[Mini-podcast] What the Libertarian Party Won in the 2016 Election

From 'My LPeeps! Libertarian Mini-podcast'

Many Libertarians feel demoralized after the general election.  One of the two authoritarian demagogues was going to win no matter what.  The most painful part is that our national ticket couldn’t clinch that 5% (and even people on the Gary Johnson campaign are unhappy with Governor Bill Weld).  Regardless of the disappointment, LP Nevada still applauds Governor Gary Johnson for bringing the Libertarian Party up to new milestones and for carrying forward the message of our platform.  Here are some of the victories the Libertarian Party won this election.

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Trump Didn’t Actually Save Us from TPP, Here’s Why

Republicans have been advancing the party line by praising President Trump for “saving America from TPP” or “formally withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”  The ones singing President Trump’s praises the loudest are the far-right libertarians and anarchists in the movement who have lately become apologists for state-worship and anything the new regime does.

I give credit where credit is due: it’s a good thing that the US won’t be a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and joining TPP was one of the areas where I publicly disagreed with my candidate, Gary Johnson.  The Ron Paul Liberty Report said, “President Trump did not get rid of a free trade deal. The TPP was a secretive, 5,000 page deal between governments and the crony corporations that tango with them. Free trade was nowhere to be found.”

However, President Trump did not actually save the US from TPP.  In the end, all that his anti-TPP executive order did was knock down a boogeyman.

Though President Trump’s order made it known that his administration will oppose the TPP, there will be plenty of other instances for severe crony capitalism to occur under the new regime.  Furthermore, I’m interested to see the results of the tariff wars President Trump will instigate.  In these tariff wars, America will either see a dramatic rise in the cost of consumer goods, or “the most libertarian administration ever” will ask Congress to steal from the taxpayers to subsidize these tariffs on imported, keeping prices lower.  This means taxpayers will be paying for the privilege of not having to pay more money specifically at the checkout stand.

The second reason this is mostly political theater is simply that THE U.S. IS NOT, AND NEVER HAS BEEN, A MEMBER OF THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP.

The seven-year-long international negotiations for TPP only came to a close in February of 2016.  Congress has not yet ratified it.  TPP is literally not a thing in this country—it was only ever the boogeyman in political debates.  It’s like the political version of Red Ribbon Week in elementary school, where teachers and school children already not on drugs loudly pledge to be drug-free.

This executive order was political theater, and the pro-murder Helicopter Libertarians are dancing and celebrating and giving him a free pass before his words are actually carried out by the political/coercive class.  This isn’t very different from the left-libertarians dancing for joy when President Obama signed in January 2009 the executive order shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.  Eight years later, Camp X-Ray still stands and is still funded by Congress.

Dr. Paul's news service said, “While President Trump deserves a compliment for today, he unfortunately has other government interventions up his sleeve to prevent us from freely and peacefully exchanging with one another.”

To be fair, I do give the President a nod of respect and approval for helping the USA steer clear of TPP.  But I won’t be convinced until the political/coercive class follows through on the executive order, and Congress formally rejects TPP and actually justifies the premature celebration of the Helicopter Libertarians.  Since America was never a part of the Partnership anyway, and now likely never will, the President is merely knocking down a boogeyman.  

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Image courtesy of The Libertarian Republic

A Message to the Libertarian Party from Uncle Ruckus

"Now now now, I don't wanna hear no talk ‘bout making liberal America sane again from any of y’all dang ol' America hatin' Wesley Snipes tax rebels!  Donald Trump is the most libertarian public soyvant since White Jesus! 

Only reason any of y’all Murray Rothbard peace-on-earth dope-smokin’ hippie types hate this great man is ‘cause he wants to make America great again!  He’s actually filled out in his life what y’all unemployable Freedom! t-shirt-wearin’ basement-of-yo-momma’s-house podcast-blogging Libertarian delegates fear most: a job application. 

Well guess what: ain’t no Libertarians gonna get elected, so ya might as well work with the Grandest Old Party and other great libertarian men like Paul Ryan and Steve Bannon so we can get somethin’ done around here.

I thank God and His divine messenger Ronald Reagan for bringing us this incredible libertarian man who don’t give no damn 'bout cultural Marxist beta-cuck issues like savin’ the black man from going to jail for the rest of his life over weed.  He shoulda thought about that befo’ he broke the law!

Y’all wicked little godless reason-loving atheist commies better hope the greatest libertarian on the planet don’t use Immigration and Customs Enforcement to physically remove yo’ black-and-yellow asses back to Ancapistan, Mexico where y’all came from.  It’d soyve you right, and y’all 420 canna-bunnies can have all the gay Jew Nazi cakes you want!

All y’all Fedora neckbeard anarchists leave these nice Republicans alone, now, you hear?  Now git off muh roads!" 

--The Reverend Father Uncle Ruckus, no relation

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Uncle Ruckus is the property of Aaron McGruder and Sony Pictures Television.  Image from YouTube.  In case you hadn't figured it out, this post is satire.

Here's what the Libertarian Party won this election

UPDATE (12/31/16) In Southeastern Virginia, Tidewater Libertarian Party Vice Chair Jessica Abbott was elected to Virginia Beach City Council. She is the youngest (27) person ever elected to VBCC, and with 60% of the vote, she is the first challenger to defeat an incumbent by more than a 4% margin.

UPDATE (11/11/16) Libertarian Senator Laura Ebke (Nebraska) is still in office and runs for reelection in 2018.  Also, Libertarian Rep. Max Abramson (New Hampshire) won 4% in the race for governor and thus qualified the LP for automatic ballot access in New Hampshire. Additional states where we won ballot access not listed in the first draft include New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Many Libertarians feel demoralized after the general election.  One of the two authoritarian demagogues was going to win no matter what.  The most painful part is that our national ticket couldn’t clinch that 5% (and even people on the Gary Johnson campaign are unhappy with Governor Bill Weld).  Regardless of the disappointment, LP Nevada still applauds Governor Gary Johnson for bringing the Libertarian Party up to new milestones and for carrying forward the message of our platform.  Here are some of the victories we gained this election: 

(Read more and be pleasantly surprised!)

2 out of 3 are Liberty Candidates!

This article makes the assumption that Rand Paul will remain the frontrunner in the presidential race and be the Republican Party’s nominee on the November 2016 ballot.  No other Republican candidate will be good enough for a stalwart libertarian like me.

2016 will be a much better election year for the liberty movement than 2012.  Back then, Ron Paul had to claw and scrape his way to getting two minutes of speaking time out of two-hour-long debates.  Moderators and major networks never took him seriously, except for the times they’d briefly mention him to drive home how ‘crazy’ he was, or to remind themselves that he was ‘unelectable’.  Worst of all, the libertarian ideas Ron advocated were deeply misunderstood. 2012 wasn’t our year.

This time, our libertarian ideas actually have a shot at being heard and accepted.  Rand Paul is being taken much more seriously than Ron was.  This is due in no small part to Ron blitzing America like a kamikaze in 2012, with ideas like “end the Fed,” “end foreign aid,” and “legalize drugs”.  Because Ron took the full blast of heat in 2012, America in 2016 can find it more palatable when Rand pushes ideas like “let’s fully audit the Fed,” “we can start cutting aid to this list of countries,” and “let’s end the War on Drugs, which is really a war on the black community.”

To make a long story short, Rand Paul’s candidacy excites me.  Sure, he isn’t a pure libertarian like his father, but making that constant comparison is getting silly.  ‘Conservatarian’ Rand Paul will take mainstream America MUCH closer to libertarianism than Hillary Clinton, that’s for damn sure!

I’m also excited that Gary Johnson will be running for president again on the Libertarian Party ticket.  Though I’ve long-since agreed to actually cast my general election vote for Rand, I can see the importance of Gary’s candidacy.  Many in the liberty movement are concerned that Gary running against Rand will ‘divide’ the libertarian vote in America.

I disagree.

If there exists any 'division' within the liberty movement, it runs along these lines:

1. Most libertarians will ultimately swallow their pride and support Rand. They realize that, despite his ‘impurities’ he’s worlds above the other rabble playing the Ronald Reagan name card.
2. Libertarian Party members will vote for Gary Johnson because the Party needs to run candidates in order to function as a Party and not as a weekly tea social.  For some of these folks, Rand might not be ‘good enough’.  They have every right then to run a candidate that better represents them.
3.  Libertarians and libertarian sympathizers who don’t much care for either Rand or Gary will stay home and find creative life hacks that defy government regulations.  Their focus is on advancing liberty through action, not politics.

Judge Napolitano recently said, "I want Rand to win."

Frankly, the liberty movement needs all three groups of people.  We NEED Rand, we NEED Gary, and we even NEED a liberty-advancing alternative for those who are sick of politics.  In the long-run, people are already aligned for what they’ll do or who they’ll support in 2016.  Because libertarians are notorious for sticking to their principles, there'll simply be no arguing with these three groups.

I’m still incredibly excited just to know that I could be seeing Rand Paul and Gary Johnson both on the general election ballot.  Though the Libertarian Party is a smaller party, it’s still the third largest party in the United States.  This means that, of the three biggest American political parties on the November ballot, two out of three candidates will be liberty candidates.

I say again, two out of three general election candidates will be representing libertarian ideas and policy objectives.

Only the Democrat candidate, probably Darth Hillary, will be the candidate representing corruption, government surveillance, and corporate fascism.  The other two candidates will starkly contrast; their platforms will differ from tyranny and instead offer a mostly-libertarian option (Rand) and a super-libertarian option (Gary).

Absolutely nothing about the 2012 election looked like this, and I count all of our lucky stars that years of hard work and activism are finally starting to pay off.  I can only imagine one day in the future when libertarian ideas will have so deeply infiltrated politics, that all three parties’ candidates will be different shades of libertarian.

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ENTER the Rand Paul writing contest!

Images courtesy of aLibertarianFuture.com

Secession, Shout-outs, and Ron Paul Shiznit

So yesterday Ron Paul delivered what’s probably his farewell speech to Congress on the House floor.  Did he really just call 400+ Representatives “psychopathic authoritarians” to their faces?  Why, yes, yes he did.  I see the election is over and Congressman Paul doesn’t need to behave himself either.  Bravo, Congressman, bravo.  Golf clap for Ron.

Honestly, I’m going to miss having that man fighting for all our rights in Washington.  Words simply are inadequate when it comes to finding a way to describe his accomplishments and the impact he made on my own life.  I’m especially touched by his opposition to SOPA and PIPA.  After all, had I not been illegally downloading audio books in January of 2009, I never would have stumbled upon The Revolution: A Manifesto and I probably wouldn’t be on the right side of history.

Now that Ron Paul is officially retiring from Congress I find myself crying like a fifteen-year-old girl who’s suddenly come to the brutal realization that Twilight is over, there will be no more books or movies, and Jacob will die alone.

Jacob will die alone.

But wait, there’s hope on the horizon!  There are hundreds of thousands of voters now sympathetic to libertarian ideas, tens of thousands of newly inspired activists carrying on the Ron Paul revolution, and the very real possibility that Rand Paul will be our figurehead and candidate in 2016!  [Angel choirs are singing.]  Okay, I’m not sad anymore.

Next, I’d like to put on blast all my fellow Ron Paul supporters who actually still believe in these secession petitions.  Unless you’re an authentic Southern nationalist, you’re probably just a whiny Republican or a militant-beyond-reality libertarian.  This protest is useless, Obama will not hear you out, and filing the petitions on WhiteHouse.gov gives them no more legitimacy than a police report that cites the witness seeing flying saucers before the crime took place.  The President’s answer to the petitions will be: “No. See 1865.”

The only way to enact change in government is by gathering a large mob of angry voters and protesting at the offices of elected officials one month before a primary election.

If you still have faith that these petitions will enact change, prepare to be more disappointed than the militant LP members who thought Gary Johnson would actually win!

Are you mad at me now?  Good.  You’re probably all conspiratarians anyway…  Seriously though, like Ron Paul, I have much love and respect for Gary Johnson.  What do they have in common?  Three main things:

·         A correct and inspiring philosophy of liberty and rugged individualism

·         A mountain of accomplishments that dwarf those of most human beings

·         Thousands of obnoxious conspiratarian supporters who thoroughly love wasting time on sign bombs and annoying the living hell out of me (and probably the rest of the planet).

On that note, I would like to personally thank you for making the campaign trail even rougher for those of us who were actually winning real votes for Ron Paul.  We sustained enough damage from the Republican establishment without you guys delivering your Bilderberger speeches and handing out your 9/11 truth DVD-Rs.  Is it still libertarian enough if I can convince you to voluntarily commit yourselves into private mental hospitals instead of having the government sending you to public ones?  I sure hope so :)

A very clean, Hollywood representation of a conspiratarian

Conspiratarians, even if you have facts and hard evidence to back your kooky claims, you can’t shock-and-awe people with the truth.  You can’t shove truth down their throats and expect anything other than the gag reflex.  You have to spoon-feed the truth to people and even make it sound good so they want more of it.  Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…

Finally, I’d like to throw a major shout out to the folks at Ron Paul Problems and (the less funny or cared about) Objectivist Problems for being libertarians with a freaking sense of humor and an actual grip on bridge building, implementing our ideas into public policy, and reality itself.  Much love, mi gente!

I thought I’d take a break from politics after the election but now I realize it’d be counterproductive to the effort Ron Paul put in setting things in motion for the liberty movement.  At this point, I can’t wait ‘til December 2015 so we can all head over to Iowa and caucus for Rand Paul.

May the Force be with you.

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Ron Paul painting courtesy of Prison Planet. No known image owner.
Taylor Lautner photo by Eva Rinaldi and used via CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
Conspiratarian GIF courtesy of Ron Paul Problems.

I totally missed last night's episode of South Park and now I have to wait before it'll be available online.  I hate everyone.

Should California Secede from the Union?

Should California WHAT?  Are you insane?  Has anyone actually thought this crackpot idea through?

What they THINK Cali independence will look like

I fully understand the sentiments of many of the even-tempered conservatives, anarcho-capitalist libertarians, and even neoconservative Republicans (the kind who hate Obama more than Satan and are reconciled with God through his supposed Other Son, Ronald Reagan) who support this naïve utopian idea.

It also seems as if many of the people asking me to sign that petition firmly believe Ron Paul could have won as a write-in candidate, that Gary Johnson stole his thunder, and that using Instagram will significantly boost the integrity of their photography portfolio.  Now they believe that a petition will help bring about a peaceful 10^th Amendment-style revolution to restore state sovereignty and individual liberty.

I wish they would all quit this obnoxious exercise.  Then again, I could wish in one hand and drool in the other and we’ll see which one fills up faster.

In case no one’s figured it out yet, I’m completely against California seceding from the Union, even if I’m for secession in other countries.

First of all, I stick around in politics because I want to build bridges within the country, not fracture it.  I have just as much love for the Blue Ridge Mountains as I do for the sunrise over Boston Harbor and the sunset over the Mojave Desert.  Okay, well, maybe not so much the Mojave Desert….

But in all seriousness, Mass media and the hyper-polarization of politics has greatly divided Americans and splitting up the country will only further the division without actually doing anything about the polarized attitudes inside of every newly seceded state.  Elimination of the Democrat and Republican Parties doesn’t eliminate the masses who strongly identify with “the left” or “the right,” no matter how correct Murray Rothbard was in his Left, Right essay.

Second of all, I believe we owe it to the memory of our country’s Civil War veterans—both North and South—to remain united and find better ways to solve our national problems than cutting and running, and especially through fighting.  [Can we just elect Rand Paul already???]  If I may quote Confederate veteran Sam Watkins:

“Our cause was lost from the beginning.  Our greatest victories—Chickamauga and Franklin—were our greatest defeats.  Our people were divided upon the question of Union and secession…  The private soldier fought and starved and died for naught.”

In other words, it ultimately wasn’t worth it.  By the way, if anyone’s offended that I’m quoting Confederate veterans, they might as well stop reading here and now.  This is my rant and if they don’t like it, I will now make it my personal mission to offend them even more deeply.

Just because it’s possible for someone to respect the white, black, Hispanic, and Native American Confederate veterans doesn’t mean that person has the Birth of a Nation movie poster on their bedroom wall.  Sheesh!  [By the way, any politically correct bozo who thinks I’m full of it can Google search “HK Edgerton” and have their mind blown.]

You’re welcome.

What Cali independence will actually look like

Thirdly—and this is the one no one’s expecting—any libertarians who think this will be the new state for anarchist experimentation, or “conservative” Republicans convinced that secession will save us from the tyranny of Obama and help restore the Norman Rockwell painting of what California used to be many decades ago, are sorely mistaken.

[Let me point out that the former spend entirely too much time making maps of where the FEMA concentration camps are located while the latter believe that Rick Santorum was popular enough to have defeated Obama in the General Election.]

Take one moment to think about the political reality of California… THIS STATE IS A BASTION OF LEFTISM!  Seriously, a California Republic will become the People’s Socialist Republic of California in, like, 7 freaking minutes.  Sure, recreational marijuana users won’t have to worry about the DEA, but there will also be:

• ·         Individual mandates that make ObomneyCare look like a fiscally responsible mere suggestion… (God forbid we should allow market-based solutions!)
• ·         Taxes and the state budget deficit flying to the moon faster than Red Bull’s impressive space program
• ·         More police to hassle everyone
• ·         More regulations and state control on private industry here than in the Third Reich.

Yes indeed, people will need that weed to get as high as possible just to cope with the depressing realities of life in the new Workers’ Paradise.

If we want to boost states’ sovereignty, nullification and noncompliance with federal law are a much better method than secession.

Now that I’ve angered libertarians, Republicans, Democrats, and Marxists alike, my work here is done… for now.  I’m off to procrastinate on Facebook for the 900^th time today.

Toodles!

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"Writing the Declaration of Independence" painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.  "Lenin on Board the Cruiser Aurora" painting by Sandor Legrady, made into a postage stamp by the government of the People's Republic of Hungary.  Both images were obtained from Wikimedia Commons and are in the public domain.

Even if the second one wasn't public domain, I still wouldn't pay any royalties to Marxists because it would go against their ideology.  People over profits, right??  Booyah!