… if he were a libertarian

This was first posted/penned on November 14, 2006, one of my very first Coffee Coaster columns. In the elections of that year, George Dubya’s administration suffered an apparent defeat at the polls, by persons deciding to elect more a*****e Democrats to Congress than a*****e Republicans. And Michael Moore put together a consolation letter to the Republican a*****es in the White House and nationwide. [I have now reached nearly the bottom of the barrel so to speak of my earlier columns that I’m not embarrassed to repost on the new WordPress plaftormed Coffee Coaster. So this will be an incentive to focus and schedule so that I can bring a fresh Brian’s column every Monday (or so).]

The thoughtful epistle “A Liberal’s Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives,” by Mr. Michael Moore has been making the rounds in cyberspace. Here’s how I would modify Michael’s letter if by some quirk of a benign alternative universe, the libertarians had prevailed in the recent midterm elections:

To my former bearers of power over the people:

Note: For convenience, let me call the Republicans the red-statist party and the Democrats the blue-statist party, or Rs and Bs. The Rs and the Bs, in the absence of principles, have difficulty in letting go of all this giddying power. So the first part of my pledge is to the Rs. I share what Mr. Moore has put quite well in his sympathies, namely (paraphrasing):

We respect your conservative beliefs and that you’re patriotic Americans even if you disagree with our libertarian policies.
You should feel free to marry whoever you want, and if you’re gay, be “open kimono,” but not with underage kids.
We’ll turn off the spending machine and move to a voluntary government-financing system, balancing your budget.
We’ll bring your sons and daughters home from the Middle East as well as our own; we won’t initiate any more wars.
We’ll stop the torture thing, so rest easy when we shut down the secret detention centers: your commanders and their bosses in Washington will be accorded Geneva protections
We’ll get to the bottom of just who in or around the US government orchestrated/executed the 911 attacks; they will be found out and punished (with Geneva protections).
As we move to fully liberate the people’s healthcare system from government, research into life-saving/enhancing technologies, such as stem cell work, will continue until the cutover point.
We’ll never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.
We’ll respect your religion even if it’s The Great Pumpkin, and won’t impose anyone else’s beliefs on you.

Now for the Ds who gave it a good shot and came in second.

Sorry, guys, a lot of people shared your opposition to the Rs’ big-government war, but we’re stuffing you on:
1. Big-government health care
2. Big-government wage setting
3. Big-government gun control
These we are going to let the people figure out how to accomplish without the government pointing a gun at anybody’s head.
A big part of making the country and the world more human-friendly will be to remove corporate privilege and personhood; now’s the time to nail the transnational power-elite’s cojones to the cardboard. Return economic power to communities of real people.
We’re with you on a clean environment, but feel more progress will be made with enforcing laws against trespass than in erecting large government bureaucracies to lie in bed with polluters. If you pollute, you pay. We need to have a genuine discussion and protection of “the commons” worldwide.
Some heads, mostly Republican, will roll on these illegal, immoral wars we had; articles of impeachment will be the first order of business—well, the second order of business after shutting down the Rs’ prisons and torture chambers.
We’re going to shut down the entire drug-criminalization industry, and free millions of Americans from jail/wrongful conviction for consensual “crimes.” The hundreds of billions of dollars saved from decrim will be spent to fight religious terrorists and retire the debt.
We’re launching a small-government crusade. As purported lovers of voluntary community, you will be asked to help us dismantle the central banking system and the federal money monopoly… not to mention the income tax.

So that’s the story. I’m sure I could come up with more points given time. What is set in dark red above shows areas that Mr. Moore did not address in his generally worthwhile note. I do hope, in reality, the best of the Democrats will emerge, remember their Jeffersonian heritage, and strike a blow for liberty.

The election in reality was a libertarian victory. A firewall. A breather. It was totally about turning away from imperial corporate-fascism toward freedom, it was not about turning away from fascism toward socialism.