As you all know, I’ve come out pretty strongly against these from the get go.  I have always been against “anti-file sharing” legislation. I blasted Kimba Wood for shutting down Limewire. And I’ve been warning about SOPA for months and PIPA for weeks. Now, the American people are finally waking up. And all it took was 24 hours without Wikipedia. First, let’s discuss exactly what this bill is. Corporatist [quasi-socialist] Hollywood executives, the California Teamsters Union, and greedy entertainers got together with their lobbyist friends and said “hey, get congress to write a bill that lets us make money every time someone so much as looks at us or listens to us, we deserve it!”. Intellectual property laws in this country predate the world wide web by decades, and the lobbyists knew it would be easy to manipulate them for maximum control.

Government also liked the idea. Those in congress that wrote and supported the bill up to this point saw it as an opportunity for unprecedented government power over an area–both an economy and a society in and of itself–that has remained extremely free: the internet. These statists had the ultimate opportunity now to monitor us, influence us, control us, and further consolidate their power as time goes on. That is what awaits us if these bills pass. Unprecedented power for the political class. All it takes is a few greedy people to abuse their power. Let’s go back to the entertainment industry and how they’ve abused IP laws over the years to make a dime every which way they can:

You can clearly tell the effect of Big Hollyweird lobbyists on the net worth of entertainers. Elvis was once at the top of the world. At his death, his net worth was $7 million (1977 dollars) which is anywhere from 18-25 million in 2010 dollars. (see inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/)

Now compare that to Katy Perry. She’s a top artist of today, but she’s not as popular today as Elvis was in his time. Her current net worth after about 5 years being mainstream (and the entire time during a recession) is $55 million.

Someone like Snoop Dogg with 20 years of fame may be a better comparison. His net worth is $150 million.

I’m not trying to single out Snoop as greedy or anything, he’s had a lot of time to invest. And of course there are exogenous factors like a more globalized economy. Powerful emerging economies of like Russia, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan wouldn’t have been able to access American entertainment with such ease and in such high quotas prior to the fall of the Soviet empire and the advent of internet music. But that can’t possibly be the only cause of so much more wealth among musicians (not to mention actors, directors, crew, writers, etc) today. I’m trying to point out that Hollywood corporatism has amassed what is a disproportionate and most-likely unfair amount of money for entertainers. Why do you think they have lobbied so hard for SOPA and PIPA? They are trying to milk us for every dime they can.

In a true free market, they wouldn’t make half the money they do. File sharing like Limewire would still exist without limits on their content. Youtube would stream content. Nobody could do anything about it unless the person sharing or streaming was making money off of the “stolen” content (like those bootleg DVDs from China). You wouldn’t be put in prison for playing a pop music song in a home movie uploaded to Youtube…a song that pretty much everyone has heard because we live in the internet age. File sharing of songs obviously occurred because the market did not demand the music enough to pay large amounts of money for it. iTunes came along with a la carte music purchasing and over time, people would switch to one of the two as opposed to buying CDs. Did this really make entertainers poorer? NO! They got richer! And so did the film industry! In 2010, in a weak economy, Hollywood execs raked in more money than they did in 2007 when the economy was strong; right before the recession began its onslaught on our jobs and investments.

It’s also been very interesting to watch America’s unity against SOPA. This is going hard! Liberals, conservatives, moderates, libertarians; all coming out against Big Hollyweird. I love it! Al Gore and Ron Paul agreeing on something? I don’t think America has ever been more united on something in my lifetime other than killing Osama bin Laden. (Now, try to imagine the blowback of a hypothetical Santorum Administration shutting down the porn industry )

As for Nancy Pelosi and even some of my fellow Republicans that have come out against this in recent hours….I mean days….it’s clearly to save their own skin. Let’s take a good hard look at the people who wrote the bill and pushed it for so long. Make sure to be unforgiving at the polls (Lamar Smith, look out!)

I do want to say one more thing. It’s amazing what 24 hours without Wikipedia can do. They and the folks at Reddit shut down to get people’s attention. It WORKED! This is an example of what will happen if we continue this move toward socialism and continue to raise taxes and regulations on the entrepreneurial class. One day, they will say “enough!” and quit investing and creating jobs. When that happens, this recession we recently had will look like a boom by comparison. Wikipedia can just go back online tomorrow. Economies….not so much. I am confident that the House will strike down SOPA. Call your senators, and make sure that their equivalent–the Protect IP Act–is killed as well!

In Liberty,

Aaron Alghawi ’12

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Aaron Alghawi is a senior economics major at Texas A&M University, as well as an alternate board member and Director of Student Outreach for the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Despite claims that they have been “improved” and rumors that opposition from the Obama administration may make them harder to pass, we expect the Senate to move forward with a vote on the Protect IP Act (S.968), its version of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R.3261), on Tuesday and a vote on SOPA in the House may follow a few days later.

Despite prominent protests from major websites like Wikipedia and Google, which are staging “blackout” events, shutting their systems down to draw attention to the issue, influential media lobbyists have bought enough support in Congress that they may be able to ram these bills through  Congress with leverage from powerful Congressmen like SOPA author and Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX).

While some concern over online piracy is justified, SOPA and PIPA do not really target the major offshore data havens which are the real source of the problem and grant indiscriminate and unaccountable enforcement power to government agencies which will be used to intimidate content providers, shut down entire networks based on nothing more than an accusation, and even blacklist  businesses and remove them from the internet entirely. The existence of this sort of draconian enforcement system will have a chilling effect on this increasingly important sector of the economy and lead to wholesale violations of the privacy rights of individuals and businesses. It’s another bad idea from a government which has become too big and too eager to interfere in every aspect of our lives.

SOPA and PIPA would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block public access to websites on their networks based on nothing but an unsubstantiated accusation of facilitating copyright infringement.  Nothing more than a complaint  could be used to preemptively shut down web-based businesses. They would be treated as guilty until they could prove their innocence, a complete contradiction of American legal tradition. The bills also open up the potential for prior censorship out of fear of accusations and bankrupting small businesses which cannot afford the legal costs of a fight to defend their rights. The potential for lawsuit abuse and intimidation from media giants with deep pockets and their own legal teams is enormous.

Opponents have compared this legislation to China’s online censorship. Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation described SOPA as “the worst piece of intellectual property legislation we’ve seen in the last decade.” Protests from consumer groups, civil liberties advocates and online businesses are widespread, but despite opposition, Senator Harry Reid has scheduled a vote on PIPA for Monday in the Senate. He already has 40 sponsors from both parties, including big-government Republican traitors like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Orin Hatch and even Marco Rubio.

Our best hope right now is to win over as many Senators as we can and promote a Senate filibuster, but this is just the beginning of the fight. Please email your Senators now and be prepared for the next steps in the fight to keep the internet free and open for all Americans. We’ll keep you updated as the fight goes on to the House.

When sending your email, please do what you can to customize the text of the message.

This letter was sent over the weekend by New Hampshire State Representative (and state RLC Secretary) Andrew Manuse to his representatives in Congress. It sums up very effectively what many in the Republican party feel about the failure of our elected leaders on the issue of indefinite military detention in the National Defense Authorization Act. We can hope that even if they don’t listen to the thousands of grassroots Republicans who are calling and writing them they might listen to our compatriots like Rep. Manuse, Rep. Justin Amash and many others who hold elective office.

Dear Sens. Ayotte and Shaheen and Rep. Guinta:

I understand how form e-mails to representatives and senators are not taken seriously, because they indicate a lack of effort on the part of a constituent to even read into an issue and think about it on his or her own. I typically give such e-mails less attention when I receive them, so I wanted to make sure to type an original message to you before the form letter text, which is below my first signature. This letter is being sent to Sens. Ayotte and Shaheen as well as Rep. Guinta, as a grievance against the federal government and the Congress, as written by a state representative for his constituents.

I’m sure you know by now that I am disappointed with the direction of our Congress, particularly the House (I expect the wrong direction from a Senate controlled by Sen. Reid). To be clear, I am opposed to what all three of you are doing in Washington for the most part, with a few minor exceptions. I am also certain that the American people and the people of New Hampshire share my views. We expected more from you. I understand your job is to use your own judgment and not bend to the whim of a handful of constituents, like me; however, I would hope that you would at least take my grievance against you into deep consideration.

Specifically, I would expect each of you as my representative and senators from New Hampshire, a state that treasures the Live Free or Die attitude of our founders, to make a lot more noise against the usurpation of authority in the several bills that have come before you this session, particularly sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. Your leadership has been quite unsatisfactory, to say the least, on this matter.

Besides the Patriot Act reauthorization bill, no bill would be more damaging to our way of life and liberties as Americans than sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act as adopted in the Senate. If this bill passes and the federal government acts to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen without allowing that citizen to face his or her accusers and without allowing that citizen to be judged by a jury of his or her peers–inalienable rights under our Constitution–this government will be in breech of contract and I fear it will no longer have the consent of the governed, if it hasn’t lost that consent already. I do not want to think about what might come next, but I can tell you definitively that I very much want to avoid it. I have a wife and children, currently, and we just want to live at peace, without the government interfering in our lives. I know many of my constituents share this view.

To avoid the end to the path we’re currently on, I am pleading with you to fight against these two provisions, sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act as adopted in the Senate, with every ounce of energy that you have. This may just be the last shot we have at restoring a sense of honor to the Congress and our federal government.

The U.S. government was created to protect the life, liberty and property of all citizens, equally under the law. Yet, with laws like the Patriot Act and the provisions within the National Defense Authorization Act, we now have a government that is making war with the very citizens it was formed to protect. We have a government that is making it impossible for citizens to be lawful, and thus, they will become increasingly lawless and I fear even greater conflict between the government and the citizens, who are the rulers of themselves, will result. Such anarchy was what our government was created to prevent. But when the government passes laws that are unconscionable, let alone unenforceable under the Constitution, it leaves the citizens with no other avenue than anarchy. This would be an anarchy created by the government, and it is an anarchy that I do not want to live under, let alone subject my family to live under. What else would be the result than a government crackdown against its own citizens, even more horrific than the one perpetrated in these provisions. What kind of nation would we be?

I am asking you, no pleading with you, to heed my words and please, respect the rule of law and the constitution. Please do everything within your power to remove sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act (Senate version) during the reconciliation process. Our Republic is standing on such tenuous ground right now. We cannot afford anything else like these provisions that will weaken the Republic further, and put the very spirit of lawlessness, within our law.

Sincerely,
Rep. Andrew J. Manuse, R-Derry

Students for Liberty is hosting a whole series of conferences at colleges around the country this fall. Local RLC chapters will be attending many of them and doing outreach to friendly libertarian student groups like SFL and Young Americans for Liberty. If you’re a student who believes in small government and individual liberty, these events are a great opportunity to hear interesting speakers and find out about groups like the RLC.

In fact, as I write this, I’m at the Students for Liberty conference in Austin with local RLC student member Aaron Alghawi and RLC National Secretary Corie Whalen. I’m listening to former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Mary Ruwart who is talking about the Institute for Justice. I’m also making use of the lovely new RLC pop-up banner (shown to the right) and debuting some new outreach materials which will be available in PDF format for download here on the site in the next few days.

The focus of this SFL conference is entrepreneurship and I’m talking later on about marketing ideas – political and commercial – through the internet, hitting on the “Three Cs” – Content, Community and Controversy. It’s a good topic which combines my business experience as an internet entrepreneur with my experience in online activism. It’s all about selling something, whether it’s a product or an idea.

For more information on the schedule of SFL conferences and to find one in your area, go here. Visit one near you this fall.

As another election approaches the issue of marriage equality and where various Republican candidates stand on the Defense of Marriage Act or a possible Constitutional amendment defining marriage is already starting to come up as special interest groups and the media try to force the debate towards divisive social issues.

In this debate, no one seems to be asking the fundamental question which underlies the entire gay marriage issue. Marriage is first and foremost a religious institution. It is a fundamental sacrament in most churches. Why does the government think it should be in the marriage business in the first place. What right do they have to dictate a matter of faith or to decide who can or can’t get married in the first place?

In all this talk about a Defense of Marriage Amendment our legislators seem to have missed the fact that we already have an amendment which defends marriage, the First Amendment. It clearly defends marriage as a sacrement of the church and declares it to be free from government interference when it says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

If my religion recognizes marriage as a sacrament and allows me to marry someone of the same gender, doesn’t the First Amendment clearly say that Congress has no right to prohibit that exercise of religion and that I am free to practice that sacrament? To tell my church what it can and cannot define as a marriage seems like a total violation of this separation of church and state. Marriage isn’t defined in the Constitution any more than Baptism or Confirmation is. The state doesn’t try to interfere in those rituals. Why should it interfere in marriage?

What we need here is not another amendment, but a clear decision from the Supreme Court declaring that the government has no jurisdiction over a religious institution like marriage. Then, if Congress wants to pass a law – it doesn’t even have to be a Constitutional Amendment – which defines what kind of living relationships people can have, they should go to it. Of course any such law would need to pass muster under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which would certainly rule out prohibiting same-sex relationships or polygamy or any other arrangement involving consenting adults.

Once you take marriage out of the arena of law and give it back to the church where it belongs, then any relationship between two people for the purposes of creating a household, combining assets and other activities like raising a family becomes a purely contractual relationship and falls under common law and the partnership laws of the individual states, all of which recognize the right of individuals to enter into binding contracts for extended periods of time and assign rights and legal status to those partnerships under the law, and anything can be written into a partnership contract, including shared control of assets and by extension presumably of children as well. Boilerplate partnership contracts could easily be developed which covered material possessions, powers of attorney, guardianship of children and every other concern and the local courthouse could have different versions available for different needs, so you wouldn’t have to pay for a lawyer.

Couples or members of a plural marriage or any other type of partnership could then file their contract at their local courthouse and that would be that. Or if they wanted, they could go to a church which sanctioned their particular form of marriage and have it recognized as a marriage under the laws of that church with a ceremony and everything. And make no mistake, there are plenty of churches willing to marry just about anyone to anyone else, and if there aren’t someone will certainly start one to fill the need.

This seems like a simple, clean solution to this divisive problem. It doesn’t violate the sacred institution of marriage – in fact it ends years of government violation of religious rights. It doesn’t add more useless junk to the Constitution or waste more time and money on pointless unconstitutional legislation. Finally, it allows consenting adults to live however they want so long as it harms no one else. Marriage protected and equal rights for all. What more could either side of this debate ask for? And if they aren’t satisfied with a solution like this, then let them tell us honestly what greater political agenda and moral values they’re really trying to force down our throats?

Not long ago they put in a stoplight where our street meets the new highway that goes by our neighborhood. No one asked our neighborhood association. No one felt the need to poll the population. It certainly wasn’t put to a vote or even brought up at a planning association meeting. Just as a matter of course that new stoplight included a set of video cameras covering all approaches to the intersection. Now when my neighbors go to work in the morning and come home at night, some faceless bureaucrat in a gray suit has access to a video record of their comings and goings.

Admittedly that information isn’t a lot of use, unless you want to do something like send marshalls out to search their house while they’re gone, or make sure they’re home when you serve a warrant. For that matter, a corrupt peon working for some video monitoring contractor could use that video to figure out when to send his cousin the burglar to stop by and pick up your new home theater system when you’re not home. Or if they’re so inclined they can see if you’ve got your mistress in your passenger seat instead of your wife.

The arrival of big brother’s little prying electronic eyes in our exurban community is troubling, but discomfited though we may be by the possibilities, our woes are just the tip of the surveillance iceberg, which is on display in all its scary grandeur in Chicago. Under the impressive name ‘Operation Virtual Shield‘ a software system commissioned for the Chicago police department and based on technology from IBM will allow them to tie together all of the public and private video cameras in the city, plus hundreds of new cameras which they are installing and run the data through a processing program which will identify potential crimes and suspicious activity and alert a human observer.

This is very much like the data mining of phonecalls which has drawn criticism of the NSA, but instead of sorting through the words of a conversation the computer will sort through peoples actions. Combined with technology like face recognition software this will allow the police to keep track of individuals and their actions extremely effectively and as the network expands they will be able to track suspects and know their every action, or identify potential suspects based on their actions and pursue them electronically.

Tony Ruiz of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications explained that “Mayor Richard M. Daley has had, for many years, a grand plan to incorporate cameras from public entities and private sector businesses into a single unified system allowing first responders access to real time visual data.” This sounds great when it’s all about preventing crime, but what happens when the people running the program decide to broaden the definition of crime or misapply the system for political or personal purposes? Remember, this system is in the hands of a city run by the Daley political machine and they’re not exactly known for their political scruples.  A system like this could be used to dig up dirt on political opponents or to intrude on the privacy of ordinary citizens for any of a number of reasons, some of which may sound legitimate, but all of which involve a fundamental violation of privacy rights under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

In the Liberty Movement we’re all pretty aware of the problems inherent in the PATRIOT Act and the FISA program, but those surveillance programs have been used to monitor the actions of a tiny number of people under very special and limited circumstances. Under the administration of the oldest and most powerful Democratic party machine in the country, the Chicago police are setting up a surveillance network which will monitor the actions of virtually every citizen in the city without the slightest hint of a warrant or anything resembling probable cause. They’re just going to watch everyone all the time because they have the technology and they can do it.

Somewhere in all of this the Bill of Rights seems to have been forgotten. The privacy rights promised in the 4th Amendment have been qualified out of existence. The streets are public space and private businesses own the rights to their video and choose to cooperate with the program voluntarily. If the police wanted to set up video and audio surveillance on someone they’d need to get a warrant, but if the cameras are already there then all protections are out the window.

Years ago, when I lived in the Soviet Union, I learned to accept the fact that I had no real privacy, that there could be people watching me and listening to me even in the most apparently private and personal moments. It’s a disturbing thought, but the truth is that you get used to it and learn to accept it. You operate on the assumption that your life is so mundane that it will likely put the watchers to sleep, plus you really don’t have anything to hide. In that situation it was also very clear what you did and did not do and say. The KGB’s interests were very limited and very specific.

The problem is that today the dividing line between normal activity and crime has become blurry. We’ve moved into an era of ‘super crimes’ with their names written in capital letters like the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, where even the erroneous impression of behavior associated with those high-concern crimes can land you in a lot of hot water. The pressure on law enforcement is intense and the result can be overreaction, like the recent case of the MIT student arrested at gunpoint at Logan Airport for wearing a peculiar homemade t-shirt containing LED lights.

More surveillance, even when computer assisted, means more opportunities to make a mistake or overreact or take something the wrong way. The car circling a building too many times, or the guy standing for too long on the wrong corner, or a bulgy jacket at a crowded event, or any of a hundred other things that raise a red flag and which people do for innocent reasons on a daily basis could lead to disaster. And that’s just the mistakes. The potential for intentional abuse, or excessive enforcement or a self-righteous crackdown on trivial crimes is even more troubling. Even the possibility of our courts being clogged up with petty drug offenders and every prostitute and John on the streets is disturbing.

Other cities around the nation are following Chicago’s lead, including Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco, Baltimore and New York. With the threat of more crime because of economic conditions and the ongoing concern about terrorism and keeping track of the illegal immigrant population, an attempt to take this sort of program national is inevitable. The Department of Homeland Security has been working to centralize crime data from every jurisdiction in the nation in a single federal database. Centralized surveillance has already been implemented in England where the movement of every car is watched at all times and where integration of private video into the system is already under way.

It’s only a matter of time before some congressman who wants to score points as being hard on crime proposes nationwide monitoring of video surveillance using the new system being pioneered in Chicago. They’ll argue it’s for the safety of the people in a time of peril and heads will nod and money will get appropriated and we’ll all be under he watchful eye of big brother. Chicago is a city run by the Democratic Party and their leaders, the same people whose friends in Congress  have rolled over or enthusiastically supported every infringement of our rights in the name of security from the FISA Act to the PATRIOT Act to the cynically misnamed Protect America Act which takes away email and telecommunications privacy rights.  but though they remained silent for too long, one of their usual allies – the ACLU – has become concerned and started to see beyond partisanship to the threat to liberty posed by the growing security state.

In the name of protecting us, government and self-serving politicians have chipped away at the 4th Amendment on the local and national level until now there’s almost nothing left. No more search warrants, no more presumption of innocence, no more probable cause, no more habeas corpus. The needs of almighty security come first and the rights of the citizen are forgotten. Information is power. This new technology and the perception that we are at risk has created a huge opportunity for those who crave power to grab more than their share. Ask yourself this. Is there anyone in government who you really want to trust with all of this information and this kind of power over your life?

Today the Republican Party is at a crossroads. It faces the choice of continuing down a path of failed leadership and forgotten principles, or taking the hard and rutted road back to its beginnings. The party was established to restore the values of our founding fathers in a time much like today, when those values had been forgotten.

Today as in 1854, the political system has fallen into the hands of greedy and ambitious leaders who disregard the rights of the people and promote ideas which are fundamentally un-American because they see them as a route to greater political power and control. The forces of special interests, sectionalism, bureaucratic indifference and institutionalized oppression are stronger than ever before. They will not be stopped unless the Republican Party remembers its purpose and stands up against them.

From its very first platform, the Republican Party has been dedicated to the ideals of the Founding Fathers as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the enlightenment belief that all men have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and property. Although it has occasionally lost sight of those ideals, eventually core values reassert themselves and new leaders of vision set the party back on the right course.

The party was formed in 1854 in an era when the existing parties had strayed too far from the original republican values on which the nation was formed. The new party embraced the ideals of the founding fathers with the goal of securing liberty for those held in slavery and obtaining equality for all members of society.

Through the years the Republican Party has taken the lead on the great moral issues of the times:

* In the Platform of 1860 the party made opposition to slavery a national issue for the first time and expressed clear support for the rights of workers and industry.
* In the Platform of 1876 the Republican Party became the first US political party to endorse equal rights and universal suffrage for women.
* In the Platform of 1892 the Republicans became the first US political party to endorse universal suffrage and access to the polls to Americans of all races.
* In the Platform of 1896 the Republican Party first declared its dedication to fiscally responsible government.
* In the Platform of 1900 the Republicans were the first US political party to take a clear stand in opposition to racial discrimination.

During the early 1900s the Republican party also led the way in opposition to monopolies, in passing child labor laws, workplace safety regulation, and establishing reasonable working hours. The Republican party was also the first party to propose national policies for resource management and conservation. And almost from the moment the 16th Amendment made an income tax legal, the Republican party worked to minimize the tax burden, hold down federal spending, and institute fairer and more limited taxes. By the 1950s the Republican Party had taken the lead in applying federal pressure to implement desegregation and equality in the southern states.

The differences between the Republican and Democratic parties of the modern era were clear as early as 1908 when the Republican Party platform clearly delineated the differences between the two parties, which are still strikingly apparent today:

The present tendencies of the two parties are even more marked by inherent differences. The trend of Democracy is toward socialism, while the Republican party stands for a wise and regulated individualism. Socialism would destroy wealth, Republicanism would prevent its abuse. Socialism would give to each an equal right to take; Republicanism would give to each an equal right to earn. Socialism would offer an equality of possession which would soon leave no one anything to possess, Republicanism would give equality of opportunity which would assure to each his share of a constantly increasing sum of possessions. In line with this tendency the Democratic party of to-day believes in Government ownership, while the Republican party believes in Government regulation. Ultimately Democracy would have the nation own the people, while Republicanism would have the people own the nation.

That description of the Democrats is as accurate today as it was 100 years ago, and the same Republican principles are just as valid today as they were then. Some may have forgotten the history of the party, but defending individual liberty by standing firm in the face of socialism and statism remain at the core of what makes the GOP unique.

The Republican party was born in liberty, and even in the darkest days of racial strife, that dedication to liberty and equality for all Americans regardless of race, creed, religion or lifestyle remained central to the beliefs of the GOP. The party has always dedicated itself to the ideal of the responsible individual citizen being allowed to live life in his own way without unnecessary interference from government. This principle was expressed clearly in the Republican platform of 1964:

Every person has the right to govern himself, to fix his own goals, and to make his own way with a minimum of governmental interference.

This idea of the sovereign individual goes hand in hand with an understanding that government has a legitimate, but limited, role to protect the rights and welfare of the people and to be answerable to the people for its actions. This was expressed clearly in the 1964 Platform:

It is for government to foster and maintain an environment of freedom encouraging every individual to develop to the fullest his God-given powers of mind, heart and body; and, beyond this, government should undertake only needful things, rightly of public concern, which the citizen cannot himself accomplish.

This platform from 40 years ago, written in a time of great national challenge and under the clear-eyed guidance of Senator Barry Goldwater, expresses better than almost any other document the fundamental beliefs of the party, including the principles of individual liberty, but also the importance of the Constitution in protecting that liberty:

Within our Republic the Federal Government should act only in areas where it has Constitutional authority to act, and then only in respect to proven needs where individuals and local or state governments will not or cannot adequately perform. Great power, whether governmental or private, political or economic, must be so checked, balanced and restrained and, where necessary, so dispersed as to prevent it from becoming a threat to freedom any place in the land.

Perhaps most unique in that document was an awareness which seems to be forgotten today, that not only do individuals have responsibility for their actions, but that there is a greater responsibility invested in the government through the social contract to do right by its citizens:

It is a high mission of government to help assure equal opportunity for all, affording every citizen an equal chance at the starting line but never determining who is to win or lose. But government must also reflect the nation’s compassionate concern for those who are unable, through no fault of their own, to provide adequately for themselves.

The high ideals of Republicanism also extend to the behavior of politicians and how they use the sacred trust invested in them by the people:

Government must be restrained in its demands upon and its use of the resources of the people, remembering that it is not the creator but the steward of the wealth it uses; that its goals must ever discipline its means; and that service to all the people, never to selfish or partisan ends, must be the abiding purpose of men entrusted with public power.

Today it seems as if the Republican party and many of its leaders have lost their way. Yet the basic values of the party have not changed, though some seem to only pay lip service and to have forgotten what it has meant to be a Republican for the last 150 years. In the generation since Goldwater reasserted the core values of the party, the lure of power and greed and opportunism has been stronger than ever. This isn’t the first time that this has happened. In the late 19th century the party suffered a similar identity crisis, turning away from core values of liberty towards corporatism and arrogant complacency. Leaders like Teddy Roosevelt set the party back on track, and though the leadership foundered in the aftermath of the Depression, Eisenhower and Goldwater were there to set the party on what should have been an ideal course by the 1960s. Yet Goldwater’s defeat and the rise of socialism in the 1960s followed by the failures of the Nixon era produced a generation of leaders who have been willing to sacrifice principle for votes no matter what unsavory compromises that required. Leaders like Roosevelt and Goldwater understood that it was better to be right and lose an election than to win at any cost, because the price of such a corrupt victory is invariably too high.

This problem has been compounded by an invasion of the GOP by disaffected southern Democrats who were driven away from their party when its northern wing embraced civil rights under Kennedy and Johnson and the policies of the party became increasingly socially progressive and dominated by northern issues. As the Republicans struggled to retain their identity, this influx of angry bigots and religious zealots gave power at the polls at the cost of compromises on fundamental principles which had sustained the party for a hundred years. They were followed by strong-defense Democrats whose imperialist ambitions didn’t fit with the post-Vietnam pacifism of the Democratic Party. Both of these groups brought with them beliefs which were alien to the Republican tradition, including a belief in a strong federal government, an expansionist foreign policy, a bizarre moralistic agenda, a big dose of intolerance and a willingness to sacrifice the rights of individuals in pursuit of their political objectives. Accepting these outsiders was an act of desperation which put the integrity of the party at risk in order to hold on to political power.

Now we are paying the price for compromises which have left the party fractured with no ideological center, our history forgotten and our future uncertain. The weakness of our current generation of leaders and the harm they have done to the party with foolish alliances and venal servility to every bulging purse has to end in this new millenium. We must commit ourselves to lead where our leaders have failed and to retrieve the party from the cesspit of corruption. The GOP must reaffirm an absolute commitment to the idea of true Republican government which serves the people and does not rule over the people, and of restoring a nation dedicated to preserving the liberty of every individual equally and absolutely.

This may mean purging the party of corrupt leaders and unsound ideas so that we can restore fundamental values. We need to remember that big government, corruption, and trying to run people’s lives are the politics of the socialist left and we should not tolerate leaders who are seduced by the power socialism gives to the political class. If this means giving up some power for a few years then we should accept that. We are not worthy to lead the country until we are Republicans again and can earn back the trust and respect of the people. It would be better to be a minority party and the conscience of the nation as we were when the party was born in 1854 than to carry on as an insult to the memories of the idealists who founded the party and led it as a party of principles in past eras. We must restore the party or we will lose the party. We must demand adherence to principles from our leaders or eliminate those leaders for leading the party in the wrong direction.

The extrajudicial execution of Anwar al Awlaki last week was a reminder of ongoing concerns with the powers granted to the president under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force which was passed at the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also an example of the willingness of this president to act outside the limits placed on his office by the Constitution.

This administration, like its predecessor, has placed a very low value on the protections of the Bill of Rights and has treated due process and the rule of law as inconveniences which they can ignore whenever it is expedient. Under the banner of the War on Terror and the authority of the AUMF they have assumed powers which no government is entitled to and have committed acts against their own people which are utterly unacceptable.

The killing of al Awlaki with a drone-fired missile was done on no greater authority than the scratch of the presidential pen and with no respect for his rights as a human being and a United States citizen. There was no trial, no act of Congress, no revocaton of citizenship, not even an evidentiary hearing or a warrant issued by a judge. No element of the legal system was engaged to determine that al Alwalki should die. The president just decreed it and his robotic executioner did the job.

The evidence suggests that this was done purely for convenience and because the administration was incapable of providing strong enough evidence to bring a case against al Awlaki in a court. Because his role had been primarily to inspire and encourage others through his writing and internet videos, there was little or no evidence which connected him directly to any acts of terrorism. Unable to prove their case, the administration decided to go outside the law and kill him on little more than suspicion, primarily for speaking out against the United States, a fundamental right protected under the First Amendment. It was a cowardly act carried out for convenience by a government which has no respect for the principles on which this nation was founded.

The American public greeted the event with a mixture of complacency and jubilation. There was certainly no reason to waste any tears for the newly emerged spiritual leader of the most extreme elements of the Muslim world. Yet most Americans were dismayingly oblivious to the implications of the extrajudicial execution of an American citizen. If the president can sign the death warrant of one citizen based almost entirely on his writings and public statements, what is to stop him from signing away any of our lives when our criticisms of the government and its policies cross some subjective line?

Objections were raised in some quarters. The American Civil Liberties Union filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block the president from taking this action without first going through the courts as required by centuries of common law and the Bill of Rights. Two presidential candidates also spoke up. Both Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson issued statements objecting to the action. Johnson summed up the concerns well, writing:

“If we allow our fervor to eliminate terrorist threats to cause us to cut corners with the Constitution and the fundamental rights of American citizens, whether it be invasions of privacy or the killing of someone born on U.S. soil, I could argue that the terrorists will have ultimately won.

“The world is very likely a better place without al-Awlaki in it, but let us not neglect to ask the tough questions this attack raises and about the laws that allowed it to be carried out.”

Paul touched on the same issues after a speech in New Hampshire, telling reporters:

“We cannot allow the War on Terror to diminish our steadfast adherence to the notion of due process for American citizens…The protections under the Constitution for those accused of crimes do not just apply to people we like – they apply to everyone, including a terrorist like al-Awlaki. It is a question of due process for American citizens.”

Since al Awlaki’s death concerns have been raised that approval for the action came from a “secret panel” of top government officials, acting as a sort of Star Chamber operating outside of the Constitution and the judicial system with no public record of their actions and no accountability to anyone but the president. Speculation has been widespread about the existence of a “kill list” of other terrorists who for one reason or another the administration would like to eliminate without the mess and fuss of a trial or even arrest. This is not how things are supposed to work in America and is more reminiscent of the secret trials of Soviet Russia or even the famous death squads employed by South American dictators in the recent past.

In their statement on the subject the Republican Liberty Caucus summed up what ought to be the main concerns of American citizens in this situation when they asked “Do you want our government to condemn citizens to death in secret and then execute them without a trial or even an arrest warrant? If this is where the War on Terror has brought us, it is time to repeal the AUMF and demand accountability from the government and respect for the Bill of Rights and the rule of law.”

A free nation does not set aside its own laws and kill people for the sake of expediency. Once you start ignoring the law, where do you stop? What limits on government power remain? Last week it was al Awalki, but with no respect for the law or the rights of the people, why shouldn’t it be an outspoken talkshow host or blogger next week?

A nation is only as good as the laws under which it operates and the degree to which it respects the rights of its citizens. When a government sets aside those laws and ignores those rights it is no longer a legitimate government. In fighting the War on Terror, our government and our leaders have themselves become the terrorists.

A version of this article appeared previously on Blogcritics Magazine

Since his election in 2010, Justin Amash (RLC-MI) has been one of our big successes in the House of Representatives. He has been a consistent voice for liberty and fiscally responsible government and has set a new standard of accountability which ought to be an inspiration for everyone in public office. Since he was elected he has posted multiple updates to his Facebook page every day that the House is in session detailing the issues being voted on and explaining his votes and his decision making process.

Rep. Amash has had his position in the 2012 election weakened by a redistricting plan designed to strengthen the positions of big-government incumbents in his state by transferring some of his voters to their districts and saddling him with more Democrat votes. It’s still a very winnable district, but he needs all the help he can get.

The key to winning elections for liberty candidates when fighting the entrenched system of perpetual incumbency is to raise money from outside of a single district and to reach out to Liberty Republicans all over the nation for support. With Ron Paul retiring we need to hold on to every seat we can. I don’t do this often, but I’m sending out a plea to Republican Liberty Caucus members and supporters nationwide to do what they can to help keep Justin Amash in Congress.

The best way to donate is through his 48-hour moneybomb which ends tomorrow. You can donate at AmashforCongress.com.