The First Amendment protects free speech (as well as the press, assembly, and worship provided that the subject isn’t contraception).

But it has limits.

Fraud is not free speech.  You need to speak to commit fraud – “Hey, you have money in Nigeria, and we need $1,000 in legal fees to get it for you!”, right?  But it’s illegal.

It’s not illegal, in most cases, to lie.  There is the odd exception – the Stolen Valor Act which, by the way, makes me uncomfortable; I’d rather have a group of Green Berets set an impersonator straight than some federal prosecutor.    In most other cases, it’s not illegal.

Indeed, in some cases it’s encouraged, even among public servants.  The Supreme Court has said it’s OK for cops and prosecutors to lie to suspects to get information out of them.  That’s acceptable, generally, although it’s led to the odd miscarriage of justice.

But I think there should be a great, shining exception to “freedom of speech”.  Officers of the court should not be able to lie about the law, to their constituents.

There are only two explanations for Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom so grossly misstated the potential effects of the “Stand Your Ground” bill, vetoed yesterday by Governor Dayton.

He Doesn’t Know Any Better And, Like The Strib “Editorial Board”, Just Wrote What He Was Told.  If he’s that ignorant of the laws he’s supposed to enforce, he should not be a County Attorney.

Or…

He Actively Misrepresented The Law To An Audience Including His Constituents. With the goal of influencing public policy (the bill was then in committee), Backstrom wrote an op-ed (not for the first time, mind you) that actively and knowingly tried to mislead the public by lying about the consequences of a law.

I don’t know the legal definition of fraud – and I don’t have to, to still be able to say “this sort of behavior on the part of a court official defrauds and actively disinforms the public, toward a political end”.

And while there never will be, there oughtta be a law.

I rarely post on Sundays.

But I had to break the silence to point out that yesterday, the Strib ran an editorial about Rep. Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill that was distinguished by having not one solitary true assertion in it.

Not one.

As egregious as the Strib editors’ assaults against fact (on behalf of the DFL) have always been, I can not recall one in the past that not only so grossly buggers fact in pursuit of supporting the DFL’s agenda, to say nothing of being so morally, ethically and factually void to a physical absolute.

Tomorrow morning at 6AM here on Shot In The Dark.

This morning, I wrote to agree with Chad the Elder that the Catholic grass roots didn’t look like they cared that much about religious freedom – in part because a Catholic (indeed, Christian) laity was pretty much desensitized. like the fabled “frog in boiling water”, to the effects of losing that freedom, and that their leadership hadn’t done much to change that in a few decades.

On the other hand?  Maybe there’s some hope:

Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees.

 

“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.

 

Already Archbishop Timothy Dolan has spoken out against the law and priests around the country have mobilized, reading letters from the pulpit. Donohue said Catholic officials will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.

Hopefully it’s not too little too late.

Last week, when I wrote about the stirrings of backlash on the part of some Catholic activists and Bishops over the Obamacare requirement that Catholic hospitals provide contraception and abortions, I expressed my doubt that mainstream Catholics really cared that much.

I got a few Catholics sounding off in my comment section that sounded a little more bellicose than I expected.

Chad the Elder over at Fraters – who is, unlike me, Catholic – is a lot less sanguine:

Many Catholics seem all too willing to erect their own wall between church and state and like to pretend that their politics has nothing to do with the Catholic Church and vice versa. The problem is that when the government breaks through that barrier and injects itself into the affairs of the Church by attempting to force it to accept policies that violate core tenants of its beliefs, the illusion of this happy little coexistence is shattered.

Does it?

I’m not trying to be snotty, there – it’s a genuine question.

If people have little tangible investment in the practical results of religious freedom – if it’s more an intellectual and rhetorical parlor game than an immediate, vital part of their life – then will it “shatter” so much as “melt like stale jello?”

Well, at least it would be if the Church were more consistent and forceful in explaining exactly what is taking place and why it matters to American Catholics.

There’s that, too.  Leaving aside that the laity themselves, to my observation, seem to think it’s an issue well above their pay grade, I have a strong hunch that a good chunk of the Catholic hierarchy is lukewarm on upsetting the progressive applecart.

For whatever reason, Elder’s observations seem to be in tune with mine:

My experience may not be typical, but so far little word of this current controversy has surfaced in our parish on any given Sunday. A few months ago, there was an insert in the bulletin that touched on it. Since then, nothing. No homilies, no presentations, no mention in the weekly bulletin. The only thing related to politics that has merited attention has been on the marriage front, with updates on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment appearing in the last few bulletins. But nothing on the Obamacare rules which are a direct threat to the freedom of the Catholic Church to exercise its religious beliefs.

In order for there to be action, there needs to be a call for it first. I fear that too many Catholic leaders are still reluctant to sound it.

And while I’m assured by many Catholic friends that some of the post-John-Paul-2 clergy is more conservative, I have serious questions as to whether that’s filtered down to an awful lot of lay Catholics and their immediate leadership.  Chad’s observations don’t do much to dissuade me.

Of course, it’s similar in my own Presbyterian church (where, to be fair, the problem is opposite; an extremely liberal elected temporal leadership representing congregations that are frequently much more conservative.

To:  Ron Paul supporters
From: Mitch Berg, Former Big-L Libertarian, current small-l libertarian
Re:  Your candidate

All,

I love a David and Goliath fight as much as anyone, and much more than most.  So the idea that a candidate could come in out of nowhere, electorally speaking, and tip the GOP establishment up on its ear is something I just looooove.  Seriously.

And not only do I totally get the principles Ron Paul is espousing – liberty, shrinking government, etc – I have run for office behind them.

I don’t support Ron Paul, personally, as a candidate, for many of the same reasons I bailed out of the Big-L Libertarian Party fourteen years ago; while I agree with its core principles and high-level beliefs, there is little about your candidate, like my old party, that makes me think he’s ready for prime time when it comes to trying to run a nation of 300 million people.

But this isn’t about Ron Paul or his principles, or the wrinkles in his past that many of you would have us ignore.  This is about you.

Four years ago, you – or an earlier generation of “you” – bum-rushed the caucuses, with the intention of taking over the Minnesota GOP (as in other states).  And of the ones that got elected to go to the House District conventions, some actually showed up.  And of the ones that got elected to go to the Congressional District convention, some showed up.  And of those few left who got elected to go to the state convention, fewer still showed up.

In short, when the time for writing resolutions and declaiming about “Doctor Paul” passed, and the time to try to do the hard, boring stuff started, you – the vast, vast majority of you – sat it out.  And that’s notwithstanding the number of you that opted to sit out the election.

It’s easy – and your right – to say “If you don’t nominate my candidate, I’m going to sit this election out”.  But this isn’t about the election – this is about the party of which Ron Paul is a member; the one to whose caucuses Paul and his organizers are going to send you in your thousands in two weeks.

Getting an agenda passed takes more than just noise, intransigence, and near-religious fervor.  It takes persistence, a willingness to work within a party system (if only to co-opt it – and that’s not only not a bad thing, that’s actually how politics works!), the cultivated ability to sit in party functions and keep your ass from falling asleep long enough not only to get candidates who believe in what you do endorsed, but to keep the party in line with your principles as well.  And as someone who just spent a year as a minor elected party functionary on a libertarian-conservative agenda, let me tell you – that’s the hard part.

So, Ron Paul supporters, please answer the question:  are you ready to try to stick around, learn a few things, and try not only work with (and co-opt!) the party in which your candidate is running, and to which his son is committed?

Or are you going to collapse into epic disappointment again?

Because if it’s the former, I’d love to talk with y’all.

That is all.

It’s not the game-changer for this campaign.  But it could shave off a lot of votes for a lot of candidates.

It’s the Stop Online Piracy Act.  Posited as a means of protecting copyrights and against counterfeit drugs, the act – sponsored by Lamar Smith, with a slew of co-hosts – is rife with opportunity for abuse; it would make it frighteningly easy for government to censor online content on any dubious grounds it sees fit to find; it’ll make the user-content industry (think Youtube, Flickr and, potentially, any blog) exceptionally hazardous – not for abusers of copyrights, but for the service providers themselves.   It’s possible, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, for as little as a single complaint to shut down, say, Hot Air (and we all know what side is full of complainers who just loooooooooove to use the bureaucracy to stifle debate).

And the issue is gaining traction among those who pay attention to these things:

To the ranks of same-sex marriage, tax cuts and illegal immigration, add this to the list of polarizing political issues of Election 2012: the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The hot-button anti-piracy legislation that sparked a revolt online is starting to become a political liability for some of SOPA’s major backers. Fueled by Web activists and online fundraising tools, challengers are using the bill to tag its congressional supporters as backers of Big Government — and raise campaign cash while they’re at it.

Al Franken and – as luck would have it, the up-for-election Amy Klobuchar – both support SOPA.  Elements of the left have been beating on them, especially on A-Klo; both are, of course, in the bag for Hollywood.

It’s time to join in the bashing!

The following email was received by DFL Legislative staffers and legislators early last week.

And, via an accident on the sender side, pretty much everyone else in Minnesota Politics.

Members & Staff,

As we prepare for the start of the 2012 session, I wanted to update you all on a few items:

First, thanks to all of our members – too many to mention here – who helped with our Caucus fundraising efforts in 2011. As a result of your hard work and the hard work of our staff, we are in an incredibly strong financial position heading into the elections in November. You’ll hear more about that at our Caucus meeting.

Speaking of that meeting, we will be caucusing at 10 AM on Monday, January 23rd, at a to-be-determined location in St. Paul. The annual pre-session event begins at 3 PM with a VIP reception followed by the general reception at 4 PM. We’d love to have as many members there as possible, and have invited our candidates as well. Frank Hornstein and Marion Greene have also invited members and staff to gather at [address redacted out of basic decency.  Would “Cucking Stool” redact an address?  Pfftt – Ed], after the event. Please RSVP to Marion ([Email redacted]) or Frank ([Email redacted]) if you plan to go.

As you know from Paul’s personnel update email earlier this week, we are making some staffing changes that affect both our official and political operations. Today was Zach Rodvold’s last day in his current capacity with the Caucus. Beginning on Monday, January 16th he will be assuming the role of Campaign Director and will be working from our offices at the DFL. On Tuesday, January 17th [redacted] will return from maternity leave and will be stepping into the role of Director of Caucus and Legislative Services, the job held by Zach until today. Please welcome them both into their new roles.

Here’s the funny part:

In addition, Jaime Makepeace, who has been the Deputy Finance Director for the Caucus, will be moving into the role of Director of Candidate Services. This is a position created to respond to some of the criticism we heard coming out of the last election that some candidates – and some members – didn’t feel like they had a point of contact on the staff if their races weren’t targeted. She’s been working closely with Erin Murphy in our candidate recruitment efforts already and so this will be a smooth transition for her. Please also welcome her into her new role.

Sort of a human border collie?

Finally, a word about redistricting. As you all know, the precinct caucuses will be on Tuesday, February 7th, yet the new lines won’t be released by the courts until the 21st. This will undoubtedly create some difficulties for our candidates and potentially some of our members in going through the endorsement process. Because the new districts lines are unknown, however, and because there are potential scenarios where members may be paired together, the Caucus cannot provide constituent or voter information to anyone outside of your current districts. We will work with the party and with the DNC to ensure that, once the new map is released, members will have access (through the VAN) to the voters within their new lines as soon as possible.

If you have any questions about that or anything else, feel free to contact Paul or me any time.

Thanks, and have a great weekend. I look forward to seeing you all on the 23rd!

Sincerely,

[Name redacted]

Shortly later came the following:

Hi-

Due to technical difficulties with our e-mail database you recently received an e-mail that was intended for House DFL Caucus members and staff. While there are no state secrets included, given the confidential nature of the content we would appreciate if you did not share the e-mail!

Thanks for your understanding and I’m sorry for any inconvenience.

Best,

[Another different redacted person]

Nah, I think I’ll circulate it.  Thanks anyway.

It’s long been the policy of this blog to never, ever endorse candidates.  Partly because it seems arrogant – I mean, who cares what I think?  And partly because even if I do have any influence over what people think about how they vote, I’d much prefer that that influence go to helping, in whatever way I can, to get anyone who’d be influence by my opinion to think more confidently for themselves instead.

But today, I’m going to break with that tradition.

On this, the eve of the Iowa caucuses, I’m going to give an unqualified, fervent endorsement for Paul.

Paul represents one of the  most important things I believe – the need to push libertarian legislation and policy into the mainstream of American political thought.

Oh, yeah – just so we’re clear, I’m talking about Senator Rand Paul.

I know.  He’s not running for President – not this time.  And that’s fine – because I’m not endorsing him for President.

I’m endorsing his approach to pushing the ideas and ideals of liberty into the mainstream of Republican politics.

Oh, his father, Ron Paul?  The guy breaks my heart.  Yeah, he’s a big-L libertarian and all, but even if you leave out the racist rants from thirty years ago (and even if we do, the media won’t allow the electorate to ignore them – and the electorate should be aware!), he’s basically claiming he can balance the budget on the back of defense, while he’s proposed nothing as far as cutting and reforming entitlements, which is basically saying “the dog ate my homework” if your campaign is ostensibly based on, y’know, reforming government.

No, I’m endorsing Rand Paul for the very reason I’d love to be able to endorse his father.  When I left the GOP in 1994, I did it because I wanted to belong to a party that believed in Liberty, the Bill of Rights, Originalism, and the whole idea that this nation is built on inalienable rights, not entitlements deeded to us by the Government.

And I spent four years interacting with people whose entire involvement in politics was to endlessly reiterate pure ideology, secure in the knowledge that they’d never have to actually tackle a budget or try to downsize a bureaucracy, since none of them were ever going to get elected to anything, ever.  Ever.  And I came back to the GOP, reasoning that it’d be easier to get the GOP to adopt enough Libertarian ideals to be palatable, and still be able to get people elected to get some – enough – of those ideals moved into some sort of policy.

Ron Paul has been a GOP Congressman for a long, long time.  And he’s had a positive effect on the GOP – when he’s bothered to exert his influence in the party.  But in 2008, when it became clear the nomination was far out of reach, he endorsed Libertarian party candidate Chuck Baldwin for President.  Which is marginally less useful that lighting up that endorsement and burning it – and set a noxious example for Paul’s followers; if you don’t get what you want, walk away.

An example too many of his followers claim they’ll follow, if Paul doesn’t win the nomination.  It’s especially true of the “Young Republicans” who, we are told, are very solidly behind Paul – and, some say, likely to sit out the election if Paul doesn’t get nominated.  Which is – I’ll be tactful – a lousy idea, this notion that you’ll “teach the GOP a lesson” by rewarding the US with another term of Barack Obama.

Parties don’t “learn lessons”, they reflect commitment.

And if you take your toys and go home, that’s exactly what will happen; the GOP will reflect your (withdrawal from ) commitment; Obama will benefit from it.

Answer this honestly; do you believe the nation will be better off under Obama than under even purported “RINO” MItt Romney?  Why?

And that’s why I’m endorsing Rand Paul – not for President (yet) but because he, unlike his father and way too many of his father’s supporters, knows that politics is a marathon, not a sprint; and that the cause of Liberty is better served by working within, and sometimes fighting like hell within, a party that is sympathetic (if not always actively enough) to Liberty, as opposed to the party that believes it’s just another word for having your wants satisfied.  And he knows that if he and his Liberty-loving followers don’t let up, they can get it all – elected, and  the opportunity to get their ideals actually enacted into law.

UPDATE:  Commenter “Courier J” notes that I got the name of the Libertarian Party’s candidate in 2008 wrong – it was Bob Barr.

I was only partially wrong, of course; Rep. Paul came on the Northern Alliance when he was in town for the “Campaign for Liberty” event, just before the RNC (the same day Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain’s running mate).  He gave a fairly churlish interview in which he urged conservatives disaffected by McCain’s coronation to check out Larry Hagelin (of the Natural Law party), Barr, and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, whom Paul eventually did endorse.

Which was, of course, the point of my post.

Every once in a while, someone asks me “why doesn’t True North write more nice things about Ron Paul?”

I wrote their answer over at True North.  Go check it out if you’ve a mind to, as all those people in the Appalachian hollers to whom I’m not at all related would say.

For my part?  I’m a libertarian-conservative, and a former Libertarian conservative.  But Paul has always bothered me, for a variety of reasons; I’ve wished, fervently, for Libertarianism to have a better spokesman that Rep. Paul.  Still, he’s the farthest they’ve gotten; if Paul had happened when I was in my four-year stint as a Libertarian, I’d have no doubt been an enthusiastic supporter.

To a point.

Anyway – check the whole thing out at True North.

I’m one of the 98% that never served in the military.

And there’s really not much I can say, especially after the past ten years or so, other than “thank you”, whoever you are and where-ever and whenever you served.

UPDATE:  Veterans Day started as a memory of the carnage of “The Great War”.  2011 was, of course, the year tha last known American World War I veteran passed away.

This blog’s first post (other than “hey, look, I have a blog!”) back in 2002 was about a firearms-related issue – the battle for concealed carry, as it happens.

And since then, it’s fair to say I’ve written a post or two about the second amendment and the civil and human right of self-defense.

But I’ve never been a “gun blogger”, like the late Joel Rosenberg or the great Clayton Cramer.  It’s one of many issues I consider vital.

But since the Evanovich shooting two weeks ago, I might forgive newcomers to my blog for thinking I am a gun-blogger.  It’s been a hot topic around here.

Not strictly on the subject of the Evanovich case – but squarely in the gun wheelhouse, and a subject on which the Evanovich case only barely avoided being germane – was this bit form the MinnPost last week, from that noted civil rights firebrand Brian Lambert.

Now, I’ve known Brian for years – indeed, on my first day at KSTP in 1985, he was filling in for Geoff Charles; Lambo is literally one of the first people I ever met in the Twin Cities media.  And he’s not a bad guy.

But I don’t think it’s unfair to say he was a leader of the “never let facts or information get in the way of giggly uninformed snark” school of reporting long before blogs and Jon Stewart made it cool.

His subject?  Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill, which was going to get a renewed push in the Legislature in the upcoming session even without the impetus of the Evanovich case; it’s a powerful swing issue among Minnesota’s mass of shooters, who have been a quietly but disproportionally powerful constituency in Minnesota for over a decade.

Remember last winter and spring’s scuffle over an expansion of the so-called “castle doctrine,” giving homeowners more legal protection in the event they needed to gun down someone on their property?

Let me guess – “gun them down” just to “watch them die?”

In the liberal subconscious, there seem to be a powerful, maybe chemical, urge to keep repeating “law-abiding gun owners are all depraved maniacs” endlessly, in the hope that it’ll ever actually be true.

Lambert cites some questions from that wellspring of care for the less-fashionalbe civil liberties – the mainstream media:

He has (second-hand) questions.  I have answers.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel throws up an editorial on precisely that legislation floating around over there in Badger Land: “Today’s quiz:

1) Just exactly what problem are lawmakers trying to solve with a proposal to extend new legal protections to people who shoot intruders in their homes, vehicles or businesses?

The problem is that in Minnesota (and Wisconsin), self-defense law is vague on what’s called the “Duty to Retreat”.  In Minnesota, the law says you have to make a “reasonable” effort to disengage from a situation in which you are being attacked and “reasonably” fear being killed or maimed.  What does “reasonable” effort mean?

It depends on where you live. A county attorney in the Red River Valley will likely see it differently than one of John Choi’s eager young DFL-bot assistants.

So, Brian Lambert – on what other civil, human right do we tolerate that level of vagueness?  Especially vagueness that is based entirely on local political fashion?  More importantly, on what other civil/human rights do you tolerate this sort of “make it up as you go along” approach to the law?

2) What is it about the current system that isn’t working?

In a nutshell:  if you, a law-abiding carry permit holder, are approached in, say, your garage or your car – which are not covered under Minnesota’s current “inside the home” exemption to the so-called “duty to retreat” – the question “did you make a reasonable effort to run away”, made in a fraction of a second in the dark under mind-warping pressure, will be answeredby some pencil-necked U of M-grad assistant County Attorney sitting in a warm office, guarded by sheriff’s deputies with metal detectors, and all the time in the world to work up whatever theory his boss wants him or her to work up.  They – in their due time – could decide you “should have” hit the gas, or run for the house, or just given the attacker what she wanted – and force you go to trial, with your freedom on the line, even if the shooting was utterly justified in every other way.

3) How many homeowners are sitting in jail because they were simply defending themselves against intruders inside their houses?

We’ll come back to that.

The answers are:

1) There is no problem.

2) The current system works just fine.

3) None.

The first two are matters of (blinkered, context-deprived) opnion.

The third is at the very best a misleading answer – and the wrong question, to boot.  Better questions would have been “how many honest, law-abiding citizens had to exhaust their lifes’ savings defending themselves against charges that revolved around prosecutors asking “did the accused try hard enough  to retreat?””.  Or “how many honest, law-abiding citizens, faced with an endless battle with a county attorney’s office that they could not afford, were hammered into taking plea bargains that destroyed their legal futures and infringed their civil liberties, in exchange for staying out of jail after shootings that were otherwise perfectly justified?”   In Minnesota, the answer to that last is “one that I can rattle off to you right now, and if you gave me a few minutes on the phone I could probably come up with half a dozen more”.

There is no need to change state law to allow for a “castle doctrine” defense (“castle doctrine” as in “your home is your castle”). Indeed, doing so could put some innocents in greater danger.

Really?

How?

I mean, the statement was made with some perception of authority; feel free, Brian, to provide an example of “danger” to “innocents” in the 31 states that have some variation of Cornish’s law on the books today.

I’ll wait.

The above answers come by the way, from Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and the Criminal Law Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin, made up of more than 600 prosecutors, judges, criminal defense lawyers and academics. That’s a reliable set of expert witnesses.”

Well, no. It’s a set of witnesses with an agenda; leaving aside their political affiliation, “stand your ground” laws remove County Attorneys’ discretion.   Prosectors like having discretion.  Government loves having discretion.  See George Wallace.

Your expert is my “appeal to false authority”.  Not to mention…

Yeah, but tell any of ’em to just try and walk across my lawn.

…snark.  Always, always the snark.

Sometimes, in order to try to understand those with whom you disagree, you have to try to put yourselves in their mind; to try to think like they do.

We’ll come back to that.

Last week, I saw that Spotty from Cucking Stool wrote what seemed to be yet another take on the left’s most threadbare post-Tea-Party meme; in this case, it was…:

Tea Party brigade struggles to put out BWCA fire

I assumed it was yet another tilt at the “If you don’t support all government, you oppose all government” meme.  Hardly worth a read, in and of itself; if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all you need to.

It started out with a clip from a Strib piece about the rigors of firefighting in the Boundary Waters

Plywood walls were plastered with maps showing the growing footprint of the wildfire that’s raging across Minnesota wilderness of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Dozens of officials summoned to help subdue the blaze that has consumed more than 100,000 acres of forest…

Read the Strib piece for more.

“Spot” picks up…

…I was about to say “the narrative”, but that’s not quite right.  A narrative, certainly.  One of a choice of narratives?  I dunno.  Anyway:

The quote and the picture are real enough and from the Strib, but the headline — obviously — is fictional.

And utterly misleading, since the article relates not at all to the Tea Party, to budgets, to…well, anything but the rigors of firefighting.

There is, in fact, some controversy whether the Forest Service moved fast enough after the fire was started by lightning and whether logging should have occurred after the blow down in 1999…

Which is a fascinating subject, perhaps – I’ve written about it here – but, Spot informs us, it’s really not why we’re here.  Not at all:

Which brings me to the real point of the story. Walter Hudson, the spittle-flecked chair of the North Star Tea Party Patriots,

I’ve met Walter Hudson many times.  He’s been to several MOB parties.  He’s actually a pretty soft-spoken, measured kinda guy.

So why would “Spot” call him “Spittle-flecked?”  Let’s think like our opponent…

Racism is the only reason.

Well, no. It’s not.  Let’s go back to the top of the piece; let’s try to think like our opponent to understand him.

Why would one completely mangle the context of an op-ed to take a roundabout, groaningly false whack at the character of someone disagrees with?  Let’s try to put ourselves in the mind of…whatever our pseudonymous, utterly unknown writer is…

Nope.  I still got nothing.

Maybe some clue will come to us as we continue through the piece:

[Hudson is] speaking to the adoption of a supermajority requirement to raise taxes in Minnesota, but here’s what Walter thinks of social goods:

Government ought not “function” to any whimsical end. Government should function only when its aim is proper, only when it protects individual rights.

You can read how Walter concludes that a simple majority vote is whimsical; I’m not going to try to explain it.

Having read both Hudson’s actual piece – which concludes “Government’s mandate is not to “function” at any cost. Impasse, gridlock and shutdowns are not inherent evils” – and tells the DFL and its supporters that there is much more to “majority rule” than browbeating the minority into submission, and says not one thing about government’s essential services, like protecting lives and property – firefighting, a subject even Ron Paul agrees is a legitimate government service – I don’t honestly think Spot could explain it any better than he explains Minnesota’s self-defense law.

But maybe there’s some hidden flash of insight in his conclusion:

What is whimsical is the fact that Walter heads a group with the word “patriot” in it. Patriots love their country. Walter’s patriotism extends no further than the tip of his nose, or his stomach, whichever sticks out farther.

So “Spot’s” whole piece is…a laborious personal insult?  Whose underlying “point” seems to be that “patriotism” is not only keeping government’s every whim funded, but funded without the need for real consensus?

I’m open to further suggestions.  I’m rhetorically tapped.

This whole “understand what your opponent is thinking” bit is a lot harder than I thought.

As we saw with the Sally Jo Sorenson bit over at Bluestem, apparently lefties have a hard time distinguishing between different levels of authority.

Sorenson confused “students” with “emplioyees”, “monks” and “inmates” in her piece.

And “Alex” at Minnesota Progressive Project (MPP) seems to conflate “free speech” with “seizing control”

The headlines write themselves.

At MPP, it might be better if they did.  But I digress.

The Mn GOP, led by Pat Garofalo (R, Big State Government), don’t want any more funding increases for local schools. The what is easy. We need to dig deeper, and ask why. Interfering with local school boards is the epitome of the heavy hand of state government sticking its nose in where it doesn’t belong.

“Alec” is responding to the gangs of Republican commandos that have been bursting in to local school board meetings and holding them at gunpoint threatening to kill everyone unless they abandon their special levy drives.  Tony Sutton and Michael Brodkorb, festooned with bandoliers and carrying Dirty Harry revolvers, sneer and cackle like Snidely Whiplash as they demand the school boards lower their budgets or else…

…well no.  Of course not.  The GOP is doing what political parties – and unions, and PACs, and 527s, and groups of people, and individuals with blogs or standing on soapboxes on the street, for that matter – do; telling voters what the truth is (most of the schools boards got more from the state), and asking local property owners if they really  need another tax increase.

Have Minnesota Republicans given up on small, local government?

Well, no, “Alex”; we’re merely participating in it.

Democrats seem to find that threatening.

A lot.

Govenor Dayton, by all accounts, is considering issuing an adminstrative fiat that would unionize daycares.

Senator Roger Chamberlain writes:

As many of you know the governor is considering signing an executive order to unilaterally unionize thousands of private sector employees.

It is unwarranted and unnecessary. It will increase costs and kill jobs.

If you do not want this to happen, give him a call; encourage others who use daycare services or run a day care to do the same.

Here’s the Governor’s contact information.

If there’s one thing the budget impasse showed us, it’s that the Governor can take a hint, if it’s big and broad and unmistakeable enough.

Over at True North, Tom Steward covers the issue.

Sally Jo Sorenson of Bluestem Prairie isn’t the most ignorant and depraved leftyblogger out there – she’s probably not “Minnesota Progressive Project” material.  She’s even got the odd bit of useful material in there, occasionally.

But it’s a leftyblog.  What do you expect?

Well, I never expect anything – and my expectations get lived up to in spades in this post, about College Republicans protesting a bottled water ban at Saint Benedict’s, a Catholic college in Saint Joseph:

The Republican Party is changing…College Republicans want students to defy a decision made by a private religious college.

Sorenson quotes a Strib piece explaining that St. Ben’s College Republicans – who knew? – are protesting the ban.  To replace the water (in the machines stocked with pop made with high-fructose corn syrup, the market for which is making food unaffordable in the third world), Saint Ben’s installed, essentially, pay water fountains for refilling reusable water bottles.

The Strib piece quotes the CRs:

“Just as the government should not ban plastic bottles in America, a school administration should not ban the sale of plastic water bottles on their campus,” said Ryan Lyk, chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans, in a statement.

This fall, St. Ben’s became the first school in the state — and the ninth in the nation — to ban the sale of plain bottled water on campus. Macalester took a similar step Sept. 1.

Students can buy bottled water off campus and bring it to class.

Yeah, I know – you’re shocked too?  If a commune in Portland decided to mandate aluminum foil pants in solidarity with Indonesian maggot ranchers, Macalester would adopt the rule.

The “Hydration Stations” cost the private school $20K to buy and install – a cost that is eventually passed on to the students (or whoever pays the tuition).  From the Strib, again:

But that expense is just one part of the problem, said Kate Paul, a St. Ben’s student and a Minnesota College Republicans leader. Her statement: “The hydration stations not only cost us money to use, they are costing us our ability to choose and convenience that derives from choice.”

Sorenson responds:

This is a stunning show of support not for the free market, but for consumer rights.

Sorenson is under the impression that there is a distinction – or that “consumer rights” is a regulatory rather than grass-roots activity. Either way, she’s, well, wrong.

St. Ben’s is a private college founded by the Benedictine orders, known for moderation and hospitality.

Their hospitality stops short of providing an inexpensive education, of course; a years’ tuition at St. Ben costs $34,000 and change, not counting the $9K room and board.

Sorenson didn’t list that in her article – but she did do some research on monastic vows:

But the fifth chapter of Rule of Benedict concerns cheerful obedience to leadership, while the students are looking simply to service their own wants.

Sorenson has apparently mistaken monks for students. Monks aren’t “customers” or “consumers” of St. Ben’s; they are “employees”, if you will.  Someone entering into an “employment agreement” – I think monastic vows count – has a different set of expectations than someone who pays, ahem, forty-three thousand dollars a year to attend the school.

In her confusion, Sorenson accuses the CRs of…confusion:

Moreover, the students seem to be a bit confused by their chosen analogy, which equates the private college’s administration with government.

Well, no.  I mean, a college is an authority, to be sure – they have more “authority” over a student’s life than, say, Taco John’s or Walmart or The Gap do.  But where is it written that people can only protest government?

And Ryan Lyk didn’t equate the school with government; he compared them.  There’s a difference.

Sorenson gets more and more confused as she goes:

Should they really wish to follow the free market arguments which appear to be so dear to their tender young hearts, the little darlings will recall the advice given to workers who wish to organize their workplaces.

That logic suggests that those who don’t like working conditions or work rules have the choice to find a new job elsewhere.

Snoogum Sorenson’s peppy but dotty little girl brain (“tender hearts”?  “Little darlings?”  Sorry – it creeps me out) can’t seem to twig the fact that she’s got it exactly backwards; employees are being paid to work; college students are paying to attend a college.

Likewise, in the free market of education, if students don’t like the rules, they can simply go elsewhere if they don’t approve of the private school’s decision about an investment that it believes will in the long run cut costs.

And in Sorenson’s world, maybe those are the only options; obey every whim of “authority”, whether from ones’ boss (who pays you), college or government (both of whom you pay for) or shut up and move along.  Perhaps Sorenson believes that college students should just shut up and know their place and switch colleges like they switch cell phone plans or internet providers when a squabble over water bottles gets ’em exercised.

Rather than, y’know, making their voices heard.

After a couple years worth of $43K investment, I think the students have every right to take a more – what’s the word libs use? – nuanced approach.  Not to mention using that pesky freedom of speech thing that libs like to natter about so much.

Or perhaps Sorenson means that Republican kids should shut up and take what’s dished out to them.

Bluestem will keep our eyes up to see if the College Republicans will begin to approach Wells Fargo or Cargill with protests about how those private entities decide to spend their money or limit consumer options.

“Bluestem” might better use their time thinking about what they really mean by “free speech”, and perhaps learning a bit about how the “free market’ actually works.

Either that, or subject herself to her own “logic”, and shut up and accept the voters’ will about, say, Steve Drazkowski.

Whereupon we’ll discover that to Sorenson, shutting up and obeying “authority” is for other people…

Gibson Musical Instrument Corp. CEO Henry Juszkiewicz will be at President Obama’s “Jobs” speech tonight, to remind His Excellency and the assembled, adoring media that the Administration’s politicized, idiotic policies – enforcing an arcane Indian law – are going to cost the company millions of dollars, and if followed through will cost the Nashville area 40 skilled, high-paying manufacturing jobs.

Close-up of the new re-issue "Eric Clapton 1960 Les Paul". Hint, Santa.

In solidarity with Gibson, I’ll supply them some free advertising.

Indian Freaking Rosewood, Administration Byatches!

I do endorse Gibson guitars (although, to be fair, most guitar players do – even lifelong Fender guys like me; I finally took the plunge on a Gibson product last year, and yeah, it’s niiiice).

Oooh - Gibson provides jobs all over the world!

Gateway Pundit writes:

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told reporters today that the federal raid on the popular American guitar maker will cost the company $10,000,000. Juszkiewicz also said that he will attend Obama’s big spending jobs speech tomorrow in Washington DC.

Is that a gorgeous piece of work or what? It sounds even better than it looks. And guess what? Yep - made in the USA. One of those "American Manufacturing Jobs" that lefties are constantly barbering about. Outsource this? Why not outsource guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns to the Pakistani military, while you're at it?

Attorney General Eric Holder said the raid on the Gibson was not political.

And if you believe Holder you are an idiot here’s an excellent Fox News clip summing up the entire story so far.

Remember – the CEO of Martin guitars (sorry – while they make gorgeous guitars, and I also own a Martin product, they get no free ads from me), which builds guitars out of exactly the same Indian-grown, American-finished rosewood as Gibson, which is not illegal under US law and only vaguely-sanctioned under Indian law, is a big Democrat contributor.

A Gibson ES335. A favorite of both jazz musicians and loud rockers who like the ES' excellent feedback characteristics.

Of course, Gibson is just one of many such stories – companies being harried, money being confiscated, jobs being destroyed by our rapacious, power-mad bureaucracy.

Yep, there's parts, too. This is a Gibspon "Soap Bar". I have one sunk into the middle position of my Fender Jazz, wired out of phase with the bridge pickup; when they play together, it sounds more like Mark Knopfler's Strat (think "Sultans of Swing") than Mark Knopfler's Strat does.

I’m working to get Mr. Juskiewicz on the Northern Alliance one of these next few weekends.  Keep your fingers crossed; if you’re a fan of limited government or music, it’ll be a great chat.

Operation Gun Runner (aka “Fast and Furious”) was not an operation done in good faith to “take down criminals” that “went wrong” that “left a mess at the ATF”, as you are all reporting today.

It was a politicized attempt to smear law-abiding gun dealers, law-abiding gun owners, and the Second Amendment movement, purely for the political benefit of the Obama Administration, and the Administration knew it.

Please

Melson is out.  Melson Mini-Melson is in.

After overseeing “Operation Gunrunner” – an operation fully intended to frame the law-abiding gun dealer and gun-owner for crime in Mexico by sending straw buyers in to gun stores in the Southwest, and allowing the guns to drop straight into the Mexican drug cartels’ hands, purely to give the President political leverage on the gun issue, which went terribly awry, contributing to the deaths of many Mexicans and some Americans – Melson was thrown under the bus yesterday, and replaced by B. Todd Jones (“Can I call you B?”), who is…

…well…

According to Senator Charles Grassley’s June 15, 2011 congressional testimony attachment 4, the chair of AGAC (Jones) was a member of the Southwest Border Strategy Group and attended at least one briefing on Fast and Furious in October 2009.

He appears to be complicit in the coverup, just like Melson.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Look for a concerted media campaign to distance the Administration – which supported the scam, and was in on it, and had been setting the stage for using the fallout from the operation to benefit the Administration and attack the Second Amendment movement since the beginning – from the whooooole thing.

Under North Carolina law, all carry permits are null and void the moment a governor declares a state of emergency:

Thanks to a brain-dead state law foisted upon us by a Democratic state legislature (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-288.7), every time the governor—in this instance, Democrat Beverly Perdue—declares a state of emergency, it is illegal from that moment onward to carry a concealed weapon until the state of emergency has been declared over.

Yep – tha’ts what the law itself says:

14-288.7. (a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, it is unlawful for any person to transport or possess off his own premises any dangerous weapon or substance in any area:

(1) In which a declared state of emergency exists; or

(2) Within the immediate vicinity of which a riot is occurring.

It’s a Class 1 Misdemeanor.

The state of emergency issued by the governor, Beverly Purdue, covers the part of the state east of I95:

Governor Purdue made this declaration while the state was at work, meaning everyone who has a carry permit and lives east of Interstate 95 who was away from home instantly became a criminal by proclamation.

And geography aside, remember – it’s a law that only attacks the law-abiding!  Criminals aren’t putting their guns away, declaration or no!

It’s the sort of deeply, intensively stupid law that is the DFL’s stock in trade that Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill was, at least in part, intended to prevent.

All you gun-clinging Jebus freaks out there – next session, we need to hold the Legislature’s feet in the fire for this one.

What are the big lessons of this story?

The Department of Justice is under fire for taking the bold step of sending armed agents into the factories of Gibson Guitar in Nashville and Memphis to seize what it believes to be illegal wood.

Via press release from Gibson: “The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”

The story – by Ben Howe at RedState – notes that this isn’t the first time Gibson has been raided by “federal agents with automatic weapons” over abstruse definitions of what wood is legal.

Bear in mind that the wood in question in both raids was certified legal by an industry self-regulation group. No matter; in come the automatic weapons and the pencil-necked Assistant US Attorneys.

So the lessons are what?

1. We Have Too Many Regulations: Our bureaucracy has metastasized far beyond any level needed to ensure health and safety and adherence to rational laws.  It exists, like most Campaign Finance Boards and gun laws, to create criminals where there were none before.   This seems to be the case here; the Feds haven’t proved their case from the last raid, a few years back, whose results are still being knocked around in federal court.  This raid seems, to Howe, to be a way of stalling a defeat in the first case.
2. We Have Too Many Regulators: They have to justify their existence somehow. More than that, they need to guard their turf; the wood industry, especially as re the music industry, has been regulating itself; how many customer bases are as PC as musicians (outside country-western, anyway)?
3. The Feds Have Too Many Gun and SWAT Teams:  They sent a SWAT team to raid a guitar factory.  Not a crack house.  Not a Zeta stronghold in the Arizona mountains (perish the freaking though).  This is not a surprise, really; ever since the Clinton Administration, the federal government has been arming the bureaucracy; where once the Feds would depend on local SWAT teams to provide the armed muscle for the rare events it was needed, today that Feds have thousands of armed agents outside the FBI and the Marshalls, to say nothing of the military.  Where once the FBI might have something akin to a SWAT team, today the Department of Customs, the Marshalls, even the Department of Education have their own heavily-armed paramilitary units.   I would joke that the National Endowment for the Humanities has a SWAT team – but I’m afraid that someone would chime in with a link to a story about NEH commandos fast-roping in from a helicopter to serve a no-knock summons.

Hamline University poli sci prof Dave Schultz is a perfectly fine human being.  But it’d be a stretch to say he’s got the pulse of the GOP, much less its’ best interests in mind.

Over at Schultz’s Take, he writes about the straw poll:

Bachmann wins, Pawlenty is out. What do learn from the Iowa straw poll? Whatever political moderation existed in the Republican Party, it rapidly disappearing as the GOP is being remade in the image of Palin and Bachmann.

Schultz says that like it’s a bad thing.

OK, seriously, now?  Schultz is betraying just a bit of parochialism, here.  While personalities do indeed move the needle in politics – there’s a reason Michele Bachmann is a serious presidential candidate and Harry Reid isn’t – conservatism isn’t about personalities.  It’s about ideas.

So it’d be more accurate to say that the GOP is remaking itself in the image of Hayek and Goldwater.

And the talking heads who are moaning about the “death of moderation” in the GOP are being myopic at best, disingenuous at worst.

We’ll come back to that.

Schultz recaps the dynamics of Bachmann’s campaign and future outlook – you can read that over at his blog.

I called this post “Kael’s Take” for a reason:

Look beyond Bachmann. She received 28.6% of the vote, Paul 27.7%–together they accounted for 56% of the straw poll. These are two candidates who represent perhaps the most extreme agendas among the GOP field. Add to them Santorum who polled at 9.8% and one finds that nearly two-thirds of the straw poll went to what would appear to be non-mainstream candidates. Pawlenty, perhaps the most mainstream and establishment candidate who participated in the field, polled barely 14%.

Schultz, who teaches at Hamline, which is a reliably “progressive” echo chamber in the middle of Saint Paul (aka “Chicago on the Mississippi”) might be forgiven for thinking that Bachmann and Santorum aren’t “mainstream”…among Iowa Republicans who care enough about politics to drive to Ames on a gorgeous Saturday to vote. And Paul, nutter though he is, has at the core of his campaign plenty that resonates with an awful lot of mainstream libertarian-conservatives, myself included.

It’s because GOP activists, now, a year and a half away from the election, are doing what I wrote about three and a half years about in this space; staking out what they absolutely, positively want out of the party in 2012.  At this stage of the race, politics isn’t a horserace; it’s a tug of war – or rather, eight of them.  And the goal at this point of the campaign is to grab the rope that represents what you believe, and want out of the GOP, and to pull like hell.

Which is what Iowa Republicans did on Saturday.  They drove to Ames, and grabbed the ropes marked “cut taxes”, “repeal Obamacare”, “pro-life”, “get the state off our backs”, “Balanced Budget Amendment” and such, and they pulled like mad.  They pulled so hard that Tim Pawlenty, seen as more “moderate”, dropped out of the contest (and John Huntsman would, too, if he had any sense).

The GOP has moved to the right.  Why do you suppose that is?

Schultz:

This is a party that has moved dramatically to the right of the one that picked Romney as the Iowa straw poll winner and McCain as their nominee in 08.

And why does Professor Schultz suppose that the GOP would move away from a tack that lost in a near-landslide?  One closely tied with the ideological, inside-the-beltway rot that led the party to the debacles of 2004-2008?

That worked so well for us before.  Perhaps that’s what Schultz wants – it’d be understandable – but it’s hardly rocket science.  Perhaps Schultz thinks Republicans are stupid – but even we know that rejecting the “moderate” GOP was behind the wins in 2010.  The mood of the nation, to say nothing of the party, has left Schultz’s “moderate” GOP in the dust (with Pawlenty as collateral damage).

The GOP had redefined itself. It is–as I have argued for months–no longer the party of Ronald Reagan.

Dave Schultz has stolen Ronald Reagan.  I’m here to steal him back.

Schultz argues:

Sarah Palin successfully remade the party into one captured more firmly by the Tea party and owing much of its ideological allegiance to a blend of Barry Goldwater, Pat Robertson, and Ayn Rand.

I have to ask – what does Schultz think Reagan was?

More “moderate” than Bachmann?  Perhaps in some rhetorical terms – but in his era, he had to remake the GOP itself from a moderate-left to a moderate-right party.  Still, the left – and Schultz himself, I’d imagine – responded to Reagan’s calls to limit government, and to face down Communism, in terms no less rabid, foamy and Alinski-ite than they do Michele Bachmann today.

And Schultz is aiming at the wrong target – because there is no battle between a “moderate” and a “conservative” GOP; the battle is between Northeastern conservatism (pro-business, socially-moderate, comfortable with big government – think Romney, Huntsman, George HW Bush), Southern conservatism (socially conservative, fiscally all over the place; think everyone from Pat Robertson to Mike Huckabee) and Western conservatism (fiscal hawks, social libertarians – which includes everyone from Goldwater and Reagan to the Tea Party and its candidates), and a few candidates that try to split the difference (Pawlenty being a great example).

And so Schultz’s argument is wrong; the Tea Party is the Reagan legacy – if you leave off the edges to that legacy that Schultz has sanded off to make it fit his premise.

Schultz concludes:

Within a party of vanishing moderates, Bachmann can win.

And within a nation that’s moving to the right – the Western, small-government, sick-of-utopian-promises-that-are-leaving-our-grandchildren-in-debt-from-whatever-party right – any conservative can win.  The “moderate” GOP is irrelevant to that goal; even Romney is going to have to tack to the right to stay in contention.

Because that’s where the party – and, I argue, the nation – is.

And that’s the message from Ames.

..that the government and left (pardon the redundancy) consider me, Mitch Berg, mild-mannered midwestern schlump and father of two, a “terrorist” these days.

• I am a bitter, gun-clinging Jebus freak: Janet Napolitano has already told the police to be looking out for us.
• I’m a Second Amendment activist: Because Goddess knows the nation’s law-abiding gun owners are getting ready to start mowing down the innocent.
• Pro-life!: Fear me, oh innocent!
• Pro-limited government: I’m a Tenther!  I could start blowing things up to educate people about the reality of enumerated powers!

That’s “terrorist” – as in “one who uses terror to cow people into accepting his agenda”.

Who knew?

When government makes its’ mission to be more onerous to the law-abiding than to the enemy, we are all the enemy.

Ahem.

At the risk of dispersing some of this blog’s usual decorum:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(breathe)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I’m not usually one for end-zone happy-dancing.  But after all the “you are teh racist/sexist/anti-worker/anti-middle-class/teabagger!/Koch-sucker/crap all of us conservatives have had to sit through since the last election, frankly, I think we’re entitled.

Last night’s victory in Wisconsin, like the “budget compromise” in DC and the Minnesota state budget, weren’t unalloyed victories – but in this case, it wasn’t even as close as it looked for the Wisconsin Democrats.

Think about it, “progressives”; you just spent $40,000,000 of your unions members’ dues – twice as much as the entire campaign for the entire Wisconsin State Senate cost in 2010.

Twice as much as the GOP spent.

You did it, you said, because you just knew Wisconsinites, deep down inside, were a bunch of liberals!  Not without reason; Barack Obama won every single one of those districts in 2008.

You – every damn one of you – just knew that you’d flip three, four, maybe even all six seats!  Because – you just knew this – Wisconsin just BLEEEEEEEDS “progressive”!

Or at least you had to hope so – because this, along with this autumn’s vote in Ohio on a slate of reforms similar to Walker’s – could mark the beginning of the end, not of public unions, but of public unions as a critical, game-ending force in national politics.

Because in a few years, with more stories like this floating around out there, even more voters will see what a crock of crap you “progressives” have been selling for so long.

Your platform – which, when you strip away all of the happy-talk, is “we will force private sector workers to work ’til they’re 72 so public union members can retire with full benefits at 55” – just isn’t working anymore.

And what did you get for your tens of millions?

You got two – one that everyone knew we were going to lose, and one squeaker against a guy with lots of personal electability issues,  The rest of them – even the Darling-Pasch race, which started the evening’s returns with Pasch winning – weren’t even close.

And Shelly “MAKE NO MISTAKE, WE ARE IN A WAR” Moore?  Yep, you were in a war.  And you were Italy.  And even with all that union money for those obnoxious, “A Better Minnesota”-style TV ads, and all those union people trawling the streets, and all those Twin Cities “progressives” coming across the river to help out?  Not to gloat, but that was the sweetest victory of them all last night, at least for a Twin Cities conservative who got to watch that race close-up from across the Saint Croix.

Sixteen points.

And the Democrats’ Holperin seat is looking kinda squishy in next week’s round of recalls.  Your two pickups could very easily turn into one by this time next week.

Scott Walker has been affirmed; Barack Obama has been refudiated.

You want to call this a war?  You know how those end, right?

In 1994, disgusted by the GOP’s cave-in to the Clinton Administration on the 1994 Crime Bill, I ditched the GOP and went over to the Libertarian Party.

Michael Medved’s ridicule aside, it was a great experience.  I learned a lot about how politics does, and doesn’t, work.  Part of the learning was from being a Libertarian – I read a lot.  Part of it was from becoming active in the first place; when I noticed that, for whatever reason, people weren’t rushing to the Libertarian Party with me, I got to learning a little about how the mechanics of government actually worked.

Which led to me leaving the Libertarian Party in 1998.  I figured that I had a choice; be an absolute Libertarian purist, and think big Libertarian thoughts and never, ever have an actual direct effect on how government, taxation, spending and the machinery of how government affects us really works (other than by siphoning voters out of the two party system, which is a little like trying to stop a NASCAR race by stealing gasoline from SuperAmerica), or get back into the political party that was the least un-friendly to my beliefs.

Which was, and remains, the MNGOP which, imperfect as it is, at least puts liberty on its short list of things to pay serious lip service to (and that’s looking at it at my most cynical; there is a crop of freshman legislators who do, I think, get it).    I’m a proud member of the libertarian conservative wing of the Minnesota GOP.

Still, there’s a Big-L Libertarian Party out there.  And the state shutdown is hog heaven for them:

Less government is good government, as far as Tylor Slinger is concerned.

As a member of the executive board of the Libertarian Party of Minnesota, the resident of St. Paul’s Highland Park sees benefits in the state government shutdown.

In Slinger’s eyes, this isn’t “tea party” radicalism or anarchist rhetoric.

And it’s there we see the reporter’s (Frederic Melo) bias or, maybe, just plain ignorance.  The Tea Party is inextricable from libertarianism; in a Venn diagram of conservative/libertarian political thought, the Tea Party tucked in where the “libertarian” and “conservative” rings overlap.  The “radical” bit is pure editorializing – although to many in the Minnesota establishment, the idea of cutting spending, “services” and taxes is distilled radicalism itself.

“We think that the shutdown clearly illustrates how centralizing political power to an elite group places the rest of us at their mercy,” said Slinger, 24, who works as a communications specialist at a bank. Slinger is also running for a St. Paul City Council seat.

“While people’s immediate reaction will likely be based on … their daily reliance on governmental services, the longer the shutdown lasts, the more opportunities each individual will have to find more reliable alternatives.”

Slinger has the big picture points exactly right, of course – hey, I did say I was a libertarian-conservative, right?   Government entitlements do exist to perpetuate themselves; bureaucrats have no less well-developed a sense of self-preservation than the rest of us.

With more than 20,000 state employees suddenly finding themselves out of work, such statements have made the Libertarian Party few friends in Minnesota and, at best, uneasy allies on the national stage.

Which is a tautology; state government workers are (hypothetically) angry at a party that opposes the idea of excessive state workers.  Notify the media…

…well, OK.  Melo is the media.

Melo does bother to note the same conflict many of us who navigate the border between Conservatism and Libertarianism run across:

Unlike Slinger, Amy Brugh, a public policy director with the Minnesota AIDS Project in Minneapolis, sees no benefit to a shutdown whatsoever. Her largely state- and federally funded programs are assets to taxpayers, she said, not hindrances.

As a result of the shutdown, “47 of our 57 employees are either laid off full time or reduced time without benefits,” Brugh said. “It means that three of our programs are completely closed down, so clients won’t have access to their case managers, or to transportation to get them to medical appointments or to the pharmacy, or for benefits counseling.”

Those include specialized services that an AIDS patient can’t just lean on friends and family for, Brugh said. And without the right care, each one of those clients could end up in an emergency room, with taxpayers footing the lion’s share of the bill.

“A Libertarian not wanting to pay tax dollars should actually be in favor of our programs,” Brugh said.

And again with the tautologies; in this case, “government runs Ms. Brugh’s program because government has always run Ms. Brugh’s program”.

It’s one of those historical “what ifs” that people of libertarian bent run through their heads; what if, say, the AIDS epidemic had broken out in a society that had never undergone the New Deal, the immense socialization that accompanied World War II, the Great Society, Medicare Part D and Obamacare?  What if American society had developed through the 20th century without the underlying assumption that the federal government was there to do anything but defend the borders, sign treaties, adjudicate disputes and enforce contracts?  If society had developed without the “ideal” of having its social needs taken care of by government – and it had been able to turn the output of its stunning prosperity to private rather than public charity, the way it always had?

It’s an intellectual parlor game,of course –  because the Libertarians are right about one thing; government has made our society dependent on itself.

And as De Tocqueville warned, it may not be possible to unravel that dependence.

Mission accomplished, big government!

The question those of us on the Center-Right keep asking – is it possible to have government, but only just the right amount?