Virginia Libertarian

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Racial Profiling is Un-American
During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff if we shouldn’t engage in “security profiling” of Muslims who want to get on airplanes instead of “wasting time” screening 85-year-old grandmothers — even if such profiling isn’t “politically correct.” (From the way the question was phrased, Wallace presumably was talking about 85-year-old grandmothers who aren’t Muslim.)

Chertoff could have answered the question in a variety of ways. He could have talked about how it’s wrong to single out members of a particular ethnic group when — as Wallace acknowledged — “all Muslims aren’t terrorists.”

While I am against maligning a whole group of people because a small subset of them are bad, Mr. Navarrette has conveniently only put in half of the equation here. When he quotes Wallace as saying “all Muslims aren’t terrorists”, he neglects to point out that almost all terrorists are Muslim, from Abdel Rahman al-Rashed

“It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. … We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.”

This would strongly support profiling Muslims (whatever their ethnic background). Now, how you would go about identifying who is Muslim and who is not is another problem, as they can be anyone, just like the rest of the religions. That said, I am also against the government being able to pull aside anyone they want to and invade their privacy by searching them just because they want to. Now, if a private company (like private owners of airlines) wants to search people before they allow them to use their property, thats just fine, but they wouldn’t be able to lock you up if you didn’t want to be searched, they could just not allow you to use their property. Try telling the TSA you don’t want to be searched, and then try to leave and see what happens.

Teen with cancer can forgo chemotherapy - Yahoo! News
ACCOMAC, Va. - A 16-year-old cancer patient ’s legal fight ended in victory Wednesday when his family’s attorneys and social services officials reached an agreement that would allow him to forgo chemotherapy.
At the start of what was scheduled to be a two-day hearing, Accomack County Circuit Judge Glen A. Tyler announced that both sides had reached a consent decree, which Tyler approved.

Under the decree, Starchild Abraham Cherrix, who is battling Hodgkin’s disease, will be treated by an oncologist of his choice who is board-certified in radiation therapy and interested in alternative treatments. The family must provide the court updates on Abraham’s treatment and condition every three months until he’s cured or turns 18.

Tyler emphasized that the decree states that the parents weren’t medically neglectful.

While the Cherrix family may see this as a victory, I see it as a loss. While I can understand that Cherrix and his family want to get on with fighting his illness, by coming to an agreement with the state, especially one where the family has to provide the court with updates, they are condoning the state’s interference in a private matter. The state has no place being involved in this family’s business.

Here is Smither’s web site

FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY:
Dear friend:

Do you want to see a Libertarian in Congress?

Of course you do.

And thanks to Tom DeLay, the Libertarian Party may have its best chance ever.

A surprise opportunity has offered itself recently, and we need to exploit it.

A federal judge has ruled that Tom DeLay’s name can not be replaced on November’s ballot with another Republican politician.

Late last week, DeLay announced that he will withdraw his name, leaving only two candidates on the ballot: a liberal Democratic former congressman, and Libertarian Bob Smither.

Bob is well known by the voters and media in this Houston-based district.

In fact, the Democrat in this race boasts of his long record of working to prevent child abductions and recover missing children.

That’s a record he compiled while working on behalf of a non-profit group founded by… Libertarian candidate Bob Smither!!

And here’s the kicker: this district has already elected a strong libertarian icon to Congress! Key counties in this district repeatedly re-elected Ron Paul to the U.S. House of Representatives before the lines were redrawn in 2000.

We need your help TODAY! I’m not asking for your money, I’m asking you to make a direct impact by volunteering your time from your home or office.

The Republicans remain divided, bickering over which candidate to back, in what by all accounts will be a disastrous write-in fiasco!

Local Republican leaders will be meeting this Thursday to discuss their options for Texas 22. We need to convince them to support the Libertarian candidate on the ballot. If they do not, they will have another liberal Democrat entrenched in the House. It is in both Parties’ best interests to have a Libertarian congressman serving the 22nd district.

There are 19,000 people that we must contact to make an impact on this decision and I need you call at least 76 of them on your own using our new tool, the LP Ballot Base. I know I’m asking for a great deal but 76 phone calls by 250 Libertarians will reach all 19,000 people that we need to influence.

This will be the second trial run of the Ballot Base, an online system through which we can place phone calls to influence elections for Libertarians.

To volunteer, contact John LaBeaume at LPHQ by calling 1-800-Elect-Us x232 and leave a message and John will contact you ASAP to get you started.

Marc Scribner and Chris Thorman can also help you.

It will only take a few minutes to create your Ballot Base account and walk you through the system.

Your help is needed today to exploit this extraordinary opportunity.

The more calls we make, the more voters will know that our Libertarian candidate is actually ON THE BALLOT and that Bob Smither can win!

Your volunteer effort today will also help perfect this system to better prepare us for November.

We want to offer it to as many candidates as possible in the near future.

I look forward to working with you and appreciate your help.

Best Regards,

Shane Cory
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee

It may be a little late to help them much with ballot access, etc. But if they do get on the ballot, I hope to help by getting them some attention. Here are some of the Libertarian candidates for governors I have found. The kosopedia has some good info on this as well here. I’m providing links to their campaign sites where I can find them.

Loretta Nall - Alabama

Bill Weld - New York

Bill Peirce - Ohio

James Werner - Texas (Best link I could find so far)

Art Oliver - California

Sue Jeffers - Minnesota

Ken Krawchuk - Pennsylvania (Probable)

Christy Welty - Iowa

Barry Hess - Arizona

Mike Ross - Arizona

Richard Kahn - New Hampshire (The Free State)

Good luck to them all

Update - Found some more:

Dawn Winkler - Colorado

Ted Dunlap - Idaho (Best link I can find)

John Clifton - New York

Greg Creswell - Michigan

Richard Morley - Oregon

TimesDispatch.com | Va. seeks federal aid for flooded homeowners
While FEMA has some housing assistance money available to help people with critical expenses, the federal emergency agency says that Small Business Administration loans provide most of the national government’s disaster help.

Now, someone tell me why this agency is in existance, it is not the federal government’s job to be a safety net either for individuals or for businesses.  We dealt with natural disasters before the existance of FEMA just fine (Chicago fire of 1871, San Fran Earthquake of 1906, and countless others before FEMA), I don’t see why we had to grow the duties of the federal government into this area where it doesn’t belong.