I got an email from the LP today talking about the results of this year’s convention.  I’m saddened by the presidential ticket, disgusted by the gutted platform, and dismayed at what having a party has done to the movement.

Self identified libertarians are becoming less libertarian.  I believe this is, in no small part, caused by the political compromises vocal party members have tried to make over the years in failed attempts to win politically.

I’m convinced that liberty must be won culturally, socially, and personally.  It’s one thing to support Ron Paul as a liberty opposition candidate in a fascist party.  It is another thing entirely to associate the Party formerly known as “The Party of Principle”  with Fascist candidates.  The first is a successful tactic in  a cultural battle for the zeitgeist.  The second if a doomed-to-failure, ass-backword technique at best, and a terrible betrayal at best.  This year I won’t be voting for a president.  It’ll only encourage them.    I will mourn the passing of the Libertarian Party.  And hope these goobs choose a more accurate name, like SLOF, or the Tennis shoe on your neck Party.

I sent them this email in response to their Plea for Cash:

Take me off your list.  I’m no longer interested in
associating with a party willing to select non
libertarians as candidates.  Libertarianism is about
liberty, it has a guiding moral Principal in ZAP.
Since you’ve chosen to stray from the principal I’ll
stray from the party.  Hopfully you’ll choose a new
name soon, like the Slightly Less Offensive Facists.

In short:

unsubscribe.

<a href=’http://paulkienitz.net/housepaint.html’>Which house paint are you?</a>

Brad posted this on the LL2 yahoo list; http://digg. com/politics/ Ron_Paul_ Roundtable.   I can’t say that there was anything new in it that we haven’t been over here.  Though the economic argument, that the money would be better spent on agorist causes, is an interesting one.  More profit/benefit in it for the spender.  Although I’m not sure what Brad meant by agorist causes, maybe agorist educational efforts (like his).  Countereconomic efforts ought to support themselves. But I digress.

For me the RP thing crystilized this morning.  Education and other non political efforts (though I believe political efforts can have educational benefits) are like buying a product or investing.  Political efforts are like the lottery.  As a person who never throws money away on a lottery I should have known better than to get caught up in the RP maelstrom.  The true benefits to the RP campaign will all be in their educational value.

After todays disappointment there are going to be a lot of disheartened, even angry RP supporters.  I hope you non political types take some time today to win as many of them over to your side as you can.  Sometimes someone wins the lottery, but statistically almost everyone loses.  Poor people, desperate people, buy tickets anyway.  We are poor in liberty, desperate for a chance to win it.  Magical thinking.  Today reminded me that those dollars would be better saved, spent, invested.  Burned.  Rather I gave them to the state.  The analogy holds there too.  Stupid.  I realize this today.

Some folks won’t realize it.  Take a few minutes today to talk to a ticket buyer.  Talk about better ways to waste that dollar rather than on the political lottery.  Tell them about the Liberty Scholarship Fund, The Libertarian Enterprise, or whatever, a lot of liberty projects out there.  Talk them up.  Today.  Before people wast more money on tickets.

Information is what changes the world.  From oral tradition to cuneiform to WordPress, information has always been what changed the world.  The one child one laptop program is trying to change the third world with information.  We have decided to help, and get Molly a nifty tool in the process.   If her Daddy let’s her use it.  All politics and polemic aside,  if bloggers want to change the world getting behind Negroponte is one thing that can do it.   Not corny food aid.  Not medical assistance.  Access to computing power and information.  I challenge bloggers to Give 1, Get 1 and then use it to spread the word, develop content, change the world however you can.

St. Agnes Hospital. November 6, 2007

0633 Paige eats an egg and cheese biscuit (last time she didn’t eat breakfast and as a result went 24 hours without eating

0645 Checked into the hospital.

0715 Dr Pataki used creepy crochet hook to break Paige’s water. Amniotic fluid ‘tinged’. Paige is glad we decided not to wait another week. Doc says she is 4cm dialated. Yay, that took 4 hours with Molly.

0733 Patocin delivered, and the fun begins…. after the annoying beeping IV delivery device stopped its raquet. Our nurse’s name is Raji

0900 Paige asked to sit up and for some ice chips

0919 Paige is two minutes between peaks on the contraction monitor

Mommy, Molly and Micah

0955 6cm and +1 station Paige took a trip to the bathroom and moved to the exercise ball. Problems with the monitor Paige moves back to be

1025 Paige decides she has to push. Raji calls for Doctor Cox, the staff obstetrician. Dr. Patiki is still 20 minutes away. When Dr. Cox arrives, time indeterminate, Micah is crowning.

1033 Paige delivers Micah after the third push. Doctor Cox catches. Came out crying like a leopard. Really the child sounds like a wildcat. Turns red as a beat too.

Big Sister

Doctor Pataki arrives four minutes later at 1037. A valiant attempt, but in vain. Micah scores 9 and 9 on his APGAR, danged purple feet.

1100 Micah gets to cuddle with Mommy!

11:13 Micah’s first feeding. Latches right on this kid is a natural.

Fight like a man!

http://www.nerdtests.com/nt2ref.html

NerdTests.com says I’m an Uber Cool Nerd God. 

 Yep, that’s me. <wry grin>

…but it is pretty effing brilliant.  Hat tip to Freedom Shenanigans.

http://freedomshenanigans.blogspot.com/2007/09/pirates-emperors.html#links

http://mvdg.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/would-the-world-be-better-off/

Would the world be better off if the US ‘lost,’ whatever that means, the war in Iraq?  The real question, it seems to me, is whether world would be better of with a huge regional war in the middle east?  The simple economic answer is obviously not.  But are there other answers?  Christian learned freedom of conscience, however roughly, in thirty years of war between Catholics and Protestants.  Thirty years before Christians figured out that killing each other over denominational differences was effing stupid.  Now as I look at denominational strife in Iraq, I wonder if religious tolerance, like democracy, is something that can’t be handed over but something that must be learned as hard fought truth.  Does Islam need its own 30 years war?  Would some ‘good’ come out of ‘losing’ this war?

Thanks, Kevin for keeping things light. Whe RP wins I volunteer my gym shoes. ;-)

Kevin Sullivan“If Ron Paul gets the nomination, I will eat a shoe. You can hold me to it! Video and everything.”

http://thoughtmerchant.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/why-blacks-should-think-twice-about-supporting-ron-paul/#comments

 Thoughtmerchant blogged about how Ron Paul is not the candidate for black americans.  A rowdy converstion ensued and one respondant, ebogjonson, seems to think all ‘Paulites’ are folks ignorant of race relations and cultists in RP’s “unpersonality.” 

I beg to differ. 

Speaking only for myself I would have to say it is a difference, not in knowledge of history but of  worldview.  We ‘paulites’ tend to believe that all individuals benefit from liberty, and even the beneficiaries of the state’s ‘largess’ are victims of that state as well. Find my response below.

ebog,“The fact is that Ron Paul supporters don’t give a flying a fuck about the health of the black community.”  I personally beg to differ.  As a wary Ron Paul supporter I have to say that a great number of RP supporters do care about the black community.  Please don’t paint us all with the same brush.  Any community has its trolls.  The more conscientious among us are concerned about all our communities but my concern for black americans (not black america, I hate the collectivization of individuals in that term) is part of what leads me to support Dr. Paul.  He is the only candidate who would end the War on Drugs that, in addition to being an unnecessary and colossal failure, has disproportionately and disastrously effected black Americans.He is the only candidate who opposes ‘anti-gang,’ which we all know are just euphemistically clothed anti black, gun laws.He is the only candidate who would end the foreign policy that has led to the current imperial wars abroad where our, again disproportionately minority, soldiers are dying.He is the only candidate who will end the war swiftly, without equivocation, without starting new ones in Pakistan or Syria or Iran or Africa or the Baltics.He is the only one who wants to end a tax system where anyone with a clever lawyer can pay less than your average working family.You know what else, ebog?  You seem pretty fond of rhetoric yourself.  I ask you, did congress give anything in the Civil Rights act that blacks had not already won for themselves?  You wouldn’t be sitting in the back of the bus now.  Rosa Parks and the Montgomery church leaders won your seat on the bus through direct action.  It was the courage of civil right leaders, their courage and humanity, that did the most to end racism and segregation in this country.  Don’t rob them of the accomplishment by attributing so much to the actions of reluctant and halfhearted congresscritters.  It is the continued hard work, talent and interconnectedness of brave and good People that will erase racism for all time.   Don’t let yourself be fooled.  The government hasn’t improved the situation. In spite of integration we have a public school system, especially in urban areas, more segregated than ever.  We have a failing education system that delivers less learning to black children.We have a criminal justice system obviously biased against blacks.And your solution is to criticize the one candidate who is not offering more of the same failed state?  I think you might be a little rhetoric over substance.