The Republican Party establishment has proven itself to be all too willing to compromise the fiscal conservative values that Americans have long maintained. Just as in 2006 and 2008, voters voted against Republicans because of wars and out of control spending; likewise, in 2010 voters voted against Democrats for health care and out of control spending. In this, perhaps both parties have failed to win the confidence of the American people because both parties have largely ignored the real center of American politics: Those who believe that government ought to mind its own business.

First, one should be mindful that the narrative of the debate in Washington won’t change with a Republican “win” in 2012, if it is so fortunate. The narrative of the debate will only change, when the people outside of Washington demand it. If conservatives want to affect that change, it will require the conservative movement to appeal to the ignored center; and to do so, they will need to confront some inconsistencies that have plagued the movement in the past.

To start, those who call themselves conservatives must not only embrace the idea of limited government at home, but also abroad. Just as conservatives oppose federal mandates over health care in their home states, they should also oppose mandates in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all other nations across the globe. Traditionally, conservatism has embraced a non-interventionist foreign policy. It was conservatism that has opposed “nation building” and the doctrine of Wilsonian style “liberal internationalism.” That opposition has faded in recent years and this interventionist foreign policy stands in contrast to the values of limited government promoted by conservatives at home. It’s a contradiction and conservatives must reconcile that contradiction.

They must also embrace the idea of limited government in respect to social issues. Government has no business telling two people they shouldn’t get married or a person he shouldn’t put a particular substance into his own body. That isn’t to say one agrees or disagrees with whatever social issue is being debated. It is simply an acknowledgment that some things just shouldn’t be dictated to 320 million people from one city by a handful of well-connected rulers.

That also doesn’t mean folks have to abandon moral principles or give up on what they think is right at the expense of what others do that they think is wrong. There is still a place in society to debate moral questions — but government is not that place. Perhaps acting through the power of persuasion, one can reason with his neighbor that “this” is right and “that” is wrong. Churches, think tanks, civic institutions, charities and the like are the proper venues for such debates.  But the halls of Congress are not. Corrupt politicians deciding questions of morality is a faulty system and it’s time we move past that.

The Republican Party can unite the country behind a philosophy of limited government if it resolves these contradictions. The idea of limited government is a uniting principle that can bring people of vastly different beliefs and values together around the principle that people don’t have to force everyone else to live just like them, and that the individual can make choices for himself. And when people come together around that principle, and stop trying to force their views through the power of government on everyone else, perhaps they will be more receptive to the persuasive arguments of others. In civil society, outside of politics, the debate over moral issues can become more meaningful and really address the root issues. It would be a more civil discussion among neighbors rather than relying on brute force to impose a form of cultural socialism.

And this was the recipe for success for the GOP two years ago — even if it was accidental. The Republicans won in 2010  being notably quiet about social issues while embracing the idea of limited government in fiscal matters — an idea it had abandoned several years before.  Republicans stumbled on a winning formula of being fiscally conservative and socially libertarian. I’m just not sure they realized it.

What is not an accident is that Americans by instinct embrace those ideas because at heart. Americans still believe, by and large, in the idea of liberty and limited government even if they can’t quite put their finger on it. But that instinct extends to believing in limited government and individual liberty when it comes to social issues.  In that respect, I think Republicans may have stumbled on the real center of American politics — a soft, libertarian-leaning center in the same tradition as our nation’s founders. They may not know the nuances of the policies or the principles of economics that free-market libertarians advocate, but in their hearts people believe that they can make choices for themselves better than several hundred men and women in a far distant capital can — and that’s a great start.

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Daniel Encarnacion is a small business owner in Charleston, SC and is the state secretary of the Republican Liberty Caucus of South Carolina.

You can contact Daniel at daniel@rlcsc.org or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/danencarnacion

CONCORD, N.H.—In an effort to convey transparency about its intentions to restore the liberty-oriented Republican form of government created by the state and nation’s founders, the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire is unveiling a list of the 338 bills passed by the 107 legislators it endorsed in 2010 and the 66 bills it actively supported as an organization that are now the law of the land. “As an organization, we serve two important roles that both contribute to the advancement of conservative principles in New Hampshire’s government,” said Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire. “Our first duty is to help elect principled Republicans who understand what it means to have limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility and free enterprise, and help replace Republicans who don’t understand these essential tenets. Our second responsibility is to provide further education to elected officials and the public about the application of our core values in order to pass or repeal laws and advance our cause, which is to restore liberty and prosperity in New Hampshire.” The 107 Republican lawmakers endorsed by the RLCNH in 2010 passed 338 bills this session that accounted for 60 percent of the total 560 bills passed by the Legislature in 2011 and 2012. These bills, most of which advance the RLCNH agenda, are listed in an attached PDF document. Many of these bills, 66 to be exact, which are also listed in an attached PDF, were core policy goals for the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire during the biennium, including but not limited to:   “The RLCNH applauds its endorsed lawmakers for making restorative progress toward the limited form of representative, constitutional government our founders set up,” McKinney said. “While we do not support all of the bills passed by our endorsed lawmakers and even actively oppose a handful of them, the great majority of the bills listed in this report are bills we are proud to say advance liberty and prosperity in New Hampshire. We’ve also highlighted 66 bills that our organization actively supported as crucial to this noble cause and express our deepest gratitude to the Legislature for making them New Hampshire laws.” When studying the attached files, please note that all 66 RLCNH-supported bills were fully vetted and supported by the organization from their initial public hearings until they became Chaptered Law. These are the only bills that can truly be attributed to the organization’s post-election activities. Many new laws sponsored by RLCNH-endorsed lawmakers were also supported by the organization or its members, but many of these laws were either not followed by the organization through the entire process or they were not included in the RLCNH agenda this term. Thus, an endorsed candidate’s bill that was not supported by the RLCNH may or may not have been a good bill, but chances are that it advanced the RLCNH agenda. Also documented in an attached PDF report, the RLCNH is happy to report that 21 of the 26 bills the organization actively opposed during the session have been killed. These are bills that moved New Hampshire in the wrong direction, not the least of which was CACR 12, an educational funding amendment that would have explicitly centralized control over education at the state level causing near permanent damage to local control over education and to educational freedom in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, a few of the RLCNH endorsed lawmakers were sponsors or cosponsors of some of these bills. “We ask supporters and the public in general to evaluate the full list of bills sponsored or cosponsored by our endorsed candidates and invite e-mails that suggest continuing or discontinuing endorsements of some of these incumbents based on the bills they supported,” McKinney said. “In fact, the RLCNH will be releasing a list of endorsed incumbents next week based on the bills we supported and opposed and we welcome all suggested improvements to our process this week and beyond, which is the very purpose of our transparency. Our ultimate goal, of course, is to fill the Legislature with endorsed candidates who all work to advance the proven founding principles of our state and nation.” By releasing the attached reports about the progress the RLCNH made during the current Legislative session, the organization is also hoping to involve more people in the process of self governance. True progress, after all, means that more people will work for themselves, run their own lives and households, raise and educate their own children and pursue the maximum amount of happiness they can possibly achieve through their own efforts. In order to achieve this progress, more people will need to rise to the occasion and do their civic duty—whether that means running for office themselves or paying attention and holding their elected officials accountable, we leave that up to them. “The trend of human history has been to favor central governments with extensive power to control individuals and economies, and we know from experience that such governments perpetuate human misery by limiting the genius of individuals to reach their fullest potential,” McKinney said. “We also know that human freedom encourages the best results for the most people, and that our system of government once allowed for such liberties and created the most prosperous and advanced civilization that we know of. While we have once again trended toward central government control in both our state and our nation thanks largely to Democrats and Republicans who subscribe to the philosophy of big government, and our state and nation have suffered for it, the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire exists to help reverse that trend and restore an effective limited government philosophy that will restore liberty and prosperity for all hard-working people.”

One of the arguments I hear quite often against the possibility of change and reform in the Republican Party is that the party is essentially owned by a corporatist elite class, controlled by what Teddy Roosevelt called the “malefactors of great wealth.” While the argument may have some validity in that corporate interests have invested heavily in the Republican Party, there is a fundamental illogic in assuming that this means that the liberty activist wing of the party can’t make great inroads and even initiate revolutionary change in the party.

The proponents of this argument use as their examples the efforts of the party to pursue policies beneficial to certain business interest groups, usually the oil industry. They point out that Republican support for the Keystone Pipeline and for expanded oil and natural gas exploration are motivated by the influence of powerful corporations or super-rich families like the Koch and Bush clans. Similarly, opposition to trade controls, union busting, lax immigration laws, deregulation of industries, opposing environmental regulation and favorable treatment of Wall Street – all Republican policy mainstays – all benefit corporate interests and the wealthy groups behind those corporations.

All true, and all entirely irrelevant to whether those powerful interests would allow a libertarian wing of the party to gain more influence, elect people to office and change the ideological emphasis of the party. The key thing to consider here is that these plutocratic interests are not motivated by ideology – money has no morality. They are motivated by the desire to make money and to be left alone by government in order to do so. They want the Republican Party to clear the path for them to achieve their goals. Traditionally they have done this by corrupting politicians, spending money on campaigns and on buying influence to get what they want. Therefore, what reason is there for them to oppose a political movement within the party which produces leaders and policies which are inherently more compatible with their interests?

Spending a bunch of money to buy off the corrupt quasi-socialist political hacks and religious ideologues who currently dominate the Republican Party is far more expensive than nurturing the rising generation of more libertarian political activists whose interests seem to dovetail rather nicely with those of the corporate class. One of the truths of libertarianism is that the same policies which benefit all people by expanding personal and economic liberty naturally also help business and the monied class by reducing the burdens and interference of government.

Pipelines? Free trade? A more open labor market? Access to natural resources? Less regulation? Elimination of corporate taxes? Liberty Republicans don’t need to be bribed to support these ideas, because they are fundamental principles of their ideological cannon.

Some wealthy interests clearly already realize this. The Koch family in particular seems to get it. They have been spending money for decades on educational programs for young libertarians, finding them jobs in politics, supporting political activist groups with a pro-liberty agenda, and even backing the campaigns of liberatarian-leaning Republicans. As for the evil and corrupting Bushes, if it gets them a pipeline don’t be surprised to see Jeb Bush hugging Ron Paul and starting to talk just like him in Tampa this fall.

So when dealing with the powers who are backing the party establishment, don’t assume that their allegiance can’t change. They don’t operate on personal loyalty or ideology. They just want results. All we have to do is convince them that we’re more naturally inclined to do the things they want done and that their aims and ours really aren’t in conflict. That could be all it takes to swing some of that money and support to our causes and candidates. Don’t think of the malefactors of great wealth as the enemy. Success breeds success. Think of their support as the prize the Liberty Movement wins if we show we can gain some ground in the Republican Party.

I, for one, was delighted at the surge of new, mostly younger people who registered to vote for the first time in order to support Ron Paul in this year’s presidential primaries and caucuses. I explained to non-Paul supporters that the GOP should embrace them because the Republican Party is aging and needs new blood.

However, I saw a study of new, mostly younger people who registered to vote for the first time in 2008 for Barack Obama which makes me wonder about the long-term impact of Paul people.

A study conducted by two political scientists at my alma mater The University of San Francisco discovered that of the 2.1-million first time voters in California who showed up for Obama in 2008, most left other offices blank and didn’t vote on major issue referenda questions involving gay marriage and parental notification of a minor’s abortion request either.

The authors speculate that in 2008 this was evidence that many of the Obama voters were just that — voters more dedicated to the candidate than his liberal causes.

And they tested their hypothesis further by comparing 2010 election data and discovered that most of these new voters did not even show up at the polls two years after voting for Obama. Voting patterns in 2010 were not much different from the voting patterns before this new bloc of voters registered.

As I watch the enthusiasm of the Paul people and meet many younger people who registered to vote for the first time because they believed themselves disenfranchised by the parties, I wonder whether the same results as the Obama voter study would ensue or whether they will stay active in the mundane lower ballot campaigns and become a force within the Republican Party.

My hope is that Paul people will follow the template set by we Youth for Goldwater of the 1960s and suffer through the mundane in order to build a movement within the party. Instead of disappearing after his trouncing by LBJ, we kept the Goldwater movement alive at the grassroots level. Within 20 years, most of us from Youth for Goldwater were either working in media, working as policy advisors in the White House and Congress or actually elected to office and Ronald Reagan, who gave pep talk speeches at Youth for Goldwater rallies, was POTUS.

On this Independence Day I had wanted to celebrate our freedom and not worry about politics. But I couldn’t finish this article yesterday and I realize our freedoms are being threatened here at home so standing up for liberty seems like a good way to celebrate. And a strategy to move this country and our revolution forward isn’t a bad way either.

Much like many young people in the liberty movement, I was upset with Ron Paul’s loss in the Republican Primary. I did not expect him to win, but I expected him to do better. The establishment had chosen Romney, and Romney it will be. But as the primary season went forward and the old doctor’s delegate strategy began to bear fruit I saw greater hope for the future of the movement. It did not come from the possibility that Gary Johnson, now running as the Libertarian Party nominee would continue the movement. It came from the Ron Paul supporters who began taking leadership positions in the Republican Party.

It mostly happened in small-to-medium population states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Alaska and Minnesota. Ron Paul supporters and Republicans with true libertarian streaks were usurping power in the state-level party organizations. The establishment didn’t like it, but they were having trouble stopping it in spite of their best efforts. It made something perfectly clear: Ron Paul laid the ground for the liberty movement to take over the GOP by the end of the decade. Perhaps his son, Senator Rand Paul would run for president in 2016, easily win the early primaries and use the momentum to carry himself to the nomination. But even if Rand did not do so, it became clear to me how the liberty movement could take control of the party by the end of the decade.

The Republican Liberty Caucus has been trying for 20 years to actually change things in the way the GOP does business and now, for the first time in history, the odds are in their favor. But the threat to the liberty movement comes from within itself. And so I am writing this appeal to the movement with the hopes that I can prevent the liberty movement from dissolving.

Let me first start by saying that political consultant Roger Stone is delusional for putting his faith in Gary Johnson. I like Gary. I wish he’d stayed in the party and ran for US Senate in New Mexico, but sadly he did not go that route even though it would have been an easy victory for him and a boost to our movement.

Have I got your attention? Good. Because I need to be blunt. There is a concept in public choice theory called rational voter ignorance that too few libertarians have ever even heard of. In a nutshell, this ignorance means that the two party system of America will not go away for at least another generation.

The good news, it doesn’t need to for liberty to win in the short-term. When you look at the numbers, its impossible for a third party candidate to gain serious traction, even in the internet age. But could we use those numbers to gain faster results? My strategy suggests we can.

There is a coming generational shift that will make many Americans happy and make some angry: the inevitability of a secular society. Social conservatism, at least from a “we need the federal government to enforce Christian morals” is on life support. And the plug will be pulled soon. The Moral Majority types that took over the Republican Party in the 1980s probably have a half life of about 7-10 years at this point. Ron Paul, using the same strategy that they used in the 80s, brought thousands of liberty-minded Americans, many of them in my generation, to state Republican conventions all over the country. They showed up. They sent liberty loving delegates to the Republican National Convention. And while they didn’t send enough to get the nomination for Ron Paul, it is my belief that the Republican establishment will be shocked at what they see. A proportional decrease in the number of Bible thumpers at the convention versus 2008 and a massive new wave of delegates who are economically conservative but don’t believe the federal government has any more business in our bedrooms than they do in our wallets.

The Republican establishment, first and foremost, is concerned with political power. They are eventually going to see the rise in secularism and begin to ignore the religious right in favor of individual liberty, but this can only happen if we play our cards right.

The Coming Dichotomy

For clarity–mainly to any older generations reading this–I’d like to point out that secularism has become a dirty word in recent years due to the left. It should not be. Secularism merely means the government abides by the first amendment. It means that government policies are unbiased by direct religious influence. Laws cannot be justified just because a religion says so. An individuals liberty is protected if he is doing no harm to another, even if he is doing something that might be dangerous or stupid. It also means the government has no business in dictating to the church how it runs its business.

Secularism has gotten a bad name by those on the left who are anti-religion (usually biased against Christianity more so than other faiths) and support government policies that violate a person’s religious views (like the Obama Administration trying to force the Catholic Church to pay for contraception). This disdain for religion comes from the cultural Marxism in today’s American left.

My generation, often referred to as millennials, is overwhelmingly secular in that as a strong majority we don’t care if same-sex couples marry, we don’t want government to ban all abortion (even if many of us are personally opposed to the practice), we don’t want government to tell 18 year olds they can’t drink, we don’t support the war on drugs, and we don’t like politicians who try to use government to force Biblical principles on us. We’re less religious than our predecessors in terms of our church attendance and even our practice of organized religion. And for those of us that do practice a religion, we’re much less likely to aggressively proselytize it to those who have different views.

As our generation matures and begins coming to power, it will shift society with it and there will be an ideological dichotomy in this country: secular capitalists vs. secular Marxists. I use the term Marxist loosely. No, not all of them will be full-blown communists. But many of them will support Marx-inspired policies: government control of industry, redistribution of wealth, centralized economic planning, etc. Basically the failed ideologies of the 20th century. The cultural Marxists will be anti-religion. But the secular-capitalists are not anti-religion. And I am confident that when all is said and done the forces of capitalism will prevail.

Secular-capitalism is the future we need to restore American greatness. Its a good kind of secular because while its not going to use government to define marriage as between man and woman, its also not going to force churches to perform same-sex marriages against their will. Its going to let the private sector and private individuals solve the complicated social problems that government can’t (and shouldn’t try to in the first place).

Take drugs for example. The country is moving in favor of marijuana legalization. There is still strong opposition to this, but as the great conservative author William F. Buckley Jr. once suggested, drug legalization would not destroy society because there are still societal pressures for personal responsibility.

“And, by the way, there’s no reason not to encourage social sanctions against [illegal drug use], i.e., if you come to work for Mr. Heffner, you can’t take drugs. And if you don’t consent to have an occasional drug test, extemporaneously scheduled, then don’t apply for a job. I’m all in favor of social sanctions for use; it’s the legal sanction that I think is killing us.” — William F. Buckley, Jr. in an interview with Richard Heffner, The Open Mind, August 1996

If a person goes to work high on marijuana or cocaine, they would be fired just the same as they would if they came to work drunk. Its these pressures that prevent society from spinning out of control. The onus is on the individual to be responsible. And most individuals will. The ones that don’t will be irresponsible regardless of the substance’s legality.

We as libertarians understand this. The religious right does not seem to. But the establishment will see things our way not simply because our views are becoming more accepted by society and the “theo-cons” less so, but because they are realistic.

An Appeal to Ron Paul Delegates

When I was an alternate delegate to the Texas state Republican Convention, I saw a strong presence by Ron Paul supporters as well as other Republicans with some libertarian leanings. We stopped the theocrats from putting a plank in the state platform to restore “sodomy law”. We stopped protectionists from removing a market-friendly immigration reform plank. We put planks in the party platform calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve System, withdrawal from the UN, elimination of unnecessary EPA regulations and many other Constitutional policies. The end result was far from perfect, but I was amazed how good it was. I was also stricken with fear at what might happen. If those same delegates who helped get this done lose the faith simply because Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee and leave the Republican Party for the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party or just to become independents, then all that work was for nothing. But if they show up in the same numbers with the same enthusiasm at the 2014 Texas GOP convention, they will proportionally be more significant. Since its not a presidential election year, the convention will have lower turnout by the religious right and even the establishment, meaning we would wield more influence.

So those of you planning on supporting Gary Johnson or writing in Ron Paul, I encourage you to read the rest of this article before making a final decision. The rules of the Republican National Convention permit the delegates to choose the vice-president. If there is not unity on Gov. Romney’s nominee, they can try to send their own nominee. I hope all Ron Paul-supporting delegates and all Gary Johnson supporters let it be known that YOU CAN force Ron Paul into the VP slot and you should. And then you should vote for Romney/Paul.

Many of you will criticize me for this and claim that Romney would still be Romney. Well, Romney is like tofu. You cook him in Massachusetts, he’ll be a liberal Republican. You cook him with Ron Paul…well, he might start throwing some bones to the liberty movement. This election is bigger than Romney, Paul, Obama or Johnson. Its about whether or not we are actually going to restore free-market capitalism and individual liberty.

Romney and Obama are so similar on economics and foreign policy its not even funny. But Romney has something that makes him malleable which Obama does not. Romney would have to get re-elected in 2016. The majority of the American people are opposed to more war. So on the foreign policy, Romney is less likely to start another war because it would cost him the election. If Obama gets reelected he will be a lame-duck and if you think he’s been unconcerned with the wishes of the American people up till this point, just imagine how bad he’ll be when he no longer has to give a damn what they think. He is more likely to start another war and will add more to the national debt than Romney. There of course is the prospect of our economy being crushed by this debt and sending us into an economic downturn–as Peter Schiff suggests. With a President Romney, there is a chance of actually taking some of the right steps. With Obama, there is none. Will Keynesianism finally be blamed if Obama presides over this collapse? Or will he blame “obstructionist Republicans” and will the American people buy that? I’m betting the latter and its not a gamble I’d like to take.

We need to win the American people on the issues of the day and I think we are. Most Americans are opposed to more war, are leaning towards proposing an end to the war on drugs, are apathetic to or supportive of same-sex marriage, so if we win them on free-market principles they essentially will become libertarian-minded people! And if the American people lean in our direction on the issues, a hypothetical President Romney will be forced to in order to be re-elected in 2016.

This is not my endorsement of Mitt Romney. I am withholding my endorsement until after the GOP convention because I want to see just how far my fellow libertarian-leaning Republicans are willing to take things. I request of the Ron Paul delegates that you force Mitt’s hand! Its already public record that Romney and Paul are personal friends in spite of their political differences. This suggests they can work together and Romney can be molded in a more conservative direction on the economy and a 10th amendment position on social issues.

Of course this scenario I’ve proposed can only happen if Romney is president. The best way to solidify this is to get him to choose Ron Paul as vice-president. If he were to do so, he would undoubtedly have my vote and I know many Paul supporters who would only support Romney if Paul was his running mate. Independent voters lean positive on their opinions of both Ron Paul and Mitt Romney from the polls I’ve seen. I imagine that those who don’t care for Mitt like Ron and vice-versa. This is the ticket that will send Barack Obama packing!

Romney would have a hard time winning otherwise. Mitch Daniels or Luis Fortuno could help Romney win as well. But some of the names being tossed around like Rob Portman or Marco Rubio I do not believe would solidify a Romney victory.

Let’s go for it! A Ron Paul vice-presidency does two big things.

First, it brings the liberty movement into the mainstream. A vice-president is not easily ignored. Think about it. Every ridiculous thing that comes out of Joe Biden’s mouth is national news. It would give Ron Paul a greater degree of respect than he’s ever had by mainstream America.

Secondly, it is important to remember that while Romney needs to get re-elected, Paul would likely only serve one term. Romney can’t force Paul to resign. Paul will say whatever he wants. And he will use the power of his vice presidency to elect liberty Republicans to the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2014 midterm election! A vice-presidential endorsement goes a long way in terms of improving name-ID and finances for a congressional candidate. Imagine a few more Rand Pauls in the Senate and 30-40 more Justin Amashs in the House!

It means we can’t be ignored anymore. And the Republican establishment will see how we are replacing the religious right and the war-hawks and they will want to move in our direction to stay in power.

I’ve also considered the proper strategy if Ron Paul is not chosen as Vice-President.

The Statistical Implications: An Appeal to Gary Johnson Supporters

I know many young libertarians who are turning to the Libertarian Party (LP) candidate Gary Johnson and believing that he and the LP are going to continue the revolution Ron Paul started. Hate to burst your bubble, but its not gonna happen. I referred earlier to rational voter ignorance. Just because you don’t like the two-party system doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Its not going anywhere! And the Libertarian Party is not competent or resourceful enough to make a dent in the status quo. A better strategy would be for the entire party to dissolve, disband and all register as Republicans and help people like Justin Amash highjack a major party and oust the theocons, neocons and the Keynesians. I’ve met people in the LP who laugh at me and say that there is a better chance of the Libertarian Party winning than the Republican Party changing.

Please hear me out!  You have to consider the numbers game. When you do, you’ll realize why–to paraphrase Andrew Wilkow–I’m right, they’re wrong, that’s the end of the story!

The LP failed to co-opt the 40% or so of the early Tea Party movement that wasn’t socially conservative. They didn’t even co-opt 1/4th of that 40% or so. They’ve never won a congressional seat, state house speakership, state senate seat in a large pop state, governorship, mayorship in a major city.  And please don’t give me that “the GOP didn’t for years” crap. 19th century America when we had less than 100 million people in this country, before rational voter ignorance became pandemic, IS NOT a relevant comparison. The LP was started by billionaires–the Koch brothers–and even with the might of the internet they still haven’t accomplished these things.

There’s also the question of financing.  Another third party was once started by a billionaire. But it went nowhere. Ross Perot’s Reform Party attempted to present an alternative in the 1992 presidential election and he capped at 18%. Romney and Obama will each raise half a billion bucks before this is over. Gary Johnson, over the course of a year in 2 different political parties hadn’t even broke $1 million. Romney, Obama, even Ron Paul can merely send out a simultaneous Facebook update and tweet saying “send me money” and raise that much in 48 hours. 48 hours vs. a year. Admit it, Johnson is more than a longshot candidate. He is statistically unable to make a difference.

Assume voters are 30% Dem 30% GOP and 40% independent/third party and from past polling we can see the Libertarian Party’s cap at about 3% in general elections. We’ve got 13-16% of the GOP already in support of Ron Paul based on primary results this year. There is anywhere from 2-5 percent more in the Republican with some libertarian leanings on various issues (they had either backed Cain or Hunstman in the primaries).

For this simply arithmetic demonstration I’ll go with the LP-friendly estimate. .16 * .30 = 4.8%. Add that to the 3% cap of the LP and you get 7.8%. Not enough to get Johnson into the debates (15% minimum). Which means he will never get the necessary name ID. He’s trapped in a vicious circle: he can’t get his name ID up without being in the debate, but he doesn’t have enough name ID to get into the debate in the first place. I feel sorry for him, but not too sorry because he hasn’t accepted he’s made the wrong move by joining the Libertarian Party.

Merging Across Parties

Now, consider this. The Libertarian Party is 3% of the voting population. They DISBAND. They all register Republican. Add them to the Ron Paul supporters and the former libertarian-leaning Cain and Huntsman supporters and the liberty wing of the GOP is now about 20%. Its in the territory where it rivals the religious right. Come 2016, they’ll be over 20%

This sends a signal to two groups: the GOP establishment types who aren’t uber religious and are more concerned with winning elections than the social conservatism and the independent voters. The generational shift becomes irrefutably evident to all that secularism is rising and Bible-thumping is dying. The GOP establishment will finally understand the religious right is on its way out and will begin moving more in the direction of the liberty wing. This makes the party look more secular. Independent voters, who are overwhelmingly not socially conservative will be more inclined to join–or, in some cases, return–to the Republican Party.

By the early part of the next decade, you will see a Grand New Party, a party of secular capitalism. One that the Democrats will NEVER be able to stop.

By contrast, if the liberty wing of the GOP break away now, as I fear they might do. If they register LP. If they support Johnson. If they don’t show up at state and local GOP conventions in droves during the 2014 midterm to continue the push that Ron Paul started, then you will see two minority parties. A minority GOP and a minority LP. Both financially broken and statistically insignificant–meaning both unable to defeat the new Democrat majority that is so much larger.

You all know I’m right, and when Johnson fails to break single digits I will say I told you so. But I will also welcome you with open arms to accept my strategy as the most politically viable for the liberty movement. I can only hope that failure to see this now rather than after the November election won’t mean its too late for the liberty movement.

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Aaron Alghawi obtained a B.S. in Economics from Texas A&M University in 2012. He is a national board member and Director of Student Outreach for the Republican Liberty Caucus.

President Obama has stirred up a lot of controversy recently, after deciding to give “amnesty” to young illegal immigrants. So I’m going to give some food for thought. This issue has been one which pits the various factions within the Republican Party against each other. You have the liberty wing of the GOP–like myself–who want the market to be the primary force deciding immigration. You have the protectionist wing–old former Democrats who came to the party during the Reagan years but didn’t leave all of their big-government policies (and occasional bigotry) behind, and you have the establishment-types who are probably just trying to find the political winds and go with what’s popular. Also to consider, the large number of Hispanic Republicans at the convention, who are sick and tired of the games by those who seemingly want to choke Latin American immigration off completely.

At the Republican Party of Texas’ state convention in Ft. Worth a couple weeks ago, this ideological battle was clear and present. I was attending as an alternate for Brazos County and RLC Chair Dave Nalle was a delegate for Travis County. I won’t be going to Tampa but I’m proud to say that going to the convention allowed me to do two things I really wanted to do. Send some authentic small-government Republicans (including some Ron Paul supporters) to Tampa, and get some really dumb things removed from the state party platform during the drafting process. The end result was shocking to me at first but also gave me hope that the Republican Party is moving in the right direction. The liberty wing and the establishment united on one of the biggest hot-button issues: immigration.

During a minority report, delegates had the chance to voice opinions on the party platform before the final draft was taken to the floor–where delegates from all over the state would vote on it. Dave and I attended this session. It was small, as most of the people had left for dinner or their hotel rooms. It was around 8 PM. What I saw in the platform was an immigration plank that was very market friendly, attempting to make it easier for immigrants with the skills we need to get work visas. Work visas that may eventually lead to those immigrants becoming proud Americans. Well, the protectionists were having none of it, and they tried to get it struck down, using some of the most bogus arguments.

I testified in favor of it. Gave a brief bio of myself as the son of an immigrant and congratulated them on taking a market based approach. Immediately I was followed by some angry man who came off as a lunatic, claiming we’d become an overpopulated, poverty-stricken place like Mexico City. I wanted terribly to rebut him and put his “arguments” to shame, but we only got to speak once. Fortunately, a fellow Aggie was there to do a much better job than I did. His name was Jerry Patterson, and he will be running for Lt. Governor of Texas in 2014. Since I see no candidate emerging with better positions than him, he’s definitely getting my vote. The committee decided to keep the plank. Later, when the plank was being brought up before the at-large caucus, the protectionists lined up to testify against it, again calling the work visas “amnesty”. The establishment and the liberty wing loudly shouted “ay” as Chairman Munisteri issued a motion to move on to the next issue. The plank passed.

Now, had I been given the opportunity to speak again on the issue, and in more detail, I would have said something along the following lines. I would have made the case for a market-based immigration policy. I would have explained to the clearly uninformed voter that our current immigration system of quotas and a ridiculously unnecessary level of federal bureaucracy is a remnant of the so-called progressive era. Progressivism is the very thing we Constitutionalists are [supposedly] trying to combat within the Republican Party.

So here’s some food for thought on why the current system is unacceptable, and why the market can solve this issue better than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington. I’ll follow it up with my plan for an immigration overhaul: a simple, fair, merit-based system that would save the taxpayer billions of dollars and grow this economy exponentially.

First, lets talk illegals. There’s this notion that all of the 12 million illegals in American were merely border-hopping people with no respect for our laws. This is far from the truth.

A lot of the “illegals” are only so because of useless bureaucracy that originated not with the founding fathers but with progressives like Woodrow Wilson–a notorious bigot. To understand how things were prior to the progressive era, think prior to the 20th century. And just before the turn of the century there was a Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship that gives you a general idea about immigration policy before the federal government became the center of our lives it is today.

If you revisit the rationale behind the 1898 Supreme Court case US v. Wong Kim Ark, you find a realistic solution to the “anchor baby” problem, and you also put a bunch of the ridiculous birther propaganda about Senator Marco Rubio in the trash heap of conspiracy nonsense where it belongs.

The case ruled that a child born on American soil to immigrant parents who were “engaged in the procurement of non-diplomatic business” (i.e. worked in the private sector) and had established a domicile (homestead law, which varies from state to state) was a natural born citizen. Back then it was pretty much “work hard and obey the laws and you can stay”.

This is the approach we need to take as Republicans. It destroys the liberal media’s ability to smear us as racists. It exposes the Democrats for the hypocrites they are on the issue. But most important of all, it would create something that President Obama hasn’t. Tens of millions of new jobs!

Due to the bureaucracy it takes too damn long to become a citizen. My father immigrated to this country from Lebanon in the mid 1970s. He did not become a citizen until 1999. Some of this delay was due to the fact he was always working but in today’s America 20 years is probably the average length it takes from immigration to citizenship. That, to me, is just plain stupid! The bureaucracy also makes it too hard to get a green card. Take the case of a German man named Gunter. He is a restaurant owner in New Braunfels, TX. I met him last year at a Students for Liberty regional conference. He still has to leave the restaurant and return to Germany every few years and reapply for a visa because they have made it too difficult for him to get a green card. This man is a small-business owner, who obviously wishes to do business in a freer country than his own, and is being given the runaround by a bunch of gubment employees who I’m willing to bet have never created a real job in their lifetimes.

Gunter is just one example of many. We have all these high skill international students in our colleges. They outperform their American peers in science and engineering programs subsidized with our tax dollars, and what do we do? We make naturalization so difficult that they go back to their home countries and use the skills we taught them against us in the global market? How is that intelligent? They should be playing for team America. We are a country where the best in the world left their homelands to escape poverty and tyranny, and to embrace the free-enterprise system that has created more wealth and human advancement in a couple centuries than any other in the entire history of the world before in.

So I propose a new immigration system for the United States. A capitalist system.

Step 1: We reopen Ellis Island and centers like it all across the country.

That way we can actually account for the people that come into the country for national security purposes. We must still be stringent on immigrants from countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or from Gaza/West Bank, to make sure they are legitimate people seeking freedom from theocrats and not theocrats themselves coming to this country to commit terrorism. And trust me, virtually everyone would choose going through one of those processing centers to using a coyote. At least every honest person would. So at the same time it makes it easier to figure out who the good guys are. These centers should be able to provide immigrants with some advice on where to live, work, and possibly offer English speaking courses for those who need it.

Step 2: Create a new system of regulating immigration status that is based in merit and behavior.

Everyone who comes into the United States gets a five-year trial period. They would get a work visa. At the end of this 5 years if they will be examined. If they work in the private sector, and do not commit any violent or financial crimes–and I emphasize this because nobody should be deported for something like a traffic violation–and demonstrate reasonable English speaking skills, they will be awarded permanent residency in the United States. If they are convicted of a serious violent or financial crime they should be immediately deported. If the English speaking does not meet the standard they will not receive a green card, but can reapply for a temporary work visa. No need to kick them out over that. This will probably not be an issue as most immigrants will be encouraged to learn the language because they want to stay in this great country.

As for welfare use. We need to crack down on sanctuary cities. Government welfare should be denied to anyone who is not a permanent US resident or US citizen. Personally I would like to see the federal welfare state abolished, but I’m a realist and understand that this is at least 20 years away from happening. Private charity, religious or secular, should not be a factor in whether or not one is granted permanent residency. If a church or private organization wants to help an individual, that is purely at their discretion. Its their money!

Step 3: Reform the naturalization process in a manner that expedites it.

After receiving their green card, they enter another five year trial period. If during this trial period they continue to meet the criteria set for them in the first, work hard and obey the law, then at the end of that 5 year period they will be moved to the front of the line and naturalized as citizens of the United States.

Step 4: What to do about the illegals already here? Well obviously it would be financially impossible to deport them all. So here’s where President Obama actually had a point for once. Focus on the criminals. As for the others, the proper solution is that they must take the new route established. They must go to the back of the line in the new processing centers, and begin the first five-year trial period. For those that were brought here as children by parents, they’re really victims of human trafficking if you think about it. Provided they have no criminal records and work hard I see no reason why they should be deported. But they should still go through the new system.

5 years to permanent residency and 10 years to citizenship, its not a bad deal. But nobody is just going to be handed it. That would be amnesty. And amnesty is not the solution.

Now, I’m gonna get some responses to this. So, I’m going to preempt some of the typical ones I get.

The left will call it ‘fascist’ for the English-language requirement. Anyone who is familiar with my views knows I’m as far from fascist as Kim Kardashian is from the Blessed Virgin Mary. English should have been made the official language a long time ago I don’t understand why it isn’t. Multikulti has failed miserably in Europe. I recommend reading Bruce Bawer’s books While Europe Slept and Surrender. I have no intention of chasing away foreign culture. I took two years of Spanish in high school and one year of Japanese in college and am currently teaching myself the latter and plan on doing the same with the former once I have the time. My father speaks Arabic and French. That’s what makes America great. Immigrants like my father bring the best of what the old country has to offer (usually in the form of cuisine or music), but unlike the lawless Islamic enclaves in European cities Bawer documents, they don’t bring the authoritarian ideologies with them, that’s why they left!

It makes it easier on immigrants when they are able to communicate with natural born citizens rather than having to search for people from their own country. The language barrier tends to break down over generations as their children learn English but it seems more efficient to me if it is expedited. There will always be Korea Towns and Little Italys. But segregation was repealed and tossed into the ash heap of history half a century ago, yet America today still has a defacto segregation. We don’t need to be living in white neighborhoods or black neighborhoods or Hispanic neighborhoods we need to be living in American neighborhoods.

Encouraging English speaking skills (notice I didn’t even say reading/writing, as most Americans struggle with grammar) as a manner to expedite the path to ones citizenship merely tests their mettle as to how badly they want to be a part of America as a whole and not just as a “minority”. It opens more doors to them in terms of career advancement, which of course leads to more money. And its not going to be an arduous task, as many of them will likely be learning it already as ESL students or employees working alongside Americans if they didn’t know some coming in.

Then of course the protectionists claim things like “overpopulation” and “they’re gonna take the jobs Americans need”. No, they won’t. In fact, we actually have people leaving the US because there aren’t jobs for them. There is NOT an overpopulation problem in the country. For those of you who think there is I have merely one thing to say to you: Have you ever been to Nebraska?

Okay, maybe I have more than one thing to say. There is no overpopulation problem, only a population density problem. In fact, if the entire population of the world, which is approaching 7 billion people was spread out into one area with the population density of New York City it would fill an area about the size of Texas. If it was as dense as Houston, it wouldn’t even fill the continental United States.

Overpopulation only becomes a problem with the presence of a welfare state. And it is the welfare state that needs to be reigned in. By requiring immigrants to work (or use private charity) and cutting them off from welfare programs, they are not a drag on the taxpayer; they become taxpayers. The welfare behemoth is going to take years to reign in and if we don’t start now we will suffer a Greece-like debt crisis before decade’s end. But as it relates to immigrants its not nearly as difficult an issue as it is relating to citizens.

Hard working people sustain themselves and should not be barred from becoming citizens provided they obey the laws. They should be welcomed with open arms. They will create jobs, create tax revenue, grow the economy and shrink the budget deficit. Its the criminals and the moochers that are the problem and they should be sent home. We have too many Americans that fall into those categories.

If these immigrants “take your job” its because you didn’t work hard enough to defeat them. Sorry bro, but that’s how capitalism works, the best win.

So lets recap.

5 years to a green card, 10 years to citizenship. And all I’m asking is that they work hard and stay out of trouble? This is the immigration policy that will allow the GOP to seize control of the issue from the Democrats permanently. It gives us two things: the reduction of federal bureaucracy conservatives want, and the opportunity to join the free-enterprise system that immigrants want.

Hey Mitt, think about it!

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Aaron Alghawi obtained a B.S. in Economics from Texas A&M University in 2012. He is a national board member and Director of Student Outreach for the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Pro-Liberty Caucus Announces Candidate Endorsements Candidates will be advocates for sensible, constitutional government FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 15, 2012 CONTACT: Norann Dillon, 763-516-1175 or rlcminn@gmail.com SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — Today, the Republican Liberty Caucus of Minnesota [rlcmn.org] announced endorsements for 13 Legislative candidates who will work for fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and reduced size in government. "State government spending has averaged a 10% growth rate since the 1960s.  Minnesotans have felt the drain when state government spends money we don't have.  We need fiscal conservatives who will build on the Republican-led legislature's initial work to set the state's spending priorities within the realities of revenue," said state RLC Chair Norann Dillon. The Caucus endorsed nine incumbents: Rep. Mary Franson, House District 8B; Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, House District 18B; Rep. Steve Drazkowski, House District 21B; Rep. Peggy Scott, House District 35B; Sen. Roger Chamberlain, Senate District 38; Rep. Kathy Lohmer, House District 39B; Rep. Doug Wardlow, House District 51B; Sen. Ted Daley, Senate District 51; and Sen. Dave Thompson, Senate District 58. Non-incumbents endorsed by the Caucus are David FitzSimmons, House District 30B; Dale Helm, House District 41A; Paul Tuschy, House District 52B; and Mark Fotsch, House District 66A. "These candidates know that government grows at the expense of individuals and businesses.  It's not only good fiscal policy to keep state spending in check.  It also protects and preserves our freedoms here in the North Star State," concluded Andrew Noble, Co-Chair of the Candidate Committee. Founded in 1991, the Republican Liberty Caucus works to advance the principles of individual rights, limited government and free enterprise within the Republican Party.  The Minnesota Chapter was chartered in 2003. - 30 -

Jack Hunter has written an excellent article about the same-sex marriage debate where he correctly calls the issue a distraction and highlights the absurdity of focusing on such a thing while the federal government continues to spend trillions of dollars on numerous unconstitutional activities. The bottom line is that marriage is a state issue, not a federal one:

As with most things, simply following the Constitution would solve the gay-marriage dilemma. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the power to regulate marriage.

On the national level, this in fact should be the end of the debate. Unfortunately, many Republicans keep this issue in the news, because they campaign on the promise of amending the Constitution to define a marriage as between one man and one woman. This in turn gives Democrats a perfect opportunity to pick up voters they may not otherwise have earned. The single most important thing about Democrats is that they believe the government should run the economy. This is antithetical to America and the success that this country has seen in its short history. Therefore, if this was the only thing Democrats ran on then they would lose miserably in every election. So instead, their strategy is to divide and conquer. They divide voters into blocks and classes, by race, sex, religion, income level, industry type,  and sexual practices. This is also antithetical to America and the spirit of our founding, but unfortunately it has been a very successful strategy. The people in the various demographic groups that the Democrats have targeted have been swayed by their arguments, despite their party’s history, and despite the fact that they want to control your life from the toilet you use to the car you drive to the things you can see on the internet. So how do we combat this as Republicans and win elections by large margins? Well, it is not by giving them more ammunition and more ways to divide Americans. In trying to use the federal government to define marriage, Republicans are trying to solve a societal problem by using a big government solution. This is exactly what the Democrats do. Furthermore, we are alienating an entire “demographic” that contains many members (such as Log Cabin Republicans) who might otherwise be ardent supporters of our cause. On a federal level, the same-sex marriage debate is not only a distraction, but it is also destructive to Republican campaign efforts. But what about the state level? Should we make this a big Republican issue in South Carolina? Jack Hunter makes a great point here as well:

The institution of marriage was under assault long before gay activists got involved. Divorce alone has been far more damaging to the institution of marriage than gay marriage. If I had my druthers, I’d get the state out of the matrimony business altogether and let churches and other social institutions decide what constitutes marriage.

Yet again, mister Hunter is right on. Around the mid-1950s in the U.S. several court rulings and state laws clearly recognized the many instances of no-fault reasons to end marriages. The immediate result was a spike in divorce rates during the 1960s. This same thing happened again with “no fault” divorces in the 70s, followed by another huge spike in divorces. So if the object here is to protect marriage, then we are fighting the wrong battle. Finally, there is a more fundamental, principled aspect to this debate that isn’t often talked about. Why does the government have the authority to control marriage in the first place? It didn’t always have that authority, marriage licenses issued by the government are  a relatively new thing in Christian history. With divorce rates up around 50% after thousands of years  in the single digits, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea? It is something to think about.    

CONCORD, N.H.—Today, the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire announces that it has acquired the political assets of the New Hampshire Republican Volunteer Coalition and has added NHRVC Co-Founder Steve MacDonald to its 10-member RLCNH Board to lead a merger effort and help carry on the mission of the NHRVC within the RLCNH organization.

“By merging the NHRVC into the RLCNH and adding Steve MacDonald to the RLCNH board, we are adding new vigor to our now substantially larger political action organization and ensuring the ongoing success of principled Republican activism in New Hampshire,” said Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire. “During the last few election cycles, the RLCNH and the NHRVC groups had been duplicating efforts to elect liberty-minded Republicans. It simply makes good common sense to merge our efforts so that we can motivate our now larger group of activists to pursue one effective mission.”

The NHRVC was founded in the wake of the November 2008 elections as a grassroots coalition of highly motivated activists working to elect principled Republicans who stand for low taxes, fiscal responsibility, free enterprise, individual liberty, and the U.S. and NH Constitutions. Founded by Kevin McHugh and Steve MacDonald, the NHRVC grew from just a handful of people trading e-mails to more than 4,000 members working to spread liberty through the Republican Party.

The RLCNH was launched in December 2004 to promote the ideals of limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free enterprise and adherence to the N.H. and U.S. Constitutions among Republican Party officials and throughout the state by identifying and supporting candidates sympathetic with the organization’s ideals, and by supporting, through public education and outreach, initiatives in the N.H. Legislature that further these ideals.

Both RLCNH and NHRVC have operated on the Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo Groups social media portals and have a Web site with a blog. The NHRVC social media portal sites and blog have been shut down. As part of the merger, NHRVC members will be migrated into the RLCNH social media sites (Facebook | Twitter) where members discuss political ideas and candidates, and they will be invited to sign up to receive the RLCNH Report of state legislative action items as well as to visit the RLCNH Web site and blog.

“Beginning today, I am inviting all former NHRVC members to continue their involvement in pursuit of the same aims, to whatever degree suits them, under a new banner,” Steve MacDonald said. “We will be able to engage in the same  debates on Facebook and start thousands of new ones, share important links and commentary on Twitter, and use our ‘boots on the ground’ mentality in the RLCNH Yahoo Group and beyond to connect our principled ideas with principled Republicans in New Hampshire and across the nation.”

Leading up to the merger decision, NHRVC Co-Founder Kevin McHugh handed the reins to MacDonald and resigned from the organization to focus more of his time on his work and family. It was at that time that MacDonald determined that the mission of the NHRVC could be more effectively fulfilled within the structure of the RLCNH. The merger plan was developed by MacDonald and members of the RLCNH Executive Committee during the past week, and today’s announcement seals the deal.