Once again, we see elected Libertarians doing what Democrats don’t want to do and Republicans say they want to do and don’t: cut government waste.

As of November 2006, Lee County, FL now has a Libertarian majority on their Soil & Water Conservation Board. If any of you have wondered (as I have), “What could Libertarians possibly do on a Soil & Water Board?”, then read on:

Chairman Jack Tanner quickly moved through the agenda until he opened the floor to discuss the termination of the mobile irrigation laboratory and our two employees. The next 45 minutes or so were consumed by a series of earnest and emotional pleas by the government managers. Phrases like “millions of gallons wasted” and “billions of gallons saved” were used. Papers were pushed around with columns, charts and graphs. A case was cited in which an elderly, feeble, poor woman, unable to manage her lawn sprinklers, was “saved” by our wonderful program.

Yeah, how wonderful; I’m sure that old lady would have curled up and died without those lawn sprinklers. She would have had no way of properly watering her lawn without a “mobile irrigation laboratory.” Right. Whenever bureaucrats want to justify a wasteful program, they always trot out a little old lady, or children, or some other sympathetic figure and talk about how all these people are “saved” by this useless program. Sometimes I think politicians and bureaucrats should be constantly followed around by violin players.

Anyway, continuing:

The Cape Coral utilities manager was impressive and forceful. At one point he said, “Citizens don’t protect themselves so we have to.” He concluded, “You may as well keep this program because if you don’t we will find a way to continue, and the taxpayers won’t save a dime.”

Yikes! Sounds like the decision to build the new arena in Charlotte despite the voters voting it down, only this guy comes right out and says it! Well, at least he’s honest…

I have heard this threat before. For years myself and a small and determined alliance have successfully fought off a county sales tax. Lee County officials repeatedly scolded us saying, “If you kill this tax we’ll just find another way to raise taxes.” Ever since I was a child, threats and intimidation have provided me with the energy and determination to do the opposite and face the consequences.

I waited until everyone had their say. I started by telling a familiar but fictional story. I said, “Imagine county police coming to my home and taking my wife to jail in handcuffs because I failed to pay a fine for making unnecessary trips in my car and wasting gasoline. Imagine her living with a criminal record caused by a law she didn’t know existed.” I went on, “We don’t make criminals out of people who waste gasoline because we have a relatively free market in gasoline. We do make criminals out of people who waste water because we don’t have a free market in water distribution.”

Exactly! I’ll have to remember this story…

You can read the article here, and I have more comments below.

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The Libertarian Party of North Carolina filed suit today in Superior Court to have the state’s unfair election laws declared unconstitutional. You can read the complaint as filed here. There is also a Motion For Temporary Restraining Order And Preliminary Injunction to get our candidates back on the ballot for the 2003 elections.

I have calculated that almost 130,000 North Carolina voters voted for at least one Libertarian in 2004, probably more. I say, their vote should count. If the Democrats and Republicans can’t stand the heat, I, for one, would be glad to let them step aside.

According to an article in the Washington Times, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay declared an "ongoing victory" in cutting spending "and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget."

Wha??? He can’t be this deluded. Not when Citizens Against Government Waste determined that wasteful spending programs in 2005 were up 19% from the previous year, making it the fattest year for pork.

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Well, many months of petitioning, which cost our state party $100,000, have come to naught. We were officially decertified today by the North Carolina Board of Elections. According to an article in the Raleigh News & Observer:

The board gave Libertarians two extensions to gather enough signatures since last November’s ballots were certified. Sean Haugh, the party’s executive director, argued that the board still could use such discretion, which would help Libertarian candidates in next month’s local primaries in Charlotte and Winston-Salem.

But the board said time had run out because absentee ballots had to be sent 30 days before such partisan elections.

All is not lost, though:

Haugh and party Chairman Thomas Hill said they are considering a lawsuit in state court to challenge North Carolina’s ballot access laws, which Hill contends are unconstitutional.

"We’re tired of being treated like second-class citizens in this state," Hill said.

Libertarians also are hopeful the Legislature will help future efforts to remain a political party.

A bill with bipartisan sponsorship aims to reduce the election and signature thresholds for remaining on the ballot in North Carolina, which is considered one of the most stringent in the nation.

The Electoral Fairness Act would reduce the number of signatures needed to keep a party on the ballot by 75 percent. It would also reduce the vote total needed to stay on the ballot from 10 percent in the gubernatorial or presidential race to 2 percent.

Rep. Paul Miller, D-Durham, chief sponsor of the bill, said it would lead to more people getting involved in the election process.

"I think it’s good reason for both (Democrats and Republicans) to support the bill," Miller said.

So, why’d the BoE decertify us? Check out the reason given:

"We’d throw the whole election into chaos," said board member Charles Winfree, a Republican.

What??? "Throw the whole election into chaos"? Why? Because we’d actually have not one but two primaries? Better to take the expense of decertifying 13,000 Libertarians, which includes mailing them notices of their decertification, not to mention printing up new registration forms that are just going to become invalid again once we recertify (and we will be back, make no mistake, be it by petition, legislation, or lawsuit)?

No, the real reason is: the Democrats and Republicans can’t stand the competition. We’re growing, and they know it. They also know they’re shrinking; registered Libertarians are at an all-time high, and so are registered Unaffiliateds, but the total number of registered Democrats and Republicans is at an all-time low.

Never mind. This is a setback, nothing more. We will fight, and we will be back. Make no mistake about it. This just makes our resolve stronger, our urge to fight the elites in power for control of our own government even more invigorated.

One quick shot to leave you with here. This is a quote from Hugh Downs, former co-anchor of ABC’s 20/20:

I think it might be important to point out that this country is a one-party country. Half of that party is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn’t make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians.

Another horrendous ruling from the Supreme Court. After some residents understandably challenged their local city’s efforts to seize their homes by force to give to private developers, the Supreme Court ruled on the side of the government and the developers. And yes, it was another 5-4 ruling. Justice Stevens, writing for the majority, said:

It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area…This Court’s authority…extends only to determining whether the City’s proposed condemnations are for a "public use" within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Because over a century of our case law interpreting that provision dictates an affirmativeanswer to that question, we may not grant petitioners the relief that they seek.

So, apparently giving money to private developers for their own profit is a "public use." This is what you get when you rely on interpretations of interpretations instead of just reading the Constitution. Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer concurred with his opinion.

O’Connor wrote the dissenting opinion, expressing a refreshing respect for property rights:

Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded–i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public–in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings "for public use" is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property–and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment…When interpreting the Constitution, we begin with the unremarkable presumptionthat every word in the document has independent meaning, "that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added." Wright v. United States, 302 U. S. 583, 588 (1938). In keeping with that presumption, we have read the Fifth Amendment’s language to impose two distinct conditions on the exercise of eminent domain: "the taking must be for a ‘public use’ and ‘just compensation’ must be paid to the owner." Brown v. Legal Foundation of Wash., 538 U. S. 216, 231-232 (2003)…Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.

She quoted Justice Chase:

"An ACT of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority… A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean… [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it." Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).

Finally, someone willing to go back at least to the founding principles of the country instead of just piddling with semantics! Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas dissented as well, and in Thomas’s dissent he takes the "interpretations of interpretations" trend to task:

The Court relies almost exclusively on this Court’s prior cases to derive today’s far-reaching, and dangerous, result. See ante, at 8-12. But the principles this Court should employ to dispose of this case are found in the Public Use Clause itself, not in Justice Peckham’s high opinion of reclamation laws, see supra, at 11. When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution’s original meaning.

You can read the entirety of the court’s opinion, including dissents, here.

I really don’t know what’s up with the Supreme court. Although, after the thrashing they gave our rights when ruling on the medical marijuana issue, I suspect they’re just high.

The US House has just, in Calley-esque fashion, voted to save the flag by destroying the freedom it stands for. In other words, they voted to propose a Constitutional amendment banning flag desecration. If it passes the Senate by a two-thirds majority, it will become a proposed amendment to our Constitution. Three-fourths of the states (38 of them, out of 50) would then have to ratify it in order for this to become part of our Constitution.

I don’t really think it’s going to pass. The House has already passed this five times before, and there are some politicians who see the nonsense in this, such as Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY) who is quoted in the article as saying, "The reason our flag is different is because it stands for burning the flag. The Constitution this week is being nibbled to death by small men with press secretaries."

But then, there’s the shameful and disgusting comments of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA): "Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center. Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment." What a sleazebag! How dare he capitalize on that terrible tragedy to push forward his jingoistic agenda?

Comedian Tim Slagle does (or, at least, did) a routine about flag burning. He talks about how the flag only means something because it’s backed up by the Bill of Rights. He then sets the Bill of Rights on fire, and the American flag spontaneously combusts. He’s received tons of complaints and has even been banned from several venues because he burned the flag.

The thing is, I don’t think he ever received a single complaint about him burning the Bill of Rights.

I think that’s very telling.

While Republican-majority and even Republican-tight city councils and commissioner boards make excuses for not cutting the size of government as they’ve promised, an elected Libertarian, Lenoir (NC) City Councilman T.J. Rohr, is working to cut $1 million from the Lenoir city budget. In one article, it was reported:

Most of the discussion focused on budget recommendations by Councilman T.J. Rohr.

Rohr submitted an extensive list of suggested changes to the budget which include eliminating funding for the Streetscape plan and the downtown development. His recommendations also include eliminating 12 or 13 city employees from various departments.

His plan would trim nearly $1 million from the city manager’s proposed $21.5 million budget.

Councilwoman Betty Buss said that his recommendations need to be explored.

"I like some of them. Some of them I don’t," said Buss. "We have to study it."

But the thing is, they wouldn’t be studying it if it weren’t for Rohr.

There’s a second article on the subject here.

If you’re not worried about the increasing attack on our liberty by our own government even as it purports to be creating liberty elsewhere in the world, then you might want to consider the words of someone who saw his own country descend into Nazism:

So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he’s like 85 years old – I don’t know exactly, but he’s old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, "Back to Germany."

I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

"No," he answered me. "I’m going back because I’ve seen this before." He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler’s government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer.

Wow…depressingly similar to what’s been going on here. With the USA PATRIOT Act, the "enemy combatant" order, and other atrocities on our liberties (the "Real ID Act" passed the Senate 100-0!) being accepted, or at least not challenged, by the people and the media staying mostly silent on these issues, it’s hard not to be alarmed. Fortunately, there are some new media outlets beginning to challenge the government, such as Free Talk Live and Free Market News. The article continues:

I gotta tell you – it was chilling. I let him talk, and the whole time, my gut was churning, like I had mutated butterflies in my stomach. When he was finished, he shook my hand, gripping it really hard, until his knuckles turned white and he was shaking. He looked me in the eyes, hard, and said, "I will pray for your family and your country." He let go of my hand and hobbled away.

You can read the entire article here.