What many Libertarians are missing

Personal responsibility is the core of all Libertarian principles. Without personal responsibility, freedom becomes nothing more than anarchy, and any Libertarian society would dissolve into feudalism.
All Libertarians have their own ideas of freedom, and these are as personal as religion. Any Libertarian will find some point on which to differ from another Libertarian. To quote the crowd in Monty Python's The Life of Brian, "We are all individuals!"
There are basically two types of Libertarians, the pragmatic and the idealists. The pragmatic Libertarian tends to insert Libertarian principles into the system in a way that is compatible with the situation at hand. The idealist, on the other hand, is focused on the ideology of Libertarianism, and sees the only way of achieving a Libertarian society as being to have every principle injected into society at once.
Personal responsibility is more prevailant among the pragmatists, who split the population of the LP about 50-50 with the idealist. The pragmatist believes that Libertarian society can best be established from the bottom up, while the idealist believes that if it happens at the top, the rest of society will follow.
Personal responsibility means to fulfill one's obligations. To not fulfill our obligation as a country would seriously harm our evolution to a true free market economy. Our credibility would be lost to potential trading partners, and we could never again be taken seriously. The Libertarian idealists would do well to consider this.

Another Top Secret leak changes nothing

The publication of yet another top secret document in the Madrid, Spain daily newspaper, El Pais, Wednesday, resolves several questions, and negates several allegations held against President Bush by liberal politicians and media. The conversation took place between then Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, President Bush, and Condoleeza Rice, on February 22, 2003, at Crawford, Texas.
Certainly, this transcript will be cherry picked, and certain elements taken out of context by isolationists and liberals, who will claim that this president plotted war. But a thorough reading of the document will show that President Bush would have much rather found a way to dispose of Saddam that excluded unilateral action or even war.

Aznar: Actually, the best success would be to win the game without firing a single shot when entering Baghdad.
Bush: To me, it would be the best outcome. I don’t want war. I know what war is like. I know the death and destruction they bring. I am the one who has to comfort the mothers and wives of the dead. Of course, for us [a diplomatic solution] would be the best one. Also, it would save 50 billion dollars.

We know that this statement will be ignored by those who have created for themselves a reality in which the President is a war monger who would attack a country before considering diplomatic means. It just doesn't make sense in their world. To acknowledge this statement would be to admit error, which they feel would weaken their position.
It is widely known that, later in March, Saddam was given a last chance to step down by accepting exile in China, which he refused, because, according to former Iraqi General Georges Sada, he didn't want to give up his money and oil. However, in February, Saddam Hussein was in negotiations with Egypt for an exile deal:

Bush: The Egyptians are talking with Saddam Hussein. It seems he has hinted he’d be willing to leave if he’s allowed to take 1 billion dollars and all the information on WMDs. Ghadaffi told Berlusconi that Saddam wants to leave. Mubarak tells us that in these circumstances there is a big chance that he’ll get killed.

...and all the information on WMDs? Wait a minute. The haters believe that there were no WMDs or research on such. This will be ignored in their assessment as easily as the banishment from Iraq of the UN weapons inspecters in November 2002. At that time, the inspection team had been given by Saddam a list of facilities they could enter to inspect. When they tried to enter one such facility, they were barred, being told that it had been removed from the list. There was something there that Saddam Hussein did not want the UN weapons inspecters to see, and the inspecters left Iraq shortly afterward, not knowing what it was.
President Bush revealed his views on the situation in this passage:

Bush: No guarantees. He’s a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa. When we go in, we are going to discover many more crimes, and we’ll take him to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Saddam Hussein believes he has escaped. He thinks that France and Germany have stopped the process of his prosecution. He also thinks that last week’s anti-war demonstrations [Saturday, February 15] protect him. And he believes I’m weakened. But people around him know that things are totally different. They know their future is in exile or in a coffin. This is why it’s so important to keep the pressure up. Ghaddafi is indirectly telling us that this is the only thing that can finish him. Saddam’s only strategy is delay, delay, delay.

There is no denying the fact that Bush wanted to put an end to Saddam's one way or the other. He had many more reasons to do so than just the information on WMDs.

Bush: We would like to act with the mandate of the UN. If we act militarily, we’ll do it with great precision and focus on our targets to as high a degree as possible. We’ll decimate the loyal troops, and the regular army will quickly know what it’s all about. We sent a very clear message to Saddam Hussein’s generals: we will treat them as war criminals. We know they have stocked big amounts of dynamite to blow up the bridges and other infrastructure, and the oil wells. We are planning to take control of those wells very soon. Also, the Saudis will help us by putting as much oil as necessary on the market. We are developing a very strong aid package. We can win without destruction. We are already working on the post-Saddam Iraq, and I think there’s a basis for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a relatively strong civil society. It could be organized as a federation. Meanwhile we’re doing all we can to fulfill the political needs of our friends and allies...
... I’m guided by a historical sense of responsibility, as you are. When history judges us in a few years, I don’t want people wondering why Bush, Aznar, or Blair didn’t confront their responsibilities. At the end of the day, what people want is to enjoy freedom. A short time ago, in Romania, I was reminded of Ceaucescu’s example: it only took a woman to call him a liar for the whole regime to come crumbling down. It’s the irrepressible power of freedom. I’m convinced I’ll achieve the resolution.

When combined with other information we had at the time, this document gives us a better insight as to how we got to Iraq. The question now is how do we get out? Will we be successful in establishing a stable country, or will we be forced by the media and the haters to leave a nation that could easily be as much, if not more, of a threat to international trade and economy as Hussein's Iraq.
The transcript cited here can be found in its entirety at Pajamas Media, along with comments by Jose Guardia.

Would they have laughed?

Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, Iran's president found common ground with the students at Columbia University as he spoke about Science coming from God. Of course, he did, because we know Albert Einstein believed the same, as does Stephen Hawking, as do many Christians who are not on the Creationist fringe. Because we believe science is part of God, doesn't make us Islamic.
Once he did find common ground, he managed to avoid the questions he had been charged to answer by using rhetorical questions and talking about what amounted to political responsibility.
When he was asked if he called for the destruction of Israel, he refused to answer "Yes" or "No"
When he avoided the question of the murder of homosexuals in Iran, he denied that Iran had homosexuals. The students of Columbia laughed, finding mass murder hilarious. Would they have laughed if, say, President Bush had made that kind of statement about the United States?
While Mahmoud was speaking about the respect of women in Iran, and of the humanity of Iran's rulers, would they have swallowed that line of malarky if they had seen this video?
Warning: the video you see when clicking the above hypertext is extremely violent, and should not be viewed by children It depicts the stoning of two women in Iran, and I do not recommend it being viewed by anyone who may be emotionally effected by violence. I could only watch about seven minutes of it, and the images still haunt me. Click at your own risk.

I gotta get me one of these!

From the "Oddee" blog.

Return of the Cold War?

Vladmir Putin's Russia has been flexing her military muscles, lately, by violating the air space of Finland, with bomber flyovers.
This may seem like a threat likened to that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but it is merely a reflection of what is happening inside the political mechanisms of that country.
With the ongoing emergence of the new Democratic Russia, the goings-ons inside the Kremlin have not changed much from the Soviet days. You have the same kinds of power struggles among the various departments of the government, and the added struggles among the various political parties. As Peter Rutland writes in Business Week, the Russian President does not want to be seen as a "lame duck," in his waning months as President. He wants to show the world, and, especially, the Russian people that his United Russia party has allowed Russia to return to its status as a world power. It is all for the sake of the Russian elections coming up next year.
Russia is dependent on trade with other nations. The Soviet Union fell, because America and other nations in the West, refused to conduct trade in technological goods with that country. Already far behind the rest of the world in technological development, the Soviet economy could not compete in world trade, so the economy bottomed out and the Soviet government disintegrated. Even with Russia's oil wealth, today, trade is still very important in keeping the economy healthy. Russian economists and Putin's cabinet surely understand that.
The bottom line is that the show of force is more for the benefit of the United Russia party than for the rest of the world. Russia can not burn bridges with the rest world, and slow the advancement of an economy that was only recently devastated by corruption and bad policy. According to the Russian constitution, Putin is limited to three terms, after which he must step down. He is obviously intending to remain in power, either by proxy or by constitutional loopholes, so it is important to him to maintain the image of Russian power.
So, there does not seem to be a desire to return to the Cold War. It is only Russian politics in action.

A Tribute to "NASCAR Debbie" (revised and republished)

I only found out about this Sunday morning--an old friend of mine, and of everyone else who knew her, passed away August 14, suddenly and unexpectedly.
NASCAR Debbie was a petite woman--four foot nine and weighing not more than 90 lbs, but she had a heart as big as the world. Her personality was absolutely magnetic, and she always returned friendship with friendship. In her obituary, she was described as "eccentric," in a positive way, and she certainly was off center--unique as no other person could be. She seemed to see life as performance art, and she was an excellent performance artist.
With an IQ ranging in the top 1 percentile, she loved to mingle with us "slow" folks, and being in her company felt perfectly natural. She was funny, not with the usual jokes or one liners, but with a running commentary on life in general, and NASCAR Debbie could always make us laugh.
NASCAR Debbie was always kind, sweet, and generous. She literally lit up the room when she walked in, adorning the bar with appropriate decorations for every race and every Broncos game. A New York Jets fan, herself, she would hand out tissues to the Broncos fans after Denver lost a game. On the warm and fuzzy side, she would freely give hugs to those friends that needed one.
NASCAR Debbie was special to every one of her friends and family. "To know her is to love her" was a phrase that could be applied to her more than anyone else we knew.
NASCAR Debbie lived and breathed NASCAR. Her home was filled, wall to wall, shelf by shelf with Tony Stewart collectables and NASCAR paraphenelia. With the enthusiasm and excitement she exuded, she made watching the races on TV at the local watering hole a total experience--with her in the crowd, it was almost like being there.
It was NASCAR Debbie who kept me from drifting away from the sport after Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001. She got me interested in Smoke, more than I already was, and was instrumental in making me the fan I am today.
We had a falling out after 9/11/2001. It was my fault, because I suffer from PTSD, the events of that day produced issues that made me unbearable for her to be around. But, I will always cherish the times that Debbie and I had as friends, and she will always be a bright, shining light in my life. I never stopped loving her as a friend, and I never will.

New: I am asking for your help. I have a very limited income, carry no plastic, and have no PayPal account. The on-line guest book memorializing our dear, sweet friend is due to expire this Friday, September 22, unless it is sponsered for a year. If you could find it in your heart to help, please visit this link. It is not at all expensive, I just have no way to do it.

Update: The guestbook has been sponsored anonymously by a very kind and gracious NASCAR fan. God bless the sponsor and thank you everyone for your sympathy and understanding.

Who never saw this coming?

From Reuters:

Venezuela's Congress on Tuesday gave
preliminary approval to President Hugo Chavez's proposed
constitutional reform, which would lift term limits to help the
leftist leader cement his self-styled socialist revolution

.
Sandmonkey's comment:
And since he is a leftist leader and his revolution socialist in nature, he gets a free pass. If it was anyone else, people would call it what it really is: A dictatorship in the making. But it gets better.
(Continue Reuters)

Chavez last week presented reforms to end central bank
autonomy, increase state expropriation powers and give the
president direct control over monetary reserves in a move
critics called a "coup" to keep Chavez in power indefinitely.

The legislature, 100 percent controlled by Chavez allies,
will hold two more votes to fully ratify the changes, which
must be finally approved through a popular referendum that
legislators say they hope will take place in early December.

"We are reforming the constitution to solidify … the
socialist nation, the socialist state, the socialist
democracy," said Carlos Escarra, a legislator and
constitutional lawyer who helped draft the reforms.

He has already secured a firm grip on key state
institutions including the court system, the state oil company
and most state and local governments.

Now El Presidente is planning on taking over the private schools so that he may indoctrinate all school children to his brand of socialism. This means that there will be no teaching of any economic or political philosophy other than that of which Chavez approves:

Venezuelan officials defend the program at the Latin American Medical School — one in a handful of state-run colleges and universities that emphasize socialist ideology — as the new direction of Venezuelan higher education.

"We must train socially minded people to help the community, and that's why the revolution's socialist program is being implemented," said Zulay Campos, a member of a Bolivarian State Academic Commission that evaluates compliance with academic guidelines.

"If they attack us because we're indoctrinating, well yes, we're doing it, because those capitalist ideas that our young people have — and that have done so much damage to our people — must be eliminated," Campos said.

I believe somebody predicted this would happen.