The problem with the Libertarian right

I personally have a lot of libertarian leanings.  I wouldn't call myself a libertarian but I fully believe freedom of choice. Here's the rub, in order to have personal liberty, you need to accept personal responsibility. Otherwise you have chaos. Jordan Peterson puts a different lens on it; personal liberty requires some ground rules.  It's a very reasonable point.

Libertarians shoot themselves in the foot

I know I just said it's not time to Wednesday morning quarterback in my previous post, but here's an FYI. If Jo Jorgensen had not run in Nevada, and most of her 11,000+ votes so far ended up going to president Trump, he would be winning that state. If you are a Nevada libertarian, you may have handed your antithesis candidate - the socialist-leaning corruptocrat Biden, the presidency.  So enjoy that knowledge.

Anti-war liberals (including the media) want more war in Syria.

President Trump gives liberals what they wanted when Bush was president.  Now they hate him for that too.  So what does the president do?  He fires back.

I understand wanting to support America's allies. Conservatives understand and generally support that notion too.  But president Trump is more aligned with the libertarian viewpoint (e.g. Rand Paul).  He is also being consistent.  America first also means with respect to military activities too.

While I lean more towards working with allies who are willing to work with America, I can understand the president's viewpoint.  It's not ideal in my opinion, but I get where he is coming from.

The anti-war liberals who want to stay in Syria to help the Kurds have a consistency problem that I cannot resolve on their behalf.  Clearly Orange Man Bad trumps every other consideration for them and if the president did not pull out they would have the same level of horror with his decision.

Why the libertarian view on drugs has issues (for me)

A while back I proposed an alternate way to stop the flow of drugs into America. It's not a solution to the scourge of drugs in the country, it's part of the solution.  The drug problem is complex and includes prescription opioids, domestically produced drugs, and the underlying problem is actually demand, not production.  I promised at that time I would get back to my non-libertarian rationale for opposing illicit drug consumption.  First, let me outline the logic of the libertarian view of drugs as I understand it.

Is this the future you want for your country?

Government allows the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes.  In a truly free and liberated society government should not prevent people from making choices, even if those choices are self-destructive.  Cigarettes and alcohol can be self destructive, and in the case of cigarettes it's pretty much inarguable that they are.  So why should illicit drugs be any different?  The caveat that libertarians allow for, is that as long as those choices do not harm anyone else then and only then should it permissible.  For example, murdering someone is not allowable because even though it is a free choice, it harms someone else.  Parking in such a way that it blocks someone else in is an individual freedom too, but it interferes with someone else's freedom to leave their parking spot.  In other words the government should only protect it's citizens from external threats or from each other, but not from themselves. That is up to and including the option for suicide I suppose.

There are problems with this logic as it applies to drugs, not the least of which is that switching to an unfettered allowance is to let the genie out of the bottle in such a way that it cannot be put back in.  Should there be dire societal consequences, they cannot be undone, or at least without a herculean effort.  When prohibition was implemented it was not long before it was reversed (13 years, which sounds like a long time but to reverse a Constitutional Amendment with another Amendment that is startlingly quick).  The point is the attempt to undo a freedom, once available, is a futile effort.  Yes alcohol was always available, but it provides a suitable analog.  Cigarettes, as damaging as they are will not be made illegal in our lifetime.  Similarly drugs, once legalized will not simply be made illegal again if they prove to be too detrimental to society as a whole.

More likely is the slippery slope argument - once a milder illegal drug is legalized there will be pressure to expand it to more, and harder drugs.  While there is plenty of evidence in our slide towards liberalism or even more aptly, political correctness, that there is indeed a slippery slope, I won't resort to that argument.  I have others.

The one argument that people make is that because drugs are illegal it contributes to crimes - murder and theft, for example.  The argument is that legalizing drugs will remove these problems.  The reverse is actually true.   Alcohol is legal and we still have alcohol-related deaths that are not just those who were drinking.  Cigarettes are legal and while second-hand smoke may or may not have killed anyone, it certainly, until recently, affected non-smokers.  I can attest to that personally.  Guns are legal and innocent people get shot and killed all the time.  And people still use illegal guns.  Why would some people not continue to use illegal drugs?  They might be cheaper.  Some people might not be able to get the legal drugs because they cannot afford their addiction and will still resort to crime to get what they need.

Simply legalizing drugs does not make these things go away.  And indeed, they may increase the instances of addiction and that could easily in turn increase these secondary effects of crime as more people become addicted, escalate and soon cannot afford their addictions.

The other effect that legalizing drugs has on society is the medical need to cope with the addicted. There are costs in ameliorating an addicted subset of the population. Not just the direct costs of rehabilitation, but also the opportunity costs.  If we have to divert medical expertise from cancer research to address the problem of burgeoning addiction, we could delay or miss the chance to cure cancer (for example). Doctors are not an unlimited resource - that was part of my argument on Obamacare.  Medical advances and treatment of the non-addicted are just another way that legalized drugs harm those who are not directly affected by the change in the law.

All of those issues are enough without even discussing the societal and familial impacts of decaying moral standards and families imploding because one drug user has upended the fabric of the family.

All for what?  So some people who want to do so can get high?  It's wasted potential, and morally its something we should guard against, not embrace. To embrace legalization of drugs, any drug, is nothing more than deluded Utopian thinking.

Eagles of Death Metal, conservatives. Huh?

Yesterday I posted about the band The Eagles of Death Metal, the band playing at Le Bataclan club in Paris that was part of the terror attack.  I mentioned that I had never heard their music.  Listening to it, they are not death metal, they're basically just a rock and roll band. I described their music as harder edged rockabilly but on Wikipedia the refer to them as garage rock.  The music is not bad, in fact some of it is catchy.

In any case, investigating a little further I found this interesting tidbit on Wikipedia regarding the two main members of the band:

In a 2007 interview, bandmate Josh Homme stated "Jesse Hughes and I have a theory; we’re socially liberal but government conservative guys".[1] Hughes has also said "I wanted to be a Republican politician, for God sakes. I’m a conservative, dude".[2]

And also this:

Homme has described himself as "very conservative politically" and "very socially liberal", considering himself a "fallen libertarian".[46] He owns several guns, including a classic Winchester rifle, a sawed-off shotgun, and a Beretta 9mm target pistol.[46]

You never can tell a book by its cover. 

A note of caution for conservative voters

Still a big tent or just a bunch of smaller ones?

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself with this, given that the 2016 election is a long way away. But I think the logic and reason behind this post also applies to the 2014 mid-term elections. Some Tea Party candidates beat incumbents, some didn't. The notion of supporting the better choice, albeit a less than ideal choice in many cases, has merit.

The Big Tent that Ronald Reagan claimed the GOP possessed or should possess, is something conservative voters need to keep in mind. While I'm quite happy to dismiss the MSM meme that there is a civil war within the Republican Party - Establishment vs. Tea Party vs. Libertarians (many of whom do not support the GOP) - there is a cautionary note housed within it.

Should Ted Cruz win the GOP nomination, it would benefit moderate and establishment Republicans to support him over Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren. The same can be said of non-supporters of Rand Paul. But the same is also likely true if Mitt Romney were the candidate. Many die hard libertarians and conservatives could not hold their noses and vote for Mitt Romney, even though he would be a far better choice than Hillary Clinton would be.

Withholding your vote isn't akin to a civil war within the conservative movement, but it does seem short-sighted. Holding out for the perfect candidate is folly, because no such candidate exists, and never has. Allowing socialism to prevail over weak conservatism or libertarianism or Tea Party conservatism, or moderation even, is a poison pill.

Mark 3:25 -- "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand".

Or in this case, a big tent.  Just saying.

Snowden, Libertarians, spying, TURN and grey areas

Recently, I blogged about the AMC series TURN, which is a TV series about America's first spy ring. Before even the Constitution was born, but after the Declaration of Independence, America had spies.  It had to have them - it may have lost the war for independence if it had not effectively spied on the British.  Today I was revisiting my views on the NSA and the scandal that came to light with the information revealed by Edward Snowden.  I think it's healthy to revisit your beliefs from time to time in order to either validate them or else decide to refine, or perhaps even move away from them.  Otherwise you get locked into a set of beliefs that end up enabled by confirmation bias.  That happens in the mainstream media crucible all the time and they never learn from it.  They predominantly never evolve and they consequently continue to support a president who not only has led the country down a failing path but has also abandon much of the ideals the liberal media supposedly holds dear.

Now, I think my beliefs have shifted some on national security - back towards where they were in years past.  There is a delicate balance between personal liberty and national security.  Benjamin Franklin was once quoted as saying that "They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  

Not wanting your government to spy on you is understandable.  Not wanting their nose in your business is normal.  Not wanting to grant the government too much power to do so domestically in desirable.  That is a libertarian instinct that most every American likely shares.  But what about foreign agents intent on undermining the security of America?  Without the protection of the American government (be it militarily or through espionage), the very liberties that Americans wish to maintain become highly vulnerable. 

A quote from Thomas Jefferson, less libertarian in nature addresses that notion: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Blood is certainly at least an equally precious commodity to liberty.  I guess that might be  a judgement call.  In any case, liberty must be defended.  At times that defense involves unpleasantries and that may include infringements upon liberty.

Don't get me wrong.  Illegal search and seizure is not something I condone.  But my views on the cost benefits of the actions of Edward Snowden have changed from one of him being predominantly an important whistleblower with some unintended consequences to the nation to one of traitor with some beneficial information about government over-reach important, but less so than him undermining the security of the citizens as a whole by revealing far too much national security information in the process.

America needs spies. It needs a strong military. In today's day and age with such an interconnected world, the notion of a forward defense, electronically especially, is at the core national security.  While libertarians may argue that the mitigating factor in the war for independence was that spies were outward focused, the same is true today.  Spying is done on the basis of national security and those being targeted are enemies of the nation (not the state, there's an important distinction).

The real battleground should be how the information that is being collected is used and retained.  Data collection is being done on an unprecedented scale by not only the government but also by companies and don't be so naive as to think that other countries aren't collecting data on Americans either.  Data can be transformed into information.  Information can be transformed into insights and insights can be transformed into wisdom.  Any nation with wisdom has an advantage over other nations that do not when it comes to geopolitical considerations.  To abandon that to the Chinese or the Russians is sheer folly.

Let me provide one example of how this data collection could be used.  If the phone and electronic records of known domestic terrorists are looked at patterns of behavior might emerge.  Those collected records may point to other data elements that are indicative of terrorist related potential.  A model can than be built to search for that type of behavior among the trillions of phone and data record elements and identify potential terrorists based on similar behaviors being exhibited.  That would give an agency like the FBI potential targets to investigate.

That's where the handling of the information becomes important.  If you have not met those criteria, your data should likely be expunged.  If you fit the profile of a potential terrorist, you still might not be one.That might be the point at which the FBI requires corroborating evidence or becomes limited in what surveillance it can conduct under the Fourth Amendment.  It certainly is a grey area in terms of how far they should be allowed to go.  

Because the power of that data is unquestionably strong.  Companies model customer behaviors all of the time.  I personally know that to be true.  It's done for marketing efficiency.  Why target someone to switch to a more expensive data plan on their iPhone if you know they are extremely unlikely to do so? Computer modeling behavior is very effective.  But it does require large amounts of data.  Big Data is the industry buzzword these days.

The reality of espionage has always outstripped public knowledge of what is going on.  

No matter the Constitutional protections provided to American citizens, spying is going to happen.  And there always going to be domestic threats to national security and individual safety.  My personal opinion as to what the balance between national security and personal privacy should be continues to shift from what is ideal to what is practical (not what is necessarily feasible).  There are no easy answers to this, but the one undeniable fact is that there are many, many countries where the national conversation about what the balance should be, would not be allowed to occur.  That fact is something worth fighting to keep.  The only question is how that fight should be fought.

2013 - some personal reflections and looking beyond

2012 was a bad year for me, a lot went wrong in my personal life and in my career. 2013 turned out to be even worse in a number of ways.  I'm quite frankly glad this year is almost over.  I've always been an optimist and have always tried to see the glass half full or the silver lining on the dark cloud.  The past two years have really tested my resilience but I'm still here. I'm thankful that my loved ones and I have made it this far given the struggles over the past while (2011 was slightly on the down side of mediocre too).  I'm sure someone up there is looking out for us.  Testing us perhaps, but they certainly haven't abandon us.

Gee, that paragraph seems fairly bleak upon reflection.  I'm optimistic for 2014.  I said that about 2012 and 2013 too, but there's reasons for hope both personally and politically.  I won't get into the personal side of things, but I do want to share that I think 2014 will be good year for Republicans mainly because Obamacare will continue to be a train-wreck.  

The one good thing about that (Obamacare) is that there could be a true groundswell in November such that Republicans end up with a super-majority in the House and Senate in 2015.  I'm not saying it will happen but the potential is there.  Smart political operatives in the Republican party would be wise to focus on that rather than fending off the Tea Party.  There is so much more alignment between the GOP and Tea Party and libertarians than there are differences.  Seeking common ground is the smart thing for all concerned.  The greater issue is to defeat liberal Democrat enablers of progressivist liberalism.  United we stand and all that.

The downside of a resounding victory in 2014 is the possible backlash in 2016 and another Democrat inhabitant of the White House until 2020.  Still, if the GOP govern as they should, that isn't a guaranteed outcome.  And in either case, that presents no reason to try to maximize the election results for Republicans in 2014.  If you think that they are simply the lesser of two evils consider this - how successful would you be for example, in holding John Boehner's feet to the conservative relative to president Obama's.  Boehner might move to the right,Obama will not under any circumstances.  For that matter, an emboldened Hillary Clinton would not do so either, despite all of the talk about Bill Clinton's smaller government movement and the triangulation of voters stuff.  Hillary Clinton will govern only slightly to the right of president Obama were she to be elected president.  She's no moderate.  Don't get suckered in by the inevitable slick marketing.

As for my family and I, I can only pray that we continue to persevere and that 2014 and beyond holds much for us that the last several years have not, and doesn't hold some of the things the last couple of years have held.  Well, pray, and keep working at it myself.  I'm not merely a bystander in trying to make life better.

Rand Paul endorsed by..Julian Assange?

Curious news of the day - Julian Assange has praised Rand Paul.  It's not exactly an earth shattering news item but on a dull news day like today, it will make some waves.

 

Via The Daily Caller;

Responding to questions during a Google Hangout session, Assange praised the college-aged supported libertarian faction of the Republican Party as the “only hope” for U.S. electoral politics.

“The libertarian aspect of the Republican Party is presently the only useful political voice really in the U.S. Congress,” said Assange.

The Wikileaks founder also praised Ron Paul and Matt Drudge. Color me confused. Yes, there is likely some alignment on the views of Assange with the libertarian wing of the GOP. But why say that? And why say that now? Does it alienate the Occupy Wall Street crowd who probably were in support of Assange? Likely, so that's not a good reason. Similarly it doesn't appear to do anything to help Assange with his current extradition woes or with fighting the charges against him.

If he really supports Rand Paul, does he believe his endorsement will have a net positive effect on Rand Paul's support? It could have a negative effect, and very possibly could create a GOP primary split that only complicates matters. It's hard to say whether Assange's comments are helpful or hurtful in terms of net effect for both Paul and the GOP, particularly given how many people see Assange as having leaked sensitive national security details. Assange must realize that as well, which makes his comments all the more curious.

That said, the semi-endorsement is interesting and could get a lot of people thinking about Rand Paul.

A really touchy subject - police versus dog

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've always been more of a conservative than libertarian.  But I think there is a pretty big intersection between the two when it comes to individual liberty.  The conservative view on law enforcement is tied to the rule of law.  Breaking laws is bad and should be subject to persecution.  The libertarian view on law enforcement is probably similar but with the major caveat that laws are meant to be as minimally invasive as possible, and so as few as necessary should exist.  In that regard, I'd say I lean more libertarian than conservative.  Or maybe small government conservative would be the best description.

******************

No matter your political bent, authorities are always susceptible to abuse of power.  That seems to be the case in this really touchy video (if you love dogs or are sensitive, don't watch it).

A man apparently was arrested, and his dog shot, both without sufficient cause.  The apparent motive of police was that he was videoing police activity.  Or he was too close to the police perimeter.  Or he was non-compliant. Or that he has a civil suit against the Hawthorne police already.  Or something else.

Warning - graphic video.

Via the Libertarian Republic, you can see the entire story here.  There's a lot of information on the story there, including other videos of the incident from different angles.

Police appear to have abused their powers in this instance - a complete over-reaction that is not justified.  If the details in the story prove accurate, the police should be fired or suspended.  The police department should have to pay compensatory and punitive damages as well.  None of it unfortunately, will bring back the dog.

Hey Conservatives, Libertarians and Republicans - what Rodney King said

Granted, I'm a little behind in posting this week.  I've been busy but I have time for a quick post .  I was reading through the comments on my most recent post on Left Coast Rebel.  One comment short caught my eye, and it made me think about conservatism, libertarianism and the future of the Republican Party and the Tea Party.  That's the sign of a great, thought-provoking comment.

Left Coast RebelMay 5, 2013 at 1:52 PM

How delusional that she thinks we are republicans, too. Ha!

While my thoughts ran on several different tangents that are worth sharing, I'd like to focus on just one for now.  

Conservative Comedy - Part 1

Jim Norton is a stand up comedian who probably appeals more to libertarian sensibilities than pure conservatism - in fact he has some liberal views at times.  He can be also quite vulgar but he's uniquely funny in a sarcastic sort of way.  Here though in less than 1 minute, he has some red meat conservative humor that's clean, and simply adorable for those of us on the right.

More conservative comedy to come.

If it makes sense, it makes sense.

I stumbled onto a new blog that I'll be adding to my blogroll today.  It's titled Freedom quest of Zork (the) Hun.  And I thought my blog title was too long.  Despite the title, Zork (if I can call the author that) is a self described social libertarian.  While I don't agree with everything that I've read so far on his blog, there's a lot there that makes sense.

Reading it and agreeing with it does not make me think that I am becoming more libertarian in my beliefs.  It reminds me that modern conservatism (properly applied) or classical liberalism has much in common with libertarianism.  If it were viewed as a Venn Diagram, there would be significant overlap (intersection) but not a complete union.  But it doesn't matter if a viewpoint is forwarded by a conservative or a libertarian - if it makes sense, it makes sense.  Common sense transcends labels anyway.  

Zork makes a lot of sense, and it's worth checking out his blog.  He's a fellow Canadian (Hungarian by birth, but clearly Canadian) and not a fan of socialized medicine (for example).  He tackles issues in a logical way, something I used to do more often when I had more time to devote to longer essay type posts to this blog.

If you get a chance, head over and check out his blog - it's worth the read.

Globalization is Good

Globalization is a tough sell.  Even a lot of conservatives bristle at the idea of letting some Vietnamese worker make shoes at a labor cost of $0.22/hour to be sold in America at $110 per pair.  It seems like both a ripoff of the labor effort and a rip off of the American consumer.  Not to mention the fact that it enables a lot of offshoring of manufacturing jobs in America, thus eroding America's industrial base.

Link love

So I'm working 14-16 hours a day lately and my blog is suffering.  Trust me, I'm not complaining - I'm working.  Until I'm back to normal, check out these quality posts elsewhere:

Obamanomics - where food stamps equal economic boon.

Unions = people?  Corporations = people!

The bigger the lie, the more people you fool.

The Black Caucus is losing patience with Mr. O.

Libertarian dystopia?

Perry can't win, Romney can.

Romney can't win, Perry can.

Nobody can win, except Sarah Palin.

Nobody can win but Newt Gingrich.  No link?  Oh wait, he'll have the Hawaii vote.

Always end with a chuckle.

Separation of Economics and State

An Early Warning from Ayn Rand on what welfare ultimately would do to the United States.  While I'm not a complete laissez faire libertarian it is truly difficult to argue that only a little bit of welfare is okay.  Where does 'a little bit' become too much?  Everyone's definition would be different.  From the point of view of a need to avoid creeping socialism, only ZERO welfare would ensure it doesn't creep.  That's the only truly safe point.  And as I mentioned earlier and Ayn Rand points out, charity is a natural human inclination if afforded the opportunity.

Have your own goals

This post isn't about politics, it's about personal responsibility. It's from a personal perspective about the growth of my blog and my focus and the lessons that can be taken from my mistakes and used for anyone's personal journeys. For that matter it can be applied to politics and to the recovery of the American economy and the recovery of conservatism as well.

I started blogging on Nonsensible Shoes back in November 2008, after spending much of the primary season in 2008 updating and educating friends on the American electoral process. The blog had been set up for months but I never used it until I started thinking about codifying my beliefs. Of course when I started doing it, it wasn't even for my friends, it was just a place for me to write down my thoughts and link to the sites I frequently visit - Right Wing News, National Review, Hot Air etc. I didn't really have any goals associated with it other than to use it as a sort of personal home page.

But two of my friends whom I was keeping updated during the election cycle, independently suggested I should teach politics or write about it. It got me thinking about rather than writing for myself I should write for a slightly broader audience. I still didn't have any goals for this blog.

Of course I started playing with widgets and layouts after I realized other people might be looking at my blog. Few were, but within a week I had 62 unique visits in one day. I'm no artist, and my blog is still fairly ugly today, but at least I had a goal - get it prettier.

The I discovered Google AdSense. I figured if I had visitors, it wouldn't hurt to make a few bucks while I blogged. And visitorship was growing, so it might turn out well. But I hadn't established a real goal yet, and by default the goal became about getting revenue. Revenue is a good thing. But it's not the reason to blog. I wanted to make a difference - explain political workings to those who were curious, and perhaps capture some hearts and minds for the conservative cause along the way. Revenue as a goal is at best a distraction.

I've always been interested in American politics and history. As far back as I remember I've been a conservative. I've been interested in economics since high school. My real goal was to add insight into the debate around America's politics, it's economy, it's role in the world, it's history and it's future. Hopefully it would contribute to an overall dialogue about these topics and not end up being a monologue.

But as my site visits slowly grew, and I discovered Twitter and #tcot my goals changed and started to develop. I read about SEO (search engine optimization) and articles and books on how to grow your blog. Many of them indicated that you should state your goals up front. Of course it's pretty easy to state a goal about spreading conservatism, but if it's merely a platitude then it's a meaningless goal.

Of course with the lost focus my blog readership started to slide a bit. It is now half of what it was in April. Some of that may be due in part to reports that overall blog readership has fallen 40% since the November election. But I view that as an excuse. I preach taking ownership of your own situation. It's a core value of conservatism and of liberty. So I can't blame others and wait for a fix from someone else.

The Lesson

Therein lies the twofold lesson for me - clear, specific objectives are crucially important and personal responsibility is the biggest key to achieving them. You need to understand where you want to go, and you need to stay focused on getting there or you won't get there. Everyone probably knows this to be true in a theoretical sense, but it really does apply to achieving something. It's true whether it's a personal blog or as big as achieving victory in Afghanistan and versus Al Qaida.

I've established a new goal. It's pretty aggressive. According to my web counter I now have had over 13,800 visitors in 9 months. It's far more than what I'd have expected 8 months ago, but far less than what I could have achieved if I'd been focused on writing quality instead of where to put the gadgets and how to squeeze my ad revenues as best I could. For the record, 13,800 visits has translated to not $30 in revenue so far.

So what's my new goal? Well it's specific, and measurable. I want that counter over 20,000 visits by the end of my first full year of blogging. That's 6,200 visits over 88 days. It's about 70 visits per day, which is roughly double where it's been for the last couple of months. The obvious question is why have I taken a goal like that instead of creating conservative value?

Because the latter goal is too ethereal. You can't quantify that so you can't claim to have achieved it at any point. Ever. Most blog advice has as it's number one rule, CREATE QUALITY CONTENT. In order to get to 20,000 visits, I have to create conservative value anyways.

And instead of being discouraged by a slow day next week, it will cause me to double my efforts the following day. Blogging isn't my day job, it's a hobby. For now. I do have a longer term goal to make it my day job, but that requires the small steps and the focus to be there every single day. That focus has to be on articulating conservatism in well written posts every day.

Getting distracted over the past couple of months was pretty easy. Admitting that was a little tougher. But I never considered blaming overall Internet traffic levels for it. I just took a while to realize that I had to soldier on, but in a smarter way.

The GOP has faced numerous distractions (think Rush's 'I want him to fail' quote). The GOP has been busy focusing on the moderate RINOs versus conservative wing of the party. Libertarians versus social conservatives.

These are distractions, the GOP needs to be soldiering on too. They need to remember their original goals as espoused by Goldwater and Reagan for example. It needs to be prepared for daily setbacks, but it needs to remember to be relentless just like the Alinsky-inspired leftists who never give up and are willing to win the battle inch by inch, year by year with slow, dripping, liberal attrition of the center. If they can do it, so can the right. Perhaps in a far less sinister fashion, but with equal fervor.

The final point - if you don't have your own goals, they will be defined for you by someone else or by circumstances. If that were a ship you'd be considered adrift. And if your goals are vague you are pretty much adrift anyway, which is no better.

Congratulations America & Lessons from Apollo

40 years ago today 3 Americans landed on the moon, with the help of an army of scientists and engineers. It represents an achievement that must be commended by friend and foe alike. As a friend of the United States I would like to add my voice of congratulations to the country, NASA and the astronauts involved for such a remarkable achievement. It was, and remains, a remarkable feat. It is arguably the epitome of human endeavor to date, and perhaps also the pinnacle of the golden age of America.

BUT...

It cannot go unnoticed as ironic that Walter Cronkite, the iconic broadcaster of his day, and verbal chronologer of the historic event, died the weekend before the 40th anniversary of that event (which is today, if you didn't already know). If the irony is lost on you, let me explain.

If America reached the height of its pre-eminence during the Apollo program, it has since lost much of its status during the subsequent decades. Cronkite's death is simply a personification of the end of America's golden age. That is not to say further golden ages are not possible, but rather that this one is quite definitely done.

It is also not to say that in the decades afterwards, America did not have occasion to shine, and shine brightly. However, it did not shine again equally as brilliantly as it did on that day.

The intervening years, despite the best efforts of conservatives to counter the decay, have brought forth a plethora of social engineering efforts and an associated amount of mammoth spending. Yet there is still poverty. There is still a declining American manufacturing sector. The problems have not gone away. They have even worsened in some respects. Yet the government asks for more - more power, and more of your money, despite the fact that their solutions have not proved effective.

If you were a doctor and the patient was asking for more medicine but it wasn't curing him, would you give it to him? No. You would try to find a different medicine to use. So why continue to submit your economic freedom to the government in frequent but minuscule (until now) doses that eat away at your liberty? There is no reason to continue.

Except under a tyranny of oppression, ordinary people do not live and die by government edict. Attempts to engineer behavior beyond moral absolutes (e.g. murder is criminal, the penalty is imprisonment or death), are doomed to failure. Even the basic precepts of criminal justice do not deter absolutely everyone. So it is foolhardy to expect that efforts to change beliefs via Congressional legislation would fare anything beyond poorly. Yet the misguided efforts persist. They may persist with the best of intentions, but the road to national hell is paved with good intentions.

The government now owns the lion's share of the American auto industry - directly or through Presidential intimidation or edict. They are planning the same for health care. It does not matter that they cannot change personal opinion by creating new laws - if they control more and more of the economy it does not matter what you believe or do not believe. As long as they control the purse strings, you have no choice but to obey - willingly or not.

What is needed right now is a healthy dose of libertarianism. I'm much more a conservative than a libertarian (generally, not absolutely) but right now the country, i.e. the patient, needs that injection. That's the medicine that will work for the patient. There has been such a creeping power consolidation over the last 40 years (and further back for that matter) that the country needs a jolt back towards economic and social liberty in order to avoid becoming terminal. If creeping government control is the disease, it has now accelerated and become like an aggressive, malignant cancer. If it’s not treated immediately the country may not survive.

Enough doom and gloom. I have every confidence that the American people will deal with this soon by 2010 at the latest but by continued protest in the interim). They will do so with or without the understanding that this creeping tyranny is the very thing the founding fathers of the nation were most concerned with, and rightly so.

The real lesson from the lunar landing is the fact that American ingenuity is not dead. The amazing talents that led to that Herculean effort still exist aplenty in America. Arguably there is more of that intellectual capital at the disposal of the nation (not the government). That talent however, has been dammed, channeled and redirected into less productive efforts. The country is capable of an infinite number of golden ages. Just like the economic boom cycles, innovation need not be a peak once and ebb thereafter story. In fact, while it may not be a continuous boom, there really is now ebb needed - just the hiccups of rapid and slow innovation. That is, if people understand that such a miraculous cycle requires no magical orchestration from some omnipotent Presidential or Congressional adjudicator. It simply needs the liberty that unleashes personal creativity.

There is no other option open - either individual freedom, or congratulatory praise for something that happened 40 years ago.

FOOTNOTE: big government advocates will argue that NASA was an arm of the government that accomplished this feat. NASA was set up in 1958 as an independent agency to achieve a goal as defined by the government, but it did so with relative independence. Unlike the interference the government does as far as the disciple of economics, apparently it generally knew better than to interfere with the scientists and physicists involved in solving the complexities of a mission to the moon. As a result, the effort was successful. Further, the government placed no restrictions on the freedom of its citizenry to becoming physicists. Nor did it place quotas on minority physicists comprising a specified percentage of the NASA employed physicists. The result - NASA went after the best it could get, including for example preeminent rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who worked for Nazi Germany during WWII. The probability of success of the lunar mission might have been very different if NASA were to be guided by the principles espoused by modern liberals with respect to quotas, affirmative action and the federal government deciding more than they are equipped to make informed decisions on.

Try this at home - your political compass

If you've ever wanted to plot your political leanings, there's a website that allows you to answer a few questions in under 10 minutes and it will plot your political leaning between liberal and conservative, and between authoritarian and libertarian.

Try it out for fun. The link is HERE.

However, a word of caution. You are your own best political thermometer. I wouldn't take their results too seriously because the underlying weighting and result interpretation seems to be somewhat subjective. The reason I suspect that can be explained in the following two graphs.

Here's one for some Historical figures;

While Stalin and Hitler look about right, I'm quite sure they never actually took this quiz. Therefore, someone has mapped their positions via an analysis of their results. It might be good for comparative purposes for people, but to portray them as accurate mappings is not exactly reasonable. Furthermore, I'd like to see the scoring that put Margaret Thatcher where she is on that graph. It seems a bit heavy towards the authoritarian side.

The reason I question these is not to quibble with specific results but rather to question the political bent of the creator(s) and the methodologies of interpreting the results.

Here's an even better example;



According to the graph every Republican is to the right of every Democrat (Mike Gravel, being an odd outlier). There's no surprise there. But here's where I take issue with this scoring;

1. Every conservative seems to score as more authoritarian than their liberal counterparts. That's VERY odd considering conservatives argue for smaller government, more individual liberty and more personal responsibility. Further, looking at the politics of President Obama since coming into office, he certainly has run an interventionist, and heavy handed government. Yet by this graph we are supposed to believe not only that all Democrats are less authoritarian than all Republicans but that Obama was one of the least authoritarian-minded of the Democrats. Not credible.

2. Every Democrat candidate was to the right of center except for Kucinich? Also not credible. . Sure, they are less left than Stalin, but to the right of center? It just doesn't compute. Liberals are sure to look to something like this for validation that they really are centrist, but it doesn't work if the tool they are using has an inherent bias built into it. Which brings me back to the question of how Stalin was scored and how different is that from the Obama score.

You might be thinking I scored badly and am upset with my personal result. To the contrary, I'm almost okay with it and here it is for your consideration;

According to this I'm on par with Fred Thompson in terms of the left-right scale. I find that assessment somewhat plausible, but out of that list of candidates I would have chosen Newt Gingrich to represent me. As for the libertarian leaning, I'm sure I was on the right side of the line there, but I'd definitely have expected to be a little bit further towards the bottom of the chart. Still, it was fun to try.