Confessions of a Former Political Junkie

En Vogue

All of a sudden it is en vogue to call yourself a libertarian.  Sarah Palin is doing it.  Republicans are doing it.  The Tea Party people are getting rich on the term. But they are all wrong.

To clarify before I get going here, there is a Libertarian Party, and there is a libertarian philosophy.  I will be addressing the latter.  I know a bit about both, having volunteered for the Libertarian Party in California back in 2003 and been an advocate of much of the Libertarian philosophy for many years.

FYI: When Sarah Palin talks about being libertarian, she is talking about the philosophy.  She is so far off the mark, it is almost comical.

So, here, today, I stand up for libertarians of all stripes.

Libertarian philosophy advocates individual liberty and personal freedom as a means to societal order and safety.  On the other side of the philosophical spectrum, authoritarians advocate for a lessening of liberty as a means to a safer and more prosperous society.  I can’t think of many libertarian governments in world history.  The United States under the Articles of Confederation might be the closest humans have gotten in the modern world.  Stalin’s Russia would be on the other end of the spectrum.

Both philosophies take it as a given that societies need order and safety to prosper.

Conservative Republicans

The problem that I have with conservative Republicans, in particular, adopting the libertarian banner is that they are the strongest advocates in the country for authoritarian policies – national id, stricter personal laws, moral codes, advocacy of a lessening of religious liberty, etc.  Also, the Bill of Rights, the 10 amendments to our constitution that explicitly protect individual liberty are, by and large, being dismantled by conservative Republicans in this country – Freedom of Speech, Rights of the Accused, Due Process, etc.

Democrats are not in the clear on this.  Not by a long shot.  Their insistence on restricting our right to bear arms reeks of authoritarian influence.  They are also some of the prime advocates of one of the most anti-libertarian legal principles – corporate citizenship.

Oh don’t get me started on Corporate Citizenship (i.e. the legal attribution of individual liberties to corporate entities)!

Corporate Citizenship

The continued codification into law of corporations as citizens passed by both Republicans and Democrats is, perhaps, the biggest slap in the face of individual liberty we have seen since FDR imprisoned Japanese-American citizens during WWII.  Corporations are not citizens.  They are not entitled to individual liberty in the same way that you and I are.  Yet Republicans and Democrats continue to make a mockery of our individual liberties by giving corporate entities liberties reserved to human citizens by our Constitution.

NOTE: I don’t mean to confuse this with the friendlier definition of Corporate Citizenship, which implies that corporations have some responsibility to do good deeds in the community they operate. That is good and just.

Libertarian Brand Appeal

In the case of Republican Tea Party folks today, they are merely adopting a word in an effort to suck up some of its brand appeal.  Unfortunately, they are doing harm to that word and the people that have built its appeal.

The Tea Party movement is nothing more than a group of authoritarian-leaning Republicans who have too much time on their hands.While they sit and complain about Obamacare and whatever else, they have no qualms about partaking in the benefits that new health care rules provide to them.

If the Tea Party truly embraced the libertarian philosophy, you would see people of all political stripes coming out to support it.  Instead, it is made up of bored Republicans.  Period.

Wikipedia gets it right when it refers to the Tea Party movement as “a fiscally-conservative socio-political movement”.  It is not a libertarian movement at all.

This brings me to my next point.

In Defense of Libertarian Philosophy

I am in continual defense of libertarian and liberal philosophies, because I believe they share common roots in liberty.  Unfortunately, most people don’t understand either.  They believe Democrats to be liberal and Republicans to be conservative.

It is just too darn hard for most people to get a good understanding of how they are being manipulated by politicians.  Learning about politics takes time and effort.  It takes more than reading the paper.  It takes worldly experience and a political inquisitiveness not unlike other inquisitives. For example, I know people who know all about the politics of sports.  These same people are completely clueless about the politics of government.

This sports-politics divide is really quite a weird dichotomy, and I don’t understand it.

These folks understand nuance and manipulation in the sports arena but are clueless when politicians manipulate them.  They can tell you all about why certain players were drafted over others and why college football conferences are re-aligning, but they cannot give you much more than Rahm Emanuel’s talking points when you ask them about health care.

So here I stand, defending principles that very few people truly understand.  Defending principles whose titles have been hijacked by the very people I seek to educate.

Okay.  It’s official.  CNN has left the realm of reason.

On their program last night, CNN anchors, Kyra Phillips and John Roberts, disparaged internet bloggers and online peoples for their lack of accountability and responsibility to the greater mankind.  In my estimation, it is the job of CNN to do the research and determine which bloggers’ comments are trustworthy.  The fact that they have embroiled themselves in the stupid position of delivering 24-hour news is no excuse for poor reporting.

At issue is CNN (and other new agency’s) reporting of the Shirley Sherrod story, whereby all of these corporate-owned news agencies assumed this lady was a real-live, black, racist asshole.  It seems, in hindsight, that CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, etc. were all wrong, and that this poor woman has flowers coming out of her ass to the extent that her shit don’t stink no more.

Phillips, to her credit, mentions the fact that respectable news agencies should not just report anything that appears on some idiot’s blog as if it were legitimate news without doing any fact-checking or character-verification.  The irony of her statement seems to have been lost on both her and Roberts.

She also says that bloggers who say ridiculous things should have their asses held to the fire.

You know what, Ms. Phillips and Mr. Roberts, you should hold their asses to the fire.  Do some research, and only report stories that are thoroughly fact-checked.

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Ricky Gervais just might be the funniest man alive.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtYuzE01E1A[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF8XZwqqUGM[/youtube]

Google Chrome opens up REALLY fast on my Mac.  Here is a sweet video produced by Google that shows how fast the browser really is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCgQDjiotG0[/youtube]

I will likely see the new A-Team movie.  Not because it is likely to be good (It won’t be.).  And not because it is starring any actors that I know (I don’t know any of the stars.).  And certainly not because it will feature a complex and interesting plot (It likely will be as predictable and 1-dimensional as a Republican’s position on tax cuts.).  BUUUUUT, the movie will likely be fun to watch, because it will likely showcase nothing but big explosions and a simply stupid love story.

Unlike Iron Man 2, which seems to have tried too hard to be cool, the A-Team movie will likely rely on already-established and predictable characters and plot lines.  There will be no depth to the love story, and there certainly will be no depth to the plot.

But, if all goes well, it will have just the right amount of stupidity and 7th-grade humor to make me happy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzHnpBlufCU[/youtube]

Tonight I taught my first “Basketball Practice” course via Minneapolis Community Education.  It was unbelievably awesome and exceeded all of my expectations.

 First of all, I want to explain what this course is to me.  I have long held a dream of being a basketball coach.  Phil Jackson has always been an inspiration to me, my admiration largely owing to his ability to maintain his big-picture philosophy and demeanor.  Phil Jackson never sweats the small stuff.  He thinks in terms of planetary orbits and never in terms of the daily cloud patterns.

So I suppose I owe Phil Jackson some props here when I say that Basketball is a personal philosophy.  It is something that informs the way we live, and it is something that can be informed by our attitudes.  It is something akin to what Yoda tells Luke Skywalker before he walks into the cave of darkness on Degobah:

Luke: “What’s in there?”

Yoda: “Only what you take with you.”

You bring your marital, work, and friendship problems onto the basketball court, and you bring your basketball problems to your job, marriage, friendships, etc.  They both reflect and inform each other.

I believe that you take everything you have into all of your experiences.  There is no such thing as multi-tasking.  We cannot separate and compartmentalize our experiences.

To me, basketball is a lens through which I can view the world.  It is something of a philosopher, something of a therapist.  It listens, and it teaches.  Sometimes basketball is a real asshole.  Sometimes it gives us love.  Sometimes it hates us.  We are married to basketball, and we never can really shake free of its influence.  It is always teaching, and hopefully we are always listening.

When I helped elect Barack Obama, I had hope that he would change the way things get done in Washington.  While the practicalities are still unfolding, he has upheld his part of the bargain in at least one respect, reaching out to Republicans for their support on a number of key initiatives.  Unfortunately, Republicans have done the opposite and have found themselves in the ridiculous position of not being able to govern at all on account of their demonization of Obama.

When Obama had his Q&A with Republicans in January, it was clear that he was in the midst of working towards his goal of changing the modus operandi in Washington.  Unfortunately, most of the Republicans that asked him questions were using the same methods of interaction that have been self-serving Washington for decades (at least since Watergate).

Obama is the Internet to the Republicans’ RIAA.  He is bringing a new method of doing business to the table.  For their part, Republicans are opting to ignore the coming tide of change and continue down the road of futility.

One need not look far to see Republicans painting themselves into an ungovernable box.  People like Michelle Bachman and Newt Gingrich have made careers out of demonizing Democrats.  Newcomers to the demonization game include Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Rudy Guiliani, and Mitt Romney.  There is also an extensive list of B-list demonizers who would like to be included in the A-list I just mentioned.

Whether or not their efforts lead to electoral success remains to be seen.  But that is not the point here.  The point is that Republicans are acting in ways detrimental to their children’s and grandchildren’s  and yet-to-be-conceived great-grandchildren’s interests.

When they depose of the Democrats’ health care bill as “Socialized Medicine” and make broad declarations to never vote in favor of the bill, they are framing the debate in a way that makes it impossible for them to influence the bill.  I ask this rhetorically: Why would Democrats amend their bill to include Republican ideas if they have already been guaranteed no Republican votes?

This “nuclear option” opposition technique is detrimental to the country’s future financial solvency, and it is detrimental to the health of our democracy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3ysomqy86U[/youtube]

(Thanks, Becky!)