This is a writing from Dr Mary Ruwart, Libertarian Presidential Primary Candidate.
This is a little lengthy, but very well written. Enjoy.
THE LIBERTARIAN
Number 468, May 18, 2008
"Terrorism is the price a nation pays for having an empire"
Do You Believe in
by Dr. Mary Ruwart
ruwart@theAdvocates
In just a few weeks, the Libertarian Party's national convention
delegates will choose our party's 2008 presidential nominee,
who will become our de facto leader and public face of the party
for the next four years. Will wechoose wisely? Will we choose
someone who believes in liberty?
When I first ran as a Libertarian candidate for public office in the early
1980s, many of our positions were very unpopular. For example, our call to
end the drug war was considered by many to be an endorsement of drug usage
and addiction. Because we didn't see the War on Drugs as a solution to the
drug problem, people automatically assumed that we condoned the problem
itself. They supported the War on Drugs because they thought that a ban on
them would keep drugs out of the schools.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The black-market profits
created by drug prohibition virtually guaranteed that pushers would target
our children. Although alcohol and tobacco have been consistently illegal
for minors, students had a much harder time getting drinks and smokes than
purchasing crack cocaine or heroin. The best reason for doing away with the
War on Drugs was to protect our children, even though most Americans thought
just the opposite was true.
These days, even many law enforcement officials support an end to drug
prohibition (www.leap.cc)
overnight, but was largely brought about by courageous Libertarian
candidates who were willing to teach the American public about the benefits
of liberty, even as they were "slimed" by the media. I am proud to be
counted among those candidates, proud to be saving lives and protecting our
children. More recently, banning guns has become the cause du jour to "save
the children." Because libertarians don't see gun bans as a solution to
violent crime, some people automatically assumed that we were content to see
children die in gun accidents and school shootings. The American people
supported gun bans because of their mistaken impression that they were
saving the children.
Consequently, when courageous Libertarian candidates called for an end to
these bans, they were often scorned and ridiculed. Studies now show that
permitting peaceful citizens to carry concealed firearms lowers the homicide
rate. For every life saved by gun bans, 400 lives are lost to predators who
would have otherwise been stopped by their armed victims, usually without a
shot fired.
Women, people of color, and children make up a disproportionate number of
these 400 lives, since, once disarmed, they are much more vulnerable to
attack. The fabled Gun Free School Zones are, in reality, prime targets for
rampage shooters, because the teachers have been disarmed. The best reason
for doing away with bans on firearms is to save the lives of our children,
even though many Americans think that just the opposite is true.
For years, myself and other libertarian candidates have pointed out that
"when guns are banned, only criminals will have guns." The shift in popular
perception has come about primarily because courageous Libertarian
candidates are willing to teach the American public about the benefits of
liberty, even at the cost of being "slimed" by the media. I am proud to be
counted among those candidates, proud to be saving lives, especially the
lives of our children.
Today, other bans, such as the ones against child pornography, are touted as
panaceas to "save the children." Like drug prohibition and the ban on
firearms, these bans backfire, harming the very innocents they are intended
to help. Anyone who believes in liberty can see the pattern. Bans and
prohibitions drive vices underground, where participants have no legal
recourse when they experience exploitation.
Bans make criminals out of 17-year-olds having consensual sex with
15-year-olds, because the younger partner is presumed too immature to make
an informed decision. These draconian laws destroy the lives of our young
people by making them carry the label of "sex offender" for the rest of
their lives. Yet as late as the last century, it was not at all unusual for
American boys and girls to marry and start families in their early teens!
Bans based on arbitrary age limits aren't needed to protect those too young
to make informed decisions about sexual conduct. Pre-pubescent children, for
example, don't have the physical or emotional maturity to even understand
what sex is all about. When an adult engages in sexual conduct with a young
child, we don't need a law specifying an age limit in order to convict those
adults of rape. All we need to do is show a jury that the child wasn't
competent to consent.
These kinds of age-based bans put prosecutors and regulators in charge of a
weapon that can be used against those whose views aren't politically
correct. One of my fellow contenders for the LP presidential nomination,
Steve Kubby, has had devastating first-hand experience with this fallout.
Mr. Kubby's efforts were instrumental in passing Proposition 215, which
removed the ban against medical marijuana in
the story of Mr. Kubby's subsequent life-threatening incarceration for the
crime of passing a law disliked by the police, his move to
heroic return (www.kubby2008.
court action that would clear him, his wife, Michelle, was told that their
children would be taken away and placed into permanent foster care if Steve
lived with them and used medical marijuana.
It didn't matter that several doctors in two countries have confirmed that
Steve has a "life and death medical necessity" to use medical marijuana; the
courts, which are part of the same government apparatus that prosecuted
Steve, routinely favor purported evidence presented by "child protection"
officials over testimony from physicians and other real experts.
Michelle did the only thing she could reasonably be expected to do; she
began divorce proceedings against the love of her life while he languished
in prison. Although his girls still spend holidays with him, and while they
talk by phone twice a week, Steve Kubby's biggest heartbreak in life is that
he doesn't get to kiss his two children good night each evening. He isn't
there to hold them when they hurt. He isn't there to look into their eyes
and hear them whisper, "Papa, I love you."
Meanwhile, another fellow presidential contender, Wayne Allyn Root, reaps
all the rewards of parenthood. He talks about the joys his four children
bring to him in virtually every speech he gives. Mr. Root supports bans on
vices ([link])-at least the vices he doesn't engage in for a living. He
supports the very laws that empowered the state to take Mr. Kubby's children
from him to punish him for believing in liberty. In fact, when I told Steve
I wanted to discuss his situation, he agreed-provided I not name the agency
that threatened his family, under orders of his attorneys, who still are
concerned about reprisals against Steve for his role in legalizing the
medical use of marijuana.
Mr. Root is new to the LP; he doesn't understand how liberty works because
he hasn't done his homework. He doesn't understand the hidden dangers in
government's monopoly on force; he scorns the notion that justice is best
served when we have competition in everything, including courts, police, and
national defense. He calls such competition "anarchy;" I call it "freedom
from government oppression." Had Mr. Root walked in Steve Kubby's shoes and
had his children ripped from his arms, he might consider more carefully the
unintended consequences of bans and prohibitions.
Instead, as Mr. Root freely admits, he reacts emotionally to the
superstitious belief that passing a law "makes it so." He doesn't understand
how private courts work, and so assumes-wrongly-
couldn't easily press charges. In fact, the opposite is true. Prosecution by
government requires that a victim or the victim's advocate persuade the
prosecutor to take on their case; if that person refuses, there is no
recourse. In a system of private courts, no such bottlenecks exist. You may
win or lose, but you will have your day in court.
Mr. Root could have asked me for clarification of my positions and I would
have gladly given it to him. In spite of repeated efforts by phone and
e-mail to persuade me to drop my presidential bid and run in coordination
with him for VP, Mr. Root did not ask me to enlighten him on my views. I can
only assume that truth doesn't matter to him-or at least that it doesn't
matter as much as the prospect of getting rid of a competitor does.
Mr. Root concludes his latest press release with this question: "No matter
how one might attempt to present the position, do you believe we will grow
the Libertarian Party, or damage it, by promoting the removal of the
age-of-consent laws or any other laws that the vast majority of Americans
believe protect innocent children from adults who would sexually exploit
them?"
For the record, I have never "promoted" the removal of the age-of-consent
laws. I discussed the issue ten years ago in a book written to help
libertarians deal with some of the tough questions we get. It is Wayne Allyn
Root, not I, who has made these issues campaign centerpieces-
me in writing that he wanted the issue to go away and wasn't responsible for
earlier statements made by his campaign manager or the posting on his web
site asking me to withdraw from the presidential race.
Do we want a presidential candidate who highlights issues he himself says
are damaging to our party... if he thinks he can use those issues to drum an
opponent out of the race? Do we want a presidential nominee who won't take
responsibility for his own campaign's actions and statements?
We have always been able to grow the Party and get millions of votes. The
choice has always been ours; all we've ever needed to do was sell out. All
we've ever needed to do is denounce liberty so that we could avoid scorn and
ridicule. All that has ever been required of us is that we stop being the
Party of Principle and become the Party of Expediency. All we've ever needed
to do was stop telling the truth to the American people, stop trying to help
them understand the price they pay when they fall for statist propaganda.
All that was ever needed was to support bans that harm our children, but
give us the illusion of protecting them.
If I and other Libertarian candidates had taken this path years ago, the
Libertarian Party might be bigger and more popular than it is today. In all
likelihood, however, discussions about doing away with the War on Drugs or
getting rid of gun bans wouldn't be part of the agenda. If we hadn't talked
about liberty when it was unpopular to do so, Ron Paul wouldn't have been so
well received in his grassroots presidential campaign. Instead, we would be
talking about protecting and enriching ourselves, and sacrificing our
children on the altar of appearance to do so.
Is that the kind of future we want for the LP? If so, we have several
candidates ready and willing to take us down the path of least resistance.
Wayne Allyn Root isn't the only "establishment-
not the only one who wants to keep the truth from the American people, to
soft-sell our message, to denounce our most cherished values in order to
make ourselves look "mainstream.
sacrifice our children so that we can have the illusion of heroism without
the substance.
I'm not interested in that kind of future for our party. If we really care
about the children, then we'll tell the truth about liberty until the
American public hears us instead of selling out for fifteen minutes on Fox
News and the occasional mention in Jay Leno's monologue.
For decades, Libertarians like Steve Kubby and I have told the truth about
liberty. We've held our party's beliefs high instead of hiding like cowards
behind
or ridicule. Mr. Kubby has put his life, his fortune, and his family on the
line for liberty-and because he did so, his fellow Californians and
Americans in several other states now have access to a healing plant that
relieves their suffering. If my fate is to take some slings and arrows from
my fellow presidential hopefuls, the price I pay for speaking the truth of
liberty is indeed small.
I'm not about to start lying to my fellow Americans now, not after all these
years of telling the truth, not after seeing Ron Paul inspire so many people
with an uncompromising message of freedom. 2008 is a year for us to strike
while the iron is hot-to stand on our record of speaking truth to power.
We were right on the war on drugs-and now that fact is almost universally
acknowledged. Around the country, states are legalizing medical marijuana,
cities are telling their police forces to go after real criminals instead of
drug users, and the masses are revolting against a "justice" system that now
imprisons more people than any other nation on earth, mostly for victimless
"crimes."
We were right to stand firm against victim disarmament-
correctness of our stand has been proven on
our courageous minority stand is quickly becoming the conventional wisdom.
We're right to stand up for a non-interventionist foreign policy and against
the war on
We're right to stand up for getting the market back into health care and the
government out of it. The American people were with us when "Hillary care"
was proposed in the 1990s-and will be once again.
And yes, when the issue is discussed, we are right to stand up against the
arbitrary and capricious age of consent laws that make our young men and
women into "criminals" while saving not a single child from rape or
molestation. I don't see that issue as a major presidential campaign theme,
but if Wayne Allyn Root or anyone else expects me to sacrifice liberty,
truth and our children to public relations considerations, think again. It's
not going to happen.
Do you believe in liberty enough to join me?
Our national convention in
the Party. Will we remain the Party of Principle or will we sell out for a
few more votes and a few more television shows? Will we stop telling the
American people about liberty in the vain hope of gaining a bit of fleeting
popularity for ourselves?
Do you believe in liberty? If so, now is the time to show it!
Two sites are devoted to Mary Ruwart's campaign for the LP nomination:
www.votemary2008.
Viva Liberty!
No comments:
Post a Comment