Topic: Libertarianism
Relight the Flame of Freedom in Denver - End WAR The scum who float to the top are congealing in the LP. Time to scoop them off.by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
(Libertarian)
Thursday, May 8, 2008
First, I want to say how it warmed my heart to read the postings that accumulated on the article by Wayne Allyn Root, or WAR, as I think of him, on Third Party Watch. It was heart warning to see comments from so many people who understand what the Libertarian Party was intended to accomplish. Even better, one of the links lead to LP Radicals, a site that actually uses the phrase, "Radical Abolitionism." That brought back a wave of nostalgia.
My great-great-grandfather, Benjamin L. Pillsbury, was a Radical Abolitionist and stopped attending his local church in Sandown, New Hampshire, because the pastor supported the 'law' on slavery and the Civil War. Neither he or his sons served in the Civil War, instead paying the fine to stay home because as radical abolitionists they did not approve of the use of war as a means for promoting Federal power. The Civil War, is more correctly called the Morell (Immoral) Tax War.
The Radical Abolitionists were pro-succession, demanding that the New England states leave the Union and so end their relationship with slave-holders. Parker Pillsbury, his cousin and a good friend of William Lloyd Garrison, frequently stayed at the homestead before and after their basement was used as a stop on the Underground Rail Road.
It is well to remember that our own generation is not the first to deal with "gradualists." Using the cause of freedom the radicals of the Abolitionist Movement also found themselves sidelined by a campaign that used their rhetoric to establish a Federal State from which we are still struggling to escape.
They tried and failed. We need to keep their example in the forefront of our minds. As Libertarians we need to remember all the ways in which we are enticed to compromise. We need to remember that until the State no longer passes laws that truncate our freedoms, until we are sovereign on our own land and govern ourselves using only persuasion and consensus at the most local level, we are still serfs.
The Libertarian Party came into existence at a time when civil disobedience was understood and respected as a tool in the war for our freedom. We need to remember those lessons.
What you do to thwart the misused power of the state is honorable whether or not it defies statute. Benjamin L. Pillsbury and his wife Sarah Jane knew that and taught the lesson to their children. I learned that from my father. When a conflict exists between statute and the foundation of values for which the Revolution was fought the honorable individual finds the courage that creates the moral example others may follow. This can cost you in many ways but that is the direction for freedom.
That shines a light for others to see.
The Libertarian Party was founded to be that point on the horizon that lights the way to the vision that is still America. After more than 30 years of constant attrition on our freedoms, thanks to predatory opportunists such as Ed Crane, Bob Poole, Koch Industries, and their moral ilk, it is time to think hard about what we have tolerated. Why are we tolerating those who would impede our forward progress by using the rhetoric of freedom for their own ends? Freedom is not about efficiency or profits, it is the power that shines into the life of each individual as they determine for themselves their own course.
For Americans to find that direction for freedom we need to show them, not just talk.
Freedom is for all of us, every one; it is an absolute.
Our most dangerous enemies are those who distort what it means to be free, who seek to use the moral power of Libertarianism for their own profit. They are the enemy within. Such a one is WAR.
In his attempts to eliminate the most consistent voice for freedom available to us as a Presidential candidate, Mary Ruwart, WAR and his cronies have attempted to discredit the vision that a free people govern themselves. They instead assert that only government can protect children. The body of evidence to the contrary is well documented. We are not perfect, any of us, but those who are most likely to ensure the well-being of children are those who love them. A free world does not guarantee that we will all do the right thing, but by empowering the individual we make the right thing far more likely to happen. Look to the children stolen by the State of Texas, look at Waco. Remember Ruby Ridge and the bleeding body of Sammy Weaver, if you doubt.
If WAR thinks his local social worker is more fit, and he may be right, he should, forthwith, send his kids to the state.
As the mother of five, all now grown, who has done advocacy work for families, I can tell him that the individuals' right to self determination must begin early. It is best learned with love and discipline and by protecting children from those who would harm them. That power should always be with those who love, not those who would convert our children into profits.
When I was raising my kids deciding to give birth at home was often seen as child abuse, according to the State. I twice did just that because I knew otherwise. Children born at home, nursed immediately, and kept close, receive benefits you cannot calculate in whatever currency WAR uses in his business.
I, for one, am tired of hearing about WAR's children. I am tired of hearing about WAR all together.
But we should be grateful for what this has revealed. It does not matter that WAR did not write a word of what appeared under his name, he still told us who he and his supporters are. I agree with David Nolan that the letter sounds like Scott Lieberman or Aaron Starr. That makes perfect sense given their track records.
The WAR campaign doubtless held intensive strategy sessions that delved into possible issues and approaches to defame Ruwart. Hiding behind words is a favored strategy..
All those attempts tried to focus attention on what they present as an unsolvable problem without government, rejecting the idea that people can solve their own problems. These are the people working to continue the conversion of the LP into a tool that enriches them through hierarchy. They are using children to mask their intentions.
Government as it is today puts children, and us, at risk. It was the problem that brought the LP into being. Freedom is my right to live my own life, charting my own course without the interference of government. That is the issue.
Today government and their corporate partners are lurching towards the logical conclusion of viewing us as their property. Using Federalism, they have stolen the wealth that generations of Americans rightly earned, transferring that wealth into their own pockets. WAR and Co. want to pick up some pennies along the way.
WAR is just the latest in a long series of wanna-be power brokers who have tried to wedge themselves into a position that allowed them to profit from the essential truth of Libertarianism by selling our rhetoric in place of the reality of freedom. At best, they are Republican, or NeoCon-lite.
While there are still real 'conservatives,' the ideological position identified by Ron Paul, Goldwater, and Taft most recently, the present leadership of the Republican Party has long been non-ideological. Instead, the GOP focuses on how to position organizations to perpetuate an agenda intended to produce profits in place of individual happiness. Most particularly, they want to deflect attention from the unbridgeable chasm that exists between their own positions and those of a real Libertarian.
WAR and Co. want you to believe that government, Federal and State, are exercising power in the way laid out by the Constitution, that what we see today is in accordance with the vision that inspired the Revolution. They say that reforms are necessary but the system is essentially sound. Only through an ignorance two centuries deep could anyone believe that. The Constitution laid out a limited role for a Federal government, reserving the right of action directly to the people. In this way WAR would lead us to a perpetual serfdom because that is where his greed leads him.
The crew who have adhered themselves to the gravy train of a WAR campaign have an agenda. That agenda makes it essential that they persuade enough delegates that serfdom is freedom and WAR is peace. Therefore they obfuscate, position, and opine. They are all long practiced at the craft of deception by misdirection and fallacious argument.
Their hope is that jobs in the WAR campaign will be followed by jobs in the LP at the national level.
In his comment posted on the WAR article Stephen Gordon said that both he and Knapp are supported by the same organization. He provides a link to United Liberty. Notice that the site endorses Bob Barr for the nomination. Not only is Barr endorsed he is the only one with a listing. Look at the About US page. You will notice that the rhetoric is so bland as to give no one anything to think about. No solutions are suggested there. Now look at the 'solutions' suggested by Americans for Prosperity .
The whole site represents a strategy that deflects attention from the real issue, freedom. It talks about 'direction' but the direction is the same old thing, government. In the list of approved sites are five that are actually American Conservative Union,Americans for Prosperity , Cato Institute , Reason Magazine , The Federalist Society arguably working on enabling the NeoCon agenda through deflection from the real issues and ignoring the role of government in destroying the power of a truly free market.
David Koch is the brother of Cato founder Charles Koch. He is on the Board at Americans for Prosperity. When George Bush went into office in 2001 nearly 400 outstanding violations against Koch Industries were extinguished. The irresponsible behavior by the largest privately owned oil company in the US included a suit resulting from burning alive two teenagers. The company engineers admitted their gas lines were not properly maintained. The Koch and Bush families were linked by marriage at Camp David in 1992.
The issue for Libertarians is simple.
That remains a return to the Constitution, rescinding all statute, reviving the Common Law Court System, and allowing the people to take governance back into their hands at the most local level. Our rights are inherent, granted not by government but by God. Augments over legislation are pointless unless rescinding all law is the agenda.
Americans are daily more aware of their vital need for freedom. Starved of it, they can no longer ignore its absence. They are looking, desperate, ready to take the power into their own hands and live freedom. That is what we saw with the Ron Paul Revolution. Never have the prospects been brighter for relighting the flame of freedom so that its truth can take us home to the America that is yet to be. Go to Denver, relight the flame and extinguish the pretensions of such as WAR.
2008, endorsed McCain and Lieberman. The next article will enlighten you to the heretofore unknown roots of Root prosperity.
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2008 Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, all rights reserved.
Published: Thursday, May 8, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, May 8, 2008
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I am surprised that republicae hasn't made a long winded comment about the Civil War.
What is sad is how much you care about the direction that a political party that has yet to win a decent number of elections to be considered as viable, is going in.
Why do this when you already know that your party is going to lose the election?
Since United Liberty lists some sites such as Reason, Cato, etc on its site it too must be apart of the "neocon agenda" - It must be true!!
Well the facts show that United Liberty was started by someone on Ron Paul's webteam, in conjunction with a Ron Paul spotlight supporter, and Ron Paul's National Homeschooling Coordinator.
Well after examining the facts, the only logical conclusion is that Ron Paul himself must be apart of the neocon agenda too.
Why do you think that there is some sort of contact validation for people who work for the Official Ron Paul Campaign? I have heard people speaking with awe about Ron's political acumen. That is sort of sad.. He is an obstetrician, for gosh sakes. Are you laboring (bad pun, ignore) under the delusion that Ron either does his own hiring or is competent in political management? Wrong. Do you think intelligence and experience are also transmitted by contact? Each of us has our strong suits and weaknesses and Ron is no different.
Most people who have been in the movement for very long, and I have been active since the early 70s, know that Ron has lousy judgment on personnel issues. Has everyone forgotten what happened with his Presidential Campaign in 1988? His campaign manager stole from the campaign and Ron declined to prosecute. As far as I know the money was not returned and it was not chump change. Ron is a very sweet guy; warm, compassionate, understanding; a real empathic and gentle man. He just can't deal with that sort of thing.
Some great people worked for him, for instance Penny Langford, but he also employed Eric Dondaro for a number of years, despite the fact that Eric was unreliable and known by everyone with contact to be dishonest. Ron hated to fire him because he knew Dondaro, then Rittberg, could not get another job. Dondaro still claims he 'founded the RLC' when it was actually Roger McBride, now deceased, who had the idea. Roger was paying Rittberg to work for him, but it was Roger's plan and Roger's capital that did the job. I had promised Roger, who was the LP candidate for President in 1976, that I would put on the RLC National Convention in 1995. Roger died early that year and the convention was in October. We had Roger's memorial service there, MCed by his old friend Manny Klausner. Manny had also been a cofounder of Reason Magazine in case you do not recognize the name.
We did a special event for Bob Poole, who is an old friend of mine. I may be a little odd in this but for me freedom trumps friendship. I call it as I see it.
Read the links to Cato and Reason. Right now, as I said in the linked article, Bob Poole, Reason Founder, is working with the Governor in Texas to advance the progress of the SPP and the Trans Texas Corridor. That involvement is active and I am naturally disappointed in him.
Ed Crane has been working diligently for NeoCons since the 70s. That is where his wealth originated.
This last year the Official Ron Paul Campaign did the job they were originally signed up to do, that was to build out the mailing list. They did not expect the Revolution to take place, naturally. Who could have imagined it? Those hired had no experience in real campaigning. Iowa's primary and vote was a disaster because of the Official Campaign. Ditto New Hampshire; Ditto again in South Carolina. Ron had delegated the hiring.
Ron is a wonderful guy, but no one would ever pick him to manage anything, he is far too trusting. Managers need to be more ruthless and pragmatic about people.
Illusions are dangerous and have no place in politics or revolution.
You talk a lot about WAR's campaign obfuscating and even misrepresenting Miss Ruwart's position on child pornography and pedophilia; but her position is that there should in fact be no criminal laws against child pornography, because there should be no criminal law at all, right? And that is your position as well; that is what you mean by "rescinding all statute" and "rescinding all law," right?
I think those points need to be clarified, because your rhetoric about "a return to the Constitution" and "what we saw with the Ron Paul Revolution" also somewhat obfuscates them. The end of abolishing all criminal law is not what is normally thought of as returning to the Constitution, and it certainly has not been something I've seen or heard coming from the RPR.
The Founders were familiar with a system that has since been displaced by the substitution of statute for Common Law. There were few legal professionals in their day.
Common law as a tool for ensuring freedom is simple and easy to use. This means it is robust, making its use by ordinary people possible without an infrastructure of professionals, judges and attorneys and the other layer of lard that so rapidly realize how easy it is to steal by obfuscation. Over the last plus 200 years they have done just that.
As the people govern themselves so should they enact justice for themselves.
Statutes create loop holes in interpretation and take the law out of the hands of the people, creating a professional class of people whose incomes are derived from selling those services, interpreting, and who therefore have every reason in the world, as a way of 'growing their business,' to create more complexity and so more profits.
Using the issue of children as a way to argue for government is despicable. Government sells children, it is part of their business plan. If you care about the well being of children then you will keep your eye on the solutions and stop bogging down in their rhetoric. Their reality is all about chopping all of us up for sale, now or later.
If you believe that 'government' can best protect your children then hand your own children over to George Bush. I am sure he has a use for them.
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2008 Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, all rights reserved.