Author Archives: chrisbennett

…..four years later VanDyke finally puts up a finished product. So what did you do with the money? Invested it in stocks (bad idea!). Invested it in booze? If you drank it all, what a shame but if you bought shares in a microbrewery in Ohio-is it good beer and do they have distributors out here in Illinois? Don’t mind me, I’m drinking a Berghoff Prairie Lager and those idiots at beeradvocate.com thinks the beer sucks and I think it’s great. Oh the Mendocino Blonde Ale is a good beer too! So, I did invest fifty dollars into this thing (actually it is almost 100 with interest but we can settle the difference by having Stephen make a nice donation to Antiwar.com..it will stop me from bitching about the last 4 years.) Enough of the good stuff…what have I done since HOT disappeared? Well, I tried running for the VP nomination for the LP. Fat chance, should have never tried that gig. I did graduate from college but ended up groveling for a shitty Wal-Mart job unloading boxes off trucks for near minimum wage. I adopted my daughter almost 3 years ago….well her sperm donor was a piece of shit and he gave up his rights real quick. I got kicked off Last Free Voice over some bullshit. Continued pissing off more people within the Party (Wayne Allyn Root is my latest victim). I am back in school getting my Masters degree. I realize that voting sucks, government will never change therefore I can no longer call myself a Libertarian. What am I? An unapologetic ANARCHIST!

That’s right…I’m back BITCHES!

C-SPAN has been good to the LP over the last 15 years. I became a LP member because C-SPAN televised the 1991 LP Convention. C-SPAN re-brodcasts a lot of federal and gubernatorial races across the country and many of them have LP candidates participating in debates.

C-SPAN hosts a show called “Washington Journal” The call-in portion of the show is usually an hour but they do have call-in numbers for Democrats, Republicans and Independents. I am usually a C-SPAN junkie in the last 2 weeks of the election season and has only heard 2 callers saying they are voting for LP candidates.

My mission, if you choose to accept it, for the last 5 days of this election is to invade the Independent line with Libertarians telling which Libertarian candidate Americans should be supporting. C-SPAN is watched by millions of people every day!

The segment starts at 7AM EST (I know it’s rather early by many Libertarian standards, but it’s worth the time.)

Let the invasion BEGIN!

I’m surprised no one here at HOT had jumped on this story since Stephen Gordon did extensive blogging during Steve Kubby’s ordeal with the prohibitionist authorities. Austin Cassidy, over at Third Party Watch, has posted Kubby’s announcement

KUBBY ANNOUNCES BID FOR PRESIDENT

Kubby.Hempfest.Endorse.WIDE.jpg
Photo by LEXX, Sky High Productions.

SEATTLE — Steve Kubby announced his candidacy for the Libertarian Party nomination for President to more than 50,000 cheering fans on Sunday, August 20, at the 15th annual Seattle Hempfest in Seattle, Washington. More than 150,000 attended the event held in Myrtle Edwards Park on the shores of Puget Sound.

Kubby’s announcement of his Presidential candidacy was endorsed by an all-star cast of cannabis activists (shown from left to right in photo above): Eddy Lepp (Eddy’s Medicinal Gardens), Jack Herer (“The Emperor Wears No Clothes”), Ed Rosenthal (“Ask Ed”), Elvy Musikka (Federal Exemptee), Chris Conrad (“Hemp For Health”), NORML Director Allen St. Pierre and NORML Founder Keith Stroup.

“I’m running for President because I’m fed up with bad government, corrupt politicians, and arrogant officials. Like you, I’d like the government to support my liberty, protect and serve my family, respect my personal property and stop passing and enforcing laws that assume I have the intelligence of a child,” Kubby proclaimed to the thunderous approval of the Hempfest crowd.

Kubby for President
P.O. Box 50, PMB 199
Lake Arrowhead, CA 92352-0050
Kubby2008@yahoo.com
(909) 338-8215

Another candidate, Christine Smith, is a writer from Colorado. Her personal website is www.christinesmith.us Her press release follows:

Christine Smith Seeks the 2008 Libertarian Presidential Nomination

Libertarians:

I would like to introduce myself at this time, since I am seeking the 2008 LP Presidential nomination. My political campaign website will soon be up; meanwhile I invite you to visit my personal website (link below) to learn more about me.

A little about myself: I am age 39, a resident of Colorado, and have had a successful career as a writer and author (with articles published in numerous national/international publications). I was recipient of The Outstanding American Award in 2002 and the Amigas Peace Prize in 2000. I was founder/president of a nationwide charity for 7 years, and have used my abilities as a public speaker and writer for issues I believe in. (I have much experience in public speaking, and have appeared as a guest on numerous radio talk shows heard nationally/internationally due to my writing.)

I am a natural leader and passionate about my LP politics. I am dedicated to growing the LP by reaching out to the American people with our platform; a platform which I think the majority of Americans will respond to if it is given to them by an articulate LP candidate. I have the abilities needed, and the willingness, devotion, dedication; I believe my ability to effectively communicate and articulate Libertarian solutions will generate greater national media coverage.

I am determined to build our party…educate the people…and make a positive difference through my service with the LP. I have given serious consideration to pursuing a major political office as a Libertarian since a position of leadership will permit me to work for the changes we seek in government; the more I have thought about it, after careful deliberation, I feel I could do the most for our party and our country by becoming our presidential candidate in 2008.

I am learning as much as possible through books and good conversations with Libertarians nationwide, and am planning my campaign now (radio/tv interviews, travel to LP conventions/conferences and other events nationwide, etc.).

Until my official campaign website is up, I invite you to visit my personal website to learn more about me: www.christinesmith.us My personal website receives approximately 25,000-30,000 hits per month from worldwide. I will soon have a separate website dedicated to my political campaign focusing upon my 3 key issues, platform, professional resume, and other relevant campaign material. Those who want to be notified when my political campaign website is up can email notification@christinesmithforpresident.com to be placed on the email notification list.

I look forward to speaking with and meeting many of you.

Christine Smith

It looks like we will have a wide range of choices vying for the LP Presidential nomination. It’s still early; some may drop out and some may enter later.

UPDATE:Libertarian presidential nominee candidate Christine Smith’s political
campaign website is now up: http://www.christinesmithforpresident.com

I ran across this editorial that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The author is a professor from Hamline University who has a son deployed in Iraq. He explains that his son and his brigade were redeployed to Baghdad for an extended stint instead of coming home. But this is where his frustration sets in. First he blames the President for not sending in more troops to protect those already there.

Then he blames Congress for “neglecting their constitutional duty to exercise a meaningful check on the president’s war-making powers.” Then he blames the right wingers for thinking they can bomb the insurgents into submission to end terrorism.

He blames the left wingers “who seldom say anything good about our troops, who talk as though 9/11 never took place, and who seem to think that terrorists are freedom fighters who will start behaving if you just treat them nicely.

Finally, he blames the American voter for giving Bush another term “even after it had become apparent that his policies had failed. Even after significant members of the military officer corps themselves called the war policies a failure. Given these failures, how many re-election votes would the war president have drawn if all those voters and their children had also been at risk for fighting this war?”

Mr. Harrigan’s solution is the most troubling of all. He wants to bring back the DRAFT!

I have no prescriptions for getting ourselves out of this mess, but I do know how to spread the burden around a little more fairly. Bring back the draft! And allow no deferments for college students or children of presidents and members of Congress.

My response to Mr. Harrigan:

see more…

President Bush spoke with NAACP conventioneers for the first time since being selected as President. Bush acknowledges that “racism exists in America” and “pledged to improve that relationship and work with the NAACP’s new leader to achieve common goals.”

Bush goes on to say that “I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historical ties with the African-American community. For too long, my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party.”

Blacks, just like everyone else, have a right to distrust Bush and the GOP.

Others expressed dismay that Bush did not offer more substantive remarks about issues such as education and the economy. The unemployment rate for blacks was 9 percent in June “” nearly twice the national jobless rate of 4.6 percent

According to AP-Ipsos polling conducted in June and July, 86 percent of blacks disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job, compared with 56 percent of whites who disapprove.

In conclusion to the polling data there are a few things the Bush administration has done to write off the black vote.

Patriot Act
The slow response to Hurricane Katrina
The Ongoing “War on Drugs”
Dismantling Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
The Unconstitutional Invasion of Iraq
Increasing the National Debt
The Over-hyped “War on Terror”

Blacks however should distrust Democrats as well for the same reasons I listed above. One can’t just blame Republicans in the whole mess; Democrats have to bolster their fair share of responsibility too! Either way, both parties want to keep blacks on the “plantation”.

Interesting enough there have been a some new articles on LewRockwell.com about black libertarians and how the libertarian movement is a natural fit for blacks.

Gun Owners of America reports that H.R. 1415 (“NICS Improvement Act of 2005″) has passed out of subcommittee and on to the House floor. This bill would allow the FBI and other federal and state agencies to sift through numerous records to seize a person’s firearms.

Section 102(c)(1)(A) of H.R. 1415 would allow the federal government to troll through state misdemeanor, diversion, psychiatric, tax, and even library records — all for the purpose of finding new reasons to seize guns from law-abiding Americans.

The bill is sponsored by the ironically named Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and has co-sponsors from the anti-gun elite: Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA), John Conyers (D-MI), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Barney Frank (D-MA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Pete Stark (D-CA), among others.

This bill would be an extension of the Lautenberg ban, which bars those who were involved in domestic violence from ever owning a gun.

Under this bill, the FBI would first have to determine that you are not an illegal alien before approving your background check:

* Federal law prohibits illegal aliens from owning guns [18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5)]. But, in order to identify illegal aliens, “relevant” records could mean that the FBI would demand state tax returns of ALL American citizens, employment records, or even library records — all in the name of making sure that you’re not an illegal.

Another Orwellian pork barrel project from a Congresswoman who doesn’t care about our national debt, which is definitely going to rise after funding this program. Please call, e-mail, or write your congresscritter and urge them to vote NO on this bill. This not only further restricts our Second Amendment Rights but compromises our privacy rights as well.

Last May 22nd, a member in the libertarian community took his own life. Many of those who blog, read blogs or are on various Yahoo lists will know who I am talking about-Larry Fullmer aka “Libertarian Larry” from Idaho.

My wife, son and I met Larry in Atlanta during the LP National Convention. He, like us, were ardent Aaron Russo supporters. When we met Larry he reeked of whiskey and was rather belligerent. I remember the day after Michael Badnarik won the nomination, Larry came up to us and told us some things about Badnarik which caused many to re-think supporting Michael — us included.

There was a story I remember Larry telling us that even today stays fresh in my mind. Larry was telling us after he got back home how he slept on the streets of Atlanta for one night because he missed his plane. He mentioned that the shelters were packed that night and there was no where to stay. All he had was his cell phone and ten dollars in his pocket. He ran into a few homeless people and struck up a deal. They saw that he had a cell phone and for exchange they would allow him to sleep on cardboard. Larry said those homeless people were so grateful to talk to their families who they hadn’t talked to in months! He passionately concluded that he slept on the streets for Aaron Russo!

The purpose for writing this post was not just to remember Larry but to remember all Libertarians who have inspired us to continue with fighting against oppression and tyranny and fight for liberty and freedom. Let’s make May 22nd “Remember Our Fallen Libertarians” Day! If you have a fallen Libertarian you would like for us to remember share it in the comment box.

Black Jack, Missouri’s city council has banned unwed couples with children to live within their city’s limits (another wire version of story).

The current ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by “blood, marriage or adoption.” The defeated measure would have changed the definition of a family to include unmarried couples with two or more children.

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit after moving into a home in this St. Louis suburb because they have three children and are not married.

One needs an occupancy PERMIT to live in this town. I can see what the real estate agent or landlord says upon signing a lease: “Not to intrude on your privacy but I was wondering if you are married? Because the ordinance demands that in order to live here you must be married or I can’t sell/rent this property to you.”

Government at any level should not be forcing any moral or religious values on any citizen. Has the Taliban invaded Black Jack?

Interesting little tidbit I found was that the population of Black Jack according to Wikipedia is 71 percent African-American.

I understand that most black children live in single parent homes but laws like this discourage families in being together. Who cares if mommy and daddy aren’t married? Be grateful that they are together as a family!

What is next on the city council proposed ordinance list in Black Jack, Missouri?

• Travelling unwed couples with children can not stay in any hotel or motel within city limits?
• Parents must show proof of insurance, social security cards, children’s birth certificates, driver’s license and marriage certificate if pulled over in city limits?
• Create a Division of Marriage Enforcement to ensure that all couples who reside within the city limits are properly married (Does Missouri have Common law marriages and would this count too?)
• Create a Division of Procreation and Preservation of the Married Lifestyle to ensure that all couples who engage intercourse are married and that children who were conceived after their marriage date?

Welcome to Black Jack, Missouri!: “Where We Are Family and Only For Families.”

Update by Stephen VanDyke: It should also be noted that this ordinance would effectively ban single parents from finding roommates (hey, how do they know they aren’t sleeping together?).

Minorities once again are being railroaded by the same system that claims they are helping them. Their test scores are NOT being counted in many states so the states can avoid penalties in the No Child Left Behind law.

2 MILLION test scores are being excluded because the person taking that test is of a minority race! I suppose that the public school system thinks that minorities aren’t capable of producing test scores like their white counterparts? There are not-so-bright white children, too.

Minorities — who historically haven’t fared as well as whites in testing – make up the vast majority of students whose scores are being excluded, AP found. And the numbers have been rising. [...]

Students whose tests aren’t being counted in required categories include Hispanics in California who don’t speak English well, blacks in the Chicago suburbs, American Indians in the Northwest and special education students in Virginia, AP found. Bush’s home state of Texas – once cited as a model for the federal law – excludes scores for two entire groups. No test scores from Texas’ 65,000 Asian students or from several thousand American Indian students are broken out by race. The same is true in Arkansas. [...]

Overall, AP found that about 1.9 million students – or about 1 in every 14 test scores — aren’t being counted under the law’s racial categories. Minorities are seven times as likely to have their scores excluded as whites, the analysis showed. [...]

Less than 2 percent of white children’s scores aren’t being counted as a separate category. In contrast, Hispanics and blacks have roughly 10 percent of their scores excluded. More than one-third of Asian scores and nearly half of American Indian scores aren’t broken out, AP found.

This is a travesty! The leaders of these minority groups won’t do much; they will be very passive on this issue. I’m sorry, but if my school district is following these guidelines, then I will pull my children out of the racist public school system. WE PAY THE SCHOOL TAX, TOO! As long as our money is paying for my children’s education, their test scores should be included no matter what!

Libertarians may not understand the plight of minority issues, but most will agree that the Department of Education needs to go! Many may agree that local control of schools is best; some say privatize the system.

NCLB, which is an underfunded mandate, has been a joke — and the joke is on the minority children. Pull your kids out NOW before it’s too LATE!

Bono the frontman for the supergroup U2 urged President Bush to “tithe” an additional one percent of the federal budget to the poor. One percent is another 27 BILLION dollars to our already overbloated government. Of course this sounds great coming from someone who is not an American citizen but likes to butt into our problems. Bono and U2 earned a sizzling 255 MILLION dollars last year. Does Bono realize that this administration will have doubled the size of our National debt by 2011! Instead of asking the President to increase spending to aid the poor, what he should have done was write a check to the tune of one percent of what U2 made last year and make a contribution to the Hurricane Katrina relief or to UNICEF to feed starving children in Mali.

Until we as Americans get our act together and start electing people who will take care of America first, just butt out of our business, Bono and do what you do best- play the lousy music people come to hear you play. Throwing more money into a program and forcing taxpayers to flit the bill is not the solution. Bono and his leftist critics fail to realize that more government intrusion means more problems and less accountability.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King, Jr

I remember one year when I was active in the LPCO, a group of brave Libertarian activists braved the cold weather to march in the MLK parade in Downtown Denver. I had friends ask me if Martin Luther King was a libertarian. I pondered that question for a long time and I came up with a few examples.

Civil disobedience — Using non-violent activities to achieve social and political change. Libertarians feel that in order to make change it needs to be through non-violence. Change in public policy, education and at the ballot box are prime examples of this. For two years, my friend Ken Prazak fought a seat belt law he and many Libertarians find unjust and unconstitutional; he simply refused to pay the ticket. Another example was when Badnarik and Cobb got arrested for breaking the police lines when they weren’t included in the presidental debates.

Equal Opportunity and Rights — There have been some conflicting views between MLK and Libertarians on this issue. Marcus Epstein argues that MLK was no friend of libertariansor conservatives but his words have been misinterpreted by both groups alike. This may be true but I do believe that MLK wanted equal opportunity for all citizens not just one group. I feel that I have no more rights than the next man. A black man has no more rights than a white man and vice-versa. The problem is that we have allowed the government to strip our individuality and forced people in to a group mindset. Protecting individual’s rights should be the focus.

Injustices — Segregation was an injustice. Civil rights… it had to happen. Coercion in any form is an injustice. The things libertarians fight against like the Patriot Act, The National ID Act, illegal wiretapping, the War on Drugs are injustices. MLK fought for voting rights for all Americans while we are fighting to make sure every vote counts.

His dream still lives on-my dream is to make sure my children have more freedom in their lives than I did.

Russ Diamond, a Libertarian and founder of PA CleanSweep was named by the Philadelphia Inquirer as citizen of the year along with Timothy Potts and Eugene Stilp.

It all started when the Pennsylvania State Legislature at 2AM in the morning passed pay raises for themselves. They figured that voter apathy would give them outright permission to let them do whatever they felt-until Russ Diamond and his fellow patriots said “Enough is enough!”

Because of the outrage and backlash the legislators decided to repeal those pay raises but still got an automatic 3.6 percent increase in pay (they should have recinded that too!). The fight has just begun for the PA CleanSweep team. One of the founders has just filed a lawsuit over all the dandy perks the legislators enjoy at taxpayer’s expense.

Congratulations to Russ Diamond and his fellow patriots! Politics in PA needs a clean sweep!

The war in Iraq has hampered military recruiting efforts for men and women nationwide. The Army has fell short of it’s recruitment goal for 2005. Every time I turn on the TV there’s a recruitment commerical for the Army and what’s interesting is that many of them feature black and Hispanic young men trying to convince their mothers that joining the Army is good for them. The recruiters for the Army have targeted minorities heavily because there are less of them joining up. Support in the black communities for the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan is less supportive than other racial group. During the Vietnam Conflict (it was never a declared war), blacks outnumbered whites almost 2 to 1 (see update below). Many of those veterans have told the younger generation not to join the military because of the mistreratment of Vietnam Vets after the conflict. Another fact that needs consideration is that those who are joining are from areas where unemployment is above the national average and that the military is the only hope for them.

More parents are requesting their school districts to opt out of a provision in the “No Child Left Behind” Act which permits the military to recruit potential recruitees as young as eleven.

A Vietnam Vet from Duluth, Minnesota is doing his part in making those aware of the grim facts of the current conflict we are engaged in. Scott Cameron made a tally board which he keeps track of the days we have been in Iraq, the deaths and injures of our soldiers over in Iraq. What would happen if these tally boards were placed near recruiting stations across the country? Would recruiting decline even futher?

Lastly, Congressmen John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam Veteran. who orginially supported the military action in Iraq and now wants the troops home in six months has said that even he would not want to join the military today.

Knowing that I would more than likely be sent to Iraq is encouragement enough not to join!

Reader comment: A Vietnam Vet corrected the blacks outnumbering whites assertion (which is wrong). Here’s the statistics:

88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian, 10.6% (275,000) were black; 1% listed as others.
86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (includes Hispanics); 12.5% (7,241) were black; 1.2% belonged to other races.

I want to thank all the editors of Hammer of Truth for giving me the opportunity to be a part of a growing blog!

My first introduction to libertarianism and the Libertarian Party was back in 1988 when I was attending Heritage High School in Littleton, Colorado (I attended the same school of the famed, Matt Stone, who co-produces South Park, he graduated a year before me). I remember having a conversation with a fellow speech team member who was supporting Ron Paul and I was at the time supporting Michael Dukakis. We got to talking about drugs,taxes and the Constitution and he told me that I sound more libertarian than a Democrat.

I happen to be flipping the channels on my day off in August of 1991 and I caught a glimpse of the Libertarian National Convention on C-Span. I recall seeing Richard Boddie making a speech to the delegation. I was thinking “there’s a black guy who is a Libertarian, this Libertarian Party must be alright!” I met Doug Anderson getting signatures to get Andre Marrou on the ballot.

Right then I knew that I had found a new political home. I was very active in the LPCO from 1991-1996 and I even helped with the Coloradoans for Andre Marrou group. During that campaign I did my first GOTV (Get Out The Vote) in the county I lived in and handmade signs encouraging people in my area to vote for Andre Marrou. I know that we didn’t get many votes in my county BUT voter registration for Libertarians increased three fold! I think Andre would had done better had a big ears, billionaire, midget named Ross Perot had not entered the Presidental race. Ross Perot did however bring the federal debt and government spending into the forefront with those ridiculous infomercials.

It hasn’t been easy being a libertarian, not much easier being black and libertarian. Liberal blacks call me “Uncle Tom” because I want to empower minorities and get rid of their social programs. Conservative blacks want to test my morality and religious beliefs. I think if the Libertarian Party ever became a powerhouse in politics, minorities will flock! It’s all about maximizing our freedom and decreasing the coerciveness. It’s really not about what group should be better than others, it’s all about respecting individual rights and freedoms. Until we get to that point-we need to be more pro-active and reach out to those who will benefit-everyone. That’s the reason why I’m a libertarian.