Category Archives: Libertarianism

This week, Connie Lawson (R) announced her resignation as the Indiana Secretary of State. She was first appointed to the role in 2012 to fill the office vacated by Charlie White (R), after he received felony convictions for voter fraud, theft, and perjury.

Lawson will submit her formal resignation once Governor Holcomb selects her successor and the successor is ready to serve, according to a press release.

The mid-term vacancy perpetuates one-party tyranny, and represents an increasingly common practice to disenfranchise Hoosier voters by ensuring that Republican candidates only run as incumbents, said Tim Maguire, Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Indiana. Open races, without an incumbent, are far more competitive and give Hoosier voters a fair fight among the candidates.

In 2018, Lawsons eligibility to run for a second term was contested because she had served nearly 3 years in office to fill Charlie Whites term. Attorney William Barrett represented Lawson before the Indiana Election Commission, saying that Lawson was eligible to run, but she would have to step down when she reached the 8-year mark in March 2020.

Lawson is the longest-serving Secretary of State since Robert A. New first held the office after Indiana gained statehood in 1816. She may surpass News tenure, depending on the timing of her formal resignation.

First, the Libertarian Party of Indiana calls for all elected officials of all parties to uphold the integrity of public office by not violating the law.

Second, the Libertarian Party of Indiana calls on the incoming Secretary of State to publicly declare his or her ineligibility to run for re-election for a second time in 2026.

Third, the Libertarian Party of Indiana calls on the General Assembly to clarify the law so that time in office as a temporary appointee is included in the Constitutional limitation of serving no more than 8 years in any 12 year period.

Fourth, the Libertarian Party of Indiana calls on the General Assembly to amend the Constitution of the State of Indiana so that all gubernatorial appointees of elected offices must receive simple majority approval confirmation by the General Assembly. This rebalances power from the executive to the legislative branch, and better represents the will of the people.

Libertarians work toward smaller government that is accountable to the people of Indiana. These improvements will return power to Hoosiers, the rightful owners of all power, per Article I Section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Indiana: That all power is inherent in the people; and all free Governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness.

The Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the United States and has been on the ballot in Indiana since 1994.

Libertarian Party of Indiana

Excerpt from:
Libertarian Party of Indiana's response to Secretary of State's resignation - Shelbynews

The Bad Election Bill is here and its bad.

House File 590 and Senate File 413, sponsored by Republican Rep. Bobby Kaufmann and Sen. Roby Smith, would cut early voting mail and in person to 21 days, down from 29 last year and from 40 in 2016.

In response, my senator, Democratic leader Zach Wahls, introduced a bill that would expand the early voting window to 45 days, which is consistent with what overseas voters get under federal law. Its going nowhere, of course, but it makes the point.

Other lowlights of the Republican bill include a lot of micromanaging of auditors to address imaginary problems like dead voters or auditors not doing list maintenance.

Voters would be moved to inactive status, the first step to cancellation, after missing just one general election, not two. Skip one governor election, which about 20 percent of voters do, and the cancellation clock starts ticking. And the inactivation happens before youre even notified by mail.

In a nod to the Libertarians, petition requirements to get on the ballot are once again raised. This is about a persistent Libertarian candidate has pulled just enough votes away from Republican David Young to allow Democrat Cindy Axne to win two terms in Congress with under 50 percent of the vote.

Requirements for nominating convention attendance are also increased, to a point where even the major parties would have difficulty seating the 25 delegates that would be required to fill a legislative district vacancy. Ill bet most legislators dont have 25 active county central committee members in their districts.

Satellite voting would, to my surprise, not be completely banned, but auditors could not set sites on their own. Only petitioned sites would be allowed. Thatll increase costs. Often, people ask nicely for a satellite before petitioning, and we schedule the three or four hours they really want. A petition obligates the auditor to six hours.

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The bill would eliminate the use of conventional postmarks to decide if a ballot is on time, and instead would only allow intelligent bar codes. Overseas mail does not have these bar codes.

The first day to request a ballot would move to 70 days before the election, which was the law through 2002. From 2004 to 2016 there was no first day to request a ballot. Then it was moved to 120 days in 2017.

My professional and political feelings differ here. In a college town where every lease turns over on Aug. 1, way-too-soon requests are a problem, and were a big problem in 2004. I was living in a high turnover apartment complex that year, and we were doorknocked in June. People request the ballot then move, and we mail the ballot to a bad address. So I liked the old 70-day law.

But when combined with later laws which require request forms to be handed in within 72 hours, 70 days would kill summer door knocking for absentee requests, which of course (in normal non-COVID years) Democrats rely on more than Republicans.

In an amendment, the bill also closes polls an hour earlier at 8 p.m.

This bill could have been even worse, but its bad enough.

Twenty-one days is bad for in person early voting. It will mean longer lines and bigger crowds; 21 days is absolutely unacceptable for mailed voting. It means anyone who is out of town or shut in who has any kind of problem mail delay, spoiled ballot, any problem at all is just out of luck. Twenty-nine days was barely enough time to fix these problems. We dont even learn about mail delivery problems for several days. Twenty-one days also compresses all the mailing out into a week and a half, burdening both the post offices and the election staffs.

This bill is on the fast track to passage, but there may still be time to get some small improvements. Auditors of both parties across the state are against this. We simply want to do our jobs and help voters, and this proposal makes that harder.

John Deeth lives in Johnson County. He writes at jdeeth.blogspot.com

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Iowa's bad election bill will stifle early voting, micromanage auditors - The Gazette

From: Kathleen Leason

Columbus

Rep. Ryan Lauer, our state representative, co-sponsored and supported House Bill 1005 that expands private school tuition assistance.

The bill increases income eligibility to a family of four earning $145,000 annually in 2022. Its worth noting that contributions to a tax-preferred account can also be used for a childs private school education up to $10,000 per year, further benefiting high-income households.

One argument Rep. Lauer gives to justify his support of this bill is that it will expand school choice for more families.

I have to askhow probable is this statement?

A quick survey of the private schools in Bartholomew County indicates there are roughly 1,500 elementary school students attending private schools. Most of these schools give enrollment priority to households who already have family members enrolled.

So, who will benefit from an expansion of the state subsidy? Will these schools undertake building projects to expand facilities to accommodate all students who wish to enroll? Probably not. It seems that this is purely a deeper subsidy to the families who already have students attending the school.

HB 1005 passed in the House last week and will move to the Senate for consideration next. Lets hope our state senators will see this bill for what it truly is: a welfare program for the wealthy.

Its interesting that Rep. Lauer began his political career as a Libertarian. Primary ideas in the Libertarian platforms are less government and minimal taxes. My, how he has drifted.

See the original post here:
Letter: School voucher programs benefit the wealthy - The Republic

The talk-radio host died on February 17th, aged 70

IN 1987, AMERICAS Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the airwaves, repealed the Fairness Doctrine, a policy that required broadcasters to present balanced views of controversial subjects. One year later, a former executive at ABC radio gave an opinionated but little-known talk-radio host from Sacramento a nationally syndicated show. This contravened accepted practice; most nationally known radio hosts were bland and inoffensive interviewers, the better not to alienate a range of listeners.

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Rush Limbaugh was the opposite. His shows rarely had guests or more than a few brief pre-screened callersthe better to let him expound, for hours on end, on the ills of modern American society, most of which were the fault of liberals and the left. His political view was Manichean: easy to understand and engagingly delivered. He made no effort to credit opposing views; heand by extension his listenerswere defenders of all that was good about America, while the liberalism of Democrats, as he put it, is a scourge. It destroys the human spirit. It destroys prosperity. He built this simple format into one of the most popular radio programmes in America, attracting millions of listeners and inspiring scores of imitators.

Like Donald Trump, whose presidency he championed, he styled himself a tribune of the common man, willing to say things that no one dared but everyone thought. Indeed, much as William F. Buckleys libertarian-inflected traditionalism prefigured the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, Mr Limbaughs cocksure derisiveness, and the glee he took in angering the left, provided the stylistic underpinnings of the contemporary, Trumpist Republican Party.

And like Mr Trump, he inspired a quasi-cultic following, with fans who called themselves Dittoheads, for the propensity to agree with everything he said, even thoughor, perhaps, especially becausethe things he said could be repellent. Feminism, he maintained, was established so that unattractive women could have easier access to the mainstream of society. He called gay men perverts, mocked people dying of AIDS and treated the rare phone-in guest who disagreed with him to a caller abortionhanging up after playing the sound of a vacuum motor. He told an African-American caller to take that bone out of your nose and call me back, remarked that all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson, and said that the National Basketball Association should be renamed the Thug Basketball Association.

His first book, released in 1992, championed standard conservative views: small government, anti-environmentalism and a belief that racial relations will not be enhanced or prejudice eliminated by governmental edict. But few tuned in to hear what he was for. People wanted to hear him hate who they hated. He had particular scorn for Hillary Clinton, who he said kept her trophies in a testicle lockbox, and Barack Obama, who he mused may not have been an American citizen (he played a song on his programme called Barack the Magic Negro). He survived some embarrassing scrapes with the law, including getting stopped with Viagra prescribed for someone else in his luggage, and an oxycodone addiction. Being married four times did not seem to dent his traditionalist bona fides any more than did Mr Trumps being thrice married.

Mr Limbaugh continued broadcasting until February 2nd, though by then he was something of an elder statesman. The day after he announced that he had advanced lung cancer, Mr Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Americas highest civilian honour, previously awarded to, among others, Jonas Salk, Felix Frankfurter and Martin Luther King junior. Yet that just testifies to how deeply Limbaughism had been absorbed into the conservative mainstreamits influences discernible in Trumpist Republicans demand for complete fealty, and their casting of political opponents, not as fellow Americans with whom they disagree but as evil. Those attributes make for entertaining radio. But they make governing impossible.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Tower of babble"

Continued here:
Rush Limbaugh galvanised and embodied the modern American right - The Economist

Political paternalism the belief that those in government possess more knowledge, wisdom, and ability to plan, guide, and direct various aspects of peoples lives better than those people themselves comes in many forms. The American progressive movement is euphoric with being, once again, close to power with the new Biden Administration in the hope of intensifying and extending their version of political paternalism on the country.

But there are conservative brands of political paternalism, as well. Now in the aftermath of Donald Trumps defeat in the presidential election, visions of a new conservative paternalism are being offered to save the conservative movement from both the collectivism of the progressives and from the free market libertarians who are accused of ignoring that there is more to life than liberty and material wealth. An example of such a call for a new conservative political paternalism may be found in an article by Oren Cass,A New Conservatism: Freeing the Right from Free Market Orthodoxy(Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021).

Mr. Cass served as a domestic policy director for Mitt Romneys presidential bid in 2012, and in 2020 founded American Compass, a think-tank focused on post-Trump conservative politics, after having worked for a time as a research fellow with the Manhattan Institute. He never uses the term political paternalism in this article; it nonetheless remains a fact that what he advocates is a conservative agenda for activist government that can bring about a coalition of social and economic interest groups in ways different from that of the progressives in the Democratic Party to assure Republican successes in future elections.

It is not that Mr. Cass is against free market ideas and policies, per se; indeed he thinks they were useful and even necessary back in the 1980s, when social conservatives, foreign policy interventionists, and free market libertarians needed to help win the Cold War being fought with the Soviet Union, and defeat a variety of misguided domestic policies. But that was then, and this is now.

Times have changed, as they always do. Mr. Cass says that in the post-Cold War world conservative economic thinking atrophied, and libertarian ideas ossified into market fundamentalism in the controlling hands of an unnamed clique of market fundamentalists who have become wrongly identified with conservatism. Then came along Donald Trump who lacked any discernible ideology or capacity for governing. Trumpism simply has been a cult of personality, which now that he is off the presidential stage of history, leaves the future direction of a conservatism reborn up for grabs.

So, what are the sins of those who advocate this market fundamentalism, Mr. Casss opposition to which is not much different from its rejection by the broad coalition of those on the political left? It seems that libertarians, which is just another name for market fundamentalists in his political lexicon, are obsessed with liberty to the exclusion of other values. We are told:

Markets reduce people to their material interests, and reduce relationships to transactions. They prioritize efficiency to the exclusion of resilience, sentiment, and tradition. Shorn of constraints, they often reward the most socially corrosive behaviors and can quickly undermine the foundations of a stable community for instance, pushing families to commit both parents to full-time market labor or to strip-mining talent from across the nation and consolidating it in a narrow set of cosmopolitan hubs.

Alas, Mr. Cass declares, Libertarians have no time for such nuance. Being unable to distinguish between what markets can and cannot do and unwilling to acknowledge the harm that they can cause, they, instead, blindly pursue the unquestioned priorities of personal freedom and consumption.

What markets, free and uncontrolled by political constraints, tend to do, he warns, is undermine traditions and morals,Co weaken communities, and leave no sense of the common tasks for national betterment. In a list of concerns not much different from those of the progressives, Mr. Cass insists that libertarian market fundamentalists give no consideration to the deleterious effects of income inequality, concentration of community-impacting decision-making in large corporate hands, and place seemingly no importance on the cultivating and fostering of the right values in society as a whole and the educational system in particular.

So, what does he propose as his activist political agenda for a new conservatism? Well, it really comes down to pretty much the same conservative paternalism of times in the past. The national interest comes before the individuals own interest, as reflected in his calling for more of the same Mercantilist directing of economic affairs to assure that America does not lose out to a rising China. Industries, clearly, need to be protected, sectors of the economy must be supported, as well as directed as to where businesses are to be located, especially since Mr. Cass wants to decentralize where people live and work in a more balanced pattern away from large metropolitan areas.

In other words, this would be his own form of central planning of foreign trade and domestic industry, along with some type of national zoning designed to create the population distributions between town and country that he considers to be better than at present. No doubt, Mr. Cass would loudly object that he is not a socialist wanting to plan the economy. But, in fact, this would simply be a form of government direction of economic affairs that in the France of the 1950s was called indicative planning. The government does not directly control and command the countrys economic affairs; instead, it uses fiscal and regulatory tools to nudge private enterprises into those directions and activities the government social engineers want, while seeming to leave it all up to private sector businessmen within a tamed market economy. Nevertheless, a planning mindset and mechanism by any other name still remains political paternalism and social engineering.

How does Mr. Cass propose to deal with economic inequality and the imbalances between workers and employers? First, it might be pointed out that his despair that market fundamentalism has forced both parents in a household to earn a living in the labor market has a lot to do with the tax burdens on the average American family that create the necessity for there to be more than one breadwinner. Or perhaps he has not noticed the various amounts of income the government siphons off out of peoples paychecks, particularly, in places like California and New York and many other states, before there is any money left to bring home to cover household expenses. The fiscal follies of the federal and state governments in funding the interventionist-welfare state cannot be placed at the door of the free market. This has more to do with government-knows-best fundamentalism.

Furthermore, he seems to have an implied image of the little woman (which in our transgender world can be a him or a her depending upon how they feel that day when they wake up) should be staying at home cooking away at the hearth. Well, as Mr. Cass says himself, times change, and many women, besides any needed family income, would prefer to work outside of the home pursuing a career and having multiple sides to a meaning to their life. Many of them might not appreciate a conservative nudger trying to manipulate how they live and for what values in mind through household-focused indicative planning.

He clearly feels that the degree to which government directly redistributes income undermines a variety of the traditional virtues that he values. But he is uncomfortable with the tried and true market fundamentalist methods of low taxes and deregulated competitive capitalism to foster the physical and human capital investment that over time raises the productivity and wages of those employed to bring about rising incomes across groups and individuals in society as well as reducing government-induced inequalities in income.

Instead, Mr. Cass wants a conservative government to support labor unions. He sees the path to a better America for the average worker through collective bargaining and required labor union participation on the corporate boards of private enterprises. Well, that certainly is more like an older conservative traditionalism; medieval guild memberships and closed shops to assure that the union bosses or excuse me, worker representatives on corporate boards can strong arm excuse me once more, recommend higher wages to their co-managers on how those businesses are operated. (See my article,Free Labor Markets vs. Bidens Push for Compulsory Unionism.)

Perhaps, Mr. Cass should be less quick to castigate the free market economists insights that he pooh-poohs as outdated claims to eternal and universal truth, and turn to the fact that minimum wage laws oftentimes leave out permanently unemployed segments of the unskilled and public school poorly educated young and minority members of society. Time and place do not change the fact that no employer will voluntarily hire and pay someone more than they think to be the value of an individuals work in their enterprise, regardless of what government commands to be the legal minimum wage rate at which employment may be given. (See my articles,Freedom and the Minimum WageandPrice Controls Attack the Freedom of Speech.)

He should also be less impatient with how government regulations and interventions prevent or inhibit the ability to open and expand small businesses that, otherwise, enable greater self-employment and hiring of more people in local communities that suffer from higher degrees of low income and lack of job opportunities. Or how such interventions and regulations limit business competition and protect established and larger firms that Mr. Cass feels too frequently dominate markets. (See my article,Dont Confuse Free Markets with the Interventionist State.)

Mr. Casss mindset is no different in the arena of education. He does not see a path to better schooling and the knowledge and skills that students require through either the conservative emphasis on competitive school choice or the libertarian proposal for simply privatizing schooling altogether and taking the education business completely out of government hands. No, he shows himself to be an educational central planner here just as much as his progressive opponents.

He simply wants government schools to do the teaching and training with a focus that he considers the right ones for the country as a whole, rather than how the social justice warriors see it. High schools would emphasize practical skills and partner with local businesses for on-the-job training before they enter the workplace. As for college and university degrees, they would be focused on preparing graduates for a real world where they could cover the costs of the higher education they had earned. One wonders what has happened to the older conservative appreciation for a liberal arts education, and how it fits into this mix. But what a traditional education means is, obviously, all in the eyes of the conservative central planner holding the reins of political power. After all, as Mr. Cass says, times change. (See my article,Educational Socialism versus the Free Market.)

He says that much of his frustration with and rejection of libertarians and free markets has to do with his presumption that their proponents show neither understanding nor sensitivity to the conservative values of custom, tradition, ordered society, community, and family. Again, like those in the progressive political camp, Mr. Cass criticizes Milton Friedmans argument that the purpose of private corporations is to maximize profits and ignore stakeholders in the surrounding community and society. Instead, they should show a social corporate responsibility, regardless of the financial bottom line.

He totally misses, just like the recent host of progressive critics of Friedmans argument, that his point was not that such societal concerns were irrelevant or unimportant. Rather, expecting corporations to take on this role, independent of and possibly in contraction to the wishes of the firms shareholders, threatens not merely the financial health of the enterprise but politicizes business activities in a way that can easily undermine the smooth functioning of the social order and the market economy that is part of it. The funding and the facilitating of solutions to these social problems were best left to the individual and voluntary associative choices of income earners and dividend recipients, who then decide the practical and ethical best ways of spending their own money. (See my articles,Milton Friedman and the New Attack on the Freedom to ChooseandStakeholder Fascism Means More Loss of Liberty.)

Mr. Cass draws upon the ideas of the 18thcentury British conservative philosopher, Edmund Burke (1729-1797), who placed great value on the historical importance and continuity of institutions and traditions that provide security and stability to people within and across generations. But his reading of Burke leads him to think that if such institutions and traditions are important, it is the duty of governments to preserve them, cultivate them, and reform society in cautiously better directions.

Other Burkean conservatives, while seeing a larger role for government in society than classical liberals and libertarians usually do, have emphasized that these intermediary institutions of civil society family, organized religions, community associations and charities, among others need to be kept particularly separate from the government and its controls precisely due to the fact that they serve also as the important buffers and protectors standing between the lone individual and the potentially unlimited power of the State that can absorb and crush the single person.

For instance, the conservative sociologist, Robert Nisbet (1913-1996), highlighted these aspects to his Burkean understanding of society and its institutions, and made it a central element in his exposition of the ideas and principles of his book,Conservatism: Dream and Reality(1986). Nisbet insisted that Laissez-faire and decentralization are sovereign to Burke. In his earlier work,Twilight of Authority(1975), Nisbet explained the importance of the autonomy of such voluntary associative and market-based institutions, and the pressure they were under from the usurping and centralizing powers of government:

Of all the consequences of the steady politicization of our social order, of the unending centralization of political powerthe greatest in many ways is the weakening and disappearance of traditions in which [non-political] authority and liberty alike are anchored

Of all the needs in this age the greatest is, I think, a recovery of the social, with its implication of social membership, that in fact exists in human behavior, and the liberation of the idea of the social from the politicalCrucial are the voluntary groups and associations. It is the element of the spontaneous, of untrammeled, unforced volition, that is undoubtedly vital to creative relationships among individuals

Voluntary associations have an importance well beyond what they do directly for the individual members. Most of the functions which are today lodged either in the state or in great formal organizations came into existence in the first place in the context of larger voluntary associations. This is true of mutual aid in all its forms education, socialization, social security, recreation, and the likeIt is in the context of such [voluntary] association, in short, that most steps in social progress have taken place.

The importance of this is significant enough for me to tax the readers patience with referencing a complementary emphasis on the same point by the noted University of Chicago sociologist, Edward Shils (1910-1995) in The Virtue of Civil Society (Government and Opposition, January 1991). Vital to a free, prosperous, and humane social order, Shils insisted, was a large swath of society that is independent of and separate from political control and domination. Or as he put it:

The idea of civil society is the idea of a part of society which has a life of its own, which is distinctly different from the state, and which is largely in autonomy from itA market economy is the appropriate pattern of economic life of a civil society. There is, however, much more to civil society than the market. The hallmark of a civil society is the autonomy of private associations and institutions, as well as private business firms

The civil societymust possess the institutions that protect it from encroachment of the state and keep it a civil societyThese are the institutions by which the state is kept within substantive and procedural confinement. The confinement, which might be thought to be negative, is sustained on belief of a positive ideal, the ideal of individual and collective freedom.

Yet, this type of a conservatism reborn seems to hold no place in Oren Casss vision of a new conservatism. His is really just progressivism and its confidence and belief in the possibility and power of political paternalism to remake and move society in better directions, only in the context of what Cass conceives as the good, and the right and conservatively desirable. A softer governmental nudge here, a firmer political push there to get society into the collective pattern and shape wanted; just as the social justice warriors wish to do. It is the same political train, with the only difference being the ideological and paternalistic destination to which the government-determined ride takes us all.

Classical liberalism and libertarianism and the principles and practice of a free market system are all compatible with and complementary to much of the idea of conservatism and civil society that both Robert Nisbet and Edward Shils focused upon. But the difference is that for classical liberals and libertarians, there are no institutions of civil society, there are no protections for the autonomy of the individual and his voluntary associations from threatening infringements by the State unless the philosophical foundations of the social order start with the idea and ideal of those unalienable rights of each and every person to their respective life, liberty, and honestly acquired property, without which there can be no meaningful pursuit of happiness.

Traditions, customs, and noncoercive authorities to which people give recognition and respect and deference only can sustainably emerge and intergenerationally survive when they arise out of the free actions and chosen forms of personal and societal interactive conduct of the human actors themselves. It is what Adam Smith called the system of natural liberty with its evolved institutions of free exchange that generates the workings of the markets invisible hand of mutual gains from trade in all their varied forms inside and outside of the marketplace. (See my article,Adam Smith on Moral Sentiments, Division of Labor, and the Invisible Hand.)

If liberty is given foremost importance by classical liberals and libertarians, it is not due to an ossified dogmatism, as Oren Cass tries to suggest. It is because liberty is and should be considered a good in itself, something that recognizes and tells an individual that their life is their own to live and enjoy and use as they peacefully and honestly find to be best so as to give that life meaning and happiness to them.

What greater sense of respect and recognized dignity in the individual human being, what greater due regard for the uniqueness of each and every person alive than to tell them and assure them that they may not be made the coerced tool in the hands of others, whether they be private agents or government officials. It is classical liberalism that raised this as a universal and moral ideal, and it is the institutions and acceptance of free markets that separated earning a living from the control of political power that made it possible to practice the individual freedom that Mr. Cass sneers at and too easily shunts aside. The libertarians emphasis on consumer choice is not from a crass worship of materialism, but from an appreciation and understanding that such freedom to choose in a market economy enables the individual to express all the higher values that the availability and use of market-provided means make possible in a way that no other economic system has ever allowed. (See my article,The Rise of Capitalism and the Dignity of Labor.)

It is also the only basis and means for humanity to live in peace and cooperative harmony through the competition of the marketplace, which successfully reconciles many, indeed most, of the conflicts and discontinuities in the actions of multitudes of people in a world of limited means that can be used to advance the numerous competing ends that people follow.

At the same time, it cultivates the social attitudes and activities that increase the opportunities of life and improves not only the material but the cultural and intellectual conditions of all. What we need is for the political paternalists and ideological busybodies of every stripe to just leave all of us alone. We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much, even if as imperfect people in an imperfect world we make missteps along the way. We need neither progressives nor conservatives of Oren Casss ilk to manage the world. What we need is for the likes of all of them to mind their own business. (See my articles,Mr. President: Please Mind Your Own Business andHazonys Tradition-Based Society is a Form of Social EngineeringandConservative Nationalism is Not About LibertyandThe Plague of Meddling Political Busybodiesand my book,For a New Liberalism.)

But this is neither a classical liberalism nor a form of conservatism that appeals to Oren Cass when what he really is after is figuring how to outwit the progressives in the game of political plunderhood by devising coalitions in society that will put his side in elected office next time around through a conservative version of handouts of favors, privileges and subsidies. His new conservatism, therefore, is really only the same old political paternalism, just in different rhetorical clothing.

[Originally posted on American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)]

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News - The Bankruptcy of Conservative Political Paternalism - The Heartland Institute

To The Readers Forum:

First, let me say that l am neither a Democrat nor a Republican.

I am a registered Libertarian and l have no love for either of the major parties. Your editorial of Feb. 10 criticizing Rep. Tom Reed for his failure to try to remove another elected member of the House of Representatives seems to me to be extremely misguided. Your stated premise is that Rep. Reed should base his actions on his perceived personal interests.

What about his oath of office to protect and defend the constitution of the United States? Who decides who represents the 14th congressional district of Georgia? I contend that that choice belongs to the people of that district who elected her by a substantial majority. They deserve their representation.

Whatever her opinions, she has a right to them and a right, within legal bounds, to express them. lf the voters in her district decide that they wish to remove her they can do so in the election next year. ln the mean time she should be able to express her fringe right wing views in the same way that many Democrat representatives express comparable fringe left wing views.

Robert Peterson,

Kennedy

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People Of Georgia's 14th Congressional Make Decision Who Will Occupy That Seat - Jamestown Post Journal

By Randy Baron| Holland

Let's not have a double standard. One standard will do just fine. George Carlin

Unity will only happen when there is action, not simply happy talk.There is a deep divide in this country because rules do not apply to the Democratic Party.That creates resentment with Republicans, Independentsand Libertarians.

Below are some examples of double standards that need to be dealt with before our country can heal:

Freedom of speech

Standard 1: Former President Trumps second impeachment was based on the claim that his Jan.6 speech incited violence. What mainstream media outlets and Democrat impeachment managers omitted to deceive the public: Trump told his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

Standard 2:ComedianKathy Griffinreshared Nov. 4 the beheaded Trump photo that stalled her career in 2017.Did Griffin get shut down by Twitter? Categorically, no!This grotesque material brought over 63,000 likes and 15,000 retweets.

Sexual assault allegations

Standard 1: During the Brett Kavanaugh hearing, Democrats and mediaset a standard of believing all women who come forth with sexual assault allegations.Christine Blasey Ford was allowed to share her story with the nation.There was a call for Kavanaugh to remove himself from consideration for the Supreme Court.

Standard 2:Tara Reade, an alleged sexual assault victim of President Joe Biden, was never taken seriously from the start by the mainstream media.To get her voice heard, it was "60 Minutes Australia," that aired her story.Reades story is compelling and heartbreaking.

Criminal charges of willful neglect of duty

Standard 1: Attorney General. Dana Nessel brought criminal charges against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyderfor willful neglect of duty, in connection with the 2014 Flint water crisis.

Standard 2: Gov. Gretchen Whitmerchose to continue a deadly policy of allowing infected COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, while all other governors have backed down and changed course when they saw the consequences, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat, back in May. To date, Nessel has not brought any charges against Whitmer.

Congressional discipline of members

Standard 1: U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, was stripped of committee assignments by the majority of House Democrats over her past incendiary comments.

Standard 2: U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, Democrat from Missouri, recently seemed to supporta prison riot In St. Louis.Bush continues her duties on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees.

Insurrection

Standard 1:Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican,tweetedthe rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 should be prosecuted to the "fullest extent of the law." The majority of Americans regardless of political ideology agree with Graham.

Standard 2:Black Lives Matter and Antifa march streets of Washington, D.C., on Feb. 6, skirmishing with police, threatening to burn down the city, and intimidating diners at outdoor restaurants.CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and other major networks did not even bother to cover this insurrection. Perhaps, they would have called it another peaceful protest like an earlier riotinKenosha, Wis..

Follow the science

Standard 1:Wearing a mask (or two or three), social distancing, hand sanitizer are all important steps in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

Standard 2:An embryo is a life and if we follow science, we know it will become a baby.Abortion is murdering babies.

Americans will always have differences regarding political ideologies, religious philosophyand values.That is what makes America great.

Double standards, however, divide not unite.Am I too idealistic to hope for one standard?

Randy Baron is a resident of Holland. He can be reached atrandybaron5@gmail.com.

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My Take: Here's a unity solution: Have one standard - HollandSentinel.com

Seventy-seven third-party candidates whose vote totals were greater than the winners margin of victory

When third-party candidates run in elections, sometimes they can receive more votes than the margin of victory in the race. We looked at last years races where that happened within our coverage scope of more than 10,000 races. Below are the results of that analysis.

In 2020, there were 77 third-party or independent candidates who received more votes than the margin of victory in their election. Presidential candidates were not included in the analysis. These third-party candidates included:

Here are some quick stats about those candidates:

In 2018, Ballotpedia identified 99 third-party candidates using the criteria above. Those 99 included five candidates for Congress, 21 running for a statewide office, 69 running for state-level offices, and four running for a local office within Ballotpedias coverage scope.

Libertarians made up a greater proportion of third-party candidates who received more votes than the margin of victory in their election (43) in 2018 than in 2020. That year, the only other party to run five or more of these candidates was the Green Party, with five. There were also 30 candidates who ran as independents.

There were five independent candidates who ran in both 2020 and 2018. In each election, they received more votes than the margin of victory. Four of those candidates ran for higher education boards in Michigan. The fifth, Will Hyman (L), ran to represent District 48 in West Virginias House of Delegates.

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Adrian Dickey (R) defeated Mary Stewart (D) in the Jan. 26 special election for Iowas 41st Senate District. Dickey defeated Stewart 55.3% to 44.7%.

The special election was called after Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) resigned effective Jan. 2, 2021, to be seated in the U.S. House of Representatives. Democratic candidate Rita Hart contested the Nov. 3 election results. Three recounts were conducted, the last of which showing Miller-Meeks winning by six votes. Hart contested the election with the House Administration Committee, and on Jan. 21, Miller-Meeks filed a motion asking Congress to dismiss Harts challenge of the election results. The House committee has not yet ruled in the case. Click here for the full story.

Miller-Meeks served from 2019 to 2021. Dickey will fill the remaining two years in Miller-Meekss term.

Dickeys 10.6 percentage point margin of victory is the largest in the 41st District since 2010 when Roby Smith (R) defeated Richard Clewell (D) by 19 percentage points.

Iowa has a Republican state government trifecta. A trifecta exists when one political party simultaneously holds the governors office and majorities in both state legislative chambers. Republicans control the Iowa state Senate by a margin of 32-18.

As of January, 24 state legislative special elections have been scheduled for 2021 in 16 states. Between 2011 and 2019, an average of 77 special elections took place each year. Iowa held 22 special elections from 2010 to 2020.

Learn more

The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has been in its current session since Oct. 5its first full session where oral arguments are being conducted via teleconference. Heres an update on the October 2020-2021 term.

On Jan. 25, SCOTUS issued one opinion in a case argued during the current term, bringing the number of opinions issued this term to 12.

In the case Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc., the court issued a per curiam opiniona ruling given collectively by the whole courtdismissing the case as improvidently granted. Put another way, the court concluded that it should not have granted review in the case.

The courts next argument sitting is scheduled to begin on Feb. 22. So far, the court has agreed to hear 60 cases during this term. Of those, 12 were originally scheduled for the 2019-2020 term but were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.Keep reading

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77 third-party candidates received more votes than the winner's margin of victory in 2020 Ballotpedia News - Ballotpedia News

Two multiracial Biden voters meet through Curiosity Club and learn that a political disagreement can be the start of a conversation instead of the end of one.

Jerome Hunter and Mellina White met at a virtual Curiosity Club dinner party on November 19, 2020, shortly after the 2020 presidential election.

To watch a 6-minute film from Mellina and Jerome's Curiosity Club dinner, go here.

Curiosity Club is KUOWs bookless book club testing the possibility that a shared meal and public radio stories can transform a group of strangers into a community. I'm the producer and facilitator of this nerdy experiment.

The night Jerome and Mellina met, there were fourteen of us gathered for our virtual dinner party. We talked about pandemic roller skating, the #MeToo movement, Black joy, and, of course, the election.

Days later, I was still thinking about an interaction that got a little tense between Mellina and Jerome towards the end of the dinner. And so, in the spirit of Curiosity Club, I invited both of them back to Zoom for a follow up.

Fearlessly facing the possibility of an awkward conversation, they both agreed, and the three of us came together to find out if a political disagreement could be the start of a conversation, instead of the end of one.

At the heart of their disagreement was Mellinas insistence that in order to move forward, the Left and the Center have to do a better job of understanding and connecting with Trump voters.

Jerome still wasnt convinced by the end of our conversation. However, there was empathy and laughter along the way anyway as the pair explored the perks and challenges of being both mixed race and surprisingly optimistic in America.

Producer Kristin Leong talks with Jerome Hunter and Mellina White to explore the perks and challenges of being multiracial, while agreeing to disagree about what will bridge the divide in America following the fraught 2020 election. (13 min)

To learn more about Curiosity Club and to find stories from our nerdy supper club experiment, visit KUOW.org/CuriosityClub.

To find answers to FAQs about Curiosity Club, go here.

To be the first to know when the application cycle opens for the next cohort of Curiosity Club, follow our Community Engagement team on Twitter @KUOWengage, and sign up for our monthly KUOW Conversations newsletter here.

KUOW is committed to ongoing feedback and conversation with our community and we invite your participation. If you are willing to share your thoughts or have ideas for a conversation KUOW could pursue regarding this story (or any other) you can email us at engage@kuow.org, leave a voicemail at 206-221-1926, or text the word feedback to 206-926-9955 to leave a text response.

We may be in touch with you for further conversation, or about publishing what you tell us as part of a potential follow-up piece on community response. Please make sure you leave your name and your contact info.

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Empathize with Trump voters? A Progressive and a Libertarian agree to disagree - KUOW News and Information

RALEIGH, N.C. The Constitution Party and the Green Party are no longer recognized political parties in North Carolina.

Both parties failed to turn out the required 2 percent of the total vote for their candidate for governor or for presidential electors in the 2020 general election. Voters who register or update their registrations will no longer be able to affiliate with either party.

The State Board of Elections will meet on Feb. 23 to decide when to change the affiliation of voters registered with the Constitution and Green parties to unaffiliated status. State law says the State Board shall not make this change until at least 90 days after the general election.

The Constitution Party and the Green Party did not meet the threshold to continue as recognized political parties in North Carolina, said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections. The parties may be recognized once again if they meet the requirements for a political party as specified in state statute.

The Constitution Party of North Carolina was first recognized as a political party in June 2018; it had about 4,600 members for the 2020 election. The Green Party was recognized in March 2018; it had about 3,600 members statewide.

There are 17 voters registered with the Green Party and 49 voters registered with the Constitution Party in the county, according to Stanly County Board of Elections Director Kimberly Blackwelder.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party requested to continue as a recognized political party because its candidate for president was on the ballot in at least 35 states, meeting the 70 percent threshold required by law.

The State Board of Elections is expected to consider the continued certification of the Libertarian Party at a meeting on Feb. 23. Currently, about 45,000 N.C. voters are registered Libertarians.

Per state law, a recognized political party is:

Any group of voters which, at the most recent general election, polled for its candidate for governor, or for presidential electors, at least 2 percent of the entire vote cast for governor or presidential electors.

Any group of voters that files with the State Board of Elections petitions for the creation of a new political party signed by 0.25 percent of the total number of voters in the most recent election for governor. Also, the petition must be signed by at least 200 registered voters from three N.C. congressional districts.

Any group of voters that files documentation that the group of voters had a candidate nominated on the general election ballot of at 70 percent of the states in the most recent presidential election.

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STATE: Constitution, Green parties no longer recognized in North Carolina - The Stanly News & Press | The Stanly News & Press - Stanly News...