“My” site, if you can call it that, would be:

http://www.OutrightLibertarians.org

I just mentioned ISIL’s video, because it shows how life, liberty, and property are all inextricably linked, just as I think liberty and equality under the law are. Hence the tagline I gave to our web designer for the Outright website: “From Liberty Springs Equality.”

Admittedly, there’s some debate on our national committee about this tagline. (In fact, it was one of those who doesn’t like the tagline who sent me the link to this blog entry.) But until we come up with something that rolls off of the tongue as nicely (and ties in so well with our logo of the rainbow springing from Lady Liberty’s torch), we’re probably going to stick with it. I don’t think anyone who knows anything about Libertarians will mistake the word “Equality” to mean equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. Though I’m starting to doubt it, I at least hope that this is what LCR means when they use the word.

I checked out Rob’s site and there is this statement: “If…you prefer the US to strike its enemies down BEFORE they actually do something against us) then you are probably not a libertarian.”

Saddam did a lot against the U.S. and the world; so in reality, the statement would not apply to the Iraq war

But having said that, it sounds like it was meant to apply, or as code-speak for saying that to be a libertarian, I have to be against the Iraq war. In which case, I’m pretty definitely not a libertarian!!! LOL

But I sort of knew that already.

A) The difference isn’t that marked — plus the usual infighting between more-conservative and more-moderate Republicans.

B) I made my views on the matter abundantly clear.

C) Depends on what one defines as “excess”. As I’ve mentioned, there are perfectly-rational reasons for prescription drug coverage and No Child Left Behind; the former because judicious use of prescription drugs cuts down on hospitalization expenses and the latter because liberal states like California keep turning out sub-par students as the price of satisfying teachers’ unions built to shield incompetents.

D) (wink)

In fact, just as I think libertarians should reclaim the term “liberal” from the left, we need to reclaim the word “equality” from the LGBT left. There’s nothing “equal” about enhanced penalties for queer crime victims or special employment protection laws for LGBT folks. They took our word, and I say we take it back. True equality, at least in a political sense, must mean equality under the law. Any other definition that says some people are more equal than others is positively Orwellian newspeak.

I just now remembered – Let me pause a moment to humbly thank you once again for deigning to make further exceptions to your clear policy against reading and responding to the collectively ‘worthless’ comments here that you DON’T read due to their eternally lacking value for you.

It’s so good to know that you DON’T read our comments, yet here you are taking upon yourself the heavy burden of making constant exceptions to your policy, sacrificing yourself for our benefit with FOUR replies in this thread alone! (and more in others) Yay!!

Both you and Andrew Sullivan need to be made aware of the fact that the last time that worked, such as it was, was with Bill Clinton — and he was not a liberal Democrat.

Clinton’s genius was in being able to charm without carrythrough and sell without delivering; thus, he was able to keep the self-interested minority groups that constitute the Democratic Party off his back without actually having to GIVE them anything.

But Kerry? Kerry would have actually had to DELIVER on his promises. (Except to gays, who, as Andrew Sullivan so brilliantly illustrated, never seem to realize the hypocrisy in blasting one supporter of constitutional amendments stripping gays of rights and calling “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive” someone who also does.)

I will take a group of Republicans who are philosophically opposed to excess government spending in power any day over a divided Congress and an ultra-liberal spendthrift as President.

Then again, I lack the insane and irrational hatred of Bush that Andrew Sullivan possesses.

A) Comparing what a Kerry Presidency would have been to what Clinton’s was is not possible. Congress was much more evenly divided between donkey’s and elephants at that time. Kerry would have been facing a completely dominated GOP Congress.

B) You are practicing a double standard when you criticize Sullivan or myself for supporting an anti-gay candidate (Kerry) when you continually do the same exact thing (Bush etc.) The difference being that Andrew and myself only supported Kerry during his run for the Presidency. You support Bush, etc. 24/7.

C)

I will take a group of Republicans who are philosophically opposed to excess government spending in power any day over a divided Congress and an ultra-liberal spendthrift as President.

So would I, unfortunately there don’t appear to be any of those kind of Republicans in the House right now and very few of them in the Senate. And there certainly isn’t one of them in the White House.

D) So NDT, when is the nude calendar coming out?

That was a particular inane / insane thought, then, in view of the fact that Kerry openly proposed trillions in new spending programs and entitlements over Bush’s existing increases / programs.

Both you and Andrew Sullivan need to be made aware of the fact that the last time that worked, such as it was, was with Bill Clinton — and he was not a liberal Democrat.

Clinton’s genius was in being able to charm without carrythrough and sell without delivering; thus, he was able to keep the self-interested minority groups that constitute the Democratic Party off his back without actually having to GIVE them anything.

But Kerry? Kerry would have actually had to DELIVER on his promises. (Except to gays, who, as Andrew Sullivan so brilliantly illustrated, never seem to realize the hypocrisy in blasting one supporter of constitutional amendments stripping gays of rights and calling “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive” someone who also does.)

I will take a group of Republicans who are philosophically opposed to excess government spending in power any day over a divided Congress and an ultra-liberal spendthrift as President.

Then again, I lack the insane and irrational hatred of Bush that Andrew Sullivan possesses.

And you make some very valid criticisms (from a conservative standpoint) of the president’s policies. You claim that Bruce (when you assumed him to be the author of the piece) doesn’t judge the GOP by the same standards he judges Log Cabin. Well, I wrote the piece and believe we should hold the Administration to this standard. It’s why I gave the president poor marks when I graded him on the Reagan legacy.

As to why we don’t get more involved in LCR, well, I was in the past, but when I found that despite my leadership, the time and money I put into the group, that I got no recognition from the national office. And I was not the only leader so slighted. There is simply no way to change the group from within. At their “convention,” there will be no plenary, no opportunity to elect officers to set policy. It’s a top-down organization. And until that changes, I’ll stay out.

I went last year. And there was no forum where I could publicly criticize the group. LCR didn’t even hold a panel to consider the merits of its non-endorsement strategy given the president’s re-election victory.

They may not be leaving the GOP, but they rarely praise the party to which they claim allegiance.

_______

One sentence in what Patrick Guerriero calls “A Special Invitation” to the Log Cabin National “Convention” and Liberty Education Forum (LEF) National Symposium provides a near-perfect synopsis of what is wrong with that ostensibly Republican organization. Patrick writes that at this confab, “We’ll also have leaders from all the major gay rights organizations debating strategy on how to achieve equality.” We have blogged extensively (e.g., here, here and here) about how eager Patrick has been to get along well with the left-leaning national gay organizations, thus the first part of his sentence merely ratifies what we’ve been saying all along.

If the debate referenced in the announcement is an actual “debate” I don’t see the harm in it. In fact it could do a lot of good. It’s not as if HRC could proclaim socialism a good idea and get a good reception from the LCR dinner crowd. The gay groups do tend to live in a bubble. It would do them some good to hear other points of view. Of course, if GPW and GP choose not to go the convention then I guess those other points of view won’t get aired.

I really don’t see why Bruce and Dan don’t get more involved with LCR. I know they were in the past. If they don’t like the direction its taken, then why not work within it to change it?

I’m sure they probably don’t agree with everything that the GOP party leadership does either, but I haven’t seen them leave the GOP over it.

…just as the appositive militia phrase cannot be read as modifying the main clause.

Presuming that this refers to RKBA in the second amendment, this is preposterous. Your assumption would read the “appositive militia phrase” out of the constitution. Any doctrine of statutory construction (and, for these purposes, the constitution is a statute) would endeavor to make use of every portion of the statute.

But remember that you and Andrew Sullivan chose to endorse for President a person whose stated goal was to accelerate doing so, versus someone who has done so in a very limited fashion by comparison.

Andrew Sullivan endorsed Kerry because he thought spending would be more restrained with divided government. I agreed. The intense partisanship displayed even here is proof of that reasoning. Kerry would not have gotten the time of day from a GOP lead Congress. And you can bet that Congress would have acted to sharply limit the President’s overreaching of his constitutional power. You can bet they will be squealing like stuck pigs when President Hillary starts using those powers.

Ah, but you see, Gryph, that “right” is already being taken from them by gay leftists, who call it “immoral” when they do so and are trying to sue in FEDERAL court to have such laws overturned.

As soon as the gay leftists publicly admit that states have every right to restrict marriage however they see fit, then this argument will be relevant. For now, it’s rather hypocritical.

You cannot claim that expanding Presidential powers exponentially under the false purpose of national security is an expansion of “Liberty”.

The powers of the Presidency have not been expanded. The use of the powers of the Presidency has been.

You cannot claim creating new Medicaid entitlements that both limits consumer choices AND takes additional inordinate amounts of taxpayers hard-earned income away from them and puts it into government coffers is an expansion of “Liberty”.

First, please educate yourself on the difference between MediCAID and MediCARE.

Second, since liberals argue that healthcare is a basic human right, expanding access to it would be INCREASING liberty, not the opposite.

Feel free to argue otherwise.

You cannot claim that when the GOP run Congress, with the complicity of a GOP President, balloons the Federal Deficit (Just on social, not military spending!), so outrageously stuffed with every bit of pork little piggy Lott could find, is an expansion of liberty.

Especially when it is going to also take so much cash out of the hands of our children and grandchildren and once again put it into the hands of the government. So no, you can’t claim this is an expansion of “Liberty”.

Think of it this way, Gryph.

If the children and grandchildren you mention will benefit from spending now, there’s no reason not to do it.

No Child Left Behind is an excellent example; yes, you may be borrowing to fund their education now, but doing that greatly increases both a) the possibility that they can pay it back and b) the upside potential of their earning power.

What you are saying is akin to arguing that you shouldn’t borrow money for college because you’ll have to pay it back in the future; in the meantime, you should work at whatever job you can get until you can save enough to cover it.

You are correct that the liberal tendency to spend tomorrow’s money on welfare checks for those today is unsustainable and leads to a reduction of liberty; just look at France.

But remember that you and Andrew Sullivan chose to endorse for President a person whose stated goal was to accelerate doing so, versus someone who has done so in a very limited fashion by comparison.

RWP, I have no technical knowledge of grammar and won’t undertake that argument. I do know that I’ve been speaking English all my life and the phrase wasn’t meant as a “limiter”, shall we say, in the sense you make.

That’s the only thing it can be — just as the appositive militia phrase cannot be read as modifying the main clause.

That doesn’t restrict what rights can or cannot be recognized. But it also doesn’t by default claim that anything you may want to do is a right.