WWW—I think curing the present electoral problems will require some sort of significant structural change in the social order.  As things stand, the rich and powerful will continue to buy elections.  Democracy simply doesn’t work where some people are thousands of times more rich and powerful than others.  However, even within the present framework of bourgeois institutions, some helpful changes might be possible:

* The Internet is apparently destroying the existing media.  Almost anyone can write almost anything on the Internet; unlike the mainstream media, it is anarchic and egalitarian.  Unless it is taken over and censored, it will change the present political culture in unpredictable ways.  One thing that can be done within the present political framework is to defend Network Neutrality.

* The present general tendency towards authoritarianism, conservatism, ignorance and sycophancy may be reversed.  Young people seem less enamored of stupidity, ignorance and passivity than their Boomer parents.  (This is an anecdotal observation, however.)  Such change would make the mainstream media less significant.  One can encourage this change.

* I think it would be a good idea for as many of us as possible to return to the notion that government is evil—a necessary evil, perhaps, but nevertheless, being imbued with coercion and inequality, an evil.  In that case we would reduce its size and there would be less of it for the rich to buy and the powerful to seize.  We would ask questions like “Do we really need this war?  Do we really need to try to run the world?  Do we need to run wars against our own people, like the Drug War?  Do we need subsidies and corporate Welfare?”  I realize this sort of thought sticks in the craw of most of those who call themselves progressives, but they don’t seem able to counter the logic, so I continue to think it would be a good idea.

* If we think something needs to be done, instead of begging Congress and its paymasters for crumbs from their table, let us organize ourselves to do it ourselves.  For instance, I think basic foods should be available to everybody, so I go out with Food Not Bombs once a week and give food away.  It’s just a symbolic gesture at this point, but it could lead to something.  Instead of begging Congress to reform the banks, let’s organize credit unions and starve the banks.  Instead of begging politicians and executives for medical care, let’s organize cooperative HMOs which belong to the people who use them.  And so on.

“You have nothing to lose but your chains.  You have a world to win,” as someone once said.

Anarcissie….

“Obviously the test will exclude those whom the media have not already legitimated. “

No, of course not.  In exchange for use of the bandwidth in the electronic spectrum that is actually owned by the American people, communications networks who use that bandwidth will be required to provide free and equal time to candidates who have been tested by whatever election processes are extant.

In my state, it requires 3500 signatures on a petition to get on the election ballot in a national election.  Primaries for state and national offices have similar petition requirements.

I don’t know exactly what the requirements are in all 50 states, but that seems like a reasonable way to level the playing field.  The current system clearly does not work to provide a government that elects people that reflect the views of their constituents.  This is why our voter turnout is so damn low and why ideas from independents and minor party candidates are LITERALLY blacked out of the mainstream media, which now includes the cable media.

What I propose as a solution is to start with media reform because it is the top expenditure in political campaigns.  An off-year election would be a good place to start.  If a candidate makes a statement about another candidate’s positions, they will have to allow the other candidate time to explain their position (or vote).

IN OTHER WORDS, this is a framework of ideas to reform election campaigns and try to come up with pragmatic solutions to problems instead of laws that invariably work for the minority of people in this country against the majority.

Do you have better ideas?  Please elucidate.

dale Headley, May 30 at 5:27 pm:
‘Rand Paul is only saying what all libertarians believe, deep down: that NOTHING trumps unfettered private free agency - not even human dignity.’

Isn’t one part of the other?  How do fetters give dignity?

William W. Wexler, May 30 at 2:13 pm:
‘Anarcissie…
“The idea of having government fund candidates and elections makes the actual government the judge of its own case, which strikes me as an invitation, almost a command, to corruption.”

No, not at all.  Public financing of campaigns could start with the most expensive item, media, and open access to the public airwaves to candidates that meet a certain test.  We already have tests to get on the ballot for primaries and elections. These would have to be reviewed and modified as necessary to prevent the 2 party system from retaining its strangle hold over the electoral process.’

Obviously the test will exclude those whom the media have not already legitimated.

Or the original version of “Rollerball.”

bill…

Your statement:
“There’s nothing inherently balanced about a government devoid of corporate interests”

Good catch.  You didn’t say “more”. However, I will.  Corporations are not actual people, regardless of how they are considered to be them.  Real people have the innate power granted by citizenship and personhood, a personhood not based on legal concepts but the fact that we eat, drink, and breathe.

Anarcissie…
“The idea of having government fund candidates and elections makes the actual government the judge of its own case, which strikes me as an invitation, almost a command, to corruption.”

No, not at all.  Public financing of campaigns could start with the most expensive item, media, and open access to the public airwaves to candidates that meet a certain test.  We already have tests to get on the ballot for primaries and elections. These would have to be reviewed and modified as necessary to prevent the 2 party system from retaining its strangle hold over the electoral process. 

I believe this is possible and also that it’s absolutely necessary to reverse the intensely distasteful, corrupt, and ant-democratic trend of corporations running the show.

John Kace…

I agree that the GOP is deathly afraid of Libertarians, which is why I took the beer bet with ardee.  I bet that before too long they will be working against Libertarians, at least the ones they can’t assimilate.

John, you seem to be pre-occupied with pussy.  I’m the type of fellow that likes to have some now and again, but I really prefer not to hear other people talk about it.  Your use of the term to describe michael and Joe Conason because they believe that Libertarians are whack jobs is inappropriate.  Real men (and women) are perfectly capable of decoding Libertarian bullshit from reality and determining that it’s about as likely as L. Ron Hubbard’s theta scanner. 

Libertarianism is obsolete. It doesn’t account for the complexities of this century.  It is as cold if not colder than Stalinism.  It would not work in this country and wouldn’t have worked for the past 2 centuries.  If Libertarians had their way this place would look more like Beyond Thunderdome than the US of A.

Just sayin’.  Nothing personal.

Wexler: The GOP is scared to death of anyone even resembling a Libertarian winning a senate seat.

michael: A Libertarian is telling you to quit mixing your whine with your preaching. Move somewhere where you dont have to lock your car or your house and you will see things different. Dont pass your insecurity onto the rest of us. Its the Pussification of America….....

Conason is a pussy and he is very obviously afraid that his manhood would not sufficiently stand alone without the Governments intervention. People like him were with the British in 1774 and 1775. Freedom requires personal responsibility. Democracy is not Freedom You stand in a crowd in a democracy. When you can stand alone you are Free.

William W. Wexler, May 29 at 12:31 pm:

‘... Money should have nothing to do with public policy. ... ‘

I really don’t see how you could prevent it in a system embodying private property, the usual liberal rights, capitalism, and representative democracy.  Money represents important social relationships and social energy, and is a primary object and concern of public policy.  You can’t prohibit people from using their money politically without making very serious and I would say injurious changes to such rights as free expression, association, assembly, privacy, and private property.

The idea of having government fund candidates and elections makes the actual government the judge of its own case, which strikes me as an invitation, almost a command, to corruption.

William -

Perhaps you disagree because you failed to read carefully.  I did not say that there was nothing MORE inherently balanced in a government not run by corporations, merely that such a government did not inherently satisfy the concerns which I had previously expressed (as you suggested it would).

bill…

I disagree with your statement that there’s nothing more inherently balanced in a government without corporate interests.  I’m talking about our government, which is based on the Constitution.  It’s not perfect by any means, but if the people we elected and appointed were free from corporate interests and therefore free to restore the power to the electorate, we would be greatly improved.

What we need to do is get the word out about money and campaigns.  Anyone who’s ever expressed any interest to a candidate or party has been inundated with requests for donations.  The pitch… if you don’t send money, someone terrible will get elected or something terrible will happen.  If you send money, you can help prevent it.

Money should have nothing to do with public policy.  It should be discussed openly by interested parties regardless of whether they have a well-oiled money machine.  That’s the problem with corporate donations.  They steal money from the working class and give it to the politicians to influence them to screw the working class.

We need some real campaign finance reform, not just some bill with that in the name.  I think if we did that, and term limits, we would fix a lot of problems.

William -

There’s nothing inherently balanced about a government devoid of corporate interests:  it can still be just as much a tyranny - just a tyranny of the majority rather than a tyranny of the powerful.

The impressive quality of our founding documents arose from their incorporation and balancing of widely divergent ideas about liberty and social responsibility.  Unless there’s continuing expression of such varying viewpoints recognition of the need for balance among them can all too easily disappear (as appears to have happened on the left with their complete dismissal of the possibility that any such balance should have been considered when drafting Title 2:  there appears to no recognition that a competing right even existed against which the newly-minted right to be served should have been weighed).

I want some representation in government even of viewpoints with which I disagree - perhaps especially if my view represents the majority view.  Because if it doesn’t exist then, it probably won’t exist when my viewpoint is in the minority and I need it most.

bill…

The best way to make a government balanced… create a public campaign finance system that includes making private or corporate money spent on a candidate’s behalf a felony with a mandatory jail sentence.  Term limits would be great, too.

Roderick…

I clicked on your link.  I used to think I have a fairly good vocabulary.  Half the words on the website I’ve never seen, read, or heard.  I do crossword puzzles, too.

I had no clue that there are people on the left who consider themselves to be Libertarians.  I thought that the Libertarian dogma is contrary to lefty ideas that I hold dear.  I am pretty sure that socialized medicine is not included in the Libertarian issues group.  How about speed limits, safety standards for products, safety in the workplace, public highways, Federal controls over banks and financial services, the EPA, FAA, etc. etc.?

I will try to crack open my Websters and decode the mystery of lefty Libs on your site.  I’m pretty sure they will never get anywhere, politically speaking. I saw an opinion piece against voting… for anyone.  This is akin to polar bears voting for global warming.

-Wexler

PS to ardee….

In order for me to win my virtual 6 pack of PBR, Rand Paul will have to become such an embarrassment to the GOP that they will have to distance themselves from him.  The polls are still fresh.  Let’s give Rand a bit more time to hang himself.  He’s already started by going on commie TV and saying he doesn’t support the 14th Amendment.  That’s just one of many things he’s done.

Paul doesn’t seem to be a very good libertarian, given his position on gay marriage as just one example (even if libertarians are indeed split on the abortion issue, though I suspect that’s debatable).  In fact, the Kentucky Libertarian party is said to be considering running someone against him.

I’m about as left as you can get without being a socialist (a real one, not the kind Obama is so ridiculously accused of being), but I’d still like to have SOME balance in government and thus approve of having some elected representatives who are willing to stand up for individual liberty (even if it might weaken - though perhaps not completely eliminate - prohibitions on reprehensible private behavior prohibited such as those addressed by Title 2 of the CRA).

Paul may not be that good an example of that breed, but some libertarians are.

I find it interesting that Kentucky, during the Civil War, contributed more troops to the Union cause than the Confederate. The Border States had far more in common with the North than they did the Plantation South. It was only after the War that Kentucky has moved ever increasingly into the Confederate mythos, i.e., the Republican Party.

@ Bolton

Sorry, my friend. It will take more than over-generalized, watered down
assertions to convince me. Take your compelling example “...people who want
to do whatever will do whatever. Laws don’t stop illegal activity…” On exactly
which fantasy world do you live? Laws deter the vast majority of would-be
illegal activity. Those who persist would not have been stopped in any case, by
any law, so in that you are correct. But to assert that laws have no impact is just
demonstrably false.

Secondly, there’s that ridiculous and pervasive and uniquely American myth
again, that of the lone, do-it-yourself, self-reliant cowboy. What garbage. The
overwhelming likelihood is that you owe almost all your prosperity to the very
infrastructure and institutions our government has constructed over the past
200+ years, and in a way that only an entitled, petulant American can, you act
as if it all sprung forth from the ether and take it for granted. This is baloney.
You will not “live or die” by your own resolve, you will live or die at the hands
of the ruthless individuals and corporations who will consolidate power in the
absence of a government to regulate them.

Finally, to be taken seriously, you really must learn to spell. “LAWBIDING” is
“Law Abiding”, “live” should be “life”, “nieve” should be “naive”

You’re on, ardee!

I have simple tastes. Pabst will be fine.

OK,Mr. Wexler, you’re on, a virtual six pack (dark beer of course) rides on the outcome. Rasmussen is generally pretty darn accurate.

Election 2010: Kentucky Senate
Kentucky Senate: Paul 59%, Conway 34%
Thursday, May 20, 2010

Rand Paul, riding the momentum of his big Republican Primary win on Tuesday, now posts a 25-point lead over Democrat Jack Conway in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race, but there’s a lot of campaigning to go.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Kentucky, taken Wednesday night, shows Paul earning 59% of the vote, while Conway picks up 34% support. Four percent (4%) percent prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided.

Paul consistently led Conway prior to winning the Republican primary, but had never earned more than 50% support. Conway has been stuck in the 30s since the first of the year. Last month, Paul posted a 47% to 38% lead over the Democrat.

Paul, an ophthalmologist and son of maverick GOP Congressman Ron Paul, defeated Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state, by a 59% to 35% margin in Tuesday’s Republican Primary. Conway, the state’s attorney general, on the other hand, just barely edged Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo 44% to 43% on Tuesday to capture the Democratic Senate nomination.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/kentucky/election_2010_kentucky_senate

In the immortal words of PTBarnum, “you will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”.

ardee…

You want to take a side bet on that race?

Rand Paul is dead meat.  The GOP will pull out the stops.  Watch.

Pffffffffft.  On Rand Paul, too, the unelectable idiot who is going to help expose Libs and the TeaBaggers for the cranks they are.

-Wexler

Err, Wex old buddy, Paul is leading in the current polls, and by a large margin

William W. Wexler, May 27 at 3:39 pm:
‘One nice thing about being Libertarian is that you never have to worry about being elected (as a Lib).  People get up and run from Libertarian ideas. ...’

If the ideas are simple-minded and generic enough, for example “get the government off our backs”, people seem to like them quite a bit.  Liking doesn’t always translate into votes, however.

The problem the libertarians have is that their party or movement is a party of ideas, and only five or ten percent of the electorate vote for ideas.  (Progs and socialists have a similar problem.)  Most people vote for some combination of tradition, association, image and payoff.  Libbits don’t have a traditional party, don’t go to enough Boy Scout meetings, don’t have $500 haircuts, and if they’re principled don’t believe in paying anyone off.  Thus the libertarian ideology is going to appeal to two or three people in a hundred at most.  It certainly isn’t going to win many elections.

“One nice thing about being Libertarian is that you never have to worry about being elected (as a Lib).  People get up and run from Libertarian ideas.”

I wonder why?

Maybe it’s because looking for a real principled Libertarian is a snipe hunt? The thing that pisses me off about most Libertarians is how they like to pose at being aloof to the political process while bitching how anti-social Libs are. Libertarians are just cranky Republicans. Scratch one and David Duke bleeds out.

By Bolton, May 27 at 9:48 am

”Libertarians are about freedom from the nanny state we live in, nothing more and nothing less.

Libertarianism is a political and economic ideology that entails a helluva lot more than just freedom from the nanny state.

By Bolton, May 27 at 9:48 am

”You are nieve if you believe laws about guns, pollution, drugs or anything else actually prevent abuses or crimes. People who want guns will get guns, people who want drugs, will get drugs, people who want to do whatever, will do whatever. Laws don’t stop illegal activity, they only take away the rights of LAWBIDING citizens. As a matter of fact, most laws that prevent or prohibit things only drive the blackmarket value of those thngs higher, thus creating more profits and incentives for blackmarket dealers.”

The evidence points to just the opposite; laws will never prevent abuses and crimes because there are criminal elements in Homo sapien societies but laws and enforcers of laws do deter crime and abuse.

On October 17th, 1969 the Montreal police went on strike. By the end of the day—in that god fearing, country loving, peaceful city—6 banks were robbed, a hundred shops were looted, 12 fires, 40 carloads of storefront glass had been destroyed and 3 million dollars in damage. The government had to bring in the Mounties and the Army to restore order. (see Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate”)

Libertarians too easily forget who and what were are… apes! And DROs can be subverted just like any other entity.

The correlation of higher black market prices is correct. A perfect example today would be State control of all—especially the dollar—foreign currency in Venezuela. The cost of the dollar—because of State control—on the black market is astronomical and buying and selling of foreign currency on the black market now carries a severe 7 year sentence in a shithole penitentiary. Extremes, regardless of what they are, seldom, if ever, serve the public good. 

By Bolton, May 27 at 9:48 am

”The laws and rules the government makes create more problems than they fix, therefore less government equals less problems.”

That’s a puerile generalization that has absolutely no merit. It’s ridiculous.

By Bolton, May 27 at 9:48 am

” It won’t be perfect, but at least we would be more free. There will never be a perfect society, but i would rather be free than controlled, and live or die by my own resolve.”

Free to do what; guard your life and goods all day? You’ve just said that no society is perfect. First you fail to realize that not all people hold to the same definition of what freedom means. Second, there is always a point where the good of our society has to take precedent over the freedom of an individual. It’s all about surviving as a society, a family and an individual.

I’m not arguing that we do not need to reduce the size of this government, we do. But libertarianism doesn’t have all the answers any more than republicanism, liberalism, conservatism, or any other “ism.”  Representative republicanism is best served locally. This nation is too big. The Senate is useless and—IMO—should be eliminated. We need a more parliamentary type of government with many more representatives—each with much smaller districts—so that a larger cross-section of the public can have a participatory voice in the government and the imperial executive needs to return to the administrative function that it was originally designed to be.

One nice thing about being Libertarian is that you never have to worry about being elected (as a Lib).  People get up and run from Libertarian ideas.  Even the TeaBaggers, who, as it was pointed out earlier, began as Ron Paul Libs who got co-opted by corporate thugs from the GOP, even THEY know that Libertarianism is not workable.

All Rand Paul has to do to lose the election is to honestly articulate more of the same Lib crapola.  Conason says exactly what I’ve said about Libs ever since I got into my first argument with one.  What they are proposing is something that MIGHT have been appropriate a couple of centuries back.

That was then, this is now.  We have evolved into an interdependent group of people.  We need each other, and the thing that pisses me off the most about Libs is how utterly anti-social they are.  They don’t seem to give a damn about their fellow countrymen.  If one of these people would let a family lose their house over medical bills, I don’t want to be standing next to them at a barricade trading fire with an invading force.  Why?  Because they are anti-social animals who would shoot me if they thought it would save them.

I’ve been posting over at the OathKeepers site.  They have a thread going about the “Ten orders we will not follow”.  What a load of horseshit.  They don’t know it, and they won’t admit it, but it has nothing to do with Libertarian concern about being ordered to wreak havoc on American citizens.  It’s ALL about the darkie in the White House.  They’re a passel of whacked conspiracy theorists who “want their country back.”

Pffffffffft.  On Rand Paul, too, the unelectable idiot who is going to help expose Libs and the TeaBaggers for the cranks they are.

-Wexler

LOL PEETAWONKUS: and Methodists are Baptists who can read. Good insight!! TY ANARCISSIE:—can you list a few more questions you feel are important? I know nothing about Rand Paul. My gut says he’s just another corporate frankencreature like the Tea Party.

    Laws are good things, but BOLTON and others are correct that they don’t stop thugs and they often do create blackmarkets, which work against us. Good enforcement of minimal law is the solution. Too often there is no public outcry for excessive law, only political spin by venal politicos who use it as a smokescreen to cover their true agenda. Badges? We got too many badges now. We need some politicians with vision who can lead. (Oh yeah and thanks N-G.)

    I enjoy most of the articles and posts here(ego’s aside). It’s hard to get clarity about anything through MSM. No matter what else is in play our votes changed the landscape in the last two major elections. We ARE NOT powerless. The problem is corporate manufacture of candidates. Don’t let the deal go down!!

Hmmm - “...the kind of state suited to the 18th century would serve America just as well today?”  Although 3 centuries later, radical Islam (think Taliban, alQaeda) believes that the kind of state suited to the 15th century would serve the Middle East just as well today.

We profess shock and horror at the regressive agenda of the latter.  Tell me the difference between the two agendas and I’ll join you in shock and horror at the regressive agenda of the latter.

Just remember that the Tea Baggers started out as Ron Paul supporters which has devolved into corporate ownership and shill making front for them. Since the core of them are a concentrated version of the Republican party. Mostly Christian, white collar, college educated making above $50,000 a year, white, mostly male and over 45. That would be the majority of what the kind of populace they would want for their Christian-Corporate state. Run by Madison Ave. and Wall St. with heavy backing from the NRO, NSA and mercinary soldiers.

Ironically the Pauls differ little from their fellows. They just want to end the one way gravy train of our tax money to support the mega-corporations when they fail. Not much of a difference is it?

They say they want to end the Sex War, Drug War and War which I agree with. I also like the idea of us being able to carry whatever weapon we need to protect ourselves and others. But we need an infrastructure on that like we have with sports. Education is better than fear and ignorance. If the bad people want weapons they will get them. We need to have them too. But we first must legalize all drugs and sex between consenting adults first.

I would like to know how the worker is located in the business they are in? Do they have a say? Can they organize a union?

Every road is a toll road, you can carry whatever weapon you want, not just guns (that I like) it tends to produce a more cordial society where bullies aren’t the baddest because they are bigger. All we have to do is look at the Eastern block where there was no OSHA, EPA or taxes on business because the oligarchs of the USSR and the like. The only difference was that only the Polita Bureau owned it all not independent owners as they would want. However the end product would be the same.

Bolton, May 27 at 9:48 am:

‘Joe, i think your view is a little one sided and extreme. ...’

Conason is a Democratic Party shill who confines himself to writing propaganda.  You are not going to find out much about Rand Paul or libertarianism from him.  And he’s not going to ask the questions that need to be asked because they would embarrass his own party, such as finding out whether Paul is really against war, imperialism, and the national surveillance state, unlike most Republicans (and Democrats).  And what about labor issues, like “Right-to-Work” laws?  A proper libertarian would hold them to be unconstitutional.  His anti-abortionism needs to be exposed and criticized.  But Conason and other professional proggie chatterers will probably continue to focus on his heretical failure to believe in a large, expensive, authoritarian government instead.

As Thom Hartmann has said, Libertarians are Republicans who want to smoke dope and get laid. To that I would add: and not go to church. Scratch any Libertarian and you find one example of Exceptionalism after another. “Oh, yes, I’m opposed to any restriction on Freedom—except those things I disagree with. Then we need the Federal Government to enforce MY world view.” Liberatarianism isn’t an ideology. It’s a gateway drug to right-wing loonyism.

Having racist sentiments is what causes a person to be a racist, that being true the vast majority of people are racists. The idea by Rand Paul that racists should be given the freedom to exercise their sentiments is against the wishes of our founding fathers. It would be like giving a tiger permission to eat human meat.  The ball is in the court of the justice department, they must hunt down and prosecute practicing racists. and let racist sentiments remain safely locked in the mind of the racist.

Joe, i think your view is a little one sided and extreme. Libertarians are about freedom from the nanny state we live in, nothing more and nothing less. You are nieve if you believe laws about guns, pollution, drugs or anything else actually prevent abuses or crimes. People who want guns will get guns, people who want drugs, will get drugs, people who want to do whatever, will do whatever. Laws don’t stop illegal activity, they only take away the rights of LAWBIDING citizens. So good people get hurt, lose their freedoms, and everyone else continues thier business as usual. As a matter of fact, most laws that prevent or prohibit things only drive the blackmarket value of those thngs higher, thus creating more profits and incentives for blackmarket dealers. Libertarians believe that the individual would be better at protecting himself and managing his own live than anything the government can do. The laws and rules the government makes create more problems than they fix, therefore less government equals less problems. It won’t be perfect, but at least we would be more free. There will never be a perfect society, but i would rather be free than controlled, and live or die by my own resolve.

I wonder, in this climate of extreme political polarization, a seeming reluctance of the electorate towards critical in depth thinking, and the enervating weakness of the Democratic Party, if Republicans really and truly would hesitate to vote for an empty suit like Rand Paul…...