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:
November 14th, 2006
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):
1) We respect your conservative beliefs and that you’re
patriotic Americans even if you disagree with our libertarian
policies.
2) You should feel free to marry whoever you want, and if
you’re gay, be “open kimono,” but not with underage kids.
3) We’ll turn off the spending machine and move to a
voluntary government-financing system, balancing your
budget.
4) We’ll bring your sons and daughters home from the Middle
East as well as our own; we won’t initiate any more wars.
5) 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
6) 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).
7) 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.
8) 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.
9) 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.
1) Sorry, guys, a lot of people shared your opposition to the
Rs’ big-government war, but we’re stuffing you on:
a) Big-government health care
b) Big-government wage setting
c) 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.
2) 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.
3) 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.
4)
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.
5) 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.
6) 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.
Brian Wright
P.S. Michael, et al, please feel free to pass this on.
