Libertarian scholar/activist (and one of the nicest guys in the movement) Murray Sabrin files for divorce from the GOP. While not everyone will go as far as Murray, expect more rebellions from the GOP grassroots as the folly of the party’s present course becomes increasingly clear.

On August 15, 1971 President Nixon imposed wage and price controls and closed the gold window. Nixon dealt a blow to economic freedom in one fell swoop and effectively declared the United States government bankrupt.

As a 25 year old living in New York who became a registered Republican a year or two earlier, that was the last straw. I soon became a political independent, because I realized that Nixon and his advisors were not serious about free enterprise, limited government and the rule of law. Mind you, this was a year before the Watergate break-in and the subsequent criminal cover-up.

I rejoined the GOP in 1999 in order to run for the U.S. Senate at the urging of the Republican Liberty Caucus, libertarians within the GOP. I thought my presence in the GOP could have an impact on the New Jersey party. I was unsuccessful. Most New Jersey Republicans talk a good game, but followed Whitman over the cliff. Now they are in the minority in the legislature.

Today, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist ordered a Senate hearing with testimony from major oil company executives.

“If there are those who abuse the free enterprise system to advantage themselves and their businesses at the expense of all Americans, they ought to be exposed, and they ought to be ashamed,” Frist said in a statement.

Frist wants the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations to launch an inquiry into energy price profiteering. “And ultimately, if the facts warrant it, I will support a federal anti-price gouging law,” he said.

“I have asked them to call as witnesses executives from the major oil companies and representatives of the state attorneys general, who have the initial responsibility of keeping the behavior of local energy providers on the straight and narrow,” Frist said.

In the House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert also weighed in with a warning that oil companies must act “responsibly.”

DC Republicans have demonstrated for the past few years why they know virtually nothing about economics and finance, and why their domestic and foreign polices and morally indefensible.

The GOP leadership that talks about fiscal responsibility, free enterprise, limited government, and liberty, that has given us the greatest expansion of the federal government probably in our history, now has embraced the politics of envy.

Virtually all Democrats ooze envy from every pore of their bodies. Now DC Republicans are bashing an industry for making too much money. DC Republicans have demonstrated why they have become a mirror image of the Democrats.

My instincts more than 30 years ago were correct. DC is the home of the Washington Party, composed of both Democrats and Republicans.

As soon as possible I will change my political registration from Republican to Independent.

We need independent thinking in American-not the group think that infects both political parties.

We need freedom, liberty, limited government, the rule of law, free enterprise, and a noninterventionist foreign policy.

To achieve the above we need a radical decentralization of decision making in America. We need to take power out of DC and return it to the people and their local and state representatives.

I will work for those principles, because they will create a just, free and prosperous America.