Dissatisfaction

The current political environment bristles with excitement. As I travel across Ohio meeting with various groups, I am struck by how many people are becoming familiar with the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, and the wisdom of the Founders. Each local organization has its own organizational structure even if it has been patterned after a national model. Each local group has its own emphases and priorities sometimes in accordance with the larger organization, and often in addition to those that are of broader concern. Certainly, the level of activity and the nature of their actions vary widely among the newly-active.


At the risk of engaging in oversimplification, I believe that I can place the members of the Patriot groups, Tea Partiers, Liberty Lobbyists and so forth into four distinct categories: the Discontented; the Dissenters; the Disillusioned; and the Disenfranchised. Not only does each local organization appear to reflect one of these categorical distinctions, but within each local committee, one can find some members who represent the various aspects of the spectrum. The Discontented believe that the political system is generally operating reasonably well, but that on specific issues and certain policy matters, the government (federal, state, or local) has failed to address the concerns of the voters. The Disillusioned suspect that the entire government apparatus at every level has gone haywire, and they fear that it may be too late to restore any level of sanity to our system of self-governing. The Disenfranchised believe that government has become a cudgel of tyranny that is committed to beating the citizenry into submission. The Dissenters represent, in my view, the largest segment of the Patriot movement. They merge their love of country, respect for the Founders and the Documents, with passionate belief that they can ferret out good candidates, support them and restore the nation, state or local community. Generally Dissenters are more optimistic about the future of the Republic than are the other attitudinal categories. In my experience, Dissenters are Republicans who seek to purge the party of RINO’s and liberals. They maintain their allegiance to the GOP while seeking to support candidates who represent the conservative mainstream and the principles associated with conservatism. Some Dissenters have chosen to run for County Central Committee posts in order to assure that the conservative emergence is not short lived.

Many of us who are Libertarian candidates either seek or are offered opportunities to meet with many of the Patriot groups to explain our positions and to engage in informational dialogue with their members. Our assumptions as we encounter the Patriot groups are varied. Some of us go with the idea that all citizens who are disgruntled provide a willing audience for our message of smaller Constitutional government, low taxes and more personal freedom. It is up to us to convince them that Libertarianism is the vehicle for them to express their dissatisfaction. Our anti-tyranny, pro-freedom message should be attractive for the Disenfranchised people. Their angst will find a home in a third party such as ours. The Disillusioned, too, provide an opportunity for Libertarians to acquire some votes and support. They desperately want a new direction of governance that is more citizen oriented—more bottom up.

The Discontented and Dissenters are more problematic for Libertarian candidates. If they have been Democrats and are discouraged with the leftist progressive influence within the party, then they become ripe targets for the Libertarian message. If, on the other hand, the Discontented and Dissenters are within the ranks of the GOP, then their primary focus is to reform and restore the party. A Libertarian candidate who clearly shares their views and their objectives may be considered if he/she is not running for an office that could sway the balance of power between the two old parties. The fact that these four groups are frustrated with the political systems as it presently functions is an advantage for Libertarians, but because this is perceived to be a Republican year due to Democrat overreaching at the federal level, the Discontented and the Dissenters may decide to “stay home,” and thus become more difficult to convince that Libertarianism is in their best interest. Nevertheless, we should engage them all and share our message of liberty.

Comment or email: cnpearl@woh.rr.com

Brain Lock

Brain lock, my definition: possessing reasonable mental acuity, but lacking the capacity for using it. To phrase it another way: Why do seemingly intelligent people sometimes act so stupidly? We can observe instances of brain lock in nearly every aspect of human behavior. Minor traffic accidents may be the result of momentary brain freeze. Thoughtless and hurtful statements directed toward those we love may have arisen in an instant of mental incapacity. In my experience, however, brain lock is most prevalent in the realm of political thought and action. People often promote and vote for candidates whose histories are antithetical to their own professed interests. For example, why would someone claim to desire a smaller, Constitutionally-based government, and yet, vote for a clown who habitually supports legislation that is extra-Constitutional and generally budget busting? Has our brain-locked voter bought the sizzle and ignored the steak?


For those of us who cherish freedom, who don’t want some overpaid bureaucrat calling the shots for every aspect of our lives, it is difficult to understand why some who apparently share our concerns and values continue to support lifetime politicians who betray those very values. It is frustrating for some of us who have been consumed by the passion for self determination and personal responsibility to comprehend how so many people can be duped by syrupy words that do not reflect the actual record of the politician who utters them. Are these people naïve? Are they ignorant and unaware of the politician’s perfidy? Are they stupid? It’s a mystery for many freedom lovers. The stock answer that we are given when we ask voter why she/he votes as they do is...”if I vote for your people, then that would dilute the vote and X would win.” So, what you’re saying Ms./Mr. Voter is that partisan considerations trump principle. You’ve always supported a particular party, and if they can retain or return to power, then maybe, just maybe, this time, they’ll live up to their platform. You’ve always voted that way, and you dare not change now because your doing the principled thing would shake and destroy the foundations of your long-time party. Is that what you’re saying?

My question for you, Dear Citizen, is why not consecrate your devotion to the Rotary or Lions Club rather than a big-tent political machine? At least as a Rotarian, when you engage in such brain-dead decision making, you will not be jeopardizing my freedom, my property and my life. As a member of the Lions Club, you would, at the very least, be helping individuals rather than putting the country, my country, at risk by continuing to support your long-time political club. Either stand up and step out for freedom, Citizen, or stay home. Your unwillingness to put it all on the line for freedom makes you unworthy of it.

Comment or email:  cnpearl@woh.rr.com

Party 3.0

With the advent of the “Tea Party” movement there is evidence of angst within certain political circles. Recently I have noted conservative bloggers and commentators warning that an effort to form a third party would be disastrous for the Republic. They argue that a movement coalescing into a party as a result of massive discontent with “politics as usual” would inevitably lead to an electoral victory for the progressive statists because the Constitutionalist/ Conservative majority would be divided. Perhaps.


As I approach my sixty-fourth birthday, I can count the scars and see the scorch marks all over my body as a result of my life-long reliance on Republican PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS to do the right thing…respect the limits of the Constitution. To expect ANY professional politician to honor the limits of Constitutional governance is, in my view, misplaced, naïve and stupid. Too often in the past four decades or so, I have witnessed political newcomers rail against the encroachment of big unresponsive government, only to watch them become more comfortable and, in fact, enable the incremental growth of government and its power over us. They transform from hard-charging challengers into defenders of the status quo. Their rhetoric changes from promoting the principle for the reduction of government influence to “I’ve offered amendments to minimize the damage.” They become (literally and figuratively) fat and comfortable as they pursue their lifetime careers from local to state to national arenas while proclaiming their devotion to limited government. They vote to put levies on the ballot so that “the people can get involved,” when in reality they have conspired with their cohorts to increase spending, and they do not have the courage to stop the spending or oppose the levy. The longer they seek office the smaller their reservoir of courage becomes. Their job-preservation instincts overwhelm their notions of servant hood. They plead, they beg, they grovel, and they barter for your votes so that they can “continue the fight for fiscal integrity.” Meanwhile, the budget grows faster than the GDP. Public employee unions become more rigidly embedded in the system. Taxes and fees are necessarily increased to finance the profligacy of our beloved guardians of Constitutional government.

With the socialist/progressive element of American politics, I know what I am getting. They’ll lie and misrepresent their intentions, and distort the outcomes of their ludicrous policies and actions. They’ll promise Nirvana and deliver nothing. They’ll confiscate my property and severely circumscribe my freedom. They’ll demean me, denounce me and, perhaps, destroy me. But I know who they are. I can resist them and fight them for every inch of Liberty’s turf. My “friends,” on the other hand will lull me into subservience with sweet utterances such as “rights, low taxes, common sense, and spending cuts” as they become complicit in the inexorable growth of the big “Nanny” state. It was a Republican who initiated the EPA and OSHA. It was a Republican who enacted wage and price controls. It was a Republican who started the massive federal land grab to set aside millions of acres and remove them from private development. It was a Republican who proposed a massive unfunded expansion of Medicare and increased the federal role in public education. I know who my enemies are, but it’s my friends who have betrayed me…time and time again. Screw it. Screw them. I would rather go down fighting, kicking and screaming…and be right. I will no longer be led and misled by PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS who artfully claim to be my friends. I will be betrayed no more. I am now a Libertarian, and I want my country back!

Comment or email:  cnpearl@woh.rr.com

Free Choice

The past one hundred years has been a century of amazing invention. My grandfather was born in 1900…before the Wright brothers’ historic 12 second flight, prior to Henry Ford’s assembly lines, and 12 years before Arizona became the 48th state in our union.


The first radio station of note, KDKA in Pittsburg, went on the air in 1923, and television began to be developed throughout the nation following the end of World War II. My generation, the Baby Boomers, began to populate the country in 1946 (my year) (so, what’s the second thing you did after getting home, soldier boy?).

There is one year that stands out for me in those early times…1952. Eisenhower was running for his first term, and Senator Robert Taft was still a power in GOP politics. Our little farm family leaped into the latter half of the 20th century with three major technological enhancements. We acquired an indoor bathroom by converting an old pantry. We purchased a power mower—a Reo reel-type, and we got our first TV from Spoon’s Hardware in McCutchenville, Ohio. It was a black and white GE model. With our 40 foot antenna we could pick up one station from Toledo---channel 13. Later, when I was in Junior High, we could access a second channel (11). It wasn’t until after I had left home that my parents could get channel 24 by attaching a UHF converter to their set. Today on my little farmette, my little patch of paradise, I receive more than 400 channels and watch eight—RFDTV, BIGTEN, CBS, FOX, Fox News, C-SPAN, C-SPAN II and The Gospel Music Channel. On rare occasions I turn to HGTV and the DIY networks. So that’s ten channels that I utilize out of the hundreds available to me. The bottom line is that I prefer books to TV, and except for Buckeye sports, I would rather read than watch.

When I was a child, I always anticipated a trip to “town” (Tiffin). If the timing were right and the egg money was sufficient, I would be treated to a hamburger at “Johnny’s” on East Madison Street. John and his wife, Mary, later opened a restaurant on Sandusky Street, but those burgers at the old location were the best that I have ever eaten. Today, nearly every intersection is populated with multiple chain restaurants offering a phenomenal variety of culinary choices. From the time that I eagerly awaited the delectable hamburgers from Johnny’s to today when I have difficulty choosing which cookie-cutter eatery to visit, I wonder if my life has improved. We have more choices for eating out. We have more choices on our televisions. We have more choices in nearly every aspect of our daily living, but yet…

As our lives have become less strenuous, and our options for entertainment and diversion have grown, our government has been growing as well. Our meaningless options have dramatically increased, and our significant choices have been reduced. We have the freedom to choose the burger de jour, but over regulation by the Nanny state has shrunk our abilities for vital decision making to a mere vestige of what they once were. I have concluded that I will willingly go back to one good hamburger choice. I will gleefully return to one or two channels of local television… If I must in order to restore the freedom, the liberty that once was mine. While I was staring at the Golden Arches, they took my country away. It stops now…today. No more diversions, no more accepting progress when it is wrapped in tyranny. It…stops…now.

Comment or email:  cnpearl@woh.rr.com

Freedom Now

As I travel across Ohio, I am reminded again and again about the phenomenal diversity that we enjoy here. From our mountains in the east (little ones, to be sure) to our prairies in the west, our massive river in the east and south, our bountiful lake in the north all together comprise a topographical and geographical wonderland. Within the boundaries of our roughly-square state are many rivers and lakes, fertile fields, lush valleys and mineral-laden hills. If we were any where else in the world, we would have the foundation for a vibrant little country.


Our diversity is multiplied by the nature of our people and their roots. Each of our large cities and other geographic areas throughout Ohio represent enclaves of many different immigrant groups. Ours is a state that truly does reflect a cross-section of America. Eastern and Western Europeans, Africans, Asians, and South Americans have come to Ohio and thrived. Some have had more success than others, but all have come here with a dream. The great smoke-belching factories, the fertile farmland and the innovative entrepreneurs of Ohio have projected a promise of potential prosperity to all who settled here. The Wright brothers and Charles Kettering were Ohioans. The Libbeys, Proctor and Gamble and the Higbees built their legacies here. Dirty hands provide the evidence of Ohio’s strength—whether the dirt be grease or soil. Times have changed. Ohio has changed. We have changed.

Ohio is struggling now. Our great industrial base is a shadow of what it once was. Our agricultural productivity is being challenged by suburban sprawl, increasing regulation, and, as usual, uncertain markets, high input costs and shrinking opportunities. Ohio’s great retail base has eroded because of the disappearance of companies and jobs. My personal sense is that the “can-do” spirit and innovative creativity that has been so much a part of Ohio’s past has been blunted and stunted. It seems as if Ohio were presently surviving on life support. That’s not all bad. Look to our north. Michigan is on the autopsy table. The operative portion of life support is “life.” We still have a glimmer of life. We can, by following the proper corrective procedures, restore the state. We can restructure the economy. We can rebuild the optimism. We can restore the spirit.

How do we do this you may ask? The easy answer is that we limit the government’s interference in our daily lives and our economic activity. How do we go about achieving a more limited government? The first step is to recognize that there is a problem (AA is right). One can do an economic analysis of regions, states and countries and discern that there is a direct correlation between the influence of the prevailing government and the robust activity in the proscribed area. Now we know that correlation does not necessarily translate into causation, but when one is searching for a remedy for economic stagnation, a correlation may provide a valuable clue. Finding a cure for Ohio’s economic woes is compounded by the fact that we an integral component of the Great Lakes/Midwest region and are one state out of fifty in the United States. It seems reasonable, therefore that any measures taken by Ohioans will be impacted by regional and national considerations. An example would be the plethora of Federal mandates and nation-wide rulemaking that undermines economic energy in Ohio. Our goal should be to do as much as is possible with the tools in our kit, and then, to circumvent or reject the negative impact of the region and the national government.

First of all, the radical realist in me knows/believes that statewide tweaking and half-measures will be fruitless. They would offer a glimmer of hope without delivering the reality. Instead of a scalpel for trimming the edges of a large bloated state government apparatus (the GOP approach), we should fire up a chain saw and reduce the overgrown tree of Ohio government to a stump of basic, fundamental and necessary government. Concurrent with our radical reorganization of Ohio, we should adamantly and forcefully embrace the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as well as utilizing nullification strategies wherever possible. Personal experience should have taught each of us that half-measures corrupt the ideal, and even if the ideal is by definition unachievable, half –measures distort the ideal into something that becomes unimaginable. If you take a squirt gun into a knife fight, you will soon discover that winning is not a practical objective. You may also learn that survival is doubtful. Enter that same confrontation while packing a 45, and you will note that your perspective about the outcome has changed. So it is with rebuilding, restoring or renewing Ohio. If we use the squirt gun, we will drown in our own blood. If we use the handgun (metaphorically speaking), then we can forcefully open the portals of freedom. We can construct an island of opportunity and freedom right here in the crossroads of the nation. With a new attitude about the role of state government (should be rarely seen and even more rarely heard), businesses and visionaries from surrounding leviathans will flock to our climate of encouragement.

“Outside the box” has become a metaphor for creative thinking and problem solving. Already it is somewhat of a cliché, but if one examines the trajectory of prosperity in Ohio, one might note that we are inexorably drifting toward an inescapable box…a coffin. Our major economic sectors are gasping for air. Our workforce is aging. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our political leadership is AWOL. The primary key, as I see it, for escaping this inevitable slide is to develop a system that allows individuals to thrive. Historically, the GOP has been perceived as too friendly to corporate interests although the Democrats have their own favorite corporate buddies. The Democrats have been identified as the party of “groups.” Labor, minorities, women…find a group, and the Democrats will promote it, but the Republicans have their own organized groupies.

Governments at every level must recognize the value of the individual if this nation, and this state, wish to reverse our slide into mediocrity…and finally, insignificance. The gift of grace is a promise to the individual. Why can’t governments recognize, acknowledge and encourage individual initiative? Why cannot governments cherish and promote individual freedom? Why do governments seem compelled to constrain, restrain and deny an individual’s dream? Those who represent the government may believe that whatever they do is in the best interest of those they govern, but they often fail to understand that every little speed bump, every tiny hurdle or every arbitrary rule inhibits the free exercise of the creative force of the individual. A community suffers a loss, a state loses a benefit and a nation loses power when the spark of ingenuity is squelched in an individual. Multiply that effect by many people and a nation will suffer the consequences of broken dreams and shattered hopes. The source of wondrous development is not the bosom of government, but it resides in the hearts and minds of people who dream…big dreams and little dreams. Let us dream, let us build, let us be free to be all we can be. Let us fail, for we can get up and try again, and our new efforts will be better than our previous ones. Allow us to consume the heady air of triumph or wallow in the despair of defeat, because we do not need you, Government, to insure our success. Help us by providing a limited set of rules and by your enforcing them, then turn us loose and watch us grow…as will you. Government of the people means that if you allow us to flourish, then you will thrive as well. If you stifle our spirits and our creative impulses, then we will all wither and fade away. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

Comment or email: cnpearl@woh.rr.com

Hearts and Minds

Sometimes I get so frustrated that I could chew through my restraints. I attend events with people who express their anger about the current state of affairs in our government, and then worry about “wasting” their votes. My mental trampoline responds with”What? Waste your vote? Take a look around you, Buford! You’ve been wasting your vote for forty years or more.”


Then I listen to some folks who have the right principles to reset this country on a corrective course, and they don’t want to shake this bush by confronting the weak-minded types. Instead of the Irresistible Force versus the Immovable Object, we have weak-willed pseudo-patriots versus passionless principled pain-in-the-asses. Sometimes we have inarticulate screamers attempting to sway brain-dead purists. No wonder we’re screwed up. No wonder we are so absolutely screwed. We get what we deserve, and we deserve what we get.

Dear Reader, absolute purity and perfection are not available for us. That is why we have grace. On the other hand, political candidates who are on the outside looking in must do more than mildly reason with the voters…or screech at them. Voters must understand that the Founders willingly forfeited their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor because they believed in the principle of a smaller less intrusive government. If the Founders risked everything except their souls for the principle of freedom, why are you, the voters, so afraid to risk a vote…to “split the vote” for principle. You apparently are much too cowardly to have been a Founder. You must be a Tory.

Candidates who challenge the status quo by asking for citizens to vote for principled leadership must be worthy of assuming the role of leader. A clown with good ideas is still a clown, and people will not follow him. He lacks credibility. On the other hand, voters who claim to be weary of professional politicians, nevertheless, use that very professionalism as a standard when weighing their options. They seem to want candidates who aren’t professional to act as if they are, and conversely, they want their professional perpetual politicians to be more like them…the normal citizen. Guess what? Everybody loses.

James Madison was just less than 5 feet 4 inches tall and spoke with a high-pitched voice, but when he spoke…people listened. He is the individual most responsible for the development of the Constitution of the United States. He probably wouldn’t get a hearing today because he doesn’t conform to our image of a statesman and a leader. In this age of glitz and glamour, he would be dismissed because he doesn’t look the part. Before candidates start to feel sorry for themselves because they share some of the physical attributes that Madison, they should note that what he said was worthy of notice. He didn’t screech platitudes and slogans or become obsessed with jots and tittles. He spoke from the heart using a reasoned mind and a passionate love of liberty. Not bad for a pipsqueak, huh? Final note…our candidates need more reason and passion and our voters need more guts.

Comment or email: cnpearl@woh.rr.com