As I stated, this case is strange.  A woman found that a close friend of hers was pregnant with her husband’s child and she started stalking and harming her by placing caustic substances on objects she might touch.  Not something I think anyone would agree with at all.  However, one of the charges against her was being in possession of a caustic substance, a federal statute.  Bond had petitioned the court that the statute was a violation of a state’s sovereignty, exceeding the federal government’s limits of the 10th amendment.  The government argued that she was not allowed to because as an individual she lacked ‘standing’.  She could assert that the statute was not an enumerated power of the federal government, but she could not assert that the statute was a violation of the state she lives in’s sovereignty.

For years, the argument has been made that the amendment, by saying ‘the people’, meant the people as a whole.  And therefore only a state, representing the people, could bring action against the federal government for violating the 10th amendment.  And because of the political dealing that has been going on for the past several decades this rarely happened, allowing the federal government to grow and grow in power in ways the founding fathers never wanted to happen.  It was why the 10th amendment was put into place in the first place.

When writing our new constitution, there were two schools of thought.  One was that we needed to ensure some of the rights that Americans were to enjoy were written down and to never, ever be touched.  The other was that was not necessary because the constitution was written in a way that would not allow those rights to be violated because it was a unique document at the time (and since) since it did not establish what rights the people had, but what limits the federal government could operate in.  If a power wasn’t in the constitution specifically, the federal government could not act.  Further, there was fear that if any of our rights were listed in the document, someone may someday make the (wrong) argument that those rights were the ONLY rights that citizens had.

The two sides debated this for some time when finally James Madison came across a compromise.  He offered the 9th and 10th amendments to the constitution. 

I find, from looking into the amendments proposed by the State conventions, that several are particularly anxious that it should be declared in the Constitution, that the powers not therein delegated should be reserved to the several States. Perhaps words which may define this more precisely than the whole of the instrument now does, may be considered as superfluous. I admit they may be deemed unnecessary: but there can be no harm in making such a declaration, if gentlemen will allow that the fact is as stated. I am sure I understand it so, and do therefore propose it.

The 9th states that "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."  This clearly states that just because a right might not be listed in the document doesn’t mean that the people lose those rights. 

The 10th amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  This clearly states that unless a power is given to the federal government by the constitution (either as originally written or through amendments) then the federal government is in violation of the constitution of it attempts to assume that power.

Unfortunately, most of this is lost on today’s society.

The decision is short and to the point, but has quotes that makes a person who is actually concerned about liberty proud.  Especially in considering that this was a <strong>unanimous</strong> decision.

Federalism has more than one dynamic.  In allocating powers between the States and National Government, federalism " ‘secures to citizens the liberties  that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power,’ " New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 181.  It enables States to enact positive law in response to the initiative of those who seek a voice in shaping the destiny of their own times, and it protects the liberty of all persons within a State by ensuring that law enacted in excess of delegated governmental power cannot direct or  control their actions.  See Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 458.  Federalism’s limitations are not therefore  a matter of rights belonging only to the States.  In a proper case, a litigant may challenge a law as enacted in contravention of federalism, just as injured individuals may challenge actions that transgress,  e.g., separation-of-powers limitations, see, e.g., INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919.  The claim need not depend on the  vicarious assertion of a State’s constitutional interests, even if those interests are also implicated.

and

The Government errs in contending that Bond should be permitted to assert only that Congress could not enact the challenged statute under its enumerated powers but that standing should be denied if she argues that the statute interferes with state sovereignty. Here, Bond asserts that the public policy of the Pennsylvania, enacted in its capacity as sovereign, has been displaced by that of the National Government.  The law to which she is subject, the prosecution she seeks to counter, and the punishment she must face might not have come about had the matter been left for Pennsylvania to decide.  There is no support for the Government’s proposed distinction between different federalism arguments for purposes of prudential standing rules. The principles of  limited  national powers and state sovereignty are intertwined.  Impermissible interference with state sovereignty is not within the National Government’s enumerated powers, and action exceeding the National Government’s enumerated powers undermines the States’ sovereign interests.  Individuals seeking to challenge such measures are subject to Article III and prudential standing rules applicable to  all  litigants and claims, but here, where the litigant is a party to an otherwise justiciable case or controversy, she is not forbidden to object that her injury results from disregard of the federal structure of the Government.

I’m not sure how many people see the importance of this decision.  No longer does an individual have to rely upon a state to stand up to the federal government for 10th amendment violations.

For instance, because of this decision new cases are being brought against the NLRB’s decision to ban secret ballots for union elections (as an administrative function though no law has been passed to allow it), the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (although mostly unnecessary now that the court will be hearing some cases on this soon) and against the recent war on medicinal Marijuana that the Obama administration has been waging in California and other states.  All of these cases would have been thrown out due to lack of standing because there were directed from the federal government to the states.

Again, reality may come crashing down (indeed, the onerous rights violations in the National Defense Authorization Act (FY 2012) are concerning to say the least) but for a short period of time a faint glimmer of hope can be seen.

An odd trend has been occurring the past few decades and as a result the current generation has forgotten what separates government for any other grouping of people. The fact that government is the only entity that legally force someone to its will. That is what a law is, the legal authorization of force against a person. Instead, people seem to think that government is a benevolent collection of society’s will, a suggestion of how we should all live, as it were. And even when this is obviously presented to the people who are calling for government to enact their solutions in the most demonstrable displays, they still seem to oblivious to that fact.

The OWS crowd are doing exactly what the businesses they are protesting have done, attempted to gain control of the government to make laws that others should be forced to live under. To them, it isn’t that the government has obtained the power that it has over the people of the United States, their issue is that the wrong people are in charge. Our forefathers knew better, they understood that the only way to prevent the abuses of government was to limit it to only what was necessary of it, not a way to solve every problem that presented itself. That understanding has unfortunately been lost on the people of today so much that in the face of that power being used against them, they are bewildered.

Worse, they have directed their ire at the notion of free market capitalism as the best way to ensure freedom in a society. By allowing the people to be the ones to make the decision on how they live, what they buy, where they decide to spend the results of their hard labor we have a society that has produced the greatest freedoms in the history of society. At least, until recently.

Today, however, in an effort to solve problems that government can’t solve (being hungry, being poor, having good health, having a good education, taking care of our fellow man, being free from fear, even death) many have been willing to give up our freedoms to try to eliminate the things they should be looking at themselves to correct in their own lives.

Business isn’t the problem. Even the most obnoxious company in the world cannot make a single person do anything. At least, not without government. A great example is the recent revelation of mass abuse of chickens at Sparboe Farms. When it was discovered what was happening, businesses cut ties with the distributor because they knew that their customers would not want them to continue providing eggs from them. McDonalds, Target, SuperValu and Wal-Mart all dropped the egg distributor immediately. Sparboe is now paying the price for allowing this to occur at some of their farms and other distributors will take notice. This is how to change a company, the laws many thought were in place to prevent such a thing from happening weren’t there, and simply because a law is in place doesn’t ensure that such a thing won’t happen.

Right now banks are seen as ‘the enemy’ because they received bailouts from Washington. Only, that’s not really what the issue is for many OWS protestors. It isn’t that they got bailouts, its that they want bailouts too. This is evident since when the bailouts were first suggested in 2008, many Libertarians and some Republicans said no, but the business backed Democrats and Republicans forged ahead with it anyway. Now those same OWS protestors are supporting the very politicians that called for the bailouts in the first place. They aren’t upset with the power that the government has to take money from the hard working people of the country and give it to others who didn’t earn those funds, they are only upset with who they went to.

The reality is that if our economy is going to be great again, it has to be free to be so. Business is going to try to make a profit, so they are going to continue to make things and sell things and as a result provide people jobs. When we make it easier to do so, not harder, the economy will respond. Until then, we are going to see modest increases as we have seen for years under the control of this increasingly authoritarian government we have allowed to spring up in the place of what our founding fathers intended. Indeed, over the past several administrations we have seen more regulations attempting to control every aspect of business that Canada has moved ahead of the US as a more free market, and as a result have withstood the economic issues much better than we have.

And the OWS protestors are protesting against the very people who are trying to do make their lives better because they see them as the enemy. Not in providing a better existence for everyone, but because business has done a better job of getting control of the massive power that the government has than they have. Again, it’s not that the power exists, only who wields it that they have a problem with.

Crony Capitalism is a bad thing. But the answer is not to end capitalism, it is not to tighten even more control of capitalism, the answer is to stop trying to direct the economy in a way that government can never be effective at and allowing the market to do what it does, provide freedom and prosperity to as many people as possible. Yes, there are many businesses that use government as a tool to ensure their success instead of the market, and this practice should be stopped. But looking at the people who are at fault, the ones with the power, is where we should be looking. Not with the minority of businesses that can only exist and operate at a profit with the assistance of government.

The only good thing that I can see coming out of the terrible crackdown on the protestors by the government is that they might finally have their eyes opened to where the real problem lies. Unfortunately, too many people are being led by the populism of those with desires to control their fellow man, not really help them. At it is this that will again deter them from finally understanding the real point they should be seeing.

That’s it. By force the government can enforce its laws. If the laws aren’t followed, we have given this single body the power to remove us from society and place us into custody at gunpoint if necessary. Yes, if we take the natural progression of resistance to the government, that is the end result.

Let’s look at a natural progression. Let’s say you are guilty of one of the laws that the government has been entrusted to enforce. You have decided, for your own personal reason, to not carry automobile insurance. As this is illegal in most states, you are breaking the law. Now you get pulled over and given a ticket for this. You ignore it. Soon a warrant is issues for your arrest. When the warrant is served, you resist arrest. The police will, rightfully so, use force to arrest you and take you into custody. And they would be legal in performing this action.

No other organization or agency has this power. If you pledge money to MADD and then don’t give them that money, you will not be made to by force, unless the government gets involved to put enforcement of a contract into action. No one from MADD will visit you with contingent of gun-toting enforcers to make you give over the pledged funds.

It is precisely this power that we have given to the government that requires that we limit what the government can do. Every time we ask the government to enforce a law, we are asking them to use the threat of force, possibly death, to ensure that the law is followed. Every program that requires taxes to fund is asking the government to take the earned wealth, by force, from one individual and giving it to the program.

The writers of the US Constitution understood this. They knew it all too well, having lived under a government previously that used that power to limit the freedom of it’s citizens as it suited the needs of the government. So, in writing the Constitution they put hard limits in it, most notably in the bill of rights, capped with the 9th and 10th amendments. “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” and “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

In other words, our ruling document is not a listing of rights that we are given by government, but a listing of limits that are placed upon the government.  If something is not enumerated within the Constitution as a power of the government, it simply does not have that power.

Yet, all too often, in trying to get the notions we want enacted as laws we ignore this fact. We imagine that there is some wording or clause in the constitution that allows us to use it for our desires, while at the same time imagining that those desires we oppose are not allowed to use those same clauses. The reality is that we have so far pushed the line of what the federal government was designed to do, without properly amending the constitution to allow for these new desires, that most people aren’t even aware that there are some things that the federal government just isn’t allowed to do.  Thomas Jefferson warned about this when he wrote:

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please… Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

"I hope our courts will never countenance the sweeping pretensions which have been set up under the words ‘general defence and public welfare.’ These words only express the motives which induced the Convention to give to the ordinary legislature certain specified powers which they enumerate, and which they thought might be trusted to the ordinary legislature, and not to give them the unspecified also; or why any specification? They could not be so awkward in language as to mean, as we say, ‘all and some.’ And should this construction prevail, all limits to the federal government are done away."

When an injustice or problem comes before us we instinctively want something to be done to fix it. If someone is down on their luck or a person is being unfairly victimized based on something they have no control over, we want to see the little guy ‘win’ and beat the system that is causing their pain. So many times we say to ourselves, ‘There Ought To Be A Law’ to prevent this from happening again! But is making another law really the best way to handle these events?

There are many times where there are other ways to resolve issues that do not involve bringing in the government and their enforcement of laws that are made. For example in dealing with the less fortunate, should we be involving the federal government into such issues or should the community, each individual deciding for themselves how best to help, or even if help is warranted in each case, get involved and resolved the problems as they occur without creating a bureaucracy that invariably leaves some who are deserving out in the cold while rewarding those who know how to ‘grease the system’?

In many cases the laws create new problems that need to be addressed by, yes, another law. We want a law to stop people from committing prostitution, but in effect we push the behavior underground, preventing the community from adequately dealing with the issue while involving the police state into the personal lives of two consenting adults. A similar issue with abortion, gambling and the use of recreational drugs like tobacco, alcohol and marijuana. We ignore the history of prohibition in regards to alcohol many decades ago and recreate the same situation in an unrealistic War on Drugs that has had little effect on the use of drugs while creating an underground mob culture, criminals out of people who need help and the filing of our jails with people who’s only offense is the smoking of a plant that grows naturally in the wild.

So the situation is now that every perceived ill should be handled by the government. By using their ability to force people to follow whatever law is enacted they can force people to solve these perceived ills. But by doing so things that could be handed without that threat of force behind it, instead done through charity and good feelings are now accomplished through force and lack of freedom. More funds are required to be taken, by force, from the citizens instead of offered up by the citizens through charitable means. But worse than that, because we are forced by fund these endeavors we no longer feel the need to provide charity. “We gave already” is the view of many, because they are forced to give from their paychecks in taxation they feel less motivated to give to charitable organizations.

This permeates. We no longer know or care who are neighbors are or what their needs are. There’s a governmental program to take care of them, “I can live my life knowing that I’m doing my part without actually ‘getting dirty’.” Not exactly the type of attitude that helped make this society great. It’s also a trend that I am afraid may be too far entrenched to reverse.

Of course, I am not advocating anarchy. Many will say, wrongly, that anyone suggesting a reduction of the influence of government in our lives is just trying to bring anarchy to our society. There are times when laws and government are definitely needed. The protection of an individual’s rights as prescribed by the constitution being the highest priority, the regulation of interstate trade and commerce, protection of the country from outside forces, etc. But when confronted with an issue that needs to be corrected, we should be asking first what we can do to resolve these problems ourselves without involving the institutionalization of rigid laws.

When debating people, I make no bones about being a Libertarian.  “Oh,” I hear, “you are an anarchist”.  Not sure where that one comes from, mostly made up by people who just can’t grasp the thought of people being able to decide on things for themselves.  “You just want the old and poor to be left alone”.  Apparently, without government assistance, which means taking money from one group of people, by force, and giving that money to another, we as humane individuals would never help out people in need.  “Libertarianism was a nice idea when we were an agriculture society but it doesn’t work in large urban areas”.  No, that is when it is needed most, if there is no one around you telling you want to do, you don’t need a form of government that protects you from no one.  And my favorite “you’re just selfish!”  Yeah, that’s me, the selfish one who wants to give people more power over their own lives.

For those that read those quotes and don’t see immediately what is wrong with them, let’s start by enlightening you about what Libertarianism is and what it isn’t.

The Libertarian Philosophy is this: “People should be free to live their lives as they choose as long as they do not directly prevent others from the same”.  Oooo, radical idea!

That does not mean that Libertarians are for no government.

To infer that means that you read only the first half of that statement and skipped the second.  Yes, there are a group of people who are better labeled as Anarcho-Capitalists who are for totally free markets with no regulation who have given themselves the title of Libertarian, but they are wrong and don’t ultimately get the point of that statement. 

In relation to the markets, let’s take a closer look.  If two people enter into a contract, that contract is a legally binding document.  What does that mean?  It means that if one side or the other attempts to violate that contract, they are in violation of the law.  Meaning government.  That is governmental regulation.  With NO governmental regulation, contract law is meaningless, contracts are meaningless and no one will be held accountable for anything in them.

Obviously, most people are not for that, including Libertarians.  In fact, that is directly applicable to the second part of the basic Libertarian principle.  Government’s place is in regulating the interactions between individuals.  If two people agree to the terms of a contract, the government is there to ensure that the contract is to be followed as agreed.  It is also there to ensure that there is no fraud taking place when the contract was agreed to or afterwards.  But, it is not there to determine if someone made a bad decision or unwisely agreed to something that someone else may think was not in their best interests.  That is up to the individual signing the contract to decide. 

Government should also be involved to ensure that all markets are free.  Monopolies prevent this free market from working.  Government should therefore be there to make sure that no one person or company has a complete monopoly over any one area of the markets.  Unfortunately, most monopolies that exist today do so not just with the acquiescence of government, but with their support.  They could not exist as monopolies without government getting involved.  This usually plays out with licensing of a business, a way for current business owners to ensure that no new entrants into a market are allowed to compete for the part of the market that they have already acquired.

Government should also not be for picking winners and losers.  Trying to punish a company because it is doing well or those who are running the company have different politics than the current administrations should be forbidden.  Unfortunately, today, this happens far too frequently and is a current way that the two major parties play individuals against each other for their votes.

Beyond markets, the government should be ensuring that people are not infringing upon other’s rights to live their lives as they choose.  We should not be telling people that they cannot buy beer on a Sunday, or sign a contract on Sunday, or buy a pack of cigarettes or whatever drug of choice they choose, it should be left to the individual to decide.  However, if someone were to harm another while taking those drugs of choice, they should be arrested and punished for that behavior.  If you want to drink a fifth of scotch at home, the government should not tell you you can’t, but the minute you get behind the wheel of a car and endanger the rest of us…  Sorry, your right to make your own choices ends at that point.

Who do we choose to love?  Who do we choose to spend our time with?  I don’t see how that is any business of any government agency.  What goes on between two consenting adults is between them, not anyone else who might have a large group of people who think it is ‘icky’.  That’s no one’s business but their own.

Libertarianism is not about leaving the poor and old to fend for themselves and it is certainly not about selfishness

Quite the contrary, we should be helping out our fellow man who is in need.  But we should decide when and where that help comes from.  If a single mother of four is working hard to put her children through school and take care of them has a rough month, perhaps she chooses not to help that month.  Under our current system, she has no way of doing that.  The government gets its cut before she has any say in the matter.  So more often than I feel comfortable with, that person ends up in worse shape and eventually needs help that they wouldn’t have needed had they been able to make that choice for themselves.

Here is a current example of our welfare system in the United States.  Three men are eating lunch on a park bench.  A homeless man comes up and asks for some money to buy some food.  The first two men say sure and each get five dollars out to give to him.  They then look to the third one who says he can’t do it right now.  What do the two men do?  They hold him down and take the money from him and then give the fifteen dollars to the homeless man.  That third man, who was going to take that money home to help feed his children is left to fend for himself now.  Now that is compassion.  That is selfish.  The selfishness that you are unwilling to help another if you know that others aren’t helping him.  That is what our welfare system is about, making sure that you are giving your money to help the poor and elderly as long as you know that everyone else is too.

Libertarianism is about the here and now more than ever before

I have never understood this argument.  That in a rural society, Libertarianism is ok, but in a city environment, well, it’s just not workable.  Really?  When do you need protection to make your own choices and have the government work out the disputes between you and your neighbors than in a large urban city?  If I am being drunk and obnoxious at home on a large farm with 200 acres, who cares?  If I drive my car drunk around my property, who cares?  But if I am being drunk and obnoxious or driving drunk in a city with a large population?  Other’s rights are being violated.  Nothing in Libertarianism says that you have to put up with that situation, it is and infringement upon you. 

How have the current parties done?

So, people think that ensuring that individuals are free and enjoying their liberties is ‘crazy’ and continue to elect the same two parties to office thinking that it is doing any good.  Let’s take a look at what they have done to our country.

Education

In 1979 the Department of Education was formed.  It as only to have a small budget of 14.5 billion and employ less than 100 people.  Today, it is well over 32 billion and employs over 5000 people, 90 percent who were deemed ‘nonessential’ during a recent government shutdown.  The education rate has increased three times as fast as other non-defense discretionary programs, 30% vs 8%.  We have gone from spending 3000 per pupil to 6000 (adjusted for inflation).  What have we gotten? 

“The average reading and math scores for 17-year-olds on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), the nation’s benchmark for student achievement, are no better today than they were in 1971; SAT verbal scores show a decline (from 530 in 1972 to 504 today); and SAT math scores have been essentially flat (from 509 in 1972 to 515 today). U.S. graduation rates were 78 percent in 1972 and are 74 percent today; and U.S. 15-year-olds score below the international average on science and math literacy when compared with 30 OECD countries—American kids rank behind students from Poland, Hungary, and France to name a few.” — http://reason.com/archives/2009/01/29/stimulus-wont-change-the-educa

So, we have created a bureaucracy that is eating itself, injecting politics further into our school system and creating students that are worse off than they were before we got involved.  And the answer that we hear from Washington?  More spending, more control, more of the same.

And they call Libertarians crazy.

Governmental Debt

When you run out of money at the end of the month, what do you do?  Cut spending?  More often than not.  Increase your income?  Some people get second jobs or other income for that.  Do you just keep spending and borrowing more?  More citizens are doing that and finding out that it doesn’t work well in the long run.  Unfortunately, our government hasn’t learned that lesson yet…

Let’s look at what has happened to our debt since 1940, adjusted for inflation.  A good chart to have open when looking at this is here: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JTd2KOgmF9A/ShNh796JkEI/AAAAAAAAAHs/C7rXluniU9A/s1600-h/PublicDebtPurple.gif.

The US experienced high growth in the 50s and 60s, yet our debt remained largely unchanged, when compared with inflation.  However… starting in the 1970s and skyrocketing since, it has ballooned up to 7 Trillion dollars.  But, that’s not the worse part.  You see, what the politicians won’t tell you is the dirty little secret that those numbers are just PUBLIC debt.  That is debt that the government owes to the public or other entities outside of the government.  That’s not our total debt.  Our total debt, as of today, when including money that the government has borrowed from itself (largely in the shape of the Social Security Trust Fund and other pension plans) is …

$13,667.624,992,210.96.

Yes, that is over 13 TRILLION dollars that our government must pay back.  This number can be tracked for a current snapshot or over time by using the US Treasury’s Debt to the Penny, located at http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np.  Don’t just take my word for it, go look it up yourself.

So, why don’t we hear that number?  Why only the 7 Trillion?  Well, other than the obvious “it sounds better”, the short answer is that the government doesn’t seem to want anyone to know that it has been raiding our Social Security trust fund for decades.  Even Bill Clinton who is touted with ‘running a surplus’ is hiding those numbers.  At no time during the Clinton administration did our national debt decrease.  Our PUBLIC deficit did go down a year or two, but only by a little and only on the public side of things, our Intragovernmental Holdings still increased more than the Public debt decreased.

The people who are in power now are wanting you to give them the power to spend more money, on top of all of the money they already owe…  Does that sound like a sound plan to you?  Do you think that we can continue to spend money at this rate, or higher if Washington had its way, and not eventually have to pay up?  I can only say I am glad they are not in charge of my finances…

And they call Libertarians crazy.

Prison Population

Every year since 1972 our prison population has increased, until this last year.  There are currently over 2 million people behind bars in the US, or better put, one out of every 133 of us.  We have 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its prison population.  We incarcerate more than any other country, including China.  And this year the prison population went down, not because there were less crimes, but because of budget constraints more prisoners were let go before finishing their sentences.  And fastest growing segment of that population?  Non-violent, first time offenders of drug laws.  Our War On Drugs has failed miserably and we continue to take a hard stand against an activity that less than 100 years ago would have taken an amendment to the US Constitution to enforce. 

The funny thing is that taking drugs is not illegal.  I cannot be illegal according to the Supreme Court.  Instead, they make ‘possession’ of the drug illegal.  It’s an interesting work around that has resulted in the increase of drug use, the cost to the taxpayers in the billions and the incarceration rates in the US to skyrocket.  Worse, because of the federal laws, the government can’t regulate the drugs like they can with cigarettes and alcohol.  And it can’t be taxed either.  Individuals with problems are less likely to get help for fear of being arrested, funding to help those people is not collected and we put non-violent drug users in the same prisons as violent convicts, an atmosphere that is more likely to turn them to a further life of crime than they would have if they were left alone.

And they call Libertarians crazy.

Other things you can’t do

We are just touching the surface here and I could (and may) write a book about all of this, but let’s speed things up with a short list of some of the things you can’t do in Indiana because of the actions of our two parties, other states are probably as messed up as we are:

• Properly choose the school you send your children to (private or public) unless you are rich
• Walk onto a plane with a bottle of water (federal law)
• Drive your car without a seat belt on
• Buy alcohol on Sunday
• Sign a contract on Sunday (no car sales on Sunday as a result)
• Play poker online (federal law)
• Play poker at a table, with real cards, unless on a body of water and approved by the state
• Possess Marijuana (federal and state law)
• Carry drinks into a restaurant or bar
• Sell milk or soft drinks at a liquor store

Want to continue supporting the two major parties?

So, you’ve heard that the Libertarians are a crazy bunch, that their ideals are outdated or only work in a ‘utopia’.  All I ask is that you take a look back at the way the Democrats and Republicans have run this state and this country and ask yourself.

Who are the crazy ones?  The Libertarians who want to give us more control over our individual lives as long as we don’t violate the rights of others.  Or the Republicans and Democrats who have given us over half of a century of declining education, declining standards of living, increased spending, increased debt and continually pass more and more laws that tell you how to live your life?

Or are the crazy people the ones that keep sending the same people back to the state house and Washington thinking that ‘THIS TIME’ things will be different.  Isn’t that like taking the milk out of the refrigerator and tasting that it is bad and then putting it back in thinking that tomorrow it will be good again?

My recommendation is to throw out your preconceived notions about what others have told you about Libertarian thought and the Libertarian Party and take a closer look at what we are really saying, what we really stand for.  Don’t let the people who have run this country into the ground make up your mind for you.  You can go to www.lp.org and see for yourself what the crazy Libertarians are talking about.