Just thought I'd go ahead and get ahead of the MSM curve there, since I'll be out next Tuesday evening.
When a Democratic presidential candidate schedules an event in Springfield, Missouri the weekend before the election and brings his wife in to do it with him instead of keeping her on the trail elsewhere, there's only one reasonable conclusion: He's got this thing nailed down solid, and now he's going for "mandate" numbers in the Electoral College.
I grew up not too far northeast of Springfield, and my understanding is that my uncle (and my second cousin -- we share a border with Arkansas, see?)1 was the first Democrat to be elected to county commission in our county (Laclede) since before the War Between the States (that was back in the late 70s or early 80s -- he only lasted one term). Occasionally a Democratic candidate for public office will take Springfield itself, but it's just a dot in the red sea of southern Missouri.
If Obama thinks he can pick up Missouri by campaigning in Roy Blunt's back yard, he's either stupid or he knows to a dead certainty that he's got the election in the bag. And Obama's not stupid.
If McCain manages to turn out the Diebold vote or something, maybe a printout of this blog will be in the running for use in the obligatory Harry Truman re-enactment. But I just don't see that happening. Missouri and North Carolina as tossups are hard evidence that the GOP is royally screwed for next Tuesday.
-----
1. It's not as kinky as it sounds. My dad's cousin married my mom's sister, so it's not like I'm my own grandpa or anything.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Some thoughts on the Boston Tea Party
As the founder and 2008 national vice-presidential nominee of the Boston Tea Party, that party is naturally on my mind a lot, especially as it wraps up its second biennial national convention and nears its first presidential election. And, also naturally, I find myself saying various things about it to various people (including, as of a few minutes ago, a reporter for the Associated Press).
Some of the points I'm trying to make keep coming up, so they seem worth writing down in one place ... like maybe here.
When I founded the BTP, I held out hope that it would, sooner or later, merge back into the Libertarian Party as an internal caucus. That's obviously not going to happen. With the nomination of its own presidential slate and the placement of that slate on several state ballots, our split from the LP at the national organizational level is complete. The split also proceeds apace at the state level as we recognize new affiliates which are likely to seek their own ballot access in 2010 and beyond.
Where that split is concerned, I once viewed it with trepidation, but that view has now changed to one of hope. The LP had a 36-year virtual monopoly and head start on cornering the libertarian political niche in America -- yet the BTP appears to be doing better coming into that competitive niche for the first time than the LP did when the niche was effectively uncontested.
We have more members than the LP did as of its first presidential election. We're on the ballot in more states than the LP was as of its first presidential election. I expect that our presidential slate will outpoll the LP's first presidential slate.
The LP appears to be unable to expand the American libertarian political niche against its major party opposition, or to defend its monopoly on that niche versus newcomers.
Enter Darwin. Personally, I expect that the next major stage of the Boston Tea Party's growth will include several state Libertarian Parties disaffiliating from the Libertarian National Committee and re-affiliating under the BTP umbrella.
The obvious cause to point to for the current situation -- up-and-coming BTP, LP teetering on the edge of the dustbin of history -- is the descent of the LP as a national organization into cargo-cultism. The nomination of the 2008 Libertarian Party Barr-Root ticket represented a final triumph of image over substance, and now we're watching that image crumble to dust under the wind of apathy. Image can't survive or thrive on its own. Without substance, it is dead.
Beyond the obvious, however, the BTP has its own reasons for optimism. We are a "principled populist" party, not just in rhetoric but in action. Just as we oppose the rule of "power elites" (in libertarian class theory, the political class) in the world at large, we deny those elites the ability to run our own party.
We are an activist-powered party -- our national committee is constrained by our bylaws from becoming a money sink, and therefore from becoming a central planning board. If something gets done, it's because our members want it to be done and go out and do it. Ernie Hancock, your new party is calling -- your approach failed in the LP because the Politburo/Commissar structure had already taken firm root before you tried so valiantly to shatter it.
We are a genuine mass-participation party. If you want to be involved, you don't have to travel hundreds of miles, shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars, and miss a week of work every time there's a convention. You don't have to send a representative and hope that representative actually represents you. If you're a member of our party, you can take part in its business activities via any Internet connection.
Finally, we're a consistently "smaller-government" party. Our platform isn't going to be cut by 3/4th at one convention and completely re-built at the next like the LP's has. It's perpetual and unmodifiable:
"The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose."
Until and unless the state is completely eliminated, we will always be the party agitating to make it smaller tomorrow than it is today. That's the standard the national LP is going to have to meet if it wants to recapture its place of primacy in the freedom movement ... and I no longer believe that it can, or will, or even wants to, meet that standard.
I realize that many fellow libertarians whom I know and respect will continue to cling to the LP for some time ... and that's okay. I continue to work in my state LP and plan to do so for at least awhile longer. Breaking up is hard to do. I urge those libertarians remaining in the LP to think of the BTP as an ally, not an enemy. Our existence is an incentive to the LP to become better at what it does, and to think harder about what it wants to do. If it responds negatively to that incentive (as I believe it will continue to do), at least it no longer holds the claim over your head that "you have no place else to go." Because now you do.
[Cross-posted at the Boston Tea Party web site and Last Free Voice]
Some of the points I'm trying to make keep coming up, so they seem worth writing down in one place ... like maybe here.
When I founded the BTP, I held out hope that it would, sooner or later, merge back into the Libertarian Party as an internal caucus. That's obviously not going to happen. With the nomination of its own presidential slate and the placement of that slate on several state ballots, our split from the LP at the national organizational level is complete. The split also proceeds apace at the state level as we recognize new affiliates which are likely to seek their own ballot access in 2010 and beyond.
Where that split is concerned, I once viewed it with trepidation, but that view has now changed to one of hope. The LP had a 36-year virtual monopoly and head start on cornering the libertarian political niche in America -- yet the BTP appears to be doing better coming into that competitive niche for the first time than the LP did when the niche was effectively uncontested.
We have more members than the LP did as of its first presidential election. We're on the ballot in more states than the LP was as of its first presidential election. I expect that our presidential slate will outpoll the LP's first presidential slate.
The LP appears to be unable to expand the American libertarian political niche against its major party opposition, or to defend its monopoly on that niche versus newcomers.
Enter Darwin. Personally, I expect that the next major stage of the Boston Tea Party's growth will include several state Libertarian Parties disaffiliating from the Libertarian National Committee and re-affiliating under the BTP umbrella.
The obvious cause to point to for the current situation -- up-and-coming BTP, LP teetering on the edge of the dustbin of history -- is the descent of the LP as a national organization into cargo-cultism. The nomination of the 2008 Libertarian Party Barr-Root ticket represented a final triumph of image over substance, and now we're watching that image crumble to dust under the wind of apathy. Image can't survive or thrive on its own. Without substance, it is dead.
Beyond the obvious, however, the BTP has its own reasons for optimism. We are a "principled populist" party, not just in rhetoric but in action. Just as we oppose the rule of "power elites" (in libertarian class theory, the political class) in the world at large, we deny those elites the ability to run our own party.
We are an activist-powered party -- our national committee is constrained by our bylaws from becoming a money sink, and therefore from becoming a central planning board. If something gets done, it's because our members want it to be done and go out and do it. Ernie Hancock, your new party is calling -- your approach failed in the LP because the Politburo/Commissar structure had already taken firm root before you tried so valiantly to shatter it.
We are a genuine mass-participation party. If you want to be involved, you don't have to travel hundreds of miles, shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars, and miss a week of work every time there's a convention. You don't have to send a representative and hope that representative actually represents you. If you're a member of our party, you can take part in its business activities via any Internet connection.
Finally, we're a consistently "smaller-government" party. Our platform isn't going to be cut by 3/4th at one convention and completely re-built at the next like the LP's has. It's perpetual and unmodifiable:
"The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose."
Until and unless the state is completely eliminated, we will always be the party agitating to make it smaller tomorrow than it is today. That's the standard the national LP is going to have to meet if it wants to recapture its place of primacy in the freedom movement ... and I no longer believe that it can, or will, or even wants to, meet that standard.
I realize that many fellow libertarians whom I know and respect will continue to cling to the LP for some time ... and that's okay. I continue to work in my state LP and plan to do so for at least awhile longer. Breaking up is hard to do. I urge those libertarians remaining in the LP to think of the BTP as an ally, not an enemy. Our existence is an incentive to the LP to become better at what it does, and to think harder about what it wants to do. If it responds negatively to that incentive (as I believe it will continue to do), at least it no longer holds the claim over your head that "you have no place else to go." Because now you do.
[Cross-posted at the Boston Tea Party web site and Last Free Voice]
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A note to the Belleville, Illinois city council
Dear Belleville City Council,
Is there anything on this planet -- any aspect of the lives of those who elected you -- that you people recognize as not in dire need of your gunpoint-enforced ministrations?
Never mind. I didn't think so.
Recommendations, short version: Extract crania from recta. Please. That's gotta hurt. It may not hurt you, but it's sure as hell hurting your city.
Recommendations, longer notes:
- Who gets to define "special needs child" for purposes of trick-or-treating? If they're trick-or-treating, they're not at school, so forget IEPs. Will Belleville be setting up a special board to determine whether or not each individual Little Johnny or Jenny is sufficiently cognitively differently abled to qualify?
- What idiot told you that the age of someone who might decide to knock on a neighbor's door and ask for candy on any given night, or the time at which he or she might elect to do so (provided it does not disturb the peace, which I bet you already have laws to address) is any of your business? And why did you believe that idiot?
- I have to surmise, at first glance, that that same idiot is the one who told you that whether or not people suspected of no crime might choose to wear masks is also your -- or "law enforcement's" -- business. I'm tempted to pop over to Belleville for Guy Fawkes Day to contest that proposition.
- There's a reason they're called "ex-convicts." It means they've served their sentences and that at present there's no probable cause to suspect they are involved in criminal acts -- because if there was probable cause, they'd be in jail awaiting arraignment, or out on bail under restrictions imposed on a case by case basis by a judge, right?
- Mayor Eckert: If you feel that you need to go the extra mile to protect the children, knock yourself out. Better yet, try going 6,600 miles -- your approach to governance seems better suited to Pyongyang than to Belleville.
- Since when did "scared" become a legitimate excuse for making up silly rules? If someone's five-year-old reports to the city council that he's scared of monsters under his bed, will you ... whoa, I'm going to stop right there before you have a chance to get all hopped up for a long ordinance-writing session.
I mean ... Jebus ... don't you people have anything better to do?
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