Thank Nebraska! Your daughters are safe!

Thanks to the nanny state of Nebraska, parental decisions are moot and newborn babies are evidence of rape.

A 14 year old girl's parents gave permission to 22 year old Matthew Koso to marry their daughter. Nebraska doesn't allow anyone under the age of 17 to get married so Matt and his fiancee (pregnant at the time) crossed the border to Kansas where such marriages are legal.

Nebraska is charging Matthew with statutory rape, a charge that has a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.

Kansas' governor is "embarrassed" that her state still allows parents freedom to determine when their daughters are eligible for marriage and has proposed that the minimum age be raised.

To the prosecutors "shock" most of the responses he's gotten from his constituents are in support of the couple. Looks like there are more libertarians out there than the statists would have you believe....

demidog

Look Ma! No Dues!

Seems like the Libertarian Party has had the best idea they've had in a long while. No More Dues!

I am sure there will be people complaining about this if they haven't already started, but I think it's a great idea. I don't think it's going to grow the LP coffers, but it will grow the membership rolls and increase the mailing lists just by virtue of the free membership.

Way to go guys.

demidog

LibertyForum: RIP?

Looks like maybe John Deere's experiment has finally come to an end. From my machine the site is no longer reachable. I do know that the DNS entry was set to expire soon.

Seems as if there must have been a catastrophic outage of some kind, intentional or otherwise. I do hope it comes back online but if not, it was fun while it lasted. Thanks JD, for the memories and opportunities.

demidog

I'm talking and I can't shut up!

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, why can't right wing pundits ever just shut up?

Pat Robertson today decided to "apologize" for saying the U.S. should assasinate Chavez. I don't really see the big deal about his original remarks. We live in a country where it is alleged that free speech is revered.

Whenever somebody says something controversial and then "takes it back" you've got to wonder about their sanity.

Rush Limbaugh attempted to back out of his own stupid comments by telling his listeners that they hadn't actually heard him say what he said the day before. That's pretty funny. But that's Rush for you. 100% chutspah, 0% kosher.... Unfortunately, most of his listeners believe him. He at least didn't apologize. Of course given his numerous criticisms of those who offer vacant apologies, he had little choice but to claim the statements, over which he was so thoroughly criticized, were never uttered.

Trent Lott is another of the right-wingers who hasn't got the sense to just shut up or stand up. Back in 2002 he lost his job over his praiseful comments about Strom Thurmond. He didn't really say anything all that remarkable. The Civil Rights Act of '64 was an abomination. Thurmond, as much as I dislike him, was right to resist its passage.

The UC Berkeley Daily Californian apologized back in 2001 for running an ad saying that reperations for slavery was a bad idea. Perish the thought. It's a good thing they apologized. What would have happened had they stood their ground?

More recently, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) apologized for comparing Abu Gahrib and Guantanamo to Soviet Gulags. No, he's not a right winger, and he's to the left of Stalin himself, but he was right. Why apologize? Because, like his right-wing counterparts, he's not sincere about what he says.

I sometimes wonder if the "right wingers" aren't doing their best to destroy what's left of the old classical liberals and paleo conservatives. Both Rush and Lott have marginalized the libertarian leaning conservatives and constantly promote collectivist ideas, passing them off as inherently conservative. Wasn't it democrat FDR who brought us so many of the welfare programs Rush and other republicans are today legitimizing?

And then there are the folks who should actually apologize. Like President Bush for insance who is responsible for the deaths of around 30,000 Iraqi civilians, killed due to false pretext. Will it ever happen? It's about as likely as the U.S. ever withdrawing troops from the more than 190 countries in which they are stationed.

Help!!!! I'm talking and I can't shut up! .....stay tuned....

demidog

LP Party results?

One thing that has always troubled me about the national and local Libertarian party organizations is the lack of office-holder tracking that occurs.

The party exclaims that there are over 300 libertarian office holders and occassionaly we get some great stories about their exploits in office, but there is no clearing house of information regarding what results are obtained by LP elected officials. Granted, some of these office holders are in so-called non-partisan offices. However, in more than one case, I have heard of libertarian office holders pushing to abolish the office, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars.

These sorts of stories need to be shouted from the rooftops.

The problem with most politicians is that they rarely, if ever, deliver on their promises, and if they do, the promises themselves are egregious violations of personal liberty.

It is my opinion that the LP would grow by leaps and bounds if only their elected officials' exploits were properly publicised. Protests and lawsuits are merely activism that will come to fruition at a later date, if ever. What have you done for me lately?

demidog

Home of the Unfree

Claire Wolf reminds me of one of my pet peeves. The entry there talks about a restaraunt in S. Korea which serves dog to those who have a taste for it. She mentions how some countries, put on the list of "oppressive" regimes are probably more free than the U.S. when it comes to personal choice.

I made a trip to Mexico a couple of years ago and was astounded at the number of unlicensed street vendors and businesses in Mexico City. Try that in any U.S. city.

Remember Iraq when it was run by an evil dictator? Virtually every citizen in that country had a fully automatic AK-47, not the phony SKS knockoffs we have access to in this country. By phony, I mean semi-automatic. What was the first thing U.S. forces started doing after "hostilities" were over? Why, going door to door, confiscating those firearms and dictating that any given family could only posess one firearm - a semi-automatic handgun or revolver.

That's how you spread freedom around the globe isn't it? Try obtaining a full-auto AK-47 in your fair city. Let me know how it works out.

Try smoking within the walls of a restaraunt in any major metropolitan area of the U.S. Chances are, you'll be either run out or ticketed or both.

In Europe, you'll find cats and dogs in any given bar or restaraunt. Cats are cheap pest control (and far less toxic than the chemicals used here in the U.S. to erradicate pests) and dogs are just pleasant to be around. I can't tell you how many times I saw a dog sitting on a barstool while visiting Scandanavia.

Think you'll see that in this "free" country? Not unless it's your dad's makeshift bar in his garage. We have healthcodes here. Security and safety are far more important than your freedoms.

demidog

Christianity, religion of peace?

Ever wonder why the right isn't as hard on Christianity or Judaism as it is on Islam? How many times have you heard some right-wing nutcase bash Muslims because they have been broad-brushed as being terrorists merely because they are Muslims?

What aboutDennis Rader?

Do we get to apply the same faulty logic used by those shilling for the War Party? Rader sexually molested an 11-year-old girl before hanging her in a basement. He had just previously murdered the rest of her family.

He also just happened to be the leader of his Christian Church. Christianity: religion of peace.....

demidog

Imagine that: Israeli soldiers and police treat Israelis nicer than Palestinians

Who would have guessed? Obviously not the reporter who wrote this:

But the eviction operation over the past two days showed a soft face of the army that is unfamiliar to outsiders. They refused to rise to the bait of the worst verbal attacks -- epithets such as "Nazi" and "terrorist" were common -- and showed restraint and even tenderness toward their abusers

The fact that their abusers weren't Arabs didn't have anything to do with it. Israeli soldiers and police have just coincidentally and recently turned over a new leaf.

demidog

Typical Government: "Oops I killed another innocent citizen again!"

Well here we go again. Rush and a whole host of apologists for the global police state claimed that Jean-Charles de Menezes, shot at point-blank range by British police back in July, was "running from police" and wearing a "heavy coat" (obviously suspicious to any patriotic person).

The media reported this and quite a few talk show hosts ran with it as if it were absolutely true. Here in Austin, the terminally brain dead Sgt. Sam, part of the KLBJ AM morning radio crew, fell all over himself to justify the slaying.

At the time, the commissioner of police in London said that the shooting was "directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation." That makes it perfectly legit. Just ask the drug-addict Rush Limbaugh.

Well surprise, surprise!

Turns out that not only was Menezes not running from police when he was approached by police, he also was not wearing a heavy coat - the justification offered after police shot him in the head 7 times! (and one more time in the arm for good measure). It's a miracle the police firing didn't end up shooting each other given the obvious panic that was occurring at the time of this murder.

The current estimate for completion of an official investigation? Three years! Don't let it be said that justice is served slowly. Oh, sorry, that's assuming that justice is ever served in this case. Let me predict here and now that no government official will ever be prosecuted for an obvious case of murder under color of law.

Lon Horiuchi was protected for 10 years until an appeals court finally ruled that he was "just following orders" when he shot Vicki Weaver in the head while she was holding her 10 month-old, still nursing baby. Don't let it bother you that FBI agents the next morning were shouting over loudspeakers "Good morning, Mrs Weaver! What's for breakfast!"

After all, it is for your own good. George Bush and Tony Blair are making sure we're safe from terrorists.....that is, the non-badge wearing, dark-skinned terrorists.

The institutionalized terrorists are still roaming the streets and murdering us. Think it will ever be time to shoot back?

demidog