I decided to add a sticker to my neglected CafePress page, The Department of Horrible Stuff. In case you’ve never seen a “01-20-2009: end of an error” sticker, that’s what this one refers to. Why get excited over the end of one error when it is only the beginning of another?

I admit that I haven’t been following LP gossip closely. But I did come across a good post by usual-good-post-writer Thomas Knapp. In short, Bob Barr is acting less than libertarian and does not deserve the support of libertarians.

It amused me to see Barr criticize McCain for being “a late and uncertain convert” to handouts for oil drilling. According to his press release, “the time for making a responsible decision on energy development was years ago.” I wonder if the time for making a responsible decision about liberty was after Barr voted for the Patriot Act. Maybe it would be okay if McCain apologized and threw some money around.

More irritating than typical hypocrisy is Team Barr’s fundraising rant about “BORDER SECURITY.” Yes, they used all caps for this boogeyman. The substance of the letter is that you should give Barr money because Obama and McCain support too much freedom of movement, which “allows foreign criminals, carriers of communicable diseases, terrorists and other potential threats to enter the country unchecked.” Jeepers! What’s a terrorized nation to do? It appears “We must be aggressive in securing our borders while also fighting the big-government ‘nanny state’ that seeks to coddle even those capable of providing for their own personal prosperity.” That’s right – big government should only be used as a club, never as a crutch. This is what passes for libertarian among Barr types and it’s an attitude that can only damage liberty.

The letter gets more hysterical, and I don’t mean funny. It sounds the alarm about “a closed-door meeting between Republican presidential candidate John McCain and a group of Hispanics.” It later brags about Barr’s record of voting to “authorize the use of the military to assist in border control efforts.”

In case you didn’t know, a real libertarian believes that nobody has the right to initiate force on another person for any reason whatsoever. Individuals must be free to do as they please within these bounds. Crossing lines drawn by conquest without asking permission is not an initiation of force. Stealing money to give to oil companies and patrolling parasites is. The guy who picked your strawberries is likely a better libertarian than Bob Barr.

Those of you who think that immigration is not an important issue, or is one that simply divides libertarians, should realize that the illegal immigrant is the biggest police state excuse after the terrorist. At a time when billions of stolen dollars are being spent on human control in the name of immigration enforcement, the last thing we need is someone who wants to deploy the military for use within America. It is in the best interests of liberty to give no assistance whatsoever to advocates of enhanced immigration control, and to work against them whenever possible.

And just for the record, I support illegal immigration and underage groupies. Take that, millionaire republicans!

It appears that my goal of a new front page picture every Monday turned out well. This week ends my accidental presidential series. I hadn’t intended to mock the candidates for three weeks in a row but each one seemed to need it so badly.

McCain was actually the hardest to get an idea for. The guy is just so goddamn crazy a satirist must wonder where to begin. But eventually his “bomb Iran” joke stuck out at me and I decided to point out his tastelessness with an equally tasteless cartoon. This is in no way going too far – I won’t be the one commanding bombers above children. “A leader we can believe in” was just too incredibly tacky to not make fun of, so that goes in too.

And for change we can believe in, we turn to Obama. I was going to make fun of Hillary first deriding and then praising him, but she was too hideous to look at. When I first saw the sticker displaying Obama’s face and the words “you’re going to be seriously disappointed” I thought it was amazing. However, most of his supporters will likely be so glad to have their guy in power that nothing he does will disappoint them too much. He could, after all, use his position in congress to end the war quickly if he wanted to, but he’d rather have the power. If he is elected he’ll likely continue the modern Democratic tradition of velvet-gloved mass murder.

Speaking of power over principles, the Libertarian Party’s choice of Barr and Root is what began this whole presidential theme. Some talk about how great it is for the LP to nominate a “serious” candidate, but how anyone can take these guys seriously is beyond me. Wayne Root speaks like an irritating motivational speaker with the substance of a politician. Bob Barr didn’t even announce his candidacy until a few weeks before the LP convention, and it is obvious he wants to save his political career by being a big fish in the small LP pond. You don’t need to have read any Rothbard to see that they both do a bad job of pretending to be libertarians. The two ganged up and used all the dirty tricks they could and still barely beat a real libertarian for the nomination. Some still think the LP is worth fighting over, but to me this episode confirms my suspicion that electoral avenues are a waste of time. There will always be scum to rise to the top of the electoral system, enough will fall for their bullshit, and the benefits of working within the party are highly unlikely to catch up to the costs any time soon.

So what is a responsible resident of America to do? Vote against the system. Instead of supporting evil, work actively for liberty, the only alternative there is. A new public face of libertarianism needs to contrast the no-longer-useful strategy called the Libertarian Party.

And by the way, all the pics will be available in the archives section of my site. Spread em like they were peanut butter…kind of.

Though I was involved in electoral politics in college, I have lately been accepting the fact that the LP is not an efficient use of my time. Unfortunately since there is no larger public face for libertarianism, what the LP does still matters. But when they actually nominate two of the least libertarian potentials to run for president, that is it. It’s over and it’s not worth saving. Now begins the campaign to distinguish libertarianism from the geeky wing of conservativism. Agora! Anarchy! Action!