Carl Paldino Takes out Alphonse D'Amato

 Former New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino sent this e-mail to former New York Senator Al D'Amato. Paladino is wrong.  D'Amato isn't a fraud; slime can't be a fraud. 

From: Carl Paladino
Date: June 29, 2012 12:32:12 AM EDT
To: "adamato@parkstrategies.com" <adamato@parkstrategies.com>
 

Al, keep your nose out of WNY politics or I will expose your underbelly. You are a spineless fraud and you're going down with Skelos. Did you have fun at Andrews $50k party? You are such a low life parasite. It's all about money and you could care less about the people and republican principals. What are you going to do when I tell the people that you were the prime mover of Andrew's gay marriage bill so he could pound his chest as the most powerful governor the state has ever known and you could have access as a lobby for the big buck clients you extort.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

From: Carl Paladino
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 6:12 PM
To: Carl Paladino
Subject: FW: Al D'Amato, the predator

Al, the following is typical of the many comments that I received in response to my earlier e-mail to you.

I was asked by many the reason for my e-mail.  It’s simple and really gets to the heart of what is wrong in New York State.

Al D’Amato, in concert with his surrogates Dean Skelos and George Maziarz were approached last year by Andrew Cuomo and his minions to make a deal.  Cuomo wanted to show everyone in the State that he could do anything with the complicit New York State Republican led Senate with RINO Dean Skelos at the helm including getting legislative approval for the extreme left issue of gay marriage.  Getting that law passed would allow Cuomo to pound his chest Tarzan style and also would allow Cuomo to payback the gay community for their 2010 unwarranted but effective bashing of my candidacy.  

In return D’Amato, the prime mover of the effort, would get access to Cuomo on initiatives that he needed for his lobbying clients who pay big bucks.  

Anyone who thinks that the holdup of the Marcellus shale drilling permit has anything to do with the merits being argued in public is a fool drinking cool-aid.  It’s all about Mr. Green showing up at the doors of the likes of D’Amato the lobbyist.  “Quid pro quo” is denying upstate 25,000 jobs at $75,000/year.  How sick is that Al. 

Knowing that Skelos and Maziarz (with his special inclination) were spineless and could not vote for the bill, the cabal picked 4 republican senators (Grisanti, Alessi, McDonald and Salland) and promised  they would each get $500,000 in contributions from the gay community and future favors from the cabal including campaign support.

Freshman Senator Grisanti from Buffalo intended to do the right for his constituents when he got in office.   Cuomo, Maziarz, Skelos and D’Amato brought heavy pressure on him to sell out and at the last minute he threw his integrity under the bus, broke his promises to the people who donated to his campaign and voted for the law. 

I believe that if Mark came out and told the truth about what happened to him and revealed the hypocrisy of the  cabal’s complicity the people of his district would be forgiving, but that will not happen because the cabal continues to stroke and intimidate him with false hope.

Republican Mathematics

David Rockefeller = Nelson Rockefeller = Nixon = Kissinger = H. W. Bush = W. Bush = Romney = Cain = Santorum = Gingrich = Obama.

Or, to put it as a poster here just did, choosing between Romney and Obama is like choosing between Chase and Wells Fargo.

Does Obama Intend to Sue Israel Too?

The Obama administration is proving itself to be so extreme, and so extremely inept, that I, who have been talking about a split government as being advantageous, have concluded that almost any Republican would be preferable to Obama's continuing in office.

Cornel West, Princeton's African-American diversity expert, sounds like he's coming to a similar conclusion.   West says in The Boston Globe that Obamai is“a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”  I think he started reading my blog because I first said that three years ago.  West's racist Obama-supporting Princeton colleague, Paul Krugman, likely disagrees.  With a name like "Krugman" he might be concerned about Obama's eagerness to return Israel to its 1967 borders. But the Democratic Party's Judenrat is eager to defend Obama's claim that he is eager that Israel's borders be defensible once they've been returned to an indefensible position. ABC News reports that an officer of the Democratic Party's Judenrat, The Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg, defends Obama's statement as does the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith.

The Judenrat's reasoning seems to be that Obama has been such a success at protecting America's borders that he will do an excellent job with Israel's.  In fact he is so successful at defending the US's borders that he is suing the state of Arizona.  I can see why the ADL and Jeffrey Goldberg are eager to see Obama secure Israel's borders. Obama will then sue Israel if it tries to defend itself.

On the other hand, Commentary's Omri Ceren writes:


>Having abandoned past U.S. assurances on this overarching core issue, the President is now asking the Israelis to take enormous risks—in the aftermath of a Fatah-Hamas merger, no less—based on future U.S. assurances. This frankly bizarre diplomatic and rhetorical strategy seems unlikely to succeed.

Yup. Obama thinks his Texas border policy has been so successful that he aims to transfer it to Israel.

Even worse than his Texas-in-Israel position is Obama's traitorous intent to thwart the 2nd Amendment through a United Nations treaty.  I received a call today from the National Rifle Association. The caller, an NRA member, told me that the Obama administration is planning to participate in and sign a United Nations initiative that would interfere with the 2nd Amendment.  Pajamas Media's Howard Nemerov reports:

The UN seeks a 'comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.'

Last October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the Obama administration’s support for the United Nations plan to regulate 'convention arms transfers.' Brady-endorsed Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D, CA-10) was chosen as under secretary for arms control and international security in the State Department.

I more than doubled my lapsed membership donation to the NRA plus gave them extra to cover the membership of a serviceman.  We need the NRA to protect America from tyranny.  It is not going too far to call a president who would threaten the Second Amendment with a United Nations treaty not just a tyrant, but a traitor. 

Obama must go. The Republicans must defeat him.  Doing so will not stop America's longer term decline, which would require the election of Ron Paul or Gary Johnson plus a Tea Party Congress.  America's decline is as much due to Progressive Republicans like Mitt Romney and George W. Bush as it is to the Democrats.  But anything is better than a traitor like Obama.

The Ulster County Republicans in a Can't-Do America

I just submitted this piece to The Lincoln Eagle. 

The Ulster County Republicans in a Can't-Do America

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.*

On May 13, Robin Yess resigned from her position of chair of the Ulster County Republican Committee.  In an e-mail that she sent to the county's executive committee, which is comprised of the chairs of the town Republican committees, she wrote that the good 'ol boys' network, the GOB, is the problem with the GOP.  In particular, Yess cited five unnamed GOP county legislators who intend to vote in favor of the $80 to $100 million Golden Hill Health Care facility that will provide senior care to only one percent of Ulster County's seniors, many of whom are related to political officials and the county's wealthiest segment. The facility will cost each Ulster County taxpaying household more than $1,000, not counting interest on the loan, which could cost you another $1,000.  Yess wrote that she believes in limited government and lower taxes.  In her view support for the facility among GOP legislators is inconsistent with the GOP's principles.

               
Yess's resignation was accompanied by the usual political infighting.  But the principle ought to be of interest to anyone concerned with America's future.   Both Democrats and Republicans in Ulster County are committed to spending $100 million (not counting interest on the loan, which could amount to another $100 million) after twenty years of Ulster County's growth being one third of the national average.  New York is experiencing an exodus of young and hardworking taxpayers because of liberal taxation, and neither party senses a problem. 

              
The Golden Hill facility is an example of the age-old American phenomenon of special interest politics.  Both parties have pet causes. The Democrats have George Soros, the Trial Lawyers Association, the National Lawyers' Guild, and NYSUT, while the Republicans have Halliburton.  So it is at the county level.  Both parties have friends in the construction industry, in labor unions, and in the grant seeking business.

Both the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center--the county jail--and the Golden Hill facility benefit special interests.  Making matters worse is the absence of a serious press or media (other than The Lincoln Eagle) that employ journalists who are capable of analysis without ideology or being embedded in the special interests concerning which they are supposed to be reporting. 

Back in the day of the Second Bank of the United States, the precursor of today's Federal Reserve Bank, Whig politicians were on the Bank's payroll until Andrew Jackson, the equivalent of today's Ron Paul, abolished the bank and set the stage for the greatest economic expansion in world history.  After the Civil War, Standard Oil captured a number of state legislators, much as Bruce Ratner and The New York Times recently utilized New York State's Empire State Development Corporation to evict law-abiding property owners for Ratner's and The Times's benefit.

In the 19th century the nation's shared belief in limited government restrained lobbying.  Because Americans believed in limited government, corrupt city governments in places like New York and Minneapolis, and the corrupt federal government, could do limited damage. In those days the corruption in New York was due to the Democrats, but the corruption in the federal customs houses was due to Republicans.

The limits on corruption changed with Theodore Roosevelt's election in 1904.  TR, a Republican, strongly believed in expansion of government. Many of his ideas were copied during the 1930s and later.  TR was brighter than his more famous cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  By the 1930s both parties had adopted variants of the Progressivism that TR had adapted from Herbert Croly's Promise of American Life.  The GOP, inspired by President William Howard Taft, whom TR detested after Taft's first term, favored less regulation and opposed welfare; the Democrats, inspired by FDR, favored more regulation and a greater degree of help to the poor.  Both parties favored subsidies to the wealthy. On balance, the Democrats favored greater subsidies to both the very poor and the very rich than did Republicans, but it is difficult to generalize. Both parties changed from their Jacksonian origins to the Progressivism of Roosevelt, Taft and Woodrow Wilson.

Americans who still believe in the ideas that built America--limited government, hard work, innovation and individualism--have no representative in Ulster County, in New York State, or nationally.  The Republicans and Democrats are both Progressive.  That is, Yess is only half right about Republican principles.  The liberty Republicans, led by Ron Paul and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, are one remnant of the Jacksonian Democrats.  The rest of the GOP is comprised of Progressives and, perhaps more commonly, self-interested hacks.  There is a smaller remnant of Jacksonian Democrats within a Democratic Party which is dominated by left-wing Progressives and, just like the Republicans, self-interested hacks.

Until recently, Americans could afford to be complacent. Politicians are politicians, many have reasoned, and you can't fight city hall. But politics has become intrusive; government is ending the American way of life.  Unless the silent majority begins to take an interest, America as you once knew it will end.

The Constitution does not have a word to say about political parties, but most Americans feel that they need to vote for either Democrats or Republicans.  After all, a third party might be radical and do strange and unexpected, extremist things. For example a third party might:

-Start three wars at a time
-Quintuple the nation's money supply and hand the printed money to commercial banks and stock brokers
-Legalize unconstitutional searches and seizures
-Borrow nearly a trillion dollars and give it out to politically connected friends

-Replace the education system with an ideologically driven, politically correct indoctrination system that does not teach writing

-Propose a cap and trade law (and UN Agenda 21 under George H. Bush) that would force you to move out of your home
-Declare morality to be dead and then claim that on moral grounds they have the right to tell Americans what to eat.

Wait, that's what the Democrats and the Republicans have been doing, most of all Barack H. Obama but also George H. and George W. Bush.  So Yess is wrong. We cannot expect the Republicans to think or act like Americans. The GOP is a big government Progressive Party just like the Democrats.  Do Americans want more government and economic death, or to rise to Yess's call for integrity within both parties or a third party? So far, the results are bleak.  Unlike their ancestors, today's America has declined so much that it is now a can’t-do nation.  

*Mitchell Langbert teaches at Brooklyn College. He blogs at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com

New York Libertarians to Back Paul or Johnson

I just received this in an e-mail from Dave Nalle of the Republican Liberty Caucus:

I heard from secondary sources that the LP of NY voted to not support a LP candidate if Ron Paul or Gary Johnson got the GOP presidential nomination.  

The LP usually gets one or two percent. It can't hurt but it wouldn't win a general election. I doubt a good candidate could win in New York under any circumstances.

Can Paul and Johnson Save the GOP?

In recent days Congressman Ron Paul (R-T) announced that he is establishing an exploratory committee for his presidential bid and Governor Gary Johnson (R-NM) announced his own candidacy. These two reformers, who advocate elimination of Fed power or its reduction, have to contend with Wall Street Progressivism, which is likely to defeat them within the GOP.

Two days ago, The Wall Street Journal carried a front page story announcing "Financiers Switch to GOP." Three years ago I had suspected that Wall Street, which had heavily supported Obama, would dump Obama after his granting them trillions in subsidies and his supporting Fed policies that will, over time, cause inflation and ever greater transfers of wealth from people who work and are on retirement pensions to hedge fund managers and America's non-productive financial class. During 2008, Wall Street supported Obama because a Republican could not have achieved the massive wealth transfers that they required, for the Republicans by then had been associated with excessive support for the super-rich. To obtain the massive subsidization Wall Street required the left's support. Obama presented the image of a Black activist, a "progressive" socialist who would fight the rich. Many Republicans naively believed this. In fact, Wall Street had contributed to Obama two to one over McCain, who was associated with Bush.

Obama's supporters, New York Times readers and college students, believed that Obama would redistribute wealth from the wealthy to the poor. Obama's opponents believed that Obama would redistribute wealth from the middle class to the poor. In fact, Obama has redistributed wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy.

He has done his job well. During Obama's administration the transfers from the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury to banks and global financial institutions amounted to $12.8 trillion according to Bloomberg, but are likely much more. Three years ago I predicted that by now Wall Street would have thrown Obama under the bus because he would no longer be needed. His alliance with the left is inconvenient to Wall Street. The progressive left will continue to attack Wall Street while Republican Progressives will not. Thus, The Wall Street Journal reports that hedge fund managers, "who made a big bet on Barack Obama...have turned their backs...and are actively supporting Republicans." The article cites Daniel Loeb, who had raised $200,000 for Obama and who, Democratic Underground.com reports, earned $250 million in 2007 alone. The Journal reports that Loeb is a long time Democratic Party supporter, but he has switched to the GOP this year.

The Journal reported a few weeks ago that Mitt Romney had met with 100 Wall Street bigwigs to obtain financing and to offer to do their bidding. Clearly, Wall Street will aim to push for a Progressive GOP in 2012. If rank-and-file GOP members go along with it, they will elect another George W. Bush, probably worse.

There are three strategies for pro-freedom Republicans. The first is to vote for Paul or Johnson in the primaries. If they lose, option two is to support a third party. Option three would be to support Obama as the lesser of two evils in 2012.

Mairi Is Fed Up with the GOP

I just received this e-mail from Mairi of Chicago:

>I watched last night, as word came down that a deal had been reached to extend the 2011 budget. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I was ENRAGED!
Carl Cameron gave his view of what had happened, and I have to tell you, I have despised that man since he leaked the stories of Sarah Palin being attacked by staff members of John McCain's candidacy as a "diva". The man is a jackanapes, IMHO...

Personally, I have had it with the GOP. They are just DemocRATS on quaaludes. They have tried to convince the American public each time they caved in and passed a CR, that they were gaining in spending cuts with each new resolution.....unfortunately, the amount of spending so far overshadowed any supposed cuts, those CR's were rendered eunuchs. There was no victory in their passage.

And now we come to last night's marathon negotiations. Republican cronies tried to place such a happy spin on what had occurred, claiming that never before in history had so many spending cuts been accomplished. Fact of the matter is, never before in history has America ever been faced with such enormous debt that even our grandchildren and great grandchildren will be devastated by it's effects. The global economy is teetering on the brink, and if America falls, NO ONE SURVIVES the consequences.

There is no "happy spin" on what happened last night in the Capital. Republicans caved. They blinked, their knees knocked, and DemocRATS took full advantage.
I am FINISHED with Republicans. I am finished with the likes of Michele Bachmann and Allen West, Rand Paul and Jason Chaffetz. They sound so on the side of the American people, but fact of the matter is, not one of them has stood tall on the eligibility issue, or LtC. Terry Lakin. They can claim all they want that they value the Tea Party and all the principles and virtues of Constitutionality that it embraces, but as I see it, they are just party hacks taking advantage of an opportunity. I am pleased that they voted "no" to the deal, but that is negated by the outcome. Not one has the cajones to LEAD!

In the future, I will be looking to alternative parties like the AIP and the Constitution Party to begin picking up the slack with candidates who know, understand, and revere our Constitution. It's time for the former Whig party to consider a comeback, or even possibly the Tea Party becoming just that, a new "Party". Those in the future who claim affiliation with Republican or DemocRATS will not gain my support. I really felt confident after last November that Republicans could not only be led to the water, but would actually drink. They, IMHO, have refused. They have no concern for the Constitution, and the fact that they caved so easily, without a threatened government shut-down so welcomed by the American people this time around, is all the evidence I needed to convince me, that while these two parties exist in D.C, nothing will ever change for the better.
I HOPE everyone is signed up for GOOOH.com, and will familiarize yourselves with ALL of the "alternative" parties which embrace the Constitution. I consider the best to be, "the American Independent Party", "the Constitution Party", and probably at this point, even Libertarians.

I am open to suggestions from any of you.........2012 will be here before we know it, and it's time to have Constitutionalists in the forefront. There are GREAT candidates already waiting for the opportunity to have your support, like John Dummett, who has been trying to gain support and recognition for some time now. It behooves us to become familiar with real candidates who need our support to win against the Reps' and Dems' power brokers and money. It will be important to identify Constitutionalists, make others very aware, and build enough awareness that these candidates WILL prevail. I have Faith after last November that we CAN and WILL achieve the goal if we remain focused.

GOD Bless,
Mairi

David Stockman Rails at GOP Incompetence

Last month I gave a talk at the Kingston-Rhinebeck Tea Party.  I pointed out that the GOP's commitment to the Fed has permitted the flourishing of a wide range of special interest groups. In turn, the Fed engenders income inequality, American economic decline, especially in manufacturing, and Wall Street's expansion.  Howard S. Katz has been making these points since the 1970s and earlier, and they key off the Austrians  Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.  Ron Paul and his son Rand make similar points as well, and they should be viewed as the leaders of the political movement that aims to undo the massive damage that the the parties of the elephant and the donkey have caused (the Democrats are worse than the GOP).

Marketwatch's Paul B. Farrell reports that the cornerstone of the legacy media, the New York Times,  has published David Stockman's article making these points with the clarity and specificity of an insider with important historical knowledge.  Stockman was President Reagan's budget director who lost a battle against Reagan' supply siders.  Stockman argues that the GOP destroyed the American economy in four steps:

1. Richard Nixon's dropping of the gold standard at the behest of Milton Friedman and his defaulting on the American obligation to redeem dollars for gold internationally

2. President Reagan's neo-Keynesian doctrine of supply-side economics

3. The expansion of Wall Street and the recent expansion of the money supply

4. The financing of American credit through foreign debt, resulting in increasing income inequality and the exit of factory jobs.

I have made all these points since 2004.  Stockman is specific as to much of the historical detail.  The Marketwatch article is well worth reading.  Stockman notes:

"the top 1% of Americans -- paid mainly from the Wall Street casino -- received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90% -- mainly dependent on Main Street's shrinking economy -- got only 12%. This growing wealth gap is not the market's fault. It's the decaying fruit of bad economic policy."

That the GOP continues to support the stupid policies of the Rockefeller-Bush Republicans contributes as much to American decline as do Obama's policies.  While the Democratic Party is lost, the GOP should serve as the rational alternative. Instead, it has followed the ideology of the Democrats into big government extremism and economic decline.  When questioned about the Patriot Act, many Republicans simply spin and lay the blame on President Clinton.  The large circulation legacy media contribute to the absence of mass level debate.  Stockman's recent article conveniently appears in the Times a year after the massive bailouts and money printing escapades (chiefly under the Democrats, incidentally) that may have put the nation's collapse into third gear.

Those Democrats who wish to make partisan hay out of Stockman's Op Ed might consider that the only people making these arguments for the past 40 years have been Republicans.  Which does not mitigate the ill effects of Milton Friedman and his colleagues in academia along with the Rockefeller-Bush Republicans.

GOP Torch Song: It's Over

Thomas Santopietro of the Kingston-Rhinebeck Tea Party asked me to give a brief talk at the meeting this evening. My friend Glenda McGee happened to be in my office when he called and she pulled a few articles (here and here) about the GOP's and the Democrats' corrupt tax deal of this past week.  Tom asked me to speak because I had predicted a major let-down for the Tea Party a year ago (Tom had looked at an old e-mail I had sent) and although I did not know any of the details until Glenda pulled the information, the utter mockery with which the GOP is treating the Tea Party comes as no surprise.

My message to the Hudson Valley Tea Partiers is that they need to view a third party as a realistic strategy and to view the GOP as the real threat that the Tea Party faces.  Tea Partiers who advocate for the GOP over the public interest do not belong in the Tea Party.  I say this as a member of my Town's Republican Committee, which has been  decimated by public revulsion at the corrupt Bush administration as well as the transformation of the Catskills into a New York City suburb for super-rich New Yorkers.

Please allow Roy Orbison to convey the message the Tea Party needs to hear. With respect to the big government, special interest driven morons who dominate the GOP, the Tea Party's honeymoon is, or ought to be, over. 

It's Official: Yess Now Heads Ulster County GOP

Robin Yess just forwarded the first news report of her assumption of the chair of the Ulster GOP. Actually, you heard it here first on September 6.  I was unable to attend last night's meeting for health reasons, but I assume it went smoothly because I told Robin I would come if she needed an extra body.  Congratulations to Robin, who will be an effective and successful chair!

The Mid Hudson News writes:

PORT EWEN – The Ulster County Republican Committee has chosen First Vice Chairwoman Robin Yess as the new leader of the party.  Yess succeeds Mario Catalano, who chose not to seek re-election as chairman.
Yess believes this could be the year for Republican candidates in November, given the discontent by many with the way Democrats have been running the state and federal governments.
“The pendulum is swinging in the other direction now as we know it does in politics, so I think our candidates have a really good chance this November,” she said.
Yess said the Republican committee will further the message of the Grand Old Party and work to get their candidates elected this fall.

---

New York's Conservative Party Belongs in Yesterday's Trash

I dislike the label "conservative" when applied to people who believe in freedom and in life. The debate between laissez faire liberals and mercantilists goes back to the 18th century. Advocated by Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, and David Hume, mercantilism was an earlier doctrine than laissez faire. Adam Smith wrote in response to Shaftesbury just as Locke wrote in response to Filmer, who advocated the divine right of kings.  David Hume was the source of Alexander Hamilton's belief in a central bank and in government intervention in the economy. Hence, state activism with respect to the economy is an older doctrine than laisser faire, which has always been a radical response to the failure of traditional (i.e., conservative) doctrines like monarchy, state intervention in the economy and central banking.

More important with respect to today's Conservative Party in New York is that the purpose for its very existence has been obviated.  The Conservative Party was founded for two conceivable reasons: (1) the dominance of corporatist, big government Republicans, so-called "Rockefeller Republicans," in New York's Republican Party and (2) the pro-choice platform of many Republicans.  Some Republicans are pro-choice and some are pro-life.  The Conservatives were presumably aiming to define themselves as "social" as well as economic "conservatives" and so offer a position consistent with the Catholic Church's and the various Protestant denominations' that are pro-life.

In 2010 the Conservative Party, led by Mike Long, chose to nominate Rick Lazio over at least two superior alternatives (there were likely more; virtually anyone I know would have been a superior alternative to Rick Lazio): Steve Levy and Carl Paladino.  The Conservatives' and GOP's backing of Lazio removed Levy, who lacked the resources for an independent bid.  The Conservative Party and the Republican Party memberships had the opportunity yesterday to redeem their parties from, respectively, the Rockefeller Conservatives and the Rockefeller Republicans, who are eager for jobs and corrupt bonuses from big government.  The GOP membership showed that it is fundamentally "conservative" in the sense that I don't like using the word.  The Conservative Party members showed that it is less "conservative" than the GOP.

Although much press has been given to "Rockefeller Republicans" much less has been given to "Rockefeller Conservatives."  Yet, it is clear that under Mike Long's leadership the Conservatives have veered to the left and are now more "liberal" (another inappropriate term) than the GOP.   So who needs a Conservative Party?

The Conservative Party is creating a serious problem.  The "conservative" candidate, who is pro-life and for small government, is running on the GOP line but not on the conservative line.  The Conservative Party has reserved their line for a pro-choice, big government advocate, Rick Lazio.  The Conservatives are proving that corrupt motivations rather than an interest in liberty or in life is are enough to determine their nominations.   Conservative Party members might consider that by belonging to it they are harming the cause of "conservatism."

Yesterday's election proved that the GOP is more conservative than the Conservative Party.  It was enough to consign Mike Long and the Conservative Party to the trash bin of history.

Conversation with Contrairimairi about Failure of GOP

Me:

Unfortunately here in New York the GOP is decidedly socialist and no change is in sight despite the Tea Party. The Tea Party itself is confused. There is little hope of progress here, the state will continue to decline until the economy collapses.


Mairi:

I've been following your postings about the goings on there. I am not certain that we CAN take America back in 2010 or 2012. There are so many "progressives" entrenched in both parties, that I think weeding them out is almost hopeless. The strong contenders here in Illinois are "progressives" even though running under the "R" banner. It's a joke, and it's HORRIFYING! People here are claiming they will not vote for anyone but a "D" or an "R", and it's looking like any "extra party" contenders will be thrown off the ballot here anyway. There are "suspicious" claims by the same two individuals challenging their signature petitions. If you remember, that's how BO won here in the past.


The candidate I was previously working for won entry to the ballot for an underdog, but the challenges, even if unfounded, seem to be "SOP" and moving forward regardless of the evidence to keep other contenders ON the ballot.

If we are afforded the possibility of electing only candidates from either major party who are still hell-bent on destroying the Constitution, what's the gain? Pelosi or Pelosi-light. Either way, the Constitution is still under a major assault that I am not certain we can rebuff in time.


GOD Bless,

Mairi

P.S. - One small bit of good news, it has been found out that Gillibrand accepted donations from a man who has sent contributions to hamas. (He has also contributed to the GZM.) She is claiming to have no knowledge, and promising to "look into the matter", but this will NOT be good news for her!

Me:

All of the GOP bloggers I have been hanging out with for the past 5 years are turning out to be party hacks, loyal to Rick Lazio who accepted a bonus for securing $25 billion in bailout money for JP Morgan. I'm asking Larwyn to take me off her mailing list.  I consider Republicans to be no different from Democrats.  The Republicans are more anti-freedom than the Democrats.

Republican Paradox

Several of my friends support Rick Lazio for Governor of New York State.  Lazio had worked as a lobbyist for JP Morgan and had helped arrange Morgan's $25 billion bailout. No greater expansion of government power has occurred in the past two decades.  In exchange for his help in facilitating the expansion of government, JP Morgan paid Lazio a one million dollar bonus.  In addition, Lazio is on record in support of abortion.  As well, Lazio is entrenched in the same self destructive New York GOP that has allowed Alfonse D'Amato to play the GOP against itself in favor of the Democrats.  It is the same GOP  that continues to support Governor George Pataki, whose last term in office involved expansion of state government, an alliance with the state's Service Employees International Union boss Dennis Rivera and corrupt indifference to extensive Medicaid fraud.  These patterns cannot be excused by the State Assembly's Democratic majority or the state's liberal ideology, as even the left-wing New York Times took issue with the criminality in Medicaid that flourished during the Pataki administration.

It is thus puzzling that so many Republicans continue to favor Rick Lazio for governor, the GOP establishment's choice. These Republicans seek an outsider with considerable establishment experience.  That is, someone who supports less government but has spent his life earning a living through big government.   I would support Paladino if only to keep Lazio out of office, and a candidate who makes a 20% budget cut the centerpiece of his platform is certainly preferable to a paid lobbyist for JP Morgan. Another Pataki-like fraud would simply be too discrediting to the GOP.

The Republicans have grown used to dissonance between words and deeds.  The dissonance has become so sharp that the party's image has deteriorated and will not recover until new personnel are introduced at the highest levels.  Mr. Pataki and Mr. D'Amato are relics and do not belong in any leadership role.  Likewise, candidates such as Michael Bloomberg and Rick Lazio with big government track records need to be purged.  There is nothing moderate about the the bailout that Mr. Lazio facilitated. It is not mainstream; it is not "conservative".  The bailout was an extreme, self-indulgent, radical expansion of government, a violent taking of money by the powerful from those less powerful, and those participating in it lack the moral fiber to play any prominent role in government.

Mercy Killing Strategy: Become a Democrat

I am coming to think that because the State of New York is too corrupt for reform, the best strategy will be to become a Democrat, support their policies, and so encourage more rapid economic collapse in the state.  The Republicans do not help the state, they merely slow down the pace of corruption slightly.  Mercy killing is wrong when it comes to humans but when it comes to economic catastrophes like the Democrats' economic policies the right course may be to hasten things.   The same at the national level.  The currency depreciation and banking catastrophes that the two party system has caused should be accelerated so that the system finally collapses and can be replaced.

My strategy would look something like this.  Enroll in the Democratic Party. Support more expansion of government and entitlement programs; more stimulus packages; more state employees.  Push up spending on Medicaid. So many needs, taxes must be raised.  Drive ever more people out of New York.

Economic collapse isn't far off, and helping the Democrats will hasten it.  When the state collapses, radical change may then be possible.  It is a high risk strategy because New Yorkers have been so badly educated that they believe the pro-bank media and so will probably aim for even more state control and socialism in response to the final collapse.  But that's not a given, and there's probably more hope for change then.  An increasingly authoritarian and socialistic economy is a given in any case, and the Republicans lack the competence to improve things.  Also, the GOP in New York City is just as left wing as the Democrats, so there is little hope.

The GOP is a lost cause and New York State needs to be taken out of its misery.

Taking Ideology out of Your Child's Education

The following article "Taking Ideology Out of Your Child's Education" appears in the Memorial Day issue of the Lincoln Eagle, a Kingston, NY penny saver.  Mike Marnell, the Eagle's crusading editor, does an excellent job in putting it together. It is the only freedom oriented paper in the area, as far as I know.  It does not have a website but it reaches at least several thousand people. 

Taking Ideology Out of Your Child’s Education

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.*

When I attended high school in New York City, my class was required to read Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto."  But we were not assigned to read any alternative view, such as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Friedrich A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.  Communism was extolled, freedom disparaged.  I was recently speaking to a friend whose son graduated from a high school in this region and she told me that the emphasis on Marxism has not changed one bit.  Her son had not been assigned any book that describes free market economics or how and why free markets work better than government-controlled ones.  However, he had been assigned to read Marx and his teacher repeatedly preached in favor of socialism. 

The debate between people who believe in government control and those who believe in freedom is not new.  However, there are many myths not only about the subject but about its history.  The myths come from relentless efforts by advocates of government control to spin the debate. This has led to a takeover of the educational system by left-wing ideologues.  Thus, what students learn in public schools is often socialist propaganda and more often than not ignorant nonsense.

For example, the claim that adding layers of government or regulation is "progressive" is not historically true.  Yet, the students are told that it is.  In fact, the Roman Empire was based on a state-controlled, mixed economy like that advocated by today’s "progressives." What happened to Rome?   

In modern times, the idea of free markets originated out of a debate that had been initiated by advocates of government authority and regulation.  The mercantilists, such as Lord Shaftesbury and David Hume, advocated the use of government force to open markets, print money and regulate trade. Adam Smith responded to the mercantilists' "progressive", state-based ideas later in the 18th century.  Free markets are progressive, not socialism.  Advocates of monetary expansion to stimulate growth, such as David Hume, wrote before the advocates of the gold standard and zero inflation.

This was true in American history.  The first socialist in the history of US government was the first man to conceive of our Constitution, Alexander Hamilton.  Hamilton favored the use of paper money to expand the economy; government owned manufacturing; a central bank, the ancestor to today's Federal Reserve Bank; the use of subsidies to stimulate shipping; and taxes to fund government debt.  The problem with Hamilton's ideas was in part that they had led to hyper-inflation during the earlier Revolutionary War.  The central bank led to the earliest examples of corrupt speculation, and the stock of Hamilton's First Bank was the object of among the earliest financial bubbles in American history.  The government owned manufacturing firm he tried to start was associated with the corrupt bank stock speculation.  Hamilton’s Keynesian ideas (140 years before Keynes) failed.

In reaction to Hamilton's big government, "progressive" ideas, Jefferson, winning Hamilton's former ally, James Madison, formed the Democratic Republican Party.   The response to the big government ideas of Hamilton and his Federalist Party was to emphasize freedom.  This reached a crescendo in the 1830s, when Andrew Jackson founded the Democratic Party and abolished central banking, putting the US on a gold standard.  The most rapid growth in American history occurred during the 80 years that there was no central bank and money was based on the bi-metallic and then the gold standard.  Establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank in the 20^th century has led to slowed growth and stagnant real hourly wages.  You are poorer as a result of increasing government involvement in the economy. Much poorer.

The problem with government intervention is that it didn't work. But that’s not what students are taught in school.  

The examples of government failure get worse, though, when you fast forward in time to the early twentieth century.  The hyper-expansion of communism in Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea and elsewhere led to economic retardation and mass murder.  State-dominated economies were utter failures, and repeatedly so.  They failed so frequently and so thoroughly that one would think that anyone seriously studying them in universities would have tried to understand why they failed.  Yet, university professors throughout the communist era, until the 1980s, uniformly claimed that the performance of the Soviet economy exceeded that of the United States.  In other words, virtually 100% of university economic and social science departments ignored reality; preached ideological propaganda in favor of socialism; and excluded anyone who disagreed. 

When the Soviet Union fell in the late 1980s for the very reasons that the critics of socialism such as Ludwig von Mises and Frierich von Hayek had predicted in the 1920s to 1940s, you might think that university social scientists might have reconsidered their dogmatic, religious commitment to socialism. But that is not so.  The intolerance of anyone who disagrees with now obviously failed socialist and big government dogma has become even more extreme in universities.  Any academic who disagrees with the left is slandered and drummed out of universities.

Thus, it is not surprising that the local high schools are purveyors of ideological dogma. Having been educated by ignorant ideologues in universities, the teachers have been trained to be ideologues.

Parents have serious reason to be concerned about their children’s’ education.  The schools today are preaching socialism more aggressively than ever, even though historically socialist policies have repeatedly failed.  In order to counteract this tendency parents might consider taking the following steps:

1. Tell your school board that if the students are reading Karl Marx, they should also be reading Adam Smith.  If they are not reading Karl Marx, they should be reading Adam Smith anyway.

2. Ask you children for feedback about the claims being made by social studies teachers.  If the teachers are advocating socialism, they are incompetent.  If the school is encouraging the teachers to do so, the school board needs to be replaced.

3. Read your children’s social studies text books.  One parent told me that their child’s textbook’s discussion of the Second World War consisted of five pages on the internment of the Japanese (a terrible misdeed) and only one page on the war itself.  That is propaganda. It is not education.

Are your children being told of the advantages of freedom, or are they being propagandized as to the advantages of socialism?  I have worked in higher education for nearly twenty years.  I have repeatedly seen students who have been indoctrinated into failed, socialistic ideas in their primary educations.  I can undo some of the damage done by elementary and high school teachers, who in turn have been brainwashed by ideologues in universities.  You can undo some as well.

*Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D. is a member of the Town of Olive Republican Committee and is associate professor of business at Brooklyn College, CUNY.  He blogs at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com.

RLC Has a Mission

I just submitted the following to the Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) blog.

RLC Has a Mission

In his historical tour de force, On Power, Bertrand de Jouvenal traces the process of centralization of power in Europe from the fall of Rome. He paints a picture of an unstoppable centripetal force, power, whose ever tightening grip on humanity was hastened first by the increasing power of monarchs and then by the rise of democracy. Prior to mass rule that began with the French revolution and Napoleon, war was limited by the resources of local feudal rulers. Total war became possible with the rise of democracy and nationalistic centralization. The great wars of the twentieth century which saw unprecedented numbers killed were the product of nationalism, mass rule and socialism, indeed, of national socialism and socialism in one country. These last are the ideologies of both the Democratic and Republican parties today.

For a century the United States showed that in the absence of centralization economic progress would come quicker, the public made better off, and war limited to local expansionism. But the Civil War began a process of Progressive centralization, and elite Americans of the Gilded Age after the Civil War, envious of the status of German universities, sent their sons to graduate school in Germany and were surprised when they returned advocating ideas that would forestall freedom and progress. Not having access to the ideas of von Mises, Hayek and Schumpeter, elite Americans adopted German historicism, according to which they, as an expert elite, deserved power and that power ought to be centralized to that end. They chose to remake America in Germany’s image fifty years before the rise of Hitler.

We live with the heritage of their nationalist and now internationalist Progressivism. Progress has slowed; retirement savings are insufficient to cover the needs of the largest cohort of retirees in the history of the world; the Progressive health care system has faltered and been redesigned to restrict care; and for the past forty years Americans have seen the”promise of American life”, an ever increasing standard of living, betrayed and slowed to a halt as the Federal Reserve Bank and the federal government have transferred ever more resources to banks and speculators.

De Jouvenal saw the rise of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the ultimate success of “power” in the United States. But the process has taken longer and become more intense as the centralizers’ ideas, one after the next, have failed and destroyed sections of America’s freedom and affluence. The nation retains its preeminent role because of the nineteenth century’s gains and because its diminishing sphere of private initiative remains larger than under the rigid socialism that dominates Europe and the rest of the world.

No one can calculate the damage that power has done to the nation. It is probable that, based on the absence of real wage growth since the gold standard was abolished in 1971 and the 2% compounded growth of real wages between 1800 and 1971, the real hourly wage today is but 40% of what it might have been without the depredations of the federal and state governments. But Americans are relatively worse off than that because of increases in taxes at the state and federal levels.

Both parties, Republican and Democratic, have participated in the relentless expansion of power. The Republican is the more likely of the two to be transformed from a socialistic, elitist party, to one that represents freedom and decentralization. Hence, there is no more important task in politics today than that which the Republican Liberty Caucus has set before itself: to reform the GOP and transform it into a party of freedom and decentralization; to overturn the process of centralization of power; and to reestablish America as a land of freedom.

Given the low quality of public debate and the domination of the public media, this is a difficult task. Struggle we must.

Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party Meeting a Triumph

Tom Santopietro and his board of directors are doing an excellent job on the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party. The group met for its regular monthly meeting on the second Monday of each month. About 50 people attended. The group is planning several protests and bus trips to Washington, including an April 15 tax day protest.

Don Wise for State Assembly

The highlight of the evening was a talk by a conservative Republican State Assembly candidate, Don Wise. Mr. Wise owns a successful construction firm, Apex Building. He says that he has seen the Ulster-and-Dutchess County economy crumble under the Democratic Party policies of Assemblyman Kevin Cahill. Mr. Cahill claims to have brought jobs to the county economy and someone shouted "Erie County!" I added "Broward County!"

According to a local Democratic Party newspaper, the Kingston Freeman, Wise ran for Town Supervisor in the Town of Ulster three years ago, for State Assembly in the 1980s, and for County legislature. Naturally, when the Democrats report on Republicans they look for ways to slander them, and the articles in the Freeman are no exception.

Mr. Wise is articulate, intelligent and thoughtful. He presents a positive image. Mr. Wise aims to freeze state spending and eliminate waste in fields like education. After the meeting I questioned him as to why he does not advocate cuts in state government. He says that he is still formulating his aims. Kevin Cahill, the incumbent, is in contrast a big government advocate.

A nurse at the meeting who works in a local hospital told me privately that about one half of Medicaid spending in New York is pure waste, and that the percentage of waste in New York's Medicaid system is greater than in other Democratic Party- dominated states. In 2006, according to this source, Medicaid amounted to 23% of spending in the average state budget. According to a 2005 New York Times article, Medicaid abuse in New York is in the billions. The Times does not discuss systemic waste such as the transfer of personal assets in order to obtain Medicaid funding for long term care. According to the Citizens' Budget Commission:

"New York has the highest Medicaid spending among the 50 states, accounting for 15 percent of the national total, although it covers only 8 percent of beneficiaries.

"By comparison, California accounts for 11 percent of national spending while covering 18 percent of the beneficiaries. New York’s cost per person enrolled in the program, program, $7,912 annually, is 75 percent higher than the national average of $4,484, and nearly three times the California average of $2,770."

That was written near the end of the Pataki (R-NY) administration in 2006. In other words, Pataki had held office for 12 years and those facts were true at the end of the 12 years. Has the two party system enabled the voters to choose?

In addition to Medicaid, there is massive waste in state operations. The Department of Social Services not only provides welfare, the Department is itself a welfare program for non-working state employees. All of the agencies massively overspend and over-employ.

We might rename New York "The Emperor Has No Clothes and It's All Waste" state. I wish Mr. Wise all success in his election bid, but with the Democratic Party's strong local propaganda-and-lying machine led by the Kingston Freeman, it will be an uphill battle.

Other Business

Tom Santopietro, the president of the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party, defended Glenn Beck against unnamed attacks (I wonder who the attacker might be) but emphasized that the Tea Party is non-partisan. Tom mentioned that he objects to the GOP's use of the Tea Party name, which it has been doing unethically in some western states. Tom also mentioned that he was frustrated with Sarah Palin but still supports her to a degree.

I raised my hand at three different points and suggested that the Tea Party (a) focus exclusively on state and local candidates and issues (of course, as Chris Johansen mentioned in the car, big issues like Obamacare and cap and trade need to be included); (b) establish an ongoing state legislative bill monitoring process whereby Tea Party members might be alerted to bills about which to contact the state legislature; and (c) that I personally do not think that there is a single national politician, Republican or Democratic, who is fit to be president because they are all tainted by the same special interests that inspired the 2008 bailout. In other words, there is no small government candidate in either party.

Someone in the audience raised his hand and said angrily that he blogs for the American Thinker blog and that he does not trust any organization any more, including the Tea Party. He questioned Mr. Santopietro as to why there is no formal platform. I raised my hand and offered to help Mr. Santopietro put together a platform and offered to include the gentleman who raised the point on the platform committee. A similar proposal was discussed when I attended in January, I recall. No action has been taken.

Concluding Thoughts

The group is inexperienced but is making important progress. Tea Parties around the country need to support local candidates and avoid national ones. National politics is irrelevant at this point because the federal system is corrupt. It will need to be overturned as it has already failed. In place of the current system a more decentralized one with greater emphasis on states' rights (as in the Tenth Amendment) and reduced federal power would be better. Before the Constitution there were the Articles of Confederation. The nation needs to return to its roots. The fact is that about 30 states have a larger population than the entire nation did in 1783, approximately three million. The national population is too large to support a federal democracy. Powers currently granted the federal government, including constitutional interpretation, social security, medicare, labor law, most business regulation (except for unavoidable issues such as true interstate commerce) and monetary policy should be downloaded to regional or state governments. If New York favors massive inflation, for example, that should not force other states to subsist under inflation.

Henry V, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck

D. Eris of the Poli-tea blog has responded to my claim that the Tea Party ought to work within the two party system. Relying on the skepticism of David Hume, Poli-tea argues against "charismatic authoritarianism", which in turn is based on the claim that power must be consolidated. As well, claims Poli-tea,

"The historical argument...is negated by the very existence of a third party and independent political tradition in the United States..."

David Hume said that skepticism did not prevent him from making merry with his friends. For truly believing radical skepticism otherwise would paralyze him. Hume's skepticism denies the possibility of science. We all know that science works. Nor would Hume say that it couldn't work, rather that it is based on non-rational assumptions. As Aristotle said about ethics:

"(W)e must be content, in speaking about and from such things, to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and we must be content in speaking about things that hold for the most part and in drawing conclusions of the same sort from such things."

The Tea Party lacks leadership not out of historical necessity or because of a law that authority must be devolved upon a dictator but rather because on a real-world level no leader has stepped forward who has the capacity to lead and who is suitably independent of the GOP's national leadership or the media, both of which ought to be viewed as tainted. Without such a leader, the Tea Party will at most be an influence on the two party system.

That is not a necessary law but a practical assumption based on the past 200 years of American history. It is possible that a spontaneous, anarchic movement could transform the yahoos in the hinterland, but I doubt it. It is a matter for practical deliberation, not logical deduction.

Finding a leader is a supply-and-demand problem. We don't generally demand great leaders, and people with leadership potential are often diverted to other pursuits. Hence, there is a leadership shortage when the demand does appear, and it is not easy to fill.

Why leadership is necessary is not well understood by anyone. The human mind has limited rational capacity. To focus a movement of millions of people requires a focal point that is easily grasped. It requires a symbol. Few Americans know who their state assemblyman is, but most know who the president is because the president is an easily understood human symbol. We are all limited beings. A leader identifies the movement or organization. He or she provides a personality.

The two videos above, of Martin Luther King and Kenneth Branagh as Henry V in Shakespeare's play, exemplify charismatic leadership. The leader must match the movement and be able to articulate a vision that matches the broad concerns that motivate the movement.

The inability of the Tea Party to generate such a leader is likely linked to the important role of television. Television is powerful because it provides a human face to ideas. But the people who operate it lack ideas, so they allow special interests to dominate their content. Many Americans rely on television, and the quick and easy way is to rely on the leadership that television presents. But television fixates on the existing establishment, which is antagonistic to the Tea Party. Moreover, there is no incentive for television to present leaders who represent the Tea Party, whose concerns are directly antagonistic to television's corporate owners.

So where will the Tea Party find its leader?

Necessarily in the rank-and-file of the Tea Party itself. The Tea Party should do as General Savage in the classic war film 12 O'clock High. It should scour the organization for anyone who can lead a mule to water. It should find the Ben Gatelys, the future King Harry's who can present a vision like the famous speech at Agincourt copied above or Martin Luther King in his wonderful "I Have a Dream" speech.

To do so the Tea Party needs its own media. Television and the print media are not enough and cannot be trusted. Without its own media, the personalities necessary are much more difficult to discern. So far, the Tea Party has not begun to take the steps necessary to institutionalize itself.

Glenn Beck, the one television personality who may prove supportive of the Tea Party, needs to focus on introducing his audience to a wide range of potential leaders within the Tea Party movement. He should demand that they be well informed about issues like the Fed and the bailout. A wide range of consistently exposed potential leaders will greatly facilitate the Tea Party's ability to think for itself.

In sum, there is no antagonism between working with the GOP and trying to establish the Tea Party as a separate movement. The two can be done in tandem. It is much harder to establish a separate movement than to influence the existing two party system, which has always been flexible to change.

It is possible that because of the influence of special interests the two party system has been unable to change. It may have become brittle. In that case, a new party may be necessary. But party building should not come at the expense of influencing the two parties. Both strategies should be vigorously tried.

A Dem-GOP Split is Preferable to a Bush-Like Palin

The recent election of Scott Brown has two sides. The good side is that it amounted to a rejection of the destructive Obama-Democratic health bill. The bad side is that Brown turned out to be a Progressive. For how long have the Republican rank and file been falling for this? The Democrats produce toxic policies, and in reaction the Republicans support politicians who are committed to maintaining the Democratic policies. This kind of self-destructive stupidity has become so habitual that now a supporter of government sponsored health care in Massachusetts is hailed as a savior.

The Tea Party has demonstrated that it is capable of perpetuation of the Progressive habit. Hence, there is no large-scale voice in America for small government. There is a chance that the Tea Party can be influenced in a libertarian direction, but I do not see any backbone or leadership that would be necessary to reject the nasty GOP national leadership. The Tea Party's connection to Fox News, an integral part of the current tax-and-spend establishment, is evidence enough. Their applause for bailout supporters like Sarah Pailin also gives pause. Let us hope things can be turned around. I am not convinced.

I think the best that libertarians can do at this point in time is support the GOP at the local level and sit out the presidential election. A split with the Republicans controlling the Senate or hopefully both houses and a Democratic president, especially a joke like Obama, is preferable to the GOP controlling both branches. The chief downside is Democratic access to the Supreme Court. But the author of the New London v. Kelo decision, John Paul Stevens, was a Ford appointee (he goes back to 1975). The decision, which gave government the right to steal homes from private citizens, was passed in a court that was 7 Republican, 2 Democratic. As Mike Heuss wrote of New London v. Kelo:

"The Supreme Court is made up 9 individuals. Of those nine people, all but two are life-long Republicans: Appointed by Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr. Of the two Democrats on the Supreme Court Ginsburg is typically considered a moderate and so is Stephen Breyer.


"In truth, nationwide, the Republicans have placed more judges in all levels of the federal judiciary. So when I hear a Limbaugh / O'Reilly blowhard scream about activist judges, I recognize the spin and chuckle. They are saying "Maybe if I talk loud enough and label them all liberal, the Democrats will get blamed instead of us."

Thus, I don't think the GOP has made much difference for good at the presidential level. Libertarians might begin to think of the advantages of a GOP-led Senate and a Democratic president. There would be gridlock, hence government would considerably slow down. Partisan squabbling would be much preferable to what Bush did, such as the horrifying prescription drug law.

Gridlock sounds good to me. Better than seeing the national Tea Party played for a bunch of patsies with a Bush-like Palin in the White House. As well, it is more likely that the Tea Party can be influenced in a libertarian direction at the local level.

Has the Tea Party Become a Drag?

I just submitted this post at the RLC website:

I was reviewing Sarah Palin’s speech at the Tea Party convention on Youtube and was reminded of her position on the 2008 bailout. In a September 24, 2008 television interview Palin supported the bailout. But at the recent Tea Party convention she objected to bonuses that the support she had previously advocated made possible. I think the expression is that she has been shedding conservative crocodile tears.

Conservatives love to hate Saul Alinsky but in fact all activists, conservative, libertarian or left-wing, follow his advice if they aim to succeed. One of Alinsky’s rules for radicals is that a tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. This seems to be occurring with the Tea Party.

A reader suggested this blog by the Alantic Magazine’s Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan argues that the Tea Party convention was not economically conservative but was rather dominated by Christian activists. Sullivan writes:

“They have no plans to cut serious spending whatsoever. They love their Medicare, as they screamed at us last August. Do you remember them revolting against Bush’s unfunded, Medicare prescription drug bill, the worst act of fiscal vandalism since the Iraq war?”

I have attended my local Tea Party meeting in Kingston, New York. I do recall others, besides myself, talking about economic issues. One individual brought up the exit of manufacturing from the US, another talked about corruption in government. There are frequent references to the nation becoming worse for future generations. These are all good signs and say to me that the Tea Party has potential left.

Since the Atlantic is not a libertarian source (disclaimer: I read it regularly more than a quarter century ago and not since) my gut would be suspicious of anything its writers have to say about the Tea Party. However, Sullivan makes a good point.

It was obvious from the beginning that the Tea Party rank and file is largely inexperienced. Moreover, these are people who have developed a bad habit of voting for big government candidates who say that they are for small government. They did it for George W. Bush and they did it for George H. Bush. They nominated John McCain, who lept at the bailout like a terrier at a steak, along with Palin and Obama. The Tea Party people realize that something has gone wrong after decades of their de facto support for big government and their solution is…to do the same thing once again. This is seen in their decision to ask John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, to be the keynote speaker at their convention. Palin may speak economic conservative rhetoric at times, but she is not schooled in basic economics and can be seen in the September 2008 interview to be in the Progressive tradition.

I believe that libertarians need to work with the Christian right. However, we have been hammered once before, with respect to George W. Bush. The tactic of working with the Tea Party has helped expose our views, and it has been successful. But should libertarians continue to support the Tea Party? I am not certain that the leadership of the Tea Party supports our mission of limited government. Sarah Palin does not. I don’t think she understands that government activism in the bailout is logically inconsistent with support for limited government. The Tea Party may soon become a drag.