I am Spartacus

I am, fundamentally, a small-government libertarian. Unlike the radicals in the Libertarian Party I don't view my libertarianism as a religion, as an ideology into which reality must be fitted. Rather, I view it as a sensible way of denoting what should be done by individuals under a free enterprise system, and what should be done by we as a people collectively via our representative government. What we as a people should collectively do should be limited to those things where history and the experience of our nation and other nations has shown that free enterprise doesn't work and government does, such things as as police, fire, courts, prisons, highways, parks, libraries, schools, and national health care.

I am by no means a radical of any sort. I don't want my government doing *anything* unless it is darn well proven to work or there is just an overwhelming consensus on the part of the people that the government needs to do it. Furthermore, I only want my government to do things that benefit we the people as a whole, not some folks overseas or just a small group of people who don't need any help from we the people as a whole. Yet somehow, I find myself in bed with liberals who are comfortable with using the power of Big Government to attack every social issue and every social ill. Why is that?

In part, it is because there is no longer a party for folks like me. Today's Republican Party is about borrow-and-spend Big Government and is filled with vile and evil people who refuse to speak up when death threats against young women are made, who speak of young women as "vile pieces of shit", who advocate raping and killing young women, who get vile demagogues like Bill Donohue who hate Jews and gays and white people (gosh who does he NOT hate? Other than his hand?) and makes excuses for child molesters and priests who rape boys to speak for the party. Today's Republican Party is all about imposing the hate-filled "Christian" ideology of a small group of very vocal radicals upon the rest of the nation at gunpoint (I put the word "Christian" in quotes because there is nothing Christian about hate). There is no place in today's Republican Party for sensible small-government conservatives because today's Republican Party is a party of ideologues, radicals, and hate. Their platform is a Big Brother nanny-state platform of imposing their peculiar morality at gunpoint upon the rest of us, and their policy is "kill the liberals", and their mouth-breathing brownshirts endorse it entirely.

Which brings up the question of the cowards who advocate raping and killing young women and their families yet somehow never manage to make it down to their local recruiter's station to sign up for their Dear Leader's little foreign war. I don't know if you've ever had a violent person threaten to kill you before. I have. Your heart starts thumping. The world suddenly assumes a terrible clarity. Then what happens next... well, I'm still alive, that's all I can say. But more insiduous is if they're threatening to kill you, and they are too cowardly to say it to your face. When you are getting anonymous phone calls at all hours of the night threatening to kill you. Then there is no respite from that adrenalin, you can't eat, you can't sleep, and you can't end the threat because they are cowards too cowardly to confront you to your face.

I have this to say about all cowards who threaten to rape and kill young women: My address is on my whois record, and my B.F. Mossberg & Sons 12 gauge tactical pump is ready and waiting. Bring it on. You mouth breathers are real brave, REAAAL brave, when it comes to making anonymous threats to young women. But Shakes ain't in this one alone. All of us who believe that hate is not an American value, who believe that all Americans, not just the ones with your perverted beliefs, are worthy of basic dignity and respect, all of us who oppose endless wars of conquest that do nothing for America and Americans, we are Spartacus. Take on one, you take on all of us. But somehow, I suspect my shotgun ain't gonna get no workout. It figures.

-- Badtux the Libertarian Penguin