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The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

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SCANDAL EXCITEMENT REACHES FEVER PITCH (SNORE)

I hope I won’t be kicked bodily out of the journalistic fraternity if I pass up this “last opportunity” to weigh in on all the latest electoral “scandals” before Election Day -- carefully crafting my “objective analysis” to regretfully reach the conclusion (I can feel myself starting to tear up just thinking about it, so manfully must I fight off this spirit of sadness) that “their guys” are a bunch of cynical crooks, and the voters thus have no real choice but to vote for “my guys.”

In fact, because anyone who wants to seize an ever-larger part of your paycheck to fund his or her pet schemes to regulate our lives is not “my guy,” I find I have fewer and fewer “guys” in the race with each passing year.

Yes, you can vote Libertarian or Independent American. With different emphases, both parties are mostly serious about smaller, constitutional government. For this very reason, neither corporations nor labor unions nor Gaia worshippers seeking to impose their will through government coercion will endorse or fund such “minor party” candidates, so they will all lose, as usual. But at least you’ll have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you didn’t actually authorize the next gang of thugs to run roughshod over our God-given liberties.

The other option, of course, is to not participate. The old chestnut is that if you don’t vote you have no right to complain about the outcome. Actually, the opposite is true. By voting, you tacitly acknowledge that the questions at issue can be rightfully decided by majority vote, and you tacitly agree to peaceably abide by -- even honor and enforce -- the result.

Would you take part in a vote to outlaw one particular Christian denomination, say, or to burn all left-handers or tobacco smokers at the stake? Hopefully you would realize that no such edict could be tolerated, even if it was approved 99-to-1 (let alone 51-49), and that the correct answer would be to loudly object to any such proceedings, not to participate and wring your hands.

You’ll note that when fewer than 40 percent of eligible voters participated in a plebiscite in the former Yugoslavia a few years back, the United Nations declared the results invalid: no mandate. Protesting by “failing to show up” can indeed have results. Calling this “apathy” is like saying German Jews were “apathetic” about attending Nazi torchlight parades.

I placed “scandals” in quotation marks above not because politicians don’t behave scandalously, but because we all know these revelations of business-as-usual greed, corruption and just plain stupidity, hyped up to seem like life-and-death affairs today, will hardly merit a footnote come January. (Is anyone concerned today that Brian Krolicki’s reputable primary opponent is supposedly a “pornographer”? Does anyone even hold it against him that he said so? It was just to manipulate the rubes: No harm no foul.)

The real scandal is revealed when you ask any of these politicians you see squabbling on TV this week if they acknowledge any limit to how high they can raise our taxes, or how many of the world’s problems they can try to solve with a government “program” -- up to and including an attempt to limit the infinitessimal current “global warming” that might allow us to grow more food, caused primarily by the ineluctable behavior of the world’s volcanoes and ocean algae, by crippling the western economies while allowing China and India to continue pouring out soot (oh, great, now “soot redistribution!”), just at the time when climatologists tell us we’re actually due for another ice age.

The only reason they won’t say “No” is that they don’t understand the question: How could there be any “limit” on the wonderful things government might attempt, or on how much of our money it might cost them to try?

In the past 70 years these well-groomed nincompoops have abandoned the very idea of America: a government of sharply limited powers, specifically listed.

For the record, if you insist on going through the largely fruitless ritual: Independent American Party (not my party) candidate Mark Andrews is the most reputable and capable candidate for state treasurer. Really.

Of the four candidates for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District seat (two of whom are much nicer people than you’d think from all those TV ads, but also much less likely to protect your rights), powerhouse schoolteacher Joe Silvestri, a Libertarian, would be the most plainspoken and morally rigorous congressman -- the only one likely to take the oath of office and mean it.

Those “powers-that-be” that you folks are always moaning about are starting to shake in their boots that former District Judge Don Chairez, a Republican who has never been for sale, may get elected state attorney general. I’m not sure why. Is corruption such a habit they can’t imagine having to go cold turkey? It’ll be OK, boys, really.

With his winning ways and conservative platform, Dean Heller could be both our next congressman and our next senator. His opponent, Jill Derby, wants Massachusetts-style government-mandated health insurance for all, and subsidies for windmills instead of drilling more oil. She favors the death tax because it prevents “a concentration of wealth.”

Radio guy Lou Epton, an Independent American who was not considered for a Review-Journal endorsement because he failed to return our phone calls, is a fine fellow of good character who would be a breath of fresh air as a District 18 assemblyman -- and this is one district where “just voting for your regular party” might win you the booby prize.

The low esteem in which I hold our “What fig leaf can we dream up to advance the cause of big government today?” state Supreme Court is no secret, but the only two incumbents you have a chance to remove this year are Michael Douglas and Nancy Becker.

Clark County Sheriff candidate Doug Gillespie tells me he has no problem with his officers continuing to get off scot free after shooting unarmed citizens merely by reporting they “thought they saw a furtive movement toward the waistband,” because “That’s the standard the courts have set.” Undersheriff Gillespie also drew an “F” rating from the National Rifle Association for vowing to seize all our firearms, first thing, in any emergency. (His opponent, gun collector and millionaire helicopter entrepreneur Jerry Airola, got an “A.” This is hard?)

Questions number 2 (Property Rights) and 3 (Tax and Spending Control) deserve “Yes” votes, though the state Supreme Court has decided you won’t be allowed to vote on Question 3 at all. (Starting to get the picture?) Questions 4 and 5 are both steps toward tobacco prohibition, which would work out about as well as alcohol Prohibition. If voters reject both, neither will be imposed, no matter what you’ve been told. Business owners have a right to go “no smoking” -- or to set aside “non-smoking areas” -- right now, if they so choose, and the tourists still come in droves. Why mess with that?

Question 6 would outlaw the jobs of anyone earning less than $6.15 an hour, unless they work for union companies, in which case they could be paid $5.15 per hour. Why would you want to outlaw some jobs for kids just trying to get a start, but allow union shops to pay a dollar less? Is that now the official goal of our labor unions -- forced unionization with lower pay for kids, especially minority kids, who have the highest unemployment rates already?


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