One of the few good things about the USA PATRIOT Act is that it has to be reviewed and renewed periodically by Congress. The bad news is that it is up for renewal at the end of this month and President Obama has recommended renewal of the act without substantive changes. This is not the kind of change many of his supporters wanted to see, and there are also many civil libertarians on the political right who would like to see the USA PATRIOT Act repealed or at least revised to eliminate some of the worst provisions.

There are several particularly bad sections of the act which run directly counter to the rights guaranteed and protected in the Bill of Rights and which ought to be considered for removal, or should to be enough to justify just not renewing the whole bill. If you aren’t aware of exactly what they are or why people object to them, here are the basics.

Section 206: Roving Wiretaps

This section allows the FBI to wiretap a phone or any wireless communications, including internet broadband transmissions, without having to get a warrant or even provide the target’s name or phone number. They can basically just tap into any communications they want with no due process and no court approval. In many cases they just park a van near your house and monitor all of your communications with no notice, no warrant and no accountability.  Recent evidence suggests that abuse of this power has been widespread in tens of thousands of cases in the last 5 years.  This is an obvious and direct violation of 4th Amendment protections and should be repealed or revised to require judicial oversight.

Section 213: Sneak and Peak

This section allows secret searches of private property without notifying the resident. They can come to your house when you’re away, break in and search it and not tell you until after the fact. This can also be extended to electronic searches, allowing them to be conducted without prior notification. Again, a clear violation of due process under the 4th Amendment which should be done away with .

Section 215: Library Records

This section lowers the standard of proof needed to get a court order to access private records. It gets rid of the requirement to identify the target of surveillance and prove the relevance of evidence they are going after. It allows the FBI to get special warrants for all sorts of privately held business or professional records without necessarily demonstrating their relevance to any specific investigation. It essentially allows “fishing expeditions” where they gather data on speculation and try to develop a case from it.  It can also lead to malicious requests where they tie up the resources of an organization or company.  Clearly an abuse of due process.

Section 505: National Security Letters

Authorizes the use of non-judicial National Security Letters in place of warrants  to compel the disclosure of sensitive information held by banks, credit companies, telephone carriers and Internet Service Providers, among others. Particularly troubling is that these letters also carry a provision prohibiting those who receive them from making any public disclosure of the fact, an effective gag order which violates several sections of the Bill of Rights.  The ACLU has filed a number of lawsuits in defense of victims of this abusive practice.

Section 802: Expanded Definition of Domestic Terrorism

This section broadens the definition of a terrorist to include domestic as well as international terrorists and does it with language sufficiently broad to potentially include many groups whose forms of protest or activism are contentious or disruptive, but not necessarily actually criminal or violent.  Under this definition groups like Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, environmental groups and many anti-government protest groups could be classed as terrorists.  There is also clear indication from the Department of Justice that they would like to expand application of this provision even further.  This is clearly contrary to free speech and free assembly provisions of the 1st Amendment.

Section 806: Asset Seizure

This expands on the practices we’ve already seen abused extensively in the War on Drugs, based around the illogical premise that if someone is merely suspected of a crime it is acceptable to seize their property or their financial assets as evidence or potential evidence, even if they are never charged or sent to trial.  In these cases the seized assets are almost never returned to the owner and there is no real process for redress or an appeal when charges are not filed.  This has been a problem withe the Drug War and the same concerns apply here.  This section and several related sections allow the seizure of the assets of organizations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism even when they have been convicted of no crime.  This section builds on the extraordinarily broad language of section 981 of the US Civil Code  and goes beyond property used in a crime to include property which might be used in a future crime and property belonging to anyone defined as a “source of influence” of terrorism, whatever that means.  This concept is derived from the RICO statute, but without the rules requiring the proof of a criminal conspiracy which it includes.

Section 6001: Lone Wolf

This section allows the government to obtain secret surveillance orders against any individual even if they are not directly linked to any international terrorist group or foreign nation.  It basically allows them to spy on anyone and they don’t have to ever inform the subject they have done so.  The entire idea of secret warrants is contrary to the principle of due process under the 4th Amendment.  Under this provision the government can essentially spy on anyone on the pretext that they might potentially communicate with a terrorist or terrorist organization, or just because they think they look suspicious.  There are no real qualifications and secrecy means there’s no accountability either. 

Of course, all of these sections of the USA PATRIOT Act are to some degree interconnected with other parts of the act and it’s difficult to just eliminate a few of them without changing many other parts as well.  This suggests that allowing the entire set of laws to expire at the end of the month would be the most practical solution.  But at the very least, these 7 sections ought to be looked at closely and made to conform with the protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.  Searches should not be conducted without judicial oversight, suspects should not be investigated and put under surveillance without due cause and property rights should be respected unless someone is actually convicted of a crime.

The Bill of Rights exists for a reason and it has become clear that there is no threat to this nation from terrorism or other sources which justifies the multi-front assault on our rights which is embodied in the USA PATRIOT Act.  It is the greatest assault on our civil liberties as a people since the time of the Civil War.  If you feel that these draconian measures are justifiable for security reasons and okay in general because you aren’t a terrorist or likely to associate with terrorists, consider how broad this language is and how easily it could be abused and used against even the most innocent among us for political or personal reasons.

You don’t have to sit back and wait for Congressmen who have shown little interest in correcting their past errors to come to their senses. You can help them along by contacting your representative or others who are on specific relevant committees using the convenient information on ContactingtheCongress.org.

It is fascinating how so many from both political parties treat our massive public debt as an organically occurring predicament. Their rhetoric suggests that we could pare our 14 trillion dollar hole if we cut a little here and there from the federal budget, all while maintaining services that are “more efficient and responsive.” In the minds of Congress and the president, the debt is treated like just another issue to be addressed, an inconvenience that just cropped up with no discernible cause. Apparently, we are told, it is something that can be fixed with a little budgetary tweaking without a painful correction being endured along the way.

This is no surprise, as anyone who actually pushed the forceful action needed to get it under control would be doomed in their re-election bid (if they were not recalled from elective office before that date.) But our current debt and deficits, though serious cancers to our vitality and undeniably a major problem, are not the main problem. Instead, these staggeringly hard to fathom numbers are a symptom of the entire mind set present in America. We can point our fingers at sacred cows all day long: Medicare, Medicaid, Iraq, foreign aid, ag subsidies. The list would be extensive.

All these things, like the debt itself, are merely symptoms of a much vaster problem. The core problem is that we have lost sight of why government is there in the first place, which is to provide a mechanism whereby coercion can only be met with a greater coercion. Our Founders understood the imperfections present in human nature, and instituted some form of decentralized power to provide disincentives for actions by one individual that harmed another. Swift punishment for actions like murder and theft were, under their line of reasoning, a proper role of the State. One could say the philosophy of our Founders was minarchism, though entire books could be devoted to assigning esoteric ideological labels.

Owing to America’s evolution away from the Revolution, her citizens’ have allowed the role of curtailing violence to become just one of many accepted governmental functions. It became justifiable in the minds of many for the government to ban substances they disapproved of, first resulting in the disastrous Prohibition Era and presently manifesting itself in the form of a costly federal Drug War. Soothing angst over inflationary policies and massaging the guilt of the wealthy led to citizens being okay with constitutionally unauthorized government handouts. Being responsible for plugging post-World War Two power vacuums became acceptable as a goal, leading to a vast apparatus of military bases and expansion of Pentagon budgets.

As noble as these attempts might have seemed in the abstract, the vast taxation and government spending they required and our subsequent unwillingness to pay for them up front have contributed to huge deficits and debt. The number of societal ills Washington has expanded their mandate to solving runs the gambit from social conservative’s checklist to social liberal’s engineering ideas. This trend is now self sustaining. Such a centralization of power leads everyone from the perilously poor to prudently productive to feel as if they are falling behind if their cut from D.C is not getting received. These perverse incentives have led to massive budgetary short falls; the massive new taxes required to fund these sort of things is too politically toxic to even touch.

So assigning blame for our current fiscal state is too complex for short evening news sound bites and partisan shouting matches. The debt is a byproduct of our citizen’s shifting views on the federal government; what we once thought of as a referee is now considered to be something capable of changing the game’s entire outcome. French free market economist Frederic Bastiat was all over this several centuries back when he observed: “Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.”

A founding member of the New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition, Jack Kimball, has been selected to lead the New Hampshire Republican Party for the next term. Mr. Kimball was supported by the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire early in the race, citing his experience and ability to mobilize the grassroots. By a margin of 222-199 — voting members of the New Hampshire GOP Committee — Mr. Kimball defeated the establishment opponent.

At the end of the day long meeting to elect the NHGOP Chair was the announcement of results of a WMUR-ABC News straw poll taken throughout the event. The poll put 21 names of potential 2012 presidential candidates before the voters. With 273 votes cast by New Hampshire GOP insiders, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came out on top with 35 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 11 percent; former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had 8 percent; former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had 7 percent; and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina had 5 percent each. Governor Gary Johnson received support from 2 percent.

Since January 17, the New Hampshire RLC has received the following notable media hits:

• “Tea Party Activist Takes Over New Hampshire G.O.P.“, New York Times, Jan. 22
• “Romney wins New Hampshire straw poll“, CNN Politics, Jan. 22
• “Romney keeps away from Tea Party”, Boston Globe, Jan. 21, 2011
• “Republicans Battling in New Hampshire”, The Caucus on NYTimes.com, Jan. 21, 2011
• “Chairman vote will indicate Tea Party influence on NHGOP“, Union Leader, Jan. 21
• “GOP vote barometer of party“, Concord Monitor, Jan. 17

New Republican House Speaker Bill O’Brien and new House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt both consider themselves affiliated with the RLC. In November, the RLC actively supported O’Brien in his race for House Speaker.

And on November 2, the New Hampshire RLC elected 81 of its endorsed candidates for the legislature, including two former RLCNH Chairmen, Jim Forsythe and Dan McGuire. Forsythe was elected to the State Senate, which only has 24 members.  The New Hampshire RLC has a total of 99 State House members, 6 State Senators, and one Executive Councilor.

Please join the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire on Facebook and join the RLCNH e-mail list.  The New Hampshire RLC is on the move!

Grassroots pro-liberty activists in The Beaver State are hosting an organizational meeting to charter a Republican Liberty Caucus affiliate in Oregon. RLC Coordinator Adam Mayer is leading the charge, so if you live in the Portland area — or anywhere else in the state! — please mark February 19 on your calendar. The meeting details:

Oregon RLC Organizing Meeting
Saturday, February 19 at 1 pm
at Round Table Pizza (10070 SW Barbur Blvd.) in Portland

This will be an organizational meeting to form a Oregon chapter. Bylaws and rules will be voted on and officers will be elected. To participate in voting you must be a member of the RLC. Join today! and join today. For more information e-mail Adam at rlcoregon@gmail.com.

Help promote individual liberty, limited government and free enterprise and eat pizza while doing it! See you on the 19th, freedom fans in Oregon!

Thank you to the following individuals, organizations, and businesses who have sponsored the Republican Liberty Caucus National Convention:

Platinum Sponsors
_______________________
The Leadership Institute
Richard P. Matthews
Dr. Clifford F. Thies

Gold Sponsors
_______________________
Silver Circle Movie
Pennsylvania Precinct Project

Convention Booths
_______________________
The Leadership Institute
Silver Circle Movie
Pennsylvania Precinct Project
New Renaissance in Education
Arlington/Falls Church Young Republicans

These generous sponsors have made the 2011 Republican Liberty Caucus National Convention possible. Stop by the vendor booths at the Convention or click on the links above to learn more about these sponsoring organizations and causes.

One of the most effective ways to advance the ideas of the Republican Liberty Caucus within the Republican Party is through electing our members to positions of influence within state party organizations.

Earlier this week, Traci Gauthier, secretary of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Maine, took a big step up in her state party, winning election as Chair of the Penobscot County Republican Committee for a term through January 2013.

Gauthier was a founder of the Lincoln area Republican Club, which organized more than a dozen small towns into a grassroots organization to work for local GOP candidates. She also ran for State Senate in 2010 in Maine State Senate District 30 and has been serving as State Committeewoman for her county. As County Chair she will continue to serve on the State Executive Committee and her position as a State Committeewoman will be filled in a special election.

Gauthier has a strong commitment to grassroots activism. “I want to reorganize so that all parts of our huge county have equal representation and see that every community has a Town Chair so that we can assist their local candidates with a strong grassroots organization to continue party progress,” Gauthier said.

The Republican Liberty Caucus of Maine has had a very successful year, electing five State Representatives and two State Senators. Several members of the Maine RLC will be attending the upcoming RLC National Convention in Arlington, VA on February 12th.

One of the reasons our public discourse is often centered on personalities and meaningless traits of candidates for office can be traced directly to the large scale deterioration in the quality of education the vast majority of our students receive. Most of us have simply becoming comfortable with the thought of Americans receiving a sub-par public education, knowing full well hefty numbers are content to coast through with minimal expenditure of effort. Even as our annual test results sound alarm bells annually regarding our standing among other industrialized nations, parents and taxpayers are willing to shrug it off under the assumption that kids in the rest of the country are getting the same abysmal education that their child is. This in and of itself serves as an indictment of federal control over schooling.

The maddeningly mediocre standardized scores of students in math and science have been well documented: that this is a problem in need of addressing has been the crux of countless articles and boilerplate speeches. We do not need to be bombarded with more hand wringing over this issue; rehashing the inequities of our nation’s current public school system is a topic that has been repeatedly flogged to the point where the bulk of us are immune to further opining. Solving the problems of subpar math and science scores is something worth examining, but this piece will focus instead on an aspect of education that, though discussed far less, carries with it potentially crippling consequences for a responsible republic.

What receives far less attention is the disheartening state of civics, history, and economics instruction in our high schools and universities. Whether in the context of public or private institutions (though one could postulate which form of education, by and large, imparts the most enlightenment to students with regard to these subjects), the vast majority of U.S. students graduate and enter the work force or college with a tangibly inadequate grasp of the traditions and schools of thought that make America distinctly American. Since high schoolers who are eligible to vote during their senior year lack exposure to the components that guarantee American liberty, we should almost thankful that their voting patterns are what they are.

The widespread lack of awareness regarding the principles of freedom in our school curriculum is a virus effecting even the most politically active among us. The bulk of our high school graduates’ history diet has consisted of what economist Thomas Woods facetiously refers to as the “Official Version of History”, meaning they are only exposed to what has been previously approved by the government’s court historians and stenographers. Essentially, they are determined to strip American history down to a few overly simplistic talking points. ‘If it cannot be neatly summed up in a span of three sentences, then it must not be relevant’ is the mindset these registrars of history want our students to leave school possessing.

If you still own it, flip open your high school (or junior high) text book to confirm this conundrum. Without fail, it will read something along the lines of: The Civil War was solely fought by the Abraham Lincoln against those godless, heathen Southerners under the evil, swastika-equivalent Confederate flag. The FDR rescued us from the Great Depression, and oh, by the way, some C list actor was President during the greed-soaked 1980s. Admittedly these are exaggerated characterizations, but they to some degree reflect the broad brush strokes our text book history is painted in. Almost no discussion is allotted to the robust debates that surrounded the states’ rights arguments of the South, the chartering of the Federal Reserve system, or the enshrinement of the income tax into our daily lives. Any dissent from the conventional commentary is tossed out as illegitimate. Praise is meted out to the strong armed Presidents who, curiously enough, always presided in office during wartime. Why the Commander-in-Chiefs whose patient diplomacy saved our country from bloodshed are never given their due is a curious fact that cannot escape the notice of the most casual of observers.

But the underlying issue persists: we are given a one sided view of history, a sketch hashed out by men and women universally statist in their orientation. This simply means that their first reflex is to defend the actions of the State (the government in Washington) and downplay the contributions of those in the private sector (a.k.a. individuals who work and create things for a living.) Considering most of these text book authors are themselves die-hard Democrats who speak of FDR only in reverent terms, they are occasionally willing to question the actions of Republican presidents. This is a fact many conservatives often point out, though one might wonder how things would unfold if the shoe was on the other foot and the actions of Republican actions were the ones beyond reproach. But overall, the crude philosophy behind these authors is one which says the rubes working 50 hours a week in flyover country need the sages in Washington to guide the long term course of their economic well-being.

When times of crisis arrived, according to our inerrant textbooks, blames should never be heaped on Congress or the White House, while the worst of scorn is to be reserved for the so-called greed of those in the private sector. So the scenario is set; we receive our college diploma instilled with the notion that the government in D.C. should be the unquestioned focal point of power. It is through this clouded lens that our erroneous focus on politics stems, causing our first instinct on policy issues both economic and social to inevitably be a rush to Washington so our point of view can receive a hearing. After all, we are taught, this is where the power lies; not in our state legislatures, city councils, or family units as the Founders intended. No, it rests with the all powerful bureaucracy situated in the District of Columbia. And it is a vicious cycle, as the teachers schooled in this Washington-centric thought are the very ones imparting misguided knowledge to our next generation.

This spiral contributes to a nation of graduates taught that every problem of societal import should be factored into their vote for U.S. Congress or the Presidency. Even elected officials who are familiar with the precepts of federalism are willing to discard them; this makes sense from the standpoint of sheer survival. Considering 51% or more their constituents long ago did the same, it would be foolish to exert energy to do away with the federal giveaways never authorized by the Constitution. ‘If the constituents are unaware of this, why bother explaining it’ is the logic followed by many seeking higher office. Why lay out these concepts in a thoughtful manner when focusing on esoteric side issues of your opponent’s personal life is the simplest route to punching your ticket for fancy titles? A distracted electorate willing to formulate its philosophy from ten second sound bites has little interest in following genuine policy debates; this all has as its root problem our lack of formal schooling in these matters.

It is only the natural course of things for a nation that gets at best a cursory lesson on these matters from their teachers and professors. If things like trade and monetary policy received little to no focus during our formative years, why should we take precious time to learn about it now? Focusing on electing the “first this” ,“first that”, or the height and weight of a candidate takes precedence in society where weighty ideas are watered down or completely skimmed over during election season. Sure, issues like “education” and “health care” might be relayed to exit pollsters as an explanation for why one voted for a particular party, but this just further underscores our inherent dilemma. Most of the “issues” named as reasons for voting one way or the other are not even within the federal government’s domain to begin with, making one wonder if the majority of American voters are even familiar with the duties those they are voting for are to carry out. Saying the president’s job is to “run the economy” is a frightening answer commonly given to the inquiry of just what it is that a president actually does. Giving someone a job which infers tremendous powers without clarity on the profession’s description is a dangerous way to run the affairs of a business, much more so the affairs of an entire country.

That we have been engaged in such a practice for several generations should make our current problems less of a shock. This leaves the door ajar for politicians to prey on voter prejudice and angst, since solving shortcomings in society and voting for federal office are now seen as one in the same. That this was never the intention of our Founders has never been relayed to scores of voters flocking to the booth every two to four years.

Come to think of it, how many of us were at least made familiar with the theories of men like Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek prior to college (if we even so much as learned their names). This author can state with confidence that he did not know the free market theories of these bright and influential men until a good while after high school graduation. Only in lower level college economic courses is the name of a man responsible for shaping much of our economic thought usually first spoken of, with this being only a quick mention of John Maynard Keynes. How do we expect to have a citizenry ready to wrestle with the tough issues of fiscal and monetary policy when they are not even presented with evidence with which to formulate an opinion? Even if the theories of Marx and Engells are placed on equal footing with those of Schumpeter and Hernando de Soto, we will be made all the better for having had the debate during our schooling. But the only mention of economics that meets our ears prior to entry into college are vague concepts which always mirror the big government approach espoused by Keynesians. A man’s theories that have been largely disproven by events in the real world are taken as gospel by the vast majority of academia; one could hardly expect the generic high school teacher to take on such established orthodoxy, especially one given an aura of invincibility by its adherents in collegiate economic departments (with George Mason, Chicago University, and Grove City College being notable outliers.) Since such a lack of focus is placed on monetary policy, it is no surprise that institutions like the Federal Reserve are never part of our public discussions when presidential election season rolls around. Tinkering with the tax rate by several percentage points is taken as the boldest action a candidate can propose. Though this is highly important, the other side of the coin, which is how loose we are going to be with interest rates and the creation of our currency, is a Grand Canyon-sized deficiency in our dialogue. Devoid of debate over many of the matters that will truly impact America’s economic wellbeing, we continue to replace one politician with another, all the time wondering why we continue to see things deteriorate and our position in the world erode. Perhaps at some point a critical mass of the public will begin demanding that the panderers pandering for our votes will talk about things which truly make a difference, such as where our money comes from and why it is constantly losing value. Many of our elders will lament that “back in their day, product X or Y cost (insert shockingly far lower price here)”, but rarely do we stop and ponder if this is inevitable or if something else is at work. Show me a legitimate candidate for president that actually tries to tackle the complexity of central banking and endorses some form of a gold standard, and I will show you a candidate who is now certifiably illegitimate. And this, like the scant attention paid to history in our high school years, can be traced directly back to the failings of our educational system.

An invaluable benefit would be granted to American society if we had some thoughtful lessons on monetary policy and price inflation for our children during the time they spent in class. Even a class on budgeting in junior high or high school would be welcome sight. Who knows, maybe some heroic school teachers are taking time to educate their students on these matters, but by and large its surface is left unscratched in legions of school districts. We must hope for the sake of a sound currency and lack of societal chaos down the road that this widespread trend will soon reverse itself.

In conclusion, we must take responsibility ourselves to ensure that an expanded teaching of history is once again a part of our student’s educational experience. Private and home schools will likely be the place where this movement initially takes root, considering there is more flexibility allowed in these environments than in government run monopolies masquerading under the title of public schools. But fostering an appreciation for the workings of constitutional government and the philosophical groundwork behind it can help to slowly stop the ebb of statism corroding our country’s institutions and prestige. We do not need to shy away from presenting both sides of an economic argument, as those of us with an unshakable commitment to free markets will naturally understand that, free from government interference, the stronger argument will win out. Recalibrating and reinforcing our views on government will cause them to eventually find a home in public school classrooms, though this will be viewed with scorn by many officials in the education hierarchy uncomfortable with the language of liberty. One could almost picture it now: ‘Wow, we can’t have our children’s minds cluttered by men like Adam Smith and Walter Williams!’ a tenured official might exclaim, their disdain simply masking unfamiliarity with economic matters. But a citizenry that can unflinchingly explain their views will no doubt influence the debate to the point where the lines of demarcation they draw on such matters will slowly make their presence known in the government schools. Only at this point will a coherent discussion ensue in our political conversations. Until then, we will continue to be ensnared in navel gazing and incessant sniping over trivial matters, all the while guaranteeing a demise that before long becomes all but inevitable.

Date & Time: Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 6:00PM

Location:
Fairfield Inn & Suites
4888 Lenoir Ave
Jacksonville, FL
(I-95/Butler & Phillips – near the Cracker Barrel Restaurant)

Meeting & Synopsis:
The RLC is involved in a myriad of local, state and national battles to advance the cause of liberty. We focus on education, candidate campaigns, reform within the Republican Party, and promoting or stopping legislation. Although all have their merits, the RLC is looking to re-assess the Goals of our Caucus and determine more specifically what the Northeast Florida membership wants to accomplish in 2011 and beyond.

Join us Tuesday, February 1st for an interactive panel discussion where the Caucus will discuss, debate and define Victory for our organization. Panelists will include Jaime Davis of the 10th Amendment Center, Vic Wilhelm, President of Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County, Mike Ryan, longtime RLCer and liberty activist and Matt Nye, the newly elected State Chairman of the RLCFL. Each will take a few minutes to pitch their idea before opening up the floor for questions, motions and votes. Come let your voice be heard and have your ideas shape the future of the RLC of Northeast Florida.

Full Page Meeting Flyers (pdf format):   Flyer

RLC’s Meetup Site:  RLC Meetup

Laurence Vance, a columnist who posts at LewRockwell.com, has a new piece up in which he provides a not-so-thoughtful analysis regarding his views about the Republican Party in general and the Republican Liberty Caucus in specific. This is his second write-up about the RLC this month. I’m pleased that we’ve caught his attention.

Mr. Vance received a postcard from the Florida chapter of the RLC inviting him to attend the recent Florida RLC Convention in Kissimmee.

Vance’s first criticism is that the RLC postcard he received said that Republicans “won big on libertarian themes”. I am not involved in the Florida RLC chapter and therefore did not pen that language (and I would have chosen alternative language), but winning in politics can take a variety of forms. Perhaps the Florida RLC was talking about candidates running campaigns on libertarian themes — as new RLC-endorsed State Rep. Glen Bradley of North Carolina did.  His campaign theme was “Restore the Constitutional Order” and he featured the RLC logo at his campaign hub. Mr. Bradley was just one of many newly elected RLC-endorsed state legislators.

Or perhaps the author of the postcard was talking about ballot initiatives with libertarian themes, such as the anti-Obamacare measures passed in states like Arizona and Oklahoma and the medical marijuana initiative passed in Arizona. Still, there are other measures of successful libertarian themes in the Republican Party, such as the push for state sovereignty by elected Republican legislators, the anti-TSA resolution championed by Republican legislators in New Jersey, the legislation to decriminalize pot possession sponsored by a Republican legislator in Virginia, and the “Health Care Freedom” bills that many states are pursuing with Republicans taking the lead.

Some of this legislation has been successful, some will be in the future, and other items will fail. The legislation that fails will do so because there aren’t enough liberty-loving Americans serving in public office — which the RLC is working to change through retail politics.

In referencing the “liberty wing of the Republican Party,” which was mentioned in the Florida RLC postcard, Mr. Vance claims that the liberty wing has only one member: his hero, Ron Paul.

Mr. Vance likes one politician, but no others.

I’ve noticed that trend in the Mises economic circles.  All politicians and both political parties are evil, the story goes, with one exception — Ron Paul.

What makes Ron Paul different?

He was elected — that’s what separates him from the rest of the crowd.

To be elected, he had to participate in the political process, something Mr. Vance says he explicitly opposes.

In my e-mail response to Mr. Vance’s original blog entry from January 3, in which he initially made the claim that the “liberty wing of the GOP” was made up of one person, I cited examples of other elected officials who make up the liberty wing of the Republican Party:

—–Original Message—–
From: Laurence M. Vance
To: aaronjbiterma
Sent: Tue, Jan 4, 2011 2:35 pm
Subject: Re: Your post about the Republican Liberty Caucus

who are the current and former elected officials?

Subject: Re: Your post about the Republican Liberty Caucus
Date: 1/4/2011 2:41:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: aaronjbiterma
To: lmvance

Governor Gary Johnson
Congressman Justin Amash from Michigan
City Councilman from New York City (Dan Halloran)
County Commissioner from Maryland (Cindy Jones)
State Representatives from Maine, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin

The elected officials I mentioned in the e-mail to Mr. Vance are just some of the decent liberty-loving folks who will be attending the upcoming RLC National Convention. The list excludes a plethora of legislators who were just elected in November and who have been serving as loyal libertarian Republicans for many years, such as State Senator Sam Slom of Hawai’i and State Senator Bob Hedlund of Massachusetts.

Mr. Vance chose to ignore the information I provided to continue his hero-worship instead.

I admire Congressman Ron Paul just as Mr. Vance does. What freedom-loving American doesn’t?

But there is a point where hero-worship becomes counter-productive, and Mr. Vance illustrates the point quite well:

He opposes participation in electoral politics and instead believes that writing for LewRockwell.com is going to change the direction of our country.

If Congressman Ron Paul is as wonderful as Mr. Vance says he is (and I believe he is), then why aren’t we all working to find more principled people to run for office and win?

Well, some of us are. Others would instead prefer to get paid to write articles.

Laurence Vance needs to work on his persuasion skills.

I’m a longtime libertarian, and his efforts have only dissuaded me from wanting to associate with the purity club that is LewRockwell.com and the Mises Institute.

Mr. Vance expresses that he has treated the RLC fairly. He then falsely claims that the Florida RLC endorsed Ron Paul for President in 2008 (not true) and goes on to say that the Florida RLC website is out of date (also not true). He commends the “hardcore” members of the Florida RLC who have written to him in the past (presumably, these members met his litmus test) and then goes on to criticize their choice of State Senator Mike Haridopolos as a speaker at the recent Florida RLC Convention (who did not meet his litmus test).

Unlike the intellectual elitists (and racists and homophobes) who write for LewRockwell.com — sitting in their comfy computer chairs criticizing the masses who do not agree with every tenet of their ideological platform — the Republican Liberty Caucus is working to change the makeup of the Republican Party. So it’s a friendlier place for liberty advocates. So the policies in our country can change dramatically for the better. And to engage folks who may not agree with every libertarian idea but are open to the prospect of learning more about libertarian principles.

Whoever added Mr. Vance to the mailing list of the Florida RLC chapter would be well advised to remove him. Vance neither understands (nor cares to understand,) nor agrees with the mission of the organization — and the RLC Statement of Principles doesn’t jibe with his rigid purity test.

Readers interested in hearing a substantive response to Vance’s claims about the Republican Party should register to attend the 2011 RLC National Convention on February 12 in Arlington, Virginia.  Professor Randy Barnett will give a speech entitled “Rediscovering the Libertarian Roots of the Republican Party.”  At the same time, we’ll be celebrating 20 years of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Anyone can run for office, including those of us who have deeply-held libertarian convictions. The idea that the liberty wing of the Republican Party is made up of one elected official — a lie stated and repeated by Laurence Vance — should be expunged from our discourse.

And the politics of hero-worship should be purged from the libertarian movement so that we can recruit, support, and elect libertarian-minded citizen leaders who are in the same mold as Ron Paul.

After all, it was Congressman Paul himself who said, “We must redouble our efforts to educate our fellow citizens, recruit and support liberty candidates, and marshal our resources for the battle ahead.”

We’re just weeks away from the 2011 Republican Liberty Caucus National Convention, and we hope you’ll consider attending — even if you’ve never attended a RLC meetup before. There is still time to register, but make sure to do so before February 1, when the prices rise.

The top ten reasons you should register and attend the Convention:

10. You will be able to hear from RLC leaders in other states to see how their chapters operate.

9. It promises to be really fun — an exciting and uplifting event. Check the agenda.

8. Panels will offer intellectual discussions from key figures in the liberty movement related to the Tea Party, foreign policy, drug policy reform, electoral reform, and other topics.

7. Training on communications and campaigns will be offered by experts in these fields.

6. Over 100 activists from 30 states will gather to network, socialize, learn, and mobilize.

5. The Convention will mark the largest pro-liberty gathering of Republicans in the country.

4. The RLC will celebrate its 20 year anniversary at the Convention, having been founded in 1991.

3. Justin Amash, the 30-year old Congressman-elect from Michigan, and former New Mexico Governor Gary E. Johnson will share their thoughts and experiences.

2. Prof. Randy Barnett’s speech “Rediscovering the Libertarian Roots of the Republican Party” will make the case for libertarian participation in the Republican Party.

1. Registered delegates will be eligible to vote in the RLC’s 2012 Presidential Straw Poll!

Don’t miss out — register today!