http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0707/Edwards_They_want_to_shut_me_up.html

Ignoring the point about his lifestyle contradicting his populist rhetoric (which, I will grant him, is meaningless), this is a perfect example of why this man is a disingenuous little piece of the worst kind of human excrement who has nothing to speak of in terms of integrity. How DARE this man go on such a rant, claiming to be some victim of a grand corporate media conspiracy to silence him and his message, in order to energize support, when just two weeks ago, he made a BLATANT overture toward Hillary Clinton in an effort to try to silence those who are "less serious" candidates and exclude them from future debates.

I know that I am technically a Republican, but I am a libertarian first and foremost, despise the leadership of my party, and am willing to vote for whoever I think is the best candidate. (And I've voted for Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians in the past) I abhor the level of partisanship that has poisoned our democracy. But as someone who John Edwards used to "represent," as someone who attends the university where he was employed for the past few years, and as someone who has come across him in the past, I have to say right now: I genuinely believe that this man is pure, manipulative evil, regardless of his stances on issues. I sincerely hope that your party does not nominate this man, both for the good of your party and the good of our country.

Tomorrow at 6:35 PM EST, I will be on a flight to London, where I'll be studying abroad for two months at LSE, the alma mater of the great classical liberal economist F.A. Hayek. Needless to say, I am extremely excited. I will be taking an intermediate course in Public Finance and an Intro Accounting course; each will last 20 days, and classes will be an hour long a day in the early morning, which will give me plenty of time during the day to study and do what I want with the other time. I'll also have weekends off, and I plan on doing a great bit of traveling around the continent.

I've started a London Ron Paul Meetup group, as well, and I've gotten four people in so far. I have been informed by one of the members that his campaign has generated some buzz overseas. Lord knows there are plenty of American citizens living in London and plenty of them are registered voters, and I would suspect that many would be potential Paul supporters and would be very interested in his foreign policy views, so we'll see how the group develops. I'll report on this progress and on overseas coverage of the Presidential campaign in general, as well as my doings overseas, in this blog.

Allow me to introduce myself to the community. I joined on Saturday, and this will be my first blog post.

Firstly, I would like to say that I am actually a Republican rather than a Democrat. However, I am an unabashed libertarian (I actually prefer the term classical liberal) first and foremost, and I pretty well despise the current leadership of the GOP: the 2006 House Scorecard that was posted showing what appears to be about 75% of House Republicans in the Authoritarian side in what appears to be an interesting mix of both fascists and socialists, is dead on with my experience with some of the GOP bozos I routinely run into in my neck of the woods (North Carolina). The fact that the average for the party is Right Authoritarian (which pretty much indicates that most Congressional Republicans are facists, an observation which I certainly agree with) is truly sad. The GOP candidates for President this time around sans Ron Paul (for whose campaign I'm actually volunteering right now; thank God he's in this thing) are some of the poorest bunch of cloned excuses for potential future Presidents I have ever seen, and it appears as though they will continue to lead the party down the facist, corporatist, theocratic, war-mongering direction in which King George II has taken it. If anyone other than Paul is nominated, I will definitely not be voting Republican this time out. (Unfortunately, I can't vote Libertarian, either, since the Republicrats down here kicked them off the ballot; however, the LPNC is fighting tooth and nail to get back on.) Among the Democrats, I like Richardson, Gravel, and Kucinich and would vote for any of those three. (Gravel and Kucinich are rather socialist on economic issues, but I admire their commitment to civil liberties, their anti-war stance, and most of all, their integrity) However, I absolutely WILL NOT vote for Hillary, Edwards (who I can tell you from first-hand experience is the anti-Christ), Dodd, or Biden, as they all fail my bare minimum qualification for my vote (they all voted for the Iraq War authorization, which is just inexcusable). My jury is still out on Obama, however, if he is the nominee, the Bush Administration still has us in Iraq, and the Republicans nominate someone other than Paul, then I will probably be pissed off enough to vote for him.

With that said, I fully support what all of you on the site are doing in trying to promote libertarianism within the Democratic Party and in trying to give a boost to libertarian Democratic candidates, so much so that I am more than happy to be affiliated with the group and very much look forward to participating on the site. As far as I'm concerned, all of us libertarians are in this together, and whether we are in the Republican or Democratic parties, our legislative and political cause is common. I have voted for Democrats in the past, and if we can find more good libertarian Democrats out there, I will vote for them (and, if possible, work for them) in a heartbeat.

Keep up the great work, everyone.