Via email and Liberty for All:
Most decisions in life are matters of individual choice. When faced with a decision you may ask a trusted friend or beloved family member for their advice or guidance, but most people have no need or desire to have someone else make the decision for them. They certainly don’t want someone from the government to make the decision for them. In fact, I agree completely with Thomas Sowell who wrote, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
Yet everyday pandering politicians and Big Brother bureaucrats conjure up new ways to insert their collective noses into every individual, personal decision Americans make. Government rules and regulations dictate what color you can paint your house, what substances you can ingest into your body and how you run your business or how much you get paid for your work. Policymakers forget their pledge of “public service” as soon as they are elected and become bureaucratic busybodies determine to insure we live sober and moral lives… each and every one of us.
Government intrudes into even the most intimate and personal decisions a person can make – who they can love and who they must hate. Government tells us whom we must hate when it sends our young men and women to war. Government even assumes they have the right to decide for us whom we can love by making criminal certain types of sexual relations and tell us whom we can marry by mandating that we purchase a permission slip.
Marriage is a contract between two individuals and possibly, depending on your personal belief system, God Almighty. Government has no place in the mix. What would you say if someone told you that your husband or wife was ill-suited for you and therefore your marriage was illegal? You would probably tell them, “It ain’t none of your damned business who I marry and I will thank you to keep your big fat nose out of my affairs.” You would also be one step closer to understanding the true foundation of libertarianism … the absolute superiority of individual rights.
The very idea of a marriage license was concocted specifically for the purpose of barring people of color from marrying white people. These laws were eventually recognized as clearly unconstitutional and unenforceable and are no longer on the books. Yet today we hear arguments very similar to those used to justify these Jim Crow laws employed to justify banning same-sex marriages.
What is even more bizarre is that President Obama, whose parents would have been labeled criminals in an earlier time and place in America, takes the misguided view that he must enforce what he himself says is a clearly unconstitutional law, the inappropriately named Defense of Marriage Act.
The issue of gay marriage is not about marriage at all. It is a civil rights issue. It is an issue of the rights of the individual being considered paramount in all legal matters. Marriage is an individual choice to be someone’s mate. It is another area of personal human endeavor that is none of the government’s business.
Let me be clear: in the Lee Wrights Administration no unconstitutional law will be enforced. Should I be elected, the oath I will take as president, nearly the same oath I swore to when I enlisted in the United States Air Force, will bind me to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States …” I intend to live up to that oath. As president, I will not enforce any unconstitutional law, nor will I allow anyone in my administration to enforce unconstitutional laws.
The goal of the Wrights Administration will be to stop all war not only on other nations but also on the rights of individuals to make their own decisions. In order to live in peace, we must allow others to be at peace. We must remain vigilant in our insistence that the rights of each individual should be safeguarded, rather than disregarded, by government bureaucrats.
Footer at Liberty for All:
R. Lee Wrights is a writer and political activist living in Texas. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Lee is considering a run for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. Contact Lee at [email protected].
Footer via email:
R. Lee Wrights is a longtime libertarian writer, political activist, a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party, and a past vice chair of the Libertarian National Committee. He is considering seeking the presidential nomination because he is determined that the Libertarian message in 2012 be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop all war. Wrights has pledged that 10 percent of all donations to his campaign will go toward ballot access so that the stop all war message can be heard in all 50 states. Wrights, 52, is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. He was born in Winston Salem, N.C. and now lives in Texas.
WRIGHTS 2012 EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE
Declare victory and bring home the troops now.
SAW/STR #4 are you sure Lee wants that kind of “support”?
Lee, thanks for engaging in libertarian apologetics (defending a position).
It’s like your mother’s admonishment when you were a child:
“Mind your own business!” and “keep your hands to yourself!”
Libertarian philosophy in a nutshell.
Stop all war, stop all W.A.R. Strike the ROOT!
As Thoreau said, stop striking at the branches, STRIKE THE ROOT!
Workers Are on STRIKE – Against War – Against W.A.R. – Against evil – Against ROOT!
W.A.R. Is Against Workers – W.AR. wants WAR with Workers – EVIL ROOT EVIL!
ROOT is the ROOT of ALL EVIL!
ROOT is ROTTEN! ROOT is EVIL!
War is ROTTEN! WAR is EVIL!
W.A.R. is ROTTEN! W.A.R. is EVIL!
Workers Strike Against Rotten Evil Root
Workers Strike Against Rotten Evil War
Workers Strike Against Rotten Evil W.A.R.
When the ROOT is ROTTen the Tree of Liberty WEAKENS FROM WITHIN.
Money is not the ROOT of all evil
WAR is!
Workers are not evil
W.A.R. is!
Stop striking at the branches, STRIKE THE ROOT!
W.A.R. = War Monger
Strike The Root
War is wrong
W.A.R. is wrong
Right the wrongs
WRIGHTS strike the ROOT fix the WRONGS in LP
Stop All Wars
Stop all W.A.R.
ROTT is ROOTed out LP Tree of Liberty Grows wRIGHTs again AMEN!
WAR is wrong – W.A.R. Is Wrong – Workers Are Right – W.A.R. is EVIL stop EVIL stop W.A.R.!
Workers are working for their rights. Striking for their rights. Liberty Tree.
Workers Strike in Middle East – W.A.R. Support Repression by Regime…
Workers Strike in Midwest – W.A.R. Supports Repression by Regime…
W.A.R. Against Workers – Workers Against W.A.R.
Tree of Liberty – Blood of Tyrants
W.A.R. Supports Tyrants
W.A.R. Supports Tyranny
W.A.R. Supports Evil
W.A.R. Supports War
Workers for Wrights – Work for Wrights – STOP ALL W.A.R.! – Work against war – work against W.A.R. – Work Against Root – Workers Against War – Workers Against W.A.R. – Workers Strike the Root!
ROTT is ROOTed out LP Tree of Liberty Grows wRIGHTs again AMEN!
Wrights is correct about marriage rights. Another great article. The constitutional angle may or not be the best prism or path, but the majority of the article makes great points no matter what stance you take on that.
The Indefendent Institute:
Praise for The Civilian and the Military
“This is a well-written history of the anti-military tradition in the United States. I
t is a useful corrective to current tendencies in American political and historical scholarship: for instance, it is well to be reminded that military fervor played an important part in Andrew Jackson’s popular support and that, however commendable and timely was Theodore Roosevelt’s interest in world affairs, one of its motive forces was a romantic passion for things martial.
lw: Let me be clear: in the Lee Wrights Administration no unconstitutional law will be enforced. Should I be elected, the oath I will take as president, nearly the same oath I swore to when I enlisted in the United States Air Force, will bind me to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States …” I intend to live up to that oath.
me: At this stage in history, I would not recommend any L prez candidate to use this sort of rhetoric. I think I understand what the intent is, but it sounds hollow at best and delusional at worst. It seems more grounded to say “A L presidential administration would…” By not making it personal (in this case, Wrights), it would come across as aspirational and speculative, as opposed to something the L candidate believes is a plausible outcome.
lw: As president, I will not enforce any unconstitutional law, nor will I allow anyone in my administration to enforce unconstitutional laws.
me: I like the sentiment here, but I wonder whether R and D presidents willfully violate the Constitution, or whether they think they ARE upholding the Constitution. I suspect it’s the latter. Their counsel advises them all the time on the constitutionality of their actions. The jurisprudential approach incorporates Supreme Court opinions as, in effect, part of the Constitution, even when the words seem to be in conflict. “Strict constitutionalism” seems to be ascendant, especially among right wingers, but I’m not sure I’d suggest pressing this rhetorical line too hard. For ex., Ron Paul calls himself a strict constitutionalist, yet I recall that he’s opposed to same-gender marriage (although he’d leave it to the states).
I’m not sure, in short, whether strict constitutionalism is the path to the promised land….