There is a Massachusetts Republican state convention this weekend. Yay. I really don’t like writing about these things because these elections are just futile, more rearranging of deck chairs. But politics is sometimes interesting to write about, albeit in a fingernails-against-the-chalkboard kind of way.
The first thing that’s really frustrating is that there are no Libertarian Party candidates for any state office this year. Not that I care, mind you. But you’d think that in the state in which “it all began,” there would be some liberty-minded people. Nope.
There aren’t many people who believe in the concepts of non-aggression, self-ownership and private property here. But you’d think, as Ron Paul has been able to do nationally, that at least an LP candidate could use the campaign as a platform to “spread the word” of liberty.
Not any more, apparently. The days of Carla Howell are over, I guess.
Carla Howell was the LP candidate for U.S. Senate in 2000 against Ted Kennedy. And she was the LP candidate for governor in 2002, and participated in at least one major debate against Willard and three others. And now she is political director for the national LP.
Sadly, the LP hasn’t really gotten very far in its 40 years of existence. After all, with “libertarian”candidates like Bob Barr and Gary Johnson, who needs statists?
This weekend’s GOP convention in Massachusetts will have two candidates for governor, the 2010 nominee and Establishment-supported Charlie Baker, and businessman Mark Fisher the “Tea Party” candidate. Now, given how the GOP bigwigs are very pro-Establishment and anti-Tea Party, does anyone actually believe that Fisher will get the 15% support of delegates required to get his name on the ballot for the primary in September?
Has anyone ever heard of Mark Fisher? A major WBUR poll was released yesterday concentrating on Democrat presumptuous presumptive nominee Martha Coakley and Republican Charlie Baker, but also including other Democrat candidates. But it excluded the non-Establishment Republican Mark Fisher. (Can we conclude that WBUR’s pollsters are a little biased against conservatives? Ya think?)
But Fisher is not exactly a liberty-minded Tea Party candidate. Fisher’s website shows that he wants to reform the welfare system. That’s nice. But it says nothing about replacing it with a restoration of freedom and private charity. It says nothing about other issues such as gun control and the police state. He wants to “roll back” tax rates but not eliminate them. Not just “libertarians,” but Tea Party candidates should be talking about eliminating income taxes. (And other taxes, too, it’s theft, FCOL!)
And Fisher wants to “make illegal immigration illegal.” Alas, collectivists believe in communal ownership of the entire territory, but don’t understand that the right of exclusion (and inclusion) is an individual and private right, not a collective, group right. Oh, well. (Perhaps he listens to El-Rushbo too much …)
But the Establishment hack GOP candidate, Charlie Baker is really a progressive Republican, who believes that “education is a civil right.” And by that I think it is safe to assume he means government-controlled education is a civil right. More rearranging of deck chairs with the State’s intrusion into education. And while he wants to deny public assistance to “illegal” immigrants, he obviously agrees with the other statists that the State owns the lives of immigrants, workers and businessmen.
Charlie Baker’s earlier work in state government was also important in the concocting of what is now known as RomneyCare in Massachusetts. As Gov. Bill Weld’s Secretary of Health and Human Services in the early ’90s, Baker’s plan to use state Medicaid savings was a cornerstone for the later Romney-Democrat plan.
And in this interview, Charlie Half-Baker is asked what he would do as governor to make college more affordable. We hear “Blah, blah, blah, etc. etc. etc.” But no “privatize,” no “get the government out of it,” no “education freedom.” When asked about the Department of Children and Families scandal(s) going on, more “yada, yada, yada,” but no “Abolish the DCF.” And he supports the State-imposed death penalty and is mealy-mouthed on the gun control issue (i.e. he supports gun control).
No liberty candidates in Massachusetts. Certainly not from Democrats. And not from the so-called Tea Party, nor any of the GOP, those Grand Old Progressives.
And, it’s nothing but crickets from the … “Libertarian” Party.
(Cross-posted on my blog.)
11:57 am on March 21, 2014
