This Time Bomb is Poli-Ticking!

This guy gives me hope for what the Free State Project is trying to accomplish.  I am fairly certain he would have heard about this via the internet but then again, who really knows?

That Brits / Europeans are looking to join the Free State Project also speaks major volumes against the European socialism that the Democrats are trying to realize for the United States.  There are many forms of oppression in this world and in my opinion big government is the worst of the lot.

One of the things that I really enjoy in writing about libertarianism is that I get to meet many different and interesting people. Recently I came across a gentleman who is a libertarian minded independent running for State Auditor in Massachusetts. Kamal Jain, a man who’s interests range from technology to history to philosophy, has also shown quite a keen interest in politics.

"The State Auditor is to government and politics what an umpire or referee is in sports: They shouldn't play for any of the teams." Kamal Jain

I asked Kamal some key questions about his opinions on the Massachusetts State Auditor’s Office, libertarianism and running for office as an independent with libertarian leanings. And Kamal Jain didn’t disappoint – he provided some very straightforward and insightful answers that deserve our consideration. So without further ado…

Gary Dale Cearley: What is wrong with the office of the State Auditor right now?

Kamal Jain: What’s really wrong with the State Auditor’s Office, and this has been the case for more than two decades, is that the office serves the state government, first and foremost. While I can’t really cite the current auditor for failing to perform his formally-listed duties, he has not seen fit to act as a true, independent auditor working for the people of Massachusetts. The State Auditor is one of six statewide, constitutional office holders elected by the citizens of our state, and as such should be working for the people by auditing and reporting to them what the state government is doing, how well they’re doing it…and how much it actually costs. When I share even just a little of my research with people, their eyes get big and their jaws drop – they cannot believe how big and expensive it all is.

Gary Dale Cearley: How can the state auditor’s office be improved by the election of a libertarian?

Kamal Jain: The State Auditor is to government and politics what an umpire or referee is in sports: They shouldn’t play for any of the teams. While my personal beliefs tend to be libertarian, I am running as an independent because an auditor must be neutral and, like Caesar’s wife, beyond reproach. In my lifetime, we’ve only ever had partisan officeholders for State Auditor. Our current officeholder is a Democrat who has been in office since 1987. When you consider the overwhelming majority the Democrat party holds in our state legislature, and this in running the state government, you can see the conflict of interest. We also had quite a few years of Republican governors prior to Deval Patrick’s victory in 2006. The referee shouldn’t play for one of the teams.

Gary Dale Cearley: How can, you Kamal Jain, increase the liberty and freedom of the people of Massachusetts through the office you seek?

Want to get something done? Ask a busy man!

Kamal Jain: There is a verse from scripture which says “The truth shall set you free”; that’s a universal thing, regardless of one’s religious views. After observing and researching government spending for years, I’ve come to the realization that if the people of Massachusetts knew what I’ve been able to find out only after going through literally thousands of pages of audited financial data… They would be very upset, and would quickly demand smaller, more accountable, more responsible government. What we have for state government today is reckless and irresponsible, and it has only been able to get this bad because the politicians and bureaucrats have been able to hide a lot from the people. Just the way Enron’s auditors were able to hide a lot from their investors.

Gary Dale Cearley: As we all know, the odds are stacked against libertarian candidates, whether “Big ‘L’” or “small ‘l’”, for office and these odds against tend to increase the higher profile the office. What can we libertarians do to change this?

Kamal Jain: After having been active in politics for about 14 years, including having run for office twice and talking to lots of people, the most difficult thing for Libertarians is an image problem. The mainstream media and entrenched political duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans have been able to marginalize Libertarians and get people to believe that all Libertarians are “way out there”. This sometimes presents a challenge to those running for legislative or executive office, like Governor, where the possibility of a victory concerns some voters. The office of State Auditor is actually something which most voters want an Independent in, or at least someone other than the two parties who run the government itself.

Gary Dale Cearley: How bad is pork really in the state of Massachusetts and what do the citizens of the state need to do to eliminate it?

"By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty" (Massachusetts State Motto)

Kamal Jain: The problem of “pork”, government patronage and waste, is hard to gauge without a full analysis of state spending and government operations. That is something which the establishment has prevented from happening. Surveys of voters estimate waste at around 40%; informal polls of government workers, not managers, put it at around 50%. The truth is probably somewhere between those numbers, but we’ll never know without an actual audit of the entire state government. But the problem is more than just one of pork. There are many things which the state government does that were once handled locally, either by people themselves, churches and charities, or local governments. The thing in common among those solutions was local control and accountability. In other words, there are entire parts of state government that aren’t just wasteful. They should be returned to local control.

Gary Dale Cearley: Are you campaigning with any other libertarian candidates for office? What I mean here is: Are you coordinating with any other candidates to hold joint events, cross endorsements and things like that?

Kamal Jain: At this time I am not campaigning with any other candidates for any office, though I have spoken with a number of candidates from several parties. As I’ve said, I’m running as an Independent, on a platform centered around government transparency. If other candidates for office want to get on board the transparency bandwagon, it can only help the people of Massachusetts.

Gary Dale Cearley: How do you participate in the Campaign for Liberty?

Kamal Jain: I’m a member of Campaign for Liberty, and periodically attend regional meetings. It’s been great to see how many people from across the political spectrum were captivated and inspired to get involved through Ron Paul’s run for President last year.

Gary Dale Cearley: Speaking of Ron Paul, are you active in using social media in your campaign for office? If so, then how so? And have you been able to tell whether this effect is positive or negative, large or small?

Kamal Jain: We will be using Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Break-the-Matrix and other social media as the campaign ramps up. There is definitely a benefit to being active on those platforms, but a lot of voters still get their information and updates from more traditional sources such as print and broadcast media. Since my campaign is a grassroots, non-partisan effort, the impact of social media will likely be significant – and something we use to our advantage.

"Many people are fed up with politics as usual, and this is causing people to abandon the old-regime Democrat and Republican parties in large numbers." Kamal Jain

Gary Dale Cearley: How many in your family are libertarians? And how many are party members?

Kamal Jain: Formally, none of my family is “libertarian”, though I think a few members have generally libertarian beliefs. As far as I know none of them are actually party members.

Gary Dale Cearley: How did you come to be active in the Libertarian Party?

Kamal Jain: I found out about the Libertarian Party back in 1996 after I took the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. That got me to find out more about the LP and become active in MA.

Gary Dale Cearley: What future do you see for the Libertarian Party in Massachusetts and in the United States?

Kamal Jain: Many people are fed up with politics as usual, and this is causing people to abandon the old-regime Democrat and Republican parties in large numbers. Newer parties like the LP are gaining some membership both in Massachusetts and across the nation as a result, but I think party politics is a dead-end game. At the end of the day, we must respect and interact with one another as individuals, not as members of one party or another. As long as we label others and ourselves, it remains difficult to truly value differences.

I just wanted to share a photo of me with my favorite drawing!  This drawing you see me holding was a gift from Frances Byrd of Machine Politick fame, who is based in Atlanta, Georgia, back home in the good ole US of A.  A while back I interviewed Frances about her art because I found it so interesting.  I thought correctly that her art would be of interest to others in my blog community, which did prove to be that case.  Sometime later Frances sent me a drawing of Lady Liberty, of whom we both are big fans.  I was thinking about it this morning and work and it occured to me that I had yet to send Frances a picture of her gift in my office…  So I hope she sees this one!

The gift from Frances Byrd - Liberty!

The original hangs here in my Bangkok office near my desk above my book case.  It has given me the opportunity to explain to my staff and to any visitors that I might have what freedom and liberty means to me.  For that alone I am very thankful!

I would just like to end this quick posting with a short plug for Frances:

If you like contemporary art from a talented artist with a hard core libertarian angle I suggest you look Frances’s work over!

Nah! I am not writing a post about religion and politics?  No way.  I am however wondering how on earth we are going to get by in a system where we have lost our way as a nation: The way of the Republicrat

We are now hand and basket with our government in an incredible funk that has our country and our citizens in the worst financial situation, I believe, in our history as a nation.  I didn’t think it could get any worse after the George W. Bush administration but Barack Obama seems to be going to great measures to prove that he is the undisputed champion of putting every American alive (and many not yet born) into a morass of debt.  He also has proven that his campaign rhetoric was for real.  He really does intend to thrust us into the moral servitude of a socialist system.  Even in the Great Depression were not looking at such a dismal future ahead of us.  When I think of how long this self perpetuating nightmare has been in coming and how long it would take to get out of it I get the shivers.  And guess what?  We keep putting the same people who got us into this mess, the Republicans and the Democrats, back into office so I don’t expect that we will be escaping the cycle we have created in our lifetime.

Republicrat thinking has been behind this mess.  I sadly speak with many Libertarians who, on a policy level of thinking, fall into the groupthink on this.  They lack the courage of conviction when it comes to making the decisions that we as citizens are often required to make.  These decisions range from ballot measures, voting on candidates as well as taking part in local politics whether it is town hall or politics at the local board of education.

But for libertarian minded people there is a way to help you achieve clarity when thinking of these issues…

I am no fan of the evangelical side of religion.  I grew up in such a church.  But I do believe that they have an expression that could help some of us more libertarian, small government minded people out there.  What is it you may wonder?

What would Jesus do?

Yes, that phrase that you see all of the time on the back of bumper stickers all over the United States and Canada.  What does Jesus have to do with making political choices in this day and age?  Well, not much I think.  But the phrase itself has massive possibilities in helping people think clearly about small government action.

You see, we as Libertarians have a long list of brilliant thinkers when it comes to the economy, running a government and persuing our freedoms in general.  We have Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Ron Paul, Ludwig von Mises, Lysander Spooner, Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Friedrich von Hayek…  The list goes on and on!

So what I recommend is that you chose the one you know best or the one who is most aligned with your way of thinking then substitute the name “Jesus” for your libertarian hero.  And the next time you have a ballot measure in your state when considering the options, if you find yourself confused, ask yourself the question “What would (my libertarian hero) do?”  If you agree with this answer then take that choice.

I personally like to use Thomas Jefferson for this exercise because he had to make decisions in many areas of governance and I generally agreed with most of his choices.  Again, you can choose anyone living or dead.  Just make sure to choose one who you tend to agree with.

State chair of Illinois Libertarian Party sheds light on “Big ‘L’” support for Bob Barr

I have had some very interesting communication with a newly introduced friend of mine over the past several weeks. That person is Valiant “Val” Vetter, state chair of the Libertarian Party of Illinois. What I find very interesting and reassuring is that with all this talk about the New Hampshire Libertarians threatening to leave George Phillies on the ballot and the Arkansas Libertarian Party chairman threatening to put Daniel Imperato on the ballot, we do have a strong partisan spirit going on in Illinois.

Prior to the Libertarian National Convention in Denver Val told me that he wasn’t sure about what to make of Bob Barr and it seemed that he had a favorable opinion of Barr’s challenger, Mary Ruwart. When I asked him how he greeted the last minute decision of Bob Barr to join the race for president he gave me what I believed to be a very thoughtful, honest reply:

“As with many news bits I hear, I greeted Bob Barr’s announcement that he was throwing his hat in the ring for the LP’s nomination with mixed feelings. First off, I don’t know that much about him, but I do think I’ve heard that some Libertarians have questions about his positions – which isn’t unusual at all. I am concerned that folks like Bob Barr and Mike Gravel will get a fair number of followers at the convention because they have ‘experience’ in politics that our home-grown candidates don’t have. I think they feel this is an advantage and I don’t agree. Look at Ron Paul. He has tremendous experience, is a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, and even ran for a “major” party – and he STILL couldn’t get the respect he deserved. No, a ‘name’ running as a Libertarian in November will not likely be a factor – UNLESS we can get somebody like Clint Eastwood to run. I do worry that Johnny-come-latelys (to the LP) like Gravel and Barr WILL steal the nomination opportunity from long-time LPers like Mary Ruwart who really DESERVE our nomination because of their long-term support and work for our party. Unfortunately, if Barr or Gravel gets the nod, then get shunned by the press during the race and get less than 1% of the vote in November, they’ll abandon ship, and the LP members will be demoralized (again) and we’ll lose even more members and support.”

But since the Libertarian Party made their decision and have nominated Bob Barr, Val Vetter is fully on board. When I asked him whether he would be working on the Bob Barr campaign and voting for Barr his answer was a hearty “Hell yes!”

Val and other Libertarians have spend six months doing their best to insure that the LP candidate has ballot status in Illinois but that is not the only reason that Val Vetter and other LPers will vote Barr this fall. Val explains it best in his own words…

“Whether people like Barr or not, my default position would have to be that the very ‘best’ candidate that the Democrats or Republicans can field would be an inferior choice to the ANY candidate the LP can put on the ballot.

“Is Barr a ‘perfect’ Libertarian? (Does that even exist?) Probably not, but as Ron Paul’s campaign showed us, unless a major party candidate fully buys into the party plan, maintaining the status quo, and answer to his or her handlers, they will NOT receive the support and money of their party. So we know that Obama or McCain will do just as they’re told. Should someone like Barr (or Gravel) get elected as a Libertarian and have a partial reversion to their old party’s beliefs, ANY amount of libertarian ideal they brought to the office would be an improvement.”

I personally feel that the combined presence of Bob Barr and Ralph Nader have Barrack Obama now clarifying and emphasizing his Iraq position – and either way this will bite him. Why do I think this? Simple, Obama doesn’t have to differentiate himself much on this issue in a two way race, but a recent CNN poll showed Nader and Barr eating into the overall vote, approaching 100% of those polled. I personally believe that this is the reason why Obama is stressing his Iraq policy at this point – to differentiate himself from Barr and Nader who are actually serious about getting out of Iraq.

Often, Libertarian candidates influence politics even if they don’t gain office simply by causing candidates to stress their points policy that are similar to Libertarian policy or shift their positions totally in order to escape a sizeable chunk of votes heading to the Libertarian Party. Val Vetter agrees:

“Many, possibly all, Libertarians will agree that the Libertarian doesn’t even have to win the election to affect public policy. Once an LP candidate starts threatening to win – even getting 10 or 20% of the vote for a major office, the D’s and R’s will see the light and feel the heat, and start making some concessions to win back those votes.

“The fact is, we don’t care what party banner the guy who wins the election runs under. What we DO care about is that that person “move public policy in a Libertarian direction” – just like it says in our purpose statement. There were very few Libertarians who didn’t like, no – love, Ron Paul. We’d be thrilled to see him in the White House – even as a ‘Republican.’

This is a facet of democracy that our Republicrat brethren don’t seem to understand when they calculate winners and losers. Fair enough. But I think Bob Barr will wake them up to a bit of that reality this year.

I have been seeing lots of mumbo jumbo in the media about Bob Barr hurting John McCain’s chances for election as the United States president.  I would respectfully disagree with the general assertion that Bob Barr’s candidacy overwhelmingly supports Barrack Obama to McCain’s detriment.  For one, I believe that our mainstream media has fallen into the ill logic that equates Bob Barr’s candidacy to Ralph Nader’s independent run in 2000.  Here the media concluded that the Nader run cost Al Gore the presidency.

Simply put, to believe this conclusion is to accept that only Florida’s vote
mattered in deciding the year 2000 presidential election.

Concerning the matter that Bob Barr will cause John McCain more pain than Barrack Obama is to deny the fact that first and foremost Bob Barr is running as a small government Libertarian candidate which neither Barrack Obama nor John McCain are doing.  Libertarian candidates like Bob Barr are for minimizing government influence over our lives and shrinking the governmental apparatus.  If Al Gore was in fact “Naderized” it would have been more due to the fact that Ralph Nader ran on very similar issues to the Democrats.  Ralph Nader simply put an anti-establishment spin on his message and as a result it resonated well with many younger liberal voters.  Bob Barr on the other hand has serious differences with both John McCain and Barrack Obama regarding the war in Iraq, how to deal with Iran, the overblown fiscal budget, border security, the detainees in Guantanamo and many other issues.  Secondly, not only is Ralph Nader also in this race but so is Cynthia McKinney, who is running for the Green Party.  She is not only a former Democratic congresswoman but she is also an African American. Both Nader and McKinney will put a drag on Barrack Obama rather than John McCain.

There are clear distinctions on the Libertarian sides of the major issues facing our country as opposed to both the Republican and Democratic sides.  I would hope that Americans would be much more responsible in looking closely at the candidates rather than simply whining that a third candidate only hurts their candidate’s chances of winning.  When it comes down to it, if there is more merit in John McCain’s positions he won’t have to worry about Barrack Obama nor Bob Barr.

Personally, I think anyone should look at where Bob Barr stands before deciding against him.