L Neil Smith
"This morning, I heard a drooling idiot on the radio complain
that all these anti-gun bills passing in Colorado are the fault of
Libertarians, who somehow stole Republican votes enabling Democrats to
win.
"There is, of course, no such entitlement. No vote
"belongs" to a Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian until it's
cast. It has to be earned, and the Republicans, very largely, have failed
increasingly to do that little thing.
"In all honesty, I have to thank Republicans in the Colorado
leglislature for standing fast against the bullying of Colorado
Democrats, the ridiculous John Hickenlooper, the vile Barack Obama, and
the thoroughly repulsive Manny-Nanny Michael Bloomberg. They (the
Republicans) have surprised me and pleased me.
"But most Republicans continue in their valiant struggle to retain
the title bestowed upon them by the late columnist Sam Francis: "The
_Stupid_ Party". (He called the Democrats "The Evil
Party".) This Golden Oldie -- written 15 years ago in a two-year-old
_The Libertarian Enterprise_, is for them:
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 31, July 1, 1997
An Open Letter to Robert K.
Dornan
By L. Neil Smith
[email protected]
- Special to The Libertarian Enterprise
- A while ago, I wrote
a column suggesting to Libertarians that we adopt a strategy which, while
not altering our record at the polls appreciably, would force the kind of
change that was our reason for running candidates to begin with.
- I said we should
focus our party's meager resources on races where a Republican had won
the last election by 5% of the vote or less, and abandon every other
effort, including our costly and absurd Presidential candicacy. Winning
has always been beyond our grasp, but we're often able to take 5% of the
vote, meaning we can control such races, ensuring defeat of the
Republican incumbent.
- A few days later, to
my satisfaction, I saw a report that you were whining about Libertarian
candidates doing exactly that. You complained that seven Republicans in
'96 had lost elections to "flaming liberals" due to Libertarian
"spoilers".
- Music to my ears.
- "Why?", I
pretend to hear you asking. Don't Republicans and Libertarians basically
desire the same thing, politically? Aren't we fellow travellers, maybe
even allies, standing bravely, shoulder to shoulder, against the liberal
hordes?
- Not exactly, Bob.
Libertarians and Republicans are alike in that we both acknowledge --
unlike liberals -- that "There ain't no such thing as a free
lunch". Unlike Libertarians, however, Republicans aren't above
stealing one, as long as you can claim it's in aid of "national
security" or "public decency".
- Time and again,
especially over the last decade, while claiming to uphold individual
rights set forth by the Founders in the first ten Amendments to the
Constitution, you've found excuses to help the liberals -- whom you
revile as enemies of liberty on the campaign trail -- rip the
Constitution to bloody shreds. Instead of enforcing Bill of Rights as the
highest law of the land it was intended to be, you've helped the liberals
turn it into a sick, painful joke.
-
Take the patently unconstitutional
junk legislation crammed down American throats by Mr. and Mrs. Sarah
Brady, which would have died on the floor of congress without Republican
first aid. Take the illegal ban on semiautomatic weapons and high
capacity magazines conceived by William Bennett, and saved at the last
minute by Bob Dole -- betraying millions who voted for Republicans
specifically to stop it, and negating the very reason the Second
Amendment was written.
Take Utah's answer
to Pol Pot, Orrin Hatch, committing cultural genocide by making it
illegal to teach our kids to shoot. Take your party's repulsive yearning
to scrap the First Amendment with travesties like the
"Communications Decency Act" that Republicans vow to bring back
even though the Supreme Court -- for once -- did the right thing. Take
all the "stealth" or "Pearl Harbor" legislation your
party recently sneaked through, including a national identity card.
Take your party's
crazed insistence on continuing the infantile, corrupt, and unspeakably
destructive War on Drugs, which has done infinitely more harm to America
and American institutions and values than drugs themselves ever did.
On the other hand,
Bob, take your party's pathetic failure to reduce the oppressive tax
burden which is the only cause of the erosion of the American family you
whine about incessantly, and probably contributes to alcoholism and child
abuse as well. Take your failure to eliminate the merest fraction of the
regulations or the 11 million laws under the weight of which Americans
stagger.
Take your
contemptible failure to prosecute the animals responsible for Ruby Ridge,
Waco, and elsewhere, and send them to prison or the gas chamber where
they belong, allowing them instead to be awarded medals for
"valor", and -- again, the Orrin Hatch seal of Cambodian
approval -- doubling their agency appropriations.
More generally, take
your party's failure to do the nation's real business -- enforcing the
Bill of Rights -- indulging instead in its sick obsession with denying
women control of their own bodies, supporting a senile old judge who
posts religious material in a court of law, whimpering over females in a
military that's only used these days to deliver international welfare
checks anyway, forcing the terminally ill to die in agony so as not to
offend your sadistic prejudices, or persecuting those whose sexual
preference differs from yours.
Now you
tell me: do Republicans and Libertarians desire the same thing? Are we
fellow travellers standing shoulder to shoulder? Or, in terms of what
America's all about, is there no discernable difference between Socialist
Party A, the Donkey Boys, and Socialist Party B, the Elephant Men? Aren't
you just the little gang of vicious collectivist thugs we can do
something about before we're strong enough to take on the big gang of
vicious collectivist thugs?
Republicans I know
are upset with me because of my plan. In every case I have one thing to
say: prove me wrong. Show me some brains, some decency, some guts.
Prosecute the murderers of Ruby Ridge
and Waco and abolish their evil bureaucracies.
Repeal every
regulation that encroaches on mandates of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Reexamine the very
concept of taxation. What does it tell a nation's children when its
government is financed by theft, extortion, and mindless brutality?
End the War against
the American people you call the War on Drugs. Get rid of everything --
like RICO -- that would make the Founding Fathers spit on those of you
who passed it into law, those who enfoce it, and those who uphold it.
Repeal every item of
the "stealth" legislation your party passed in the last two
sessions of congress, and then start in on everything you stupidly,
pusillanimously, and corruptly let the liberals get away with for the
last 75 years.
Defend the First
Amendment on the internet. Extend it now to radio and television.
Expel Hatch, Dole,
and their ilk from the GOP. I can provide you with a list.
Repeal every
federal, state, and local weapons law, not one of which is
constitutional.
Impeach Clinton.
In short, Bob,
enforce the Bill of Rights. It's your duty, get it?
You swore solemly to do it. Why not start now? Don't hand me any crap
about how you can't all at once, or these things take time, or "The
perfect is the enemy of the good." I'm a child of the 60s, veteran
of the antiwar years, I remember the civil rights movement, and I've
heard it all before. In my experience, there'd never be any good if it
wasn't for those of us who insist on the perfect.
Bob, it isn't up to
us Libertarians whether we take enough votes from you to wreck your
majority and even destroy your party. Just be better than we are on the
issues that truly count, and nobody will want -- or need -- to vote for
us.
They'll vote for
you, instead.
Hey, Bob, it's
entirely up to you.
L. Neil Smith is the award-winning author of The Probability Broach,
Pallas, Henry Martyn, and Bretta Martyn forthcoming in August of of 1997.
Look for his works at Amazon.com Books
http://www.amazon.com or give
Laissez Faire Books a toll-free phone
call at 1-800-326-0996
- A Juror's Creed: As an American juror, I will exercise my 1000 year
old duty to arrive at a verdict, not just on the basis of the facts of a
particular case or instructions I am given, but through my ability to
reason, my knowledge of the Bill of Rights, and my individual conscience.
- -- L. Neil Smith
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970701-02.html
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