"Libertarian" Hypocrites -- authoritarians in disguise.

April 29, 2008 at 08:38 PM | categories: liberty rants | View Comments

I shredded my Libertarian Party membership card today. I'll be calling the national office tomorrow to formally rescind my membership. (Thank you Ian for the great example.)

Power corrupts. This is even true when it comes to so-called libertarians when they feel that they can champion the cause of liberty from within the political juggernaut. Instead, they let the power consume them and they forget the very reason they fight at all. Case in point: last Friday the Libertarian party issued a press release "calling for increased coordination and communication between federal and state law enforcement agencies in order to help to apprehend and convict child predators and those who engage in child pornography."

It's not the going after child predators part that bothers me. It's the complete reversal of the party's principal of individual voluntaryism in favor of authoritarian statism that bothers me. It used to be that the LP wanted to get RID OF the FBI and the CIA etc (completely! It was actually listed in the party platform.) Now they want to expand the relationship between federal and state agencies. Tell me, how exactly does giving the federal government control over yet another area of our lives constitute anything but an "initiation of force"? Not only has the LP platform been utterly compromised by this act; what they are suggesting is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

Article 1, section 8 and Article 3 section 3 of the US constitution clearly lays out three crimes that are under the jurisdiction of the federal government:

  • Piracy in international waters.
  • Counterfeiting US coins
  • Treason against the US

(Source: Harry Browne)

All other crimes are within the jurisdiction of the states by virtue of the 9th and 10th amendments. (And the states are more than well equipped to handle the cases at hand.)

I cannot, in good conscience, give one more dime to an organization that claims to want to reduce the size and scope of government and then does the exact opposite whenever it suits them.

What's worse is that this seems all to just be a power play to get rid of Mary Ruwart as a candidate for president. Shameful! Mary Ruwart is about as libertarian as they get when it comes to people directly involved with the LP. She alone has brought more people to the ideas of liberty (through her numerous books and essays) than all the officers of the LP combined. I would vote for Mary Ruwart with a clear conscience. I would never, ever, vote for what has become of the status quo LP candidates today -- The likes of Bob Barr, George Phillies, Mike Gravel (!!?!?). They are all phonies. They are infiltrators. They care nothing at all for the principals of freedom and the the ideals of non initiation of force. If they ever had any desire at all to advance liberty, they must have grown tired of being all alone with their "unpopular" ideas and are willing to pervert their principles so as to gain acceptance by the mediocre majority. For all purposes, the LP is dead.

I'm afraid the days of the Ron Pauls, the Harry Browns, and even the Michael Badnariks leading the LP are long gone. To take their place : unprincipled, power hungry, cronyistic, hypocritical fakes. I'm outta here.

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New Slacker Screenlet released

April 04, 2008 at 10:43 PM | categories: python, linux | View Comments

Check it out: I updated my Slacker Screenlet today.

New in this version:

  • Bug fixed where the screenlet-manager would respawn infinitely
  • Integrated LastSlacker support

You can read more about the original version in my previous post.

LastSlacker is a way to scrobble what you listen to on Last.FM. This lets you share a log of what you listen to with friends. I've been meaning to add this feature for a long time now, until today it's been in a sorta working state for months! It feels good to have finally gotten this project pretty much finished.

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