Chuck Baldwin, the 2008 Constitution Party presidential nominee posted the following on his website Chuck Baldwin Live
I have said for decades that at the highest levels of leadership in Washington, D.C., both Democrats and Republicans are in collusion. At the leadership levels, both parties are working in concert together. The differences between the parties are only at the lower levels, where party members are more idealistic and ignorant of the conspiracy taking place above them.
Yet, NO ONE, not Glenn Beck, not FOX News, not Rush Limbaugh, not CNN, not MSNBC, NO ONE will allow any discussion on this subject. Anyone who dares talk about it is immediately censored or lampooned as a “conspiracy nut.”
The latest example was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress. Breitbart.com is reporting that House Speaker John Boehner (R) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) colluded on the speech for the purpose of providing distraction (cover) for the vote on congressional funding for DHS without any exemptions for President Obama’s executive amnesty order. It worked perfectly.
Almost overnight, Boehner garnered enough Republican votes to help Democrats pass the funding bill. Now, with conservative Republicans riled at the Speaker’s sellout, Boehner is counting on Pelosi’s help to garner enough support from among Democrats to fend off any potential coup by GOP House members. And you can bet that Pelosi will come through for him.
This kind of conspiratorial conduct has been going on for decades. Plus, big-government, police-state elitists in D.C., get the added benefit of New World Order puppet Bibi successfully beating the war drums against Iran.
“Hating is a sickness, I hope you get well soon.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVWEWZjVxac
“Baldwin was a possible write-in in PA.” – William Saturn
That is true but as has been pointed out already write-in votes in PA are not usually tallied. For that reason I voted for Barr as the least bad option. I can understand a protest vote for Nader instead but hey… I LOVED my Corvair!
Hey look, “Vernon” is back spreading lies under a new fake name.
“In order to keep jobs in this country, we need to have a trade policy that works in the best interest of the American people. To this end, I favor a tariff based revenue system, originally implemented by our founding fathers, & which was the policy of th United States during most of our nation’s history. A tariff on foreign imports, based on the difference between the foreign item’s cost of production abroad and the cost of production of a similar item produced in the United States, would be a Constitutional step toward a fair trade policy that would protect American jobs and, at the same time, raise revenue for our national government.”
That’s not a 10% flat tariff (which would also have pretty devastating economic consequences when combined with the retaliatory tariffs, well on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve).
He’s saying any good that’s available cheaper abroad, will be taxed to the point that it’s more expensive than the American-made equivalent. To “keep jobs in this country”… just not presumably any of the jobs that depend on exports or imports. That’s a de-facto ban on imports.
Yeah, Jacobs and Frankel are totally straight.
Except nobody has seen either of them with a woman…ever…they always get a motel room together and bicker like a married couple and go everywhere together for work or socially…but remember, they are completely straight.
De Nile…not just a river in Egypt.
Chuck Baldwin and his VP candidate Darryl Castle both came out against the
War on Drugs, which was a departure for a lot of Constitution Party types.
Baldwin’s campaign position on tariffs was that he supported a 10% flat tariff rate. He also favored eliminating the income tax and replacing it with nothing, and eliminating the Federal Reserve System.
Pennsylvania does not consistently count write in votes, as in they may count them in some counties, but not in others.
lol@ at the gay-bashing troll.
LGBT rights aren’t even my biggest objection to Baldwin, though his assertion that “You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that in the beginning God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.” is a pretty big red flag (and a pretty bizarre use of the word constitutionalist, but that’s par for the course for the CP). As for non-Christians, one need look no further than his enthusiastic support of Roy Moore, and freaking out over the existence of people who don’t say “Merry Christmas,” to get some idea of what kind of religious freedom and separation of church and state we’d get in the world of CP-approved “biblical law”
Setting “social issues” aside though, his stated desire to seal off America’s borders to both goods and people is the bigger problem in my book. A world in which Chuck Baldwin got his way, would be a world impoverished beyond anything that the status quo establishment could ever hope to impose. It’s not an exaggeration, to say that if Chuck Baldwin’s trade policies were implemented, millions of people would starve to death, the modern world would grind to a halt, and the message of the benefits of peaceful free trade, that has been one of the great successes of free-market/classical-liberal/libertarian advocates in the past two centuries going all the way back to Adam Smith, would be wiped-out. Chuck Baldwin’s policy on trade and immigration, is something that can only be found today in that bastion of constitutional liberty, North Korea. No thank you.
Sources, since Saturn doesn’t like to google:
http://www.missiontoisrael.org/constitutionalist.php
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Chuck_Baldwin_Jobs.htm
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/803/Happy-Holidays—Bah-Humbug.aspx
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/828/In-Defense-Of-Judge-Roy-Moore-And-The-Ten-Commandments.aspx
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Chuck_Baldwin_Immigration.htm
Baldwin was a possible write-in in PA. That’s how I voted for him in TX. I previously planned to vote for Barr but I was turned off by his reaction to the Ron Paul endorsement of the 4 third party candidates. I had followed both campaigns closely and thought Baldwin’s platform was the most well thought out and sincere. I made my decision by late September.
I think that libertarian principles should come before anything else.
Having said this, I do not think Jed had much of a libertarian choice on his ballot in 2008, so I can see why he cast a protest vote for Ralph Nader.
Paul is not gay.
Troll1,
Just because I let you suck my dick that doesn’t make me gay. I still prefer women, but, you know, any port in a storm.
Less facetiously, see comments above, and play the video I posted.
“I’m gay first and a libertarian second.”
Exactly. So Ziggler, Frankel and Craig are ruled by their gonads, they are homosexuals first and foremost, and libertarians only second if at all….as evidenced by their opposition to by far the most libertarian candidate for President in 2008, who is far more libertarian than all three of these homosexuals put together by far, Rev. Baldwin.
“I’m gay first and a libertarian second” may as well be the new IPR logo since these three homosexuals post most of the articles and dominate the comment threads with their gonadal politics.
Well, that’s better than most CPers, but Baldwin wasn’t on the ballot in PA, so I still stand by my vote.
I recall that Chuck Baldwin opposed amending the US Constitution to ban gay marriage. He said that marriage should be left to the states, and while he personally opposed gay marriage, he did not think that the federal government should be involved in the issue.
I’m still proud of my vote for Ralph Nader in ’08. Was he more libertarian than Baldwin or Barr? On balance no, but he’s not anti-gay and that’s what matters most to me. I’m gay first and a libertarian second.
Well, as far as Barr vs. Baldwin, 2008 was a weird year, in that Baldwin was easily the most libertarian presidential candidate that the CP has ever nominated, while Barr was probably the least libertarian presidential candidate that the LP has ever nominated. On the other hand, those 2 statements would still be true, even if the CP and LP had swapped nominees that year.
Some of the “libertarians” here only have a problem with Rev Baldwin because they are homosexuals even though he is way, way more libertarian than they are.
FYI, when Chuck Baldwin ran for President he surprisingly did reach out to people of other religions, and also to atheists and agnostics.
>“I did not say that Chuck Baldwin was a libertarian, I said that he was more libertarian than some people who I’ve seen over the years who claimed to be libertarians.” – Andy
>I totally agree with you, Andy. –NF
Unfortunately, not a very high bar sometimes…. 🙁
Andy C.–
Favoring his own religion and believing that it is correct while others are not (something many, many people do) does not constitute “open contempt and disrespect for non-Christians”. Please enlighten me as to when Pastor Baldwin made anti-Jewish comments.
Paulie and others who were pissed at the Barr vs. Baldwin pissing match–
I think our candidate was to blame for that one, not the CP (or Ron Paul).
Probably true (even Bill Clinton and the head of the NSA have said they were libertarian leaning, etc). But as for who is less libertarian, it depends on which issues you believe are most important. I don’t believe that is a fixed list for everyone, nor that it should be.
“I did not say that Chuck Baldwin was a libertarian, I said that he was more libertarian than some people who I’ve seen over the years who claimed to be libertarians.” – Andy
I totally agree with you, Andy.
By saying he supports the principles in the Constitution Party platform, he is essentially endorsing a government establishment of the self-styled “Christian” religion, which can certainly seem to be open contempt and disrespect if you are of a different faith or none.
He doesn’t actually say round up all “illegal aliens” in the video, but he does talk about vigorously prosecuting anyone who hires one, stepping up border enforcement, closing down the border, and support for a platform that calls for a moratorium on legal immigration as well. That’s a round-up through alternative means, in effect.
That accounts for some of the obvious ones, but several are unanswered.
Where does he express “open contempt and disrespect for non-Christians?”
Where does he say he wants to ban “gambling, extramarital sex, pornography, and ‘deviant sexual practices.’?”
Where does he say he wants to round up all illegal aliens?
Start with the video I posted earlier.
“Andy Craig
March 13, 2015 at 12:24 am
Baldwin is not a libertarian, and doesn’t claim to be. ”
I did not say that Chuck Baldwin was a libertarian, I said that he was more libertarian than some people who I’ve seen over the years who claimed to be libertarians.
After. We qualified the presidential ticket as independents and there is no substitution so before would have been impossible.
I only did it as a favor for our state executive director at the time, who just needed a few people to sign the paperwork as a formality. Since I knew that there was no practical chance that I would have to actually serve in the electoral college, signing the paperwork wasn’t really a big deal.
No. Alabama has had no LP candidates on the ballot since 2002, except
*One single state house candidate in the Auburn area in 2006
*13 county and sub-county candidates in the Birmingham area (Jefferson, Shelby, Chilton and Bibb counties) in 2014
*2004, 2008 and 2012 prez candidates were on as independents.
Since I would have been voting in Tuscaloosa, the last time I would have seen an LP ballot label would have been in 2002.
The last time I actually voted in a government election, the (in)famous California gov recall in 2003, there was in fact a LP candidate, but he was a “tobacco smoking advocate” .. I did not vote for him, but wrote in Abolish the Office.
The last time I actually voted for a LP candidate in a government election…sadly, I think it must have been 1996.
Andy Craig,
What is your source for Chuck Baldwin’s issue positions?
Seymour Results,
Would you mind if I posted your comment above as an article here and at The Saturnalian? If so, under what name would you like to be credited?
That probably places you on a pretty exclusive list of elector candidates, who didn’t vote for their pledged nominee in the popular vote, and an even shorter list of those who admitted it. 😉 Though I imagine you weren’t the only LP elector that was true of in 2008.
Were there not any Libertarians on your ballot for lower office that year? Alabama, I take it? And just out of curiosity, were you named as an elector before or after the national convention?
I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get any faithless electors for Paul in 2008 or 2012. It’s been too long since we had a faithless elector, not counting that anonymous idiot who accidentally voted for John Edwards for both President and Vice-President in 2004. I guess state major-parties have gotten too good at selecting loyal hacks, for us to get a third-party faithless elector a la 1972 again.
It’s likely I could have made some similar argument had I voted. I did serve as an elector for them, in the highly unlikely case they would have won a plurality of the Alabama vote, that is who my electoral college vote was theoretically pledged to.
I think a very occasional David Koch related article with a blurb explaining his alt party connection may be OK.
Every once in a while we can do a Ron Paul related article since he was the LP candidate in 1988.
But for anyone who is much more famous for what they have done since then with establishment parties I try to make that very rare.
Koch would be even more rare than Paul, since his association with alt parties is less recent.
Some of it is also a matter of supporting the establishment party establishment factions. Personally, I pretty much lost interest in covering Barr when he stumped for Gingrich and Romney.
Baldwin isn’t more famous for his…ahem…aborted Republican run in Montana than his CP run nationally, his alt party involvement was fairly recent, and he still espouses outside-the-establishment opinions of the same sort he ran on. As far as I know, any endorsements of Republicans he has made since then have been of the Ron Paul wing of Republicans, not the Gingrich and Romney types.
So personally I see him as more relevant for IPR coverage than Barr, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, or certainly David Koch.
“I don’t really care all that much for the Barr vs Baldwin pissing match. Both are way too conservative for me. I really didn’t have any good choices that year in the general election; 2008 was one year I don’t especially regret not voting.”
Agreed, I’m just saying if I had to pick one to be President, I doubt it would be Baldwin.
I voted for the Libertarian ticket to help my state party’s vote totals and shot (albeit long-shot) at earned ballot access. That it required voting for Barr/Root, was the unfortunate cost of doing that, but it was still a matter of vote for a non-libertarian candidate to help the Libertarian Party, or vote for a non-libertarian candidate to help some other non-libertarian party. Not too hard a call, even with my dislike of Barr and complete loathing of Root.
“. In any case, even if he is a dues paying, pledge signing NSGOP member now, his articles are still fair game for IPR as a past CP prez candidate (not that you have said they are not here, just anticipating what someone may say).”
I suppose the same goes for David Koch, then? I’ve seen plenty of progressive/lefty attacks on him that cite his 1980 LP campaign as part of his criticizing his post-LP activities, but haven’t posted them here since I assumed it wouldn’t be of particular interest to IPR’s audience unless the article was focused in particular on the 1980 campaign (which they rarely are, instead just mentioning it and maybe citing a radical-sounding LP platform plank from that year, before moving on.) Not quibbling that Baldwin is within the ambit of IPR coverage, just pointing out it isn’t per se all to consider with a former third-party candidate who has since gone major-party.
re: Baldwin’s 2012 candidacy for Montana Lt. Gov, it wasn’t just a rumor or floated idea. He was actually named by one of the GOP primary candidates for Gov (Bob Fanning) as his running mate., and then he later withdrew before the primary citing lack of organization and viability on Fanning’s part. Fanning ended up placing last of 6 in the GOP primary with a replacement running mate, with 2.3%.
In 2012, Baldwin was also put on the ballot for President by the KS Reform Party affiliate, and didn’t ask for his name to be removed from the ballot. Though neither did he declare any affiliation with the RP-KS so far as I know, or actively campaign.
I’d say Baldwin is relatively libertarian leaning for a CP candidate, but he is still clearly on the CP side rather than the LP side of the issues which divide the two parties, as can be seen in the video clips from Holtz’s video above.
I don’t really care all that much for the Barr vs Baldwin pissing match. Both are way too conservative for me. I really didn’t have any good choices that year in the general election; 2008 was one year I don’t especially regret not voting.
Pat Buchanan, rather. I’ll give Baldwin credit for being a lot better than Robertson.
Baldwin is not a libertarian, and doesn’t claim to be. He’s a religious-right paleocon. Which is fine for what that’s worth on issues of agreement, but still comes with a big basket of authoritarian and anti-libertarian positions.
On social issues, there’s not just the obvious ones of abortion (if you want to count that, and I would) and LGBT rights, but also more broadly on the question of enforcing morality in banning gambling, extramarital sex, pornography, and “deviant sexual practices.” And while it might not be a strictly role-of-government issue, a candidate that claims to want to be President while showing open contempt and disrespect for non-Christians, and who justifies all of his positions in terms of his religion, is a reasonable thing for libertarians to object to.
On the economic front, he wants to impose a massive protectionist tariff to “save jobs” (in particular he said he would impose a tarriff equal to the cost of producing the same good in the US, which would amount to effectively banning imports altogether) Which, combined with the inevitable retaliatory tariffs, would cause a collapse in international trade. Smoot-Hawley on steroids, anyone?
On immigration, he’s a hardline round-’em-all-up-and-seal-the-border type. So under his administration we could look forward to a massive police-security state to enforce that Americans have no government-unapproved interaction with foreigners.
I’m sure the are probably some other issues, but those are some pretty big ones. I’m no more inclined to support Baldwin, than I would Pat Robertson, who occupies a roughly similar (albeit less religious) ideological space.
Say what you will about Barr (and I’m no fan), I’d be less worried about having an establishment conservatarian stooge like him the White House, than a radical unrestrained theocracy-minded xenophobic dominionist like Baldwin. And I must not be alone in that conclusion, because even with Ron Paul’s endorsement, and the total FUBAR fiasco that was the Barr/Root campaign, Baldwin still only got a third as many votes as Barr did.
^ Exhibit A.
On the other hand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCc_6eCGv48
Chuck Baldwin was more in favor of separation of Church and State than the “Ayn-Rand influenced” sociopathic drug warrior Bob Barr was. I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. The “conspiracy” of shared sociopathy, pathocratic incentives, and shared (narrow self-) interest is real. Even if it doesn’t go beyond that, (not a technical “smoke-filled room with elaborate plans”) Chuck Baldwin gets an “A+” for recognizing how bad we’re all getting screwed. (See: Andrzej M. Lobaczewski, which is pronounced kind of like “Anjie Lobe-ah-shev-ski” for the term “Pathocracy,” and his pioneering work done on socipath networks. See: http://www.ponerology.com/ His book was suppressed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, and before that, 2 drafts were destroyed by Polish soviets. “Andrzej, Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, (Grande Prairie: Red Pill Press, 2006)”)
STRATEGY 101 IN 1 PAGE:
He should run for State legislature as a republican (or as an independent, or whatever party has clear majority support), and win by walking door-to-door. Then, he should switch to Libertarian, making him the highest elected libertarian in the nation. Then, he should work to get all the neighboring districts elected as libertarians as well, with no need for them to all call themselves libertarians. (Though some of them should, to show that he’s “building.”)
He should never claim to desire to go beyond his local area, and should always state that it’s his goal to mildly reduce taxation, and improve the quality of life in the immediate vicinity of where he lives. He should, while going door-to-door, promote jury rights, and inform every voter about “voir dire.” See: http://fija.org/docs/BR_YYYY_surviving_voir_dire.pdf
“Signaling” is vitally important to the success of this strategy: Actions are revealed preferences, and smart voting networks recognize them as such, weighting them more heavily than words. Here are the important signals given off by this strategy, when executed properly.:
1) Signaling to the power-interests / “pathocracy”: I don’t want to control the whole state, and cause it to become a bastion of libertarian “State nullification,” (As per Tom Woods’ book “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century”) so the major party support networks (Ds, Rs, + mercenaries) are signaled to “let me have my tiny success.” They are not signaled to “crush me at all costs”
2) Campaigning on restoring the power of the jury via juror-empowerment education, (“It’s your highest power as a citizen,but if you don’t know how the courts work, you can’t exercise it…”) will signal to smart locals that he’s truly in favor of individual rights. Anything else you say doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you state that, if elected, your number one goal will be to prevent the punishment of innocent people, from a law that is increasingly arbitrary, by testifying on behalf of defendants, and raising awareness about the power citizens possess as jurors (both grand jurors and petit jurors). Such individual power to defend oneself and one’s neighbors from malicious prosecution is the highest constitutional power possessed by American citizens.
3) By walking door-to-door, this signals that he’s not a sociopath. Sociopaths don’t walk door-to-door. They don’t care enough to do that. It’s easier to win by being a manipulator of major part power apparatus. (Some rare exceptions to this rule exist, but it’s pretty easy to spot them, and such people would never support jury rights, properly-explained.)
4) By focusing on electing other State legislators, he sends (4a) the signal to the people that he’s not interested in using the office of State Legislator as a “stepping stone” to higher office and more personal money and power. (4b) the signal to the voters that he cares enough to follow through on his “vision” of what is right. (4c) the signal to the candidates that he recruits that he’s not a socially-malevolent (narrowly-self-interested) sociopath, but actually cares about supporting their joint pursuit of an ideal (indicating that hard work and support of the ideal will be rewarded, incentivizing both “proper goals” and “proper action to achieve those goals” from the candidates he recruits).
The model I’ve just described is the core of a model for emergent libertarian governance or Hayekian “spontaneous order.” This order doesn’t conflict with the moral prescription formulated by Ayn Rand, it builds upon it, recognizing natural biological distributions of sociopaths, empaths, and the “uncivilized, morally-stunted empaths” in between them.
Right now, sociopaths have been almost entirely unchallenged. They have “the run of the roost,” and there are few limits on their behavior, so long as they do not call undue attention to their own sociopathy, (which could then call attention to the sociopathy of the entire pathocratic network).
I also appreciate the tenacity that Chuck Baldwin has. At the bottom of his article, he has an email address listed for those who want to help him form a non-501c3 church in Bradenton, Florida, organized around human liberty. Good for him! ( If you want to help him finance this church, or get involved, he posts his email here: [email protected] ) He’s apparently figured out that the political categorizations created by the IRS and the FEC are simply tools for silencing political criticism and dissent, and the building of spontaneous, reactive political coalitions in time to prevent political destruction (new laws, new executive orders, new bureaucratic practices, etc.). Political organizations that cannot exploit opportunity are crippled, and believing you need to “get permission” to direct dollars toward speech without their being taxed is an immense, monumental, all-destroying totalitarian evil (to anyone who believes in free speech, and how essential it is). In contrast to Baldwin’s seeming direction, when I called the Ayn Rand Institute in 2004, they stated that they couldn’t endorse or comment on Michael Badnarik because they were a 501c3. (ARI director and Ayn Rand’s sole legal heir Leonard Peikoff then endorsed Kerry over Bush, because he saw ‘rising religionism’ as a greater threat than ‘impotent and discredited socialism.’ But there was no love for the candidate whose views were far better than Barry Goldwater, whom Rand herself endorsed. …And it was left to David Bossie and the makers of “Hillary: The Movie” to even partially challenge the insanely restrictive FEC laws limiting speech. I guess John Galt hasn’t come up with that “frequency they are not equipped to receive” yet, …unless you count encryption.)
I’m avowed atheist, and even an anti-theist, but I’d attend this church (for the cold half of the Northern year), if it actually gets off the ground. Because, as much of an anti-theist as I am, I’m more of a free speech absolutist.
On some issues, yeah, but there are also some people who overlook or downplay other issues where he is not.
I’ve never heard Chuck Baldwin call himself a libertarian, but he is actually better than some people who have claimed to be libertarians.
Sometimes I like his stuff. But, generally, he strikes me as kinda nutty.
Wasn’t saying they weren’t fair game, was just curious.
I don’t know about “joined,” but he did float running that way, but then didn’t (possibly because he had not lived in Montana long enough). In any case, even if he is a dues paying, pledge signing NSGOP member now, his articles are still fair game for IPR as a past CP prez candidate (not that you have said they are not here, just anticipating what someone may say).
This is an excellent article! Thanks to Mr. Baldwin for continuing to point out things that are obvious to many of us who are paying attention. And thanks for posting the article, William.
I believe he was mentioned as a potential GOP candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Montana in the primary where the candidates run as a ticket. It never happened and I don’t recall why. Despite partisan affiliation he was still more libertarian than Bob Barr in the 2008 election.
Didn’t Chuck join the GOP a while back?