LoganFerree's blog

Delurking again . . .

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:24:03 -0700

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.

A Personal Plea

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:22:51 -0700

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.

Tag, You're It!

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:28:56 -0800

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.

Right-Wing Progressivism

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:07:21 -0800

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?

Updates

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:01:09 -0800

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?

Brief Update

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:43:13 -0800

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.

Administration

Thu, 31 May 2007 10:42:51 -0700

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.

Hiatus

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:14:11 -0700

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.

Why?

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 08:28:33 -0700

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.

Rural Renewal

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:38:07 -0700

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

A Few Updates

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:04:30 -0700

I'm in shock right now because of what's happened at Virginia Tech. Aside from the local community college or no college at all, Tech was the biggest destination for my graduating class in High School.

On a lighter side, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico has signed a bill ending the restrictions on interior designers calling themselves interior designers unless certified by the state government. Excellent. The Governor is also making gains at the Daily Kos monthly straw poll. He's now up to 12% from last month's 8% and is now a solid third behind Edwards (44%) and Obama (25%), officially overtaking "Other." Barack Obama seems to have leveled off right now, with Edwards making gains from "Other" and "No Freakin' Clue." I suspect that Obama peaked way too early in this race, mostly by entering far earlier than I think he had to.

Rural Renewal Question

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:18:33 -0700

John Edwards is set to roll out his plan for rural America today. It brings forward an interesting question. To what degree do we want to renew rural America? Many of the areas that are hardest hit are products of federal policies of free land to anyone who wanted it and forced removal of the native inhabitants. The frontier closed in 1890 and the Great Plains barely made it until the 1930s. So much for the rain follows the plow, instead we got the Dust Bowl. There is a difference between the decline of vast geographic areas like the Great Plains that arguably cannot support a population without government aid and the decline of small towns and communities elsewhere due to the rise of suburbia. But why are we grouping both of them together and offering the same prescription?

Big Government Facts

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:04:59 -0700

An astounding 52.6% of Americans receive a significant level of income from the federal government according to economist Gary Shilling. Here's the big picture:

Mr. Shilling's analysis found that about 1 in 5 Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending. A similar number receive Social Security or a government pension. About 19 million others get food stamps, 2 million get subsidized housing, and 5 million get education grants. For all these categories, Mr. Shilling counted dependents as well as the direct recipients of government income.

The article also notes that people are generally unhappy with their level of taxation and how they perceive that money to be spent. For more details on just how that money is spent, check this out. Here are a few of my "favorites."

Defense: $4,951. The defense budget covers everything from military salaries to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to the research, development and acquisition of new technologies. Lawmakers drastically reduced defense spending following the collapse of communism in the early 1990s. The September 11, 2001, attacks reversed this trend, and the inflation-adjusted $1,618 per household increase since 2001 has returned defense spending closer to its historical levels.

Interest on the federal debt: $2,071. The federal government is $9 trillion in debt. It owes $5 trillion to public bond owners, and the rest to other federal agencies (mostly to repay the Social Security trust fund, which lawmakers raid annually). Despite rising debt, record-low interest rates have limited costs. As interest rates rise back to normal levels, these costs will spike.

Highways/mass transit: $418. Most highway and mass-transit spending is financed by the 18.4 cent per-gallon federal gas tax. Washington subtracts an administrative cost and sends this money back to the states with numerous strings attached. Some economists suggest it would be more efficient to let states collect this tax and decide how to spend the money themselves.

Full Disclosure

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:13:24 -0700

In the interest of full disclosure and complying with "blogger ethics," I have been hired by the John Arthur Eaves for Governor campaign down in Mississippi as a researcher. Since I mainly blog on national issues, I don't view this as much of a conflict of interest and I plan on continuing my blogging here. I actually have a preference for getting involved in state level politics, although I doubt that I will be putting down roots either in my home state of Virginia or in Mississippi. If anyone has some suggestions on states to end up in, I'm all ears. Or eyes.

This is Pretty Cool . . .

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:27:31 -0700

Isn't history fun?