Liberty on the Rocks™ Denver

“Party over person?” Not according to Brown, Beauprez and Andrews.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:42:00 +0000

Hopefully, Mike Rosen's utterly absurd "party over person" mantra can be put to rest.

Rosen and other GOP apologists have recited the line like a Buddhist koan.

Now that highly respected Republican patriarchs are calling for their duly nominated gubernatorial candidate, Dan Maes, to step down, will Rosen cling to his mantra like Louise clinging to the steering wheel in her final scene with Thelma?

First, former Senator Hank Brown withdrew his endorsement, and declared "I’m beginning to find that (Maes’) explanations are not adequate.” Brown is now "looking around" for a candidate to support.

Then former Congressman Bob Beauprez advised that “If Dan really is committed to doing the best for Colorado, as well as for the GOP, he ought to take serious inventory and see if this isn’t the time to do the noble thing."

Now former Colorado Senate President John Andrews has declared that "[a]s a conscientious Republican who earlier voted for Dan, I cannot support a manifestly unfit nominee." He said he will write in Jane Norton.

These respected Republicans have rejected the laughable "party over person" mantra. All principled people - regardless of political affiliation - should reject it.

I applaud and respect Brown, Beauprez and Andrews for their rejection of the mantra. However, I believe Dan Maes should abide by HIS principles and stay in the race. He won the GOP nomination fair and square. He worked hard to earn the nod. He has overcome numerous obstacles to attain the nomination. He played by ALL the rules.

He should make the GOP accept reality and ignore those calling for him to quit.

Refuse to eat entrails.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:11:00 +0000

Imagine that the government mandated that everyone, from the age of 18 to death, only had two choices for dinner: tripe or chitlins. I think most of us would rise up and fight such a ridiculous situation. However, when it comes to the electoral process, we happily accept it as “just the way it is.”

Refuse the false choices.

Reject a ridiculous situation.

Starting now.

Mike Coffman must not be an Austrian.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:46:00 +0000

"All economists, no matter how conservative, said deficit spending was necessary to shock the economy back into production."

--Republican Congressman Mike Coffman, 8/12/09, at a South Metro Chamber of Commerce event.

Really? He should have talked to some more economists.

GOP complaints against Tancredo.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:03:00 +0000

I thought competition was a GOP principle. Or does that only apply to school choice? If the current voting system makes Tancredo's third party run problematic for the GOP, the GOP should champion a new voting system. I suggest Approval Voting. I recommend "Gaming the Vote" by William Poundstone as an excellent primer on the issue.

Don't make the election rules then complain when others play by them.

Let freedom ring.

Freedom ain’t a la carte.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:03:00 +0000

According to the New York Time's article on Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in D.C. (see "At Lincoln Memorial, a call for religious rebirth"):

. . . Tea Party groups have said they want to focus on fiscal conservatism and not risk alienating people by talking about religion or social issues . . .

To the extent this is true, it is a fatal flaw.

Tea Parties - indeed, all proclaimed believers in small government - should be about freedom. Economic freedom. Social freedom. To only address half of that equation is problematic.

It is the equivalent of saying, "yes, you should have the freedom to spend your money any way you wish, but, no, you should not be able to conduct your private life any way you wish."

The inconsistency is obvious.

Progressives think you are mean.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:03:00 +0000

Michael Gerson, of the Washington Post, demonstrates how "progressive" statists feel about their fellow man:

"Social Security abolition would push perhaps 13 million elderly Americans into destitution."

(See "Why the Tea Party is toxic for the GOP.")

Gerson, and statists like him, think so little of the American people that he believes we would let 13 million Americans starve to death in the streets if the government did not compel us to subsidize Social Security. Statists of all stripe believe that humanity is base, immoral, greedy, heartless and cold.

Statists believe that but for the enlightened ones, like them, making us all commit "good deeds" through government force, we'd callously step over dying old folks in the street on the way to our jobs on Wall Street.

I'm sure Gerson sees us all twirling our moustaches as we laughed at dying old ladies in alley ways.

Libertarians know that if we didn't have to pay 14% of our income toward Social Security, there would be fewer destitute elderly people; there would be more private money to assist the remaining destitute; and that there is no worse tyranny than forcing someone to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it is good for him.

Joseph Sobran said…

David K. Williams, Jr. — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:48:00 +0000

"It would be a healthy exercise for every politician to look in the mirror every morning and remind himself that he holds office only because, in a two-man race against another mediocrity, a modest majority of those half-informed people who imagined that their votes mattered reckoned that he was the lesser evil. And they weren't too sure about that."

-- Joseph Sobran

This was today's quote from DownsizeDC. Sign up for their email at DownsizeDC.org.

Bad eggs = more government.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:08:00 +0000

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

--Rahm Emanuel

Rahm wasn't thinking big enough. A crisis doesn't have to be serious to take advantage of it.

Obama's Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, is taking advantage of some bad eggs that have made some people sick. Of course, to any statist, bad eggs means the government needs more involvement in the egg production process.

Hamburg, according to MSNBC, said Congress should pass pending legislation that would provide her agency with greater enforcement power.

Of course she did.

Jonah Goldberg and “right” vs. “left.”

David K. Williams, Jr. — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 06:30:00 +0000

In his excellent book "Liberal Fascism," Jonah Goldberg writes

The popular conception that Hitler was a man of the right is grounded in a rich complex of assumptions and misconceptions about what constitutes left and right, terms that get increasingly slippery the more you try to nail them down.

(page 56).

This is true precisely because the terms are meaningless. Fascism, Communism, Nazism, Socialism, monarchism, and totalitarianism in any form ALL subjugate the individual to a false "greater good" of the "people" or the "collective."

They all push the ideology that the state is greater than the person. And that ideology is evil.

Whether or not the state is perceived to be "left" or "right" is only as important as which hand holds the gun to your head. Once the trigger is pulled, it doesn't matter which hand did the pulling.

One tentacle of the Leviathan is no better than another.

David K. Williams, Jr. — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 14:05:00 +0000

A friend argued that I could take my ideological "purity all the way to [my] economic prison."

She believes that my refusal to join the GOP will lead us to this metaphorical "prison."

She fails to see we are already incarcerated. I think most reasonable people would agree the Democrats are not solely responsible for our obscenely bloated federal government. Many Republicans - and all of the honest ones - admit their culpability.

"This time, however," they always say, "things will be different." They want "just ONE more last chance." Because, "this time" they "really MEAN it."

As Big Government Republican George W. Bush said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice.... you can't get fooled again." On this occasion I agree with W.

We are already in my friend's metaphoric "economic prison." One built jointly by the Republicans and Democrats. One built with your her approval. One built on the false belief that one tentacle of the Leviathan is better than the other.

One that can not stand without her - and our - consent.

Withdraw your consent. We are saving you all at a seat at the table.