libertariansforamerica.blogs.com/index -> libertariansforamerica.blogs.com/index/
Democratic Freedom Building the bridge between liberals and libertarians within the DemocraticParty. Wednesday, November 17, 2004 Plausible Expectations How libertarian can we expect Democrats to be, at least in the short term , given the current make up of the party. I don't expect that we'll hav e any Democrats that share the same views as Badnarik running in 2006, b ut at the very least what's some reasonable and plausible expectations. We already are seeing Democrats back away from the gun control issue. Tw o strategies appear before the Democrats, the first is to try to shift t o the center on these moral issues and neutralize that threat, the other is to try to use wedge issues to break the Republican coalition of trad itionalists and libertarians and win over the libertarians. But say a Democrat holds the following positions: Gun control and gay marriage are strictly issues for the states. Educati on policy also should be devolved back to the states and we no longer sh ould be trying to set national standards for everything from school pray er to testing. Supports Roe v Wade, which allows for some state regula tion of abortion, not national regulation like the partial birth abortio n ban. Reform the War on Drugs, particularly the as pects that continue to punish nonviolent felons by taking away their vot ing rights after they have served time. En d Plan Columbia and our anti-opium operations in Afghanistan. Wants to balance budgets, reduce trade barriers, and cut subsidies. In f act, has an aggressive stance against corporate welfare, going as far as to advocate abolishing the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, Agr iculture, and Energy. But what if they also supported saving Social Security through traditiona l means, not privatization? What if they were a strong environmentalist , expressing belief in global warming caused by humans and a need to do something. What if they supported an expansion of AmeriCorps and other national service programs? What if they expressed concern about GMOs an d wanted labeling of the products? What if they didn't want to change M edicare and Medicaid except to expand it.
gem from 2001: Former Senator Spencer Abraham, the nominee for Secretary of Energy, has come under fire for having been an advocate of eliminating the Departm ent of Energy (DOE). Fortunately for him, this position is unlikely t o hurt him with his former Senate colleagues, for the simple reason tha t many of them also advocated this position. It's still around if you ask me, maybe that's just because I'm living in a reality based world.
TrackBack Tuesday, November 16, 2004 Education and State? Many libertarians and social conservatives believe this relationship is a nalogous to the separation of church of state and that government should not be involved on how our children are schooled. Though I do believe that the parent should be the ultimate decision maker when it comes to their children's education, the state does have a resp onsibility to educate its citizens Anti-libertarian?
Check this site to see what Jefferson had to say ab out Ed. and State The ability to think critically is essential to a self governing populace . Saying that, I do think that there is no place for the federal government in education. We have a Department of Education that spends billions educates no one We have "No children left behind", but it has left many school system sc ratching their heads trying to figure out what is expected of them. of Ed in the late 1970S, scores and the quality of education has worsened. During the next 2-4 years, the Democratic Party has a golden opportunity to propose education reform that will bring accountability of our school s back to state and local control. If the Dems take the Repubs to the m at on this, it will go a long way in the eyes of many of those independe nt voters that are wary of Republican education "reform". In my opinion, local and state control of schools will have a better idea on how to educate their children than Washington DC Parents should b e able to change schools they deem is unfit, not a funky formula some bu reaucrat created to determine school "fitness". Like to thank Logan for the opportun ity to post and will be posting more on the subject of the social safety net in the future.
Cato has an article predicting that a second term for Bush means good things for trade. A major test of a second Bush administration's commitment to the Doha Ro und will be how it handles re-authorization of the farm bill, which is due in 2006. Bush signed a huge increase in US farm subsidies in 2002 , but a successful WTO round will be unthinkable unless he is willing t o impose discipline on a more pro-subsidy Congress this time around. The administration should also work aggressively with Congress to enact the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which has already been signe d Bush trade officials need to negotiate bilateral and regional agreem ents with Thailand, the Andean countries of South America, and South Af rica and its neighbors. Some Republican members of Congress want a free trade agreement with Taiwan, but such an agreement is unlikely given t he sensitivities that would provoke with China. I certainly am not as optimistic as Cato is about Bush fighting against t he reauthorization of the farm bill in 2006. Passage of CAFTA would be interesting as it would continue the integration of the United States wi th the rest of the Western hemisphere. Combined with the integration of Europe, the collapse of relations between the two Atlantic powers, and the continuation of Latino immigration the result would be a United Stat es even more focused on the Americas and less caring about the concerns of Europe.
But it's far less than the Free Trade Area of the Americ as that Bush was talking about back in 2000. As for the other potential trade agreements, this is the sort of thing that would be acceptable if Bush had just entered into office.
This isn't a slight to the people of Iowa - they deserve a strong voice i n the process, but to be fair, so do people from my home state of New Je rsey, which is last in the nation when primary season rolls around. Let' s put aside our paternalistic pandering to the first-in-the-nation state s, and pay attention to everyone who wishes to take part in the Democrat ic primaries. And while we're at it, we can restore some balance to the heavy farm subs idies that are soaking up federal funds, while antagonizing developing n ations that would otherwise open themselves to trade.
implores the President to act, but seriously : who in their right mind would turn down politically-expedient governme nt spending? Not the GOP, and frankly not the traditional DNC either. If we could get some Democratic candidates to su rvive primary seasion without trotting out the (expensive) party line on the ethanol subsidy, then there's a chance, right? We could actually ha ve that discussion: how to make American farmers independent and competi tive again.
Vilsack is from Iow a, and might benefit from the power of an Iowa Caucus, which takes place in Iowa. Hint: one of these potential DNC Chairmen will lead to reform.
TrackBack Organization and Activism First off, make sure you scroll down to see the post by Greg Costikyan. The co-bloggers right now are junior authors that need to get their post s approved by me, and because of timing they may rarely show up as older posts.
DFC has a mailing list that you are encouraged to join As a group we agree on just about every social issue as it pertains gay rights, civil liberties, etc. However, it seems that we are caught in an ideological catch 22 when it comes to taxes or state sponsored socia l programs. The real ideological enemy is the current neo-cons War on Terror. This is a vehicle that many of our civil rights will be comprom ised. When it comes to what should be the DFC priority and strategy, C ivil rights, a balanced federal budget, and a more defensive foreign policy should take center stage. This is the face we should introduce ourselves to the rest of the Democrat party. Otherwise we are just a club of grumpy libertarians :) This is,...
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