The state Libertarian Party has appointed several new people to its executive committee. The new officials are: Jon Byers, membership secretary; Alex Matthews, director of university relations; Christopher Dooley, social media coordinator, and; Brian Irving, press secretary.
Category Archives: Libertarianism
Libertarian columnists launch Libertarian Party News outlet
As the Raleigh Libertarian Examiner, I’m proud to join a coalition of libertarian news reporters as we launch America’s newest independent political news outlet LibertarianPartyNew.com.
Twenty-three experienced and established columnists, all self- proclaimed libertarians, from across the nation have come together to help level the playing field for Libertarian candidates and to promote the cause of liberty. Independent and opposition party candidates often complain of unfair news coverage or no coverage at all. Libertarian Party News intends to change that.
“Most independent and third party candidates are portrayed in the corporate media as aliens with five arms and three heads, if they’re covered at all,” explained Libertarian Party News founder and editor Mark Wachtler, “But then look at where the news is coming from – for-profit, multi-national corporations whose only priority is raking in ever-higher profits.”
Giving a glimpse of things to come from the new news outlet, Wachtler asked, “After three decades of war, debt, corruption and ever-increasing American poverty, why would anyone want to be either a Republican or a Democrat anymore?”
LibertarianPartyNews.com proudly proclaims itself the itself the premier place for Libertarian Party news, candidates, announcements and more. An independent news outlet and not part of the party itself, the site’s sole mission is to assist the Libertarian Party, its members and candidates in getting their message of liberty to the American people.
N.C. Libertarians set another record
The North Carolina Libertarian Party has achieved another historic milestone in state politics. It now has the highest share of registered voters than any other third party in modern history, according to an analysis by Richard Winger of Ballot Access News.
Although the actual number, 0.31 percent, is very low, the Libertarians have steadily increased their portion of voter registrants despite having to overcome North Carolina’s draconian ballot access laws every four years.
“Although our numbers are still small, the fact that more and more people are registering either as unaffiliated voters or Libertarians makes these numbers significant,” said state party chair J.J. Summerell. “It’s evidence that more and more people think the Republican and Democrats have failed to effectively manage our government.”
Libertarian Convention in Raleigh
The Libertarian Party of North Carolina will hold its annual state convention March 24-25 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Research Triangle Park.
People must want to be free
“Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist.” – Jose Marti
BURNET, Texas (Dec. 10) – Politicians are very adept about making excuses for their failures. The greater the failure, the bigger, more absurd the excuse. Shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, while Americans were still reeling from shock, our political leaders very quickly conjured up a canard to cover up their failure to predict, deter, or avoid the attack. Rather than accept any responsibility at all for the tragedy, or even to acknowledge that American foreign policy was at least partly to blame, the ruling elites resorted to the mantra: “They hate us because of our freedom.”
New Cato Institute project: Libertarianism.org
Libertarianism is more than a set of policies about education, health care, defense, and trade. Behind those, providing their foundation, are ideas and history, the writings and actions of great men and women who have argued and fought for liberty. To help better express and discuss those ideas, the Cato Institute is pleased to announce the launch of Libertarianism.org.
Libertarianism.org is a resource on the theory and history of liberty, broadly construed. Libertarianism takes many forms and the blogs, essays, and videos here explore them all. None of the views expressed at Libertarianism.org should be taken to represent the position of the Cato Institute or its scholars
The sun never sets on the U.S. military
“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”- Plato
R. Lee Wrights
BURNET, Texas (Oct. 22) – Once again, President Obama has ordered U.S. soldiers into harm’s way unnecessarily. Last week, he quietly told the U.S. Congress that he had sent 100 U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers into Uganda to help governments in central Africa fight a rebel army that’s been rampaging through the region for more than 20 years. This is the way the Vietnam War started, with U.S. special forces sent to “assist” a barely democratic government cope with a guerrilla war and a president promising they would not be going into combat. Ten years later, with more than 58,000 American lives and untold hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lives lost, we had learned a brutal lesson — war is too easily escalated by those who do not have to fight or die.
War breeds war. Peace breeds prosperity.
“Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.”- Thomas Jefferson
BURNET, Texas (Oct. 15) – War breeds war. That is all it can do. War does nothing but devour valuable resources and destroy precious lives for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself. As Randolph Bourne wrote, “War is the health of the State.” War is a mechanism used by the ruling elites of the State to coerce and control the people, so it becomes essential that whenever one war is complete, another is instigated elsewhere so that the mechanism keeps running.
The Wasted Vote Lie
“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual – or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.”
- Samuel Adams, in the Boston Gazette, 1781
BURNET, Texas (July 12) – Every election Libertarians are invariably confronted with the charge that a vote for a Libertarian candidate is a wasted vote. The accuser claims that if you really wanted limited government you should vote for the candidate who has a chance of winning — the Republican. In some rare cases, the assertion may be that if you really wanted to protect civil liberties you’d vote for the candidate who has a chance of winning — the Democrat. And yet, our liberty goes unprotected as government grows unimpeded.
To my utter astonishment, this bogus argument invariably causes some genuine freedom-loving people to betray their stated beliefs. Why do they leap from the Ship of Principle into the stormy Sea of Compromise at the very moment their strength, courage and resolve are needed the most? Only one thing makes a person abandon everything they’ve ever believed in and fought for — desperation, the feeling that all is lost and the best one can do is choose the lesser of two evils. Even telling them that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil doesn’t seem to dissuade them from their decision.
Little do they realize that they have once again been duped by the Wasted Vote Lie. It is a deliberate, carefully crafted fable concocted and perpetrated by the Democratic and Republican duopoly to maintain their stranglehold on power. They cleverly employ the propaganda trick of tyrants throughout the ages; if you repeat a lie loud enough and often enough eventually people will believe it.
The worst thing about voting for the “lesser of two evils” is that it actually has the opposite effect of what it’s intended to do. Winning candidates don’t know, they don’t want to know — and frankly don’t care — why people vote for them. They certainly don’t know and don’t care how many of the votes they got were so-called protest votes. All they want is enough votes to win. They’ll consider all the votes they get as an endorsement of their campaign promises or past performance to claim a “mandate from the people.”
Wrights to participate in first Libertarian presidential debate
BURNET, Texas (June 17) – Lee Wrights will participate in the first Libertarian presidential debate scheduled during the Future of the Libertarian Movement Conference in Manchester, N.H. June 19.
The one-day conference is sponsored by the Libertarian Parties of New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Three candidates will participate in the debate, Wrights, Roger Gary of Texas and Carl Person of New York. The debate is scheduled for 6:15 p.m. and will be moderated by George Phillies. The New Hampshire and Massachusetts Libertarian Parties will give a first-round delegate vote to the winner of the post-debate straw poll.
“I’m looking forward to engaging with my fellow libertarians in what I am certain will be a lively and informative discussion,” Wrights said. “It certainly will be more enlightening than the presidential debate conducted by one of the so-called major parties in New Hampshire recently.”