Letter 1
From: Elwood Earl “Sandy” Sanders, Jr.
Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2020 3:59 PM
Subject: Open Letter to Libertarians in Georgia
Dr. Block:
I think I can already but I ask your permission to reprint (with proper attribution of course to you) at the Virginia Right blog the Open Letter to Libertarians in Georgia because there are moves to boycott the election by conservatives and I DO FULLY UNDERSTAND why in that conservatives have been, let’s say used and abused, by the GOP leaders time and time again.
Thank you for the thoughtful commentary.
Elwood Earl “Sandy” Sanders, Jr.
Letter 2
Dear Sandy:
Yes. Thanks.
Best regards,
Walter
Letter 3
Dear JG:
Thanks. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Best regards,
Walter
From: jg moebus
Sent: Monday, December 07, 2020 8:02 AM
To: ryan.graham@
Cc: laura.williams; shane;
Subject: An Open Letter to Georgian Libertarians [with cc: to All those Trumpatistas calling for a boycott of the Runoff] [attchd as Word doc]
Dear Mr Graham, Chairman of the Georgia Libertarian Party:
This is a reaction and response to Walter Block’s “Open Letter” to Y’All regarding what You should do on January 5. [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/walter-e-block/open-letter-to-libertarians-in-georgia/.]
It is part of a longer piece ~ An Open Letter to Walter Block re: Your “Open Letter to Libertarians in Georgia” [and an Open Letter to Georgian Libertarians of my own] ~ which follows below, and is attached as a Word document.
Let me know if this makes any sense to You folks; and if it does, what i can do to help make it happen. Thank You, Good Luck, and Stay Safe.
/s/ jeff
Jeffrey G Moebus Master Sergeant, US Army [Retired] Veterans Against War [Sitka Platoon] Sitka, Alaska
ps: i have many fond memories of Georgia from my times at Fort Benning: Jump School back in the 60s, Senior NCO Infantry School in the 80s, and protesting the School of the Americas in the Spring of 2001.
###
An Open Letter to Georgian Libertarians
[with cc: to All those Trumpatistas calling for a boycott of the Runoff]
On January 5, 2021, You will have four choices:
1. You can vote for two Republicans.
2. You can vote for two Democrats.
3. You can vote for one of each.
4. You can not vote.
This offers a fifth choice.
At this moment ~ if Your Libertarianism that guides Your judgment on political candidates, their platforms, and their promises is real ~ there is nobody in this election that, as a Libertarian, You can honestly and sincerely vote For. All there is are four candidates that You would, if You could, vote Against.
At this moment, the closest thing You can do to voting Against any and all of the candidates is to simply not vote, which tells nobody anything and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
The alternative to this is to vote, and to Write-In “None Of These Candidates.” That way, You make perfectly and explicitly clear to Georgia’s and America’s Political Class and its Media just exactly what You think about the choices that You have been given in this election; and that None of them meet Your criteria for earning and meriting Your vote.
No doubt, there will be no place or space to write-in anybody on the voting machine ballots on January 5, let alone “None Of These Candidates.” So, when You go to vote, take along a signed and witnessed legal document declaring that You wish to officially and legally declare that Your choices for the next United States Senators from the Great State of Georgia are “None Of These Candidates.” The same thing could also be done on Mail-In ballots.
It is very likely that such documents presented in person on election day, or that Mail-In ballots similarly altered, will not be accepted as legal and legitimate votes. Which is not a problem because that is not the point of the whole exercise. The point is that there is nobody who has earned and is qualified to get Your vote, and that You want to do something about it to make sure that they and the people running their productions know that without any doubt.
There is time enough between now and January 5 to make Georgia election officials and the media, and thus Georgia, and thus the entire Nation, aware of, call it, say, “#NOTC-GA21.”
One can only wonder how Election2020 would have turned out if “None Of These Candidates” was an official option on every ballot in every State in every Presidential, Senate, and House election. If #NOTC-USA20 had been an option, i guarantee You that more than just a few of those 33% of registered voters who didn’t vote because they had nobody to vote For, would have voted because they had somebody they could legally and legitimately vote Against: ie, Every candidate on the ballot. That’s what “None Of These Candidates” makes possible.
The people of Nevada have had the “None Of These Candidates” option on all ballots for all federal, state, and local elections since the early 70s. In 2016, #NOTC-NV16 took 28,863 votes. Clinton beat Trump in Nevada by 27,202 votes. while Libertarian Gary Johnson pulled in 37,384.
So who cost Trump Nevada in 2016, Johnson or NOTC? Well, obviously there is no way to really know that, but at least Nevadans had [and have] a clear and present Choice on election day besides and beyond what the Ruling Elite’s Political Class has deigned to give them. Instead of simply boycotting the election and manifesting their dissatisfaction with the whole circus that is American politics by being invisible and thus ignored, they had [and have] the option of telling all the candidates, their parties, and their owners and operators, the media, and anybody else who was paying attention: “Stick it in Your ear.” [Note: In 2020, NOTC-NV20 received 14,079 votes to Libertarian Jo Jorgeson’s 14,783; and Biden beat Trump by 33,596.]
Along with a Constitutional Amendment mandating a balanced annual Federal Budget, another one establishing Age and Term limits for All federal Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branch officials, and a third one very clearly specifying what Presidents can and cannot do without a formal Congressional Declaration of War [in other words, no more AUMFs], there also needs to be an Amendment that requires that “None Of These Candidates” be a choice like any other candidate on every ballot in every Federal Presidential, Senate, and House election.
If nothing else, the Libertarians of Georgia could serve as the vanguard, and the Empire State of the South could serve as the launch pad for a national initiative to get “None Of These Candidates” on the ballot of every State with 2022 Mid-Term Senate and House elections, and then every State for 2024’s elections for President and Congress. Even without a Constitutional Amendment.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if, in an election, “None Of These Candidates” actually got more votes than any other candidate?
###
An Open Letter to Walter Block re:
Your “Open Letter to Libertarians in Georgia”
[and an Open Letter to Georgian Libertarians of my own]
Dear Professor Block:
This is a reaction and response to Your “Open Letter to Libertarians in Georgia,” posted to LewRockwell.com on December 5. i apologize in advance for the length of this, but Your Letter triggered some thoughts and feelings that have been brewing for quite some time, and i am finally able to begin to capture them in words. That’s why i have broken it down into relatively bite-size chunks.
So, first of all, this is a hearty and sincere Thank You for providing that certain something that has helped me pull a number of different strands together and express what i have come to believe, think, think i know, know i know and actually understand, and what i have yet to learn and understand about all this.
Thus, in a very real sense, You have served as a Teacher for me thru this. Perhaps You can regard it as a term paper from a distant learning student. Whether You can or You can’t, Thank You again.
Once i finish this rant, i look forward to reading Your “A Libertarian Analysis of the Covid Pandemic” in the new issue of The Journal of Libertarian Studies. i’ve been looking for one of those for a long time now.
Jeffrey G Moebus
Master Sergeant, US Army [Retired]
Veterans Against War [Sitka Platoon]
Sitka, Alaska
###
0. In order that You know exactly where i am coming from on all this, let me preface it with my Letter to the Editors published on December 2 in the local newspaper, the Daily Sitka Sentinel:
While community Elder Statesman Spike Arnold’s admonition that “Individual rights are a great thing to have when they don’t Trump other individuals’ rights” sounds good, it’s not completely accurate [LTE, Nov 30].
The exercise of one person’s actual, real, individual Human Rights does not ~ because it cannot ~ trump [or even “Trump”] another person’s real, actual individual Human Rights.
And that’s because to “trump” another’s Rights is to violate their Rights; and NoBody ~ no individual, group, organization, or institution ~ has the Right to violate the Rights of another Human Being without due process under a Rule of Law.
Human Rights do not ~ because they cannot ~ conflict. Nobody’s Right to Life gives them the right to physically harm or take the life, or the liberty, property, or privacy of another human being, except in self-defense.
Nobody’s Right to Liberty gives them the right to violate the liberty or the rights to life, property, privacy, or the pursuit of happiness of another human being, except to prevent or to punish the violation of the rights of other human beings.
Nobody’s Right to Property gives them the right to commit theft, fraud, extortion, embezzlement, or any other form or threat of violence against the property of ~ or contracts with ~ anybody else. Or anybody else’s life, liberty, privacy, or pursuit of happiness.
Nobody’s Right to Privacy empowers them to violate the privacy, or any other right of any other human being.
And Everybody’s Right to the Pursuit of Happiness gives them the Right to do everything and anything that they want to do, as long as it violates nobody else’s Rights.
So, Mr Arnold’s declaration is faulty: Nobody’s “individual rights” can morally, ethically, or legally take precedence over and privilege above ~ or “Trump” ~ Anybody else’s, except via the processes and procedures of that Rule of Law.
The problems begin when the concept of Human Rights is extended and expanded beyond Life, Liberty, etc, to include the meeting of Human Needs and the satisfaction of Human Wants: nutrition, sanitation, health care, housing, education, financial, communications, transportation, and energy infrastructures, economic well-being and stability, physical security of person and property, and leisure.
The problems begin when the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness is taken to mean the Right to Happiness itself; and that the proper function of government is to guarantee that Happiness, at least for some folks. Even if that violates the actual Rights of others. That’s how Trumping occurs.
As regards Your Open Letter…
1. You wrote:
From a libertarian point of view, it is imperative that the Republicans hold the senate.
From this Libertarian’s point of view ~ and more importantly, as a student of the history of the last 20 years and of the 20 years between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II ~ it will make absolutely no difference whatsoever which party controls the Senate. Any more than it will make [or has made] any difference which party controls the House or who sits in the Oval Office.
It certainly hasn’t made much difference since 9/11 and “The Forever War” and the Surveillance/Secrecy/Security/Safety State that it spawned, has it? Or the 2008 financial “¢risi$” and The Great Recession it launched, clearing the road to our current $27.4 trillion national, sovereign Debt. Or The COVID-19 Event, The Greater Recession, and the Medical Police State that it has birthed. You continued:
If Donald remains president for four more years, he can appoint even more judges and justices who take our Constitution seriously (Stephen Breyer is now 82 years old).
How is that any different from the “packing” that You assure us the Democrats will pull off if They control the Senate? Packing is Packing, isn’t it? Your objections seem not to be with packing, as such; rather, it’s with who gets to do the packing and who they get to put into the pack.
That reminds me of the 2016 election and all those people who wanted to abolish the Electoral College until asked if they would still want to do that if the results of the election had been exactly reversed: if Trump had won the popular vote, and Clinton the Electoral vote. Or the refusal of Republicans in 2016 to allow a lame-Duck Senate to confirm a lame-Duck President’s SCOTUS nominee, but their insistence on doing exactly that in 2020, and getting away with it.
2. You concluded Your laundry list of what Democrat control of the Senate would bring with:
The Venezuelans are coming here to escape that sort of thing; we certainly don’t want our country to follow that path.
Less Venezuelans are coming here to escape “that sort of thing” than Central Americans who are attempting to escape the carnage, chaos, and collapse left over from the more than a century of American imperialist intervention, pillage, and plunder in that area, starting with Smedley Butler who, as he put it:
…helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler]
And if it started with Butler, it continued unabated thru the 50s, 60s, and 70s starting with the coup in Guatemala [one year after the coup in Iran], on into the 80s with Ollie North’s Holy Crusade on behalf of Bozo [Iran-Contra, and all that; remember?], and up into the present as that area attempts to deal with, among other things, America’s insatiable demand for drugs flowing north thru it. And probably more Venezuelans would be less inclined to leave their homeland if the United States was not inflicting crippling economic sanctions on it. Just like we are on Iran and did on Iraq for three months shy of 13 years before we “liberated” it from Saddam and all his WMDs. [Funny how Iran keeps popping up in these matters, isn’t it?]
3. You then asked, “What does all this have to do with libertarians, pray tell?” And answered with “Simply this”:
David Perdue [R] 49.7% 2,456,709
Jon Ossoff [D] 47.9% 2,366,847
Shane Hazel [L] 2.3% 114,625
Pointing out that “Mr. Hazel, a fine fellow I am sure…bagged more votes than the difference between the two major candidates,” You then asserted that “had he not entered the race the very strong presumption is that the overwhelming majority of his votes would have gone to the Republican candidate.”
On what possible historical, empirical, or any other kind of evidence do You base that assertion and make that “very strong presumption”? Are there any actual instances that You can cite that show that ~ when registered Libertarians don’t have a Libertarian choice on a ballot ~ that they will even generally cast their vote for a Republican?
And they’ll do that because, well, because Republicans have, in general, or at least sort of generally, they have more sympathetic-to- and resonant-with “libertarian” values, principles, goals, and standards than Democrats? If there is any evidence to that effect, i would LOVE to see it.
For starters: If a Libertarian wasn’t on the ballot, how many of those people would not have voted at all, let alone for anybody at all? Roughly one-third of America’s registered voters did not vote for President in 2020 [or in 2016]. People don’t vote for lots of reasons:
There are those who share Emma Goldman’s sentiment that “If voting could actually, really change anything, it would be illegal.” Or they remember Papa Joe Stalin’s admonition that “It’s not who votes that counts; it’s who counts the votes.” [Particularly appropriate this year, eh?] Or, they can only concur 100% with George Carlin’s “Don’t vote. It only encourages the mother-fuckers.”
One other reason that at least some folks don’t vote is simply because they have nobody that they can actually, honestly, and sincerely vote For, as opposed to merely using that vote “For” one candidate as a way to vote Against another candidate.
In 2016, how many people voted for Trump not because they actually, really wanted him to be President, but because they did not want Clinton in the Oval Office? That may go a long way toward explaining all those “Swing States” that were Clinton’s for the taking that ended up not.
And the same question can be legitimately asked about 2020: How many people voted for Biden because they are tired of Trump, Trumpatismo, the Trumpatistas, and the whole alternative fact, post-truth, fake news reality-tv show that America has become during the reign of POTUS Maxximmuss XLV? And perhaps explain why Trump lost those same Swing States this time, as well. Of course there are all those ballots smuggled in by North Korea. Or was it Hugo Chavez? Or George Soros?
My “Open Letter to Georgian Libertarians” at the ps: below offers a very suitable alternative for those folks in Georgia who want neither the Republicans Perdue and Loeffler, nor the Democrats Ossoff and Warnock, nor any combination of the four, to be representing them in the US Senate, but who still want to be heard on election day. You continued:
If so [ie, if all those nasty Libertarians had not voted their conscience but had lined up with Team Trump/Perdue in the first place], there would not now be any need at all for a runoff, since Mr. Perdue would have been elected with more than fifty percent of the vote.
Well, maybe if more people in Georgia thought that the job that Senator Perdue was doing in Washington ~ on behalf of the people of Georgia, as opposed to on behalf of his owners and operators, handlers and script writers ~ if more registered voters in Georgia felt that way, then maybe there also would not have been any need for a runoff either, eh?
i am reminded of how the Democrats claimed back in 2000 that people who voted for Nader had cost Gore the election in Florida, thus giving the White House to Bush. What they conveniently forgot is that if Gore had won either his home state of Tennessee, or his party’s sitting President’s home state of Arkansas, he would have won the election, regardless of how the SCOTUS ruled on Florida. In fact, the whole goatrope would have never gotten to SCOTUS in the first place. Gore is the only candidate who ever lost both his own home state and that of his boss’s, who also happened to be the President. But to this day, Democrats blame Nader for what
“woulda, coulda, shoulda, ” [as Jim Mora once put it] been but wasn’t. Just think; 9/11 might have happened with Gore in command instead of Cheney.
4. You continued:
I take it that there is no question that the Republican philosophy (the cynic in me says, “to the extent it exists at all”) is now far more compatible with that of the Libertarian Party than is that of the Democrats.
There is a very fine line between a cynic and a realist; particularly in 21st century America, Year IV of The Age of Trump.
We libertarians agree with the party of the elephant far more than that of the donkey on lower taxes, less regulation, not strangling the traditional energy industry, worrying about the ever-increasing deficit, gun rights, free speech, opposition to the cancel culture, to “peaceful” riots, to Marxism, to the Green New Deal, to socialized medicine and on and on. [Emphases added.]
“Worrying about the ever-increasing deficit,” are those Republicans? Which deficit is that?
The one that will be built into the FY2021 Federal Budget, when those folks finally get around to actually having a Budget for FY2021? How about the deficit that was built into the FY2020 Budget; just like the deficits of FY2019, 2018, and so forth all the way back to FY2001, the LAST time this government had more Receipts than Expenditures, and an actual Surplus instead of again, yet, and still another Deficit? And None of these Deficits could have happened without the able and willing aiding and abetting of Republicans?
And that was all the doing of the Democrats, eh? And Republicans did, have done, and are doing Everything that they could, can, and will do to show just how “worried” they are about it, eh? Great. So when are they actually going to stop worrying about it, and begin to actually DO something about it? Wasn’t that one of Trump’s signature campaign promises? Along with Mexico paying for his Wall, as i recall. And his record-breaking deficits started well before The COVID-19 Event. Or is that all the Democrats’ fault, as well?
“Worrying about the ever-increasing deficit,” are they? And exactly When did that start?
Given the fact that twenty years ago, the national, sovereign Debt [the way all those Deficits keep piling up and not going away] of this Nation stood at just under $5 trillion; and Given the further fact that sometime this weekend, it will pass the $27.4 trillion mark, and counting….; Given all that, i guess We, the American People, must have somehow missed all that Republican worrying about deficits in the News.
So, again, exactly Who among Republicans have been [or actually are today [December 5, 2020] worried enough about those Deficits and that Debt to actually DO something, anything about it? And when did they do that? Does settling for a just-under $1 trillion COVID Relief, Subsidy, Loan, Grant, and Bailout package that will be totally Deficit Spending as a compromise to a proposed $2 trillion deal qualify? Especially after helping craft and agreeing to the earlier $3.2 trillion injection by The Fed and Treasury of credit and greenbacks? Is THAT what You’re talking about?
In any event, Republican [and Libertarian] “opposition to Marxism, etc” is discussed below at Item 7.
5. You wrote:
Yes, it cannot be denied, we are with the Democrats vis a vis the Republicans on legalizing all drugs, as in Oregon, and also prostitution, as in most of Nevada. As for abortion and immigration, libertarians are strongly divided on these issues, so they cannot enter into our deliberations.
Let’s talk for a minute about all the things that virtually all Republicans and Democrats [at least those among the Clintonista/Obamanoid/Bidenite wing of corporatist, crony capitalist, neoliberal/neoconservative post-modern “liberals”] are in total agreement on, shall we?
a. Pretending that that $27.4 trillion national, sovereign Debt [which does not include State and Local government Debt] is nothing to be concerned about. At least not now. This is Now, and that will be Whenever; hopefully after I leave office, and better yet, after I’m dead.
b. Pretending that the looming bankruptcies of the nation’s federal, state, and local “Entitlement” programs [Social Security, Medicare, Retirement Pensions and Plans, etc] are also nothing to be concerned about. Again, at least not now. See a.
c. Pretending that “The Forever War” needs to go on, well, forever. Or at least until Russia sufficiently recovers from the collapse of the USSR and China from the madness of Mao to become actual, real, no-shit Threats to America’s post-Cold War I uni-polar global hegemony, thereby giving us, and the Rulers of Russia and China, and the People, Lands, and Nations of the entire Planet Cold War-II. Got to keep that Military-Industrial Complex in full fiddle, Ya know. So we got to have that “Threat,” Don’tcha know? Otherwise, what would we need a $1+ trillion M-IC annual budget for? What could we spend all that newly created money and credit on?
d. Pretending that America’s burgeoning Surveillance/Secrecy/Security/Safety State panopticon, with its intimate ties to our Techno-Infotainment matrix, the militarization of Law Enforcement, and the emergence of a Prison-Industrial complex is actually making Americans “safer and securer” from terrorists and other malcontents, foreign and domestic.
e. Pretending to believe that the American People honestly, sincerely believe and think that SwampLand politicians ~ be they Republocrat or Demican ~ their bureaucrats, expert consultants, and the “Special Interests” who own and operate them actually, really care about them, their Children, and their Children’s Children.
Given that that’s just a quick overview of the most important things that Democrats and Republicans have in common [there are many more, as demonstrated by history and the present], which Republicans are more appropriate for Libertarians to vote for than for which Democrats?
You conclude:
The Republicans, with all their flaws and there are many, are significantly more oriented in our direction than are the Democrats.
With all due respect, Professor: BULLSHIT. i use that term as Professor Harry G. Frankfurt used it in his book, and i mean that as respectfully, but also as forcefully sincerely as i possibly can. Republicans may be into, as You put it:
lower taxes, less regulation, not strangling the tradition[al] energy industry, worrying about the ever-increasing deficit [Not; see above.], gun rights, free speech, opposition to the cancel culture, to “peaceful” riots, to Marxism, to the Green New Deal, to socialized medicine and on and on”
but they agree and stand tall and together with Democrats on the far, far more Critical, if not Existential Threats to America noted in items a thru e above.
6. i’m glad You noted that Mr Hazel is [of course] not “obligated to recommend to all those who voted for him that they now support David Perdue.” That’s actually quite “White” of You, as they say in the parlance.
But i’m puzzled by Your claim that “Hazel and all the Georgia libertarians who voted for him blatantly violated this [vintage 2016 Libertarians For Trump] precept” about how to vote in Red vs Purple states. Did Hazel and all those Georgia Libertarians sign a pledge to honor that “precept” back in 2016? Or sign it new or renew it for Election2020? Have they even heard of it?
Apparently not, given that You acknowledge, as You put it, that “They owe us all not a legal debt… .” But then You qualify that with “but [they owe us all] a moral one, to support David Perdue.” [Emphasis added.]
First of all, exactly who is this “us all” that they “owe” any kind of “debt” to, legal, moral, or otherwise? Those who want to see the Republicans maintain control of the Senate, and can’t do it without their help? And on what possible, conceivable basis is this a “moral” debt? What have Republicans ever done for Georgian Libertarians? And whose system of ethics is that “moral” debt to be drawn against? But most of all, since when has “morality” had anything to do with America’s $ 1 = 1 Vote system of electoral politics, government, and governance?
So the guidance and direction from Libertarians For Trump in 2016, “the pragmatic libertarian recommendation[,] was to throw our weight in the direction of the Donald.” i’m curious: Did Y’All have a 2020 version?
Libertarians For Trump… . i would love to hear Ludwig von Mises’, FA Hayek’s, Henry Hazlitt’s, Leonard Read’s, John T Flynn’s, Albert J Nock’s, and Murray Rothbard’s takes on that whole idea. Ron Paul’s, Jacob Hornberger’s, Lew Rockwell’s, Jeffrey Tucker’s, Richard Ebeling’s, Robert Murphy’s, Ryan McMaken’s, Tom Wood’s, John Whitehead’s, and Jon Miltimore’s views on it would be equally interesting, as well. And that’s just for starters.
Sorry, Professor, but that generates almost as much cognitive dissonance for me as Atheists For Jesus, Fundamentalists For Satan, Jews For Muhammad, and Proud Boys For BLM and/or LGBT.
7. re: Republican [and Libertarian] “opposition to Marxism, to the Green New Deal, to socialized medicine and on and on.”
It is my deepest-seated conviction, Professor, that Republicans [and Libertarians] would be much more relevant to the future of the United States if they were more concerned about and opposed to Fascism than they are about and to Marxism and its various manifestations in 21st century America; whether as “progressivism,” “democratic socialism,” “socialistic democraticism,” or whatever the Sandersistas, The Squad, and that crowd are calling themselves these days.
In fact, the best thing Libertarians [and Republicans, and anybody else who is concerned about the future of this Nation] could do would be to completely forget about the so-called “threat” of Marxism and its progeny altogether, and focus on the very real, present, and growing existence of Fascism in the United States.
Marxism, communism, and socialism have never been serious threats to America in the sense of Marxists, communists, or socialists seizing total control of the government and the economy, and establishing some sort of “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Even back in the good old days at the peak of “The Red Scare” or of Cold War I, the actual, real even likelihood of a real threat of a Leftist insurrection and overthrow of the government was nil. And the possibility an invasion and occupation by the USSR was even niller.
Today, America’s Left is totally bereft of any significance, relevance, or capability to accomplish anything in the real world [the World’s Left is in even worse shape.] It is rather evident from Biden’s Cabinet and Staff appointments that the “Marxist” wing of the Democratic Party ~ with their schemes and dreams for a Green New Deal, socialized medicine, guaranteed annual income, student loan Jubilee, free college, child care, and etc for all, and so “on and on” ~ those folks have been rendered essentially insignificant, existentially irrelevant, and effectively inert in SwampLand.
It is also evident ~ by those same appointments ~ that the reign of the corporatist, crony capitalist, neoliberal/ neoconservative, post-modern “liberalism” of Obama is back in full force after the 4-year stint of the corporatist, crony capitalist, neoconservative/neoliberal post-modern “conservatism” of Trump. [Altho he does get credit, at least, for not starting any new wars. But, it’s still 44 days to January 20, and a lot can happen between then and now.]
The point of all this is that today, in the final days of Phase One of The Age of Trump, America is getting much closer to the ultimate destination of The Road Hayek talked about; that variant of Collectivism termed “Socialism,” and specifically, that version of Socialism identified as “National Socialism,” or “Fascism.” And America has been on that Road to Fascism for a long, long time.
While the Trump Presidency has only brought us further along the way. the Biden Presidency just might be the one to complete the work fully launched by “FDR and his New Deal…[and] Wilson with his Federal Reserve, Income Tax, and his ‘War to end all War and make the world safe for Democracy,’ to say nothing of Wall Street and the nascent American proto-Empire fresh from its conquests in Hawai’i, China, the Philippines, and throughout Latin America.”
That quote is from “Why a Vote for Either Trump or Biden Was a Vote for Fascism,” which argues:
That America now has an advanced proto-Fascist system of government and governance; that it has had that system for quite some time now; and that ~ given the current state of America as regards The COVID-19 Event, the Greater Recession, domestic Race, Ethnic, Class, Generational, Gender, and Sectarian relations; the national, sovereign Debt and looming “entitlements” programs bankruptcies; its economic, political, and military interactions with international allies and adversaries [real and imagined, as in “The Forever War”]; and the general public’s overall general dissatisfaction with and disapproval of how things are going in this country ~ that nobody going to Washington in January is going to change that. Any of it.
It was my attempt to explain to a friend the day after the election exactly what Fascism is [as opposed to Socialism or Communism], How and Why America is a proto-Fascist State, and Why and How regime change in SwampLand in January [regardless of who ends up on top] will accomplish nothing but to no doubt inevitably make things worse. And now, of course, there is all the added turmoil of the Presidential election and the brouhaha down in Georgia to make it all that more interesting. “Why a Vote for Either” is below at the pss:. .
8. All of which brings us back to Item 1 above: To Your declaration that “From a libertarian point of view, it is imperative that the Republicans hold the senate,” and my counter-assertion that “it will make absolutely no difference whatsoever which party controls the Senate. Any more than it will make [or has made] any difference which party controls the House or who sits in the Oval Office.”
But first, we have to get thru the next scheduled Episodes of this reality-tv extravaganza [barring some landmark Court decisions or something akin to a second 9/11 along the way]: December 14 and the Electoral College vote; January 6 and the Counting of those Votes and the Joint Declaration of Congress as to the next President and Vice President; and January 20, their Inauguration.
Going to be an interesting 45 days, eh? Especially when the MAGA Marchers, Stop The Stealers, and their cohorts, colleagues, and compeers take to the streets again.
And then we’ll see what happens.
On my 72d birthday in July of 2018, i decided and determined to live long enough to see if, first, there would be an election on November 3, 2020; and that, if there was, second, to stick around to see if an inauguration happens on January 20, 2021, regardless of who “won” and who “lost” in November. Whether that Regime Change actually occurs or not, i have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that ~ barring a Revolution ~ i won’t have to live another six years to see whether or not America survives to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026.
Another way of asking “Will America survive to July 4, 2026?” is: “Should America ~ as it is today ~ survive? And then, even if it should, Can it?”
Those who would dismiss these questions as either irreverent, irrelevant, absurd, conspiratorial, and/or unpatriotic, if not down right treasonous, are invited to confront the simple, obvious [albeit painful] reality that the United States of America is today, has been for a long time, and shows no indication of stopping being:
1. a Debtor State;
2. a Bankrupt State;
3. a Warfare State;
4. a Welfare State;
5, a Secrecy/Surveillance/Security/proto-Police State;
6, an Oligarchic/Plutocratic Deep State;
7. an Overshoot State;
And, perhaps most importantly,
8, a People and Nation no longer merely “divided,” but fractured ~ even to the point of disintegration ~ in ways not seen in more than 160 years, since the eve of the First American Civil War.
With each day as this whole goat rope unfolds further, i understand deeper, clearer, and better just exactly what Jefferson was talking about when he said “If there is a Just God, I tremble for the future of my Country.”
Thank You again, Professor Block, for Your “Open Letter to Libertarians in Georgia.” Like i said at the outset; it has helped me pull a whole bunch of strands together. i look forward to start weaving them into some meaningfully useful patters. Have a great day, stay Safe, and say hi to New Orleans for me.
[My wife and i lived on a sailboat over in Slidell for seventeen years before we got wiped out by Katrina and headed west to San Francisco, and ultimately, up here to Alaska. So i am very familiar with the very lovely Loyola Campus; i used to spend some time over there carousing with Bill Quigley, of the Law School, and exploring the mysteries and wonders of a Law library.]
/s/ ~ jeff
###
ps:
An Open Letter to Georgian Libertarians
[with cc: to All those Trumpatistas calling for a boycott of the Runoff]
On January 5, 2021, You will have four choices:
1. You can vote for two Republicans.
2. You can vote for two Democrats.
3. You can vote for one of each.
4. You can not vote.
This offers a fifth choice.
At this moment ~ if Your Libertarianism that guides Your judgment on political candidates, their platforms, and their promises is real ~ there is nobody in this election that, as a Libertarian, You can honestly and sincerely vote For. All there is are four candidates that You would, if You could, vote Against.
At this moment, the closest thing You can do to voting Against any and all of the candidates is to simply not vote, which tells nobody anything and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
The alternative to this is to vote, and to Write-In “None Of These Candidates.” That way, You make perfectly and explicitly clear to Georgia’s and America’s Political Class and its Media just exactly what You think about the choices that You have been given in this election; and that None of them meet Your criteria for earning and meriting Your vote.
No doubt, there will be no place or space to write-in anybody on the voting machine ballots on January 5, let alone “None Of These Candidates.” So, when You go to vote, take along a signed and witnessed legal document declaring that You wish to officially and legally declare that Your choices for the next United States Senators from the Great State of Georgia are “None Of These Candidates.” The same thing could also be done on Mail-In ballots.
It is very likely that such documents presented in person on election day, or that Mail-In ballots similarly altered, will not be accepted as legal and legitimate votes. Which is not a problem because that is not the point of the whole exercise. The point is that there is nobody who has earned and is qualified to get Your vote, and that You want to do something about it to make sure that they and the people running their productions know that without any doubt.
There is time enough between now and January 5 to make Georgia election officials and the media, and thus Georgia, and thus the entire Nation, aware of, call it, say, “#NOTC-GA21.”
One can only wonder how Election2020 would have turned out if “None Of These Candidates” was an official option on every ballot in every State in every Presidential, Senate, and House election. If #NOTC-USA20 had been an option, i guarantee You that more than just a few of those 33% of registered voters who didn’t vote because they had nobody to vote For, would have voted because they had somebody they could legally and legitimately vote Against: ie, Every candidate on the ballot. That’s what “None Of These Candidates” makes possible.
The people of Nevada have had the “None Of These Candidates” option on all ballots for all federal, state, and local elections since the early 70s. In 2016, #NOTC-NV16 took 28,863 votes. Clinton beat Trump in Nevada by 27,202 votes. while Libertarian Gary Johnson pulled in 37,384.
So who cost Trump Nevada in 2016, Johnson or NOTC? Well, obviously there is no way to really know that, but at least Nevadans had [and have] a clear and present Choice on election day besides and beyond what the Ruling Elite’s Political Class has deigned to give them. Instead of simply boycotting the election and manifesting their dissatisfaction with the whole circus that is American politics by being invisible and thus ignored, they had [and have] the option of telling all the candidates, their parties, and their owners and operators, the media, and anybody else who was paying attention: “Stick it in Your ear.” [Note: In 2020, NOTC-NV20 received 14,079 votes to Libertarian Jo Jorgeson’s 14,783; and Biden beat Trump by 33,596.]
Along with a Constitutional Amendment mandating a balanced annual Federal Budget, another one establishing Age and Term limits for All federal Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branch officials, and a third one very clearly specifying what Presidents can and cannot do without a formal Congressional Declaration of War [in other words, no more AUMFs], there also needs to be an Amendment that requires that “None Of These Candidates” be a choice like any other candidate on every ballot in every Federal Presidential, Senate, and House election.
If nothing else, the Libertarians of Georgia could serve as the vanguard, and the Empire State of the South could serve as the launch pad for a national initiative to get “None Of These Candidates” on the ballot of every State with 2022 Mid-Term Senate and House elections, and then every State for 2024’s elections for President and Congress. Even without a Constitutional Amendment.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if, in an election, “None Of These Candidates” actually got more votes than any other candidate?
###
pss:
Why a Vote for Either Trump or Biden Was a Vote for Fascism
0. The Argument, stated briefly:
That America now has an advanced proto-Fascist system of government and governance; that it has had that system for quite some time now; and that ~ given the current state of America as regards The COVID-19 Event, the Greater Recession, domestic Race, Ethnic, Class, Generational, Gender, and Sectarian relations; the national, sovereign Debt and looming “entitlements” programs bankruptcies; its economic, political, and military interactions with international allies and adversaries [real and imagined, as in “The Forever War”]; and the general public’s overall general dissatisfaction with and disapproval of how things are going in this country ~ that nobody going to Washington in January is going to change that. Any of it.
1. First of all, then: Has America had and does it now have an “advanced proto-Fascist system of government and governance”?
Consider first the following list of fourteen common features of Fascism exhibited by Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Tojo’s Japan, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. And then ask Yourself whether or not the ruling elite of the United States and its government with their wholly-owned and -operated politicians and bureaucrats [and media] exhibit any of the same characteristics:
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scape-goats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.
And i would add
15. Dependency on budget deficits, borrowing, and governmental debt [linked to #s 2, 4, 7, 9, and 13].
16. Political, economic, and military imperialism [linked to #s 1-4, 6-9, and 13].
17. Corruption and militarization of law and regulatory enforcement [linked to #s 2, 9, 10, 12, and 13].
18. Racism, ethnicism, xenophobism, sectarianism, ageism, and classism [linked to #s 1-3, 7, 8, 10, and 11].
19. Restrictions on or violations of freedoms of conscience, speech, press, assembly, and association [linked to #s 2, 3, 6,
and 9-11].
20. Violations of freedom From [as opposed to merely Of] religion [linked to #s 2, 5, and 8].
[Note: The full list of Numbers 1-14 with explanations is at the original article, “Fascism Anyone ???” by Laurence Brittby at https://secularhumanism.org/2003/03/f ascism-anyone/. Numbers 15-20 will be developed in a future rant.]
Given those 20 characteristics of classical, traditional, post-World War I-, World War II-, and Cold War I-epoch Fascism, it is easy to characterize The Age of Trump as “fascist.” But which of those characteristics were and are equally applicable as accurate descriptions of the Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Truman regimes? An easier question to answer would be which of those listed properties and attributes of Fascism were and are Not characteristic of those earlier administrations?
In fact, one can go all the way back to FDR and his New Deal to see Fascism in significant bloom in America, if not all the way back to Wilson, his Federal Reserve, Income Tax, and his “War to end all War and make the world safe for Democracy,” to say nothing of Wall Street and the nascent American proto-Empire fresh from its conquests in Hawai’i, China, the Philippines, and throughout Latin America.
In a word: None of this shit started with Trump.
All he is doing is picking up from where Obama left off and had prepared for him; which is what Obama did with and from Bush, and Bush from Clinton, and so forth back to the beginning. And Trump [and all his predecessors] could not have done any of all this without the willing and able abetting and assisting of and from those folks at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Congress of the United States, who have abdicated almost total power and authority to the White House in critical, core areas of Constitutional responsibility. Again, for quite some time now.
And THAT is why i maintain that a vote for either Trump or Biden was a vote for Fascism. It wasn’t a vote for 20th century Fascism [ala Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, etc], but for what various scholars have termed “Fascism with 21st century American characteristics,” “Fascism with an American Face,” “Participatory Fascism,” “Democratic Fascism,” “Friendly Fascism,” and, ultimately, just plain old “Good Fascism.” It was a vote for this brand of Fascism, as carried out and brought to maturity over the course of the last century by America’s politicians and bureaucrats and their owners and operators.
And there is nothing about a Biden Presidency and what he claims he would do if elected that will change any of that. Which of the 20 points listed above were absent from the Obama, Clinton, or Carter administrations, of which Biden was always an active player and participant, from Senator to Vice President? Which of the 20 points were absent during the Bush II, Bush I, Reagan, Ford, and second Nixon administrations, when he went from Junior to Senior Senator?
The only reason Biden is still in DC is because he apparently gets done what the people who own and operate him wanted and want done; just like anybody who survives more than one term of office there does and must do. So Joe Biden is one of the Ultimate. Perpetual SwampLanders [he and Alaska’s sole U.S. Representative Don Young were Freshmen together in 1973].
If he ends up being sent to the Oval Office, it is highly unlikely that he has been sent there to change anything that will re-direct the agenda or hamper the work of those he has worked for for almost 50 years.
2. AND ANOTHER THING… . That argument is based on how i am using the term “Fascism,” just as Your statement that “All I can think…so many voted for Fascism” is based on how You are using it.
Nowadays, when most folks [at least on the Left] use that term [or “fascist”], they are usually referring blanketly to somebody/anybody/ anything who disagrees with what they believe in, stand for, and are trying to accomplish, culturally, socially, economically, and especially politically. It’s the Left’s doppelganger for “socialism/socialist” [or “communism/communist”] that those on the Right use to describe those on the Left [and sometimes even in the Muddled Middle] who disagree with Them about what they’re up to. Used that way, “socialism/socialist,” “communism/communist,” and “fascism/fascist” are relatively useless terms.
But a little bit of what the ancient Confucians called “rectification” ~ the clarification of the meaning of words so that they best describe reality ~ shows that “socialism” and “fascism” are but two very similar systems for the centralization and concentration, the maintainment and sustainment, the perpetration, expansion, consolidation, and perpetuation of Power by one distinctively minority group of Humans over the masses of Others thru the machinations and manipulations of The State, and its executive, legislative, judicial, regulatory, and above all, its police functions and authorities. Specifically:
There is little difference in Principle between Socialism and Fascism; only in the specifics of organizational structures and operational systems, and their designated enemies.
In Socialism [and Communism], the government [more specifically, the “Party,” on behalf of “The People”] owns everything ~ all the public and private facilities, factors, and forces of production, distribution, and consumption ~ and has total control over all economic policy, procedures, and execution, from the national to the regional to the local economic activity level, and even to the individual level. The government is both prime producer and determiner of distribution and consumption. Its enemies are capitalists, corporatists, fascists, conservatives, neoconservatives and neoliberals, and anybody who disagrees with them; especially classical liberals, anarchists, and libertarians.
In Fascism, there is private [mostly corporate] ownership of business; and that is the only significant difference. The facilities, factors, and forces of production, distribution, and consumption are indeed under private, corporate ownership and day-to-day managerial control. However, it is still the government that dictates policy, procedure, and execution at all levels. And it is the government that is a ~ if not the ~ prime and primary customer. Fascism’s enemies are socialists, communists, syndicalists and unionists, liberals, proto- and neo-progressives, and anybody who disagrees with them; also especially classical liberals, anarchists, and libertarians.
The main difference between Socialism and Fascism is that in Fascism, the concepts of private ownership and, particularly, profit have not been abandoned, as in Socialism.
The similarities between the two are as follows:
a. Both systems place government in the business of meeting Human Needs and satisfying Human Wants, at the inevitable cost of violating Human Rights.
b. Both systems make extended use of state-of-the-art manipulation of the Needs and Wants of those they like to call “The People,”, and the obfuscation, suppression, and obliteration of those same folks’ Rights.
c. Both systems survive and thrive best in the presence of an “Other”: a real Enemy, or at least a credible Threat of one. And if they don’t have one, they are both very skilled at creating one.
d. Both systems are created, maintained, and sustained for the express purpose of giving Ruling Elites ~ real and/or woulda, coulda, shoulda been wannabes ~ ready access to Power [the ability to force another Human Being to do something, whether they want to or not], and Wealth [the ability to buy and sell Power at a profit].
So “Thar Ye Be,” as they put it in the Old Country. My primary sources for all this are as follows:
As We Go Marching, John T Flynn; Doubleday, 1944
FRIENDLY FASCISM: The New Face of Power in America, Bertram Gross; Black Rose Books, 1980
Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty, Jeffrey Tucker; Foundation for Economic Education, 2017
Fascism Old and New: American Politics at the Crossroads, Carl Boggs; Routledge, 2018
Did that answer Your question?
8:35 am on April 18, 2021
