Topic: Constitutional Issues
Liberals at Daily Kos Say First Amendment Does Not Apply To Libertarians A group of liberals at the Daily Kos showed this weekend that they really have no respect for individual rightsby Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Monday, October 8, 2007
A blogger at the Daily Kos who calls himself "halfasspete" (a handle which seems appropriate to this columnist), has written an article in which he argues that libertarian activist Pete Jacob, the subject of the article, has "corrupted" the ballot initiative system. He crows over the fact that Jacob was arrested for political reasons under a law which prohibits non-residents from circulating petitions in Oklahoma despite, in Jacob's words, being "told by people with the state election board and secretary of state that this requirement could be met by anyone who moved to Oklahoma and declared themselves a resident, [which Jacob and his co-defendants did do]. There was no requirement they live the rest of their days in Oklahoma; if they ended up not getting a job after this, they could go elsewhere to find a job."
Ol' halfasspete is incensed that Jacob's arrest isn't getting more press saying, "Jacob is one of the key players in the rapidly accelerating movement to pass cookie-cutter, far right bills by initiative and referendum all over the country. Spending caps that kill schools and other vital services, term limits for judges and state legislators, the destruction of land use regulation...and that's just the beginning."
In other words, halfasspete doesn't like what Jacob stands for, so it's okay to write and then selectively enforce manipulative laws to keep people like Jacob from participating in the democratic process. Halfasspete also doesn't seem to understand what libertarianism is. It's not a "far right" movement at all. That's why the Nolan Chart shown at the top of this and all articles on this website is so helpful. It shows that libertarian philosophy is halfway between liberal and conservative philosophy, but 90º northward to greater liberty (the opposite of statism). We disagree with conservatives as often as we disagree with liberals, although there are also areas of both philosophies where libertarians agree. Also, we are not against education. We're just against coercive education that soaks taxpayers and vigorously promotes statist agendas while dumbing down America, and we don't see why we (or anyone else) should have to financially support an approach to education with which we so strongly disagree. While I as a libertarian personally don't support term limits (because they really don't work), I can certainly understand why many libertarians want them. Given the corruption of government power by politicians from both the left and the right on a regular basis, the desire to restrict their presence in government certainly has appeal.
Under halfasspete's readers comments, reader "phenry" added, "Paul Jacob is one of the chief scumbags behind the corrupt trend of paying signature gatherers, which has wholly ruined the initiative process as a tool of the people and turned it into just another way for big-dollar interests to buy laws for themselves. Four hundred quatloos to the first person who brings me the man's mug shot!!"
Beside the obviously unnecessary (and unprovoked) ad hominem attack, phenry is arguing that paying signature gatherers is a form of corruption. Never mind that liberal parties like the Democratic Party and the Green Party use paid petitioners. That doesn't matter to phenry, apparently. Only libertarians who use paid petitioners are corrupting the system, not Greens or Democrats. And apparently, by "a tool of the people," he means not libertarians. I guess we're not among "the people" in his liberal universe.
Other comments by halfasspete show why he thinks the state of Oklahoma is right to be going after Jacob: "This kind of disregard -- and lack of contrition -- is beneath contempt. It fits into a larger pattern: each of these guys' flagship initiatives serves to advance a narrow agenda by eliminating the democratic institution that stands in its way."
Lack of contrition? Disregard? For what? For doing what the state of Oklahoma's public employees told him he could do? And what democratic institution is Jacob trying to eliminate? As far as I can see, he's only trying to make government be the limited government that Thomas Jefferson thought government should be. He's rejecting the idea that government power should be unlimited, and halfasspete hates that.
Halfasspete goes on to say that, "public discourse in the merits of an issue is an essential task for anyone looking to change public policy. The more sweeping a change, the more vital it is to preserve fair and rational discourse. The initiative system, for all its strengths, is often the venue least suited to genuine discourse; sound-bites, ballot titles, and 30-second commercials often determine the outcome of an election." I agree as far as that goes, but since when did libertarian ideas get included in the debate outside of the initiative system? So long as we're being excluded from the democratic process (and as an unrecognized but substantial minority, we are excluded) it only makes sense that we should use any method we can find to be heard. If the initiative process serves that purpose, that's not corruption. That's empowerment.
And regarding First Amendment issues, halfasspete says, "The law is what it is. I don't see what the first amendment has to do with this one." Well, let me enlighten you, halfasspete.
The Constitution protects Paul Jacob's right to petition
Let's look at the Constitutional issues here. Strictly speaking, the First Amendment says that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances [my emphasis]." In other words, the First Amendment is a restriction on Congress, not on the states. This may be what halfasspete is referring to when he says it doesn't apply, but there's a problem with that argument. In the 1950s, young, white northerners who went south to places like Birmingham and Montgomery in Alabama to help fight the civil rights cause were arrested under similar laws to the one under which Jacob was arrested. They were laws intended specifically to keep non-local liberals out of the political process in the Deep South. The liberal argument at that time was that those laws were unconstitutional because they violated the First Amendment.
There are other aspects of the Constitution which protect the right to petition from unjust state laws even more strongly than the First Amendment. The Ninth Amendment says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." [my emphasis] Guess what! Petitioning is the right of the people. So it turns out that the right to petition is definitely protected by the Constitution regardless of whether Congress tries to pass a law against it or not.
Also, the 14th amendment says, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection [my emphasis] of the laws." This amendment, of course, was written directly to combat slavery practices in the South at the time of the Civil War. Surely equal protection also applies to libertarians, except that halfasspete and his liberal friends don't want it to apply to libertarians. Taken together the Ninth and 14th Amendments clearly prevent the states from passing laws that take away the rights of petitioners, even if they're paid, and even if they're from out-of-state.
I was a liberal before I abandonded that camp in disgust in 1980. Elitist, selective defense of the First Amendment by liberals was one of the many reasons I abandoned liberalism, and these liberals are an excellent example of that kind of narrow-minded, statist thinking that motivated me both then and now.
Public discourse? It's for everyone except if you're a libertarian!
Now let's take a look at another of halfasspete's contentions. He argues that "public discourse in the merits of an issue is an essential task for anyone looking to change public policy." I agree, so why is it that the libertarian view is routinely and systematically excluded from the discourse? We are a minority of the population, probably about 10-20% of it (although most libertarians don't even know they're libertarians, because we've been so successfully excluded that most who might support us don't even know what we're for). Because of this, we almost never get our people elected to state legislatures, and thus our voices are excluded from debates in those chambers.
We have routinely been excluded from Presidential debates by conspiracy of both Democratic and Republican Party leaders who want to exclude us (and Greens!) and any other "kookie" point of view because they want to limit the political process to just themselves.
When we run candidates in state and local elections, we are routinely excluded from debates at the state and local levels. Oh sure, sometimes we're included, but we're usually excluded from the really big debates. And when we are included in a debate, we usually only get a minute or two on each issue to express our views. Talk about being forced into sound bytes! The media again rarely report what we say on the issues outside of debates, except to make mostly derogatory references to us. If a libertarian candidate sends a press release to the media, they'll mention that we're running, but when a major issue arises in the campaign they rarely quote our candidates on that issue. "He or she can't win" is their favorite reason for limiting our coverage.
The only libertarian in Congress is Ron Paul, who ran as a Republican because Libertarians are so thoroughly excluded from the process. He succeeded despite being opposed by the Republican powers that be in Texas, primarily because he's a pediatrician who birthed a large share of the babies in his district. You may know him as the only Republican presidential candidate who actually opposed the War in Iraq from Day One. The press rarely if ever reports on our viewpoint, and when they do so it's usually in a disparaging way. Have you noticed that Ron Paul's ideas get excluded not only from the major media, but also wherever the Republican can get away with excluding him from their internal debates? He is the first libertarian ever to successfully raise over $5 million in fundraising, and so now for the first time ever the press is starting to wake up to him. Yet even now his ideas are still being excluded from the debate. Instead, they're talking about how he's a spoiler whom the Republican leadership can't afford to ignore any longer. And when they do talk about his ideas at all, they aren't taken seriously. They're described as being crazy or unworkable, but their merits aren't often discussed.
Libertarians aren't usually invited onto talk shows to discuss their points of view. On rare occasions when they are invited onto a talk show, it's for the purpose of making fun of them.
Valid points that libertarians bring up on a wide variety of issues almost never reach the voters' ears. So is it any surprise that libertarians have taken to ballot initiatives? It's often the only way we can be heard, given the draconian restrictions placed on our movement by the powers that be. We don't like to be limited to sound bytes, but when it's all you're given you take what you can get.
Liberal reader Andrew C White commented on halfasspete's article, "This has absolutely nothing to do with the 1st amendment. This has to do with gaming the political system and defrauding the people of the United States of America."
Gaming? Fraud? Let's talk about gaming and fraud for a moment
Gaming is where the 50 states do their best to keep the Libertarian Party off the ballot, although we routinely succeed in getting on it anyway at great personal cost. Literally 1/2 of the Libertarian Party's entire national budget gets spent every four years just trying to get on the ballot and deal with the huge mountain of ballot access laws placed in our way. That, of course, leaves no money left over after other party expenses to spend on things like getting our message out.
Gaming is where liberals talk about wanting public discourse, but they mean that libertarians should be excluded from the debate.
And fraud? If you really want to study the concept of fraud in elections, I suggest you take a good, hard look at ballot access laws. For instance, in Oklahoma where this current craziness is taking place, the state requirement is to get over 80,000 signatures in order to have your candidate placed on the ballot if you're not one of the two major parties. Do you have any concept how many signatures that is? Have you ever tried getting over 80,000 signatures? Oklahoma has the most repressive, the most tyrannical ballot access laws in the country, bar none. No state is worse! And for that reason, no party but the Reps and Dems gets to be on the ballot there, which suits liberals just fine. Theoretically, Americans are supposed to have equal access to Congress by being able to run for it, yet the range of requirements for getting on the ballot among the 50 states is so wide that there's no way we can begin to say that Americans have equal access. Anyone who doesn't want to run as either a Republican or a Democrat has the entire legal system working against him. Surely, that's real fraud!
Oh, and let's not forget campaign finance laws. Supposedly, they were written to prevent corporations and labor unions from unfairly influencing elections. Yet, the reality is that corporations and labor unions have more influence than ever before, while it's the individuals who are the most restricted. Thus, it's quite possible for a corporation who plays their cards right and works the law right to give $100,000 in soft money to support their candidate, but individuals are limited to giving $2,300 in hard money. That's so absurd that it's preposterous! And paperwork? Forget it! The mountain of paperwork and legal restrictions under campaign finance laws that are deliberately designed to trip up small campaigns with little or no money is nothing more than deliberate exclusion of the not-rich from the electoral process. There is no surer way to restrict the development of third parties than to have campaign finance laws.
One of the most insane comments on this subject came from one of halfasspete's readers on his blog, someone named "harto" who wrote, "The Term Limits crowd who won't term limit themselves, the 'freedom' pseudo-libertarians who don't respect anybody else's sovereignty, and the 'Citizen FOIA' jerks (Paul Jacob, figurehead) who won't reveal where their money comes from, or who's behind THEM."
He's got to be kidding. What money there is (and it's not a lot) comes from small contributors. There's no big money machine behind Paul Jacob or anyone else involved in that operation. Corporations certainly won't fund it. They have no interest in term limits. Neither will labor unions. Where does "harto" imagine the money is coming from? Japan? Saudi Arabia? Get real. What would they care about American term limits? And what does he mean by a "crowd who won't term limit themselves"? Those term limit groups aren't in Congress. They aren't in the State Legislatures. If they were, there'd be no need to engage in alternative approaches to pushing their message to the public! Term limit ourselves? Heck, we'd be happy to have a term!!!
I guarantee you that if Libertarians and term limiters (not necessarily the same folks by the way...we don't always see eye to eye) had the kind of money available to us that you guys in the Democratic Party have with all your labor and corporate sponsorships, we'd be taking out Ross Perot type infomercials on national TV to tell our side of the story. You want to talk about the corrupting influence of money on politics? Start talking about your own party! If we only had access to the money you guys have, the political map would be completely different from what it is now.
We HATE being limited to sound bytes. You think that's all we want in the political world...to put out sound bytes? Again, get real!
The Libertarian Party did manage to get on the ballot anyway in all 50 states in 1996 and 2000 after two herculean efforts (the only time that has ever been accomplished in history by a third party), but that didn't stop the state of Oklahoma from filing lawsuits to attempt to get them removed anway! This is what "public discourse" in Oklahoma is really all about. It's about the politics of exclusion.
Further, halfasspete's claim that, "I contend that the only way you can get the public to restrict its own ability to govern is through deception and trickery" is nonsense. I would counter that that's exactly what Oklahoma is enganging in...deception and trickery. They pulled the bait and switch on Paul Jacob, telling him how to obey the law. He obeyed it, so a media-hungry politician named Drew Edmondson took advantage, misused his political power and arrested Jacob. The only way to restrict the public's ability to govern itself is to prevent minority views from having their say, which is exactly what's happening in Oklahoma in this case.
Unlike liberals, we libertarians don't believe in excluding anyone from the system. In fact, I invite halfasspete and his friends to open accounts here at the Nolan Chart to become columnists and engage in direct debate with us, and I mean all of us. The Nolan Chart already includes articles from libertarians, conservatives, liberals, and centrists. We're still waiting for our first statist article, but they'd be welcome too.
Of course, I doubt that either halfasspete or his friends will have the guts to show up here and participate, but I'd love it if they proved me wrong on this point. Then we could have a real, ongoing debate on the issues, with all political camps included.
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Mr. Thiessen -
You support for Libertarian ideals and for the protection of electoral and free-speech rights are admirable. But don't waste your time trying to refute the ramblings of these ****** at political blogging sites. These ****** just sit around ridiculing those that disagree with them, without using logic or rational thought. Don't even dignify them.
Oh, it's logic and rational thought you want. I can do that. I think? This article by Walt Thiessen is exactly why a libertarian will never have a party member sitting in the Oval Office, unless of course they have been invited by the president. Just how ancient, mentally speaking, does one have to be to still believe that mere pieces of paper like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence provide any financial benefits whatsoever? I suppose antique and novelty shops that sell old stuff and trinkets might find them of value? We Republicans think adults should act like adults. We gave up believing in magic potions and hocus pocus saying like "In God We Trust" long ago. It is okay for a small child to have an imaginary friend, but not adults. We made our way to the top of the food chain by putting our trust in aircraft carriers, smart bombs, wire taps, and hiring the best mercenaries that tax dollars could buy. Unlike the Independent Party, our members of Congress work 24/7. They will fly off to Norway and spend as long as needed wining and dining Norwegians, but they'll not be pushed around, if necessary they'll put their foot down in public restrooms. Come on, Walt, get with it and join me in the party of family values. It's a lot of fun. We meet somewhere every morning to picket those awful abortion clinics right after Fox News reports the number of Taliban women and children we had successfully killed the night before. Immaculate Conception…yeah right! Let the wife of any man who reads this try and feed him that line. She'd find herself and her clothes deposited in the driveway, and after the divorce, she and her suitor would be charged with the care and feeding of little baby Jesus. I love being a Republican. As my president said on 04/09/2004, "International laws do not always apply to the United States simply because our situation requires that we improvise from time to time, and that improvise depends on the situation." I do not know exactly what that means, but I'm sure he did, and therefore I approve.
There you go again, Walt ("Satire"). You really do have a problem believing how self-serving people have become. I refuse to believe it has always been this way. But, maybe I'm being a little naive myself.
It is possible, although not guaranteed, if you're a member of an extremely wealthy family, your father or grandfather was a Yale graduate, and your grades at Yale are in the top ten percent; you just might be invited out to lunch or supper by a fellow student. Most likely, it'll be a family affair, his family. Right before the evening draws to a close, absent of any females, you'll be asked your opinion of this creed.
Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through whatever actions needed to achieve your goals. Be prepared to pay the price for credible information that will put your adversaries on the defensive, and remember; everyone outside of the brotherhood is an enemy. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast, and one day you will build something that endures--something worthy of your beliefs and efforts. Know that you are special or you'd not be here. We take care of our own. We control destiny by inherit design.
Should you respond favorably, you have passed the first of six tests. I went to a small teachers college, so I was never asked my opinion of the creed, but I did get accepted into the Loyal Order of the Elks. You'll not believe this, if you're not a member of some kind of organization with secret handshakes and so forth, but the initiation ceremony was pretty far out and scary. As I stood there all I could think about was a film I'd watched about the KKK. My Step-father and mother were pretty high up in the Free Masons and Eastern Stars. While they never asked me to join, as according to their bylaws, I let them know I wasn't interested. I was the only one in the family who was not into robes, chants, and soliciting money for causes, some good, some not so good. Oh, I was a member of a Moose Lodge for a short while, but I doubt of any of the members remember me; they were drunk most of the time.
Nice article Walt. I love it when someone besides me belabors a point and bluntly overstates the obvious because it gives me the occasional opportunity to be brief.
As in: Consider the source. The 2 seconds it takes to do so allows you the rest of your day to use your brain for productive purposes. The KOS is a one-trick-pony when taken as a whole. Most of their in-crowd represent only the same part of that pony that the writer you talked about uses as his middle name.
Oops, I wasn't as brief as I'd hoped...but I never am.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2007-10-21 10:50:57
Thanks Jeffrey. Actually, I was hoping to encourage some of them into coming over here, opening a columnist account, and posting some of their ideas here. That's one thing that differentiates their site from this site. We encourage contributions from people who disagree, whereas they believe in milktoast uniformity of non-thought. I'm pretty sure they know about my article, so I can only conclude that they don't think their argument will hold up in a broader forum. Or else they just don't have the guts for it.
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