Nine days into the season and we have the first activity in the Atlantic Basin on the NHC warning chart. Woo!

An article about how people with tendancies toward libertarianism are feeling unhappy within the two parties (especially within the Republican party where they used to feel more at home) and talking about how Libs should be more active and “reclaim” their spot in the conservative coalition of the Republican party.

Hot-Tub Libertarians
(Ryan Sager, Real Clear Politics)

Perhaps the most interesting fact in the Pew survey, however, was that less than 6 in 10 libertarians voted for Bush in 2004. While few libertarians seem to have deserted the president between 2000 and 2004, they are split roughly evenly between the two parties. The Pew survey finds 50 percent of libertarians identifying as Republicans, 41 percent as Democrats.

Given that libertarians’ traditional home has been in the conservative base of the Republican Party for about five decades, as part of a strained partnership with social conservatives, their almost 50-50 split between the two parties today is big news.

(via Instapundit)

Of course, I disagree with this completely. For someone who really believes in small government, and that government has no business messing in either our personal affairs *or* our economic affairs… they they have no business being in either one of the two parties. The answer is not to try to “reform” the Republicans into a more Libertarian minded party while tolerating the religious nutjob social conservitives. Nor is it to to try to do something similiar from the Democratic side… it is to admit that the viewpoint is fundamentially different from both and organize that way.

And I’m not talking about the existing Libertarian Party. Too much baggage, and too many nutjobs. My entire presidential voting history was Ross Perot (Independant) in 1992 and then Harry Brown (Libertarian) in 1996 and 2000. Then the Libertarians nominated a wacko in 2004. Otherwise I probably would have voted for them again. But the LP does not have a grounding in reality. They are a bit too rigorous in their ideology and need a good dose of practicality. They will never on their own grow into something more meaningful.

What you need are Lib minded Republicans and Democrats who are already elected (there are not many, but there are perhaps a few.. I think… can’t think of any names off the top of my head though… which is a little sad…) having the guts to just go independant and speak out and not go along when their respective parties are doing the wrong thing. Enough of those, and perhaps there might eventually be a big enough block to then form a “third party” or whatnot. Unfortunately, the number of “mavericks” in both parties seems to be shrinking, not growing.

You also need Lib minded voters to NOT vote for people (in either party) that clearly advocate big government positons (either from the Conservative or Liberal side). Unfortunately, there are often no alternatives on the ballot that one can feel comfortable with. I still resent the Libs for not giving me anybody I felt I could vote for in 2004 and making me feel like I had no choice but to vote for Kerry. Now, given the complete disaster W has been, it is hard to imagine Kerry would not have been better, but that is a very low bar. I also can not imagine Kerry would have been good. Had Kerry been elected I’m sure I would be furious at many things he would have done in the past couple of years… just different things than W has done. Next time around, if there is nobody on the ballot I feel comfortable with, I will be doing write ins. The Kerry vote was a mistake and will not happen again. No voting for someone I can’t actually feel like I would choose willingly.

Many of the outrages in recent years have been completely bipartisan. And that is the problem. On one hand we have the biggest divide between “red and blue” than we’ve had seemingly in many many years. The “moderates” are a vanishing breed with little power. But at the same time more and more things that are just horrible get done with no oposition at all. (How many votes in congress were there against the Patriot Act? Against the DMCA? To insist on a declaration of war before going to war? Etc. )

It is unsustainable. At some point things will just break. If we could somehow manage to break apart the two existing parties (hey, do anti-trust laws apply here? :-) and instead get about four parties… then we could get a much more healthy dynamic going.

Of course, it will never happen under our current systems due to Duverger’s Law.

Oh well.

Enough ranting for now.

It just frustrates me when I see things suggesting that people who have strong tendancies, but in an “unorthadox” direction should just line up within one larger coalition or another. Sometimes for some narrow items when there is agreement it may make sense. But not in general… if you’re always tying yourself to a coilition that you only agree with a minority of the time, in the end you are alsways just going to get screwed over by it.

DOJ Moves to Dismiss AT&T Class Action under Cover of Night

Early Saturday morning, in the darkest hours of the night, the Department of Justice made good its threat to file a motion to dismiss our class-action lawsuit against AT&T, contending that AT&T’s collaboration with the NSA’s massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications (which violates the law and the privacy of its customers)–despite being front page news throughout the United States and the subject of government press conferences and Congressional hearings–is a state secret. The motion was accompanied by declarations by Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander, Director, National Security Agency and John D. Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence. We will vigorously oppose this motion.

(via Boing Boing)

Another example of interesting Constitutional stuff:

Executive constitutional interpretation
(Dale Carpenter, Volokh Conspiracy)

There are plenty of examples of presidents who opposed/vetoed legislation, thinking that the legislation was both unconstitutional and otherwise bad policy. Andrew Jackson’s veto of the Second National Bank is an example of this: he said in his veto message that he believed it was unconstitutional, but he also opposed it on policy grounds.

Both of the above scenarios involve presidents whose policy views lined up with their purported constitutional views. No conflict presented itself.

But here’s a challenge for bloggers and commenters everywhere: give an example of a president who opposed/vetoed legislation on the ground that he believed it to be unconstitutional, even though he otherwise supported it on policy grounds? Here the president’s view of the proper meaning of the Constitution would be opposed to his view of good policy. To put it in less abstract terms: it would be as if Andrew Jackson had loved the idea of a Second National Bank, but nevertheless vetoed it because he thought it was unconstitutional.

In the comments, very few examples of this could be found. And the most recent one was Woodrow Wilson.

See, the thing here, this should be a lot more common than it is. Presidents should view one of their primary goals as upholding the law of the land (especially the constitution) and that should take priority over their own policy viewpoints in the cases where they contradict each other. Lets review the oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Oops. This should mean that if Congress passes an unconstitutional law (never mind the Congressional oath) then it shouldn’t have to wait to get to the Supreme court… the President should veto it out of principal EVEN IF HE/SHE AGREES WITH THE GOALS OF THE LAW.

Of course, not only does that not happen these days, but the executive seems to just routinely do whatever the hell they want, with no regard to the Constitution, Congress, or pretty much anything. So looking for an executive that would even consider vetoing a bill they agree with on policy grounds because it is unconstitutional… It may be another 100 years before it happens again…

OK, I did it again. Noted some interesting URLs during work yesterday, got home tired and didn’t do anything useful at all, let alone make blog posts. So here are some more quick Links. I’ll limit myself to one sentence of comment on each. Or I’ll try anyway.

Nationwide Housing Prices Decline
(David Bernstein, The Volokh Conspiracy)

MiniTake: Yup, excellent timing, this sucks.

Fight Club Politics
(Juliet Eilperin, The Huffington Post)

MiniTake: This is where the moderates have gone. (Well, this is part of it.) The current division of everything into the crackpot left and the crakpot right, with no sane people in the middle left in positions of power is horribly detrimental. I recommend an automated redistricting algorithm based purely on population distribution and mathematics with a preference toward “simple” boundaries, but with absolutely no regard to pre-existing geographic, political or cultural divisions.

It’s Official, I Now Pity George Bush
(Trey Ellis, The Huffington Post)

MiniTake: Just the usual oedipal sort of look at the motivations of George Bush, but I found it humorous.

Clinton nearly ses rocket’s red glare
(Norm Clarke, Los Vegas Review-Journal via Drudge Report)

MiniTake: Just amusing… A porn star has a birthday party for her five year old daughter and is about to shoot off some fireworks as part of the party, and the secret service runs up telling her not to set off the fireworks, because Bill Clinton is just a few yards away.

A New Voice
(Canadian Music Creators Coalition via P2PNet via Digg)

MiniTake: Bunches of musicians coming out for file sharing and against the super strict copyright contingent. Good for them.

Treasue Coast Home Sales Drop
(Nadia Gergis, TCPalm)

MiniTake: Mostly about the Treasure Coast, which is not us, but does include a blurb saying that year over year “Home sales in the Melbourne-Palm Bay area decreased 23 percent, while the median price rose 7 percent to $222,500.” So price still up year over year, but market slowing greatly.

Da Vinci court papers ‘show secret code’
(ITV News)

MiniTake: The judge putting a secret message in his ruling. Very cool.

OK, that’s it for now. Maybe more tomorrow, maybe not. Maybe one at a time, maybe all together. Dunno.