A friend of mine just introduced me to this CNN news story:

Side note: Funny, the kid is from the western part of Arkansas, which is where I am from as well. This area is a bastion of conservative America.

Last year there was a similar story in the news about a child who had two lesbian “mothers” who refused the pledge of allegiance. This was in New York if I am not mistaken. Nonetheless, I had the same gut feeling with that story as I do with this one. The pledge of allegiance is about what we stand for, what we strive for, not what is. I think this kid misses the point of the pledge, sadly. Liberty and justice is an ideal that should be striven toward, which is what the pledge of allegiance is promoting. The kid has it all backwards and it seems nobody has that figured out.

I have seen many more people who had problems with the “…one nation under God…” which would be understandable if they didn’t believe in God or if you believed in strict adherence to separation of church and state. But to refuse the pledge because you feel not everyone is equal is unrealistic.

By making the pledge you are pledging “liberty and justice for all” and by refusing the pledge on the writing of this clause you would be showing that you disagree with the goal of “liberty and justice for all”. The fact that this point is missed by a ten year old isn’t as much a tragedy as that neither the newsman nor his father figured this out or if they did they did not make the point for whatever reason. And that should probably be a bigger story.

This will give you an idea just how big that river is!

This brave young man just saved lots of lives potentially and I take my hat off to him.  Kaleb Eulls has done a great thing by tackling a girl who was waving a gun on a school bus in Yazoo County, Mississippi. See the video below:

I never really was a Mississippi state Bulldog fan, though I never hated them, but when Kaleb plays for them I will be rooting for the team!

Isn’t if funny that Caleb is from Yazoo County, the same county that Jerry Clower, one of my long time heros, is also from the same county – and he played at Mississippi State as well.

Hmmm…

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!

The lunatic fringe in politics…  Almost everyone would agree off handedly that it is a very lonely place to be.  But what makes one a “political lunatic”?  I bet you think we already have someone from the “lunatic fringe” running things, dontcha?  Lot’s of folks think we have one in the White House now and some thought he was in the White House last year – but let me remind you…  Those aren’t the lunatic fringe in my book.  They are only lunatics.

How do I make a difference, you might ask?  I would have to give you two examples side by side to best show you where I am coming from on this issue.

Lysander Spooner, the lunatic fringe of 19th Century American politics...

Take for instance Lysander Spooner and say, Pol Pot.  Lysander Spooner was considered on the lunatic fringe whereas Pol Pot was simply a lunatic. The main point that we should all keep in mind that it is damned hard to be called the fringe when you are running things.  Now Lysander Spooner on the one hand was by and large a peaceful man.  There were exceptions in his life where Lysander crossed the lines of no longer being a peacenik.  For instance Spooner’s plotting to kidnap the governor of Virginia to sue for John Brown’s freedom after Harpers Ferry is maybe the most notable exception but Spooner also believed and openly expoused that violence was required, even a duty of all free men, in the eradication of slavery.  Many of us today would think nothing wrong with either position yet this would be a case of hindsight being 20/20.  In Lysander Spooner’s day, even in the northern states this was considered being quite the radical.

And for many of these kinds of political positions Lysander Spooner was considered more than a bit of a loon by his contemporaries.  He also believed that the United States Constitution had no legal bearing over the common citizen because they themselves neither personally ratified it nor appointed anyone to ratify it on their behalf.  And though Spooner was very active in promoting the abolitionist positions, which were minority beliefs even in the Northeast, which was their hot bed, Spooner didn’t see eye to eye with many of the leaders of the movement, including his own brother.  And Lysander’s position as an outcast continued in post-Civil War America as well.  He spent lots of time during the Reconstruction as well as during the hard economic times to follow in developing broad ideas and solutions that would help the nation come to a reasonable and responsible economic path that took human rights into consideration well before this was in vogue.  Lysander Spooner was considered one of the great great political and economic thinkers of his time and yet at the time of this writing the vast majority of Americans have never heard of him.  Nobody really followed him politically, he had no party backing, and he was all but forgotten by the American society that he so cared about by the time that he died in 1889.

Pol Pot: Political lunatic by a sane man's reckoning

Pol Pot on the other hand ruled a whole nation and he will never be forgotten.  But for reasons of ill notoriety.  Pol Pot never freed anyone.  Just the opposite.  He enslaved all of Cambodia physically and politically.  Pol Pot claimed to rule for the people but the people referred to him as “Brother Number One”.  Pol Pot had all opposition, real or imagined, eliminated in the most brutal ways imaginable.  His ideology destroyed the family and wrecked two budding generations.  He ransacked his country socially, politically and economically.  Again, he will never be forgotten for the tragedy of his rule – and he should never be forgotten for the evil that came from his ideology either.  He will always carry the greatest measure of blame for the broken nation that he left behind.

How is it that we almost always seem to get it wrong?

I think the answer falls somewhere around one word:

Populism

Populism separates the wheat from the chaff.  As far as I am concerned those who claim that their politics reflect the will of the people should be damned.  Populism is just a word for the weak to be ruled by the strong.  When the focus of governing power is on the individual then the despots of the world often are faced with the fact that it has impossible for the Pol Pots of the world to rule.   People are no longer sheep.  You see, men like Lysander Spooner, whose ideas would hold much more water than even Barack Obama’s in such a society (even when they do not hold public office) are far too concerned with the individual rights of man to ever trample on those rights.  On the other hand Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Josef Stalin, Ho Chi Minh…, well, they insist that everyone be concerned with the will of masses and “patriotism”.  They use this to subjugate the rights of the individual and by extension to control the entire social strata.  As leader, these bastards define and re-define the rights of society and trample the rights of man – individually as well as en masse.  This becomes so much easier for them to do when the rights of the people do not stand on the shoulders of individual rights:  There is no foundation to uphold anyone’s rights.  This is exactly why it has always occurred clearly to me that those who are most interested in the rights of the individual seem to be the only ones truly interested in the rights of man as a whole.  This is why we need more of these political outcasts like Lysander Spooner – whether the average Joe cares or not.

Most of us have been worried about the political state of things for quite some time yet they cannot fathom where the fundamental cracks in the structure lie.  It is so easy for the left to blame the right and then the right to blame the left, depending upon who is the incumbent and who is the opposition.  It is clear thought that the leaders we have currently helped put in office seem not to be nearly as concerned with the rights of the individual but yet they are concerned with the rights of society, creating more and more obligations and entitlements.  The preceding administration trampled the rights of the individual in the name of national and global security.  I am here to tell you that we can never, ever have a stable society without the due recognition that all rights are built upon individual rights – without them society always breaks down.  This is why government and more government is never the answer to most problems that society faces.  More government solutions only compounds problems and makes the problems unnecessarily more complex.  Once we understand that we can know without any doubt whatsoever that those who believe that the rights of society outweigh the rights of the individual have chosen sides whether they know it or not.

Understand it or not, see it or not, admit it or not, they have chosen the same side that Pol Pot chose…

“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.” Theodore Roosevelt

"A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user." Theodore Roosevelt

I have been spending a good bit of time lately wondering how the US voter thinks.  On one hand I am baffled.  How could an electorate vote in two incredibly bad choices in a row?  George W. Bush had a flimsy domestic policy and his foreign policy was basically ’send in the troops!’  He ruined lots of international goodwill that was built up by his father, George H.W. Bush and his predecessor, Bill Clinton.  With Barack Obama we seem to have swung full circle.  Obama’s foreign policy so far has been to kiss up to everyone, including enemies,  and his domestic policy has been to put government into evey facet of our lives, whether we want it or not, and write hot checks to pay for it.  And of course, the short fall comes from us…

To me this is insane.  Americans somehow think that we should only swing left or right these days.  We have lost our balance.  When George W. won re-election it was on the back of voters afraid to change.  Barack Obama’s win I put down to Zeitgeist – nobody wanted to vote for a Republican (or any other party for that matter) so John McCain was burdened with an uphill battle.  And people wanted to say that they were a part of history.  For instance, there was a euphoria about electing Barack Obama.  But nobody wanted to remember that this newly minted savior was actually beaten by Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries if you go only by the popular vote and take out the superdelegates.  Just a few months before the election he was second string in his own party but by election time he was being lauded as a rock star!

Third options?  Our history of a nation at thinking that there is more than two choices is, well, very weak.  But that is for other posts.

This schizophrenic behavior at the ballot box I can only put down to shallowness in political thought of the voter.  And we’ve been getting bad government from it.  As Theodore Roosevelt alluded, our choices have been reflecting on our character as a nation.  On the one hand I don’t think this will get better without major changes in our educational system but on the other hand was the Ron Paul revolution.  Let’s hope that continues until we finally get it right!