Invitation: Community Spring Mixer

Saturday, April 28, 2012

3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Come join us in the courtyard of Plaza Linda Mexican Restaurant & Cantina

9 Del Fino Place, Carmel Valley Village

Meet the leading libertarian and classical liberal leaders from the local Monterey County Libertarian Party of Monterey County, Seaside Taxpayers Association and Libertarians for Peace. Short introduction by David R. Henderson, Professor of Economics at the Naval Postgraduate School and a research fellow with the Hoover Institution.

We will supply appetizers and both great Sonoma County red and white wine at no charge.

Raffle: win lots of wine: One case of Trapeze Cellars 2009 Russian River Valley Chardonnay, and one case of Trapeze Cellars 2007 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

For more information: contact Denise Guido at dguido@vintagevalet.com

Resolution to Impeach President Obama

Whereas: President Obama waged war in Libya without any act of Congress. The use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq did receive approval from Congress, but not in Libya. Obama’s action is an outrageous violation of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8).

Whereas: President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act that allows the President the power to indefinitely detain without charges or trial, via the custody of U.S. Military armed forces, any person on U.S. soil who is suspected of associating with or aiding any terrorist organization. This is a clear violation of the 6th Amendment and of Article I, Section 9, clause 2, of the Constitution which demands that every citizen has the right to the English common law procedure of habeas corpus. This law puts every citizen at risk.

Whereas: President Obama has expanded President Bush’s policy whereby the US government can assassinate US citizens in foreign lands for suspicion of terrorist activity, without any due process or a charge. Obama has ordered a number of U.S. citizens killed, acting as if he were judge, jury and executioner. The New York Times noted that “it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing.”

Therefore be it Resolved: The Central Committee of the Libertarian Party of Monterey County encourages members of the House of Representative to impeach President Obama.

Resolution passed: Feb. 21, 2012 at the annual meeting of the Libertarian Party of Monterey County.

Our annual meeting of the LP of Monterey County will be:

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012

Starting at 5:30 PM

Round Table Pizza — conference room

1717 Fremont Blvd., Seaside

Everyone is welcome. We will discuss the State LP Convention coming up March in the city of Ventura (March 2-4 at the Crowne Plaza Ventura Beach Hotel – www. ca.lp.org). If you wish to become a nominating delegate to the National LP convention to pick our candidate for U.S. President (May 4-6 at the Red Rock Casino, Resort, and Spa, in Las Vegas, NV), you need to attend this convention.

We need to elect new board members and officers for 2012 for LP of Monterey County. This is also a good time to determine what projects to pursue this coming year. One project is to be a sponsor of a measure to repeal the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District’s 2004 assessment tax that is being spearheaded by the Seaside Taxpayers Association.

The LP will provide pizza and drinks.

Lawrence Samuels

Chair, LP of Monterey County

lawsam1951@hotmail.com

The Monterey County Herald—Jan. 10, 2012

Letter-to-the-editor:

The New York Times said it all recently about the stark wealth gap between lawmakers in Congress and their constituents. In an investigative story, the journal revealed that “while the median net worth of Congress jumped 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, the net worth of the richest 10 percent of Americans remained essentially flat.” This story illustrates that it is the political elite, not the wealthy in general, who have made out like bandits during the Great Recession.

Then there is the Nov. 13, 2011, CBS-TV “60 minutes” story that found that it is not illegal for members of Congress to make profitable securities trades based on privy information gathered on Capitol Hill. Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison for insider trading, but Congress can still freely engage in this normally illegal activity.

These examples paint a disturbing picture. If you want to become wealthy today, you have a better chance if you are a politician or part of the political class.

Maybe the Occupiers should consider renaming themselves from Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Washington D.C.

Lawrence Samuels

Carmel

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/us/politics/economic-slide-took-a-detour-at-capitol-hill.html?pagewanted=all

Lawrence Samuels will be debating Hal Ginsberg, an owner of KRXA 540 AM radio, Thursday, Nov. 10 at 7:00 PM at the Peace Resource Center in Seaside. Details for this event below. Free to the public. Lawrence Samuels is chairman of the Libertarian Party of Monterey County and editor/contributing author of the paperback book Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer.

HAL VS LAWRENCE!!

Contact:  George Riley, 645-9914

Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle recently released the following statement: “I have been following the Occupy protesters, who call themselves the ’99%’, with interest.

“It’s true that 99% of Americans do not enjoy the special benefits of crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is very different from real capitalism. In crony capitalism, government hands out special favors and protections to politically well-connected businesses.

“The TARP bailouts, Solyndra, and the military-industrial complex are all facets of crony capitalism.

“Libertarians love free markets and hate crony capitalism.

“Unfortunately, hypocritical Republican politicians have taught a lot of Americans to think that ‘free markets’ means freedom for government and big business to engage in crony capitalism.

“That’s not what free markets are. A free market is where the government leaves businesses alone, does not attempt to pick winners and losers, does not stifle competition, does not hand out corporate welfare, and does not absolve businesses of liability for their actions. Most of our economy today does not resemble a free market at all.

“It’s unfortunate that so many businesses today go to the government begging for handouts and special treatment. I wish they wouldn’t. But the real problem is the politicians who choose to give those favors to them, at everyone else’s expense.

“I hope the Occupy protesters will start to direct their anger away from Wall Street and big businesses, and toward our government, which has done so much to destroy free markets and entrench crony capitalism.”

From Westmoreland Times

Posted in Antiwar.com: Sept. 24, 2011

By Lawrence Samuels

Can Democrats support war without getting shot down in a hail of flak by the media and progressives? That question has proven to be a thorny issue, but more evidence keeps accumulating to suggest that this is indeed the case. One example surfaced in the Monterey Peninsula area of California this month.

Libertarians for Peace, a member of the Peace Coalition of Monterey County, introduced the “Give it Back Resolution” in September 2011. It called upon President Obama to return his Nobel Peace Prize because his foreign policies have “continued old wars and engaged in new ones.” It was a simple and clear one-sentence resolution, but few took it that way.

In the last few years, the dirty secret behind the peace movement is the emergence of a double standard regarding which political party can conduct foreign wars of aggression. For a number of reasons, it appears that Democratic Presidents can go to war, escalate troop strength, engage in torture, rendition, illegal wiretapping or harassment of whistleblowers and so forth, but Republican Presidents can’t employ the same policies. The “Give it Back Resolution” brought this controversy to the forefront.

When the resolution was first presented, a murmur of support rippled through the air. Many of the members seemed pleased over such a resolution. But within days of its submission, the chairperson of the Peace Coalition began to show his true colors. He objected to the resolution, arguing that it would be “demeaning” to the President and “frivolous.”

Of course, nobody in the Peace Coalition would have opposed this resolution if President Bush had been the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, I would wager that almost everybody in the peace movement would have lined up to sign a petition demanding that Bush give back any peace award immediately. That is a given. But do most peace activists have an unbiased eye when becoming involved in party politics? Do they favor “principle over party,” or do they play favorites and look the other way when Obama acts like Bush on steroids? I was almost afraid to ask that question.

After spending years in the Peace Coalition, organizing dozens of peace rallies and “impeach Bush and Cheney” demonstrations, I was sure I would get a good deal of support for the resolution, even if it failed to gain the required 100 percent consensus. I had a feeling that most peace activists could see beyond party policies; that it did not matter which group of politicians were behaving like war-mongers. A number of them told me that principles did indeed trump party politics, and that they were not beholden to the Democratic Party. Something was wrong somewhere, because the participants failed to live up to their claims of nonalignment.

The first roadblock erected against the resolution was a procedural maneuver. The chairman refused to put the resolution on the next meeting’s agenda. The excuse: all 20 member organizations that compose the Peace Coalition had to attend the meeting. This was a silly argument since the coalition has frequently passed all sorts of endorsements for rallies, speeches and events with barely a quorum. This was a bogus requirement. Finally, this conflict was resolved through the diplomatic skills of David Henderson. The resolution was begrudgingly put on the agenda a day or so before the meeting.

And the results: disappointing. Not a single peace organization attending the meeting gave a thumbs-up recommendation. There was no vote. The Veterans for Peace and Green Party immediately came out against it. The National Lawyers Guild said that they might agree to it if some minor wording changes were made. The local Quaker organization abstained. The other peace group leaders just sat silently and watched. The resolution never had a chance.

In retrospect, I suppose I was testing the Peace Coalition to see if my suspicions were correct. I had heard a number of complaints that the Peace Coalition had a strong bias towards the Democratic Party. Since the election of President Obama, the coalition had only sponsored three peace rallies compared to a dozen or more during the Bush administration. Of the three anti-war rallies sponsored, two were spearheaded by Libertarians for Peace. I had to take charge of one because nobody else would volunteer. As this lack of activity became more apparent, some of the more libertarian peace activists began to wonder if the local Peace Coalition was actually putting “party before principles,” worried that if anti-war leaders protested too loudly against President Obama’s administration, he might lose reelection.

After the failure of my resolution became apparent, the chairperson told me to contact each organization separately, and try to convince them of my resolution’s merit. I asked for a roll call vote so as to have an official record of who favored or opposed the resolution—since a number of members had remained silent. That request was denied. I had a feeling that the chairman wanted no record of who opposed the resolution since it might someday become an embarrassment.

It was now apparent that many of the Peace Coalition members were willing to let President Obama get away with whatever pro-war policies he wanted to pursue. This prejudice is in essence saying that Democrats are exempted from normal anti-war criticism, and that wars of aggression by them are permissible. I wish this partisan favoritism were not true, but actions speak louder than words.

The lack of support for this resolution has answered my questions. A large percentage of peace activists are indeed beholden to partisan politics. And this is a condemning indictment of those who proclaim to support the values of peace and non-violence.

L.K. Samuels is the co-chairperson of Libertarians for Peace of Monterey County along with David R. Henderson.  He is editor and contributing author of Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer and a forthcoming book, In Defense of Chaos: the Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action. His website www.Freedom1776.com.

WASHINGTON – Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict has released a video response to President Obama’s jobs speech.

A transcript follows:

My name is Wes Benedict and I’m the Executive Director of the Libertarian National Committee in Washington, DC.

I have a message for the American people in response to President Obama’s proposal tonight for an American Jobs Act. I also have a few comments about last night’s Republican Presidential debate.

Unemployment is at 9 percent. Four years ago, in late 2007, unemployment was less than 5 percent. Then in 2008, President Bush mailed out millions of 300-dollar government stimulus checks. Later that year, he supported the massive TARP bailout. Unemployment rose. In 2009, President Obama said if we passed another big stimulus plan, unemployment would stay below 8 percent. Now it’s at 9 percent. Government spending does not help the economy, it hurts the economy.

Stimulus spending doesn’t create jobs, it destroys them. When investors hear that the U.S. government is going to flush more money down the spending hole, they react immediately by cutting back on investments that would have created jobs.

Government stimulus spending benefits a few, but at great expense to everyone else. Politicians like to be able to say they’re “doing something,” but too often, “doing something” means handing out money to special interests. Often these programs are promoted with false claims that they will benefit the poor and middle class. Usually the opposite happens.

We don’t need the government “doing something” if it involves more spending and new programs.

We’d be better off if the government stopped trying to help, and gave Americans a chance to recover, adjust their plans, and start solving economic problems themselves.

However, if politicians feel like they must be seen “doing something”, then they should cut spending, bring our troops home from the Middle East, reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits, cut taxes, and eliminate burdensome licensing laws and minimum wage laws. Licensing and minimum wage laws take the bottom rungs off the economic ladder.

The President’s tax cut proposals are good and bad. Libertarians always support broad-based tax cuts. But targeted special-interest cuts and loopholes just amount to social engineering, and they pit different interest groups against each other. And tax cuts without spending cuts virtually guarantee that future generations will suffer a heavier tax burden.

It’s foolish to talk about increasing taxes on the wealthy. That would be a great way to destroy even more jobs. Libertarians want to cut spending, and cut taxes for everyone.

Last night, I watched the Republican Presidential debate, and it was the same old nonsense from Republicans. They sometimes say they are for free markets. Yet, Mitt Romney defended his Romney Care plan. Rick Perry boasted about his new 3-billion-dollar taxpayer funded medical research center in Texas. Newt Gingrich said we need to grow revenue. Mr. Gingrich, the last thing we need is to put more money into the incompetent, wasteful, and corrupt hands of the federal government.

Libertarians want less government, and more jobs. We support free markets, civil liberties, and peace.

You can find out more on our website at LP.org.

Thank you, and good night.

For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.

GUEST OP-ED

By Michael S. Van Kley

Carl Sagan, considering the change in both the nature and size of the U.S. population said “At that time, there were only about two and a half million citizens of the United States. Today there are about a hundred times more. So if there were ten people of the caliber of Thomas Jefferson then, there ought to be ten times one hundred, or one thousand Thomas Jeffersons today. Where are they?”  The correct answer is not so easy to pin down, but one answer that blatantly stands out as incorrect is “on televised news”.

That is the obvious conclusion to anybody who watched the major news networks’ treatment of the Iowa Straw Poll last Sunday morning.  “We have a top tier,” a contributor to MSNBC’s Meet the Press boldly announced, “it is Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachmann.”  Seeing this, I was disappointed that Ron Paul didn’t thrive nearly as well as I had anticipated.  I continued to watch the treatment given to the poll by several other news stations hoping to find out how well Ron Paul did perform.  I switched between CBS, CNN and even Fox News, and what I heard was a resounding agreement that the poll revealed a “top tier” (a phrase that was eerily common among the different networks) of Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry.  In spite of all of my searching and patience, I did not learn of Ron Paul’s placement in the poll.  I learned that Tim Pawlenty came in third and as a result dropped out of the race, I learned that Rick Santorum did “really surprisingly well” (he came in fourth), I learned that Sarah Palin had made a visit to Ames, Iowa, where the poll was taken, and I even learned that deep fried butter with frosting drizzled on it was being served at the fair, but much to my consternation, I was left completely ignorant of Ron Paul’s success, or lack of it.

Only when I actively searched for it did I discovered that Ron Paul actually came within one percent of winning the Straw Poll.  I also discovered other shocking examples of ignoring Ron Paul, including an article by Politico entitled “Bachmann Wins Straw Poll, Tim Pawlenty Gets Third” (the headline changed on Politico’s website after creating a stir).  The following day, The Daily Show, (a popular satirical TV news program) picked up on the obvious bias, and revealed even more examples, including an exchange between a TV correspondent at the Iowa Straw Vote. The correspondent, who stood near Ron Paul’s booth, reported over the air that “we have live pictures of Ron Paul but we’re talking about Sarah Palin and we’re talking about Rick Perry, the two people not in the race yet, Drew.”  Then the anchorman back at the studio mirthfully responded with “And guess what Paul, if you get video of Sarah Palin or get a sound bite from her, bring that back to us–you can hold the Ron Paul stuff,” smugly breaking out into a chuckle as he finished.

How could there be such a sweeping bias across the television news?  I wasn’t surprised to find it from Fox News, which engages in prima facie bias on a regular basis, but I had felt that the other networks were trustworthy. I was clearly duped.  How could this happen?

Information is one of the most important pillars of a free society.  The importance of it can best be summed up in the humble words of one of the greatest men of science in our history, Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The electronic media is the stairway towards those shoulders, but the path is tortuous and the climb is steep. Bias in the media makes a mockery of accuracy and the free flow of information when it is obvious, but to the unwitting, it is a stumbling block. If we continue to allow sophistry and distortion of information to go by unchallenged, we will no longer be able to reach the grand shoulders of the giants, and we will never surpass them.  For generations people have been lured by this Siren’s song, coming up short and finding themselves shipwrecked. It is up to those who are cognizant of these problems to expose them and protect their peers from folly. In this case, overt bias was quickly revealed though the blogosphere and social networking sites. It is this type of awareness and involvement that will eventually light the torch of truth anew.