, when the primary happened, I assumed this was a Florida Democrat thing, where the state party decided to move up the primary. Turns out I was dead wrong, and it was a Republican controlled state legislature and Republican governor that moved the primary up. The national Republican Party also penalized Florida by cutting their delegates in half, and this seems to have caused no problems for them. The national Democrats, however, led by Howard Dean and agreed with by Obama and Clinton, decided to strip the state of its delegates.

How stupid can you be? Honestly, if Republicans moved up the primary, why the hell would you penalize all the democrats? Howard Dean and his cohorts have to be morons, what else could you think? Now that Florida can’t figure out how to re-run the primary, the voters in Florida have been totally screwed by the Democrats. They have no excuses. I don’t think one could even blame the Republicans really, it’s not like they have the power to strip delegates.

What Dean should have done is said, “Hey, we know the Republicans are being assholes about this in Florida, but we won’t let them stop democracy and mess with our party, so we will count the delegates this year, and work something out with them for next time.” Didn’t happen and I don’t know why. Seems simple to me.