Monthly Archives: April 2009

GUEST COLUMN: Racial minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged targeted for eminent domain abuses in Alabama

BY DAVID BEITO

What is happening in the cradle of the modern civil rights movement?   Jimmy McCall would like to know.  ”It was more my dream house,” he laments, “and the city tore it down….It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.”  In 1955, Rosa Parks took on the whole system of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus.  Today, McCall is waging a lonely battle against the same city government for another civil right: the freedom to build a home on his own land.

Although McCall’s ambitions are modest, he is exceptionally determined.  For years, he has scraped together a living by salvaging rare materials from historic homes and then selling them to private builders.  Sometimes months went by before he had a client.  Finally, he had put aside enough to purchase two aces in Montgomery and started to build.  He did the work himself using materials accumulated in his business including a supply of sturdy and extremely rare longleaf pine.

McCall only earns enough money to build in incremental stages but eventually his dream home took shape.  According to a news story by Benjamin Solomon, the structure had a “the high slanted ceilings, the exposed beams of dark, antique wood.  It looks like a charming, spacious home in the making.”  But from the outset the city showed unremitting hostility.  He has almost lost count of the roadblocks it threw up including a citation for keeping the necessary building materials on his own land during the construction process.  More seriously, he was charged under the state blight law, which allows a municipality to designate a building as a “public nuisance” and then demolish it.  Critics have accurately called this “eminent domain through the back door” and warn that opportunities for abuse are almost limitless.  In contrast to the standard eminent domain process, for example, property owners do not have any right to compensation, even in theory.  » Read more

Even David Duke Has The Right To Free Speech

Friday in the Czech Republic, Czech police detained a foreigner on suspicion of Thoughtcrime. The foreigner in question is former KKK leader David Duke who was arrested and later deported for the Thoughtcrime offense of denying the Holocaust.

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was detained by police in the Czech Republic on Friday on suspicion of denying the Holocaust.

Police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky said the action was taken because Duke does that in his book “My Awakening,” which is punishable by up to three years in Czech prisons.

Duke traveled to the republic to promote the book’s Czech translation of the book at the invitation of neo-Nazis.

The thought of arresting someone, even a person whose views on the Holocaust and on Jews and other non-whites is hideous like David Duke, for having a belief is repugnant. Especially in a supposedly free country and NATO member like the Czech Republic. Arresting people and deporting them for thoughtcrimes is the hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Is not forgetting the pain and suffering the Nazi tyranny imposed on Czechs the reason behind this law? Instead, this law has been enacted and enforced in the spirit of that same Nazi and later Communist tyrannies that enslaved Czechoslovakia. The Holocaust denial laws are a violation of basic freedom of speech and freedom of thought and should be repealed. The hideousness of the Holocaust can stand up under any scrutiny the Holocaust deniers bring forth.

Also, the lack of response by the United States Department of State toward this violation of Duke’s human rights is appalling. If this was an American promoting democracy in say China and they were expelled for the Thoughtcrime of promoting democracy by the Chinese government, the State Department would be raising hell. Why the silence in this case?

Finally, one thing I noticed in the comments to the original article is the calls by the fascist left in America for similar crimes in this country. I thought leftists were for free speech?

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.

Libertarian snark of the day

And the award goes to…

…Nick Gillespie for this gem:

Here’s Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) talking with Conservative News Service (CNS) who, like the Canadian Mounties, always seem to get their man when it comes interview:

“I would let people gamble on the Internet,” Frank said. “I would let adults smoke marijuana; I would let adults do a lot of things, if they choose.”

He added: “But allowing them total freedom to take on economic obligations that spill over into the broader society? The individual is not the only one impacted here, when bad decisions get made in the economic sphere, it causes problems.”

As Meatloaf documented so long ago, two out of three ain’t bad (baby), but in this case, it really hurts worse than Phil Rizzuto’s play-by-play in “Paradise By The Dashboard Light.”

Bragging about a shining star and a very dear friend

shanapaul

Shana Kluck on stage telling the national staff that we had just won the Alabama GOP Straw Poll by a decisive margin

I’ve heard Wayne Allyn Root described as “the Energizer Bunny on speed.”  While our styles are significantly different, I’ve been told that I outperform Root.  I’m not trying to compete with Root, but to make another point.  There is one person in the liberty movement I know who has the energy and results of Root and me combined multiplied together amplified by some exponential function only Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking could grok.

Earlier tonight, I published an article about a mostly unrelated issue.  In it, I described Shana Kluck as follows:

A key driving force behind this panel is Shana Kluck.  Shana is not only a member of the Alabama Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, but she also serves on her state GOP executive committee, is president of the Alabama Republican Assemby and serves as secretary of the Alabama Republican Liberty Caucus.  When she’s not busy homeshcooling her four children, consulting on Web 2.0 projects, engaged in Eagle Forum activities, attending various political meetings around the state and working behind the scenes on a variety of conservative and libertarian causes, she is busy helping me on campaigns.

Considering Shana’s schedule, very few of us have grounds to offer the excuse that we are too busy to become more involved in the African-American community.

Instead of sitting around complaining about how black people voted in previous election cycles, Senator Beason and Ms. Kluck are taking leadership roles in providing justice for members of the African-American community.

I first met Shana during the Ron Paul presidential campaign.  While in the process of leaving my job in DC and moving back to Alabama, I starting signing up for various Ron Paul Meetups and e-mail lists back home.  One name quickly surfaced to the top: Shana’s.

Despite growing up in Ron Paul’s congressional district, the Paul campaign was Shana’s first real exposure to politics.  She didn’t let being a newby slow her down though, but rose to and very quickly surpassed the challenge.

shanabarr1

Shana Kluck working a booth at the Libertarian National Convention

Shana ended up being the national homeschooling coordinator for Ron Paul’s campaign, as well as serving as the Alabama field coordinator.  As the state media coordinator, it was my distinct pleasure to serve with her.   Not being able to stomach John McCain as the GOP presidential nominee, Shana immediately jumped on board the Bob Barr campaign after Ron Paul was out of the picture.  Without her efforts enhancing our social networking operations, my eventual position with that campaign would have been impossible.

Most libertarians are content living their lives as free from government intervention as they can.  They quite understandably spend their time holed up with their family and friends and try to live life for the most they can get out of it.  Others pop out of the woodwork to criticize the government from time to time but accomplish little to actually change things.  Others have dedicated their lives to making America a freer place.  As long as I’ve been in the movement, I’ve never met anyone who has accomplished as much in a short period of time as Shana.  Not so very long ago, I felt that I was her mentor.  Today, I feel that she is my mentor.

I’m well aware that we have a lot of left-leaning libertarian visitors on this site who might criticize certain organizations with which Shana (or me, even) works.  That’s okay.  Since we are all on the same general sheet of music, let’s turn this into some healthy competition.  Who is willing to put more energy into and provide greater results to the cause of freedom than Shana?

It doesn’t really matter who wins this particular competition, as all of us will win in the long run.

Where Did The Anti-War Movement Go?

In the American Conservative, Antiwar.com editor Justin Raitmando (whom I often disagree with) has a piece detailing some more leftist hypocrisy concerning their Messiah and his plans to expand the Afghan War

The antiwar rally at the University of Iowa was sparsely attended. The below 30 degree weather might have had something to do with it, but Paul Street, a local writer and one of the speakers, had another theory, as the Daily Iowan reported:

Before the crowd of fewer than 20, Street questioned why the ‘left’ locals and university officials aren’t doing more to help in the protests against the war. ‘The big truth right now, whether this town’s missing-in-action progressives get it or not, is that we need to fight the rich, not their wars,’ he said, citing big corporations for wasting their technology and funding on war.

The big truth is that the antiwar movement has largely collapsed in the face of Barack Obama’s victory: the massive antiwar marches that were a feature of the Bush years are a thing of the past. Those ostensibly antiwar organizations that did so much to agitate against the Iraq War have now fallen into line behind their commander in chief and are simply awaiting orders.

Take, for example, Moveon.org, the online activist group that ran antiwar ads during the election—but only against Republicans—in coalition with a group of labor unions and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. Behind AAEI stood three of Obama’s top political operatives, Steve Hildebrand, Paul Tewes, and Brad Woodhouse. Woodhouse is now the Democratic National Committee’s director of communications and research. He controls the massive e-mail list culled by the Obama campaign during the primaries and subsequently, as well as a list of all those who gave money to the presumed peace candidate. These donors are no doubt wondering what Obama is doing escalating the war in Afghanistan and venturing into Pakistan.

As Greg Sargent noted over at WhoRunsGov.com, a Washington Post-sponsored site, “Don’t look now, but President Obama’s announcement today of an escalation in the American presence in Afghanistan is being met with mostly silence—and even some support—from the most influential liberal groups who opposed the Iraq War.”

In response to inquiries, Moveon.org refused to make any public statement about Obama’s rollout of the Af-Pak escalation, although someone described as “an official close to the group” is cited by WhoRunsGov as confirming that “MoveOn wouldn’t be saying anything in the near term.” A vague promise to poll their members was mentioned—“though it’s unclear when.” Don’t hold your breath.

Another Democratic Party front masquerading as a peace group, Americans United for Change, declined to comment on the war plans of the new administration. This astroturf organization ran $600,000 worth of television ads in the summer of 2007, focusing like a laser on congressional districts with Republican incumbents. Change? Not so fast.

The boldest of the peacenik sellouts, however, is Jon Soltz of VoteVets, described by WhoRunsGov as “among the most pugnacious anti-Iraq war groups.” They came out fists flying, endorsing the escalation of the Long War.

According to Soltz, there is “much to like in the plan,” but his faves boil down to three factors, which supposedly represent “a stark departure” from the bad old days of the Bush administration. He applauds the administration’s recognition that “The military can’t do it all.” Yet we’re increasing the troop levels by some 17,000, plus 4,000 trainers to babysit the barely existent Afghan “army.” We’re going to send thousands more civilians—aid workers, medical personnel, and military contractors—to build the infrastructure lacking in Afghan society and promote fealty to the central government in Kabul. Schools, clinics, roads, and shopping malls will be built with American tax dollars in order to foster trust between the Afghans, their occupiers, and their government.

The so-called “anti-war” groups that popped up before the Iraq War were never anti-war. Many of their founders and leaders cheered on BJ Clinton’s wars in the Balkans and in Haiti. They were not completely anti-American or merely “on the other side” as some conservative and neo-libertarian bloggers accused them either. The “anti-war” movement was simply a rallying point for leftists and Democrat party hacks who needed to gain traction against a popular (at the time) President Bush. They needed to sow doubt about the Iraq War (the mismanagement of the war by the Bush administration helped as well) in order to have a wedge issue against President Bush. Naturally, they rooted for more American deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq and for American objectives to go unfulfilled, at least while Bush was president.

Now their Messiah has been elected and he wants to expand the Afghan War, possibly into Pakistan. What’s a leftist posing a peace activist supposed to do. Well, what all good leftists do, follow their leader, in this case the Messiah. He wants to send 17,000 more Americans into Afghanistan to bring democracy, destroy the Taliban, and put in chicken in every Afghan pot. He has not defined what “victory” is in Afghanistan, nor does he have a plan, short of nuclear war, to combat the Talibanization of Pakistan. If George W. Bush planned this, the so-called peace activists would have been the ones having Tea Parties on April 15.

Aren’t the so-called “peace activists” being just a tad bit hypocritical now that their Messiah is in the Oval Office and wants his little war?

Finally, I just want to point out, I do not intend to attack sincere opponents of US foreign policy and interventionism, like Justin Raitmando. I disagree with some of Justin’s positions and lot of his rhetoric. However I can respect Justin and most paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians as principled noninterventionists who oppose most if not all US military campaigns over the past two decades and longer.

It is the unprincipled hacks on the left who adopt the phony cause of “anti-war” when they’re out of power that need to be condemned.

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
1 2 3 4 5 6 23