Downballot

Hi, All!

Well, having field directed a city council campaign here in our fair city, I wanted to share with you an article about my tentative pick for Mayor of Austin, Lee Leffingwell.

The Austin-American Statesman did a story about the “Draft Lee Leffingwell for Mayor” press conference at Austin City Hall.  Here it is:

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/cityhall/entries/2008/12/15/political_action_committee_voi_1.html

I like McCracken, don’t get me wrong.  While I think that banning subsidies for business is a bad idea, I also don’t think that bringing large retail establishments to Austin creates jobs.  Capturing businesses like Sematech and Dell and other corporations that actually produce a product, rather than ask us to continue our consumptive habits is actually a better model for economic growth.

For me, it’s going to be tough choosing between Lee Leffingwell (current City Councilman, Place 1) and Mayor Pro Temp. Brewster McCracken.  I’m in Lee’s corner for now, but I, like most of us, have a lot of researching to do before May 9th.  Yes, to answer my sister’s question from our last episode, the Mayoral and City Council Election will be May 9, 2009.

Merry almost Christmas!

     The political season has been rather divisive this year, and I’m not just talking Republican and Democrat (and Libertarian), I’m talking about the identity politics that divided our politics this year.  The conflict for the soul of parties, the conflict between races, the conflict between sexual orientations, the conflict between age brackets, etc.  These were the things that divided us, no matter how hard our President-Elect claimed to be bringing us together.
     As a full supporter of Barack Obama (and I’ll even become an Obama-maniac if he pick Hillary for Secretary of State), I want to say that the message of unity on which Obama campaigned has yet to be fully realized.  I say this, not to say that it will never happen, but rather that we ALL have a long road to travel, together.  The financial crisis did not begin with King Bush II and his horrendous policies of deregulation, it began with the Clinton Administration and the push towards home ownership.  The equality of races was not completed by Reconstructionist Republicans, and is still not complete with a Democratic African-American President.  Our TWO wars and our impending Global Climate Catastrophe are not partisan issues, but rather issues that need to be solved together.  Not just Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian, but also International Organizations, other countries, and other cultures will need to be brought together to solve these challenges of war and strife that know no international boundary.

     With this spirit of unity in mind, a spirit dedicated to working through problems, not proclaiming them as complete, the crew of Down Ballot Radio recorded a special Thanksgiving episode.  While we do march far a-field of talking about what we’re thankful for, what does not change is our mutual respect and, dare I say it, friendship with each other.  No matter who is in office, or what terrifying crises abound, we can’t forget that we’re all in this together.  We’re all in the same radio station booth together, sharing the same time slot.  If the president of Longhorn Libertarians can stand to sit next to the former chairman of Young Conservatives and the mouth piece for the University Democrats every week for half an hour, I’m sure we ALL can come that much closer to solving the great challenges before us.

Happy Thanksgiving.

-Andy Jones-

On last week’s show Tony mentioned the MADD approach to regulating intoxication and I chimed in that it was the “statist approach.”  Andy disputed that characterization.

What did I mean?  Well, the definition of “statist” that I was working with was an organization or individual who prefers state or political solutions to problems that can be dealt with privately.  MADD’s whole reason for existence is to pressure political actors to enforce more stringent penalties dealing with drunk driving related issues.  This includes support for a uniform legal drinking age, stiffer penalties for people caught driving drunk etc.  This is the very essence of statism.  Many of the goals pursued by MADD are admirable, but my beef is with the journey, not the destination.  The state is a brutal tool to use to achieve your goals and it should only be used under the most dire circumstances.

What would a libertarian approach to these same problems look like?  Well for starters drunk driving would be legal.  Until damage was inflicted by the driver, no law would be broken.  Also, minimum drinking ages would be abolished or left to local actors to deal with.  Our whole drinking culture is insane.  Not a drop till you’re 21?  It’s unrealistic and dangerous.  The Forbidden Fruit argument is a powerful one here.  When something as common as alcohol is prohibited to minors, minors will seek it out.  This encourages unsafe, unsupervised drinking habits.

As in every realm of society, the enemy of the people is the state.

For those who have been downtown lately, I’m sure you noticed the vampire cops extracting blood from unwilling revelers who refused breathalyzers.  This is typical.  And disgusting.

I swore to myself I wouldn’t do this.  But I did it.  I voted.

I don’t particularly like anyone running for anything in my district/country/precinct, but it being my first election, I figured I should do something.  I could always chalk it up as being a rookie mistake.

So, here’s how I voted:

For president, I decided to go the difficult route and experiment with the “write in” function on the electronic voting machines.  I half heartedly wanted my vote to count, so I half heartedly wrote in “nader.”  I don’t have any decent excuse for this.  I think he’s an atrocious political figure.  He advocates socialism to a degree that even Obama and McCain wouldn’t be comfortable with.  But, in our silly democracy he plays a useful role.  More so than any other third party candidates in my lifetime, Nader is a great critic of our two party duopoly.  And more importantly:  everyone hates him.  Why does this matter?  If Nader gets enough votes this time around he’ll most likely run again in 2012.  I want to encourage this.

Down Ballot, I voted for every Libertarian Party candidate with one exception.  I voted for Republican Don Zimmerman for Tax Assessor.  Again, I have no great reason for doing this.  I just recall reading somewhere that he described his vision of the position as “anti-tax assessor.”  Good enough for me.  Also, the whole Ron Paul crowd likes him.

The propositions were a cinch.  1 and 3 both had the words “public” and “school” next to each other.  Easiest decision I’ve ever had to make: I voted against both of them.  Prop 2 is being touted as an end to the city of Austin subsidizing commercial ventures.  I support that, so I voted yes.

Oh!  Oh!  Did anyone see the Libertarian Longhorns (my group) on the front page of the Daily Texan?

If you’d like to share with us who and what you voted for and why, please do so in the comment section.  I’m really interested in the motivations behind forcing people to live with your decisions.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!