Ricardo J Gonzalez for a Better America

New At TheLeviathan.net:

The Case for Government (Or Why I'm Not an Anarchist)
Crazy Tobacco Rules in Amsterdam
Cop Shoots Himself, Sues, Wins 4.5M
Revitalizing The Begging Economy


See you there!

If I claimed that I had been doing anything but completely neglecting my posts, I would be made into a bigger liar than Sarah Palin claiming she said "thanks, but no thanks". However, I come bearing gifts. Since I began this blog, and I got a job working at a "dot com", I have learned quite a bit about blogs, blogging, bloggers, and blogging about bloggers who blog about blogging. I have decided to reinvent this site under a new name:

The Leviathan

I am not exactly sure what the tone and content will be for the new site. I know it will focus on politics, but, the focus will be a more "blog friendly" version, posting short analysis about the various news stories of the day (like Gotta Spend Money to get Free Money), while also providing a weekly long format post talking about political philosophy, or the politics of the day (like Protection from the Tyranny of Government). The idea behind this is to continue the spirit of the blog, grow it, and also not make each post as time consuming and chore-like.

While there is very little at The Leviathan as of yet, I hope that in the comming weeks it can grow and expand. I plan to have an RSS feed, to make it easier to keep track of new posts, as well as any other modern doohikies that might come about.

I appreciate the kind words and comments over the short-lived timespan of For A Better America, and I hope to see you all posting in the new comments sections at TheLeviathan.net

Some of you may have already seen this, but Justin sent me this video. It's amazing. There's already a wikipedia article about Joe the Plumber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_plumber . I feel bad for the poor guy, the rhetoric of politicians ended up screwing him, like a sacrificial lamb for their campaign. Although, its not unusual to see one person getting sacrificed to further the goals of a politicians. It's ok because its good for the country.

From the interesting Correlation department: According to MAPLight.org, members of congress that voted for the bailout receive about 50% more in campaign contributions from bank lobbies, than those who voted no. Of course, that is not something that these congressmen and women would EVER take into account with voting, right?

I’ve been listening to a podcast of a show called Free Talk Live. One of the hosts, Ian, has a tendency to be a complete jerk to anyone he disagrees with. His position is that if you’re not a borderline anarchist, then you support government sanctioned violence, and therefore you don’t deserve his respect. In his activism with the Free State Project, he has recently been interacting with judges in a variety of small cases that are arising in the protest movement that has developed there, and even in cases where the judges have made concessions, which are small victories for the movement, he continues to be derisive.



I can surely understand his point of view. When you have a strongly held position such as his that “anyone who supports big government is directly trying to take my freedom”, it is easy to develop negative feelings against them. After all, the logical conclusion is that these people also want to harm you. But in this case I don’t think most people approach it with that mindset. When the average person says “I think the government should help ______” they don’t think of the logical consequences of how that’s funded with taxes, and how those taxes can be considered theft, etc. They just have this image of the government as a “catch-all” organization to help everyone in need. These aren’t fascists, they’re just misinformed.
This attitude of “if you don’t agree with me, screw you”, is terribly unproductive for convincing people to your viewpoint. It reminds me of the problem that plagued Ayn Rand. She was a brilliant woman, a deft author, but was completely unpleasant to anyone she disagreed with. Her works have been demonized by people who knew nothing more of her than how she treated people.
Like the old adage says, you catch more flies with honey. In the political realm most people’s opinions and preferences are much like children who don’t know any better. If you’re trying to teach a child math, you don’t yell at him for not knowing differential equations after he finally understands division. You congratulate him and encourage him, and keep trying to teach him more. If anyone wants to see our country return to a more liberty oriented society, we need to encourage and thank the bureaucrats that make baby steps towards liberty, and not insult them for not doing enough.

Six years ago President Bush appeared before a banner on a warship that said Mission Accomplished. To every observer, he appeared to be claiming that the Iraq War was over and had been a success. Today, we're still in that war. Yesterday, John McCain took credit for the successful passing of the bailout of the banks. A few hours later, the bailout plan failed. McCain is such a maverick, he's willing to spit in the face of conventional wisdom. "I've never touted the party line against counting chickens before they hatch".

More on this at Politico

When I heard that McCain had chosen Palin as his running mate, my first thought was Michael Palin of Monty Python fame. But much like the Python's Spanish Inquisition, no one really expected the choice of Gov. Sarah Palin from Alaska. Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Condaleeza Rice, Gen. Colin Powell, Gov. Bobby Jindal; these are names that I expected to hear in terms of the nomination. All of them (perhaps with the exception of Romney) would've been sufficiently outside of the "WASP" category to allow McCain, the quintessential old white guy in politics, to compete with the historical nomination of Obama. And all of them would accomplish the goal of diversity without having people wonder "Who is this person?".

So who is Gov. Sarah Palin?


Wikipedia tells us she's 44, current Governor of Alaska, previously chairperson of the Orwellian-named Alaska Oil and Gas conservation commission. The bulk of her political experience comes from Wasilla, AK, a town of around 8000 people where she was Mayor from 1996-2002.

Although she hasn't been Governor for long, she's made a big splash. She exposed Alaska Republican Party Chairman for some shady dealings he made while working at the Oil and Gas commission, she defeated the incumbent Governor Murkowski in the Republican primary, won the general election, and then auctioned off the jet that Murkowski bought on Ebay. From these instances we can see a picture of someone who's not afraid to stand up for what she believes in, who wants to get rid of the excesses of government, and who has accomplished great things in her limited time in politics.

Palin will be a great pick to energize all of those people that were going to begrudgingly vote for him because he was a Republican, but really didn't like him because he wasn't conservative enough. It also might help to distance McCain from the Bush presidency by showing someone who is a conservative, but isn't one of the good ol' boys, reinforcing McCain's image as a maverick. But for those of us who really don't have a clear decision made of whom to vote for, the swing voters, and even the Hillary supporters thinking about voting Republican, the pick makes absolutely no sense.

McCain is the oldest man to ever get the nomination for president, he's also a cancer survivor, a torture survivor, and, if elected, will have the most stressful job in the world. If the average life expectancy in the us is 75 years old, there's a good chance he wont make it through his first term, let alone 8 years. What that'll leave us with is a former Ms. Alaska runner up, who's bulk of experience comes from running a town that is smaller than the University of Idaho she got her B.A. in Communications. She'll also have 2 years of experience running Alaska, a state that is less populated than my hometown of El Paso, Tx. What about her foreign policy experience? According to her spokesman, she's traveled outside the country twice, once to Ireland, and once to Germany and Kuwait to visit the Alaska National Guard troops. If and when McCain kicks the bucket, is this who we want leading the country?

And what about other things in her life? Does a mother of 5 young children, one of whom is 4 months old and has down syndrome, really have the time to be Vice President, and maybe president?

Gov. Palin is surely an accomplished woman, and probably incredibly hardworking, and intelligent. Perhaps she would and will make an excellent VP and, if needed, commander in chief. But it's hard not to wonder if McCain didn't go out of his mind with the choice. At the very least, he's going to be eaten alive in the media for it, and at the very worst, in a moment of national tragedy, he could leave the country with someone completely unprepared to fill his shoes in the Oval office.