United Liberty

After CNN’s first Libertarian Town Hall for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in June, the consensus among at least the rightist pundit class was that it was an awkward at best introduction for the ticket to the national television audience. In the sequel that aired Wednesday night, both former governors made a much more refined, articulate case for what they term their “down the middle” approach between the two major parties.

Most compelling arg of #JohnsonWeld2016 is that libertarianism is actually in the middle, not fringe of both sides. #LibTownHall

— Matthew DesOrmeaux ⚜ (@authoridad) August 4, 2016

In the typical analysis, libertarians are seen as more socially permissive than Democrats, being more permissive on drugs and prostitution for example, and more fiscally restrictive than Republicans, seeking to cut government and rely on free market even more. This usually puts the Libertarian Party at the fringe on both spectrums.

There was bound to be a schism between Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and his more conservative and right-libertarian potential supporters before the election. This week it finally came, on the controversial but vital issue of religious liberty.

In an interview with Tim Carney at the DNC, Johnson set off alarms by calling the issue, especially in the context of the cake debates, a “black hole”.

Here’s the issue. You’ve narrowly defined this. But if we allow for discrimination — if we pass a law that allows for discrimination on the basis of religion — literally, we’re gonna open up a can of worms when it come stop discrimination of all forms, starting with Muslims … who knows. You’re narrowly looking at a situation where if you broaden that, I just tell you — on the basis of religious freedom, being able to discriminate — something that is currently not allowed — discrimination will exist in places we never dreamed of.

As a fellow left-libertarian, I think Johnson is exactly right, but read the whole thing for the full context. His campaign further clarified what he meant when asked by Taylor Millard.

The governor’s reference is to the fact that when you go down the path of legislating religious liberty, with the best of intentions, there is a very real risk of creating unintended consequences.

It is not in any way a suggestion that religious liberty and freedom is not essential — and protected in the constitution.

Throughout the primary and now the general election campaign, observers have asked which line Trump crosses will finally doom his campaign. He launched his campaign by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists, and survived. He bragged about the size of his genitals in a televised debate, and survived.

The Onion perfectly summarized this widening gyre in December.

I realize it’s getting cruelly ironic at this point, but I think this time Increasingly Nervous Man (read: me) might be right.

At a rally today, the GOP nominee for president literally asked a foreign government to hack American infrastructure to reveal classified information to him to affect our elections. This is not just an offensive or crude remark; it’s treason.

Trump to Russia: I hope you find the missing Hillary emails (some of which could contain classified intelligence) pic.twitter.com/fy919ChGuE

— Justin Green (@JGreenDC) July 27, 2016

There was a glowing, arrogant consensus among smug Trump supporters yesterday, after RNC delegates officially nominated him to be president. #NeverTrump, the movement among conservatives and libertarians who vowed to never support the candidate, for many, varied, and sundry reasons, was through.

#NeverTrump is #NeverMore

— Chris Barron (@ChrisRBarron) July 19, 2016

Wow wrong. Someone needs to be reminded what the word “never” means.

Never. Not ever. Not even once.

#NeverTrump began in the Republican primary as an effort to deny Trump the nomination, once it became apparent that the polls were right and he was cruising toward it. It was by definition not designed to end there.

Many Trump opponents during primary season have since surrendered and endorsed or vowed to at least vote for him reluctantly. These people weren’t really #NeverTrump. The rest of us still are. And never means never.

On nearly every statistical measure, human society has improved dramatically over the last few decades. War, famine, disease, poverty, infant mortality are all down globally. Violent crime, cancer, teen pregnancy, abortion, drug use are all down nationally. Some of these truths come as a shock to people for one reason: media.

We have 24-hour news networks and social media that act like megaphones for tragedy. Every time someone gets shot, especially when multiple people do, it’s a breaking news event. And every time it’s tragic. But it’s not more common.

Gun deaths have been declining since the early 1990s. Mass shootings, depending on how they’re defined, are even more rare, though by definition prone to spikes.

Unfortunately this year might prove to break the trend on one unfortunate statistic: police gun deaths. Due mostly to the recent massacres in Dallas and Baton Rouge, on-duty police deaths are up nearly to their full-year level last year. Overall, cop assassinations have been on the decline for some time, so hopefully this horrific year will prove to be just an outlier and not the start of a reversing trend.

Texas, the land of liberty, proud former republic, happy to be left alone to grill meat and eat tacos until the end of the earth, is supposed to take care of its own and not demand federal government interference, even when times get tough. But that’s exactly what two bills just introduced by the Lone Star State’s senators do. Neither is necessary or advisable, especially in light of justice reform efforts that do the opposite.

After the horrific police massacre in Dallas last weekend, John Cornyn has introduced a bill to make killing law enforcement officers and other public officials a federal crime with a new mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years and option for the death penalty. While a reaction of this magnitude is understandable after Dallas and other recent attacks on police, in reality it’s much more of an overreaction.

Killing a police officer is already a capital offense in almost every state that has the death penalty, including Texas. The country is currently debating whether the states and federal government should have the death penalty at all; adding new qualifications for it should be out of the question, especially when states are handling it just fine on their own.

Yesterday afternoon I drove two hours to Baton Rouge to attend a prayer vigil for Alton Sterling, the man killed by police the day before. Governor John Bel Edwards was in attendance and made some remarks in support of the victim, his family, law enforcement, and the community as a whole.

When I arrived home after the two hour drive back, the massacre in Dallas was just beginning. The world turned upside down…

Since last night, the motive of the Dallas killers, or at least one of them, have become clear. The only suspect killed by police told them during the prior negotiations that he “wanted to kill white people.” But he also told them that he was working alone, which almost certainly was not true. So we still don’t know everything.

The frustrating thing for me is that the stated target of “white people” in a police shooting protest necessarily becomes cops, because those are usually the only white people there in significant numbers. Even at the Baton Rouge prayer vigil, which was held in a large black church to be sure, there were almost no other white people in attendance who weren’t part of a media crew or security detail.

FBI Director James Comey held a surprise press conference Tuesday morning. It was announced about an hour before it was scheduled to begin, but with no subject specified, so speculation on Twitter was swift and relentless.

Comey statement: “So can we discuss Game of Thrones you guys”

— Sunny (@sunnyright) July 5, 2016

The obvious topic was the correct one: Hillary Clinton’s private email controversy. For 15 minutes, Comey rattled off all the negligence and irresponsibility the FBI had uncovered in their year-long investigation. Since he sees no criminal malfeasance, though, he will not recommend that the Department of Justice pursue charges.

Everything Comey did say, however, should completely disqualify Secretary Clinton from ever holding public office or receiving a security clearance. He basically went over a checklist of everything she said in her first press conference on the issue in March 2015 and proved each one wrong.

When you hear “tough on crime”, you think of convicting criminals with long, harsh sentences and no parole. For decades, that was the standard operating procedure for states and cities across the country. One minor problem - it made crime worse, not better.

After nearly 10 years of trying new ideas in some of those states, the evidence is clear. Being tough on crime requires treating criminals like people, since, well, they are.

In 2007 Texas was faced with a problem - build new prisons it couldn’t afford, or find another way. It found another way. The Justice Reinvestment Initiative increased rehabilitation services in several areas: drug abuse, mental health, occupational training, and education. The results are undeniable. Texas saved between $3 and 5 billion in costs and has lowered both crime rates and the state prison population by double digits.

Since Texas pioneered the approach, 32 states have made significant reforms to their criminal justice systems and subsequently seen decreases in both incarceration and crime rates, according to Jenna Moll of the US Justice Action Network at FreedomWorks’ #JusticeForAll summit over the weekend. It’s simply a provable fact now that there is no public safety benefit from incarceration-only policies.

The problem with the old “tough on criminals” approach is that 95% of convicts get out of jail. What shape do we want them in when they do? Do we want them ready to reintegrate into society, healthier, smarter, more well adjusted? Or do we want them locked away for years with their own kind to hone their anti-social behaviors into superpowers?

Mitt Romney won the state of Utah in 2012 with 72% of the vote, over President Obama’s 24%, a 48-point landslide margin. It was then surprising when Donald Trump’s campaign trumpeted a poll Tuesday showing him beating Hillary Clinton in the state by…9 points.

.@realDonaldTrump +9% UTAH#Trump2016 #AmericaFirsthttps://t.co/aBdXl5WLdP pic.twitter.com/XeFStRsniY

— Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) June 21, 2016

Even more shocking than Trump’s 39-point deficit below Romney’s threshold is where the rest of the field stands.

Hillary Clinton has a slight edge over Obama’s 2012 total in the state, 27% to 24%. Combined with Trump’s 36%, that’s only 63% of poll respondents. Where did everyone else go?

There are only two other candidates named in the poll. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson pulls 10% (1.2% in 2012), and Green Party candidate Jill Stein pulls 2% (0.3% in 2012). A whopping 18% prefer another unnamed candidate, and 8% just don’t know.

In case you’re not familiar with arithmetic, Johnson’s 10, Stein’s 2, Other’s 18, and Shruggie’s 8 all add up to 38%. That’s 2% more than Trump. More accurately, the poll’s top line should read #NeverTrump 38, Trump 36, Clinton 27.