Let’s say you’re a fan of a Superbowl 43 football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and that the name of the Steelers’ coach is Mike Tomlin. Let’s say the other team’s, the Arizona Cardinals’, coach’s name is Ken Whisenhunt. Let’s also say that the month before Superbowl 43, the Arizona media ran repeated headlines saying what a great coach Mike Tomlin of Pittsburgh is and how lucky America is that Mike Tomlin and Ken Whisenhunt are the two teams’ coaches. If you were an Arizona fan, might you wonder why?

In recent months the nation’s leading Democratic Party newspaper, the New York Times, whose editorial views are well within the Democratic Party’s socialist wing, has had nothing but positive things to say about the New York State Republican Committee’s new chair, Edward F. Cox. Might Republicans have cause to wonder about this?

Why on earth would a socialist Democratic propaganda source be saying that it likes Edward F. Cox?

Dear reader, I propose to you that Republicans and Democrats are like two superbowl teams that compete every year. On one end of the field are the Democratic Party socialists, ham-handed medieval reactionaries, advocates of mid-twentieth century style “planning” whose only solution to the problems of the world is to tax the productive out of existence and reward the welfare cheats on Wall and Broad.

On the other end of the field are the Republicans, supporters of progressive, market-based innovation and spontaneous order. The advocates of ideas that work, not of feudalistic ideas that deceive.

But if the coach of the socialist Democrats praises the Republican coach to the heavens, might we conclude that the teams are not really independent, that something is crooked?

I urge you to determine whether the Democratic Party press and electronic media in your town is supporting Republicans. If so, you might ask yourself, “Why?” “Why are the Democrats supporting Republicans?”

In the case of New York, questions need to be raised about why the new chair of the Republican Committee is being praised by the socialist Democrats, and whether Mr. Cox has been on the receiving end of socialist largesse while an attorney.

President Obama is giving his first State of the Union address on Wednesday at 9pm EST. We’re going to be covering it live with special guest bloggers and commenters as well as open participation for our readers. Watch this space for the live chat starting when the president takes the podium.

Attention all RLC members, liberty activists, bloggers and anyone else on the cutting edge of the liberty movement.

In the first in a series of teleconference events, the Republican Liberty Caucus presents:

Former Governor

Gary E. Johnson

of New Mexico

January 26th at 9pm EST

Dial-in Number: 1-219-509-8222

Participant Access Code: 618486

Just call in, enter your code and follow along.

The teleconference will feature 20-30 minutes of remarks by Governor Johnson followed by an hour for questions and answers from participants.

The teleconference series brings together pro-liberty newsmakers and RLC members, friendly media and liberty-oriented bloggers to increase awareness of the RLC candidates, issue initiatives, allied organizations and important events.

Governor Johnson served two very successful terms as Governor of New Mexico and has been a champion of individual liberties and fiscally responsible government, often compared favorably with Ron Paul.  Although there has been speculation about a possilbe 2012 GOP presidential run, Governor Johnson is now working hard on hiis Our America Initiative which is promoting popular awareness of civil liberties, free enterprise, limited government, and traditional American values.

For more information see Mitchell Langbert’s recent interview with Governor Johnson.

Don’t miss the teleconference. Space is limited, so call in on time.

The RLC National Board has now gone through our first two rounds of candidate endorsements, as covered in a previous article.  We’re developing an excellent slate of pro-liberty Senators and Representatives.  They’re great  great liberty candidates with professional campaigns and a good shot at victory with your support.

For those of you who are bloggers or run websites, we’re making it easier than ever to promote these great candidates, by adding a simple sidebar widget which will help your users find out more about these candidates, donate to their campaigns and donate to the RLC PAC which will support these and other candidates.

Here’s what it looks like:

And you can add it to your site by downloading the simple text and inserting it in your sidebar code or in a text widget. Very easy to do. Just download the code and copy and paste it into your site. If you want a somewhat narrower version, download this version.

Keep an eye out for widget updates as we endorse more candidates throughout the primary season.  As it gets longer you may want to use the compressed version or you can edit it down.  Each candidate is on a separate line in the code, so you could edit it down to those who are in your region or who you particularly support, though we think they are all worthy.

Dave

More than 90 people attended last night’s Republican Liberty Caucus of Central East Florida June Meeting featuring guest speaker Will Pitts, State Chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida.

“This is more than twice the attendance we had last month, and proof positive that Americans will no longer sit idly by while our Constitution is trampled by short sighted politicians and special interest groups,” said Matt Nye, Chair of the RLCCEF. “Every single person at that meeting has a sincere desire to effect positive change, and that is exactly what we are going to do.”

State Chair Pitts focused on getting the Republican Party back to the basics of Constitutionally limited government and the enormity of the financial crisis we now face.

“Our national debt is now in excess of $10 trillion; we are fast approaching the point where all of the income generated by Federal income taxes will pay only for the interest on our debt,” Pitts said. “If our country is to have a future, the states must declare their sovereignty and refuse to participate in these federal spending programs.”

According to Nye, District 30 House Representative Ritch Workman’s office submitted a Tenth Amendment Resolution similar to the one passed in the state of Oklahoma to bill drafting at the end of last week. “Rep. Workman is both a personal friend and a friend of liberty, and the highest compliment I can pay him is that he submitted the resolution not because I asked him to, but because he thought it was the right thing to do,” Nye said. Workman was endorsed by the Republican Liberty Caucus in 2008.

“The Republican Liberty Caucus of Central East Florida (RLCCEF) represents Volusia, Brevard, Indian River, Saint Lucie and Okeechobee Counties,” Nye said. “The RLCCEF advocates individual rights, limited government, laissez faire capitalism and a strong national defense. We believe these are the proper positions of the Republican Party. I hope everyone reading this will join us at our next meeting on July 6th.”  You can join the RLC of Central East Florida on Facebook.

I consider myself to be socially conservative in my personal beliefs. I’m not about to marry a man, encourage my daughter to have an abortion, picket a military recruiting office or smoke marijuana. But I am also a libertarian, so I do not believe in using the power of government to force my values on other people. I hope and believe that as a group the Republican Liberty Caucus shares this perspective and that our members understand that like the Republican party we are a “big tent” with room for anyone who agrees with our core principles of limited government, free markets and individual liberty.

The RLC is not just a bunch of Libertarians who got tired of the bickering in the Libertarian Party. Many of us are long-time Republicans who are inspired not by Ayn Rand or Murray Rothbard or the modern gurus of the libertarian movement, but by the fundamentally conservative belief in liberty which descends from enlightenment conservatives like Edmund Burke and the founding fathers and was reinforced by the great leaders of the Republican party like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Reagan described his own philosophy of government as libertarian and he saw no conflict between his libertarian beliefs and his personal moral principles. Like many Republicans he understood that there are separate spheres for the political and the personal. The RLC operates in the political sphere and is not in the business of advocating for or against any moral belief held by any individual. While it is true that we do not believe that it is the role of the federal government to legislate morality, that also means that as a group we do not advocate or oppose any position on personal moral, religious or social issues. There are other groups both inside and outside the GOP which address those issues quite well without our help.

The RLC has many members whose personal values tend towards the socially conservative, but they still share a belief in the principles of limited government, free markets and individual liberty. We welcome them into our chapters because their beliefs do not conflict with our core principles. By the same measure we also welcome members whose personal beliefs tend to be more socially liberal. If we have differences on some social issues we can put those aside because it is more important to work together on the larger issues which we share in common.

Our nation is in peril and our most precious rights are threatened. Government is out of control and must be returned to the principles on which it was founded. Achieving this is the mission of the RLC and if it is your mission, then that should override all lesser issues and we ought to be able to find common ground and work together, because none of us will be able to live the way we want — whatever our personal social and moral beliefs — if we are no longer free.

As President Obama’s kids are settling in at Sidwell Friends, one of the best private schools in the nation, their father has signed a budget that takes away the opportunity for poor kids in Washington DC to attend schools like Sidwell Friends with the help of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which makes it possible for 1,700 kids a year — mostly African-Americans — to escape from the worst public school system in the country and attend a charter school or a private school which will give them a chance at a better future.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program is only four years old and has barely had a chance to prove itself, but it stands little chance of continuing when the federal funds backing it are eliminated from the budget by Democrat legislators eager to keep campaign contributions from the teachers unions flowing.

Teachers unions don’t like any kind of program which gives kids a chance to escape from government-run schools, and even this relatively modest voucher program is too much of a threat to be allowed to survive now that they have some clout. The funding was in the budget coming out of the last session, but has now been removed and is unlikely to be added back in with Democrats in control.

The program provides $7,500 vouchers to about 1,700 DC public school students chosen by lottery which they can then use to change schools, attend a charter school or attend an area private school. Every student who uses a voucher releases more money for other students who stay behind in public school because their voucher is underwritten by the federal government and is considerably less than the $14,400 per student spent by the DC public school system, which has the sad distinction of being the one of the most expensive and lowest performing school systems in the nation. DC ranks last in the nation in math and reading, 4th lowest in SAT scores and 6th worst in graduation rate,

Perhaps most important and almost always overlooked by those doing studies on voucher programs is how many graduates go to college and the quality of the colleges they end up attending. In the DC public school system only 59% of high school students even graduate. Of those only 36% have completed the coursework necessary to qualify them to go to a 4-year college degree program. Only 52.8% of those who take the SAT in DC go to college. Of those 86.2% attend in-state colleges which in the overwhelming majority of cases means that they attend the University of the District of Columbia which offers 4-year degrees but is basically comparable to a decent community college. That means that of entering freshmen only about a fifth will end up going to college and most of those will go to a second-rate institution.

In comparison, at the top private schools in DC like St. Albans, National Cathedral and Sidwell Friends virtually all of the students graduate and about 99% of those graduates go on to college and more than 25% of those graduates go to one of the top 10 colleges in the country — like Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Princeton and Stanford. So that means they send more graduates to the very best colleges in the world than even manage to get to college at all after graduating a public high-school in DC.

Now admittedly, the $7,500 which this program provides to students isn’t enough by itself to pay for a private school which costs $15,000 to $30,000 a year. But all of these private schools also have endowments for scholarships, some of them quite substantial and targeting kids from the poorer parts of DC. On average for every 3 students who come with a $7,500 voucher that’s another student who can attend one of these schools for free, so between vouchers and private endowments a lot more poor students can attend some of the best private schools in the nation than could have otherwise.

In addition, these vouchers can also be used at charter schools in DC, which have performance much closer to private schools than public schools. DC charter schools graduate 91% of their students, almost double the rate at DC public schools. 83% of those students attend college, close to three times the number of DC public school students going to college. As a group in 2007 DC charter school graduates received $11 million in college scholarship awards, a vital advantage when so many of them come from an underprivileged background.

High school graduation and the chance to go to college can make all the difference in the world for a poor kid from the inner city. It massively reduces the chance that they will be involved in crime, reduces their chance of using drugs, more than doubles their long-term earning potential and even raises up others in the community around them. It even substantially reduces their chance of a violent death. DC has a rate of violent crime which is three times the national average and its poor neighborhoods are among the poorest in the nation. Unemployment is high, drug use is widespread in the poor communities and for many there is no way out. Kids born into this environment are born doomed.

Access to better educational opportunities is the key to saving children from poverty and social disadvantage. A public school system which sends only a small fraction of its graduates to college and is rated third worst in the nation is not providing that opportunity, but for almost 2,000 students a year the Opportunity Scholarship Program did offer hope of a much better education and a very good chance at a degree from a good four-year college.

By taking this program away, Democrats in Congress are reminding us that they don’t really care about helping the most needy in our society. They just want to keep getting their votes, while pandering to the special interests for whom keeping the people poor and undereducated is politically advantageous.