Paul vs Christie - the Showdown Begins

Everyone already knows that Rand Paul and Chris Christie are the Republican heavyweights headed for the big game in 2016. The question I'm wondering is whether they can keep it civil enough to both run on the ticket or if Christie's callous indifference to public opinion will lose out over Paul's difficulty staking out America's libertarian middle ground. There's also the bizarre AquaBuddha story lurking in the background to derail Paul, but he's already had to deal with it pretty up close.

But my main point here is to point out some ominous words coming from Christie that drew scathing criticism from Paul and now do so from me:

"This all began last week when Christie said at an Aspen Institute forum that there is a 'strain of libertarianism' within the Republican Party by those who oppose the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program and other counterterrorism techniques. The governor said Paul and others in the GOP could come to New Jersey and explain their opposition to the 'widows and orphans' who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 terror attacks."

 From the AP via CBS Denver:

“I remember what this country was like on Sept. 12.... I’m very nervous about the direction this is moving in. I think we need to be very cautious … about shifting this thing way back."

 Chris Christie is trying to pay lip service to the national security establishment in the hopes that it will win him what looks to be a very, very bloody nomination process, unless as I said earlier he has already made the veep deal with Rand Paul.

But let's focus on the main issue, which is not Rand Paul but the preservation of the essence of American society. Remember above where I referred to the staking out of America's libertarian middle ground? This is the most important of my points. We are libertarian at heart.

I remember in public school trying to get to my backpack that was hanging on a wall and asking a classmate to please step aside so I could get to it. He responded, "I'm not moving. It's a free country." While that's one extreme case, it demonstrates how much freedom is in our air. Go to Japan, go to Germany or the UK, go to most places in Latin America or Africa and you won't find the air of freedom the way you do in the United States.

While I admit there are herds of mindless Americans who have grown so used to Facebook and smart phones that they refuse to practise security on a personal level, I still know how much freedom means to our culture and way of life. The Republican nomination in 2016 will be about whether freedom can still survive. We had hoped for Barack Obama to bring us that change, but his refusal to budge from a very anti-libertarian middle ground has squandered all the Democratic advances made in the horrors of the Bush era. With the Democratic Party already promising to put more police officers in the streets and continue reckless government abuses of power until it is voted out of office, America now turns its eye again to the Republican Party to see what morally-upright characters might still stroll amongst its ruins.

If you ask your average progressive whether he would vote for a libertarian or a capitalist conservative centrist, it's pretty obvious to see what would happen should Rand Paul win the nomination. It will be a very difficult process, but it will be enabled by all the liberal areas of the US that have recently moved in the direction of month-long elections and same-day registration. Young voters are leaning libertarian in larger numbers.

Remember that Rand Paul's father Ron Paul polled at a solid 30-33% in post-debate opinion polls for much of the primary process, until only the main contenders were left. Ron Paul also almost won Iowa with all the new voters he was able to muster, coming in just a hair behind the whirlwind Santorum blitz and the perpetual Romney machine. And Ron Paul won the overwhelming majority of caucus delegates from Iowa, for all the good it did him.

It's safe to say that Rand Paul's presence in Iowa should not be discounted, which I think explain's Christie's early attack. Sadly, it predisposes me against him. Sure, much of the centrist "I don't really follow politics" crowd who voted Christie into office will continue to support him at the national level, but I really don't think the middle of America is asking for it. Post-Bush and post-Obama, we need a real reformer.

Speaking of which, just take a look at the new Pope's stance on homosexuality. After growing up in a very Catholic part of the East Coast, I see it as nothing short of a miracle.

Let's pray we can get the miracle of an independent reformer in the White House again. Vetoing almost every bill would go a long way in cleaning up the bovine excreta of the legislative branch, even if it could put us into a short period of mild chaos. It's just trading the chaos of today's bureaucracy for the chaos of a few months' of reforms.

Use Pope Francis's cleaning up of the Vatican as the example here. Sure it causes a little chaos that the prelate of the Vatican Bank is indicted for theft and fraud. But restoring the brand to its true foundations thereby restoring trust of its clients/citizens to it is far more important to the brand in the long run than questions of growth or chaos. Long-term growth on a solid foundation is far more valuable as an asset, but America is heavily in personal and national debt.

Under Obama, the economy has been gaining ground, and businesses don't want that trend to stop, even in the name of reform. Even if the Obama economy can continue another two years of even more robust growth, Americans will still vote in droves for Rand Paul the same way they voted for George W. Bush. The current holders of debt and credit in America do not want the loose credit environment to stop, even if it means strengthening the ability of their debtors to pay up. They will be happy to line Christie's process for a bloody fight, again, unless Rand Paul is already playing along to their tune.

In the end, Rand Paul has irked me on some decisions, but time will tell whether he plays to money or to the tune of Liberty.

Manning's Convictions

Just a warning to y'all:

I've been out of blog-land for over a month, but a lot of news has been building up. I'll be firing out a few more of these in rapid succession over the next 48 hours.

So let's start out this post with the hottest First Amendment story of the hour: Bradley Manning's conviction. Manning was found guilty on 20 out of 22 counts. The mainstream media are reporting the fact that he was found not guilty of aiding the enemy as though it is some miracle when in reality it was a horrendously inept charge for prosecutors to level in the first place. The only reason for including the charge I can imagine is that the military wanted to send a strong signal to other soldiers that they would be charged similarly in their cases.

Believe me, I understand the need for internal security in the military. But what I don't understand is why an 18-year-old private was given access to classified national military secrets. I also don't understand why he had access to State Department information. It seems to me that our foreign affairs should not be part of even the DIA, but then again the DIA has grown far beyond its initial mandate and resists attempts to rein in its activities legally. I digress....

Back on why a young service member ranking at private would be allowed access to any of this stuff. It is a pressing issue of national law and fundamental chaos in our military bureaucracy when young, inexperienced personnel are handling information that should not even be within reach. In our effort to innovate and share information more quickly, the United States has wired its nation with an intelligence network that can function like a bomb with billions of independent parts. Bradley Manning just went off when he wasn't supposed to.

How much easier then for a civilian subcontrator - say Edward Snowden? - to use his position to steal the entire structure of the NSA. Bottom line: No more unaccountable personnel working in intelligence, period.

We don't need contractors or subcontractors gaining access, we don't need novices gaining access, we don't need one inept government branch sharing information it shouldn't with another inept branch, and we don't need any civilians except our appointed officials to be looking at sensivitve information. When information does need to be shared, it can be; however, the twin responses "We put it all up on the internet but it's password protected" and "the Federal government invented and owns the internet" should not be the excuse behind every lapse.

The American public are obviously victims of both Bradley Manning's inexperience and the Department of Defense's atrocious handling of intelligence for our national security, but while Manning today stands convicted of 20 counts for his part in the problem, the various officials above him in his chain of command will ever bear no responsibility for the bureaucratic mess they sustain around themselves, and many of the elected officials who wrote the poor legislation that enabled these abuses are lying six feet below amongst nettles and stones. Nobody is going to jail for allowing an 18-year-old to gain access to classified documents.

Manning is the scapegoat, but the American public must suffer with him, knowing that Bradley Manning could just as easily have stolen those dirty pictures of you doing the thing you shouldn't have in the place you shouldn't have been and leaked them to the media, in which case he wouldn't have been pursued by military investigators and maybe you'd be the one losing your job and answering to 22 counts in a court of law. Sadly, it's more common than you think.

If this is the future of our society, count me among the Amish.