Do Republicans fear electoral competition?

Below is a picture of a sent email by Independence Hall Tea Party PAC which is based out of Philadelphia, PA in regards to challenging the ballot access candidates of Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party. 

The next picture is an email from Louis R. Jasikoff to Don Adams who appears to be on the board of delegates for IH Tea Party PAC. The Wilkes-Barre Independent Gazette also has published Mr. Jasikoff's letter to Adams on their website.

At the time of this writing Jasikoff has yet to receive a response from Adams regarding the charges that supporters of Gary Johnson and Virgil Goode in are line with the views of President Obama and Vice President Biden. One of the reasons why people like Johnson and Goode run for office is because many people do not see a legitimate difference between the Romney/Ryan ticket and the Obama/Biden ticket. While Johnson and Goode have very obvious differences between each other, one cannot deny the fact that they both alternative from the two mainstream party candidates.

Such lawfare tactics that Adams is employing his supporters to engage in should serve as another reminder to libertarians that working with conservatives is a pointless exercise. The treatment of Ron Paul and Paul supporters in the various Republican caucuses should've been an eye opener. However if one needs more proof Bob Wenzel of Economic Policy Journal has pointed out several times that the pick of Paul Ryan as Romney's running mate was nothing but a smoke screen in a very poor attempt to woo Ron Paul supporters. Obviously this isn't the first time libertarians have felt the conservative knife in the back, this is just another file for the cabinet.

Identity Politics yet again....oy!

Ah another identity politics rant by my favorite Paleocon, Pat Buchanan. Raw Story reports on Buchanan shooting off his mouth again because of the identity of Obama's Supreme Court Elena Kagan being Jewish which apparently means there are too many jews on the highest court of the land. The irony of it all is that Paleconservatives are always complaining about identity politics and how it "destroys" America. It's not like there are other things to attack this woman on; she has problems with the First and Second Amendments or perhaps that the woman has no judicial experience. Perhaps that's too difficult for Pat.

Of course Kagan isn't the first person to have her identity focused on in regards to a high political position. If people paid more attention to Obama's positions instead of this stupid crap of him being a Muslim or a secret Kenyan he probably wouldn't have been elected.

Conservative Smears

You would think with the current economic, social, and political tensions Conservatives would be just a tad bit more respectful towards us but even that seems to be a pipe dream. With the negative conservative reactions that came from Ron Paul's CPAC victory (or as Lew Rockwell puts it the first Republican primary) it's reasonable to believe that attacks on Libertarians and Libertarian thought are going to increase especially since the youth vote (which is the voting demographic I'm in by the way) has accepted Ron Paul's message. Which unfortunately for them means that the message of military/police socialism and social authoritarianism is being rejected by the future leaders of tomorrow.

Last week I got an two emails from an Examiner.com writer I follow documenting two attacks on Libertarians. The first one was a claim by the conservative magazine The American Spectator that the Southern Poverty Law Center has included Libertarians in a report titled Rage on the Right - The Year in Hate and Extremism. The Examiner article reports that neither Libertarians nor the Libertarian Party is mentioned in the report. I have also read through it and searched for the word Libertarians and the Libertarian Party and came up with nothing. That means only one thing that the Spectator is lying and/or the author of the article Robert S. McCain (no relation to the Arizona Senator) has a problem with the Libertarian movement. Which even in itself is abit confusing since the Spectator publishes writings from Libertarian thinkers Thomas Sowell and P.J. O'Rourke. Pinning it all on McCain wouldn't be too truthful either since (at least according to his wiki) he supported Bob Barr in the 2008 election although this could've just been out of dislike for John McCain. From reading his wiki his fight with the SPLC might have been the chief motivator to write up the lie. If McCain has a problem with the SPLC thats all fine and dandy but I would ask him not to create lies to get others to fight on your side. Thats a trait of collectivists.

The second article is from a site called renewamerica.com which from what I've from various authors on the site seems to be a mix of Paleoconservative, Neoconservative, and Religious Right thought, although Neos and Paleos hate each other. None of these groups have a history of being a friend of Libertarianism, so in turn I'm not shocked by this paleoconservative attack. Granted we share a very, very, very thin ground with paleoconservatives, although in my opinion like regular conservatives, paleos will dump us as soon as they're back in charge.

This attack is directed at Ron Paul personally resorting to the same smears he faced back in his 2008 campaign; kooky, out of touch, blaming America, etc. The article starts by comparing him to the rabid dog in the Steven King novel "Cujo", Cujo was the name of a nice and gentle St. Bernard who got rabbis and went insane. Apparently Paul A. Ibbetson is one of those paleos that can't take legitimate criticism of Reagan when he negatively notes that Dr. Paul was a huge critic on how Reagan used the CIA. The man doesn't seem to keen on personal liberty (shocking I know) with Dr. Paul's position on the drug war, despite Paul himself has stated that he has never done drugs in his life. His negative reaction to the CPAC poll isn't surprising at all since the site seems to be touting Palin as the next Conservative messiah. Little news for you Mr. Ibbetson, you can't win without the youth vote anymore. He says that Paul is the albatross of the Republican Party and hes right, a man who believes in true liberty is an albatross to a statist and military socialist party.

So Paleos, Neos, and regular Conservatives, continue your smears and Liberal-style attacks on Dr. Paul and Libertarians it will only make us stronger.


American Spectator article

renewamerica article

Libertarians must take a stand on illegal immigration

While I didn't seem to think that the illegal immigration debate wouldn't come up till after Sotomayor was nominated or not it seems that Obama is intent in doing some serious multitasking. Libertarians for the most part are divided on this issue but this division will come back to bite us if we don't put up a common front.

As most of us know the illegal immigration debate is divided into the following groups:

1. Grant amnesty, keep immigration flowing

2. No amnesty, restrict immigration 2a. no immigrants period 2b. no immigration from non-white countries

3. No amnesty, keep immigration flowing but eliminate the red tape

Conservatives who fall in the second category are attempting to paint Libertarians as apart of the open borders left. I saw a video from the Cato Institute that had Jim Harper discussing on how our immigration policy should be structured and the Fox News anchor tried to pin him in the same league is Nancy Pelosi. Interesting enough Sarah Palin said before the election that she didn't believe in mass deportation of illegal immigrants but that barely made a peep among conservative voices.

The stereotype that Libertarians don't believe in the rule of law has been used like a billy club by conservatives especially on this issue. We have to get the message out there that we support a third option in the illegal immigration debate. Contrary to what the left and right tell say more people would support the third option than the first or second. It's not like we don't have a voice in the media who supports the third option. Lou Dobbs of CNN is on tape saying that he is very pro-legal immigration but is against amnesty, he is someone we can work with despite being an economic protectionist.

During the height of the swine flu "scare" the national party issued a statement for Obama to close the border with Mexico until the "scare" had passed. I didn't think much of it until I got an email from the local libertarian group that the national party was supporting xenophobia. I had emailed them back supporting national's decision to do that because at the time it was a national security issue, never got a response back by the way. I can understand why some Libertarians would see this move xenophobic since xenophobia and bigotry is very anti-liberty but we also should remember that complaining about bigots only gives them legitimacy. Sadly the left has yet to learn this lesson. Yes there is no denying the fact that racist and/or anti-immigrant groups (neo-nazis, kkk, coalition of conservative citizens, minutemen, etc) have used the illegal immigration debate as a cover to spread their bigotry. There is no denying of this fact but in addition to acknowledging them keeping the issue open only makes their cause stronger. If and when illegal immigration is solved the correct way these groups won't have anything to stand on (for the time being) and will self expose their true colors when they no longer have a banner to hide behind.

The illegal immigration issue is another great chance for us to inject our influence into the Republicans and/or the Democrats. We cannot let the ultra nationalist Paleoconservatives, other anti-legal immigrant groups and the pro-amnesty left win this fight. We must stand for liberty and the rule of law.

Should Libertarians and Conservatives work together?

It's a thought that has been floating around in Libertarian circles since the election. Hell even it's been discussed at my local party meetings. Some say that for the good of the country we are going to have to swallow our pride, others believe that conservatives deserve to wallow in the mess they created by betraying their so-called principals for power. One my own personal gripe is why should we trust them when all they do is just pay us lip service and if they aren't paying us lip service they will use the fear game of the Democrats being in power.

Peter Schiff gave a speech to a group of Connecticut Libertarians a few days ago saying that the only way to get Libertarian minded people elected is to infiltrate the Republicans. Some say that it's impossible due to the fact that the influence the big government Christian Right and Neoconservatives still have. Then there are the Paleoconservatives who are mostly composed of old Cold Warriors who believe in economic crushing protectionist policies. With these three different types of conservatives who support big government one way or another it's really no wonder why we are skeptical of this idea, despite the amount of respect we have for Peter Schiff.

In all of our differences the one single thing that unites us is taxes for the most part. Things aren't getting better and time is getting short. If we are to take back the country from the right and left wing statist we are going to have to make a choice and hope it's the right choice.

Here is the video of Peter Schiff suggesting the idea