Free Marriage

The Idaho state legislature is going to give a go at, and likely succeed in making marriage be a government defined contract between a man and a woman AND making sure that those damn fagots can't see each other in hospital rooms or enter into insurance contracts together or any other legal blessings we ideal couples enjoy.

My initial reaction was that I want to create Idahoans For Marital Purity (IMP). This organization should hold a meeting or two and write lots of letters to the editor. We in the IMP group need to help further refine the concept of what a government allowable marriage should be. Immature children should not be marrying, so we need to push to make sure both parties are at least 21, but 25 would be much better... perhaps 21-25 with parental permission.

Then, since marriage is sanctified by GOD for procreation, nobody over, say 65 should get married, cuz what's the point? We might even push to make sure they are of the same race, or their skin tone is within an acceptable color range.

Meanwhile, with the purity police working that side of things, the Libertarians ought to counter them step-for-step. About the time the debate hits the state house, we can arrange a public debate, on radio or TV with the IMP vs the IDLP.

Now that I've had all day to think about this, I still like the idea. The gay-bashing succeeded in (I think) 11 states on election day. It has a very good chance here. I think we can stop it. I want to try. What we need most, to get started, is a leader for IMP ... and a member or two...

- Ted Dunlap

2006 national LP Convention

Portland, Oregon has been selected by the LNC as the site of the Libertarian Party's 2006 convention. The date has yet to be selected but will be late June or early July.

The Idaho LP has secured 5 seats already, based on the votes Michael Badnarik received from our voters. The remaining fraction (typically the larger one) of our delagate allocation will be determined by the number of members we have relative to the rest of the Libertarian Party of the USA.

This is a great opportunity for many of us to participate on a national level as Portland is a reasonable drive from nearly anywhere in Idaho, making this the most affordable national convention for us in...perhaps ever.

Ted Dunlap

P.S. The allocation of delegates according to our national bylaws:

Each affiliate party shall be entitled to send delegates to each Regular Convention on the following basis:

One delegate for each 0.1 percent, or fraction thereof, of the total Party membership in that affiliate; provided that at least one such delegate must be a resident of that State or District.

One delegate for each 0.25 percent, or fraction thereof, of the votes cast nationwide for the Libertarian Party candidate in the most recent presidential election, cast in that affiliate's state.

Civil War - Learning the correct lesson

Inspired by an essay using the popular ficticious version of Civil War history, I submit some less-publicised facts - and supporting bibliography

When asked if history would be kind to him, Winston Churchill responded, "Of course, because I will write it". Similarly, the "popular" history of the USA's "Civil War" has been very good to Lincoln and his friends.

Until recent books "The Real Lincoln" and "When In The Course of Human Events", a more accurate history has taken quite a bit of work to ferret out. Both books have extensive bibliographies proving that the evidence has been around, but ignored by too many of us. Anyone wanting to learn from history or use it as an example, should make some effort to insure 'their history' is accurate.

Regarding what is also known as "The War of Northern Aggression", there are numerous facts that have been inconvenient to the history taught by our government schools. Among them:

Lincoln freed no slaves in the USA, but only those slaves in the Confederacy, in hopes a slave revolt against the women, children and old white people left behind would destroy the south and its ability to fight.

Lincoln's plans for dealing with slaves all involved sending them away; the destination varied but included Liberia, Haiti, Central America and Africa (generically).

In Lincoln's state of Illinois, it was illegal to be even part negro.

Slavery, that had existed for over the preceeding 3,000 years was peacefully eliminated throughout most of the world between 1813 and 1860.

The monetary cost of Lincoln's war could easily have bought the freedom of every slave at current market rates AND provided each with 40 acres and a mule (a promise repeated made to the slaves during the war and to secure their Republican votes after the war, that was never kept).

The South legally withdrew from the Union because the more populous north created high tarriffs on exported goods that were the lifeblood of the agrarian South and high import duties on manufactured goods that competed with northern producers. The result being the south paid for the canals and railroads the federal government built almost exclusively in the north.

The so-called incompetent generals Lincoln replaced stubbornly insisted on fighting according to what was then the accepted standards of conduct.

The "competent" northern generals Lincoln finally found to win the war his way killed combatants and non-combatants alike, destroyed homes, barns, livestock and crops as a uniform policy - consciously leaving the conquered people to starve and die of exposure in the coming winter.

They shelled and burned to the ground occupied southern cities without allowing evacuation first...all according to Lincoln's specific instructions.

The horrors of Sherman's March to the Sea should be read by everyone who wants to claim any knowledge of our so-called Civil War.

Robert E. Lee later regretted his surrender. He and many of his troops would, in retrospect, have preferred to fight to the last man rather than live to see the abuse of the victors.

I suppose much of this is common knowlege in the old south. To me, raised in the West with the government-approved version of our Civil War history, Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln" and Charles Adams' "When In The Course Of Human Events" were shocking as well as enlightening.

I strongly encourage you to read them.

Ted Dunlap
Chairman, Idaho LP

Libertarian Future Prospects

...for full text, check our links section to Lew Rockwell...

The libertarian tradition stretches from the ancient world through the middle ages to our own day. But I do think we are living through a high point in intellectual development and recruitment. The body of theoretical work is vast and the intellectuals are hardened and ready for battle. The web and blogosphere give us the means to compete in the world of ideas as never before.

There is no sure blueprint for success other than for libertarians to do what each individually does best, whether that means teaching students, organizing antiwar rallies, writing large books on technical economic topics, or tirelessly managing a compelling blog.

I'm wary of all formal alliances but I do think libertarians need to be strategically flexible and entrepreneurial in finding intellectual allies, even if it means admitting that far better arguments are being made by CounterPunch than National Review.

What desperately needs to be rethought is this tendency of libertarians to avert their eyes from the reality of what's going on at places like National Review. Their main dishes consist of calling for ever more war, approving the killing of civilians, backing the surveillance state, and even torture. Libertarians have traditionally provided the side dishes that call for petty deregulatory measures and tax cuts. This really must stop.

The libertarian revolution will come when we least expect it, and it will unfold in a way we cannot fully anticipate. In the mid 1980s, everyone assumed that the Soviet empire would last forever. Five years later, it was gone without a trace. So too, the expectation of eternal world rule by Washington, DC, could evaporate very quickly.

U.S. Congress VS Michael Schiavo

Few people babbling on this topic KNOW much about it. I don't KNOW much about it either, but I used to wonder why her husband couldn't get a divorce and turn Terri's care over to her parents who obviously wanted it. Then he turned down $1,000,000 if he would do just that. Whoah! There's something else going on here, methinks.

Now I mentally put myself or my wife on that slab - we, by the way, are quite happy together, very much in love and anticipating many years in that delightful state. Both of us KNOW that neither would want to live absent movement, communication and the stimulus that is life.

You try laying in bed staring at the ceiling, and I mean doing absolutely nothing else, for 24 hours. No talking. No reading. No eating. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Not too bad. Okay, now keep it up for 72 hours. Starting to go crazy yet? Now imagine doing that for 87,600 hours - one long minute at a time. You'd darn sure want someone who loves you to put an end to that torture.

I KNOW I would. I could only hope that the person fighting for me would have the fortitude and perseverance to withstand the immense social, political and economic pressures that have been placed on Michael Schiavo.

I also KNOW this is not the business of a Congress, President or federal court system defined by the United States Constitution.

Ted Dunlap

Congressional Pork

According to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the 2005 Consolidated Omnibus Spending Bill contains 11,732 earmarks at a total cost of $15.8 billion. That's a 48% increase in the number of earmarks, and a 48% increase in earmark spending.

The outrage among fiscal conservatives is widespread. The editorials are everywhere. Yet it is not showing up on CBS, Fox or anywhere the masses look. How are we going to stop this?

Ted Dunlap