Rational Review

"I'd like to offer you a better answer than that.

"I believe in America.

"I believe in the values of individual freedom and unlimited opportunity that made this country great.

"I believe that the Republican and Democratic parties have betrayed those values, and that in so doing they have failed in their duty to the American people and to the American Dream.

"I believe that those values, and that dream, can be restored."

Ron Paul? Pffffft! Pat knows Dr. Paul is not batshit crazy enough to play ball with his Rapture plans.

I have been known to visit websites that are frequented by, shall we say, somewhat less-than-politically-correct commentators. A rash of recent comments have stated, "George W. Bush is a douche bag".

I disagree.

Much adulation has been given the "equal protection of the laws" clause of the constitution. Some of it is no doubt deserved. But it will hardly do as the ultimate protection of our liberty rights, as compared to the due process protection, let alone the privileges and immunities clause. Neither the individual liberties recognized in the original constitution of 1787 (the privilege of habeas corpus, no bills of attainder, nor ex post facto laws or the freedom to travel), or the Bill of Rights should be regarded as the ultimate defense. After all what "equal protection" guarantees is just that everyone will enjoy the same justice and must suffer the same injustices. It could be a lot of protection or it could be hardly any. It could be like living with a government that truly secured our liberties, or it could be like living with a government that could do anything it wanted.

-Don't have time/Too busy
You know who doesn't have time? The 4,098 coalition military dead or the 73,922 or 80,560 dead Iraqi citizens (depending on who's figures you believe).
Those are some who seriously don't have any time. If you're breathing and going about your day-to-day life, you have time. How some choose to use it is the issue; the television says millions of our fellow citizens watch American Idol, tune into the latest on O.J. Simpson or Brittney saga so reason might suggest there is some downtime available.

Tom hit my nail on the head with that update. So, this is a truly selfish act, as I'm tired of having to page down past Tom's pleads for contributions to read my daily Rational Review News Digest (RRND). To that end, (*cough* shutting Tom up, so I can more efficiently read the real news of the day!) I've made a unilateral decision to offer up text link advertising space here on from Reason to Freedom (RtF) and donate the proceeds to Tom's organization.

So what is RtF donating/selling?
Yummylicious fully SEOed and PR packing one way Text Links on the body footers of all pages in a specific category. (See the bottom of this article body for an example.)

In the 60s, Mario Savio wrote "...there comes a time when the operation of a machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part-you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop".

There are several clauses in the U.S. Constitution that are troubling. The meaning they had among the people who had read the Constitution soon after it was adopted is no longer the meaning today. Several parts are either no longer considered to be in use or are ignored or have been broadened so as to include other meanings far from those of the time this nation was formed. First of these bi-weekly articles that will cover 10 of these troubling clauses, is this article on the Commerce Clause, which only intended fairness in the transportation of goods between the states, Indian tribes and other nations and today knows no limits.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you felt that you and Sherman had just stepped aboard the WAYBAC machine? A connection so deliciously ripe with irony that you're forced to hold your head with both hands to keep your mind from exploding plumb out of your head?

When are we going to learn? In Tuesday's elections, a grand total of eight Libertarians, out of more than 600 running, were elected to office -- all at the state legislature level or lower. [www.lp.org/index_2006.html]

This is a success rate of about 1.3%. It is fairly typical of how we do, year after year. And yet a vociferous faction within the LP continues to say that our "primary mission" is to elect people to office.

This, I will submit, is stupid. When you define your mission as something you're not good at, people stop taking you seriously after awhile. They conclude that you are either delusional or dishonest.

Right now, libertarian Republicans are the only faction in the GOP left standing. Everyone else has been drowned in the deluge or is still cowering on the beach, coughing up water and trying to figure out what the hell hit them. You guys are the only ones left with any credibility, any muscle, any ideas that resonate with the public. If the Republican Party has a future, YOU ARE IT.