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Tit for tat Our suit has been filed in Texas.
You may remember my earlier article about this: both the Republicans and the Democrats missed the legal filing deadline in Texas. Unlike their suit against us in Pennsylvania, this is not a simple nuisance suit. There appears to be a clear legal issue.
The ruling parties have long gotten away with a one-sided set of ballot access laws. Laws are enforced against us but under the same circumstances they get a wink and a nudge and a pass.
Times change.
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Good luck!
For what it’s worth, a couple of years ago in SC the Libertarian Party filed suit against the Secretary of State for permitting the Republican Party to ignore the party reorganization statutes (they hadn’t held the required county reorganizations, so the state party should have lost its status as a recognized political party and been removed from all ballots).
Our suit was dismissed. I hope this one fares better.
As an Obama supporter, I really hope this is successful 😀
As a Libertarian supporter I also hope it is successful, so I guess we have something in common :-^
Actually I am not concerned much one way or the other about winning or losing the case, just so long as we maximize the pain to the Demopublicans party and let them see what it feels like for a change.
I mean for god sake… if my party has to follow the absolute letter and most stringent intepretation, shouldn’t they also be subject to the same laws? Isn’t the basis of American society that we are all equal before the law? Why should those two parties be more equal?
I want to see them squirm. God how I want to see them get some of their own treatment back.
Wow. That’s special. The Libertarians want to enforce a law on free-association of the citizens. Nothing like a little spite to trump principles, now, huh?
There will always have to be rules on ballot access, if only to make sure that you file before they have to start the print run on the absentee ballots.
Most ballot access laws should be eliminated. But if they are there, then we damn well have to make sure that they are not just laws for us and which the Republicans and Democrats can simply ignore with impunity.
It’s either for all of us or for none of us. They can have it one way or the other.
I presume those who are complaining believe that law should simply be optional based on whether it helps your cause or not. In which case, do you think vote fraud is okay if it helps ‘your side’ win? How about threatening the other guys voters to make them stay away? Or if you lose, using civil rebellion to override the majority?
I really think a few of you do not really believe in a society under rule of law, where all are equal under the eyes of the law, ie that blindfolded lass with the scales?
Electoral laws that privilege some parties above others are deeply undemocratic. So I hope this succeeds.
By God, I hope this suit is a success. The Big Two need a swift kick in their principles.
Oh, Dale, I’m more conservative than libertarian, true, true, but libertarianism is the only other political philosophy I find to be even remotely palatable. As the years go by, I suppose I visit both camps.
Still, I find the current version of liberalism to be an utter atrocity and a clutch on alot of freedoms (speech, free association, all that). So while I could admire your struggle in principle, I think its remarkably stupid in practice. Especially in Texas, geez.
And, of course, I’d rather you go after the law itself, and not against the whole damn franchise. Still, if this election goes into overtime because of this little lawsuit, you’ll lose alot of goodwill from a, heh, ‘fellow-traveler,’ if you will. Maybe, oh, a few ten million of us.
Anyways, bad luck with that!
I agree with Vercingetorix. If Obama wins the election because of this, don’t expect an invitation to Texas for bar-b-cue! Nor will I let you fire my semi-auto AK either!!
I think changing bad laws *and* bad behavior are both part of the plan. We have been trying to change ballot access laws for several decades. There were a few victories I believe, but overall I think it has been getting worse lately (correct me if I am wrong… we used to manage all 50 states regularly, although with difficulty.)
When your dog does something bad, you rub its nose it in it.
That is what we are doing. They apparently cared so little about Texas regulations (or else counted on Texas behind the scenes corruption) that they did not even bother to have their nominating conventions before the Texas deadline.
I would note that I am not against non-violent civil disobedience. Making bad laws unenforceable is a good tactic for liberty. But at the same time, even bad laws must not be applied as a tool to get your enemies and reward your friends.
The ballot laws appear to be exactly that sort of laws. They are created by the Republicans and Democrats as tools to keep them in power. Even though we always manage to make it in most states, the effort in volunteer time and money is huge. It is a tax on our the basic right to take part in the governance of the country.
The Republicans and Democrats waive that tax for themselves, and if they screw up, it just gets ignored and swept under the rug.
Well, that ain’t gonna happen this time. If we win the case, they will be paying a huge amount of money to run write-in campaigns and the law will be changed; if we lose the case they will not want it to happen again and the law will be changed.
Yes, they can screw with us. But now they know we can screw right back.
I will also add that regardless of what you think you are saying, what I am hearing is “Winning is more important than obeying the law”.
I would be interested to know how far into illegality some of you are willing to go to get your candidate elected.
After a few hours doing other things I started thinking I am being unnecessarily harsh on Texas law. The ballot access there does not actually seem to be all that bad in comparison to other places.
The real issue here is that neither the Republicans nor Democrats thought that even those fairly reasonable regulations applied to them.
Now what does this say about those two Parties? What does that attitude say about how they look upon the laws they make? What does it say about what you can expect Republicans and Democrats to act like when elected?
If they are scofflaws now, they will be scofflaws in office.