Press release from the Libertarian Party:
Libertarian Party Faults Bush Administration With Pushing Idea that Government is an Agent of Good
America’s largest third party says the most dangerous part of President George Bush’s legacy is that which cannot be seen. “President Bush leaves office after eight years having pushed the idea that people should trust the government because it knows what’s right for them,” says Libertarian Party spokesperson Andrew Davis. “This is the most dangerous facet of the Bush legacy.”
“In a matter of decades, we have gone from President Reagan who said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,’ to President Bush, who considers those words to be inspirational and rousing,” says Davis.
“Americans, especially conservatives, have been brainwashed into trusting—without question—that the government will do the right thing,” says Davis. “What have we gotten in exchange? A bigger, more powerful government that has shown no fidelity to civil liberties or the Constitution.”
“Americans forgot that enemies of freedom are both foreign and domestic,” says Davis.
“Bush leaves office with many Republicans looking at government the same as their Democratic colleagues,” says Davis. “They see government as an agent of good in society, rather than an agent of corruption or iniquity. The economy can rebound and civil liberties can be restored, but ideas have lasting consequences. The idea that government can be unquestionably trusted will have disastrous consequences for liberty in the United States,” explains Davis.
“The most terrifying phrase a citizen of a free country can hear is, ‘In Government We Trust,'” says Davis.
For more information on this issue, or to arrange an interview with the Libertarian Party, please email Andrew Davis at [email protected], or call (202) 731-0002.
The Libertarian Party is America’s third-largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party by visiting www.LP.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.
Posted to IPR by Paulie
Here’s an irony for ya. While you all are bashing Bush for not being libertarian enough, the NeoCons over at Weekly Standard just bashed him for being too much of a Goldwater-like “libertarian.”
As with everything in politics, truth is probably somewheres in the middle: Bush is neither a libertarian, nor is he a libertarian nightmare as some on the libertarian left try to portray him.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w72.html
The Bipartisan Homeland Security State
by William Norman Grigg
There is something of a dialectic at work in the consolidation of the Homeland Security apparatus. During the Clinton era, the embryonic Homeland Security Department focused most of its attention on “home-grown” extremists; this had the useful effect of provoking conservative concerns about due process, the Bill of Rights, and abuses of government power.
During Duhbya’s reign, the focus has been on the dreaded “other” – particularly Muslims and dusky-skinned immigrants from south of the border. This catalyzed resistance among left-leaning civil liberties groups, even as most of the conservative movement embraced many of the same measures they found intolerable under Clinton.
Now, in the name of bipartisanship and national unity under the rule of the Sainted One, even His Holiness Barack Obama, we’re likely to see a synthesis of the worst elements from both the Bush and Clinton eras.
As Attorney General, Eric Holder, an unabashed proponent of civilian disarmament and the prosecution of “hate crimes,” we can expect to see the ATF will let off its leash and a cascade of federal initiatives targeting “hate groups.”
Under Commissarina Napolitano, the Homeland Security Department will continue to militarize and federalize law enforcement, cultivating ties with Joe Arpaio wannabes nation-wide and turning them into squalid little satellite despotisms in the service of Washington. (Incidentally, like Arpaio, the Homeland Security Department now has its own television show.)
Although it is almost certainly too much to hope for, but it would be a substantial blessing were a bipartisan – or, better yet, trans-partisan – synthesis to emerge among opponents of government power, with conservatives taking alarm over police state measures being used to enforce immigration laws and liberals loudly defending the rights of the rural gunowners Obama has referred to so contemptuously. What is necessary is for people to decide that they love liberty more than they despise their political enemies, which is a direct reversal of the way politics almost always operates.
http://www.ballot-access.org/2009/01/15/wall-street-journal-op-ed-misinforms-readers-about-2000-florida-recount/
The 2000 Florida ballots were recounted by a consortium of news organizations. That work was not completed until late in 2001. The New York Times of November 12, 2001, and other participating news organizations, explained that if only the four counties in which Gore had requested a recount had been counted, Bush would have won. But if all the votes from the entire state had been recounted, Gore would have won. The New York Times said on page one, Nov. 12, 2001, “Ballot standards under which all disqualified ballots statewide would have been reexamined; Gore would have received the most votes.” Specifically, the count would have been Gore 2,924,695; Bush 2,924,588.