Hewitt gives Libertarians' 2019 SOTU presponse (video)

The Libertarian Party State of the Union: 'Americans deserve better' than 'Republicans and Democrats careen[ing] toward socialism and fascism' - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Matt Welch:

February 5, 2019 - "While Democrats bicker over who should give responses to tonight's State of the Union Address, Libertarians have gone the prebuttal route, delivered by the party's biggest star, the recently elected Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Hewitt.

"Hewitt, the pension-reforming former mayor of tiny Calimesa, California, who now represents 438,000 constituents, starts off the message from America's third-largest party by reciting piles of contextual good news that "you won't hear in the torrent of doom and gloom from our nation's capital'.... But ... the mood does turn darker. 'Our national debt has skyrocketed to almost $22 trillion.... [H]undreds of thousands are behind bars for no just reason at all... Our sons and daughters have been deployed to far-flung, never-ending wars without constitutional authorization.'

"And on the political conflict du jour, Hewitt comes out foursquare in favor of immigration.... 'The prohibition of immigration requires an extensive apparatus for mass surveillance and government intrusion into our daily lives. Libertarians say: The United States should welcome immigrants.'"

Watch the whole message here."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/05/the-libertarian-party-state-of-the-union

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Bob Marley and identity politics

Music Legend Bob Marley and the Folly of Identity Politics - David Unsworth, Panam Post:

December 20, 2017 - "A few years ago, I spent two weeks in Jamaica [that included] the obligatory visit to the Bob Marley Museum. After touring the mansion, which once housed the headquarters of Marley’s Tuff Gong record label, we were ushered into a small movie theater to watch a brief documentary on the life of Bob Marley.... Marley said on camera something that surprised me; something that I had not known before.

“'My father was white and mother was black. Then call me half-caste or what ever. I don’t dip on nobody’s side. I dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white'....

"Marley’s words should give us much food for thought today, as the post-Trump environment has seemed to engender a new age of identity politics.... In the United States, we are faced with a situation where, politically, we are highly divided along racial lines.... Identity politics has exacerbated our differences, and the animosity that we feel along racial and geographic lines....

"The law is supposed to be color-blind; progressive groups routinely argue, however, that it is not. They likely have many reasonable enough points. Yet, is a nationwide lurch towards identity politics really the path forward for progress in America?

"It is time that Americans stop dividing themselves politically into groups and subgroups.... American politicians of both parties should be saying, 'What can we do, right now, that is good for America as a whole. For all Americans.' ... not dreaming up ways to offer political bargains to various identity politics groups in order to reach 51%. Good public policy, good fiscal policy, good monetary policy, well-written evenly-enforced law, is good for all Americans, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, language, religion, geography, or sexual orientation....

"Entrepreneurship, individuality, and social and economic freedom have always been at the heart of the impressive American success story. It is for that reason that millions of immigrants have sought a better [life] here. It is for that reason that hundreds of thousands still brave perilous sea crossings or hazardous desert treks to reach American soil, regardless of their immigration status.

"A free market economy does not inherently discriminate based upon these identity categories. The market doesn’t care about your sexual orientation, or your skin color, or your religion, or your language: it cares about the cost and quality of the good and service you provide....

"We can not change the past. What we can do now, is try to make public policy that will truly afford the greatest opportunities to all American citizens, regardless of their race or class, gender or ethnicity,"

Read more: https://panampost.com/david-unsworth/2017/12/20/bob-marley-identity-politics/
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William Weld reregisters as Republican

Weld switches back to GOP ahead of 2020, mulls challenging Trump - Domenick Mastrangelo:

February 5, 2019 - "Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld is mulling running for president and has taken a step toward challenging President Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020, according to a report.

Weld, 73, has changed his party registration in the Bay State from Libertarian back to Republican, according to the Associated Press.

"A former Republican governor during the 1990s in the strongly blue state, Weld was running mate to 2016 Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson. Johnson and Weld earned ... about 4.4 million votes. Some analysts say if the pair had decided against running, Trump's popular vote margin might have been closer. Trump won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by about 2.9 million to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"No Republican has announced plans to challenge Trump in 2020, and some states have discussed nixing primaries in order to clear a path for the president to the nomination.

"In the run-up to the 2016 election, Weld described Trump as having 'a screw loose.'"

Read more: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/weld-switches-back-to-gop-ahead-of-2020-mulls-challenging-trump
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Alabama Libertarians sue for voters' list access

Libertarian Party files suit against Alabama claiming discrimination against minor parties | Opelika Observer:

January 21, 2019 - "Citing State of Alabama Election Code, the Libertarian Party of Alabama (LPA) has filed suit in the U.S. District Court, Alabama Middle District, alleging the State of Alabama discriminates against 'minor parties' and independent candidates, by charging them for the state-wide voter registration list or a portion thereof.

"Alabama law provides that major political parties – Republican and Democrat – be given the state-wide voter registration list free of charge, while charging minor parties and independent candidates one cent per name [which] equates to approximately $34,000. Add the 2.5% additional charge if paid for by credit or debit card for an additional $850....

"Since minor party candidates and independents must collect signatures by petition equal to 3 percent (currently 51,588 valid signatures for state-wide office) of the most recent vote for Governor, access to the voter registration list is crucial in order to confirm the validity of the signatures on the petitions....

"If a candidate is able to achieve 20 percent of the votes cast in a state-wide race, the minor party is then declared to have ballot access.... However, if the candidate/party does not break the 20 percent threshold in the next election, the minor party loses its ballot access and then must start gathering petition signatures again.

"Denied the ability to check petition signatures against the voter registration list because of the exorbitant cost associated with obtaining the list, minor parties and independents are placed at a distinct disadvantage. To quote the complaint, '…there is anything but a "uniform charge;" for the major political parties get it for free, while minor political parties have to pay an exorbitant fee for it. In effect, those who can least afford it, have to pay the most.'

"The complaint goes further in stating that Alabama law unconstitutionally discriminates between major and minor political parties in an effort to create obstacles that make it more difficult for minor parties, like the LPA, to grow, garner support, and obtain votes so that its members and followers hold public elective office. It also calls out violations of individuals’ rights protected under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution....

"The Libertarian Party of Alabama (LPA), a recognized affiliate of the national Libertarian Party, has been working to keep government from trampling the rights of individuals in our state since the early 1970s. For more information about the LPA, go to www.lpalabama.org."

Read more: http://opelikaobserver.com/libertarian-party-files-suit-against-alabama-claiming-discrimination-against-minor-parties/
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ARI begins outreach to student libertarian groups

What Defenders of Liberty Need to Know - Tom Bowden, New Ideal:

January 21, 2019 - "In recent years, there has been a resurgence of libertarian student organizations both in the US and around the world. Many of the students involved in those organizations are interested in Ayn Rand, and it’s for this audience that philosophers Onkar Ghate and Gregory Salmieri presented a seven-part lecture series called “What Is Liberty?”"

"'It’s exciting to see that there are so many students around the world interested in promoting liberty,' Salmieri says. 'That’s a project that requires philosophy, and most of these students are still at the early stages in the process of thinking through what liberty is and what’s needed to defend it. We prepared these lectures as a summary for this audience of Rand’s political philosophy....

”The relationship between Objectivism and the libertarian movement has been fraught since the libertarian movement coalesced in the late 1960s, Salmieri observes. 'Early libertarian leaders all cited Rand as an influence, but most of them had embraced anarchism, a view that Rand considered to be deeply incompatible with capitalism — and, indeed, with the requirements of human life. She held the libertarian movement in contempt for this reason, and also because she regarded it as unphilosophical — as an attempt to pursue ‘liberty’ as a vaguely defined political goal without first doing the thinking needed to understand what liberty is or what it requires.'

"In some ways, Salmieri notes, today’s liberty movement is a lot better than the movement Rand denounced in the early 1970s, but her central criticisms of the movement remain valid. 'Anarchism may not be as dominant as it once was,' he explains, 'but it exerts an outsized influence on how almost all self-professed libertarians think about freedom. And, if one looks at the full range of positions endorsed by all the people who claim to be united ‘for liberty,’ they’re too disparate for them to count as all fighting for the same thing. Some of them are fighting for something I can recognize as freedom, but others are fighting against it.'

"This confusion presents a real problem for the future, Salmieri contends, because at one time or another all of the most oppressive social systems in history — socialism, fascism, anarchism — have been hailed as 'pro-liberty' and championed by young people who thought they were on the side of freedom....

"All seven sessions, filmed at the 2017 Ayn Rand Student Conference, are available on this YouTube playlist in the order presented."

Read more: https://newideal.aynrand.org/what-defenders-of-liberty-need-to-know/

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Ayn Rand's literary roots

Ayn Rand, the Russian-American Victor Hugo - Econlib - Bryan Caplan:

February 3, 2005 - "Ayn Rand’s novels blend two distinct genres. She fits squarely into the tradition of the Russian philosophical novelists like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. But she is also a plot-rich Romantic in the tradition of Victor Hugo. Some standard features of the Russian approach:

1. Characters embody philosophical positions.
2. The plot explores the implications of these philosophies on the characters’ lives.
3. The conclusion of the novel vindicates the current philosophical position of the author....

"In The Brothers Karamazov, for instance, Ivan embodies idealistic atheism, Alyosha earnest Orthodox Christianity, Dmitri unreflective pragmatism, and Smerdyakov nihilism. The murder of the sons’ father tests their convictions. And (spoiler!) the revelation that Smerdyakov is the murderer ultimately discredits not only his nihilism, but Ivan’s idealistic atheism, for the latter paves the way for the former.

"If she had written only We the Living, Rand would probably now be hailed as one of the lesser 20th-century descendants of Dostoyevsky. Its characters embody idealistic Communism, cynical Communism, defiant individualism, and despairing individualism. But then she up and wrote The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged which are, by the standards of the Russian philosophical tradition, far better. The characters' philosophies are more interesting, the plot pits them against each other more effectively, and the concluding epiphanies are more compelling (especially in Atlas)....

"When you measure Rand’s against her Russian peer group, she is among the masters. But this understates her artistic achievement because she simultaneously works in another tradition: 19th-century Romanticism exemplified by Victor Hugo. Some standard features of the Romantic approach:

1. The characters are larger-than-life.
2. The plots are imaginative.
3. The plots are carefully crafted puzzles, unpredictable in advance, but cleanly logical in hindsight....

"I love Victor Hugo, and even if he’s not for you, it’s hard not to admire the craftsmanship. Dramatic situations and dramatic characters stitched seamlessly together – it’s not easy....

"When you put Ayn Rand beside Victor Hugo, however, the student is the master. Rand out-Hugos Hugo. For starters, her characters are more colorful.... The plot of Atlas Shrugged is likewise more imaginative than anything Hugo cooked up.... Her craftsmanship is better too. Hugo is full of improbable coincidences. Rand studiously avoids them....

"If you hate Rand’s style, I probably can’t talk you into enjoyment. But I suspect that the main reason many thinkers I respect don’t enjoy Rand’s fiction is that – even though they like one or both of the genres she exemplifies – they can’t bring themselves to judge her by the standards of those genres. If they did, the worst they could say about her would be 'Pretty damn good.'"

Read more: http://www.econlib.org/archives/2005/02/ayn_rand_the_ru.html
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Shutdown may mean brain drain to private sector

Federal shutdown's legacy may be brain drain to private sector | US news | The Guardian - Lauren Aratani and Erin Durkin:

January 30, 2019 - "The longest government shutdown in US history has come to an end, but experts fear its long-term consequences will include a brain drain among professionals.... The pain of the shutdown and fear of another one may drive away current and would-be government employees – especially those in highly skilled fields such as science, research and technology who can often command bigger paychecks in the private sector.

“The damage is profound,” said Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. “This is something that will take a very long time to fix....

"The partial government shutdown left 800,000 federal workers without pay, either sent home from their jobs or required to work without pay.... Government workers who once thought they could count on stable, long-term employment have now realized the rug can be pulled out from under them at any time, with decisions made by politicians leaving them to spend weeks, or even months, without pay.

"Shaneece Hill, an information technology analyst who works on contract with the Food and Drug Administration, said she loves her job, but had to spend some of her time while out of work applying for other jobs, a requirement to get unemployment benefits.... She plans to see out her contract, but is now thinking about going into the private sector once it’s up.

"'You thought the government was stable, the one job that was always going to be there,' Hill said. 'Usually the school of thought is, "Oh, you have a good government job, or you have a contract job with the government. They’re always open. They’ll always be there." It just gives you another reason for that not to be true,' she said. 'I’m just exploring options for something that’s more permanent'....

“'It’s not a secret you can make more money as a defense contractor or in cybersecurity working for a private company,' said John Harmon, the vice-president of federal sales at the cybersecurity firm Endgame. 'If the government isn’t a safe place to work any more, they can look other places.'

"While conventional wisdom holds that stability is one of the draws of a government job, Stier said he believes employees are more motivated by their commitment to the mission.... That too is jeopardized by the shutdown, which forced scientists to leave fragile research languishing in the lab. 'You’re not able to do your mission, and for no good reason,' Stier said.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/30/government-shutdown-brain-drain-private-sector
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