Joining the Libertarian Party

The Girondin brought up the question on his blog so I decided I might as well address it this morning: How did you join the Libertarian Party? That could actually be read different ways: When did you become a libertarian? When or why did you register to vote as a libertarian, and so on. I'll try to cover them all.

I actually registered to vote as a Libertarian back when I first registered to vote. The LP had just been formed some time earlier and I'd read about it in the underground newspaper, the Los Angeles Free Press. It described it as some kind of Peace, Love and Hippiness party that sounded intriguing. I didn't really pay much attention to any issues the LP advocated for or against.

I was a punk hippie at the time so, after I moved to Eureka and turned 18, I registered to vote and wrote in Libertarian Party as my party affilliation. Since the LP had just recently been formed, it wasn't officially recognized by the State so you didn't have the option of just checking a box off.

It seems like a few months after that I was reading something in a news magazine, Newsweek maybe, about the Libertarian Party. The article was on Roger McBride, who was in the running for the Libertarian Presidential nomination. The article mentioned the LP was pretty much a collection of "ex marxists". Despite being a punk hippie, I didn't think I wanted to be any part of that. As soon as I got the opportunity, I re- registered to vote as a Republican and stayed with the Republican Party for almost twenty years.

I didn't really hear much of the LP over those twenty years except in some cult type reading materials I frequented. Kurt Saxon, who lived in Eureka at the time, wrote the Poor Man's James Bond and a series of survivalist magazines. I think they were called The Survivor. He mentioned Ayn Rand and a couple of her books, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. I believe he also mentioned libertarians and maybe even the LP. The seed was planted in my mind from Saxon and Rand's works. The LP was still rarely heard about in the main stream media back then.

Fast forward to 1991, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: I was reading a copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine one day. In the letters to the editor section a writer wrote: "Hey, I'm a libertarian; You smoke your joint, I keep my gun...". I liked that. That really struck a note with me, being one who didn't have much of a problem with people smoking pot- having smoked quite a bit of it myself in my time. And I was a gun owner as well. Seemed weird to me that those two groups, always under the thumb of government for the most part, were on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

It then hit me that the problem was everyone wanted to do their own thing, they just didn't want anyone else to do theirs. With a system like that, everyone loses. That's when I started to realize what a libertarian was and that it pretty much described me. The seed had sprouted.

In 1992 I was back in Eureka again, starting my gardening business. I went to get a business license and was told that, in addition to a business license, I also needed a Home Occupancy Permit, since I worked out of my house. I guess that shouldn't be any big deal as it was only a one time $25.00 fee, but it really irritated me. Government just comes at you from all sides, doesn't it? I decided as I left City Hall that enough was enough, I was switching to the Libertarian Party. I re- registered to vote as a Libertarian almost immediately. It was kind of exciting.

I'm one of those "joiner" types; always wanting to contribute to and be kept informed of whatever interest I have at the time. So, I wanted to contribute to the LP and maybe get a few of their newsletters. The internet wasn't nearly as ubiquitous in '92 as it is now. I had no idea how to contact the LP, so I used the old fashioned Information. What's that number now, 411? The operator gave me an 800 number the LP of CA was using at the time. I called them and they sent me some material. I sent back $25 and became a member of the state party. Then I received some other material from them and found there was a national party so I joined them as well.

Been with the LP ever since and have no plans on leaving.

Update, 10/28/2013: I haven't been a dues payer to the LP for some years but am still registered to vote with the Libertarian Party.

I'm A Bigot

A tattoo bigot that is. Anyone else? I'm not referring to a cute little heart or whatever else on a girl or guy's ankle or shoulder. I'm talking about massive ones all over the arm or, worse, all over the body. They're disgusting and I'll have to admit I think worse of someone when I notice they're all "inked" up.

I can be nice about it. There was a libertarian gal that used to live a few blocks from me. She's since moved to Missouri but we became Facebook Friends. I can't remember who defriended who, but Friends no more.

No real falling out except she'd regularly post pictures of whole body tattoos and such saying she wanted to look like that. I was grossed out and would ask her why she would want to defile her body.  Because that's just what it is, defiling your body. She'd just reply something along the line of "My body is a canvass waiting to be painted...". Yuck!

A few weeks ago I was working over by Eureka High School. I do a few properties in that neighborhood. I see some girl approaching me from across the street. She has a short sleeve blouse on and I notice there isn't a bare spot of skin on her arms- all tattoos. Yuck!

The way she was trying to make eye contact with me I assumed she was a panhandler. Nope. She said they just moved in to the house on the corner and asked if I had room on my schedule for another place. I was honest when I told her I didn't, although I might well have turned her down anyway just because of the tattoos.

I'll admit she was real nice. But how could she do that to herself?

Then there's some of the guys on the TV ghost shows. At least one of the shows has a bunch of tattoo freaks. One is named Steve Gonsalves, if memory serves. Seemingly otherwise decent people that decided to make freaks out of themselves. Makes me want to not watch the show.

Tattoos don't necessarily mean someone's a bad person. I recall one of the nicer fellows I met years ago at the Eureka Old Town 4 July Festival. A guy came walking by our table. Buzz cut on the head. That's fine. Wearing black leather biker pants and carrying a black leather jacket over his shoulder. What got me, though, was his arms were all tattooed. Yuck! Who is this freak?

He came over to chat, him being a libertarian himself. Turned out we'd spoke on the phone before. His name was John Fleury. He ended up winning a seat on the Mckinleyville Community Services District. He had to move shortly after winning the seat but from the few times I spoke with him he was a top notch guy.

But those tattoos. I make no apologies for thinking worse of him for having them, at least at first.

And how are these people going to get jobs? I guess some businesses hire them. I wouldn't, and would avoid patronizing one that did, assuming it was a business I could avoid.

I've always been impressed with Les Schwab Tire. Clean cut workers that really hustle. I commented to the girl in their office about it once. Wasn't thinking of tattoos at the time but she said they had a dress code. Part of it was no visible tattoos. Good! More places should do that.

That's when I realized why some of the employees there wear turtlenecks on fairly warm days, or have elastic bands on their arms- to cover up tattoos. That's half way there, and I suppose a good compromise. Even freaks need jobs, but I don't have too much of a problem with just a small tattoo on one arm. It's still weird, but not to the point of being a freak.

The sad part is many people get the tattoos when they're younger. Then years later they realize what a freak they are. They end up paying big bucks for laser removal and even that doesn't totally get rid of them. The skin is usually permanently scarred from what I've seen.

I'd almost support passing a law against tattooing. But that's not me and we already have too many people trying to ban this and that. People should be allowed to make and suffer from their own mistakes. All I can do is remain a proud bigot that has no qualms about saying massive tattooing is disgusting as are the people who partake in it. 

The worst part is it seems more and more young folks are doing it. Yuck! 

North Coast Travelogue 9/24-9/26

Drove down to the Bay Area, yet again, last Sunday. Next time you go by Confusion Hill, take a look out towards the Eel River. You can see the outline of the bridge bypass they're putting up. Seems like they're moving right along with that project. Why does this seem to be going quicker than the freeway widening down in Santa Rosa?

*******

Anyone ever use those highway rest stops Caltrans maintains? I haven't used them much in the past but found they can be quite nice to have available when you're spending a lot of time on the road.

When we first started shuttling back and forth to the Bay Area, the ones on 101 were closed, for whatever reason. I think it was a couple months ago we noticed they opened one, the Moss Cove Rest Stop, along the southbound lane between Laytonville and Willits, so we began stopping there when in need.

Not a bad stop, but not much shade in the summer when you need the shade the most. One thing I found interesting was people, who looked like locals, driving up and dumping their trash in the trash cans. I bumped into a guy yesterday who's in charge of maintenance for three of the local rest stops. He said that it was an an ongoing problem with the trash cans and, during deer season, they'd often find deer entrails and such in the trash.

Nice to have the Moss Cove option, but I prefer the Irvine Lodge Rest Stop.

I hadn't stopped at the Irvine Lodge Rest Stop in years. It's in the northbound lane between Willits and Ukiah a few miles north of the Moss Cove stop. We stopped there for the first time a couple weeks ago and what a pleasure that was.

Plenty of shade. Clean restrooms and they just put in new turf. Real peaceful stop. Probably not as many people using it as you can't see it easily from the road, unlike Moss Cove which you can't miss.

This is where I met the maintenance supervisor yesterday. He pointed out the fence along side the creek. I was surprised to learn it was made of concrete. One of those phony wood things. Fooled me. He also told me the rest stop up at Legget was supposed to be opening up for business today (Wednesday).

Friendly guy, that maintenance guy. He's in charge of all three of those stops. I'll have to say though, as a libertarian, some of this rubs me the wrong way: He was telling me he asked for more trash cans, the old ones needing replacement. Instead of just getting the old 55 gallon drums, like they're using now, his boss told him they were going to be getting "bear proof" cans that weigh 300 pounds. Never mind there hasn't been any bear problems there.

And as nice as the lawns they put in look, this is just a rest stop, not a golf course. Why go to all that expense and effort just for a place for people to take a leak? That's just the way the State works. And we wonder why government costs so much.

**********

Going through Mendocino I pointed out the Vroman For D.A. campaign signs along the road to the wife. She commented that they should be taken down since he'd died. I suggested that maybe his supporters might still want him to win. That way they could take their chances with whoever the Board of Supes appoints to the job as opposed to Vroman's opponent winning.

Not sure if that's what they're thinking. I'm just assuming there's as much vitriol against opponents in this race as we've seen in the Gallegos/ Dikeman race up here. I realized later I hadn't noticed any of Vroman's opponent's signs on the way down. I made a point to look for his(?) signs on the way back north. Only saw one, on the west side of the freeway while going through Ukiah. Vroman seems to at least won the sign war.

***********

We were actually given the heads up by a fellow UCSF Oncology Clinic regular about a place we might stay for free while in San Francisco. Turns out a hospital owns a local hotel and often provides rooms to its own, and I guess other hospital's, cancer patients. Shame on me for forgetting the name of the hospital, but it was something like Pacific Medical Foundation.....something.

We had to give that a try. You have to set it up through the American Cancer Society, I believe. Connie made the phone calls and after a few days we got confirmation for our room.

I was a bit apprehensive about this. The Cathedral Hilll Hotel is on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. First, I don't like staying in San Francisco. Second, what if it's some dump? After reading the Yahoo Reviews ( mine's the latest up there.) I still felt apprehensive, since I tended to focus on the negative reviews, which were actually in the minority.

It got even worse when I realized I forgot to make reservations for our second night at Days Inn, Novato. I figured we'd try one night at Cathedral Hill. If it worked out ok, we could stay there for two days the next time. If not, at least we weren't stuck there for two nights.

When I mentioned I forgot to make reservations at Days Inn, the wife wondered why I'd do that, as she made reservations for two nights at Cathedral. That pissed me off, but what was I to do? I thought I'd told her just to make reservations for Sunday night there. Oh well. Cathedral Hill turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

Pretty easy to get to: Just go left after the Golden Gate Bridge, instead of going right to 19th. Take a left at Lombard and then a right on Van Ness. Only took 15 to 20 minutes after getting over the bridge.

We get there and I was pleasantly surprised to find all kinds of room in their parking garage. A bit confusing to getting around in there as the signage wasn't really clear as to where you needed to go. Turned out we ended up parking right near to the entrance to the hotel lobby just by accident. Later, we managed to move our truck even closer. Beats the UCSF parking garage any day.

I was surprised at the amount of activity when we entered the hotel lobby. I'd kinda expected this to be some old has- been that had seen it's better days and now just served as a low class hotel. Not so. There were all kinds of people coming and going and some just hanging out in the lobby, reading or talking on the phone.

The people at the front desk were friendly enough. Along with the keys to our room we got vouchers for two days of breakfasts at their breakfast room, which actually isn't a breakfast room in the sense we've been used to. This was actually a restaurant. They just offered a buffett breakfast along with everything else.

I asked about internet access and the guy told us they had WiFi, but it was AT&T, not provided by the hotel. Whatever plan you decided to use was between you and them. That done, we went to our room.

We were on the sixth floor- sixth out of eight. Despite complaints I'd read about slow elevators here, I found them to be just as fast as any others in town. Sure, if you try during certain time frames when people are coming or going a lot, it may slow down because of all the stops. Otherwise, I didn't find any problems with it.

Our room was just fine, despite some of the reviews I read. In fact, we had two double sized beds instead of one there. There was a TV, coffee pot and a desk. That was about it. A refrigerator would have been nice, but that's one thing they don't provide.

First thing I tried to do was go online and was immediately a bit put off by the AT&T interface. You turn your computer wireless connection on and select the ATT connection. You connect to their web site and try to register. I finally figured out I needed to click on the Connect Now link.

The guy at the front desk told me it cost $9.99 for 24 hours. A bit pricey, but since we got the room, breakfast and parking free, who was I to do the complaining? So, I figure $20 for two days. I can handle that. Problem was, I couldn't find that in the plans they presented on their web page. They only had three options and the cheapest was $25 for three days. I ended up choosing that one.

After entering the credit card info, it told me it couldn't accept my debit card. So, I tried my credit card. Wouldn't accept that, either. Then I realized one thing my form filler program didn't fill out was the state of residence. I manually entered that and the card went through.

It said something about successfully opening my account so I figured I was good to go. I go to check my e- mail and I get the Firefox window saying page couldn't be located, or whatever it says. I tried a couple other pages and get the same thing. It looks like I'm not connected, but my wireless program says I am.

I go back to AT&T and start looking around. After about ten or fifteen minutes I realized I wasn't logged in to them. I go back and forth for about ten minutes and finally figured what I needed to do and finally got logged in. If I had to do it over again right now I'm not sure I'd still be able to just log right in. Not a real user friendly interface on that web page, at least for me.

But, it worked. Next thing I noticed was the room seemed to only have the old style two pronged electrical outlets. I needed the three prong to run the laptop off external power. I looked around and couldn't find a three prong until I went into the bathroom which had one. So, I'd use the laptop for a couple hours, then go into the bathroom and plug it in and let it charge.

That was kind of a hassle, for sure, but it was doable. It wasn't until the next day I happened to look behind me and notice a three prong outlet on the wall next to my bed. How in the world did I miss that? Too far to use with my computer on the desk, but the sill of the window was wide enough for the laptop so I moved operations over there. Everything worked fine then.

One thing that sucks just about anywhere is being a smoker. I'd thought about this earlier: It's not gonna be easy to take a smoke break in an eight story hotel. One thing I noticed about this place, though, was a noteable absence of No Smoking signs. We were in a No Smoking room but there was just a small note on the back of the room door about not smoking.

First I just went down to the parking garage, as it was almost open air. That wasn't as bad as it might seem as the longest part of walking down there was the walk from the room to the elevator of probably 80 feet. On the way back up one time, I decided to check out the so- called Patio.

The Patio was an atrium type place on the fourth floor. They have some kind of meeting room in the middle, a bunch of plants and even a small pool. Not bad. I didn't see any No Smoking signs and the presence of a few ashtrays let me know smoking was allowed there. That became my new smoke break spot.

Getting to the UCSF Oncology Clinic took a little bit of figuring out, if only because of all the one way streets in S.F. But, we made it there in fifteen or twenty minutes despite making a few wrong turns. That's a good thing because we had to be there at 9:30 for blood work and then at 3:30 to see the doctor. Five or six hours is a long time to twiddle your thumbs at UCSF.

So, we were able to drive right back after the first stop at UCSF and hang out at the hotel. I played on the computer and the wifey tried to catch up on the sleep she lost the night before. She didn't sleep well, nor did I, but I can handle it a little better.

As far as food went, we ate at the restaurant in the lobby the first night, pricey though it was. I forget what the place was called. Their web page says "Hilltop Restaurant". I think the picture is the same place but the name was Jack's...something. Good food but not really affordable for us. I ended up buying two separate orders: Steak Fries and some Chicken Strips. The wife ordered a quesadilla.

I also broke with tradition and ordered a beer with my meal. $4.50 for one beer. Is it that much everywhere? Actually, we came out ok at around $25 after all was said and done. I felt that wasn't bad. The waitress told us later they didn't charge us for the Steak Fries. I have no idea why but that was awfully nice of them.

Breakfast there was pretty nice. I'll admit to prefering the normal motel breakfast room where you just show up, sit down and eat, but this was ok. As I mentioned before, this is actually a restaurant dining room. Some people are actually buying regular breakfasts, including the buffett. Others, like us, have vouchers for the free buffett.

The first morning it was fairly busy there. The second it was almost standing room only as there was at least one foreign tourist group in there having breakfast. The food was good, though, with more than just your standard motel breakfast room fare. They had scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and a wider assortment of cereals available than I've seen in other breakfast rooms.

And we got it all for free.

We left around 8:30ish Tuesday morning. The wife always talks about not wanting to deal with the evening rush hour when leaving UCSF. I figured what's the difference? A rush hour is a rush hour. We got to 101 quick enough, scary that it was. Once we got over the bridge and around Marin, the southbound 101 traffic heading towards S.F. looked like it was at a standstill. We were flying right along.

In fact, we made pretty darn good time coming back. Not quite the four hour and forty five minute record I made earlier in the year, but not bad. Even after being held up south of Confusion Hill from this wreck, we still made it back here in around five and a half hours, and that's with maybe four pit stops along the way.

I'll be happy to go back to Cathedral Hill in the future but probably only when we have to stay two nights. If we have morning appointments and thus just have to stay one night, we'll likely just stay at Days Inn, Novato, at least while we can afford it. Then again, there's always the Native Daughters of the Golden West house to stay at, as well. It's nice to have lots of options.

Reasons For Two Party Dominance In America

Revised 3/12/2014

Some time ago I wrote a preview of my treatise on reasons for two party dominance of American politics. What got me thinking about it was the last presidential election.

We had two fairly lame major party candidates- Romney and Obama- facing what should have been a fairly strong contender: Former two- term Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson.

Romney and Obama agreed on fair number of issues, particularly an aggressive U.S. foreign policy. Not only did Johnson oppose aggressive foreign policy, unlike the other two, he was both fiscally conservative and socially tolerant- as are most people in the country.

With a strong record as Governor, he should have been right in there with the main contenders. I didn't expect him to win, but thought he should rightfully place pretty well- at least 5%- although I didn't really expect that, either. I still expected stronger support than he got.

I was particularly surprised to see some people that should be supporting him come out strongly against him. I'd see them in the various news, blog and media forums coming up with any excuse, not only not to support him, but to vote for Romney or Obama instead.

I couldn't understand that. I could see it if it was some of the other past Libertarian Party candidates like Mike Badnarik or even the late Harry Browne, neither of who hadn't even so much served on a city council, but this was a prior two- term Governor labeled by one journalist back in the day as “...the most popular governor in America”.

Why are so many people are devoted to Republicans and Democrats? I decided to write an analysis, thinking it would be something so eye opening and hard hitting that magazines such as Reason and Liberty would be begging to publish it.

Nope. I didn't even come close.

What I ended up with was pretty simple and, if there was a problem with anyone in regards that devotion to Reps and Dems, I suppose it is with me: I'm not one who sees things as black and white and I rarely, if ever, (to a fault, sometimes) follow the crowd. That's why I had such a hard time understanding the lack of support for Gary Johnson.

Basically, it comes down to one thing, although other factors contribute. The main reason is...simplicity.

Simplicity- People want things simple: Good vs. bad, us vs. them, red vs. blue. Most folks, most of the time, don't pay much attention to politics, if at all. Even those that do tend to look at it pretty simply.

That was one of the most frequent comments I read when plugging Johnson in various forums: “Johnson's fine, but I don't want (Obama or Romney) to win”. Or, “Voting for Johnson is just a vote for Obama”, or Romney, depending on who is responding. It's one or the other. That's it.

Heard a gal on the radio last year. She expressed disappointment in both Romney and Obama saying, "This is the first time I'm not voting". Unlike most that chose one or the other, she just wasn't going to vote, despite having a viable third alternative. Same old story: You have two choices, either Rep or Dem.

Simplicity is the main reason. but other aspects could include;

Being part of a crowd- The natural gravitation most people have to be around people and be in a group. Being part of a crowd makes them feel better about themselves and more confident that they’re doing the right thing. 

Third parties certainly have their own crowds, but the average person will take the Rep/Dem crowd of millions over a third party crowd of thousands any day. It supports their feeling of being right. If so many others are in my crowd, I must be doing something right.

Fraternalism- Being part of the crowd comes first, then fraternalism can take over. That’s why you’ll see fraternal Republicans and Democrats stay with their party through thick and thin, sometimes regardless of issues. To some, issues are a very minor consideration, if they’re considered at all. It’s their family and they’re sticking with it.

The Ron Paul Republicans are a good example. Basically crapped on by the main Republican establishment, and despite having serious differences on some issues (foreign policy, for example), many not only stayed with the Republican Party, but even voted for Mitt Romney. They’re Republicans, first and foremost. Issues are secondary, if even that.

I'm sure most of us know people that vote Republican or Democrat every time without even knowing what the issues are.

Pragmatism- Certainly a big player in keeping politics limited to two parties and I'll grudgingly admit understanding the argument. Another common thing you hear when promoting third party candidates:

“You’re just wasting your vote”. “There’s no way he can win. “.

Sure, some might say they'd consider a vote for a third party candidate... some other time, but not now. It's always "Maybe someday, but this time it's too important", which some might have been saying for decades.

That's it. Nothing really groundbreaking and I see no sign that anything will change despite all those polls saying how many voters would like to see a credible third party or candidate emerge. It looks like it's Reps vs. Dems for the foreseeable future.

I'm sure some of you want to ask, “So, Fred, gonna stop wasting your vote now and vote for someone who has a chance to actually win?”. Nope. I'll continue voting third party, or not at all. If a decent major candidate emerges in my lifetime I may reconsider. There's been at least one time I had my doubts about voting LP, but I wasn't sorry for voting LP after events unfolded.

You folks can go ahead and vote for someone who has a chance. Even if you win, you likely won't be taking home any prize.

Ron Paul Ends Presidential Bid

Some of you might have heard that, yesterday, Congressman Ron Paul put an official end his quixotic bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

I'm a bit disappointed that he didn't follow through until the Republican nominating convention. I would have liked to see how many delegates ended up voting for him, although I expected only a handful. Still, it would have been fun to see.

Why did he not follow through until the bitter end? I don't know. I suppose it could be that he realized he was just banging his head against the wall, even with a paper campaign, at this point. Still, I can't help but wonder if the powers that be in the Republican Party let him know if he continued on to cause disunity at their convention, he'd become persona non- grata with the Republican Caucus in congress forever on. Not that he was all that well accepted as it was.

To his credit, he didn't endorse John McCain. I've always felt it looks so stupid when candidates run each other down during the race for the nomination and then endorse the person they told us wasn't fit for the job once that candidate gets the nomination. To McCain's credit, I don't remember him doing that when Bush beat him out of the nomination. I understood the two weren't speaking at that point.

Not sure if it's to his credit, or not, but Paul hasn't endorsed any other presidential candidates, either. I thought he might at least point a finger at some third party candidate he thought well of.

When I first heard he was going to make a big announcement yesterday, I figured he might be announcing support for the Constitution Party candidate. What's his name...Chuck Baldwin??? I guess not, at least not yet.

So now the campaign morphs into the Ron Paul Campaign For Liberty. Just what we need: yet another libertarian oriented educational organization, although I suppose the more the merrier. Whatever. I can't help but wonder if this isn't more about money. I haven't signed up to be a member of this one yet. I'll take a wait and see attitude.

As for who I'm voting for, I'm still in a wait and see mode to see how the Libertarian Party's candidate for president, Bob Barr, handles his campaign. If it looks like he's promoting a pretty much libertarian agenda, as it does so far, I'll probably go ahead and vote for him. If he changes course and it ends up being a plug for religious right Republicanism, or some such, I may just not vote.

We'll wait a month or two and see. Then, if I'm happy with Barr's campaign, he'll get a prominent link in my blog's side bar. In the meantime, both Ron Paul and Hillary's links have been removed, although I probably should have kept Hillary's up there.

February 5 Ballot Initiatives

Ok. Get your pencils and papers ready. I'm going to going to tell you how I'm voting on the ballot initiatives that will be on the ballot for next month's primary election. I'll have to admit that I paid scant attention to these until recently and it doesn't sound like any of them are all that exciting. I'm taking No Position on most of them.

I went ahead and checked what positions, if any, the Libertarian Party of California had taken on these initiatives. Looks like I went along pretty much with them, as is usually the case. One thing the LP CA still doesn't do, and I've suggested more than once, is give a brief reason for why they choose the position they chose. I'll never understand why they just say Yes, NO, or No Position.

Prop 91- Transportation Funding: No Position

This seems to be another one of those things where a commitment is made as to how a certain allotment of money is spent. Actually, as I read it, this just guarantees money from gasoline taxes is spent on transportation needs as it was meant to be.

That sounds good. I'd almost support it. Problem is, a lot of our budgetary problems seem to stem from trying to commit certain monies from certain sources for certain things. I feel like voting Yes, but think that might ad fuel to the fire. I'll stand aside on this one.

Prop 92- Community College Funding: NO

I have a soft spot in my heart for community colleges but this seems to be another one of those spending mandates with no specific source of funding. We already have too many such mandates and it's caused spending to go into overdrive in some cases.

Prop 93- Term Limits: NO

I've said before that I'm ambivalent on term limits, but I'll vote NO on this just because the people who wrote it are going on as if it strengths term limits. It actually rearranges term limits and allows many current legislators (especially the initiative's authors) a little more time in office.

I'm with [the Sacramento Bee's] Dan Walters: A good case can be made for ending, or at least modifying, California's current term limits law. Go ahead and make the case for changing term limits, then. Don't try and deceive voters with misleading titles to your initiative.

Props 94 thru 97- Indian Gaming: No Position

I'm not even going to bother educating myself on these ones. They're different versions of a referendum to overturn some indian compact the state legislature made a while ago.

I'm getting a little fed up with the way the state legislature seems to be joined at the hip with the indian casinos. At the same time, I don't care all that much what the casinos do, I just don't like how the indians get to do things no one else can.

I'll wash my hands of the whole affair and stand aside on all of these.

Overdraft Fees

Something I've been wanting to rant about for some time but never found a news related item to use for reference is overdraft fees. Those are the penalties financial services charge when you bounce a check. For those of you in Arcata, bouncing a check is writing a check with insufficient funds in your account to cover the check. Thanks to Eric, who made a comment about overdraft fees on Jennifer Savage's blog, I was reminded of the issue.

Eric refers to overdraft fees as a "racket". Libertarian though I may be, I think I'd use stonger words than that. I think charging $20 to $40 for a bounced check the bank didn't even cover is a ripoff.

And it's not just the person who writes the bad check that gets charged. The person who tried to cash the check gets charged as well. I've had a number of checks people write out to me bounce over the years. Each time I've deposited a check from someone with insufficient funds the credit union would charge me $20.

One customer told me his bank, it might have been Bank of America, charged him $40(!!!) or more for a bounced check. So, not only was he short on cash in the first place, his bank charges him big time for the bounced check. He's also pretty much responsible for the $20 penalty I paid and he's much worse of than he was before. Clearly a case of beating someone when they're down and could put someone in a situation they might not be able to get out of.

I brought up the issue to one of the gals at my credit union a few years ago. She replied something along the line of, "I think it's good they do that. It sends a message that people shouldn't be writing checks that they can't cover and should pay closer attention to their checking account....". Right, as if most people are bouncing checks on purpose.

B.S. This goes way beyond that, punishing people that have no idea someone wrote them a bad check. Besides, if someone regularly bounces checks, the bank always has the option of closing their checking account, as happened to me over thirty years ago when I was on the down and outs.

Surprisingly, I guess I still agree with that part of the Libertarian Party platform that opposes usury laws- laws against loansharking and such- at least in part. Hey, if I want to voluntarily borrow money from someone at 100% interest, that's my business.

Why I don't think this is the same I'd have to think about a bit longer but I suppose it's because the penalties banks charge are way beyond what it costs them to process a check with insufficent funding. I could see five dollars, maybe ten dollars max, but $20 to $40 from both the writer and receiver of the check? Nope.

I know some of my fellow libertarians might argue that there is a free market of sorts in regards to financial institutions and I could always shop around. That might be true but I'm not sure that really applies in the case of bounced check fees. After all, can you imagine a bank seriously selling the fact they're the best bank around to bounce checks from? Are those the kinds of customers you'd want to attract? Wouldn't make sense from a business standpoint.

Does anyone know of any banks that advertise No Overdraft Penalties?

Insomuch as government already regulates the banks- whether for better or worse- it wouldn't bother me if they put a cap on the penalties financial instituions can levy on bounced checks.

In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, I strongly suggest checking to see if your bank or credit union offers overdraft protection. My credit union doesn't charge anything for it unless I write a check with insufficient funds. If I do, they transfer money from my savings account to my checking account for a fee of two or three dollars a check. That's far better than what it would cost for bouncing a check. If your bank doesn't offer such protection, find one that does.

Humboldt Illegals On The Run

In the almost thirty four years I've lived up here, this is the first time I can recall hearing of an illegal immigration sweep. Hmm... I wonder why? Happens fairly often in Southern California.

I worked at the Costa Mesa Car Wash in Orange County just before I moved up here. I wasn't there the day it happened but my roommate, who also worked there, was there when a border patrol bus drove into the car wash and nearly the entire car wash crew took off a runnin'.

I've always been surprised at the number of hispanics in Humboldt County. Don't know why. I guess it's probably just because we're so far from the border. Then again, I suppose it would make sense, if you're in the country illegally, to get as far from the border as possible.

I'd never really thought about how many of the Mexicans in Humboldt might be illegal. I usually just figured if you run into a Mexican that speaks little or no english, he's probably illegal. Not sure if that's a valid way to tell but I know some people seem to be able to recognize illegals just by appearence.

I was speaking to Benita Roman at Roman's Restaurant a few years ago. She and her husband moved up here from Mexico probably thirty years ago. We were talking about the legal vs. illegal thing, probably cause I kidded them now and then about sneaking over the border. They didn't sneak, though.

She was telling me about all the illegals up here. She referred to that place at the Bayshore Mall, the ??????? Saloon (the name escapes me right now). It closed down a few years ago. She said something like, "Fred, you know all those people working at the ******* Saloon? They're all illegal....". She didn't seem to approve of people being here illegally.

It didn't occur to me to ask just how she could tell they were illegal.

I guy I worked with at the Humboldt Bay Power Plant was raised in Texas. He was saying the Border Patrol could often spot illegals just by appearance. He'd say the Border Patrol would come into a bar, look around, and then head for a certain group of Mexicans. Somehow they could tell.

Anyway, I wonder if this raid was just a once every 30 or so year thing, or will we be seeing more of it in the future?

**********

Some people might be curious how I feel about immigration, the Libertarian Party being one that advocates open border policies. Well, I'm not an open borders libertarian. Sure, I might agree with that libertarian mantra that peaceful people should be allowed to immigrate and emigrate freely, but there's more to it than that as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure just how immigration policy should work, but there should be some control over who or what comes into the country. Besides, isn't that how Mexico ended up losing California and Texas? They let too many gringos immigrate?

LP of CA Gears Up For 2006, Already?

I was actually disappointed to find, in my inbox this morning, an e-mail stating the Libertarian Party of California has found a full slate of candidates for the 2006 elections, at least for the North Coast. Ted Brown, our statewide candidate recruiter, does a miraculous job each election of rounding up candidates all over the state. Local Green Party babe, Kaitlin Socopi- Belknap, commented to me some time ago she was impressed with how many candidates the LP manages to find. Well, for the most part, the credit belongs to Ted Brown and his hard work.

Of course, this doesn't mean the candidates will just show up on the ballot. They have to either pay filing fees, gather a certain number of signatures, or, come up with a combonation of filing fees and signatures- each signature being worth a certain amount toward the filing fees. I forget the cash value of an individual signature but it varies with the office being sought.

It is nice to have a libertarian to vote for come election time, but it has it downsides as well. Getting the candidate on the ballot can be a real hassle to me, since up here it's pretty much up to just me. It takes time, money and a lot of work to do the signature gathering. I was kinda hoping no one would want to run this next time around so I could pretty much sit out the pre- election hassles. Oh well. We'll see what happens.

Some of the volunteer candidates may just end up being paper candidates. That can be a bit of a disappointment for people going out and gathering signatures but we've been fairly lucky up here to have candidates that are fairly active and actually show up for candidate forums and such. I've done some candidate web pages for other LP candidates around the state, off and on, and have been struck by the inability of some of our candidates to even come up with issues they want to run on. Had one guy who just wanted me to link any issues on his web page to the generic LP CA issues web page and didn't want me to put any background info on his page. You know, the stuff nearly any candidate has on a campaign web page: "I'm a father of four kids and have been practicing medicine for 25 years.....". If someone can't even come up with the basics, why bother running.

But, like I said, we've had fairly decent LP candidates up here since I've been with the Party. Here's who's looking at running next year:

1st District, U.S. Congress- running against Mike Thompson - Joe Farina from Woodland. I believe he's run before for one thing or another so at least he has experience. I've certainly heard his name before.

2nd District, State Senate- currently held by Wes Chesbro, who I believe can't run for this office again because of term limits - Our very own, Verne Skjonsby, who recently, unless I'm mistaken, won one of the seats on one of the Arcata School Boards and prior to that won a seat on the Board of some recreation district in Arcata.

1st District, State Assembly- running against Patty Berg- Tom Reed, out of Cloverdale. Never heard of him but past LP State Assembly candidate, Ken Anton, told me Reed had called him to talk a bit about running for that office.

We'll see how this shapes up and whether they can get on the ballot without paying filing fees. What I'm curious about is what Chesbro is gonna do, assuming I'm right about him being term limited out. Will he try to run against Thompson in the primary? I wonder.

Gary Johnson on Sharia Law

I'm pleased to see I'm pretty much in agreement with past LP presidential candidate and two term Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, in his feelings about ISIS. What he doesn't really address, though, is the refugee problem and that's one that seems to be tearing many libertarians apart.

Not so much the official organization, but the sniping back and forth between members of the Party that supposedly believe in open borders and those that don't. I'm among the latter and have felt for some time that we should greatly restrict immigration from Muslim countries. Hey, we have a problem here. I"m not saying they can't go to other countries, assuming other countries are willing to accept them. 

We should feel no obligation to accept them here. It's no different than a transient stopping by my house and asking to spend the night. I may feel it's important to help someone in need, but I shouldn't feel obligated to let him into my house.

Past LP of California gubernatorial candidate, Richard Rider, does address immigration. His thinking is along the way I feel about it, although he specifies Muslims as opposed to pointing to Sharia Law as Johnson does: 

"Here's why I much prefer "Mexicans" (really all Hispanics and damn near anyone else) to Muslims. When a Mexican comes here, we don't need to monitor their ideology, or be concerned about their terrorist tendencies, or be worried that their offspring will become terrorists.  When a Muslim comes here, we do."

But fear not, open borders types. I believe Rider switched to Republican some years ago and The Libertarian National Committee recently sent out a release reaffirming its belief in open borders. That should remain the party platform for the foreseeable future as I see it. For that reason alone I'll always consider myself a libertarian, as opposed to a Libertarian.

Blogging For Liberty

The latest issue of the Libertarian Party of California's newsletter, California Freedom, came in the mail yesterday. I've been getting it for months now but I'm not sure why. I stopped paying dues to the state organization some time ago.

Of interest to me was the article on page 3 on spreading liberty through blogging. Interesting, if only because I'd sent a heads up to the editor of California Freedom about the potential for spreading libertarian ideas via blogging after the article on Humboldt Blogs ran in the North Coast Journal back in January.

They actually ended up doing a story on the subject but made no mention of my blog. The article mentions a couple others done by LPers:

The first one, e-liberty, by Mark Johnson, seems to be another one of those where the blogger writes two entries and apparently quits, the last entry being made March 23. Not a good idea to use a blog like that for an example of what a blog is supposed to be.

The second one, Knowing Humans, blogged by Brian Holtz, is another puzzler as the last post seems to have been made on March 2. He hasn't posted in over a month. Another bad example to use.

At first glance, it looks like Brian's topic of choice is Libertarian Party of California internal politics which, would seem to me, to be the last thing of interest to Joe and Jill Sixpack. But, looking at his past posts, he does get into any number of different topics, inserting his own take on what the libertarian or Libertarian Party position is, or should be.

Not sure that that's the best way to approach issues, either, as I don't think explaining the fine details of libertarian philosophy is of much interest to anyone other than...well... Libertarian Party insiders, if even them! But, he gave it his best shot before he gave up, so I'll give him kudos for the effort.

I'm not saying this blog is perfect, but I think I've done a better job than the examples they gave. They should have had my blog listed. I'm sooo hurt.

Animal Hoarding?

Yet another event at the Wharfinger Building the other day, this one hosted by Miranda Animal Rescue and dealing with the problem of animal hoarding. No link on the Eureka Reporter web page to the article but it's about the horror stories we've heard now and again about people have dozens of animals which leads to neglect.

While that should be a concern, seems to me an even bigger problem is people taking in animals who don't really have the means, or interest, to take care of them. I was talking to a neighbor about this just yesterday. He came by walking his dog, which he does at least once a day. I got to chatting with him, although it escapes me how we got on to the subject of animal neglect.

I pointed out the dog at the druggie house a couple houses up the street. They acquired that dog a few months ago, seems to me. They apparently don't have a secure back yard as the dog was out on the streets immediately after they got him. They'd catch him, throw him in the back yard and soon thereafter he'd be out again.

If the dog wasn't aggressive enough- it would get out on the street and go around barking and growling at everyone- now they have it chained in their front yard, making it even more aggressive. I guess that's what got the subject on my mind yesterday because, when I went out to drag my garbage can back up to the house, the dog's barking at me and I'm three houses away and across the street from him.

If they're just going to tie a dog up in the front yard, why'd they even bother bringing him home to begin with?

Then there's the relatively new neighbor next door. She ends up getting a dog a few months ago, too. Not that she can really afford it as she has two kids and no job. I've been given the impression she's not supposed to even have a dog there, it being a rental, but I'm not sure about that.

Her yard's not secured, either, but I can't blame her for that as our fence has been a shambles for years.

Her dog ends up in our back yard right away. Not so much a problem with me except for it being illustrative that she doesn't have any control over her dog. The wife gets pissed, though, cause the dog steals her flowerpots and craps in our yard.

So we try to block up the holes in the fence to no avail. Doesn't matter as there are other places for the dog to get out. Just about every morning, when I go out to get the newspaper, the dogs sitting in their front yard and gets all nervous when I go pick up the paper. No barking yet, but I think that dog will certainly get more aggressive as it gets older.

What did she even bother getting that dog for? I've seen her taking it for a walk once. Maybe she does more often, but I've never seen it. Bottom line is, she doesn't even seem to have enough money to take care of herself and the kids and she drags a dog she can't take care of into the equation. The mentality here defies common sense.

Then there's the older story that really made my blood boil, and this guy seems fairly well off:

Just around the corner from my house, on F Street, there's a guy living next to a yard I used to work in. He's some appliance repair guy, or at least he was a few years ago when this all came about.

One day I notice him walking a dog by my house. I didn't think much of it, just a guy walking his dog, but did take note he must have just gotten it as I'd never seen him with a dog before. Seems to me I saw him walking that dog two or three times, before he must have gotten tired of it.

Then one day I stop to do his next door neighbors lawn and I see he's got one of those 4' x 8' chain link dog kennels in his front yard enclosure. Inside it, there that dog sat, and sat. It was nice of the guy to put a dog house in there so the dog had protection from the elements, but with the dog house in the cage, that gave the dog only about half the kennel to move in, which meant basically all he could do was lie there.

I don't know if somebody said something to him but a couple months later he fully enclosed the area around front door of his house and opened the kennel so the dog had a little more room to move around. A slight improvement anyway.

But not much more room and there the dog sat. The small area turned into a mudhole when the rains came and there that dog was with nothing to do but sit in the dog house or lay in the mud.

Eventually, the guy filled the area with rock. I guess that was his attempt at taking care of the dog. I guess I should say dogS, because by now there were two dogs in there instead of one. The problem with the rock, at least I saw it, was it wasn't pea gravel, or anything that might have been more comfortable on the feet, it was big rocks, three to five inches around. That's what they had to lay on in there.

Can you imagine having to live on a rocky river bar with no soft ground to rest on? That's what it must have been like for those dogs living in that "kennel"?

I'm not sure what's going on there now. I stopped doing his neighbor's lawn a couple years ago. Even before I did, the guy raised the fence around his "kennel" so you couldn't see what the dogs were doing. I wonder if he got tired of people getting on his case about the dogs, assuming someone said something.

What did he ever bring those dogs home for, then add insult to injury and get yet another dog?

There oughta be a law. Libertarian though I may be, these sorts of things beg the question as to whether we should have means testing before people can adopt animals?

Blue Noses On The Loose Again?

I suppose they always have been.

An item in today's Sacramento Bee about a shop opening in the Sacramento area got me to thinking about similar efforts in the past around here. In the case of Cupid's Love Boutique, the name of which isn't even on the store, some folks aren't happy that the business will be selling, among other things, sex toys and XXX DVDs.

So what's the big deal? I say leave them alone. Then again, I don't live there.
*********
The most recent situation that comes to mind around here was the opening of T. Great Razooly's Tip Top Club on Humboldt Hill. As many of you know, The Tip Top Club is an "exotic dancing" establishment. For those of you in Arcata, that means it's a strip joint.

The Tip Top Club took over an old restaurant, the name which escapes me right now, just off the freeway across from King Salmon. If memory serves me correct, the building had been vacant for some years prior to Razooly becoming interested in it.

After much broohah, which included Libertarian T. Great Razooly being arrested for opening the business without a permit, Tip Top opened. There have been no problems to date, at least that I'm aware of.

There was an effort by people in the neighborhood to stop Tip Top from opening. I might have been sympathetic to their concerns, except it's not like a business, namely a restaurant, hadn't been in the same building before. It wasn't like a new invasion of their neighborhood.

I was also to learn later on that Tip Top doesn't even have a liquor license. What the point is of having a strip club without a liquor license is, is beyond me. Nonetheless, that's Razooly's business. I would think the place probably attracts less traffic than the restaurant there before it. The signs outside are tasteful enough. What's the problem?

I don't know that there is one, except for some folks that don't approve of certain types of behaviour.

I could see some cause for concern if Razooly was opening a Humboldt branch of The Great Alaskan Bush Company. The Bush Company is in Anchorage, Alaska- a world reknowned strip club which I've had the pleasure of visiting a couple times. A great place to hang out at, even without the girls, the only exception being the cost of liquor there.

But even with the Bush Company, it's pretty tame on the outside. What's the problem?
*****************

I'm not sure it was always that way around here, as I haven't followed it to closely. I do know, when I first moved up here in '73, the building on 5th Street in Eureka that housed the old Co- Op and previously Kacy's Supermarket, used to be a XXX book store, at least I think that's the building it was in. Maybe it was down the street a little further?

The blue noses in Eureka, along with the Eureka City Council, finally got rid of that place. I think they changed the zoning or came up with some ordinance, or some such, to shut it down. I didn't think much of it at the time and, in hindsight, did think the place was pretty tacky: A XXX bookstore with a sign, if memory serves me right, announcing such, on one of the main drags of Eureka.

Maybe no one would have bothered with them if they'd been a little more low key?
********

Back around then Eureka also had it's very own Head Shop, Fool's Jools. Anyone remember that one? They sold drug related paraphanelia, among other things, and were on H Street, right across from the Post Office/ Federal Building.

I paid a bit more attention to it's demise, if only because I knew at least one person that worked there. Barry Scarpellino, whose family I worked for at the time, even sang a jingle that ended up on a Fool's Jools radio commercial.

Some in the city weren't happy with Fool's Jools. Seems to me an ordinance was drafted prohibiting businesses that sold drug paraphanelia. Either that, or they chose to enforce some law or ordinance already in existence.

I was kind of irked to see that happen, even at my young age. Why not just leave them alone? They weren't causing any problems.

The Eureka blue noses were having their day back in the '70s.
***************

I forget what year it was, but there was a big stink some decades ago over the Fortuna Theater. I forget how it happened but the Fortuna Theater became an X Rated theater (did they even have x ratings back then?).

Many residents were outraged. Police ended up raiding the theater and arresting people. Eventually, I forget the details, the X rated Fortuna Theater was closed down, never to be reopened as X rated again. I believe it is open for family entertainment, though, to this day.

One seemingly permanent victory for the blue noses, and I almost can't fault them. Do you really want the only theater in town to be X rated?
*******

Hard to say if the blue nose's victories in Eureka were long lived, or not.

At least a couple sex shops have opened over the years. One, the Pleasure Center, on 3rd(?) Street, went out of business. It wasn't the blue noses, though, I don't think. I was told they either moved to Arcata, or, the Arcata store that was the main business decided not to bother with the Eureka store anymore.

I'm not sure when the other one opened. Good Relations (is that on 2nd or 3rd Street?) opened in Eureka. It sells sex oriented stuff. I can't help wonder if someone isn't trying to shut them down, although I haven't heard of any such movement.

Maybe the difference is they're fairly low key, despite being right out in the open. If you drive by the place I think you'll agree it's nice and low key with no one shouting sex slogans, or anything else. From what I've seen, it fits right in with Old Town, Eureka.
********

I'd like to think that's the key to this whole thing of the sex industries and other such things: If you keep them low key, and not right in people's faces, maybe the blue noses wouldn't get so aroused, but maybe not. That Cupid's Love Boutique, in the Sacramento Area, hasn't even opened yet and they're getting hammered.

POP's E Street Bust Fizzles

It was a long time in coming but I guess the Problem Oriented Policing unit's bust of a house on E Street in Eureka didn't amount to much. Such a shame. I'm guessing the house with the brick chimney in the picture was the house that was raided. It's just a couple houses up on the other side of the street from ours and we've dealt with the goings on there for years.

I had no idea, except I saw four or five police cars parked a block down the street as I went to work Wednesday morning. No cops in sight and I couldn't imagine why the cops would be stopped out in front of Carol's house. I guess they parked down there so they could sneak up on them. I didn't know what happened until I read it in the paper.

Looks like it fizzled. The only arrest was for some warrant plus the gal that owns the house got cited for illegally turning her garage into a living space for some guys she's putting up. That cite for the code violation not exactly being something a libertarian should relish although if it succeeded in cleaning that house out you wouldn't hear me complaining.

So did it work? Is the neighborhood quieter and safer now? Doesn't seem like it. We suspect residents of that house of going into the Matteoli's yard on Tuesday night and stealing beer from a cooler left over from a party they had that same night. The next night- I believe the night of the day they got raided- they came back and took the cooler. They also broke the back gate when they couldn't figure out how to open it.

I was unaware of that until yesterday when I noticed we got ripped off, too. I didn't notice the garbage can I store my flattened aluminum cans in was gone from our back porch until I went to use it. I smashed a can in my can smasher, turned to toss it in the garbage can and noticed the can wasn't there. I thought something looked different earlier but hadn't paid much attention until then.

I asked Connie if she did something with it. That's when she told me she hadn't and that the guys from the drug house that stole the Matteoli's stuff probably took our can, too.

The first thing I noticed earlier that morning was the 5 gallon propane tank we had sitting in the center of the patio had been moved to the middle of the sidewalk. I just figured Connie moved it for some reason. When we realized the garbage can had been stolen (half full of flattened aluminum cans) we thought maybe they'd planned on taking the propane tank, too, but changed their minds. Or maybe they'd come back again and steal the tank and our barbeque? It wasn't in the way of the garbage can so there was no other reason to move it.

I put both the tank and BBQ inside the back room for the night, closed the back gate as best I could and blocked it with some old rotten stumps. We were hoping if they did come back we'd hear them.

They didn't come back last night but we were treated to an hour or so worth of loud yelling from them around 11 o'clockish. Some guy yelling "F**K Y**" at the top of his lungs over and over again. Not unusual at all for that place. We expect that sort of thing. I'm just hoping the stealing isn't going to start being an ongoing issue.

About the only way I can think to get rid of them is to hope for a good enough bust that they all end up in jail or maybe figure some way to seize the house using asset forfeiture laws (another issue that should bother a libertarian). All we can do is hope, but I hate the idea of having to put anything remotely of value behind locked doors every night.

In fairness, I also need to remind myself and others there's always the possibility that it might have been someone else that did the stealing. It's not like this is the first time we've had thieves in the neighborhood.

Election 2006: A Look Ahead

The Santa Rosa Press- Democrat gave the first overall view I've seen of the upcoming elections this year, at least as far as candidates go. No link to their story cause I couldn't find it. Someone just sent me the text of the article. Here's what it looks like for the state and federal offices. I can't help but wonder if they're missing a few names:

For 1st District, State Assembly, Patty Berg is running to keep her seat, as one would expect. She'll be opposed by her past Republican challenger, Ray Tyrone (at least I think he's the one that ran against her last time) and Libertarian, Tom Reed. Both Reed and Tyrone hail from Coverdale.

Wes Chesbro's finally out of the 2nd State Senate seat due to term limits so, as has been mentioned here before, Pat Wiggins will run in his place. She'll be opposed by past Republican candidate for U.S. Congress, Lawrence Weisner.

I was told that a local libertarian would be filing for that seat, as well, but his name doesn't show up on the list so maybe he decided against it? A shame, as it doesn't look like I'll have anyone to vote for in that race. I generally would vote for the Republican for state level offices if there's no libertarian in the race but Weisner's a bit too hard to the right for me. I don't know why Weisner even runs as he never shows up for any of the candidate forums.

Congressman Mike Thompson wants to stay in his office again. He'll be opposed by three others: Republican John Jones, a retired cop. Perenniel left wing candidate, Pam Elizondo, representing the Greens and Timothy Stock from the Peace and Freedom Party. There was supposed to be a libertarian in this race. I'm surprised not to see his name as he frequently runs for office so shouldn't have had a problem getting on the ballot. Maybe they missed him somehow?

Pam Elizondo used to be with the Peace and Freedom Party until she switched to the Greens. She probably only did that cause the Peace and Freedom Party lost their status as an official political party in California due to low vote percentages. They regained ballot status a couple years ago only because low voter turnout ended up giving them a high enough percentage of votes to give them back their recognized party status.

I was almost tempted to vote for Elizondo last time she ran against Thompson. Hey, anyone that would show up for a candidate debate wearing a t- shirt is ok by me. To hell with the issues.

For U.S. Senate, Dianne Feinstein has it easy, although she apparently has at least one Democrat facing her in the primary. The Press- Democrat doesn't show any Republican running against her, which is hard to believe. Then again, I understand the Republicans are having a hard time finding someone to run in that race. Amazing as it is to me, Feinstein is considered a shoo- in for re- election. Unbelievable.

I've been told that a libertarian, Michael Metti, is supposed to be in the race for U.S. Senate, but no mention of him from the Press- Democrat. Wonder if he had second thoughts? Maybe he'll pop up later.

Elan Firpo A Libertarian?

Our very own Rose Welsh seemed a bit annoyed over this short synopsis of the District Attorney candidates in the Times- Standard. She suggests the writer was bringing political parties into it. She is right that it is a non- partisan race, but all the guy did is point out Maggie Fleming is supported by some of the "old school Democrats". I didn't see much, if any, partisan intent to the letter.

I am curious why the writer senses Elan Firpo to be a libertarian? If someone could make a good case in that regard, that would certainly have some pull with me.

I was going to wait, but I'll go ahead and give my own brief synopsis of the candidates. I'll try to be nice:

Arnie Klein- I agree that Klein seems to have the most experience on the prosecution side. He comes off as a bit eccentric to me. That, coupled with his age, puts him near the bottom of my list. Hate to be an age bigot but I'm not sure a 70 year old guy could handle what by most accounts is the mess he'll be dealing with if elected.

Allan Dollison- I've made it well known I dislike Allan Dollison. I might go so far as to say it's personal. Leaving the personal stuff aside, though, I feel he's a philosophical authoritarian. It seems clear to me, after reading his Facebook page for months, that he is an admirer of state power and those that enforce that power. Certainly not someone I'd support for any position.

That aside, he's also quite enamored of his military duties. I'd expect him to continue his frequent reserve military forays so he'd likely not put in anywhere near as much time as needed in the challenging position of District Attorney. He is last on my list.

Elan Firpo- Easiest on the eyes of all the candidates, if she is a libertarian- even a closet one- that could certainly sway me. She seems competent enough. Complaints about her recent plea bargains could likely also be made against the same people making those complaints. She's in the top two.

Maggie Fleming- Hard to ignore the diversity of her endorsements. They're from all over. I'd say that's a good sign. I know little about her but some others who I respect are backing her, although I don't know their specific reasons. She's also in my top two.

With me it's between Fleming and Firpo.

Flat Tax or Fair Tax?

Back when we used to do our Libertarian Party outreach table at the Old Town Fourth of July Festival, there was a lady who ran an appliance store somewhere in Old Town that came by our table probably three years in a row. She'd stop, jam her finger down on the table and ask, "Ok, which is it: Fair Tax or Flat Tax?" She never seemed to remember she asked the same question to the same person in exactly the same way the year before.

I was hard pressed to answer the question with a straight answer of either one tax or the other. Reason being, as I told her, both forms of tax do nothing to address government spending. They're simply different ways of collecting the same billions or trillions of dollars from people only to be redistributed by government.

I suppose that's a moot point, though, since the question is which method of taxation would be preferable to what we have now. As to that, I'm not sure.

Both our very own Leonidas and local gadfly, Jerry Partain, favor the Fair Tax, which would basically take the form of a National Sales Tax. I don't know that I agree, especially when most estimates I've seen of the percent of tax on sales to replace current income tax revenue would be around 30%. So, if you don't like the current 8%, or whatever it is around here, you'll really be hating it when you end up paying close to a third more in taxes for that car or computer you just bought.

Some of the benefits touted by Fair Tax proponents I see as disadvantages. For one; that nobody can escape the tax as it's made upon sale of new goods. I don't like that, but that's mostly because I happen to be an admirer of the underground economy.

Certainly it would be nice to do away with the filing of income taxes each year but, as Leonidas points out in his comments about the Fair Tax, we'd still be filing state income taxes. What's to say the state won't increase their income tax rate with the rationalization that Californians no longer pay the federal income tax so they should pay more state income tax? I understand they did just that with some of the Bush Tax cuts, or were working on it.

That lady that used to come by our LP table in Old Town pointed out that the National Sales Tax would be harmful to her business as only new items were taxed. Since she sold appliances, she did indeed face the prospect of a serious loss in sales. She made a good point. I don't know that I'd go for this Fair Tax.

The other plan, The Flat Tax, would be a flat income tax where everyone pays the same rate of, say, 5% on all income earned with no deductions of any kind. I believe I've read some proposals for an even higher percentage, maybe even up to 15%. This is the tax system Rep. Dick Armey was campaigning for. The one where you could file your taxes by just filing out a post card.

For me, being self- employed, the thought of no deductions is troubling and I just don't trust the pols to keep the tax percentage at the level they sell the plan on. This does allow the underground economy a chance to avoid the tax man and I find that to be a good thing although, admittedly, most people don't.

I guess I'd lean toward a flat income tax, if I had to chose one over the other. There's no denying it would be good to get rid of the annual ritual of getting all your papers together and hauling them off to the accountant to see how much money you can manage to keep in the bank after paying your taxes.

I did that just yesterday, which is partly why this subject came up. Went to the accountant to do the preliminary work on our income taxes. A quick look at the numbers had my accountant telling me I was looking at a tax due of around $1700. The first time in a few years where I got hit hard at the time I needed to be hit hard the least.

I might be able to shave a couple hundred dollars off that after looking a little closer at expenses but, still, that really adds insult to injury as paying that bill would just about clean out my bank account, literally. I'll likely have to come up with a payment plan of some sort.

Something needs to be done about the tax code for sure. But, more importantly something needs to be done to cut government spending and I don't think most of us will live to see the day when that happens, if it happens at all.

LNC Vice Chair: Why I'm Not Marching

A nice statement just released by Libertarian National Committee Vice- Chair, Arvin Vohra, explaining why he's not joining anti- Trump protest marches despite living right where the marches will take place. Glad to see someone pointing out what matters and what doesn't:

"This Saturday, I will not be attending the protest march on Washington, although I live only a few minutes away from that location.

This march suggests that Donald J. Trump's inappropriateness is somehow worse than the government abuses under Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

I won't support that kind of value reversal. I will not engage in the fantasy that idiotic locker room humor is worse than bombing civilians, or hypocritically refusing to pardon people for marijuana use after admitting to marijuana use. I will not pretend that Trump's election antics are worse than warrantless wiretapping, or the Patriot Act, or the Wall Street bailout.

If and when Trump bombs his first wedding or hospital, I will happily march in protest. If and when he refuses to scale back or end the drug war, I will march in protest. If and when he supports a Wall Street bailout, or a program as diseased as Common Core, I'll gladly march. If he wastes money on a wall, I will march. If he refuses to pardon Snowden or dismantle the Patriot Act, I will march. If he creates a Muslim Watch List, I will march.

But this protest is not about that. It is about people acting as if every kind of abuse is fine, except for social rudeness. These are the same people who refused to protest war, the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act, or warrantless surveillance under Obama. They tacitly approved all of those things, and now are further extending that tacit approval in this march.

They are saying that Trump's rude humor is worse than all of that. After all, they didn't lift a finger to oppose those inexcusable actions, but they came in from all over the country to oppose Trump's rudeness.

For a political movement to be taken seriously, it must consider more important issues as...more important. Bill Clinton's continuation of the War on Drugs and signing of the Defense of Marriage act was far worse than sexual infidelity. The fact that the media and public focused on the latter just made them look silly. This march is no different.

I will not support a political ideology that suggests a whiff of sexism or racism is worse than the blatant abuses of government power over the last years. Because when you march against the former, but excuse the latter, that's exactly what you are saying.

I am keenly aware of the political and personal advantages in attending the march. But logic, sanity, and conscience will not permit me to support the fantasy that impolite behavior matters more than blatant government abuse."

Respectfully,

 

Arvin Vohra

Vice-Chair, Libertarian National Committee

That Damned Abortion Thing

I'm not sure I've mentioned here that one of two things I never try to get involved in are discussions about abortion and/ or Israel. I've never understood how abortion came to be the number one issue for many people in regards politics. I've seen many times, when plugging a candidate, when the first question the other person asks is where the candidate stands on abortion. Ugh!

Along that same line, someone wrote a letter to the Times- Standard complaining about the lack of pro- life expression at the recent anti- Trump march in Eureka. I had to point out there was a pro- life presence at the march, albeit a small one. Below is a photo of my niece (on the left), Joelle Shively and a friend carrying pro- life signs at the march.

No surprise there as she has Catholic blood running through her veins, but I still don't understand why it's such a big issue with everyone else.

Years ago, while running a Libertarian Party table at a local gun show, I struck up an acquaintance with a sweet young girl from Redway. I think her name was Dianne, but am not sure anymore. We seemed to get along famously the first day, talking non- stop about politics and the time flew by.

When I was driving home that day, for some reason abortion entered my mind, even though we hadn't discussed it. I wondered to myself why abortion is such a big deal to so many. After all, it's not like everyone is going out and getting abortions.

The next morning I made the mistake of bringing that up to Dianne and she sure told me! I told her, "I was thinking last night, wondering why abortion is such a big deal. It's not like everybody is going out and getting abortions." She wheeled in her chair, swung around staring at me and said something like "If you needed an abortion and couldn't get one....". She was pissed. I backed off and dropped it.

We didn't speak much most of that morning. Later in the day she seemed to come out of it and we were back to being best buddies. Lesson learned: I'll never bring that subject up again....except maybe here.