Posted on 09/08/2002 9:22:43 PM PDT by doug from upland
The evening started innocently enough for Brian Whitman, Sunday evening talk show host on KABC in Los Angeles.
He had on his show four minor candidates running for governor of California. Three were on the phone and the fourth, Libertarian candidate Gary Copeland, was in studio.
The conversation eventually turned to illegal immigration. Copeland did not like Whitman's position and called him a racist. Although Whitman kept trying to answer, Copeland kept talking over him and would not let him speak.
Just as Whitman puts callers in "timeout" on his show when they won't let him have his say, he told the engineer to cut off Copeland's microphone. Copeland became incensed and started packing his things to leave the studio.
Then, in great FReeper tradition, Whitman told Copeland not to let the door hit his ass on the way out. He also called Copeland a lunatic.
Then the rain came. Copeland walked over to Whitman and spit in his face. Whitman couldn't believe it. Two others on the KABC staff couldn't believe it.
Whitman had the station call the police and is considering filing assault charges.
Poor Copeland. He may no longer be the Libertarian candidate for governor. An official high ranking representative of the party called in to Whitman and told him that Copeland would be receiving no more backing and they were going to see what they could do to take him off the ballot.
Now that was classic talk radio. The unbelievable happened. A candidate for governor actually showed himself to be a bigger jackass than Gray Davis. Davis has spit on the law but never on Whitman, at least not yet. Brian, get him in studio.
The Chairman of the California LP, Aaron Starr, is painfully aware that the antics of Gary Copeland serve to create (or reinforce) the unfortunate perception that Libertarians are clowns. He speaks for the majority of us who find the event abhorrent. Stunts like spitting on a talk show host do nothing to advance the cause of individual liberty and personal responsibility.
No. Whitman was the host of his show. When Copeland persisted in breaking the host's rules, by talking over him and reusing to allow the host to respond, Whitman was well within his rights to cut Copeland's microphone off. Gary was way out of line, and abusive of the host's generosity in letting him appear in the first place. Copeland made himself look like a fool.
In its entirety? Frankly, no, and I am active in the Party. (That's why we have platform discussions at every convention.) But then, how many Republicans (assuming that they've actually read it) agree with the Republican party platform in its entirety? My guess would be, not many.
Agreed. It's an unfortunate common linguistic shortcut. It would, however, be proper to say that Paine and Jefferson, among many others, expressed ideas resonant with or identical to the ideas that constitute modern Libertarian philosophy. Knowing that, you might consider allowing a bit of slack on this point.
Thanks for pointing out this article by my friend, Jacob Hornberger. You might also, however, have quoted the part where Jacob expresses his disagreement with this viewpoint of Rand's:
"But despite my veneration for Rand, I always felt that she had been wrong in her condemnation of libertarians."
He goes on, of course, to acknowledge the truth of the Rand and Kirk assessments, "at least with respect to a certain segment of the libertarian community, ..." The point here, I think, is that condemning all libertarians (a group to which Hornberger, Ron Paul, and I all belong), is to paint with much too broad a brush.
Cute. Wrong, but cute.
I know. The Santa Clara cops, as I recall, claimed to have found one "button" and one mushroom. They were having trouble with their attempt to convict him of "trafficking" in marijuana, after they raided his home and confiscated all of his mj, but the marijuana was what they were after him for. The peyote and psilocybin "finds" just served to guarantee a win for them.
I happen to have met Steve and his wife and daughter. They're really pretty nice folks, and don't fit the "drug-crazed hippie" image at all.
But even this may be easily contested. As I asked earlier, do you suppose that the "universal understanding" is that the Fourth Amendment only prohibits "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, ..." from violation by Congress, and that violations of this right are perfectly OK when committed by lesser agencies, State or local?
Must I quote the Founders' own words regarding RKBA to convince you that the Barron v. Baltimore opinion is being interpreted in an overly broad manner here? I can, if you insist.
A bit misinformed, aren't you?
Am I? I should point out that a direct reading of the Bill of Rights reveals the words "Congress shall make no law" ONLY in the First Amendment, which is what I asserted.
Ignorance of historic and Constitutional context.
But it is universally understood, it is a part of the history of the day, that the great revolution which established the constitution of the United States, was not effected without immense opposition. Serious fears were extensively entertained that those powers which the patriot statesmen, who then watched over the interests of our country, deemed essential to union, and to the attainment of those invaluable objects for which union was sought, might be exercised in a manner dangerous to liberty. In almost every convention by which the constitution was adopted, amendments to guard against the abuse of power were recommended. These amendments demanded security against the apprehended encroachments of the general government--not against those of the local governments." --Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243 (1833)
Give it your best shot.
"The first amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from abridging 'the right of the people to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.' This, like the other amendments proposed and adopted at the same time, was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National government alone." -- U.S. v. Cruickshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)"The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress." -- US Supreme Court, U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875), Presser v. State of Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)
Doesn't scare me at all as force is generally the only way change comes about.
What I dislike is having some wannabe "Libertarian" (whose only real concern is the WOD) tell me what a "fascist" I am.
The "Libertarians" who post on these threads are to Liberty as Larry Flynt is to Freedom of Speech.
Cockroaches and Dung Beetles have wings, just don't try to convince me that fact makes them Eagles....
And calling General Washington a Libertarian is disingenous to say the least. Go read about Washington's role in squelching the Whiskey Rebellion before you tell me that he was a Libertarian or that I need to read history.
When you're done reading, come back here and offer me your sorry apologies like the good little boy you are....
And I find it amusing that my narrow viewpoint is re-inforced by your post #430.
It seems no matter where the conversation starts with a Libertarian it always seems to end up with a discussion about drugs.
I am not ignorant of the context. The anti-Federalists were indeed concerned about loss of State and individual sovereignty (and their concern has proven well-pounded), and the Bill of Rights, really a bill of prohibitions upon the Federal Government, was certainly enacted at the insistence of the anti's, because the promise of that Bill was necessary to recure ratification of the new Constitution.
I agree with you that the Second Amendement does not limit the power of the States, but if you look at the D of I and the Constitutions of the several states, you can see that the rights of the individual were paramount in the thinking of the Founders, and that the States also recognized that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is fundamental, along with the rights to Life, Liberty, and the more general right to acquire property (Arms being a special case of property).
After all, what sense (as I have tried hard to point out) would it make for the Founders to protect a right from infringement by the National Government, only to have State Governments strip the individual of that same right? What sense would it make to write a Declaration of Independence and fight a bloody war, only to surrender the very rights they fought for, to the whim of popular majority two Centuries later?
Language was important to the founders, and they chose their words with care. You can misread context all you want, and even quote Supreme Court misreadings, but whether or not the Founders intended (as is certainly the case today) the Constitution to be used to limit the authority of State and local governments, they absolutely did not intend for government at any level to violate the fundamental rights of individuals.
You are right. I see in the historical records that prisoners were regularly accorded time for target practice in the prison yards, and that capital punishment was never practiced.
That's odd, I was attempting to set the record straight about Steve Kubby. If the subject arose about how some Republican took insulin for his diabetes, or was undergoing chemotherapy for his prostate cancer, would you call that "a discussion about drugs"?
Rather than defaming me as only being concerned with drugs, why don't you try engaging me in a substantive discussion on some other subject, like RKBA?
Libertarians do not disagree with Conservatives on matters of criminal justice, at least not in principle. In some cases, we may disagree on whether the correct principles are being adhered to.
The governments of the individual states were sovereign.
"But a conclusive answer to the contention that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state. It was so held by this court in the case of U. S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 , 553, in which the chief justice, in delivering the judgment of the court, said that the right of the people to keep and bear arms 'is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes to what is called in City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. [116 U.S. 252, 102] 139, the 'powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was perhaps more properly called internal police,' 'not surrendered or restrained' by the constitution of the United States.' " -- Presser v. State of Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)"To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws." -- John Adams
Not to mention the madhouses.
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