Pennsylvania Libertarian Wins: Keep It In Perspective

The Libertarian electoral wins in Pennsylvania over the past few years are certainly worth celebrating.

However, they also must be kept in perspective.

There are no other states that have as many elective offices as Pennsylvania.

Most states have counties.  The difference with PA is that each county can have dozens of "township" and "borough" entities, as well as a few "home rule" towns, all of which have elected officials.  2,560 of these, to be precise (see the official list here ).

So in other words, there are thousands and thousands of elective offices in PA.  Many of those offices are vacant, with no candidates for them.

In contrast, Libertarians in Virginia cannot replicate Pennsylvania's record.

By law.

In Virginia, there are 95 counties, 38 independent cities (which are equivalent to counties anywhere else), and 190 incorporated towns (there are unincorporated towns but they do not have a government charter and are simply part of their county; the incorporated towns have a charter and a government but are also still part of their county -- in essence they are an "overlay" government over the county government).

While it's nice to believe that Pennsylvania Libertarians have perfected the "special sauce" that leads to electoral success, that brag is a bit insulting to the Libertarians in other states who work just as hard as anyone in PA but who do not have the special circumstances working in their favor as do PA Libertarians.

It is also worth noting that the current paradigm of electing Libertarians in PA is not a new development.  Lois Kaneshiki led the LPPA to do pretty much the same thing in the early 2000's -- over 20 years ago.

The biggest takeaway from that early 2000's experiment, however, is this: I don't recall anyone of those elected back then who later "graduated" to, say, Pennsylvania state legislature or congress as a Libertarian.

As an aside, Kaneshiki had a serious problem with being nasty to other Libertarians.  She eventually abandoned the LP and became active in the Republican Party, and was later elected an RP county chair.  I mention that because perhaps her attitude contributed to the collapse of the original "let's get everyone elected to these tiny offices that no one else wants" model.

I know what it's like to be elected to an office no one in the district wants.  I was elected to the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District in Shenandoah County VA in 2001, and served until I moved to a different area of the state.  No one collected the 25 signatures required to be placed on that fall's ballot, so I stood out in front of my polling place with some handouts with my name and asking to be written in, and got enough votes to be elected as a write-in.

So it's not magic sauce.  There is no special recipe that makes what PA Libertarians have done possible, just some common sense and taking advantage of opportunities as they come up.

The real test will be whether these 200+ elected officials will take advantage of their small platform and use it as a springboard to capture a bigger one.  It didn't happen twenty years ago.  So if Pennsylvania LP leaders really want bragging rights, they need to follow-through and make it happen this time.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, December 2021.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Two Cows Explain Government Types

DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

DEMOCRACY
You have 2 cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
You have 2 cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

PURE DEMOCRACY
You have 2 cows. They out vote you 2 - 1 to ban all meat and dairy products.

BRITISH DEMOCRACY
You have 2 cows. You feed them sheep's brains until they go mad. The government assures everyone that everything is fine.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

ANARCHO-CAPITALISM
You have 2 cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

LIBERTARIAN CAPITALISM
You have 2 cows. You can do whatever you like with them as long as you don't interfere with the lives and property of others.

LIBERTARIANISM: It's none of your damn business how many cows I have!

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNISM - Option 1
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

COMMUNISM - Option 2
You share 2 cows with your neighbor. You and your neighbor bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.

PERESTROIKA
You have 2 cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the free market.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows. The government takes both cows and shoots you.

CANADIAN BUREAUCRACY
You and your neighbor are contesting the ownership of two cows. A Royal Commission is struck to study the issue. Three years after both cows die, the Commission releases its preliminary findings.

FLORIDA KEYS
You have two cows. The government decides it is in your best interest to regulate your cows' milk production. When you raise a stink, you are appointed to the Milk Restriction Citizens Advisory Board. Together with a bunch of government scientists and non-profit organizations, you study your cows to death.

DRUG WAR-ISM
You have two cows. The government outlaws possession and distribution of cows, then arrests you for possession of a controlled animal with intent to distribute (you did have TWO cows!) and locks you up for life. While in prison, your cell mate offers to trade you a cow for a carton of cigarettes.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
You have two cows. The cows move into your house while you move into the barn and barely get by raising organic vegetables.

UNITED STATES
You have two cows. Late one night, a renegade IRS agent sneaks into your ranch and cuts off the left ear of one of your cows without your knowledge. You find out when the victim cow gets an infection. You have to purchase antibiotics for the cow and you also must pay the tax. You are sued by the FDA for milking a sick cow, and for practicing medicine without a license. You are sued by the EPA for killing bacteria and for failing to file an environmental impact statement. You are sued by the ATF for practicing an unlicensed religion involving cow ear sacrifices, for conspiracy to manufacture a firearm without a license, and for suspected child pornography. You are sued by OSHA for creating an unsafe workplace where someone could step on a cow's ear. You are arrested by the FBI for trading in cow parts without a license. They want the last known whereabouts of the cow's ear. You are slandered by a PBS program. You are attacked on TV magazine shows "Sixty Idiots," "True Lies," and "Twenty Panties". You are harassed by animal rights activists. You have to sell the cow with two ears to pay your legal bills.

COUNTERCULTERALISM
Wow, Dude, there's like . . . these cows, man. You've got to have some of this milk.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are
surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the
analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give
excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIA
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many you actually have.

AFGHANISTAN
You have all of the cows in Afghanistan, which means two of them.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find
alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQ
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally
vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you
think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegal.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

SURREALISM
You have 2 giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Energy: Release the Market!

 I'm not for or against any particular kind of energy. We need it all.

I do, however, oppose any subsidies or penalties for any kind of energy.

Petroleum, for instance, gets a gigantic "gunboat subsidy" -- American warships and troops protecting the Suez Canal, and so on. Our ring of bases along the borders of Russia, Iran, and China is likewise a subsidy -- intended to secure oil supplies to us and our "allies". On the other hand, petrol also has numerous penalties. For instance, auto emissions are now so insane that what comes out of a new car's tailpipe is cleaner than the average sample of ambient air. That's just dumb. Petrol supplies in the US are increasingly at risk because it's now almost impossible to build or expand refining or storage capacity, due to ever-tightening zoning and environmental laws . Refineries are aging and locked into footprints they can't grow out of; ensuring more maintenance failures into the future.

Wind energy likewise gets both subsidies and penalties.  At the same time energy companies are heavily subsidized to bring more wind energy online, turbines don't last forever and the increasing number of decommissioned turbines fills up gigantic landfills fast. American laws have virtually shut down mining for the precious metals wind energy needs, so we're shipping vast amounts of wealth to China to supply our expanding demand for those materials.

Nuclear has the same dynamic going on. The Price-Anderson act is a massive subsidy to nuclear energy. There are no insurance companies that are currently willing to cover the damages nuclear plants can cause -- witness the inability of even the Japanese government to be able to fully pay for the damage caused by just ONE Fukashima. Plus, the cost of burying (or storing) spent nuclear waste is huge -- and energy companies are largely excused from paying for it. Instead, governments do.

Get rid of all of the subsidies and penalties for all forms of energy, and allow the market to sort out which one is the safest and most efficient.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, April 2021.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Laws Cause Police Killings

Leftists pretend to be concerned about the aggressive actions of police officers, which leads to outcomes like we saw recently in Minnesota and Colorado. Just this week, Paige Pierce Schmidt was shot and killed by police in Delta CO, as was Duante Wright in Brooklyn Center MN.

Police kill roughly 1,400 Americans every year, or 26 per week on average.

A disproportionate number -- about a third -- are black; the rest are mostly white.

At core, it is the plethora of useless and countless laws, like the prohibitions on drugs, prostitution, gambling, and, increasingly, guns -- laws that were either written or are supported by the left within the past century -- that led to Wright's and Schmidt's tragic and unnecessary deaths.

It is understood that Leftists wish to promote systemic problems that they can later riot over. It's called "job security" for progs.

"Good laws" and bad laws, both, are GOING to be enforced with force, no matter what you demand. At some level, everyone is aware of that. Anywhere you have an intersection between two positions you favor, when those positions are at odds, you have the potential -- and in fact, the high probability -- of those laws being upheld through the use of force. Up to, and including, death.

Mr. Wright, for example -- was in violation of gun control laws -- which almost all Leftists profess to favor (I say "profess" because the Left has never been shy about arming other Leftists and shooting the opposition -- as has been happening in Venezuela for the past decade). The traffic stop of Wright also was made under some dubious pretexts; and then the escalation of force was initiated because of a warrant relating to said gun laws.

Wright was within his Constitutionally-guaranteed right to carry a firearm.

You can't have the gun control you love, without the deadly force by police that you don't love.

Only Libertarians have a consistent position: We are opposed to police violence that was brought to bear against Mr. Wright -- but we are also absolutely opposed to the gun laws that were being enforced against him in the first place.

You simply cannot demand that the police treat black people with dignity and respect or hell, but then also support right-violating laws that we then expect the police to enforce. It simply won't work the way you think it will.

Libertarians acknowledge there will be some level of laws for the foreseeable future -- at least until a lot more people choose to reject the initiation of force and become Libertarians. But in the meantime, we demand that laws be kept to a minimum and that they will be enforced only when there is an actual human victim. These two steps would go far towards a rational, more peaceful approach to reducing harm caused by police.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, April 2021.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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