Category Archives: Libertarianism

The deadline to register to vote in the upcoming May General Primary Election is fast approaching. Voters must register by Monday April 25. Morgan County residents can register to vote through the Morgan County Board of Elections and Registration (BOER) office, located at 237 North Second Street in Madison.

The General Primary Election is slated for Tuesday, May 24, but local voters will have the opportunity to cast ballots early with Advance Voting kicking off on Monday, May 2 and ending on Friday, May 20.

Early voting hours will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with early voting available on two Saturdays, May 9 and May 14, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. All early voting is done at the BOER office.

On election day, Tuesday, May 24, there is no voting at the BOER office and all voters must cast ballots at their assigned polling places in the county.

Your county polling location may have changed since the 2020 elections. You can confirm your election day polling place by going to mvp.sos.ga.gov or calling the BOER at 706-343-6311.

Morgan County voters will be able to cast ballots on several high-profile statewide races in 2022, including the race for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, a U.S. House of Representatives seat, and one of Georgias U.S. Senate seats. Local voters will also decide two State Senate seats for District 17 and District 25 along with one State House of Representatives seat for District 114.

Locally, voters decide two contested races, one for a county commissioner seat and the other for a board of education seat.

As long-time County Commissioner Andy Ainslie retires from office this year, three candidates have filed to run for his seat in District 2 two Republicans and one Democrat.

Republicans Keith Wilson and Blake McCormack will face off in the upcoming primary election on Tuesday, May 24. The winner will run against Democrat Bob Baldwin in the Nov. 8 General Election for the open seat on the Morgan County Board of Commissioners.

In November, Democrat Dr. Claudia Crenshaw will square off against Republican Incumbent Dr. Forest Pagett for the District 5 Board of Education seat.

Morgan County voters will have to make choices on several state and federal races, with no shortage of candidates running for the seats.

In the race for Georgia Governor, two Republican titans will face off in the May 24 Primary Incumbent Brian Kemp and former U.S. Senator David Perdue. Other Republicans have also qualified to run, including Catherine Davis, Kandiss Taylor, and Tom Williams.

The winner will take on Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams in the Nov. 8 General Election, as well as Libertarian Shane Hazel and Independent Al Bartell.

One of Georgias U.S. Senate seats is up for grabs, as Democratic Incumbent Raphael Warnock faces Democratic challenger Tamara Johnson-Shealey. Republican challengers have lined up as well for the seat, including Gary Black, Josh Clark, Kelvin King, Jonathan McColumn, Latham Saddler and Herschel Walker. One Libertarian has qualified for the Senate seat, Chase Oliver.

In the race for Georgia Lieutenant Governor, Democrats Erick Allen, Charlie Bailey, Tyrone Brooks Jr., Tony Brown, Kwanza Hall, Jason Hayes, Derrick Jackson, R. Malik, Renitta Shannon have qualified to run. On the Republican side, Burt Jones, Mack McGregor, Butch Miller, and Jeanne Seaver qualified. Libertarian candidate Ryan Graham also qualified.

In the race for Georgia Secretary of State, Republican Incumbent Brad Raffensperger will square off against Republican challengers Jody Hice, a former U.S. Congressman, David Belle Isle, and T.J. Hudson. Democrats running for Georgia SOS include Dee Dawkins-Haigler, John Eaves, Floyd Griffin, Bee Nguyen, and Michael Owens. Libertarian Ted Metz is also running.

Congressman Jody Hice is vacating the U.S. House District 10 to run for Georgia SOS. A crowded field of candidates has emerged to win his seat. Republicans running include Timothy Barr, Paul Broun, Mike Collins, David Curry, Vernon J. Jones, Marc McMain, Alan Sims, and Mitchell Swan. Democrats running include Jessica Allison Fore, Tabitha Johnson-Green, Phyllis Hatcher, Femi Oduwole, and Paul Walton.

In the local state representative races, candidates have lined up to compete for two State Senate seats and one State House of Representatives seat.

For State Senate District 25, currently held by Burt Jones who is vacating office to run for Lt. Governor, candidates running to replace him include Republicans Rick Jeffares, Leland Jake Olinger II, Daniela Sullivan-Marzahl, and Ricky Williams, and Democrat Valerie Rodgers.

For State Senate District 17, Republican Incumbent Brian Strickland is running for reelection, facing Republican challenger Brett Mauldin. The winner will go to run against Democratic challenger Kacy Morgan in the Nov. 8 General Election.

State Rep. Dave Belton will not seek reelection for District 114. Republicans Wendell McNeal and Tim Fleming will face off in the May primary election for their partys nomination. The winner will face Democratic Challenger Malcom Adams in November.

Georgians will vote on the next Attorney General, with Republican incumbent Chris Carr running for reelection, facing challenges from Republican John Gordon, Democrats Jennifer Jordan and Christian Wise Smith, and Libertarian Martin Cowen.

Georgians will also vote for Commissioner of Agriculture, Commissioner of Insurance, State School superintendent, and Commissioner of Labor.

See the rest here:
Register to vote in the May Primary before the April 25 deadline - Morgan County Citizen

A foreign-policy alliance between the New Right, realists and libertarians, and the Old Left would pose a real threat to the Washington uniparty.

(From left to right) Dan Caldwell, Adam Korzeniewski, and Russ Vought speak at TAC and American Moment's Up From Chaos conference, March 2022.

The interventionist uniparty is afraidvery afraid. Afraid enough, in fact, to sling oodles of mud at a rising national coalition for foreign-policy restraint.

This new restraint coalition encompasses three camps: the broad New Right (including political Catholics, national conservatives, Claremont folks, and some Trumpy populists); libertarians and old-school realists (whove long bandwagoned together); and what might be called the traditional left (the likes of Glenn Greenwald, Michael Tracey, and myCompactcolleague Edwin Aponte). The three camps came together for TACsUp From Chaos snap conference in Washington last month, and tosignCompacts recent statement calling for de-escalation over Ukraine.

These camps disagree about a lot of issues, of course; in domestic policy, the libertarians are especially at odds with the other two, which increasingly coalesce over the need to save representative government from the predations of private, corporate poweror, to put it another way, to democratize the economy. Yet the American system generously rewards precisely such alliance-building around discrete issues. In this case, three groups are joining forces, as yet often loosely and unofficially, to give voice to the millions of Americans who drew the right conclusions from the last 20 years bloody and wasteful exercises in imperial expansion, who now seek a more realistic, less ideological posture abroad.

Such an alliance could have potentially wide ramifications in U.S. politics, especially if it is institutionalized to a greater extent than it is today. Which is why, I suspect, the bipartisan hawks are working double-time to smear the coalition as unpatriotic, pro-Putin, and worse.

Witness MondaysWall Street Journalop-ed by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, in which the former Trump administration apparatchik accused therestraint coalition of falling for the Russia temptation, as the headline put it. In the piece, Shapiro fretted that too many populist conservatives had fallen for Russian propaganda and bought into Putins narrative. But while the piece was heavily weighted with conclusory statements, it was light on actual evidence of restrainers succumbing to the Russia temptationrather than calling for less ideology and more caution in response to Russias invasion of Ukraine, which is something else entirely.

Shapiro cited an online discussion group where some of his former Trump administration colleagues allegedly traded pro-Putin sentiments in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. Yet Shapiro didnt name names, making it impossible to substantiate what amounts to chatroom gossip. Beyond that, he came up mostly empty-handed.

Shapiro dinged Washington state congressional candidate Joe Kent for treating Putins negotiating demands as a decent starting point, which is effectively what the Kiev government is doing. Shapiro also assailed TACs Helen Andrews for saying, Ukraine is a corrupt countrywhich is a statement of fact, reflected in Ukraines abysmal Transparency International rankings as well as countless State Department reports and New York Timeseditorials lamenting Ukrainian graft. Is acknowledging inconvenient realities now a pro-Putin act?

Finally, Shapiro criticized theCompactdeclaration for calling for de-escalation and good-faith peace talks and for demanding that President Biden renounce regime change in Moscow. But how is any of this alarming, as Shapiro insists? The politicians and writers Shapiro criticizes have, contra his assertion, all denounced Russian aggression. What Shapiro seems to want, but cant bring himself to say outright, is escalation and regime change. So, instead, he frames opposition to such dangerous policies as extreme isolationism and Putinism, all in an attempt to erect a cordon sanitairearound foreign-policy realism.

An even more mendaciousindeed, downright vileattack was mounted last week against Dan Caldwell, a vice president at the Koch-affiliated group Stand Together, which advocates foreign-policy restraint from a libertarian perspective. Judd Legum, a former Center for American Progress and Hillary Clinton campaign staffer, published an email sent by Caldwell to the Stand Together staff and claimed that Caldwell had called for a partial victory for Russia.

Yet asReasonsRobby Soave noted, nowhere in his article does Legum share the email in its entirety: Instead, he selectively quotes from it, leaving out important, clarifying context. Indeed. There is selective quotingand then there is Judd Legum-style selective quoting. Far from making a merely boilerplate condemnation of the invasion, as Legum claimed, Caldwell had written, Russias invasion of Ukraine is immoral, unjustified, and should be immediately halted. In addition, the regime of Vladimir Putin is authoritarian and has inhibited the Russian people from enjoying the benefits of a free and open society.

As for the victory bit quoted by Legum, he really only quoted the single word, victory, and added his own verbiage to make it seem as if Caldwell hadcalledfor a partial Russian win. Heres what Caldwell had actually written to the Stand Together staff: An outright victory by either Russia or Ukraine is increasingly unlikely, and a diplomatic resolution is the path that best limits the bloodshed and minimizes the risk that the current war could escalate into a larger conflict. Now, you might agree or disagree with Caldwell on this analysisI happen to think hes dead-rightbut only an idiot or a malicious hack could interpret these words as support for a partial Russian victory.

Legum also blasted Caldwell forsaying that overly-broad sanctions rarely workas if he had caught his subject making a racist remark into a hot mic, rather than making a statement about the efficacy of sanctions, a question over which many reasonable experts disagree. Again, as Soave notes, its absurd to characterize Stand Togethers skepticism of sanctions as anything other than a sincere belief held by some libertarians, noninterventionists, and a great many progressives.

Then again, thats precisely what terrifies uniparty mouthpieces like Legum: that these different camps might share more than mere sentimentsand instead make common cause around shared purposes. Hence, the cheap smears from hawks.

See the rest here:
Why Hawks Fear the Restraint Coalition - The American Conservative

Assuming that the rule of law and intellectual integrity matters to a court with an originalist supermajority, the choice before the court is a clear one: It must weigh a modern libertarian preference for gun rights against the strong historical evidence allowing robust gun regulation, including may-issue permit schemes premised on specified threats like New York has had in place for a century. As the recent horrific events on the New York City subway underscore, guns have no place on public transportation or any other place where a large number of people gather. The Supreme Court would do well to act with some measure of judicial humility on this issue, respect history, not invent it, and reaffirm that the people, not unelected judges make the laws in our system.

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Guns, guns everywhere: Last weeks subway shooting was horrifying. If the Supreme Court creates a national right to carry, the future will be worse. -...

LENOIR Primary elections give voters the opportunity to decide from a pool of candidates who should ultimately be nominated by either political party to run in the general election.

Friday, April 22 at 5 p.m. is the deadline for Caldwell County citizens to register to vote or to change their party affiliation.

May 10 is the last day for residents to request an absentee ballot by mail by 5 p.m. Election Day is on May 17, when the polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.

Registered voters across the state can vote in the primary, said Director of Caldwell County Board of Elections Chad Barnes. However, voters affiliated with any political party will be given a ballot of candidates for their party. Unaffiliated voters may choose the ballot of candidates for either the Republican or Democrat party primary. Therefore, unaffiliated voters in Caldwell County in the May 17 primary may choose only a Democratic or a Republican ballot.

For early voting, or One-Stop voting, there are two locations where individuals can vote early: the Resource Center (lower level of the library), located at 120 Hospital Ave. in Lenoir, and the Shuford Recreation Center, located at 56 Pinewood Rd. in Granite Falls. Early voting starts on April 28th and ends May 14th. Residents can come by to submit their votes each weekday from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., as well as Saturdays April 30th, May 7th, and May 14th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

In Caldwell County, the Democrat Party does not have a primary for Clerk of Court, County Commissioners, Board of Education, N.C. House of Representatives, N.C. Senate, or U.S. House of Representatives District 5, N.C. Supreme Court Associate Justices, or N.C. Court of Appeals Judges. Any Democrat who properly filed for office will therefore appear as the partys nominee on the general election ballot in November.

Right now, the total number of registered voters in Caldwell County is 53,999. The total number of registered Republicans is 26,267, and the total number of registered Democrats is 10,418 people. There are currently 16,939 residents who have registered as unaffiliated, and 375 people have registered as Libertarian.

In 2022, the Libertarian Party does not have any primary elections because there are no contested Libertarian nominations for any office. Any Libertarian candidate who properly filed for office will therefore appear as the partys nominee on the general election ballot in November.

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Deadline to register to vote in primaries is April 22 - Lenoir News-Topic

At the beginning of his short book Why Not Socialism?, G.A. Cohen asks the reader to think about a group of friends going on a camping trip together. He doesnt describe anything out of the ordinary. The friends find a site and set up a tent. Some of them fish, some of them cook, they all go on hikes, and so on.

What Cohen wants the reader to notice is that the way this trip is run looks a lot like how socialists think society should be run. The pots and pans and fishing poles and soccer balls, for example, are treated as collective property even if they belong to individual campers. When the fish are caught and cooked, everyone gets to partake equally of the result of the collective effort, free of charge. Cohens hypothetical campers act this way not because of anything especially noble about them, but because this is how any group of friends would act on a camping trip.

To make the point more sharply, he invites us to imagine a far less normal camping trip one thats run according to the principles of a capitalist market economy. One of the campers (Sylvia) discovers an apple tree. When she comes back to tell the others, theyre excited that theyll all be able to enjoy apple sauces, apple pie, and apple strudel. Certainly they can, Sylvia confirms provided, of course . . . that you reduce my labor burden, and/or provide me with more room in the tent, and/or with more bacon at breakfast.

Another camper, Harry, is very good at fishing, and so in exchange for his services he demands that he be allowed to dine exclusively on perch instead of the mixture of perch and catfish everyone else is eating. Another, Morgan, lays claim to a pond with especially good fish because he claims that his grandfather dug and stocked it with those fish on another camping trip decades ago.

No normal person, Cohen notes, would tolerate such behavior. They would insist on what he calls a socialist way of life. Why, then, shouldnt we want to organize an entire economy around the same principles?

Many defenders of capitalism would insist that, however obnoxious or unacceptable it would be to treat your friends this way, people still have a right to assert private property claims including claims to private property in the means of production and that it would be unacceptably authoritarian for a future socialist society to abridge such rights. Cohen doesnt spend any time in Why Not Socialism? on this defense, perhaps because he addresses it at length in two of his other books, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality and History, Labour, and Freedom.

Instead, he devotes the later chapters of Why Not Socialism? to objections that even some progressives might have about whether socialist principles can scale up from a camping trip to an entire economy. Is whats possible among a small group of friends really possible for a whole society? What about economic calculation problems? What about human nature?

Cohen takes these challenges seriously, but cautions against premature defeatism. He admits that its possible that the closest well get to the fully marketless economic planning modeled by the camping trip on a society-wide scale is some sort of market socialism although he thinks its premature to rule out the possibility of going further than that.

Either way, Cohens view is that the ideal is one worth striving for. Even if we dont get all the way there, a society that more closely approximates the way of life found on the camping trip would be better than one further from it.

Why Not Socialism? was published in 2009, the year Cohen died. Five years later, libertarian philosopher Jason Brennan came out with a critique entitled Why Not Capitalism?

In it Brennan argues that instead of looking at the flaws of actually existing socialism and those of actually existing capitalism, Cohen was weighing a socialist ideal against the warts-and-all version of capitalism. Such a lopsided comparison, he thinks, proves nothing.

Brennan illustrates the point by discussing the animated Disney show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (not to be confused with the older variety show The Mickey Mouse Club). In a parody of Cohens camping trip chapter, Brennan describes the show as it actually is everyone seems to be friends with everyone else and there doesnt seem to be any poverty or serious social distress, but it looks like a regular market economy. Minnie Mouse owns a factory and store for hair bows called the Bowtique, Clarabelle Cow is a reasonably successful entrepreneur (she owns both a sundries store called the Moo Mart and a Moo Muffin factory), and Donald Duck and Willie the Giant both own their own farms.

Brennan then asks the reader to imagine a hypothetical version of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village where some of the villagers started doing what Stalinist regimes did in the name of socialism. Donald forcibly collectivizes all farmland like Stalin did in 1929, Clarabelle Cow starts a secret police force, and so on. Obviously, that would be horrible!

If you dont think this hypothetical proves anything about capitalism and socialism, Brennan writes, you shouldnt think Cohens camping trip argument does either. In both cases, the problem is that like isnt being compared to like. And Brennan further argues that, even as an ideal, capitalism is better than socialism because in a laissez-faire capitalist world, anyone who wanted to secede and form a commune with their own preferred rules could do so.

There are three problems with Brennans argument. First, he is not comparing like to like in his attempt to satirize Cohen. After all, Cohen isnt describing some idealized fantasy of a camping trip; hes describing the kind of camping trip that untold numbers of people go on every year. They all work the way Cohen describes. The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village is a trippy sci-fi fantasy of animals interacting in a half-imagined society, one where its unclear whether a state exists or what sorts of labor laws or regulations it potentially enforces. To compare like to like, Brennan would have had to find a mundane experience that many readers have had, or at least are very familiar with, where a capitalist way of life would be obviously preferable.

Second, Cohen isnt contrasting the small-scale implementation of socialist ideals with the worst things that have been done in the name of capitalism. Sylvias insistence on her property rights stops the other campers from getting apple strudel she isnt denying any of them life-saving medications because they cant afford to pay. No one hires other campers to stack firewood for them and then hires Pinkertons to beat or kill the firewood stackers when they go on strike. Cohen doesnt come up with a camping trip version of the British East India company or the enclosures that drove peasants off their land and made them desperate enough to take jobs in early factories or Adolf Hitlers declaration of emergency powers to protect Germany from the threat of left-wing revolution.

Instead, all of Cohens examples are examples of people asserting exactly the kinds of economic rights that defenders of capitalism are eager to endorse the kind that everyone would have in Brennans libertarian ideal of capitalism! Morgans grandfather passed on his property to his descendants, Sylvia is asserting her property rights in the means of apple strudel production as the initial discoverer of a piece of unowned property, and the other two are simply trying to bargain for the best deal they can get in a free market.

If Brennan wanted to seriously engage with Cohens argument, hed have to explain why, if its not okay to act this way on a camping trip, it wouldnt even be desirable to try to figure out a different way to organize a society.

Cohen thinks that whats wrong with introducing a capitalist way of life into a camping trip and with it serving as the guiding principle for an economy is that capitalism fails to live up to an ideal that its defenders often tout: equality of opportunity. In each case, some people are doing worse than others due to factors outside their control not having seen the apple tree first, not having a grandfather who bequeathed the particularly good fishing pond, or just not being lucky enough to have been born with the same skills as their friends.

Similarly, Cohen thinks, no one deserves a worse life just because they didnt grow up in a rich family or they werent born with the skills that allow some to climb up the social ladder. He contrasts bourgeois equality of opportunity, meaning that there are no formal impediments to anyone succeeding (for example, racial discrimination) and even left-liberal equality of opportunity, which attempts to go beyond bourgeois equality of opportunity with programs like Head Start that compensate for certain social disadvantages, with socialist equality of opportunity the principle that no one should have a worse life due to factors outside of their control.

If different people, for example, want to make different decisions about how many hours to work and how much leisure to enjoy, its not unjust to reward more industrious choices with greater consumption. But no one should have a worse life because of who their parents were or how well they do on tests. Cohen supplements this with a socialist principle of community: if you recognize other people as part of your community, youll try to make sure they dont suffer too much even from bad choices they make of their own free will.

Id argue Cohens list of principles is somewhat incomplete. Historically, socialists have, for very good reasons, emphasized equality of power (although, to be fair, Cohen writes eloquently elsewhere about the unfreedom that workers suffer under capitalism).

I also wish hed read about other models of what socialism could look like. As an achievable halfway house between capitalism and completely marketless, moneyless camping-trip-style socialism, Cohen discusses John Roemers scheme under which every citizen would be awarded equal stock ownership, but Cohen doesnt seem to be aware of, for example, the slightly more radical conception of market socialism advanced by David Schweickart. I wish he had, because in implementing democratic control at the workplace, Schweickarts conception comes closer to Cohens ideal while still seeming realistic in the short term.

Despite these minor defects, Why Not Socialism? is an excellent introduction to socialist ideals. The form of presentation is intuitive and even deceptively simple, while the underlying arguments are careful and sophisticated. You can finish it in an hour, and Cohens points will linger in your head for years. Read it.

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GA Cohen Showed Why We Should All Be Socialists - Jacobin magazine

In these confusing and confronting times might there be some ancient wisdom that we could turn to that will help guide us through. Amanda Ruggeri argues that 'whether it's war or a pandemic, our health or finances, no matter how challenging our lives might feel, the Stoics tell us, we still can thrive'.She explains the history of the Stoics and reminds us that 'for Stoics, it isn't the thing itself that causes turmoil. It's how you think about it. And few things cause more distress than fighting against circumstances outside of our control, or getting attached to an outcome that isn't in our power'. The Stoics teach us to recognize what you can (and can't) control, choose how to respond, see every challenge as a learning opportunity and to remember that change and loss is constant. She explains what that means in our times and why we need to remember that this too shall pass.

Then, (at 14 mins) Amanda gets on her soapbox to rant about one person making a difference.

Also, (at 15 mins) what are the limits of libertarianism? Joel Kotkin explains that 'in recent years, libertarians increasingly seem less concerned with how their policies might actually impact people. Convinced that markets are virtually always the best way to approach any issue, they have allied with many of the same forces monopoly capital, anti-suburban zealots and thetech-oligarchy which are systematically undermining the popular rationale for market capitalism'. He goes through some core libertarian beliefs and how they've changed and says that 'in many ways, libertarians, like all of us, are victims of history' and that to become relevant again, libertarians need to go beyond their dogmatic attachments, focus on bolstering the vitality competitive free markets'. That 'libertarian ideas still have great relevance, but only so much as they reflect markets that are open to competition and capable of improving everyday lives'.

Then, (at 28 mins) have Russia and Ukraine always been so intertwined? Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick explains the history of their shared history and says that ' Ukrainians tell a story of the origins of the Ukrainian nation going back to 11th century Kyiv, surviving centuries of oppression by Russia and Poland, and, finally, emerging out of the wreckage of the Soviet Union as a sovereign Ukrainian state in 1991. For the Russians, the various western and southern provinces now called Ukraine were populated by Slavic border people (Ukrainians) who were essentially Russian. They considered this land as a part of the Russian Empire for centuries'. She says that 'it is not clear if the younger post-Soviet generation in particular, young men liable for military conscription see Ukraine and its current Western orientation in the same way as their elders' and that 'it remains to be seen how the Russian Army and Russians back home will feel about the killing of Ukrainians: Slavic kith and kin'.

Finally, (at 40 mins) are all natural disasters caused by climate change? Fred Pearce argues that 'there is a growing debate among environmental scientists about whether it is counterproductive to always focus on climate change as a cause of such disasters. Some say it sidelines local ways of reducing vulnerability to extreme weather and that it can end up absolving policymakers of their own failures to climate-proof their citizens'. He goes through some recent disasters such as the floods in Germany, the food crisis in Madagascar and the dry state of Lake Chad in West Africa, all of which were blamed on climate change but in reality was a mix of poor irrigation practices or government polices. He believes that 'no doubt climate changes intensifies the situation, however other drivers are key' and we ignore them at our peril.

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Stoics and storms - Counterpoint - ABC News

Normally I wouldn't waste my time responding to an negative letter to the editor like the one from Joseph McCarthy but I need to set the record straight.

The Free Staters and the Libertarians are the FAKE Republicans a.k.a RINOs: they can't run as Libertarians because New Hampshire doesn't have a Libertarian Party. So, instead they write letters to the editor with their faulty, so-called "Republican advice". Remember, they and the extreme "Far Right" Republicans who blindly follow the Free Staters are truly the RINOs none of them are even close to being true Republicans. Remember, they're the ones who want the state of NH to secede from the Union.

Rather than trying to secede from the Union, they should move to a different country. I was elected to represent all my constituents it doesn't matter their political philosophy or ideals. When the majority speaks out in favor of the nursing home and sheriff's department it is my duty as an elected official to listen and support all the above.

Time and time again we see those who claim to "back the blue" slash law enforcement budgets meanwhile true supporters of first responders like myself co-sponsor bills like 1587-FN that rights the wrong done to our group two firefighters and law enforcement officers with their pensions.

When I was elected I vowed to look out for everyone not just my own personal agenda, again I must state many representatives can learn from this and I pray the public seeks common sense over extremists in any party.

I vowed to support Gov. Chris Sununu and the NH Advantage, Second Amendment rights and to back first responders. Promises made, promises kept end of story. I will never be or support extremists in either party.

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Mike Bordes: Free staters and Libertarians are the only RINOs here - The Laconia Daily Sun

Filings closed Tuesday for the August Primary election with a few races forming countywide.

For Presiding Commissioner, incumbent Republican Harold Gallaher is seeking another term. Ryan Cooper has filed as a Libertarian.

For Prosecuting Attorney, incumbent Melissa Gilliam and Blake Dudley have filed on the Republican ticket.

For Recorder of Deeds, incumbent Republican Jay Graf and Libertarian Jacob Reagan Goff have filed.

Kristina Bone and Elaine Easter have filed as Republicans for Circuit Clerk.

For Associate Circuit Judge Division III, Republican Brice Sechrest has filed for election for the position to which he was recently appointed.

For Associate Circuit Judge Division IV, incumbent Pat King and Julie McCarver have filed as Republicans for the position.

Angie Usery has filed as a Republican for St. Francois County Collector.

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For County Auditor, incumbent Republican Louie Seiberlich has filed.

For County Clerk, incumbent Republican Kevin Engler filed.

For the Republican Central Committeeman - Perry Township, Randy Hubbard and Mike Miller have filed.

For the Republican Central Committeeman - St. Francois Township, Ben Bradley, Chuck Dodson and Kyle Smith have filed.

In Madison County, the primary includes Associate Judge 24th Circuit, Prosecuting Attorney, Presiding Commissioner, Circuit Clerk, Treasurer, Recorder of Deeds, Collector and Clerk of County Commission.

Daniel P. Fall filed in the Republican primary for associate judge.

Incumbent M. Dwight Robbins filed in the Republican primary for prosecutor.

For Madison County Presiding Commissioner, incumbent Jason Green and Jim Thompson have filed in the Republican primary.

For Madison County Circuit Clerk, incumbent Tenia Hermann filed in the Republican primary.

For Madison County Treasurer, incumbent Jessica D. Stevens filed in the Republican primary.

For Madison County Recorder of Deeds, incumbent Saundra Ivison filed in the Republican primary.

For Madison County Collector, Sarah B. Garcia filed in the Republican primary.

For Madison County Clerk of County Commission, incumbent Donal Firebaugh filed in the Democratic primary.

For the U.S. Senate seat, a number of candidates have filed for both parties. Republican candidates are Mark McCloskey, Eric Greitens, Hartford Tunnell, Deshon Porter, Dave Sims, Patrick A Lewis, Billy Long, Eric Schmitt, Vicky Hartzler, C.W. Gardner, Robert Allen, Dave Schatz, Bernie Mowinski, Dennis Lee Chilton, Kevin Schepers, Rickey Joiner, Robert Olson, Russel Pealer Breyfogle Jr, Darrell Leon McClanahan III, Curtis D. Vaughn and Eric McElroy. Democratic candidates are Gena Ross, Lewis Rolen, Spencer Toder, Carla Coffee Wright, Lucas Kunce, Scott Sifton, Josh Shipp, Clarence Taylor, Pat Kelly, Tudy Busch Valentine, Ronald William Harris and Jewel Kelly. Libertarian Candidate Jonathan Dine and Constitution Candidate Paul Venable have also filed.

For U.S. Rep. District 8, two Republicans have filed, Jacob Turner and incumbent Jason Smith. Randi McCallian has filed as Democrat and Jim Higgins as Libertarian.

For State Rep. District 115, incumbent Republican Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway has filed for reelection and Barbara Marco has filed as a Democrat.

Incumbent State Representatives Dale Wright, Mike Henderson, Chris Dinkins and Rick Francis have filed for their respective districts with no opposition.

Mark Marberry is a reporter for the Farmington Press and Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3629, or at mmarberry@farmingtonpressonline.com

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Filings close with races forming in SFC | Government and Politics | dailyjournalonline.com - Daily Journal Online

One idea that seems to have become widespread online is the political compass, a graph dividing political ideologies into four groups: Authoritarian Left (left-wing economically, but socially conservative and/or favoring a strong state), Libertarian-Left (also economically leftish, but more pro-civil liberties), Authoritarian Right (economically and socially conservative, generally favoring activist government in order to ensure law and order), and Libertarian Right (economically conservative, socially tolerant).

It seems to me that the political compass is easy to adapt to arguments about urbanism. For example, one axis of conflict is "status quo vs. YIMBY"- people who favor lots of new housing (colloquially referred to as "YIMBYs") vs. people who favor the zoning status quo. Another axis of conflict is "Sprawl vs. Smart Growth"people who view additional suburbanization as essentially harmless vs. people who view it as environmentally or socially harmful.

So for example, a libertarian purist would be at the "YIMBY/Sprawl" extreme, because a pure libertarian would believe that a) government has no business limiting the housing supply but b) also has no business limiting sprawl. For example, market urbanistScott Beyer is somewhere in this quadrant; he values the benefits of urban life and supports new infill housing, but views suburban development as a legitimate consumer choice that should not be overly restricted.

On the other hand, Todd Litman (who has written extensively on the Planetizen blog) is perhaps in the YIMBY/Smart Growth column; he has written extensively about the benefits of more walkable development, but has also discussed the importance of new housing supply in holding down housing costs. I am instinctively sympathetic towards this group, although in regions with housing shortages, I am more willing than I used to be to support additional suburban housing.

The "Status Quo*/Smart Growth" grouping seems to be very popular among older urbanists. The core idea animating this group is that even though sprawl is environmentally harmful, new infill development should still be carefully regulated. The major constituency for this group is older urban homeowners, who benefit from rising home prices, and who see no obvious benefit from new housing in their neighborhoods. Members of this group seem to be motivated by a variety of concerns, such as fear of gentrification, fear of low-quality architecture, and dislike of tall buildings. Others simply are unwilling to believe that the law of supply and demand applies to market-rate housing. More moderate members of this grouping claim to favor new housing is long as it is "affordable" (i.e. subsidized so it can cater to low- and moderate- income urbanites).

The "Status Quo/Sprawl" grouping tends not to have as much support among planning commentators as the other three groupings, but is arguably popular among suburban homeowners and the politicians who represent them. People in this grouping are perfectly happy with suburbia the way it is, and fear that new housing might bring a variety of unwelcome change. They tend to favor new housing, as long as it is low-density sprawl. President Trumps claims that he was protecting suburbia from civil rights laws was an attempt to cater to this group; similarly, sprawl advocate Joel Kotkin has criticized attempts to add density to existing neighborhoods.

I also note that the two "status quo" groups share a variety of concerns: both urban and suburban opponents of new housing fear that new housing might bring increased traffic, limit automobile parking, or otherwise stress infrastructure.

It also seems to me that the two "status quo" groups tend to be more politically extreme than the two YIMBY groupings: in my experience, YIMBYs tend to be center-left, while right-wingers and socialists tend to be more skeptical of new housing. In New York, the most "YIMBY" candidate was moderate Democrat Kathryn Garcia, while both the leading Republican and the more left-wing candidates tended to favor more obstacles to non-subsidized housing. However, I do not know if New York City is typical of the nation in this regard, so perhaps I am overgeneralizing here.

*More colloquially, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). However, this term is a bit underinclusive, since some people seem to be against new housing in anyone's back yard.

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The Political Compass of Housing and Urbanism - Planetizen

The primary election is less than six weeks away. That means we have another five weeks of television political ads to sit through. It also means we have five weeks to determine which candidates we think would best represent us in the offices they are seeking.

If you are a registered voter in Dawson County you have probably received a letter from the county clerk explaining the redistricting and how it may affect your voting location and your ballot. Every 10 years government entities are required to adjust their precinct, subdivision and district boundaries based on population data collected from the U.S. Census. Part of the requirement is to make sure that districts, such as county commissioner districts, are equal in population numbers.

We experienced the results of the redistricting in the Legislature as well, as new boundaries were drawn that changed which district the community is in and who our representative is. Dawson County was formerly in the 33rd Legislative District, represented by Sen. Matt Williams. As a result of the redistricting, the county is now in the 44th District under Sen. Dan Hughes.

A native of Imperial, Sen. Hughes is a farmer and businessman who was first elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 2014. He was re-elected in 2018, and has not filed to retain his seat. Two candidates are looking to fill that position - Edward Dunn and Theresa Ibach.

Edward Dunn was born in Spokane, Washington. He served in the U.S. Army from 2004 to 2014. He earned an associate degree from Phoenix University in 2007. Dunn has served as a Joint Operations Committee Board Member for Nebraska Municipal Power Pool, a Finance Committee Board Member for Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, the West Central Nebraska Development District President, the District Governor Elect for Nebraska Lions Multiple District 38L, and the Vice President of the Perkins County Chamber of Commerce. He is affiliated with the Grant Lions Club and the Grant Rotary Club.

Dunn will face off in the May 10 primary against Theresa Ibach, who has not yet completed a candidate survey or provided a biography.

Candidates you will see on the statewide primary ballot include: for Governor of Nebraska - Carol Blood and Roy Harris, Democratic candidates; and Republican candidates Donna Nicole Carpenter, Michael Connely, Charles Herbster, Brett Lindstrom, Lela McNinch, Jim Pillen, Breland Ridenour, Theresa Thibodeau and Troy Wentz. Libertarian Scott Zimmerman is also on the gubernatorial ballot.

No candidates will appear on the primary ballot for Lieutenant Governor, and for the office of Nebraska Attorney General two Republican candidates have filed: Jennifer Hicks and Mike Hilgers. There are no Democratic candidates for attorney general, and one third party candidate - Larry Bolinger, representing the Legal Marijuana Now Party.

There are no Democratic candidates in the primary for the office of Secretary of State. The three Republican candidates are Bob Evnen (Incumbent), Robert Borer and Rex Schroder. There will also be no Democratic candidates on the primary ballot for State Treasurer. Republican candidates are John Murante (Incumbent) and Paul Anderson; and Katrina Tomsen is also running for the office representing the Libertarian party.

The seat of State Auditor has two Republican candidates - Larry Anderson and Mike Foley. Also on the ballot for that position are Libertarian Gene Siadek and L. Leroy Lopez of the Legal Marijuana Now Party.

The State Board of Education is divided into eight districts, with Dawson County located in District 7. Currently we are represented on the Board by Robin Stevens of Gothenburg, who is seeking re-election. Opposing him on the primary ballot are Pat Moore and Elizabeth Tegtmeier.

Dawson County is also located in District 7 on the State Board of Regents, which has three candidates on the primary ballot for that seat. Those three are Nolan Gurnsey, Matt Williams and Kathy Wilmot. For Public Service Commissioner District 5 there are three Republican candidates: Mary Ridder (Incumbent), Dakota Delka and Kevin Stocker.

To register to vote in Nebraska, you must be a citizen of the United States, a resident of the Nebraska county in which you are registering, and at least 18 years old by the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. A voter registration application can be completed in person at the county clerk or election commissioner's office, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or other state agencies. In-person registration must be completed by the second Friday preceding the election - which this year is April 29. Applications returned by mail must be postmarked by April 22, and online applications must be submitted by 5 p.m. on April 22.

Polls for the primary election on Tuesday, May 10 will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. If you have questions about your polling location contact the Dawson County Clerks office.

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ELECTION 2022: Statewide Seats on the Primary Ballot - Gothenburg Leader