Montrose County Libertarian Party

Maricopa County, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona had a problem with overcrowded prisons much like Montrose. Instead of begging the taxpayers for more money to build a larger prison (like our sheriff is doing), Sheriff Joe Arpaio built a barbwire surrounded tent encampment saving the county millions. Sheriff Joe also brought back the chain gangs of yesteryear. He put prisoners to work on county and city projects saving taxpayers a fortune.

When the temperatures reach the 100s and prisoners in the encampment start complaining, Sheriff Joe told them, “It’s 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn’t commit any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!”

Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on animal control. The county commissioners allowed Sheriff Joe to take the department over at his request. The first thing he did was replace most of the animal shelter staff with prisoners. Every stray animal is well-feed, well-treated, and walked twice daily. The prisoners learn a valuable skill (animal care, nutrition and behavior) which helps them with careers when released. They have taken stray dogs off the street, placed them in the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows. The prisoners only earn about $0.28 an hour working at the shelter. Most of them would do it for free just to get out of their cells. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals. The budget for the entire department is now under $3 million!!!!

Years ago, the county was donated a large farm. Sheriff Joe put inmates to work on the farm where they provide most of the food for the prison. The farm has livestock, crops and even a tree nursery, which provides cheap Christmas trees for the holidays. Jail meals are now down to 40 cents a serving, which he charges the inmates (instead of the taxpayers.)

Sheriff Joe believed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t doing enough to control the rampant illegal immigrant problem, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up a hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border. The hotline was setup whereas citizens can anonymously report suspected illegal aliens.

BY TIBOR R. MACHAN, The Freedom Way
2008-02-15 19:32:00

Ever since I have been an American citizen, starting in 1961, I have noticed that after elections the losers often blame winners for distortions, misrepresentations and so forth. Few of the losers say, “Well, I lost because the voters didn’t agree with me.”

By contrast, my own take is that the reason candidates and measures favoring individual liberty - in short, the libertarian agenda - lose is precisely that most voters don’t agree with them. The very plain fact is that too many voters don’t want to be free. Over and over again they reject candidates who champion free markets, civil liberties, global free trade and similar ideas and institutions.

Instead, they favor protectionism, government regulation, meddling in people’s personal lives and habits and restricting freedom so as to achieve the mirage of perfect safety - be this about over-the-counter drugs, the threat of terrorism or environmental concerns.

They want to restrict other people’s liberty and rip them off for various benefits. It’s a mad dash to raid the treasury at others’ expense and to control people’s lives so as to serve various precautionary goals.

Sadly, that’s now the character of the bulk of the American citizenry. They are not being mislead by the media or pundits or politicians. No. They want to get a free ride wherever they see a chance, never mind that this simply is impossible for them all to achieve.

The notion that America is a country where the citizenry, following the lead of the founders, is committed to freedom for all, to a live-and-let-live political philosophy is no longer true. The one presidential candidate, Republican Ron Paul, who made no secret of his support for mostly libertarian public policies, fared badly on Super Tuesday, despite recent signs that there exists a small cadre of Americans who will provide him with considerable financial support.

The current presidential race shows, also, that voters aren’t interested in the candidate’s color, race or gender so much as in what they can expect the candidate to deliver to them in the way of benefits that government extracts from Peter and hands over to Paul.

Never mind that this war of all against all can have but a small percentage of winners. Just like those who flock to Las Vegas, the voters hope that they will win despite what the evidence shows. Still, most Americans now vote with an eye to getting something for nothing by dint of the diligence of their favored politicians.

There are some forces in our society who are eager to encourage people to think this way, to vote this way, but voters aren’t being misled, defrauded, misguided. They know well and good that they are trying to rip off their fellow citizens so they can have education, health care, retirement and so forth without paying for these.

Yes, our government schools do not teach the truth about these matters, mainly because teachers are part of the very system that involves the mad dash to get something for which others must pay. But even when they do learn just how ridiculous it is to expect a prosperous society when so many people reject productivity in favor of dependence, most continue to try to get away with it.

Too bad, but it has to be faced. Freedom is not widely favored in America now. There was, of course, never any guarantee that America would continue to be promoting freedom. Countries, no less than voters, can give up on good ideas and embrace bad ones even after the good ideas have paid off for them for decades on end.

Still, I am not a pessimist in the long run. The idea of a fully free society is very novel in human history.

As I have stressed before, the insidious governmental habit will not vanish soon, even if there is a chance that in time it will be extinguished. Until then we will have to suffer the likes of Hillary Clinton, who is aspiring to be America’s ruler and sadly with the support of millions of millions of citizens in this supposed leader of the free world.

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Tibor Machan holds the R.C. Hoiles Chair in Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at Chapman University and is a research fellow at the Pacific Research Institute and Hoover Institution (Stanford). He advises Freedom Communications, parent company of this newspaper. His most recent book is “Libertarianism Defended,” (Ashgate, 2006).

You can pretty much forecast local government schemes from articles in the local rag supporting these issues. The rag will herd the sheep for them by printing article after article pushing their objectives.

What is the new objective? The downtown businesses are crying for help and the city wants to eminent domain a traffic bypass to rescue these dying businesses because traffic is to loud. Who is really pushing for this? Is it the downtown businesses or is it really the road construction companies?

Happy Thanksgiving! A quote from George Washington in his Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789, “Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country…for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed…and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually…To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”

Washington was such a great politician, notice that he specifically did not refer to God in a certain name. I, particularly like his statement, “To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us.” The increase of science comment really makes me wonder exactly what he meant…

According to a Liberty Dollar Company Announcement:

Liberty Dollar Company Announcement
Thursday, November 15, 2007

Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters:

I sincerely regret to inform you that about 8 this morning a dozen FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in Evansville, Indiana.

For approximately six hours they took all the gold, all the silver, all the platinum, and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars that were just delivered last Friday. They also took all the files and computers and froze our bank accounts.

We have no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed. We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the U.S. Constitution.

We should not be defrauded by the fake government money.

But to make matters worse, all the gold and silver that backs up the paper certificates and digital currency held in the vault at Sunshine Mint has also been confiscated. Even the dies for minting the gold and silver Libertys have been taken.

All this has happened even though Edmond C. Moy, the director of the U.S. Mint, acknowledged in a letter to a U.S. senator that the paper certificates did not violate Section 486 and were not illegal.

But the FBI and Secret Service took all the paper currency too.

The possibility of such action was the reason the Liberty Dollar was designed — so that the vast majority of the money was in specie form and in the people’s hands. Of the $20 million Liberty Dollars, only about a million is in paper or digital form.

I regret that if you are due an order, it may be some time until it will be filled, if ever. It now all depends on our actions.

Everyone who has an unfulfilled order or has digital or paper currency should band together for a class-action suit and demand redemption. We cannot allow the government to steal our money.

Please don’t let this happen.

Many of you read the articles quoting the government and Federal Reserve officials saying the Liberty Dollar was legal. You did nothing wrong. You are legally entitled to your property. Let us use this terrible act to band together and further our goal — to return America to a value-based currency.

Please forward this important alert so everyone who possesses or uses the Liberty Dollar is aware of the situation.

Please go here to sign up for the class action lawsuit and get your property back:

http://www.libertydollar.org/classaction/index.php

Thanks again for your support at this darkest time as the damn government and its dollar sinks to a new low.

Bernard von NotHaus, Monetary Architect
Liberty Dollar
Evansville, Indiana

If you are as tired of barely making ends meet as my family is, you are especially frustrated with the new tax increases. Mount this with the “Montrose surcharge” and your cost of living is being drastically depleted. Here are a few examples of how we save money:

Baby: We order just about everything for the baby online. For example, formula and diapers purchased in bulk online have free shipping and are just slightly cheaper than the local box store. The real savings come from not paying taxes. With just formula alone, we save about $100 a year just from the taxes.

Vehicle: I order tires online from a wholesale tire distributor. The last set of Nitto tires that I bought were $161 each with free shipping and $15 each to install them from the Delta Big O. The exact same tires were quoted locally for $322 each including tax and installation. $704 online total cost verses the $1288 local total saved me a substantial $584. We also saved over $5k on our last vehicle from a Denver dealer verses a local one. Sadly, you can’t mail-order gas!

Home Improvements: Don’t rely on getting a good deal from the good ol’ boys! After we bought our house in Montrose, we wanted to have several home improvement projects done including installing an evaporative cooler using flex duct to each bedroom. This is a common installation for larger homes as it more efficiently distributes the cool air throughout the house. After taking bids from several different contractors, we were amazed at the high prices. They went from three times city prices to ten times. It was so ridiculous that we paid a friend of ours in Denver that does this for a living to come out and install it. We even agreed to pay him twice as much as what he would charge in Denver because of his travel troubles. We still saved more than a grand.

On some of the other projects we got good deals from either non-locals or moonlighters. Moonlighters are the best deal because if you pay them 30 bucks an hour they are making three times what their company pays them and you are saving 70 bucks an hour on the 100 bucks an hour the company would charge you for them.

There are many ways to save money if you get crafty. Nowadays you can buy just about anything online. If you stick with the reputable companies, you can never go wrong.

Please post some comments on other ways to save money!

On November 6th and 7th, the Montrose County LP joined forces with the LP of Delta County to host an outreach booth at the Cedaredge Apple Festival. This would be the first outreach event for the MCLP and a great learning experience. Veteran Libertarian and LPDC Chair, Debbie Schum schooled the MCLP activist on successful outreach strategies for a booth at these diversified festivals.

With any booth at a festival you need a gimmick. Something that interests people long enough to stop in front of your booth and give you a chance to talk to them. The greatest gimmick that Libertarians deploy is the Nolan’s World’s Smallest Political Quiz ( http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html ). This is a great tactic as it immediately identifies who is libertarian. These are the people to spend your time on. If they come out as statist, far right or left, they are not worth your time. Let them move on without wasting time or energy.

A hundred or so people took the quiz. They came out all over the chart, but it definitely overall leaned towards Libertarian. Another huge contribution was that we passed out around a hundred DVDs of Aaron Russo’s film, “America: Freedom to Fascism.” Several of the people that took the DVD on Saturday watched it that afternoon. They thanked us on Sunday, told us how much this movie shocked them and that it stirred their curiosity on politics.

King George decided that he has the authority to ignore the constitution and control everything, should we have a loosely defined “national emergency;” this includes power over the private sector. George signed Presidential Directive back in May of this year.

Learn more: The national emergency dictator
Bush makes power grab
The White House actual directive

For most libertarians, legalizing drugs has nothing to do with wanting legal access to illicit drugs as it is about law enforcement fiscal issues and the sociological ramifications on drug addicts. We all know that drugs like meth are extremely bad for anyone, but we feel that the governments handling of the problem makes the situation much worse.

Did you know that the United States has the highest prison population rate in the world? {According to the International Centre for Prison Studies} These numbers are the results of the costly, “War on Drugs.” Private prison corporations are making a fortune off of this war. They lobby congress to pass even stricter laws because it is good for business. If law enforcement could stop being hindered by petty victim-less crimes like drug possession, they could focus more on the violent crimes like child molestation and murder. Drug Czars will argue that drug use and crime go hand and hand. I would argue that drug prohibition actually promotes more crime because of the escalated drug prices due to market risk for the seller. Higher prices means addicts that are committing crimes to pay the monkey will have to commit more to match this escalation.

The government procedure of dealing with the drug problem makes no damn sense. Let’s arrest a junkie because they are addicted to a drug and MIGHT be worthless to society. Let’s throw the poor junkies in prison because they can’t buy their way out of the justice system. Then have the tax payers pay an exorbitant amount for their “rehabilitation.” Rehabilitation in one of the easiest places in the country to get drugs, prison. To top it all off, when they have served their debt to society, they are thrown back into society with a “prison record” that will hinder any chances of finding a decent job.

Numerous people have suggested that the MCLP followup on the WSLP efforts and try another attempt to repeal the Montrose City grocery tax. This is a great idea considering Montrose has one of the highest overall tax rates in the state and our poverty level is exceeding the national average. With the price of everything skyrocketing, more and more people are finding it harder to make ends meet.

What is the solution to our poverty problem from our local politicians and media? They want to convince you to vote to raise our taxes even more, all for the sake of public safety. One of the main reasons that Montrose is experiencing an increasing crime rate is because of the standard of living here is decreasing. More taxes will not solve this problem, but actually is a big part of the problem.

How about we take a leap in the other direction. Stop pretending that we live in a “luxurious mountain resort town” with all this extravagant spending and outrageous taxes. Everyone loves to see our town look nice, but I choked when I saw the cost for some of this stuff. Some simple mason work with a flower basket on a corner downtown should not cost several hundred thousand dollars!

Sadly, I don’t think that the MCLP is ready to initiate a repeal of the grocery tax just yet. We need a bullet-proof battle plan with lots of ammo before we can attack this. If we are ever to be successful at this, we would have to:

1. Either recruit more volunteers to be in the trenches as petition signature collectors or acquire the capital to hire petition mercenaries;
2. Extensive recon on city expenditures, tax statistics, and tax law; and
3. Secure an effective way to get overall information to the public, as we cannot rely on the local press for fair coverage.

However, I don’t think this should stop anyone from doing research or pre-publicizing the campaign.