Rule of Flaw

Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Ihave no particular use for George W. Bush, let me make that “perfectly clear”, right up front. I am not now nor have I ever been a Republican, even when I campaigned hard for Barry Goldwater back in 1964.

However I do have a reason that’s unimpeachable (if you’ll pardon the expression) for disliking the slimy gang of collectivists to whom my mentor, Robert LeFevre, used to refer as “Socialist Party A”. They don’t like the rules when the rules don’t serve their purpose. We all feel that way from time to time. But when the rules don’t serve their purpose, they expect everyone else to let them whine their way out of them.

We saw this phenomenon at work all throughout the eight miserable years of the Clinton regime. The President (the Democratic president, that is) couldn’t be tarred and feathered and driven from office for the high crimes and misdemeanors (including sexual harrassment, theft, graft, influence peddling, perjury, obstruction of justice, blackmail, treason, rape, and mass murder) that no one really bothers to deny he committed.

His wife, the Woman with One Eyebrow, couldn’t be jailed for her various low crimes—accepting bribes disguised as investment advice, conducting public meetings in secret, concealing evidence connected with a homicide—because, well, because she’s the Woman with One Eyebrow.

Of course the reason they offer, loudly, incessantly, for why the rules others follow shouldn’t apply equally to them is that there’s a “greater cause” to be considered. What they won’t tell you is that the “greater cause” they have in mind is seizing absolute ownership and control of your life and all the products of your life. Adolf Hitler slaughtered millions in that “greater cause”, so did Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and Pol Pot. Waco Willie and his culture-genocidal hordes simply aren’t about to let a silly thing like the United States Constitution stand in their way, let alone a little statute here and there.

Their attitude toward the proper outcome of the election of 2000 is exactly the same as their attitude toward, let’s say, the Second Amendment. Despite their egalitarian rhetoric, they hate, loathe, and despise the distributed power that ownership of personal arms bestows on each and every one of We the People, so they want us all to ignore the clearly written prohibition on any government interference with the unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right of every man, woman, and responsible child to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon—rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything—any time, any place, without asking anyone’s permission.

A Republican victory, however slim it turns out to be, thrusts a big stick into their bicycle spokes, and they know it. Having suffered nearly a decade of Clintonism—due to the cowardice and hesitancy of “Socialist Party B”, the Republicans—advocates of liberty of every stripe are highly unlikely to tolerate such failures of resolve any longer.

They understand that it was the Milquetoast tactic practiced by the George Bush Junior campaign that brought about the sorry mess of November, 2000 (just as it brought about the well-earned defeats of George Bush Senior and of Robert Dole). They will run away with a victory now, realizing, at long last, that the task before us is not to feebly defend ourselves from each socialist assault on our lives as it’s contrived in Congress or the legislatures, but to undercut every move the enemies of liberty can make with a single sweeping strategy: demanding stringent, swift, and energetic enforcement of the Bill of Rights.

Socialist Party A understands that, too, which is why it’s trying to steal this election at any cost. Their present contention is that our lives must be totally re-engineered not only for cripples and illiterates, but that the electoral process itself is fatally flawed if it fails to accommodate the hopelessly stupid. Yet if it weren’t the infamous Palm Beach “butterfly” ballots, rest assured, it would be any other excuse they could think of. Just like you, I’ve seen those ballots (they were used in my home state for years). Anyone confused enough to mess up a ballot like that—and then complain about it—is admitting publicly that he (or she) has the intelligence of an eggplant.

Which pretty much accounts for their choice of political parties. My answer—if they want to play like that—is that anyone who can be confused by such a ballot is clearly disqualified to vote, and that anyone who voted for Albert Gore should be disqualified on the same grounds.

Another thing: in any conflict between the electoral vote and the popular vote, there is no popular vote. The system as it exists was developed to allow a loose confederation of equal sovereign nations to choose a single leader, a confederation all but destroyed by a fascist dictatorship in the 1860s. For the last 140 years, decent individuals in this civilization have been struggling to reestablish that loose confederation. Abolishing the Electoral College is a step in the wrong direction.

The claim that the election of 2000 proves that each of our votes counts is untrue. If the Democrats have their way, it will have proven only that the whining of 19,000 morons outweighs the best efforts and most reasoned opinions of the millions who are forced to pay for their upkeep.

 

Reprinted from The Libertarian Enterprise for Number 98, November 13, 2000