An interesting phone call.

I received a phone call from the Bob Barr campaign today. And I was ready for the hard sell. Whenever any organization calls you, they want money, and they're trained to go for it. Until the second you hang up on them, they are going to keep hounding you. Probably politely, but still hounding.

I remember right after Hurricane Katrina. I had lost my job, was homeless, and believed that I had lost every possession that I'd ever owned. I got a phone call from a local fire department raising money for widows (a noble cause, no doubt). I explained that I'd lost everything, and had no job. So they assured me I could still afford at least a 25$ donation.

I was raised to not be rude, but there is no helping it with phone solicitors. In fact, that's why I don't have a landline. I was ready to get rid of it years ago, until they came up with the "no-call" list. "A-ha!" I said to myself. (I said it quietly) "This should solve that problem!"

And it did for awhile. But they exempted charities, for some unknown reason. And apparently polling firms, too. So when it got to the point where I was receiving 5 to 7 phone calls a day from charities and ridiculously biased polls, I had my phone line taken out. Problem solved.

Then I joined the NRA. I donated a couple of times, small amounts. I'm not rich. I gave them my cell number, cause the online form wouldn't proceed without it. I got one phone call from them asking for money. Before the poor girl could get very far into her sales pitch, I explained that I did not like phone calls, I contribute as much as I can whenever I feel like it, and that the next phone call I got from them would result in my dropping my membership and never contributing another penny. I never got another call from them. I'm still a member.

Anyway, so I got this phone call today from the Bob Barr campaign. Yes, they wanted to know if I could donate. I explained that I already had donated what I could. If my financial situation changed, I'd donate more. That was the end of the money spiel. She asked whether I'd visited the website (obviously, I have). We talked about the campaign, the progress it had made, and different libertarian beliefs. Then she bid me goodbye, and I wished her the best of luck in raising more money. Perhaps a three to five minute call, with no pressure at any time.

What a pleasant conversation. It really made me want to donate more. Here are people who understand that I'm not a sheep in need of herding. I'm not a child in need of discipline.

In the short run, this may be one reason why they're not competing financially with the Obama/McCain fundraising juggernauts. But in the long run? I'm seeing more and more viability.

The Libertarian Party is getting its shit together, after 30-odd years of fringe politics and a reputation for lunacy. Damn, but doesn't that make this a good day?

Jester

Go ahead, waste your vote!

I mean it, go ahead and waste your vote. Chances are that if you vote, you're about to completely throw it away.

Now, I don't mean this in my usual sense of "do the same thing over and over again and hope for a different result this time," or wondering why you think either major party is going to have candidates that do a bit of what they promise.

No, I mean this in a more pragmatic sense. Most of you live in states that are heavily favored one way or the other. Very few people (comparatively speaking) live in states that are "swing states," or ones where the public is not going to vote for one candidate by wide margins, due to the party bias of the majority there.

What does this mean to you? Say you live in Texas, and the year is 2000. The state is going to vote for George Bush. He will win the state, and therefore win the Electoral College votes for that state. End of story. If you vote for George Bush, you are throwing away your vote (unless you support him so overwhelmingly that you want that margin to be even higher). If you vote for Al Gore, you are throwing away your vote (unless you support him so overwhelmingly you just want that margin to be slimmer). But if you are like the majority of people, voting what you consider "the lesser of two evils" just to avoid the candidate you think is going to ruin the country... You're just throwing your vote away.

However, if you vote for a different party, you are making a protest. You are using your vote to say "I will not play this game so long as it remains rigged." You are saying "I will not support a false dichotomy which gives me no real choice." And if enough people realize this, then two things are likely to happen.

1) A lot more states will become "swing states," with voters actually getting more power
and
2) As third parties get higher percentages of the vote, the two major parties might be forced to actually listen to their constituents, as they realize their monopoly on power is slipping.

Two other possibilities that are less likely, but still entertaining,
1) People wake up to the idiocy unworkable nature of the two-party system, and we get a multi-party system that can actually restrain the rampant acceleration of government power
or
2) The government admits that everything is scripted, and just like professional wrestling, everybody enjoys the show a lot more when nobody is pretending it's real.

Anyway, due to the electoral college, you're most likely going to waste your vote. So think about that, before you try to convince me I'm wasting mine!

Jester

If not now, when?

Many of you are not libertarians.

Many of you are not political.

Many of you don't believe that we're headed for a crisis.

Many of you are going to vote for Obama or McCain, because anything else is a "wasted vote."

Still, watch this video. Even if you don't support Bob Barr, think about what this is really saying.

A Handout for Statists: by Stefan Molyneux

Note: this is not by me, it's by Stefan Molyneux. But upon reading it, I felt it should be posted as often as possible, as many sites as possible.

A Handout for Statists

"In the interests of efficiency, I have decided to distill every argument I have ever had with your average statist, so that I can hand it out to those who argue that government is voluntary, if I don’t like it I can leave, taxation is not violence, etc.

I thought this might also be of use to you, because life is short.

Me: Tell me, do you think that violence is wrong?

Statist: Yes, violence is wrong – except in self-defense.

Me: Agreed, except in self-defense. So tell me, how do you think that problems should be solved, if we should not use violence?

Statist: Well, I think that people should become more active in government, and that governments should do ABC, X, Y and Z.

Me: But how do you reconcile your objection to violence with your support of government programs, since government programs are paid for through taxation, which is coercive?

Statist: Huh? What are you talking about? Taxation is not coercive.

Me: Taxation is coercive, since if you do not pay your taxes, you are kidnapped at gunpoint and thrown in jail – where if you try to escape, you are shot.

Statist: But this is a democracy, where we choose our own governments.

Me: Being offered a choice between two violent alternatives is not the same as being free to choose. If a store owner gets to choose which Mafia gang he pays “protection” money to, can it be really argued that he is making a “free” choice? If a woman can choose between two potential husbands – but will be forced to marry one of them – can she said to be really “choosing” marriage? People can only freely choose governments, if they have the choice not to choose governments.

Statist: Well there is a “social contract,” that binds people to their governments.

Me: There is no such thing as a “social contract.” Unless they have been granted power of attorney, people cannot justly sign contracts on behalf of others. If one man has the power to unilaterally impose his will on another and call it a “contract,” then logically a man can steal from a woman and call it “charity.”

Statist: But I accept the social contract – and so do you if you drive on the roads.

Me: First of all, your choice to honour a contract does not give you the right to force me to honour it. You can choose to buy a house, but you cannot justly force me to pay for it. If you forge my signature, I am not bound to honour the contract – and I have never agreed to a “social contract” of any kind. Secondly, it is true that I use government services, but that is irrelevant to the central moral question of coercion. If a slave accepts a meal from his master, is he condoning slavery?

Statist: I suppose not. But still, you implicitly accept the social contract by continuing to live in a country, as Socrates argued.

Me: Can I justly create a “social contract” that allows me to rob anyone who lives in my neighborhood – and say that if people continue to live in “my” neighborhood, they are expressly consenting to my new social contract?

Statist: Well, no, but we are talking about governments, not individuals . . . .

Me: Is the government not composed of individuals? Is “the government” not just a label for a group of individuals who claim the moral right to initiate force against others – a right they define as evil for those they use violence against? If you take away all the individuals who compose “the government,” do you still have a government?

Statist: I suppose not. But that is beside the point – you say that taxation is coercive, but I have paid taxes my entire life, and I have never had a gun pointed at my head.

Me: Sure, and a prisoner is not shot if he does not try to escape. If a slave conforms to his master’s wishes because of the threat of violence, the situation is utterly immoral. Does the Mafia have to actually burn your shop down for the threat to be violent?

Statist: No – however, I do not accept the premise that the government uses force to extract taxation from citizens.

Me: All right - is there anything that the government does that you disagree with? Do you agree, for instance, with the invasion of Iraq ? [Keep asking until you find some program the statist finds abhorrent.]

Statist: Now, I think that the invasion of Iraq was morally wrong.

Me: Why?

Statist: Because Iraq had done nothing to threaten the US .

Me: Right, so it is an initiation of force, not self-defense. Now – you do realize that the war in Iraq is only possible because you pay your taxes.

Statist: To some degree, of course.

Me: If the war in Iraq is morally wrong, but it is only possible because you pay your taxes – and your taxes are not extracted from you through force – then you are voluntarily funding and enabling that which you call evil. Can you explain that to me?

Statist: I pay my taxes because I’m a citizen of this country. If I disagree with the war, then I should run for office and try to stop it.

Me: All right, if you were against child abuse, would you voluntarily fund a group dedicated to abusing children?

Statist: Of course not!

Me: And if you did claim to be against child abuse, and you voluntarily funded a group dedicated to abusing children, and I said that you should stop doing that, and you replied that you would not – but that if someone did oppose this abusive group, they should try to infiltrate this group, take control of it, and somehow stop it from abusing children, would that make any sense at all?

Statist: I guess not.

Me: If you were against the war in Iraq , but volunteered for it – and agreed to fight without a salary, and spent your own money to cover all your expenses, do you understand that your position would be utterly incomprehensible? You would claim to be against something – and then expend enormous amounts of time, effort, money and resources supporting it?

Statist: Yes, that would make little sense.

Me: Thus do you see that your position that the war in Iraq is a moral evil, but that you are voluntarily funding it through your taxes, makes no sense at all? If the war in Iraq is a moral evil, but is only enabled through your voluntary funding, then continuing to fund it is to openly admit that it is not a moral evil. If you are forced to fund the war in Iraq , you can maintain that it is a moral evil, because it is the initiation of the use of force. However, the taxation that is also the initiation of the use of force against you must also be a moral evil, because you are forced to fund the initiation of force against others. Thus either taxation is coercion, or you are the worst form of moral hypocrite, by voluntarily supporting that which you call evil. Does that make sense?

Statist: I can certainly see that position.

Me: Can you find any logical flaws in my position?

Statist: No, but I still think that you are wrong.

Me: Well, I’m certainly glad that you are reading this article, rather than debating me directly, because as I said at the beginning, life is far too short to waste time arguing with fools."

To all you Patriots; DON'T VOTE!

Okay, my headline is perhaps a bit misleading. Voting is important, and a great deal of what should be deciding the direction of this country. But here's my issue; most people believe it their patriotic duty to vote, regardless of their knowledge of politics, of history, of economics, even of what issues are at stake.

I've said it before, but let me say it again. Voting does NOT equal freedom. The right to vote does NOT mean you live in a free country. In most dictatorships, the citizens are given the right to vote; the ruling party merely decides ahead of time who you will be allowed to vote for. Anyone with a touch of cynicism will have a hard time finding that different from our current system. Anyone without a touch of cynicism is either inhaling some really exotic drugs, or not yet old enough to write their name in cursive letters.

The right to vote does NOT in any shape, form, or fashion mean that you are free. Contrary to what you have been told (or are likely to tell me), in the history of this country, very few people died to give you the right to vote. Many thousands died to give you freedom, a freedom most people are actively throwing away with every ballot cast. You CAN vote for freedom. But most people do not. Most don't even know how. (I'll give you a hint - it's not by voting for the candidate who promises you the most free stuff, or even for this guy, though at least he's honest)

Most people have a decided lack of interest in politics. I more than understand this; I sympathize, perhaps even admire this. I can't break away, myself. But at times, I sure wish I could. But yet these same people believe they have a patriotic obligation to vote. In essence, they are actively participating in a system they neither understand nor wish to be engaged in.

Voting is not an inalienable right, nor was it ever intended to be. But we have pushed ever harder for universal suffrage as a means to promote... Something or other. Fairness, I guess. But competence is more fundamental to true progress than this false sense of equality. You wouldn't say the best way to solve the medical crisis would be to declare everybody a doctor, would you? Admittedly, it would make prescriptions really fun. In medicine, you want a certain level of competence. And yet, isn't deciding the fate of a country as important as being a doctor?

Most people base their vote on feelings, party lines, and the oratory of the candidates. This is about as effective as betting on BasketBall Teams based on who has the best smiles in the starting line-up.

I think rather than making it easier to vote, we ought to make it much, much harder. Yes, this would mean far fewer votes would be cast. But it would also mean only the competent people who actually care would be making these decisions. Open to anyone, but you have to pass the following tests:

1. Speak English - I hate the English language, but it is the primary language of this country, and should remain so. If you can't read it, learn to.
2. Know basic economic principles - if you've never studied Austrian Economics, you might be suckered in by the governmental sleight-of-hand approach increasingly used for the last seventy years or so. And chances are you were taught the Keynesian Bullshit in college.
3. Know the voting record of every candidate you vote for. Don't know what Barack Obama voted for? (hint - he voted to fund the Iraq war every time it came up) That should be a problem. If the candidate is an incumbent, it should have say, 10 major votes that he/she cast in the last term. If you get 8 of 10 right, your vote for him/her counts. Otherwise, you're effectively voting in the best haircut, which is not really the best method. Well, not always.
4. Have read the Constitution. If you don't know what's in it, and what is most certainly not, then you have no real basis for knowing whether the president is doing his job (he's not), or whether congress is doing their jobs (they're not), or whether the government has grown beyond its intended scope (think Rosie O'Donnell in a size 2 dress).
5. Know some basic history. If you don't know shit about the Roman Empire (watching "Gladiator" doesn't count!), if you can't name any founding fathers not appearing on our currency, if you don't know why we fought the civil war (not about slavery), why we got into WWI and WWII, why Korea and Vietnam and Iraq I and II were unconstitutional, if you don't know what the Federal Reserve is or does... You really should be looking these things up before you vote.

Is this really too much to ask? I know, most of you will say it is. Relax. I'm not in charge. And if I were, I would totally go with a dictatorship anyway. Rather than appeal to intelligence, decency, and freedom, I'd probably have a different platform, largely based on eliminating Reality TV.