Libertarian Commentary #16-13A, by Nathan Barton

Just when you think the 2016 Massa election campaign has gone as low as it can, something else happens.  And then it happens again. And again.

I started writing this commentary about 24 hours ago, talking about some pretty dirty attack politics.

Without referencing all the news stories, it appears that just days before the Utah and Arizona primaries, a political group posted an attack ad against Trump, featuring his wife in a photo from a GQ “glamour shot” – nude but with nothing “exposed.”  Trump (as would be expected) blew up about this, attacking “Lying Ted Cruz” (Cruz and his campaign denied he had anything to do with the ad – a claim challenged by many people) and telling Cruz that his wife’s history was therefore also fair game.  Cruz, in turn, cussed Trump out for threatening his wife, in a public speech.  More screaming, especially on the talk shows and the comments sections, ensued.  Ah, the wonderful mechanisms and actions of democracy.  Yet another reason it is a bad idea, and we need to establish a new republic.

But there is worse:  Consider Emory University, in Georgia, supposedly a “research university” but clearly a typical bastion of liberal, Tranzi political correctness more concerned about things like “microaggression” and not science.  It seems that someone wrote “Trump 2016” on Emory’s campus in chalk. Some students said they no longer feel safe.  And staged a protest of screaming and demanding, according to the Washington Post “Conservative students at Emory University are planning a free-speech event for next week, after an outcry on campus over messages supporting Donald Trump. Students woke up Monday morning to find messages written in chalk all over campus, in support of Donald Trump. That afternoon, a group of 40 to 50 students protested. According to the student newspaper, the Emory Wheel, they shouted in the quad, ‘You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!'”

Mama’s Note: Wait a minute… these precious little snowflakes feel seriously threatened by chalk? They want to be “safe” from hearing or seeing any opinion but their own, obviously. I do hope they can find jobs in some “safe” place where they never have to see big city graffiti, or hear the loose talk on public transportation…oh, a million and one other situations very dangerous to snowflakes who can’t bear to even contemplate any actual “free speech.” Or any actual freedom, of course. (Snowflake name for these twits shamelessly stolen from Nicki at The Zelman Partisans)

Pathetic (and the WaPo seems to agree) that political campaigning is now considered hat speech and racism by what Mama Liberty calls the little snowflakes that are today’s college students (some, not all, I understand).  Reason Magazine castigated the university, properly, for the response. But the Tranzi press seem to blame Trump himself for this.  (Last minute addition: a correspondent has told me that it was reported that the person(s) doing the chalked “Trump 2016” messages were actually a false flag operation by anti-Trump activists looking to get exactly the results they have.   As of yet, I’ve not been able to verify that, but it would not surprise me.  Nor did Snopes’ claim of (Mostly) False surprise me. What is “false” is that some people have said that students (who DID, according to everyone, claim “we are in pain” and felt threatened) were offered “emergency counseling” instead of just “counseling” to deal with the situation.

Mama’s Note: The blind, endlessly leading and “counseling” the blind…

But the real sleeze came out on Friday.

This is also ANOTHER big brohaha in the 2016 Massa Campaign, as the National Enquirer (yeah, THAT rag) headline announced “DIRTY POLITICS! SHOCKING CLAIMS: Pervy Ted Cruz Caught Cheating — With 5 Secret Mistresses!”

Immediately, the Trump campaign was blamed for the “shocking claim” but a number of commentators and reporters are claiming that at least SOME of the 5 may indeed be legitimate, making Cruz out to be another Bill Cosby. Others are just screaming louder, saying that since Trump is friends with the Inquirer’s editor or publisher, he MUST be behind it. The Horn News sums it up pretty quickly; even the allegations, true or not, may be enough to sink Cruz and ensure that Trump is the GOP candidate in November.  Scumbag gossip, yellow-rag journalism or not, the Enquirer has something right: “DIRTY POLITICS.”

Cruz is NOT the odd man. Rather, he is the typical politician. I am sure that I must be slandering a LOT of politicians (well, maybe five or ten) when I say this: politicians are scum bags. Politicians are corrupt and corrupting and corruptible. No matter what they claim, I fail to see how a politician – a successful one, at least – can be a faithful christian. No matter what they say. They support and do things that are NOT following the teachings of the Son of God. There are people who have tried to point out that Cruz is NOT the savior that many claim (and want him to be). It can be argued that his success proves he is no saint, either. And if even ONE of these allegations are true, just as with Bill Cosby, the man is and should be destroyed as a political figure. Just as those on the left (Gary Hart or John Edwards, for example) have been. But sleeze and corruption are not the exclusive province of either right or left. They are the natural results of  government.

Mama’s Note: They are the results of all NON VOLUNTARY government. Self government is completely different, as well as transfer of individual authority (to some extent) to voluntary forms of government such as religion, family tradition and cultural norms – those that do not include any physical, emotional or psychological forms of aggression to get people to conform, of course.  If you can freely walk away, you remain a self owner.

But furthermore, this is yet another milestone in the rapid decay of the corpse of the republic. This election is tainted, and whomever finally wins the mudfight will no doubt AGAIN prove the old adage that anyone able to win election is incapable of doing the job they were hired to do.

Mama’s Note: The big question for me is why anyone would want that “job” done at all!

Slinging mud and dealing with corruption are not limited just to the big guys, or dealing with political campaigns.

The reaction reported at Emory University (both from the faculty and from the administration) is a perfect example of a recently published article in the Future of Freedom Foundation’s website. Lawrence Vance is one of the most scholarly yet readable libertarians out there, and his recent article in FFF is an excellent discussion of where “rights,” defined by politicians, differ from God-given rights that are the basis for liberty, and in doing so gores a few people.  Especially the advocates of rapid expansion of “service animals” in society today. People today involved in property management understand the problems which result from the “right” of people to have service animals (usually as designated by someone with a shingle in “counseling”). It is a similar problem with medical marijuana and any other “right.” They become excuses for government to dictate to private people and private businesses. “Civil Servants” (often jack-booted thugs) are hired and equipped to enforce these dictats.

Mama’s Note: Ah yes… private property. Along with individual autonomy and self defense, it’s taken quite a beating in the last hundred years or so. Well, actually in all of recorded history, if you want to be accurate. Just the names and dates changed to protect the guilty…

Some people ARE trying to take action to divorce themselves and their communities from this sort of evil. Freedom Outpost reports that the Sheriff of Piute County Utah is one. (Thanks to Bill for this story.)  This follows a Utah federal representative who has filed legislation to END police forces existing within the USFS and BLM, letting those responsibilities revert to the local County sheriffs (where they were carried out for centuries under the Common Law).  But this sheriff seems to be unwilling to wait for the dubious chance of such legislation getting through Congress and the White House: he won’t allow federal agents to act in his county without first calling out his county’s militia: deputizing “every man, woman, and child.”

However, as long as we keep thinking that government is good, we will NOT get away from the evils it perpetuates. And I think we are just starting to see them get worse in the Fifty States.