RFK Jr. Should Run as a Libertarian on October 9th

RFK Jr. has stated that on October 9th he is going to make a major policy announcement. This has many hoping that he will run as an Independent, and align himself with one of the minor parties in America. The only minor party that is on the ballot in all fifty states is the Libertarian Party.

RFK is not a libertarian. But his positions are congruent with many libertarian positions. To wit, he is opposed to manufactured wars, like the one the US is conducting against Russia. He opposes the huge graft paid out to the military-industrial complex. He opposed the covid lockdowns, and mandatory vaccinations for many types of jobs. He opposes corporate environmental pollution that assaults the health of the Individual, which is fully in line with the Libertarian Non-aggression Principle. He is also a lawyer who has battled against many of the corporate polluters, and factory farm corporations that make life hell for billions of animals. I happen to agree with his foreign policy positions on Israel, Iran, and the Ukraine, and his non-interventionist philosophy. He is fully aware of the devastating impact of inflation on the poor and middle classes in the U.S. He has visited the border and seen the absurd Biden inaction policy in action. All these factors combined would make me inclined to vote for him, instead of for Trump, or for an unknown libertarian candidate like the party ran in the last election who would have slim chance of winning…

And like Libertarians, he has come out strongly for Free-Market Capitalism, though I doubt he is a Rothbardian.

RFK is also unusual in a Democrat in that he is willing to engage in conversation and debate with non-Democrats, and those who probably are opposed to his Democrat programs. He has been interviewed twice by Dr. Ron Paul, as well as Tucker Carlson and many other non-Democrats. He is loath to get into personality-bashing, choosing rather to focus on differences in policy.

It is debatable whether he would draw more votes away from Biden or Trump if he ran, but political analyst Dick Morris, who once worked for Clinton and later for Trump, thinks that he would hurt Biden more than Trump. I hope he is right, as I would be happy with either Trump or RFK, but would give the edge to RFK because of his environmental stands and his opposition to bloated military-industrial welfare spending.

So we will wait with baited breath his October 9th announcement, and hopefully America will finally have a choice to radically change the way government operates in the US for the first time since Ron Paul ran for President in 2012.

And for the first time in history, the Libertarian Party will be putting forth a candidate who really has a chance to become President of the United States. And this would benefit not only the American People, but also the Libertarian Party, which is the only political party that reflects the Libertarian spirit of the American Revolution, as well as the desire of the average American to get government off his back and out of his life.

— Paul Grad, enviro-Libertarian.

State and Local Stimulus Payments Are Unconstitutional and Illegal

State and Local Stimulus Payments are unconstitutional and thus illegal. The reason I maintain this is the following.

When a State, like California, pays for healthcare for illegal immigrants, or when San Francisco passes out $1200/month stimulus payments for 18 months to transgenders, they are incurring a debt which ultimately could or definitely will cause the State to go into deficit. Now, we know that if any State in the Union were to go so bankrupt that it could not function at the most basic levels of survival, that the Federal Government would intervene to bail out the State. This is implicit in the Federal Union of States. And it encourages moral hazard by the States, who know that implicitly it backstops all their spending, even if they run huge deficits.

Yet, we know that, by law, all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives — the People’s House which originally was where the voters could directly elect their Representatives to Congress, in contrast to the old system whereby Senators were elected to Congress by their State Representatives in their Legislature — an indirect, representative form of election. That’s why spending bills must originate in the House — because originally it was the most direct form of democratic republicanism.

Thus, what California and other rebel States are doing by passing out free stimulus money to select groups is skirting the Constitution in order to enrich certain groups of voters who will then vote for them, while piling the accumulated debt on the backs of all working and taxpaying Americans, as well as on the unborn future generations. This used to be known as vote buying and graft.

But what it really is, is a way of getting around the checks and balances of American Government, which demand that all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives.

Fiscal Conservatives and Constitutionalists in the Congress should attempt to pass legislation that would outlaw all stimulus payments made by State, County, or Municipal entities in the United States, as an unconstitutional breach and assault against The House of Representatives Right to be the only body in the US Government that can propose and pass spending bills. And thus the only legal, Constitutional, stimulus payment is one made by the Federal Government.

Congressmen and Citizens, let’s stop this assault on the Constitution now.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Candidate 2014

Vote No on Josephine County, Oregon Measure 17-112: Smash the Sales Tax!

I urge Josephine County voters to vote NO on Measure 17-112, which tries to impose a 3% sales tax on retail sales in Josephine County, including online purchases.

This heinous attempt to loot the poor, the working classes, and the small business owner or artisan, in order to subsidize the wealthy PERS recipients of Oregon, whose top pension is now at $980k per year, and whose list of recipients include pages and pages of people now receiving over $325k per year, is deeply immoral and must be smashed at the polls. These PERS pensions increase at an annual rate of about 8%, and did so all through the years that the Peasants of Oregon were receiving 0.01% on their savings during the Obama years. When I ran for Governor in 2014, the top pension was in the $400k range, and there were a total of twelve people receiving over $200k per year. So you can see how quickly these pensions have grown in magnitude in the eight years since I ran for Governor. These pensions, by the way, are paid to any politician who has worked for two years for the State, so a County Commissioner who serves two terms, and then moves to another State, as one of our liberal former commissioners recently did immediately after serving his two terms, will be receiving a pension for the rest of his life from the taxpayers of Oregon.

But, you protest, this tax is all for Law Enforcement, in order to fund the Sherriff’s Department. And in the arguments against this measure, coming from small business owners and the hotel and restaurant businesses, no mention was made of PERS, the only arguments being how this tax would affect those businesses in a time of hyperinflation and receding spending on anything but the necessities.

The tax looters counter that this tax will not apply to “necessities” like food, gas, medicine, utilities, etc. but it will apply to online purchases. Does this mean that walmart will have to hire someone to determine what part of your online order is “necessities” and what is not. Is chewing gum a food? Is dental floss a discretionary or medical item? Is a plumbing wrench a necessity or a luxury? Maybe the looters who proposed this tax will make up a comprehensive list of every single item at the major online retailers, so we can know what is taxed and what is not.

No. The real reason this tax bill is immoral is that, on average, between 17-21% of an Oregon State worker’s paycheck is placed into the PERS system, which means that every time a county employee gets a raise, or every time a new tax like this one is imposed on the public, 17-21% of that raise or tax increase is going directly into the PERS system to pay annual pensions of $980k, and $325k. And the list of PERS recipients goes on page after page into the thousands. You should take the time to look at it, and The Oregonian newspaper, which also runs the oregonlive.com website, publishes an annual list, with the new updated annual amounts.

So I am not wrong when I say this is a bill designed to rob the poor and working classes to subsidize the wealthy, although you may not feel that an annual pension of $980k or $325k or 100k is being wealthy. On that we have a difference of opinion.

In the voter’s pamphlet, the objectors to this tax measure did make the argument that this tax would force small business owners to do a lot of extra work in collecting and paying the tax. This was countered by the argument that anyone with point of sales payment equipment would automatically have the tax computed and paid. I guess it’s too bad for those very small business owners or sellers who cannot afford to have POS equipment, or who do not want to pay the exorbitant fees that automatic payments require. Moreover, the tax must be paid monthly, and anyone not paying on time is punished with another 10% fine, followed by another 30% fine if still not paid.

However, one argument the objectors did not make, which they should have, is that this tax filing requirement is a violation of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits involuntary servitude unless convicted of a crime. I wonder what crime these business owners, who must spend all this time collecting and filing this tax, which is involuntary servitude, have committed? Is it the Crime of engaging in Capitalistic activity? It would seem so, despite all the hot air from politicians about this being a Capitalist, Free-Market, society.

And it is ironic that this measure appears on a ballot that also includes a State Measure which would prohibit slavery or involuntary servitude even if convicted of a crime. The taxing Liberal Democrats don’t much mind imposing involuntary servitude on the small business owner who has been convicted of no crime, but they are sure going to make sure that anyone convicted of a very serious crime will not have to do any “involuntary servitude” while in prison.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee 2014

Biden Lays the Groundwork of Nazi Ideology

One of the most dangerous elements of the Biden Administration has been its implimentation of an “Equity” goal in government based on racial classification, and racial classification was the very thing that the Southern segregationist racists did in the Old South.

60 years after the Civil Rights Act, it is both ludicrous and dangerous to fill government positions based solely on the skin color of people. It presumes that character is based on race, that certain races have certain specific characteristics solely determined by their race, and thus it gives validity to the racist concept that race determines psychology and moral character.

It is the most puerile of doctrines that only a fool or a historically-ignorant person would believe, and yet this is the official US Government policy under the Fascist Biden — Fascist because he is laying the groundwork of Nazi Ideology, and that ideology is being accepted en masse by his voters and supporters. Biden is a catalyst for Nazism.

I would define Nazism as roughly socialism mixed with racism mixed with militarism, and quietly corporate welfarism thrown in unspoken. That sounds to me very much like the Biden Administration.

Nazism and Fascisms generally also need a group to hate. The recent labeling of Republicans as
“extremists, racists, and violent” by various Democrat politicians and their affiliated mass media pundits gives you the Biden Administration’s target group, not withstanding their favorite hate-in figure, former President Trump.

Legal Professor and scholar Alan Dershowitz recently pointed out that the Democrats and their DOJ were willing to violate the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the Constitution in their hate-filled obsession to prevent Citizen Trump from running again for the Presidency, and Dershowitz, to his credit, is a Liberal Democrat who is willing to rip into the legal and constitutional abuses of his fellow Democrats.

And the enemies list has been growing for several years, all cheered on by the Fascist Left, who are embracing the very ideology they railed against in the 1950s and 60s, when they were the target of the Fascist State under War Criminals Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Stinkhouse Nixon, and perverts like J. Edgar Hoover. Now these new enemies, instead of the draft resisters and antiwar activists of the 60s, are anyone who would not wear a mask during the Covid hysteria, anyone who questioned the vaccine safety or giving it to children, anyone who spoke against Biden’s $6trillion money-printing giveaway, which has destabilized world currencies against the dollar and led to a huge rise in commodity prices that will starve millions of “People of Color” in Africa, and now anyone who questions the warmongering of Biden and his insane allies in the Republican and Democrat Parties in the Ukraine War, which has brought the major powers to the brink of nuclear war, while freezing Europeans, who also seem to want this war.

Now we are seeing the manifestations of the Biden Racist Equity policy filtering down to the lower echelons of government and society. In Minneapolis, White teachers are to be laid off before any newly-hired “People of Color” even if they have seniority, and no matter how good as teachers they are. And this outrageously racist government law is being implemented by Democrat Liberals — or as I term them, the Fascist Left.

In Berkeley, a Student Housing Coop has banned White people from certain common areas, and the entire coop is designated for “People of Color”. Of course, this is a privately-owned house, and so they can make whatever rules they want regarding who stays there, including racist exclusion, but I wonder if a “Whites only” Coop sprang up in a place like Berkeley, once the home of Free Speech, if it would not be condemned as a disgusting display of old-fashioned Southern Segregationist sentiment.

Oregon Humanities, a non-profit that receives Government money and awards grants, blatantly states that “we prioritize funding “to organizations led by Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) communities. (How the socialists love that word “communities”. Of course they do; it’s the opposite of “Individual”.)

It’s racism for me but not for thee.

You watch. Forcing Americans to classify themselves by race will spread more and more in America, thanks to this cancer of “Equity”, which is the absolute denial of “Equality before the Law”. And it will produce a backlash among all decent Americans who are color blind and who known that psychologically the human mind is a universal mind that is identical in its basics for all human beings on earth, regardless of where they were born or the color of their skin.

This attempt to lay the groundwork of Nazi Ideology by the Biden Administration must be crushed non-violently at the polls.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian

The Libertarian Non-Aggression Principle: Bedrock of a Happy Society

The Libertarian Non-aggression Principle gives a firm foundation on which to construct a libertarian non-violent society where no individual or group will assault any individual’s property Rights. It is the basis of Classical Liberalism, and backbone of one of the major trends in libertarian philosophical thinking.

Put simply, it says that “no man or group of men may aggress against the property rights of any individual”, and, since your body is considered part of your property, any attack on your person is considered a property-rights assault.

Furthermore, it takes the same jaundiced view as that of the Founding Fathers concerning government, and its propensity to seek to expand its powers. Thus, we have the Bill of Rights, which stipulates what the government cannot do to the Individual. The Founders were no dummies; they knew that power corrupts, or that it can fall into the hands of a stubborn fool like King George III or a cunning liar like Lyndon Johnson. So they created a Republic that was very wary of governmental power, and held that power in check with a Constitution and The Bill of Rights.

It seems to me that Libertarianism has found in the Non-aggression Principle a simple, true basis on which to construct a largely free society, whose only restraint is that no one can attack anyone else’s property, and, if they do, the government will prosecute and punish the malefactor.

In contrast to other brands of Libertarianism, or what their purveyors espouse as Libertarianism, the Non-aggression Principle Libertarian philosophy gives a very clear-cut, simple, rule to judge any potential bill or measure that government or its legislatures may throw at the individual. It also tells us of actions that should be legal because they involve no aggressions against property rights, but only the voluntary mutual agreement of two individuals, though they may seem, and indeed often are, immoral; Issues like blackmail, prostitution, drug dealing, etc. They would also involve legalizing certain forms of speech that many would instinctively think should be illegal, like offering a bribe to a government official or policeman. (If the government official accepts the bribe, he is the one who has committed the crime of contractual fraud with the public, but the bribe proposer is acting within his constitutionally-protected Right of The Freedom of Speech).

The adopting of the Libertarian Non-aggression Principle as the bedrock of society and government would lead to a happy and prosperous society where mankind could devote its psyche to those parts of life which are beyond the search for food, clothes, and shelter, which is always the obsession of socialist and authoritarian societies. Without the NAP, mankind will continue to live in misery, under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, as is happening across most of the world right now.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian

Josephine County, Oregon’s Primary Ballot Measures: Two Unnecessary Tempests in a Teapot

Josephine County Voters will soon go to the polls, or mailboxes, to vote on two measures that would not be necessary, since the problems they deal with would not exist, if we lived in a Libertarian society as envisioned by The Founding Fathers.

The first involves a non-binding, advisory vote on whether Josephine County should join Idaho and get out of Oregon, since the horrendous level of taxation and regulation under the Kitzhaber-Brown governorships sucks money out of poor rural counties, like Josephine, and wastes it on bloated state-bureaucrat salaries and pensions, along with huge welfare dispensations. The working poor are bled in Oregon, with one of the highest income taxes on the poor in the US, while corporations pay not one iota of income tax. Truly a slave state is Oregon, masquerading as a liberal Democrat State. A State that keeps primates in cages and experiments on them. That is the “liberalism” of the Oregon Democrats and Leftists.

But in joining Idaho, the poor will be faced with a 6% sales tax, which doesn’t exist in Oregon. Many residents of Josephine County exist on tax-free pensions and welfare, so the lower income tax rate on businesses and workers in Idaho does these two groups no good.

Idaho has a sales tax on food, but gives a $100 tax credit when you file your taxes. The top income tax rate is 6.5% vs Oregon’s 10% which applies after you make just a few thousand dollars. Oregon also takes away the Federal standard deduction of $12,000, replacing it with an amount and credit that equates to a standard deduction in the low $4thousands. So Oregon rips off the poor worker thusly, while Idaho’s 6 percent sales tax, plus local governments can implement a 3% additional sales tax, might find you paying 9% more in some places in Idaho on anything you buy, including food.

The solution is not to join Idaho (though I will vote to join to show my disapprobation of the current administration in Salem), but rather for Josephine County (and perhaps some adjoining counties in Oregon and Northern California) to form a new State which, in the libertarian spirit of the Founding Fathers, I think should be named “Jefferson State”, or, because of the many American Indian tribes who have their tribal homelands in this area (the Klamath, the Hurok, the Takelma, etc) it might be given an Indigenous name.

This parallels Norman Mailer’s call to have New York City declare itself a State, when he ran for Mayor of New York (and was endorsed by Murray Rothbard), since New York sent much more money to the Federal Government than it was getting in return, much as the working poor in rural mostly-conservative-voting counties send tax money to Salem to keep the state bureaucrats and PERS pensioners living in the style to which they have become accustomed.

The second unnecessary ballot measure that wouldn’t even exist in a Libertarian society, is a measure to repeal another measure that was enacted in response to the many problems that marijuana cultivation is causing in Josephine County, things like noise, increased traffic, the entrance of cartels into the area, and the exploitation of undocumented aliens who are often held in slave-like and unsanitary conditions.

The ordinance passed by the Josephine County Commissioners in a split vote was supposed to give law enforcement and code enforcement the tools to deal with complaints of which there were over 500 received. However, the ordinance was so riddled with legal loopholes that it has proven ineffective except to prosecute a few of the most egregious cases of abuse, but it has given the local bureaucrats additional powers to harass and prosecute landowners who have nothing to do with cannabis cultivation, the laws critics claim.

However the real cause of this problem is that cannabis is not legal at the national level, which would mean its cultivation would take place everywhere, and this tiny pocket of Oregon which has become a leading source of legal cannabis would no longer be the locus for all the marijuana growing in the US. It could be grown in Nebraska, and free-market supply and demand would drop the price to a level that only dedicated cannabis aficionados would bother to engage it its production, much like wine-bibbers.

An additional problem that attaches to the first additional problem is the call by some Josephine County “conservatives” for more funding for the sheriff’s department — the “if only we had more money, there would be no problem” mentality. To that end, the Josephine County Eagle, a throw paper with a strong Republican/Conservative lean, ran an article by someone who proposed about six different ways to raise funds for the sheriff’s department — all this remember to pay to fight a problem that would not exist in a libertarian society. Interestingly, none of these suggestions involved government-guaranteed Contract Insurance, which could fund the court system by having anyone who signed a contract, who wanted to use the government courts if a dispute arose, pay a miniscule percentage of the value of the contract to the government. They could sign a contract without that insurance, but then they couldn’t use the government courts if they wanted to sue. This Libertarian idea for the non-coercive funding of government is never mentioned by the “conservatives”, perhaps because it has never occurred to them.

When it comes to cannabis, complete national legalization would solve the problem, with no restrictions except things like driving under the influence, delivery to minors, certain professions having to abstain before going on shift, smoking within a certain distance of another, etc. Freedom and the Free Market would dissolve the current problems associated with marijuana growing, and drive down the price, if the government didn’t interfere.

So two useless, unnecessary ballot measures can now absorb the people of Josephine County as they argue about problems that would never exist if modern America had the skepticism and hatred that the Founding Fathers had for authoritarian government.

— Paul Grad, 2014 Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee

Denmark Murders 1400 Dolphins: Try PM Mette Frederiksen for Murder

The murder of 1400 dolphins in the Faroe Islands is the most recent massacre by the Government of Denmark of creatures whose intelligence and sensitivity is comparable to humans. Denmark, which owns the Faroe Islands, is fully responsible for this atrocity. As head of that Government, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, leader of a Party that calls itself lucidrously “Social Democrats”, is also fully responsible for the mass murder of these creatures, and it’s clear that such behavior coming from a nation which calls itself socialistic and progressive must be punished with the most stringent penalty known to the law.

We call for the trial of Prime Minister Mette Fredericksen of Denmark on a charge of Mass Murder, which calls for the Death Penalty by the depths of its heinousness. To Murder dolphins should be considered in law to be equal to murder of Human Beings, and when premeditated it should call for the ultimate penalty, which is execution after a trial. To murder animals, who have no way of fighting back, is in one way worse than murdering human beings, because human beings do have the ability to fight back, and so can inflict casualties on their oppressors.

You can really see the money-grubbing attitude of countries like Social Democratic Denmark, which paint themselves as socialistic and progressive, when it comes to murdering dolphins in the Faroe Islands, because they want to make those Kroner from selling the fish that the dolphins eat. All they care about is money, while they hypocritically denigrate the Capitalist and decry the profit motive in business. So much for their “socialist compassion”. It stinks of the slaughterhouse. They are a miscreant nation, just as much as Oregon is a miscreant State for running sadistic experiments on monkeys under “Liberal Democrat” Governor Kate Brown. A few generations from now, History will take a very dim view of these women, who murder dolphins and torture monkeys, and class them mentally with the Southern Slave Owners and the Nazis.

So let’s see how “Progressive” you are Europe. Let a cry go up in the European capitals for the Trial of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on a Capital Charge of Murder.

=== Paul Grad, Libertarian

Biden Starves America: The Price of a $ 1400 Bribe

Americans are paying a very high price for the $1400 bribe that candidate Biden offered them if they’d only vote for him. Thanks to the people who did vote for him, and all the people who voted third party, and all the people who didn’t vote, all Americans are now subject to the starvation administration of Joseph Biden and his Democrat Party. You can be sure that none of those Democrat Senators and Congressman and Administration officials, and all the bureaucrats who surround them, will go hungry, but millions of Americans will.

The insane spending plans of this senile, feminist Party, and their draconian lockdown regulations and demonization of anyone who doesn’t agree with their bunk science, or is unwilling to submit their bodies to a vaccine, has led to a massive surge in demand for goods, and a massive shrinkage of those willing or wanting to work. The huge boost in food stamp benefits of 25%, coupled with the 5.9% increase in Social Security benefits, in addition to the new $300/month/child payout, has sent a signal to food companies and supermarkets that they can jack up their prices by 30%, and get away with it. Of course this means that anyone who isn’t in these three welfare-privileged groups now must pay an extra 10-50% on virtually every food item they buy. (Social security recipients are only welfare-privileged in the sense that they automatically get this increase, whereas the worker or the saver does not automatically get an increase in his wage or interest, but they are not welfare-privileged in the sense that they were press-ganged into a pension scheme without their consent for 48 years, from 17 to 65. Professor Rothbard pointed out that the social security rip is a greater inhibitor of individual financial independence than is the income tax.) One piece of fruit is now a dollar or more, and the massive malnutrition that these socialist programs is now causing will have dire consequences on the cost of the US medical care budgets for years to come. As healthier foods skyrocket in price, the poor will be forced to eat more junk foods, leading to a situation where the poor have a very high rate of obesity, as is now the case in Mexico, which used to be a country of much thinner, but healthier, people. Decades ago, I was struck by the observation that the Latinos I stood in line with, in the supermarkets close to downtown LA, invariably had their carts stuffed with vegetables and fruits of all kinds, whereas in markets in most other areas, the carts were stuffed with junk foods and corporate products.

I recall an interview with Mort Sahl, the wit and political humorist, circa 2010, in which the interviewer said something to the effect that he really wasn’t into politics. Sahl replied that he really wasn’t into politics either, but if you ignored it, it had a nasty way of stinking up your kitchen.

A rotten cauliflower is now stinking up Americans’ kitchens, and its brand name is the Biden Administration.

— Paul Grad

The Libertarians Vote In An Anti-Libertarian Fascist

By wasting their vote voting for an unknown college professor during the most important election in US History, when Socialism and a fraudulent voting-machine system threatened to completely engulf the last Libertarian, at least in theory, government on the face of the planet, the Libertarian voters and Party have promulgated one of the worst atrocities in the last thousand years of tyranny.

The Libertarians failed to see that the final ensconcement of Socialism in America would herald the end of the Republic — a Republic that was the result of a thousand years of attempting to overthrow tyranny. First there was Magna Carta, then the Peasants Rising in England in 1381 which was a revolt against the taxation imposed on poor and laboring folk in order to fill the coffers of a foreign church, while at the same time funding the King’s futile wars in France and elsewhere. Then there was the overthrow of the legal Monarchy in England by Richard III in what was a bloody coup, not unlike the Fascist Biden coup in the US on Nov. 3rd, 2020. But Richard was defeated and killed at Boswell Field, and the legal Monarchy was reinstated. Then there was Cromwell’s Glorious Revolution that finally led to a Constitutional Monarchy with Parliament and the Commons holding most of the power in England. And following that was the American Revolution, the most Libertarian in the world up to that point, and, until the Biden Putsch, to this point in history also.

While the Democrats and Republicans were both running pablum candidates like Obama, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, John McCain, Mitt Romney ,and the whole pathetic crew except for Ron Paul, it was alright to vote for Libertarian principles by voting for Libertarian candidates. But the Libertarians failed to see the generational change that the election of a strongly Socialist party over one less socialistic, at least in theory, was going to have. And by running a complete unknown, it was obvious that they were in effect bowing out of the election.

Democratic propagandist and Bay Area talk-show host John Rothmann used to say that you can’t beat Somebody with Nobody. In other words, the public will vote for a name they know over a name they have never heard every time. To overcome that, and to not be dependent on fund raising to conduct a campaign, one must be immensely wealthy — like President Trump.

While I never heard many Libertarians calling Obama a Fascist, it seemed that once Trump got in, that appellation was applied to him with some frequency. And yet to me, while Trump was technically a Fascist according to the Mussolini definition of it’s being “corporatism”, Obama was by far the more vicious Fascist. Ron Paul has referred to this as “soft Fascism”, and it’s an accurate term. This is Fascism without the jackboot and the caster oil, but it is coercive Fascism nonetheless.

Certainly, technically Trump was a Fascist — a corporatist. He reduced taxes on corporations, he favored Farm Subsidies just like the Democrats. His military budgets and annual deficits were as bad as Obama’s. And he was terrible on the environment. But the Democrats are terrible on the environment also only their followers don’t think so, but just look at the deforestation of the West Coast of the US since 2000, in all of which time the Democrats have controlled the Governorships and State Legislatures of California, Oregon, and Washington. They’re liars because in fact they don’t protect the environment.

Trump also got rid of the Obamacare forced payment to corporations, a great victory for Individualism, the Bill of Rights, and Individual Libertarian Property Rights. He also reduced the income tax on individuals, and dropped the rate on the poor. But he got no praise for that from those Libertarians who called him Fascist. Now those Libertarians will soon get the opportunity to send their monthly checks off to Warren Buffett’s insurance companies.

In discussing President Trump’s candidacy prior to the 2016 election, long-time libertarian thinkers Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell speculated on what kind of a President Trump would make. They agreed that you just didn’t know with Trump, that he might make Libertarian changes in government, whereas with Mrs. Clinton you knew you would just get a continuation of the Obama policies of forced Obamacare payments, belligerence towards Russia via the Ukraine and arming NATO with nuclear weapons, and a mollycoddling of the Iranian Theocratic Dictatorship.

So, what were the results? While Obama had his Death Lists every day, where he’d wipe out an entire compound of women and children just to get one Taliban or Al Queda leader with his drone strikes, creating hundreds and thousands of new terrorist recruits when the pictures of the dead women and children circulated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Trump resisted retaliating against Iran when they hit a ship in the gulf and were generally harassing US Naval vessels. He reduced tensions hugely with Russia, and stopped the build up of war fever in Eastern Europe. He even had the guts to criticize NATO spending, that pure waste boondoggle that costs every American about $90/yr in taxes on average, while the wealthy Europeans bathe in the luxury of their socialist-welfare States, protected by the US Military at US taxpayer expense.

Trump also reduced tensions with North Korea, and open channels of dialogue that no Democrat or Republican up till then had ever done. But he gets no kudos from the Libertarians for that effort. No, he’s just a wicked Fascist and we’d rather have Joe Biden — praiser of Segregation Senators, tough cannabis-law and cannibas-user persecutor, and alleged digital rapist and serial molester. That’s who the Libertarians let get into office. We won’t mention that a senile man now has his finger on the US nuclear trigger.

So, you called Trump a Fascist, but now, Libertarians, you’re really going to learn what is a Fascist under the current, and thanks to voter fraud, permanent Socialist regime. Enjoy it.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian

Oregon Ballot Measures 107,108,109,110, Four Libertarian No-No No Noes

One of the excellent things about see the Truth of the Libertarian political philosophy is that it enables one to quickly determine whether a proposed law is both Constitutional and also consistent with the Libertarian Non-Aggression Principle, the NAP. Oregon Measures 107 through 110 are no exception, and it is clear to one, without reading through the reams of arguments on both sides, almost all of which are usually wrong from the libertarian perspective, that all four current Oregon Measures being submitted to the voters on November 3, 2020 are definitely Libertarian No-Noes.

Oregon Measure 107 is a clear Assault on Property Rights, the Right to use your Capital as you see fit. It places restrictions on your giving your money to a political candidate of your choice, which is clearly a violation of your property Rights. Such restrictionist Measures are designed to keep out any Independent political candidates who attempt an run for office. By forcing such candidates to file paper work every single time they receive a donation, instead of being out on the road campaigning and discussing issues with the public, they well know they can tie such candidates down with the ropes of red tape, and thus suppress their message.

It became clear to me in 2014 when I ran for Governor of Oregon as the Libertarian Party Nominee, that it was well neigh impossible for a single candidate, attempting to run his own campaign, and refusing to accept campaign donations, to win elections unless one was independently wealthy. I refused to accept campaign donation in principle, but also because I saw that I would spend almost all of my time filing campaign contribution reports if I accepted donations, instead of interacting with the public.

After the campaign, I realized that only an independent billionaire, with the means to finance his own campaign, would be the only candidates running in the future against the behemoth Democrat and Republican Parties, who can legally give tens of thousands of dollars to their candidates through their union groups and other mob entities. Thus the emergence of Donald Trump, who thanked the unions and the Democratic Leviathan organizations in his own special way.

Let people use their money as they have the Inalienable Right to do. Smash Measure 107 by voting NO.

Measure 108 is another assault on Property Rights which a Libertarian can decide in 108 seconds. It places an outrageous $2/pack additional tax on cigarettes and half a buck on cigars. Now, there are few who are as fascistically opposed to tobacco use as myself. When I ran for office, I proposed a law outlawing smoking within 100 yards of another person without their consent, which on the third violation would have entailed jail time. I also proposed making smoking tobacco within 10ft of a child as a Class C Misdemeanor with mandatory jail time. Nor would I oppose a tobacco tax as long as those users are eligible to receive government medical care. But to raise the tax on tobacco so precipitously by such a huge amount on people who are driven mad by the socialist system they are forced to exist in, despite our “free” elections, is just sadistic. People who provide their own medical care, and are not entitled to any government medical scheme, should not have to pay any tobacco tax.

Vice is not a crime.

Measure 109 is another one of those ridiculous measures that aims to create a huge government bureaucracy to regulate “psilocybin” production, a product that should already be legal, and would be under a Free-Market Libertarian government. But what is so telling about this measure, that claims to aid mentally disturbed people by supplying them with psilocybin grown at government-regulated sites, is that psilocybin is far stronger than mescaline, which has a similar effect on people, being the weakest of the three main psychedelic substances LSD, psilocybin, and itself. Pure mescaline can easily be created in labs, without all the ridiculous paraphernalia and bureaucracy that this measure aims to create.

We have already seen the disastrous effects of partially-decriminalizing cannabis in Oregon, and setting up a huge Government bureaucracy to oversee its production. The price to the consumer is just as outrageous and exorbitant as it was before legalization, while forests are being butchered in order to grow hemp.

But complete legalization, with DUI and delivery to minor laws, will smash the cannabis trade in Oregon, and eventually throughout the nation.

Measure 110 is another attempt to “decriminalize” something that should already be completely legal by again setting up a huge bureaucracy and government-administered “addiction-treatment industry”. There is no reason this could not be done by completely private institutions without any government interference.

Drug use could best be controlled by having insurance companies set risk premiums for drug users far above those of T-totalers, thus monetarily rewarding abstainers. And there is no reason citizens who believe in “treatment” for the drug addict (but never for the morbidly obese in our society) cannot set up their own voluntary organizations to help addicts.

Do you see the Democratic Party strategy? Destroy young peoples’ lives through the restrictionist minimum wage laws which keeps them unemployed and massive social financial burdens like Obamacare. Then throw them in jail when they turn to drugs to get some pleasure in their lives as they see their youth waste away because of Democrat party hacks who pass Fascist laws that violate their Inalienable Rights guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence.

So stick a needle in the arm of Fascism and vote No on Measure 110.

— Paul Grad, LPO Gubernatorial Nominee 2014