Brad Summers Lawn Signs

I'm walking to work while my car is in the shop. I noticed something that caught my interest. Every lawn sign for Brad Summers for City Council was knocked over or torn down. In a four mile walk, not a single other candidates sign was on the ground. Now none of the candidates in this local race indicate any sort of party affiliation, but it is fair to assume that political insiders in this small town know that Brad is affiliated with the Big Bear Democrats. His literature is in their local office. So what gives? Lawn signs may not have much influence on election results, and this kind of stunt probably happens all over the country every two years. But I thought our community would be above that sort of thing. His opponents don't care about replublicans enough to put an "R" next to their names on their advertisement, so why would they or one of their supporters care if Brad has democratic values? And don't suggest vandalizing kids. They have no reason to single out one particular candidate. They were likely responsible for changing Paul Cook's last name to that other word with a little spray paint on the right side of the second "o". But trashing one particular candidate's signs is probably politically motivated. Teens would have destroyed the nicer signs, too. Maybe I'll make a few calls on Monday and try to get Brad's name in the local media.

Welcome

I have been meaning to start this blog for quite some time, but I never got around to it until now. If you are unfamiliar with Big Bear; it is a remote, mountain resort town in Southern California. If you live here, you have probably seen me around town (most likely at Denny's). I intend to write mostly about politics, especially how issues affect us locally here in Big Bear. I also plan on including non-political local current events here in Big Bear as well as the whole Southern California region.

I suppose I should also address the other half of the title of my blog by explaining why I call myself a libertarian democrat. Markos of Daily Kos coined the term when he published this story. While I don't necessarily agree with his distinctions between a libertarian and a libertarian democrat, I was immediately struck by the phrase on an emotional level. To me, my ideology has not changed from when I called myself a libertarian without the "democrat" qualifier. The difference to me is a matter of tactics, not ideology. In the 45 years the Libertarian Party has been around, libertarians have debated between two main schools of thought for promoting libertarianism. It is the same dilemma the progressive has choosing between the ideological purity of third party politics (The Green Party) and caucusing within a major party (The Democratic Party). As a teen twenty years ago, the choice for a libertarian was between the LP and the RLC (Republican Liberty Caucus). After twenty years of irrelevance, I can confidently say that both of those choices suck. I became disinterested in politics for a while until I discovered the Free State Project online. I participated in their forum for a while until I started reading daily kos around the 2004 election. By then it was clear to me that any libertarian talking points being spoken by a republican is bullshit spin. It is really very simple to see. Before Bush took office, the National Treasury was flush with cash. After 5+ years in office, the National Treasury is full of IOUs. No amount of spin can change these two facts which inexorably lead to the conclusion that the GOP is a bunch of money grubbing robber barons.

I'll try to focus here before I get lost in a rant. Once Markos wrote the Libertarian Dem piece, I was hooked. I never liked Republicans on a personal level anyway. The college rethugs at UConn were pretty much all assholes. In retrospect, petitioning for libertarians twenty years ago really brought out the true colors of the two major parties. While I never got this reaction from a democrat, far and away the most common reaction from rethugs would be, "Why would I help a candidate who is not republican? Democracy? Fairness? Right and wrong? I don't care about any of these. I just want my guy to win." You can see that attitude in the leadership of today's GOP now that those college thugs are in their 40s and are running things. But now they have their sights set higher. Why limit things to as many as two parties? The GOP would win more if it were the only party like the communists of the Soviet Union. This is the scenario the GOP is trying to effect right now. Remember, it is unseemly to compare the GOP to Nazis. They much more resemble Stalinists.

Earlier this year, I switched my registration from "decline to state" to "Democrat", and I will be voting for Democratic candidates for the first time in this election. (I voted for Badnarik since CA is a safe state, I voted for Judge Gray against Boxer, no one ran against my thug rep, and I voted for Bill McClintock in the special election.) I am really hoping that the Libertarian Democrat movement Markos has started takes off. I will try to help as best I can with this blog.

I am closing my introductory post with national news since we are less than two weeks out from election day. Helping out Chris Bowers with his project is in fact the inspiration for ending my procrastination in starting this blog. Enjoy!

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert