Libertarianism

The “Nanny State” Attacks Of Sarah Palin And Other Conservatives: Promoting Hatred And Suspicion Of Government! :(

Sarah Palin is on a tear, seemingly now attacking some prominent figure on a daily basis, or showing her total stupidity and lack of knowledge about what a candidate for President needs, to take on the burden of that office! 🙁

No sooner than attacking former First Lady Barbara Bush and being unable to distinguish North Korea from South Korea, the former half term Governor of Alaska and Vice Presidential nominee of the GOP in 2008 now is on the attack against our present First Lady, Michelle Obama, who has the highest approval rating of any public figure with 65 percent!

Why is this? It is because Michelle Obama is promoting an anti obesity campaign among the children of America, many of whom are overweight, make poor choices in what they consume, and are in danger of becoming diabetic in alarming numbers in the future! It is also a major problem among adults in this country who fail to consider that what you put in your mouth affects long term health!

This campaign comes after Nancy Reagan’s campaign against drugs in the 1980s and John F. Kennedy’s crusade for physical fitness in the 1960s!

Is it wrong of the national government to promote an anti obesity campaign, a war against drugs, and a physical fitness agenda? Any sane person would say, of course not, but not Sarah Palin, who accuses Michelle Obama of promoting a “nanny state”, a charge also leveled by conservative talk show hosts on radio and on Fox News Channel! 🙁

Under the same thought, it apparently is improper of state and local government officials, such as in California and New York City and elsewhere, to ban smoking in public places, and for the US government to be planning new, explicit pictures on cigarette packages of the damages of smoking! But is it such? NO, because it is obvious that human beings often make wrong choices which affect their health and well being, and the government is intervening to attempt to promote different behavior through the leadership of public figures who carry weight among our citizens!

Instead of applauding Michelle Obama, Nancy Reagan, John F. Kennedy, the California state government, the New York City government, and the Department of Health and Human Services for their promotion of good health, instead we are told that the “Know Nothings” who think parents always know what is best, should rule the day!

The answer is NO, as many adults make WRONG choices that affect the health and well being of their children for the rest of their lives! There is nothing wrong with promoting good health and good habits!

And, by the way, if Sarah Palin is such a good parent, then why is it she cannot teach the values in her children to avoid becoming pregnant when still teenagers and unmarried? And realize that if young women, less fortunate in their family assets than Bristol Palin, become pregnant, it often condemns them to a lifetime of poverty!

Should not the national government do everything it can through advocacy and example to avoid promoting poverty and bad health? Of course!

So what it comes down to is that Sarah Palin and other conservatives are simply promoting hatred and suspicion of government, as the Tea Party Movement has been doing! 🙁

That could be called libertarianism by many, or maybe it is actually anarchism in hiding? 🙁

The Dangerous Rand Paul, New Senator From Kentucky! :(

The most disconcerting result of the Senate elections this past Tuesday was the victory of Tea Party favorite and libertarian Republican Rand Paul in Kentucky! 🙁

Rand Paul is the son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who has been a big favorite of the libertarian movement for many years, and ran for President as a libertarian in 1988, and was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2008.

Often ridiculed by fellow Republicans, Ron Paul has never cared what people thought about him, and his son Rand Paul ran a campaign of anti government rhetoric that reached the level of lunacy that one would have thought that Kentucky would have rejected him for the solid, sane leadership of state Attorney General Jack Conway, the Democratic nominee!

But Kentucky, a state which elected Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning to two terms in the Senate,where he proved to be one of the most outrageously terrible Senators in US history, has now gone worse by electing Rand Paul, who is considered by many intelligent people to be an extremely dangerous man, with his crazy idea of preventing, by senatorial privilege or the filibuster tactic , any increase of the debt ceiling which is unavoidable if the federal government is to avoid bankruptcy, an action which would mean the government could not pay off government bonds, which would lead to a world wide depression! 🙁

Even right wing Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has made it clear that the debt ceiling must be raised early next year to avoid catastrophe, but Rand Paul seems intent on causing a confrontation that could lead to total economic chaos and anarchy!

One wonders if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky can convince Rand Paul to abandon his crazy, loony mission to stop the debt limit from necessarily increasing. Since McConnell did not support Paul in the primary,and since Paul is such a weird character, one has to wonder what if any influence might exist. McConnell had the same communication problem with Senator Bunning, but Paul could indeed be actually worse as a colleague since he is such a rebel against government!

Paul may call himself a libertarian, but in many ways, he is more of an anarchist than anything else, and whatever has to be done to stop him from his announced mission to stop an increase in the debt ceiling MUST be accomplished ! 🙁

The Silence Of Republican Leaders Speaks Legions!

The Republican party, being the party “out of power” in Congress and the White House, supposedly has the advantage to gain a large number of seats in Congress and in the governorships this November, but this is not a good time for the Republicans!

The issue of illegal immigration has been stirred into a major controversy by the Arizona law scheduled to go into effect in July; the refusal of the Republicans, except for a few Northeasterners (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Scott Brown), to back financial reform at a time when so many Americans want strict regulation is a major shortcoming; the libertarian candidacy of Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul makes many Republicans speechless, trying to figure out how to deal with him in a public relations sense; and the “family values” party having to deal with so many members who have ethical and moral problems is an embarrassment! All of these issues make being a Republican in the age of Barack Obama very difficult!

Can the party allow the Tea Party mentality best represented by Rand Paul to take over their party agenda, which is, in many ways, so different? Even Rand Paul now trying to back BP Oil in the Gulf of Mexico disaster further complicates how the GOP is to react to this “loose cannon”, who will provide more “cannon fodder” for the media and the Democratic Party!

Can you imagine a week where House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Republican National Chairman Michael Steele are strangely silent? When has a week gone by when the top GOP leaders have avoided the news media?

This is a clear sign of the bind that the Republican party is in, as it should be a year of great gains in the states and the Congress, and yet so many problems and burdens exist, and there is no easy answer as to how they handle these various “hot potatoes”! 🙂