Libertarian Saturday

Good Morning!

Well, an early Saturday blog can only mean one thing...your loyal TriSec is off to donate platelets again.

If you're already a blood donor, why not consider taking the next step?


Let's take a look at the Libertarian corner of the Internets....


I've recently renewed my membership in the National Libertarian Party for another year...Imagine my surprise to learn that I've been a member since 2003. (I thought it was a year later.) But that's right, I didn't vote for Bush OR Kerry last time around. And bonus points to anyone except the hardcore that can name the Libertarian candidate now...

Of course, the NLP has been busy, denouncing Hillary's latest plan for heathcare reform.

Washington D.C. –Sen. Hillary Clinton's recent healthcare plan is a flawed strategy that "fails to meet the basic requirements of pragmatic reform" says the Libertarian Party after Clinton announced her second attempt at universal healthcare policy. "Clinton's healthcare plan is the wrong approach to healthcare reform both on a logistical and moral level," says Executive Director of the Libertarian Party, Shane Cory. "Clinton's plan is simply a new prescription for 'Hillary Care' that she prescribed more than a decade ago. It wasn't good then, and it isn't good now."

"Neither Democrats nor Republicans are approaching healthcare from the direction that offers a real solution to its current problems," says Cory. "Both parties wish to put a government-subsidized Band-Aid on the healthcare system, which the government injured in the first place. Instead of calling for universal healthcare or implementing tax credits in the health industry, such as both parties have called for, government simply needs to butt-out and let the market correct itself."

"As far as the logistics," says Libertarian Party Media Coordinator Andrew Davis, "there are obvious reasons why healthcare costs have soared in recent years. On one side, you have demand for healthcare at an all-time high because few people actually pay out of pocket for doctor visits; a problem that government-subsidized healthcare programs exacerbate. Because people pay only a fraction of every dollar spent on healthcare out of pocket, demand for health services has soared and the market price has adjusted. Additionally, artificial price limits set by the government on the maximum amount Medicaid/Medicare will pay for medical services naturally causes the cost of these services to rise to meet the maximum. These are clear examples of how more government regulation has been a direct catalyst of skyrocketing healthcare costs."

"This push for more government intervention is coming from both sides of the aisle," says Cory. "Governor Mitt Romney is just as guilty as Clinton for increasing government regulation despite the traditional ideological positions of their parties. Clinton wants to force the wealthy to pay for services they won't be receiving, and holds a gun to the heads of businesses while telling them they have to cover their employees regardless of the expense. Clinton calls this a 'moral' solution to healthcare?"

Checking the party platform, curiously there is nothing mentioned about healthcare. So, I must infer that the LP position is no position, and a completely unregulated free-for-all in the healthcare system. Which of course isn't the solution, but I don't know what is.


I'll leave you today with something to think about. Is Terrorism a Mortal Threat? Well, Patrick Buchanan of all people, doesn't think so. Of course, he does get some digs in on immigration at the end.

It may have been politically incorrect to publish the thoughts on the sixth anniversary of 9-11, but what Colin Powell had to say to GQ magazine needs to be heard.

Terrorism, said Powell, is not a mortal threat to America.

"What is the greatest threat facing us now?" Powell asked. "People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?"

History and common sense teach that Powell speaks truth.

Since 9-11, 100,000 Americans have been murdered – as many as we lost in Vietnam, Korea and Iraq combined. Yet, not one of these murders was the work of an Islamic terrorist, and all of them, terrible as they are, did not imperil the survival of our republic.

Terrorists can blow up our buildings, assassinate our leaders, and bomb our malls and stadiums. They cannot destroy us. Assume the worst. Terrorists smuggle an atom bomb into New York harbor or into Washington, D.C., and detonate it.

Horrible and horrifying as that would be – perhaps 100,000 dead and wounded – it would not mean the end of the United States. It would more likely mean the end of Iran, or whatever nation at which the United States chose to direct its rage and retribution.

Consider. Between 1942 and 1945, Germany and Japan, nations not one-tenth the size of the United States, saw their cities firebombed, and their soldiers and civilians slaughtered in the millions. Japan lost an empire. Germany lost a third of its territory. Both were put under military occupation. Yet, 15 years later, Germany and Japan were the second and third most prosperous nations on Earth, the dynamos of their respective continents, Europe and Asia.

Powell's point is not that terrorism is not a threat. It is that the terror threat must be seen in perspective, that we ought not frighten ourselves to death with our own propaganda, that we cannot allow fear of terror to monopolize our every waking hour or cause us to give up our freedom.

For all the blather of a restored caliphate, the "Islamofascists," as the neocons call them, cannot create or run a modern state, or pose a mortal threat to America. The GNP of the entire Arab world is not equal to Spain's. Oil aside, its exports are equal to Finland's.

Afghanistan and Sudan, under Islamist regimes, were basket cases. Despite the comparisons with Nazi Germany, Iran is unable to build modern fighters or warships and has an economy one-twentieth that of the United States, at best. While we lack the troops to invade Iran, three times the size of Iraq, the U.S. Air Force and Navy could, in weeks, smash Iran's capacity to make war, blockade it and reduce its population to destitution. Should Iran develop a nuclear weapon and use it on us or on Israel, it would invite annihilation.

As a threat, Iran is not remotely in the same league with the Soviet Union of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, or Mao's China, or Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan, or even Mussolini's Italy.

And why would Tehran, which has not launched a war since the revolution in 1979, start a war with an America with 10,000 nuclear weapons? If the Iranians are so suicidal, why have they not committed suicide in 30 years by attacking us or Israel?

What makes war with Iran folly is that an all-out war could lead to a break-up of that country, with Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis going their separate ways, creating fertile enclaves for al-Qaida recruitment and training.

So, there you go. It's going to be a beautiful day around here at least, so if you're in the Northeast Corner of these United States, make sure you get out and enjoy the last 'true' weekend of summer...