L4K Official Poll Results: 66.67% of registered Libertarians support Kucinich candidacy

While the poll put out by Ron Paul’s LibertarianLists.com web site is highly self-selected, we at Libertarians for Kucinich are excited to announce a poll that is even more rigorously self-selected.

Our latest baseline data indicates that Dennis Kucinich has an infinitely higher support level than Ron Paul among Libertarian Party voters — 66.67% versus 0.00% for Ron Paul.

Even more interestingly, when Ron Paul is run in a hypothetical election against more liberal members of his party, such as Pat Buchanan, Libertarians continue to support Kucinich by a consistent 2:1 margin.

In fact, 2 out of 3 Libertarians recommend Dennis Kucinich as part of a healthy political diet.

Now, we know that the Libertarian Purists and the Ron Paul campaign alike will attack our methodology and point out that our margin of error is 35%. However, they are just being political and are angry that our rigorous poll has 65% correctness.

Below are the poll percentage results:

1) Which of the following candidates would make the best president of the United States?

a) Dennis Kucinich — 66.66%
b) Ron Paul — 0.00%
c) Doug Stanhope — 33.33%
c) Some other Libertarian purist who will never, ever win — 0.01%

2) Which of the following is the greatest political tragedy of the 21st century?

a) We still lack a national health care plan — 33.33%
b) The federal government is overruling the rights of states to ban guns — 33.33%
c) Eric Dondero — 33.32%
d) The USA PATRIOT Act — 0.01%

3) Which of the following is the least unappealing option?

a) A night of sweaty debauchery with Hillary Clinton — 33.32%
b) A night of sweaty debauchery with Karl Rove — 33.32%
c) Are you serious? — 33.32%
d) Paying my income taxes — 0.03%

4) If Ron Paul loses the Republican Party primary, which one of the following actions would you support?

a) Having Ron Paul declare his undying support for Dennis Kucinich for president — 33.33%
b) Having Ron Paul get real and understand that only Dennis Kucinich could bring us Liberty in Our Lifetime ™ — 33.33%
c) Having Ron Paul donate his life savings to the Kucinich for President Campaign Committee — 33.34%
d) I am a purist Libertarian pantywaist who intends to vote for Phillies or Smith — 0.00%
e) I support Daniel Imperato and forgot to take my lithium this morning: — (-0.01%)

5) Who is the hottest?

a) Shane Cory — 33.33%
b) Stephen Gordon — 66.65%
c) Daniel Imperato after 11 drinks and a Social Security reform speech — 0.01%

6) Which is the most reliable way to get unbiased statistics about politics?

a) FOX News — 0.01%
b) CNN — 0.01%
c) LibertarianLists.com — 0.00000000000001%
d) LibertariansForKucinich.com — 99.967%
e) Other — 0.0000001%

7) If Dennis Kucinich loses the Democratic primary, should the Libertarian Party change its bylaws to allow him to become the Libertarian nominee?

a) Yes, because we need Dennis Kucinich in the White House! — 33.33%
b) Hell yes, because Dennis’s eyes see through the lies! — 33.33%
c) Are you kidding?!? Of course! — 33.32%
d) I am a Libertarian purist who hates real progress and thus am opposed to this incredibly good idea you’ve brought up — 0.01%

Keep Healthcare Holy

Lately, militant free-market healthcare activists have been trying to re-define health insurance as something other than the union of one worker and one single payer monopoly.

Did Adam contract privately with some guy named Steve to have his rib removed in the Garden of Eden? Of course not! He let his boss, God, remove that rib from him, and this was when God created single-payer healthcare (and Eve), and it was good.

But ever since Eve screwed things up for the rest of us and got humanity ejected from Eden, we’ve been trying to get back to that ideal of receiving our healthcare from the highest centralized power possible. First, it was a slightly higher power, our employer, in the form of the HMO. Then, state governments got into the act by mandating health insurance for everyone in the state. And now it’s time for a national healthcare system. In 20 or 30 years, we may be able to get the whole world united under a UN global single-payer healthcare system, at which point God may finally let humanity back into Eden and once again take responsibility for our healthcare.

But this can’t happen if the sin of privately-purchased healthcare is allowed to continue. We must do everything in our power to outlaw free-market health services, and the first step is the Defense of Healthcare Act, which would block activist judges from striking down state laws banning private healthcare. Anyone who believes in states’ rights should immediately contact their Senators and Representatives to urge passage of the Defense of Healthcare Act.

Let’s keep healthcare holy. After all, healthcare started out with Adam and God, not Adam and Steve.

Libertarians for Kucinich Condemn Hoax Mailing by Imperato’s Purist Libertarian Opponents

We recently received a mailing that looked like an official brochure from the Daniel Imperato, Libertarian for President campaign. But on closer inspection, it was clearly a hoax, as it contained crazy big-government schemes that no Libertarian would ever espouse.

Of course, we don’t support Imperato or any of the other Libertarian Party candidates, since all polling shows the next President will be a Democrat, and we believe the goal must then be to elect the most libertarian Democrat possible — Dennis Kucinich. But we nonetheless oppose dirty tricks by Libertarian Purists who wish to defame Mainstream Libertarians, whether inside the Libertarian Party, like Imperato, or outside it, like our Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich and Republican candidate Ron Paul.

While these Purists haven’t yet attacked our candidate, they’re clearly already going after Ron Paul, by putting out what’s supposed to be a 1992 newsletter in Ron Paul’s name which claims that all black men are predisposed to criminal behavior, and almost all black men in the Washington, DC area are guilty of some crime, whether they’ve been caught and convicted or not. They’ve even tricked Ron Paul into admitting that the newsletter was indeed published by someone working for him. These Libertarian Purists must be stopped. They’re ruining the best chance for Liberty in our Lifetime™.

Here’s a sampling of the crazy big-government schemes in the Imperato-branded brochure that tipped us off that it was a hoax by the Purist Libertarians:

• “We must SAVE OUR SOCIAL SECURITY”
• “One of the biggest abuses in America is charitable contributions”
• “I propose a new charity system where the only charity that can receive unlimited contributions is the Social Security 501(c)3 Charitable Fund”
• “I propose an approval fee on all FDA approved drugs to be contributed by the drug companies to the US healthcare system”
• “In addition, a percentage will be added to the wholesale costs of the drugs that are sold around the world”
• “It is about time the drug companies support our healthcare needs”
• “One of my major initiatives will be a US online education system … These programs and classes … will represent a gesture of moral and social responsibility by and between all universities which will collectively create the greatest online free education system in the world”

Clearly, if even our Mainstream Libertarian Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich and his Republican counterpart Ron Paul wouldn’t suggest such things, there’s no way an actual Libertarian Party candidate like Imperato would. So this brochure is clearly a hoax, probably put out by one of the Purist Libertarian candidates for president like Christine Smith or George Phillies. Whichever one of them did this ought to be ashamed and should come forward apologize immediately. Then, they should take a dose of political reality, figure out that a Democrat will be the next President, and then join us in supporting the most libertarian Democrat running — Dennis Kucinich!

Neither Here Nor There

The other day, a fellow Libertarian told me I was crazy for supporting Dennis Kucinich for President. “Don’t you know? Over 72% of Libertarians support Ron Paul. You should fall into line and get behind Ron Paul like the rest of us Libertarians.”

But Ron Paul can’t become President, and it’s for one reason and one reason only:

George Bush’s taint.

Yes, by merely being a Republican, Ron Paul simply cannot escape George Bush’s taint. Bush’s taint is all over Ron Paul. Granted, Ron Paul is extremely courageous by running for President, even with George Bush’s taint on him. I certainly couldn’t do that myself. If I had George Bush’s taint on me, not only would I not have the nerve to run for the highest political office in the land, but I’d even be too embarrassed to leave my home and venture out into the public. It would just be too much for me — knowing that every single pair of eyes that landed on me knew George Bush’s taint was on me. The mere thought of George Bush’s taint on me turns my stomach. I just don’t know how Ron Paul can even get out of bed in the morning with George Bush’s taint on him, because I’d just curl up and die.

Libertarians need to wake up and be more practical. A Libertarian isn’t going to win the White House. And thanks to the Iraq War and George Bush’s taint on all of the Republican candidates, a Republican won’t win either. The next President will be a Democrat. So we might as well all get behind the most libertarian Democrat around, and that’s Dennis Kucinich.

Federal Courts and the Imaginary Constitution

It’s been a tough year for mainstream libertarians, thanks to our federal courts. From “gun rights” to immigration “regulation” to habeas corpus, to the War in Iraq, federal courts recently have issued rulings that conflict with both the Constitution and overwhelming public sentiment. Liberals and libertarians who once viewed the judiciary as the final bulwark against government tyranny must now accept that no branch of government even remotely performs its constitutional role.

The practice of judicial activism – legislating from the bench – is now standard for many federal judges. They dismiss the doctrine of strict construction as hopelessly outdated, instead treating the Constitution as fluid and malleable to create a desired outcome in any given case. For judges who see themselves as conservative activists, their vision of justice is more important than the letter of the laws they are sworn to interpret and uphold. With the federal judiciary focused more on promoting a conservative agenda than upholding the rule of law, Americans find themselves increasingly governed by men they did not elect and cannot remove from office.

Consider the New Orleans gun case decided by a federal court in 2005. The Court determined that the City of New Orleans and State of Louisiana had no right to establish its own standards for private gun ownership, because gun ownership is somehow protected under the 2nd amendment “right to keep and bear arms.” Ridiculous as gun bans may be, there clearly is no right to gun ownership found anywhere in the Constitution.  The Second Amendment, as we all know, pertains to “well-regulated militias,” and not individuals, and the Constitution’s was intended to apply only to the federal government.  The 2nd amendment simply protects state-government-operated militias from being disarmed by the federal government.

There are states’ rights – rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of Louisiana has the right to decide for itself how to regulate criminal and safety matters like guns, using its own local standards. But rather than applying the real Constitution and declining jurisdiction over a properly state matter, the Court decided to apply the imaginary Constitution and impose its vision on the people of Louisiana.

Similarly, the Supreme Court in April of 2006 declared that public schools may not regulate the religious viewpoints of students in schools. The parents of a five year old, whose art project contained a painting of Jesus, sued after the school folded the picture in half so that the Jesus imagery was not viewable at an art fair – claiming that their child’s 1st Amendment rights had been violated. The judge agreed, ruling that the school had violated his rights. Never mind that the community might not want to see religious views in schools. Never mind that the school had lots of different religions – and non-religions – within its population. Never mind that the school was operated by a local school board, and not the federal government.  The real tragedy is that our founders simply wanted to prevent Congress from establishing a state religion, as England had. The First amendment says “Congress shall make no law” – a phrase that cannot possibly be interpreted to apply to a public school in Baldwinsville. But the phony activist “religious freedom” doctrine leads to perverse outcomes like the overruling of a local school district’s ability to preserve order by banning religious displays, and invents new “rights” like freedom of religion in school.

These are but two recent examples. There are many more, including a federal court ruling that stated that public school science classes must teach scientific theory, rather than the Biblical Genesis story of creationism.

The political right increasingly uses the federal judiciary to do in court what it cannot do at the ballot box: advance an activist, religious, monocultural political agenda of which most Americans disapprove. This is why federal legal precedents in so many areas do not reflect the consensus of either federal or state legislators. Whether it’s gun “rights,” abortion, taxes, creationism, environmental regulations, immigration, or religion, federal jurists are way out of touch with the American people. As a society we should reconsider the wisdom of lifetime tenure for federal judges, while Congress and the President should remember that the Supreme Court is supreme only over other federal courts – not over the other branches of government. It’s time for the executive and legislative branches to show some backbone, appoint judges who follow the Constitution, and remove those who do not.

Standing against activist gun-rights judges is standing for the Constitution

Last March an activist federal appeals court in Washington DC issued a ruling that sadly has once again overruled the will of the people of the nation’s capital. It appears the Court accepted the gun lobby’s nonsensical argument that the 2nd Amendment confers a “right of individuals to own guns,” rather than a right for state governments to operate militias.

We should not have too much faith in our federal courts to protect our right to be free from gun crime, considering they routinely rubber stamp egregious violations of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments, and allow Congress to legislate wildly outside the bounds of its enumerated powers. It is very important to note that once again, a federal court only one step below the highest court in the land has invented a new set of “gun rights” not found in the Constitution, ignoring that the 2nd Amendment only provides them to state militias. Rights, by constitutional definition, are collective and the Constitution grants them primarily to the states.

Even in rare situations where “people” are mentioned in the Constitution, state governments are accepted as the sole beneficiaries, as Ron Paul has noted. Paul notes that in 2003, the activist Supreme Court’s overturning of Texas sodomy laws violated the right of the people of Texas to regulate sex – this principle also applies when an activist federal court violates the right of the people of DC to protect themselves and their families from gun crime.  Paul would disagree with the latter conclusion, mostly because it goes against his personal agenda to strictly adhere to Constitutional principles when they go against his pro-gun-crime perspective.

Can anyone seriously contend that the Founders, who had been enslaved by British soldiers carrying guns, wanted more men with guns to run around amock (and unregulated) after already getting rid of gun-toting mobs of killers? Those individuals had been oppressed by the King’s armed soldiers, and the only thing that protected them were General-Washington-commanded militias.  So guns had to be well regulated, and only for militias. It’s thus no coincidence that the 2nd Amendment thus expressly calls for guns to be available only to “well regulated militias!”

In the 1700s, militias were local groups under the command of General George Washington and state governments. They were not lawless bands of criminals ignoring state gun laws, or gun-nut vigilantes in high crime neighborhoods contributing to urban death and suffering. When the 2nd Amendment speaks of a “well-regulated militia,” it means highly regulated groups of individuals organized under the strict command of the state government.

Only the most lunatic and crazy Founders wrote in the Federalist papers about the “need” for individuals to be armed. Those who did had viewpoints that a majority of Americans completely reject.  One whack job, James Madison, argued in Federalist paper 46 that citizens should be armed to overthrow the federal government.  So the same activist judges who find “gun rights” that don’t exist in the Constitution are supporting the notion that armed groups like the KKK should overthrow our elected government!  Not only is that not found in the Constitution, but once again, it’s an example of how elite conservative judges arrogantly create laws from the bench that go against the values of the vast majority of Americans.

Today, gun ownership makes people demonstrably less safe – as any honest examination of gun death statistics reveals. It’s clear that cities with many illegal guns on the streets – like Washington DC – experience higher rates of murder and violent crime. It is no coincidence that violent crime flourishes in the nation’s capital, where the individual’s “right” to own a dangerous firearm without state and local control is flourishing.

Until this activist judge’s ruling, scofflaws in DC could have been convicted of a felony and imprisoned for illegal gun possession. The DC gun ban was no joke, and the legal challenges to the ban are not simply academic exercises, but an organized effort to put extremist politics (and invented “gun rights”) above public safety. People’s lives and safety are at stake.

Guns historically serve as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have used them to enslave their own citizens and their neighbors, for the simple reason that guns allow tyrants to kill people. Our Founders, having suffered under British rulers with guns, knew that the “right” to bear arms needed to be restricted so that gun nuts could never again threaten the American people. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only unarmed citizens can be secure against gun crime, and only Americans with a strict constructionist court system – one that understands that “well regulated militia” means what it says – may rest confident that our rights are protected.

A new revolution

America is lost in the world today.

She is trapped in a disastrous civil war in Iraq from which there is no escape.

She is crushed by soaring deficits and runaway spending.

Her political institutions have migrated from social justice to corporatism.

We at Libertarians for Kucinich are proud, free libertarians who wish to promote Mainstream Libertarianism within America’s major political parties.

Surveying the field, we hold that Dennis Kucinich is the most libertarian major-party candidate.  With more support than any other libertarian running as a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian candidate, and positioned within the party expected to win the White House in 2008, we stand behind Dennis and his plan to bring us Liberty in our Lifetimes!

It’s time for a revolution.  It’s time for Dennis!