posted Jul 31, 2011 12:22 AM by David Colborne
The problem with linking libertarian causes like personal responsibility and limited government to the conservative movement is that the conservative movement is... well... conservative. Case in point (WND): It's been confirmed. GOProud, the "conservative" organization that has homosexual "rights" at the top of its agenda, is out for the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference. The event, organized by the American Conservative Union, is one of the largest conferences for conservatives held anywhere in the United States each year. But it had faced the loss of some participants over the past several years specifically because of its inclusion of GOProud. Some of the organizations whose leaders have raised concerns in recent years have included heavyweights such as the Heritage Foundation, Media Research Center, Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America
I don't personally blame CPAC for making this choice. Like the rest of the GOP, it's stuck in a Faustian bargain between its paleo-libertarian wing and its theocratic reactionary wing. Historically, the theocratic wing of the GOP has done a far better job of advancing its agenda forward, usually through the same negotiating tactics perfected by all toddlers everywhere - yell, scream, and stamp their feet until the adults in the room finally cave so they stop making a scene. The good news is the paleo-libertarian wing is starting to fight back. Breitbart, among others, is threatening to boycott. Even Chuck Muth is using the opportunity to burnish his libertarian-leaning credentials: At least after telling the organization to stick it where the sun don’t shine, CPAC said individual gay conservatives could still buy a ticket and attend the conference. Sort of like banning the NAACP as a sponsor but still allowing “colored” folks to attend. How gracious of CPAC! I mean, who wouldn’t want to attend an event as a second-class citizen? Where do I sign up???
The good news about Muth publicly speaking up about this is he's not a "big-L" libertarian by any stretch of the imagination - he prefers to focus on "winning" libertarian issues and advance them selectively. If he's speaking up in favor of sexual orientation-neutral policies at conservative events, that's a very encouraging sign for the direction of the conservative movement and for anyone that wants to treat gay people as... well... people. Here's hoping Muth's support for GOProud's participating in CPAC is a sign that the conservative movement is finally abandoning yet another reactionary, mistaken policy once and for all. Now if only we could get them to stop blindly supporting the invasion of small, dusty countries and spending gobs of money on useless military boondoggles... |
posted Jul 26, 2011 5:58 PM by David Colborne
Last night, Obama and Boehner engaged in a game of political "dueling banjos". Though they played from opposite sides of the aisle and lent their own flairs to the proceedings, their music was far more similar than different. This isn't surprising since both sides are stuck between a rock and a hard place - they need to cut federal spending, but they need to do it in a way that won't cause every military family and every family with a member that receives Social Security and Medicare from voting them out of office. Trouble is, our government is spending roughly 50% more than what it takes in right now, which means it would collect just enough this year to pay for its obligations for Medicare and Social Security if that was all it spent money on this year. Since our troops are still deployed overseas and the Department of Education is still a going concern, that's clearly not the case, which is why we're now playing debt limit football.
Now, it goes without saying that, like any good libertarian, I firmly believe that we'd be far better off without government-funded medical care, government-mandated retirement, and with a much smaller defense footprint. However, saying that we're in favor of cutting spending isn't enough, even if it is a fantastically good idea - most people love cutting spending, provided it's not their spending that's cut. Go ahead, ask a Republican to cut the defense budget, and I dare you to ask a politician of either major party to vote to make serious cuts to Medicare and Social Security. it's not like the largest demographic segment in the United States is about to collect on those programs or anything, nor do retirees vote more than the rest of the country.
Right.
So what do we do? Raise taxes by 50% so our federal tax receipts are finally within sniffing distance of our federal outlays? Well, that's one option, if you don't mind stealing more productive labor from the American people by force and don't mind pushing the economy into a back alley and clubbing it repeatedly. Alternatively, we could actually address the structural problems that are leading to this mess in the first place.
It's time for a bad car analogy.
Go back in time to the '30s, '40s, or even the '50s. Back in the day, hand-built cars were considered marks of luxury and refinement. Why? Because they were built to a higher standard than any factory-assembled car of the time. Craftsmen would labor away on each car, ensuring that the doors shut just so, that the paint was free of scuff marks, that all of the lights worked, and so on. Hand-built cars were, by and large, far more reliable, far better built, and far more solid than anything any factory could produce. This remained true until computers reached the factory floor. Nowadays, there isn't a hand-built car in the world that can hold a candle to the build quality of a car assembled using modern, robot-driven production techniques. Not one. It doesn't matter which brand you pick, either. You could compare the reliability and build quality of a shed-built TVR against a mass produced Jeep Compass and that Jeep Compass would beat it hands down in overall build quality and reliability. It wouldn't be close. When you start comparing against Toyotas, Hondas, and other brands known for their reliability, the gap becomes insurmountable.
So what happened?
Automation techniques improved, that's what. The human eye, hand, and mind has limits. The mind gets bored. Eyes get tired, hands get sore. Robots and computers, on the other hand, don't suffer from these maladies. In the '50s, assembly lines were mechanized, which gave one man the strength of ten, but it still left decision-making and build quality up to each individual human line worker. Though that's still true today, it's a far more abstract process than it used to be. Compare this, which aped the production methods of the '30s, with this. See any people working the spot welders in the last one? Heck, see any people at all? Guess which method produces more reliable and consistent manufacturing results?
Right.
So what does this have to do with medicine? Well, imagine a world where, in the '30s, everyone decided that, since hand-built cars were built so much better than factory-built cars, the only cars allowed on the road would be hand-built cars. The result, at least according to 1930's thinking, would be safer cars, safer used cars for those who had to buy them, and safer roads for all. Why should anyone be forced to purchase sub-standard automobiles? What would this world look like? Would cars be cheaper as time passed, or more expensive? How would demand for additional cars be met? How many people can hand-build a car? How far would car production technology advance?
That's the world of modern medicine today. We have technology - oh, do we ever! - but it all has to be delivered by hand. Everybody gets to see a doctor. Everybody gets to see a nurse. Everybody gets their prescriptions from a pharmacist. At every step of modern medicine is a warm, caring human touch... or, at least, a cold, indifferent, and overworked human touch. There simply aren't enough doctors in the world. There can't be enough doctors in the world. It's physically impossible. In short, we have the technology to do some amazing things with medicine, but we lack the ability to distribute that technology efficiently.
The solution? First, we need to acknowledge as a society that cheap, mediocre medical care for all is a heck of a lot better than pretending that we can provide everyone expensive, top-notch medical care, because we can't. I don't mean we lack the political will - I mean there are only so many hours in the day and so many patients that doctors, nurses, and so on can see at a time. It doesn't matter how you physically shuffle paper money around or how much you toss into the system; if the capacity isn't there, it isn't there. Once we acknowledge and accept that, and once government releases its stranglehold on the medical establishment and grants it the ability to push forward from that acceptance, we'll find all sorts of repetitive tasks done by hand that could be done far more reliably by machine. Many prescriptions, for example, could be dispensed by computer - most prescriptions aren't mixed and manufactured by hand in the pharmacist's shop anymore, so why pretend otherwise? Once we free up the medical establishment from its 19th century distribution model and encourage it through capital investment and purchase of more economical medical care to push forward into the 21st century, medical care will be much cheaper and a significantly smaller drag on federal outlays than it is today.
Once it is, it'll be much easier to cut without killing grandpa. Who wants to vote to do that?
In short, the federal government, the FDA, and the rest of the government apparatus that has our medical establishment locked in pre-industrial methods of distribution must let go and must remove the regulations and perverse economic incentives that prevent the medical community from advancing forward. It won't do a thing for this week's debt limit fight, but it's the only way we'll be able to move forward with 2022's or 2032's. |
posted Jul 22, 2011 9:11 PM by David Colborne
[
updated Jul 22, 2011 10:00 PM
]
Ah, redistricting season... that wonderful time of year when Republicans and Democrats harrumph at each other while each side does everything possible to protect their phony-baloney jobs while doing everything possible to disrupt the other side's ability to do the same. Since neither side could put together an acceptable agreement during our last legislative session, both sides are marshalling their forces and picking lots (Nevada Appeal): Republicans, Democrats and Nevada's secretary of state took very different
approaches in recommending who should be named special masters to draw
legislative and congressional districts for the coming decade. In
documents filed late Wednesday in Carson District Court, Democrats and Secretary
of State Ross Miller's office called on Judge Todd Russell to name mostly Nevada
political veterans to do the work. The Republican Party, in contrast,
presented a list that included out-of-state academics and consultants and
nationally known experts with extensive experience and credentials in
redistricting.
So, what's the motivation behind each pick? The Democrats are the majority party in Nevada politics right now and it's not even close. By picking political veterans from Nevada's past, they'll be able work with and perpetuate the machines that made them into what they are today. The Republicans, meanwhile, are hoping to destroy the same political machines that turned on them while also making the state more susceptible to outside political machinations. Remember Sharron Angle? Let's take a look (Nevada News & Views): But from a political standpoint, also consider this: The biggest under-reported story on Angle’s GOP primary nomination in last year’s Senate race was that she was NOT the tea party candidate; she was the candidate of the out-of-state Tea Party Express. The local groups were split among the other various candidates. Angle didn’t win them; she was forced on them. And then there’s the out-of-state Club for Growth organization which pumped close to a million independent expenditure bucks into Angle’s failed congressional campaign in 2006, and another million or so into her failed Senate campaign in 2010. And then there’s this: Of the $710,000 Angle raised in the first quarter of this year for her current congressional race, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that only $24,030 of it came from Nevadans. That’s a measly 3 percent. Eventually, some smart political opponent is going to begin pointing out that Sharron Angle has no real financial base of support in Nevada; that it’s all out-of-state special interests that keep artificially buying her credibility and viability.
So, in short, both parties are maneuvering the state's electoral process so Nevadans can choose between corrupt products of our state's political machines or unaccountable reactionaries who are more interested in advancing political causes for out of state interests than actually representing the interests of Nevadans. How, exactly, this will benefit Nevadans remains an open mystery. |
posted Jul 20, 2011 10:47 PM by David Colborne
[
updated Jul 20, 2011 10:49 PM
]
It took a while for our part of the country to defrost, but, once it did, it did so with gusto. Now the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and the grass has gone straight from green to brown. That means it's time to turn our thoughts from fancies of seasonal vacations and start taking a serious look at where our cities, our county, our state, and our country are headed. Reno's broke. Not just a little broke, mind you - we're talking seriously, catastrophically broke. The Reno Redevelopment Agency's bond rating, for example, is now 'junk' status. Reno would have had difficulties paying for the expensive downtown railroad trench, which was envisioned under the strategically brilliant idea that we must destroy downtown in order to save it. Unfortunately, Reno didn't stop there - it also had to build the Reno Events Center, a competing convention space against the pre-existing Reno Convention Center. Once done with that, Reno noticed that people were still willing to loan the city money, so it took the opportunity to build a minor league baseball stadium and a larger, state-of-the-art bus depot to replace the old bus depot that absolutely had to be replaced, being positively underwhelmed with potential riders and all. Meanwhile, the Nevada Supreme Court has spoken - it's time for Washoe County to return the money it illegally confiscated from the people of North Lake Tahoe. Of course, Washoe County doesn't actually have the $40 million it stole by doctoring property value assessments to its own advantage, and nobody can think of a single thing to cut that might free up the money from the general fund (that would require the sort of creativity, ingenuity, and out of the box thinking that led to this mess in the first place), so the county's just going to have to raise taxes. Luckily, at least for the county, rich people's cars depreciate far less rapidly these days in these parts than rich people's houses and beachfront homes along Lake Tahoe, so a simple 1% hike on registration taxes should set things straight. Meanwhile, at the state level, Governor Sandoval stayed true to his word, allowed all taxes that were due to sunset to do so and cut expenditures to a level our state could support. Oh wait, no... actually, he and his Republican cohorts tried to steal $481 million in county and local funds so they could take their "principled" stand to "not raise taxes" without actually cutting spending at all, got called on it by the Nevada Supreme Court, then promptly raised taxes to cover their asses. Thank goodness we have a governor and a political party that's willing to stand up for small, limited government as long as it's convenient to do so! At the national level, Congress and the Senate are wrestling over whether they should freeze the debt limit where it's at or raise it. To the best of anyone's knowledge, the idea of lowering the debt limit, paying down our debt, and releasing future generations of Americans from the responsibility of paying back today's whimsical excesses never crossed anybody's mind. So what do we plan on doing about it? The answer is simple. We will organize. To that end, here's a list of upcoming events - feel free to e-mail me if you wish to add to it: Sam Adams Night - Thursday, July 21: Stop on by Comma Coffee on yet another third Thursday of the month at 7ish and visit! Freedom Fair - Sunday, September 11: We're going to be a political exhibitor at Freedom Fair in the Smithridge Shopping Center across the street from the Atlantis. If you want to learn more, click here: http://freedomfairnv.com/ Liberty Political Action Conference - September 15-18: I just got off the phone with Mark Hinkle, Chairman of the Libertarian Party, and he confirmed that the national LP will have a booth at LPAC and he's looking for volunteers. Better yet, I received word from the State Treasurer that the LPNV has submitted their check for an exhibitor booth at LPAC. This means the Libertarian Party will have two booths at one of the largest liberty-oriented events in the state! Of course, someone has to staff them, so guess what we need? If you're going to be near the Grand Sierra Resort and you're willing to commit, let me know and I'll work to arrange some wrist bands. More details can be found here: http://www.lpac2011.com/ Obviously this doesn't even come close to a full calendar, but it's a start. If you have something to add for August, October, November, December, January... you get the idea, let us know. The only we're going to claim this country and make it what it should be is if we organize, evangelize, and radicalize! |
posted Jul 7, 2011 2:36 PM by Thomas Cornell
posted Jul 7, 2011 7:50 AM by Thomas Cornell
We invite those of you who lead a group, organization or cause to the
no-host "leaders" lunch for those who are politically right-leaning in the Reno
area. This is an informal lunch for networking. No recruiting takes place. Just
information exchange between leaders of various right-aligned groups. Three
political parties are represented, as well as "non-partisans" in Nevada. Please come to share what your organization is
working on and hear what others are doing.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Noon to 1pm
The Agave Mexican Restaurant
1575 Vassar at Kietzke
Reno |
posted Jun 18, 2011 7:10 PM by Thomas Cornell
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews_U.S._Libertarian_presidential_candidate_R.J._Harris |
posted Jun 7, 2011 5:01 PM by Thomas Cornell
http://www.lporegon.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1 |
posted Jun 7, 2011 4:29 PM by Thomas Cornell
Post your comment. I just did. http://otterlimits.blogspot.com/2011/06/libertarian-presidential-candidates-for.html |
posted Jun 3, 2011 11:10 AM by David Colborne
Happy June, everyone! It's the start of another month, so let's cover what's going on...
NVRA CD2 Debate Booth: The Nevada Republican Assembly is hosting a debate for GOP candidates for Dean Heller's old congressional seat, and we're going to have a booth there. Yes, it's a Republican event, but it's a $10 booth. That's cheap, and, if we ever want an LP plurality in this state, we're going to have to convince some Republicans to switch teams someday. The event is at 6 pm on Wednesday, June 15 at the Boys & Girls Club on 9th Street in Reno.
Reno Sam Adams Night: Tuesday, June 21, 6:30 pm, at Kona Gold Coffee on the corner of McCarran and Mira Loma. Know a guest speaker or want to be one? Drop me an e-mail. I promise to actually announce our guest speaker this time (sorry Gary!). Without one, we'll just sit, commiserate, and do what we do every month - try to take over the world! Y'know... for liberty.
Carson City Sam Adams Night: Thursday, June 23, 6:30 pm at Comma Coffee, just across the street from the Nevada Legislature building on Carson Street. Same guest speaker conditions apply here.
Do you have anything you'd like to see some libertarian representation at? Shoot me an e-mail and let's see if we can't work something out. Also, on a related note, I have confirmed with our benevolent overlords in the state LP that we will be hosting a booth at LPAC 2011 ( http://www.lpac2011.com/) from September 15-18. If you're interested in staffing the booth (we get two exhibitor bands for each day), please send me an e-mail so I can start planning and making reservations.
With the sugar out of the way, let's dig into the spice...
Voter registration forms: There were some questions about this at the Crossroads of the West gun show booth in Reno a couple of weeks back, so I'd like to address this. State law has some rather pernicious restrictions on voter registration drives, and, depending on whether certain bills pass or not, they're bound to get worse. What this means for us is that, if we accept a completed voter registration form from someone else and attempt to submit it, we'll be responsible for adhering to our state's voter registration drive laws. In the short term, this means we wouldn't be able to distribute LP literature at the same booth that we're accepting voter registration paperwork. In the long term, there's a bill in the Assembly that would require voter registration drive participants to register with the Secretary of State and attend a series of classes. Long story short, it's really not worth it, especially when there's a very simple way around it:
Don't accept completed voter registration forms.
We can hand out as many blanks as people will give us. Upon handing out the form, the recipient is responsible for filling it out and mailing it in or otherwise submitting the form to their county registrar. In no way are we authorized to help them fill out the form - doing so would make us liable under NRS 293.5235, Subsection 13 and NRS 293.505, Subsection 8. That said, I'm not immediately aware of any prohibitions against giving them a stamp to mail the form in - if anybody would like to weigh in on this, that'd be great.
Donations: Since we're no longer an affiliate of the LPNV, if we accept financial donations we immediately become a PAC. Since we haven't registered to become one and have no intentions of doing so due to filing requirements, we are not allowed to solicit or receive financial donations, lest we invite a $5000 fine. That said, if people wish to secure booth space or other goods and services and offer to share those with fellow individual libertarians, perhaps through our existing contact list, there is no prohibition against that, at least that I can see. Alternatively, a donation to the Libertarian Party of Nevada, along with a politely written note to various members of our state Executive Committee, may encourage them to use your donation to help finance an official LPNV-sanctioned local outreach event up here. Please note, however, that the LPNV may elect to spend your donation on something more compatible with the strategic direction articulated by the super-majority of the LPNV Executive Committee that voted to consolidate efforts at the state level in May, regardless of your politely written note. Even so, if you don't ask, there's zero chance you'll get what you want, and if you keep it polite and positive, the chances for success increase substantially.
Name Change: Due to our disaffiliation, we can no longer call ourselves the "Nevada Capital Libertarian Party" since we are no longer a Libertarian Party affiliate. Instead, in a "clever" bid at retaining the same acronym so that we have a coherent reason to keep the same domain name, we're renaming ourselves to the Nevada Capital Libertarian Polity. Please note that this name change is strictly to serve as a placeholder for Northern Nevada Libertarian Party outreach efforts until the LPNV chooses to more formally organize and recognize our local efforts here. Consequently, our web site will remain current at http://www.nvclp.org.
Have any questions? Comments? Feel free to e-mail them to chair@nvclp.org (it's a useful placeholder for the moment) and someone will get back to you. |
|
