Negative ads taken to a new low:

Don't forget, this guy is endorsed by Ron Paul's Liberty PAC. It's a shame to think that there's any libertarian out there who has been swindled into giving him money when there are such clear examples of libertarian Republicans running to elevate our political discourse and appeal to the best in Americans, like B. J. Lawson.

The reaction to this ad? Here's one editorial, calling it "nativist demagoguery."

It's after the quarter, but there are still bills to pay. We'd appreciate any help.

My friends, I'm coming out of my long lurking state to make a personal plea. This isn't about Freedom Democrats specifically, this is about me. I am asking for your support of the Democratic challenger, running in a difficult race against an out of touch Republican opponent.

This is not in anyway an endorsement by this blog, I am asking for you to contribute through an independent Act Blue page. This is a personal appeal to you from myself not as the founder of Freedom Democrats but simply as a campaign staffer reaching out for help in a difficult race. Every little bit counts.

This race should be of interest to the readers here because of the type of conservative politics that this Republican represents. There's the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim xenophobia. There's the cronyism and corruption.

What makes this particularly offensive to me, a libertarian Democrat, is the way in which some aspects of the Ron Paul movement hold up this Republican as an example of the "pro-Constitution, pro-liberty, pro-American sovereignty candidates who share Congressman Ron Paul’s commitment to the values and principles our nation was founded upon."

Yeah right.

If ever you were upset with the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming out of the Ron Paul campaign (but not Ron Paul at the debates), this is a race you should care about. If you think libertarianism needs to cast aside its association with the worst aspects of paleo-ism on the right, this is a race you should care about.

This is a very bad Republican. But I can understand if you want me to make the case for the Democratic challenger.

He's got it right on Iraq, coming out in support of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. He's got it right on civil liberties, including the 2nd Amendment. I'm personally comfortable with his faith background, which is arguably the only reservation I can see the readers here having. I can personally vouch for him; he's not running to bring a religious left theocracy to office. Is he a libertarian? Not hardly, he's ultimately a center-left Democrat. But I've seen him reach out and appeal to libertarians, myself included, and I know he's a hell of a lot better than the guy in Congress right now. In a perfect world, it wouldn't be so unusual to find a Democrat who stood up for the Bill of Rights and a responsible foreign policy.

So I'd appreciate any and all support you can give him.

Thank you, and back to the blog as normal.

Hello one and all. I'm taking a little time out of my otherwise busy schedule to post in respond to Brad Spangler's tagging of me in an anarchist/libertarian meme. His question (or the meme's, rather):

What motivated you to start looking into Anarchist/Libertarian thought?”

Well Brad . . .

First, growing up, I was really into American history. Really into American history. And from there I became interested in history, period. I don't really know how or why (memory is like that), but I got into "alternative history." Search my name sometime on soc.history.what-if, but don't hold me responsible for anything I said. I was still in middle school and high school.

You can also check out my old website. Which I also claim no resemblance to.

My experiences on Usenet exposed me to libertarianism really early on. Like most non-libertarian inhabitants of the internet, I generally rolled my eyes. There were a lot of Objectivists on Usenet when I frequented there.

One day, I picked up Michael Lind's book Hamilton's Republic. A political book that was disguised as history. Devious! Lind is a former neo-con who is now a "radical centrist" or "communitarian." That's when I started to get into politics . . .

I was also very interested in the environment, for a while I wanted a career in environmental preservation/protection. Maybe a lawyer, I'm not sure. Despite their general statism, a lot of radical centrist types embrace a free market-lite approach to environmentalism. And that quickly lead to exposure to geolibertarianism and Henry George.

And even though Objectivists made me roll my eyes, and often still do, that clicked with me.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, to continue the meme . . .

I tag you.

Just de-lurking to provide some context to the current debate over right-wing progressivism. Quote Jason Pye at the Liberty Papers:

The second is that Goldberg’s point about what “right-wing progressivism” and Mike Huckabee is right on target. The idea that government should shape and mold the type of society that we should live in pretty much defines the progressive era.

Newt Gingrich, late 1981 or early 1982, in a working paper called "Phase II of the Reagan Revolution." From his library; I'm not sure if this is available publicly online.

We can't govern a society by just allowing it to emerge--we must shape the society or someone else will shape it.

. . .

The conservative view is that government does shape society, and we should shape it in our direction.

There was a lot of talk about Gingrich running for the Presidency a while back. That seems to have fizzled out, but like Al Gore with Howard Dean in 2004, is Gingrich waiting in the wings to make a late endorsement to boost his public image? And if so, is Huckabee the most likely choice?

As I mentioned previously, I finished my work on the Mississippi campaign. I am now in the process of moving up to DC to take a job with a research firm. Because of confidentiality, I don't think I'll talking much about the work I'm doing. I've been thinking about this website . . .

This blog has never been a regional or state level blog. I know I got caught up in the Webb-Allen race of 2006, but generally I haven't tried to exclusively focus on Virginia politics. And I know we are a rather geographically diverse bunch.

I've never had the time to make this "my blog." So the purpose that runs a lot of other blogs (one guy, giving his opinion, love it or leave it) doesn't work here. We are a community interested in libertarianism and the Democratic Party. I'm fine that not everyone here considers themself a Democrat, that you are interested is good enough.

So looking ahead, what sorts of features do you think would improve your experience here at Freedom Democrats? I'm looking at restructuring how the website is set up. But I'm also curious as to what brings you regulars back again and again. What motivates you?

Just updating you all about how I'm doing in life. I'll probably go back to lurking after this, but I enjoying reading posts on the blog. I've also been thinking about ways to change the site to make it more user friendly. If you have any ideas, let me know.

We lost the election. But we got interesting coverage in a wide variety of places. The Economist. The Washington Post. The New York Times. The Washington Post again. And some funny local news coverage:

And anyone who's thinking about a certain Southern Republican Governor as a likely VP should check out some of these articles from Salon and Bloomberg News (part one and part two). There was also something from the New Republic but it isn't online anymore.

Back to lurking. Keep up the good work.

Just a note, when spammers post blog posts it's usually better (although more tedious) to go through and individually delete their blog posts. Otherwise they will still show up on the list of recent blog posts.

Right now I've got only a few more weeks of college, occupied mostly by my honors thesis. From there, I won't have much of a breather until I move down to Jackson, Mississippi for the campaign seasons. Based on experience, I doubt I'll have much free time to be blogging. I'm therefore going to be going on a bit of a hiatus. My primary concern right now is finding people who can step up and continue to post while I'm gone. Adam and John, I'm wondering if you'd mind me giving you the ability to promote diaries to the front page. Good luck guys.

The morning after and I'm asking why. Why can be a question in a lot of situations. Why did yesterday happen? More personally, I am asking myself why I really want a career in politics. The response of the media and political actors to yesterday's tragedy disgusts me. America has become the "Do Something, Do Anything" Nation when it comes to dealing with problems. As George W. Bush says, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." We as a nation are convinced that if something goes wrong, our government has to step in and do something.

And so the Brady Campaign calls for gun control. And the media, which doesn't see it as important to report incidents where guns protect people, is already providing details as to how this was made possible by a lack of federal gun control laws. The New York Times also jumps on the gun control bandwagon.

To fully analyze the situation, I think that Brad Spangler and Micha Gertner have the best summaries. Micha in particular makes this observation:

So, here, with state gun laws, we have a legal regime in which it’s fairly easy to acquire guns, but nearly impossible to properly defend oneself outside the home unless one is willing to violate the law and carry on, say, a college campus. And then we wonder why tragedies like this happen in a society filled with well-armed law violators and unarmed law abiders.

I've decided to post a diary on the topic at Daily Kos to get the reaction of Democratic activists.