Bob Barr for President?!

The following article is collaboration from Roark and Madison. We wanted to explore the positives and negatives about voting for the Libertarian candidate for President, Bob Barr. Roark wrote the ‘pro’s’, while Madison wrote the ‘cons’. Is Bob Barr a wasted vote, or a good message to send?

Pro

Bob Barr will not win the presidency. There I said it, let's move on.

Now, for this vote-wasting nonsense.

Ron Paul's run for the Republican candidacy has pushed liberty into the mind of the nation, regardless of the fact that it was too stupid to nominate him.

With liberty on the minds of Americans the two most important issues in the coming election seem to be the Economy and Foreign Policy (basically the Iraq 'war').

Since neither McCain nor Obama have correct positions on either of these, many people have complained about the upcoming 'clothespin election.'

Six percent of the nation, however, has chosen to go with the Libertarian party.

Up until now the most votes ever won by a Libertarian candidate is 473,000, by Edward Clark in 1996.

The Barr/Root campaign has almost quadrupled that with 18 million. If they can get that up to 10% in three national polls Barr will have to be included in the national debates.

Watching Barr tear apart Obama's socialist economic policies and McCain's ignorant foreign policy has the potential to be the best thing on TV this fall.

Paul's internet campaign has shown Americans the prospect of a society free from big government. If Barr can attain 10% of the polls and show America what it's missing with these two clowns, there is the potential for the Libertarian party to start to make huge waves.

I doubt a Libertarian Party candidate will win the presidency anytime within the next century, but the more popular the philosophy becomes the more likely Libertarians are to win local and state elections.

Eventually, congressman whose main concern is that of liberty will get elected and each year there will be a libertarian Republican in the primary.

For this to happen freedom-loving Americans must vote for Bob Barr. I am aware of two conflicts with this sentiment, they are:

· Bob Barr isn't exactly the ideal candidate, he's got some negatives

· If people vote for Barr they are theoretically taking away votes from McCain, which will elect the socialist Barack Obama

Here's my take on these two:

· I am aware of the negatives, which are covered in full below, Barr is supposedly behind Hillary's Vast Right-Wing conspiracy and even wrote a book, The Meaning of Is, about Clinton and why he should have been impeached. Finally, looking at the issues Barr shares the same position with most Libertarians on just about everything. Finally, there's no way he's getting elected so I think voters would be better off showing they won't vote for a fool like McCain than worrying about the Global Warming position that McCain shares.

· As for Obama I believe there are a legitimate amount of voters who will vote for him on the fact he is anti-war, alone. Those voters going Libertarian could have the same impact on him as the Free-Marketers would have on McCain. And if he gets elected it would not be the end of the world. It took Jimmy Carter to get Reagan elected and with congress acting as incompetently as it is I don't see him passing anything more extreme than what (Bill) Clinton got in.

Con

For my web partner and me, consideration for Libertarian candidate for president says more about the Republican nominee than the Libertarian nominee. Every four years a lot of liberty-minded Republicans go through three possibilities on what to do on the first Tuesday of November:

1. Stay home and not vote. I’ve never done this. There’s more on the ballot then the Presidential race.

2. Hold your nose and vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’. This, unfortunately everybody’s done more times then they like to admit.

3. Vote for a third-party candidate. This one I’ve done. It was 1996, and no one could possibly convince me to vote for Bob Dole.

The Republican nominee 2008 is John McCain. Another ‘Big Government Conservative’ that makes a lot of limited-government Republicans squeamish. However, as far away from limited government as McCain is, he’s still closer then the alternative, Barack Obama.

So why waste a vote for Libertarian Bob Barr?

He can’t win. The Libertarian candidate has historically had trouble garnering 1% of the national vote. So why waste your vote when the candidate has no chance of winning. And with close national elections in 2000 and 2004, it’s imperative we get the ‘lesser of two evils’ in the White House.

Next, there’s Bob Barr himself. If I’m going to waste a vote on a third party candidate, at least make it someone who I can actually trust. After meeting with Environmental Fascist Al Gore, Barr now apparently believes in man-made ‘Global Warming’. Not more then two months ago, in an interview with Glenn Beck, Barr confidently said, “Global Warming is a myth!”

Now Al Gore doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy that would be able to persuade a Libertarian in one meeting. So this can only mean Barr is pandering for votes. And if there’s one thing I know about Libertarians: it’s that they are very ideological and rarely pander, if ever.

Another reason not to vote for Barr: He’s a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Now I know that in itself is not unusual for a Libertarian. However, the ACLU is against an individual’s right to own a gun. This is a God given right, according to the Constitution.

The ACLU is also notoriously bigoted against any Christians and religion in the public square. I wonder what they would say about Thomas Jefferson attending church service in the Capitol building as President! I’m sure they conveniently forgot this, since they want a Godless-Socialist society.

So, answer me this, Bob Barr: From the year 1800 till now, we’ve gone from, a President attending church services in the Capitol building, to Washington lawyers harassing towns like Spooner, Wisconsin and Coon Rapids, Minnesota about a Nativity scene or a Christmas tree!

Does it sound like the ACLU took the phrase, separation of church and state a little bit out of context?

I guess I’d like to know what Bob Barr what thinks of that.

Conclusion

For now we are both abstaining from declaring for whom we will vote in November. If McCain really shows how he will decrease the size of government and Obama continues his insanity we may vote for McCain. On the other hand if Barr manages to stay up in the polls and looks like he can really make a difference in American's standpoint on Liberty then we may vote for him, until then please visit the Home Page of our site and tell us if you are voting for Bob Barr.

Minimum Wage Nonsense

On Thursday the minimum wage increased 70 cents, to $6.55 per hour. Many liberals feel this will have a positive impact on the economy (one commenter on the New York Times site thinks the wage low needs to be tripled to force the economy to turn-around).

It will definitely have an impact, though there is very little chance it will be anything positive. Like most liberal sentiments minimum wage knowledge is clouded by ignorance, here I will go through the facts and common sense on them.

To tear apart the myth of minimum wage I could quote economic studies showing it increases the unemployment rate, or reference the 90% of economists who believe it is harmful to workers, but none of this is necessary, because I can easily explain the negatives with common sense.

I used to work at KFC, so I'll use my story as an example.

I moved to Utah when I was 15, before I moved I worked for a movie theatre for five months (where coincidentally I was never paid minimum wage and received two raises based on performance before leaving).

After arriving to Utah I was unable to get a job because of strict labor laws (which are for a different day), but I applied in the month of my birthday and interviewed a few weeks before to allow my first day of work to be the day I turned 18.

I was hired for $5.50 per hour, already more than the minimum wage based on my five months of experience at an only partly-related job.

Within six months I was up to $6.70 and was on the verge of beginning management classes.

In total I worked there for a year and a half, in that time I learned how to do all positions (cook, register, pack food, shift supervisor), took two courses on management and as a result ended up with an $8.50 per hour wage before leaving to focus on school in the fourth term of my senior year.

I achieved this through hard work, the simple virtue which most liberals despise.

I was literally never late for work; I took only one sick day when it could not be avoided because I worked in a restaurant; I was never disrespectful to a person in a position of authority (or any others for that matter); I took every opportunity to further my knowledge of my work and move-up; and regardless of the situation I always worked hard and never asked for a break or sat-down.

I view the ability I had to achieve this when I was 16-17 years-old as proof that any semi-competent worker who cannot earn minimum wage is a loser, and save for any medical problems, has no excuses.

For those who disagree, there was a woman who worked at KFC at the same time I did.

She had three kids with her boyfriend who was addicted to drugs. She usually showed up 15 minutes late for work, smelling like smoke and complained her whole shift, begging for a break.

Though she was an obviously bad employee she still made $8 per hour simply because people who could work during the day were in demand. This is called Capitalism and is the result of the Free Market.

I believe I have sufficiently proved minimum wage is unnecessary, now let's go through some logic to prove it hurts the economy.

• 1. It is common sense every business is run to make a profit, if it didn't it would no longer be a going concern.

  2. 2. So, employers can only pay employees the value of their work, if they paid more they would be unprofitable and go out of business.

  3. 3. Since employers can logically only pay the value of the employees work, the minimum wage causes them to lay-off employees whose work is worth less then minimum wage, usually those who just started working.

  4. 4. As employers nationwide lay-off employees who they can't afford to pay the unemployment rate goes up (the employees who make themselves worth more to the employer are usually kept).

1.

If there were no minimum wage, employers would have the ability to hire people for below the minimum wage, and allow them to prove themselves to earn a higher wage (The vast majority of people who earn the minimum wage get a raise within a year and 40% get one within four months). As the employee made himself valuable to the employer he would either be forced to pay the employee more, or watch him go elsewhere to make more. Either way the employee ends up with a relatively good wage, without the government's help.

Finally, it's necessary to show that upping the minimum wage does not turbo-charge the economy.

The liberal argument is that when employees make more they will have more money, which will allow them to spend more helping the economy (this sounds very similar to trickle-down economics, but not related to tax cuts).

It's true that people who make minimum wage (or something tied to it which many union workers make) will be able to spend more. But, that money has to come from somewhere.

Businesses can't just print new cash (though the fed seems to be unable to learn this simple fact), so to pay some workers more they will have to lay-off others and raise the prices of the things they sell.

Let's look at a simple pencil, if the minimum wage goes up the company that cuts down the trees will have to cut workers and raise the price of the wood, as will the:

• Company that mines the graphite for the 'lead'
• Mines the metal to put on the eraser
• Makes the eraser
• Puts it all together and makes the pencil
• And sells it at the retail level

Even this is an overly simplified example, there are many more possibilities, but the end result is the same: the prices will rise!

Now to use a little more logic, if a lot of people lose their jobs and the prices of goods rise, the economy will go down!

Wow! Revolutionary.

Roark is the pseudonym of an 18 year-old writer based in Utah. He remains surprised at the ignorance of most politicians, related to many other areas than Minimum Wage. For more on him visit our About Page.

For more on kinimum wage see: Somebody's Gotta Say It by Neal Boortz and Minimum Wage, Maximum Damage: How the Minimum Wage Law Destroys Jobs, Perpetuates Poverty, and Erodes Freedom by Jim Cox

Fascism and the American Left

TJ Madison
7/24/2008

It has always been known, people throughout the twentieth century and beyond, that we’ve always considered Socialists and Communist as ideologies at the far left of the political spectrum. They would be correct. Most would also consider Fascist tendencies to be that of the extreme right. They would be wrong!

I will prove it to you today.

One of the biggest political fallacies of the last century is that a lot of historians believed Fascism rose up as Capitalism’s answer to Socialism. The theory is totally wrong and was probably started by some Anti-Capitalists at the beginning of the New Deal era.

The truth is, and famed Austrian Economist F. A. Hayek agrees, Fascism is a tentacle that came out of the Socialist movement. Both are identical in almost every way. Only the ‘Nationalistic’ flavor makes Fascism a little different then Communism.

So with only one major difference, how can you put two totalitarian, tyrannical governments at opposite ends of the spectrum? You can’t, both are the extreme left. They are both almost a mirror image of each other. Collectivism taking over a State and is left unchecked.

Yes, Stalin and Hitler were enemies, however, not ideological enemies. They both strived for their own Socialist utopia in different ways. Yet, both arrived at the same Authoritarian society.

Which brings me to my point about the leftist in America and Europe now.

The Left often brands anybody who is associated with the ‘Right’ of politics a Fascist or a Nazi. Even if the ‘right-winger’ is Jewish. A Jewish Nazi? That makes a lot of sense! Then again, I’ve never thought of the Left making any sense.

Why would they make this false character assassination then? Well, for one it’s a scare tactic of the left to undermine Capitalism. Secondly, it’s because they don’t have an accurate view of history.

Once again, the left historically has ties to Fascism and ‘conveniently’ forgets them. Let’s go over them together:

• Starting with my favorite, gun control. Disarming the citizenry is usually the first action of Dictators, Commies, Fascists, etc… Now which side of the current political spectrum is for gun banning? The Left.

• Next, despise the wealthy. This is an easy one. Did Hitler not blame the Jews because ‘they’ owned most the wealth? And which side in America beats the drum about the rich paying their ‘fair share’? The Left. Class envy worked for Hitler, and to some extent, works for Democrats.

• Third, the Fascist and Socialist Governments of the twentieth century were hostile toward Religion, and ran a Godless state. That doesn’t sound like the Right wing in this country. Come on; spell it with me, A-C-L-U! Started by Communists in the early 1900’s.

• Another similarity is unions. Nazi was a short way of saying: The National Socialists Workers party.

• How about Abortion. I’m sure Hitler would have loved Roe v Wade, had he still been alive.

I could go on. However, I think you have enough ammunition; next time some unwashed hippie calls you a Right-wing Fascist. Just remind him: Fascism is a left-wing ideology, just like Socialism and Communism, while I espouse the beliefs of our Founding Fathers.

TJ Madison is a self-described Jeffersonian Republican living in the People's Republic of Wisconsin.