Dec 1st, 2008
Not everyone is born a freedom-loving Constitutionalist. If they were, there would be no need for the Libertarian Party.

Unfortunately, the fight for less government is as much a legislative process as it is an education process. In fact, the legislative process is much easier when there is an educated electorate, who elects qualified and competent legislators.

While the Libertarian Party seeks to elect Libertarians to office and push public policy in a Libertarian direction, the libertarian movement seeks to educate the electorate about free market principles, individual liberty and the dangers of an overbearing government. Education is crucial to both electing the right people, and keeping the public informed and knowledgeable.

This is why John A. Allison, the chairman and CEO of BB&T, is the Libertarian Party's Free Market Hero for the week.

In addition to running one of the nation's largest banks, Allison and BB&T fund programs at more than 40 universities that teach the moral defense of capitalism. "Although each of these programs differs in its composition and mission," says Clemson University's business profile of BB&T's charitable programs, "all are united by a commitment to teaching and research on the moral foundations of capitalism."

Through contributions to organizations like the Ayn Rand Institute and universities across the nation, Allison has begun to build the foundations for a future electorate who not only understands the issues surrounding the defense of capitalism, but also desires to see capitalism protected and advanced.

In a demonstration of Allison's steadfast commitment to principled leadership and capitalistic values, following the landmark Kelo decesion, Allison decided that BB&T would not do business with developers who looked to develop land seized as a result of eminent domain. "The idea that a citizen's property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided; in fact it's just plain wrong," Allison remarked after the decision.

"We're a company where our values dictate our decision-making and operating standards. From that standpoint, this was a straightforward decision; it's simply the right thing to do," BB&T chief credit officer Ken Chalk told USA Today.

After 20 years at the head of BB&T, Allison will soon be stepping down. But the man who assigns Atlas Shrugged to all of his execs and helped grow BB&T into a banking juggernaut, still plans to continue his mission to promote the virtues of capitalism. "In retirement, Allison plans to write books about the role of values in effective leadership and the evolution of the U.S. financial system," as well as working with collegiate participants in BB&T’s Moral Foundations of Capitalism program, says The News & Observer.

“It is important to us that any program we support meets the highest academic standards and encourages students to hear all points of view,” said Allison, after giving $3.5 million to expand the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. "There is overwhelming evidence that capitalism produces a higher economic standard of living, which is why there needs to be a deeper understanding of the morality of capitalism and its causal relationship to economic well-being.”

Therefore, for his work in educating college students across the nation about the moral defense of capitalism, John Allison is our Free Market Hero of the week.

-Andrew Davis

Nov 26th, 2008
When one election is over, the next one has already begun. Operation ELECT-US is a program by the Libertarian Party to recruit as many candidates as possible for winnable local offices in 2009.
In odd numbered years, most elections are local and quite a few of them take place in the spring. For example, filing deadlines for local elections have already begun in Maryland, and take place in Illinois in December.

After our 21 electoral victories in November 2008, the Libertarian Party now boasts 207 elected Libertarians currently serving in office across the United States.

Operation ELECT-US aims to increase that number significantly!

There are many great reasons why you should consider running for local office in 2009.

The first, of course, is that you can win! You can be effective in changing local public policy in a Libertarian direction from the inside of the political system. Libertarian officeholders almost always distinguish themselves by being more diligent in their duties, more informed on the issues facing them and easier to work with. Quite often, we find that government employees who are most skeptical about working for Libertarian council members end up becoming their greatest supporters once they have had an opportunity to work with them directly.

Win or lose, you can put a human face on our ideas. Most people only warm up to our ideas when they know and like a person they know to be a Libertarian. Through their success, more voters start supporting other Libertarian candidates further up the ballot because they have come to trust you as their friend and neighbor.

Besides making friendships, which will serve you well even after the election, your campaign will put Libertarian ideas on the local public policy agenda. You will have a prominent role in the local political debate for as long as you want, just by running for office.

We take pride in the fact that we are ordinary citizens who want to positively change our government and push public policy in a Libertarian direction. And, if you are eligible by law to hold office and care about your community, then you are qualified!

If you'd like to run for office, start your campaign by clicking the button below and filling out your information. We'll get back to you promptly to help you kickstart your campaign for office in 2009.

If you have any questions about what office to run for, when to file or how to get your campaign started, please feel free to contact our Political Director Sean Haugh at sean.haugh@lp.org, or by calling him at (202) 288-9853.

Nov 26th, 2008
"The 1930s recession became the Great Depression because policymakers didn't take the necessary actions," said Democratic economic adviser Jared Bernstein in a recent Washington Post article. "Nobody wants to make that mistake this time around."

This comment from Bernstein summarizes the prevailing mood of the Obama administration as it looks to take over the reins in January. So, what does this mean for you, the taxpayer?

Unfortunately, more government spending.

Obama has just recently announced plans to spend at least $700 billion in order to stimulate the economy. This figure includes New Deal-styled programs that will explode the size of government, and dramatically add to the national debt—money that will be owed by generations to come.

Talk about redistributing the wealth!

Despite the obvious problems with government spending even more money when it should be cutting spending, Obama is projected to sign into law a new "Raw Deal" for the taxpayers within days of becoming president—if not even on the day he is inaugurated.

The justifications you will hear for this new spending all revolve around the "New Deal" policies of the Great Depression, so we thought you should know the truth about Obama's "Raw Deal" and the myths behind what really pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression.

Here's a hint: It wasn't FDR.

Like Democrats, "many people are looking back to the Great Depression and the New Deal for answers to our problems," says George Mason University Economics Professor Tyler Cowen. "But while we can learn important lessons from this period, they’re not always the ones taught in school."

What Cowen means is that the conventional wisdom of the Great Depression is absolutely wrong: Government spending did not save the economy. "In short, expansionary monetary policy and wartime orders from Europe, not the well-known policies of the New Deal, did the most to make the American economy climb out of the Depression."

Harold L. Cole, an economist at UCLA, agrees with Cowen:

"The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes. Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."

This is the danger we face with Obama and his "Raw Deal" for taxpayers. Instead of staying out of the economy and letting it work itself out, Obama is continuing the same policies as those of FDR and the Bush administration and spending taxpayer money that will have no positive results.

And it's not just the spending we have to be worried about under an Obama administration; it is the regulatory policy that may come as a result of using capitalism as a scapegoat for the recent economic crisis.

"There is a familiar urge to restrict those who got us into this mess, but regulation is a nasty business—nasty because the law of unintended consequences is always there to show us how we got it wrong," says Thomas F. Cooley, the Richard R. West Dean Of New York University's Stern School Of Business, and Lee Ohanian, an economics professor at UCLA. "The danger we face at this fork in the road is the conventional wisdom that associates more regulation with better regulation and more restrictive policies with less risk. History teaches us that the opposite is usually true and that the costs of getting it wrong can last for decades."

If Obama is to learn anything about the economy from the lessons of the Great Depression, let it be that government intervention is like sending a car mechanic to perform open-heart surgery. The complications that arise will have long-term, catastrophic effects.

What better example of this than Fannie Mae—a product of the New Deal that is now at the heart of today's economic problems.

The Libertarian Party and our members have been saying this from Day 1 of the economic crisis (and for many, many years before): Government is not the answer.

Our solution? Less is more. That is, less government is more economic prosperity.

Essentially, get government out of the way so that the market can adjust. This path will not be without its bumps and hardships, but it's best for the long-term economic stability of the nation. What would have taken three or four years to fix through the market will now take at least a decade because of government intervention.

In the coming days of financial woe, and the coming years of the Obama administration, remember the lessons of history and challenge those around you to avoid continuing the myths of government effectiveness, especially when it comes to economic policy.
-Andrew Davis

Nov. 25th, 2008
Republicans Responsible for Massive Growth in Government Regulation
Following Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, and the support of the massive bailouts by Republican members of Congress, the Libertarian Party says it has replaced the GOP as the party of free market advocates.

"The Republican Party no longer represents advocates of capitalism and the free market," says Libertarian Party Director of Communications Andrew Davis. "The GOP's mindless support of regulatory economic policy indicates it no longer has any philosophical or pragmatic opposition to government intervention in the marketplace. This abandonment of free market principles makes the Republican Party no more opposed to big government than their Democratic counterparts."

The Libertarian Party points to Senator John McCain's lack of opposition to the use of government in solving America's economic woes. "This was the perfect opportunity to explain to America that government was the problem, and it was not the solution," says Davis. "However, Senator McCain fervently believed that government had an important regulatory role in the economy, in what appears to be a growing sentiment among 'conservatives' in the Republican Party."

Davis says there are still Republicans and Democrats who truly believe in the principles of capitalism, but says these Congressmen "have been so marginalized by the Party elite in the name of political expediency that they have become a silenced minority."

The Libertarian Party's platform states the only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. It further states that all efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

The Libertarian Party blames the current financial crisis in part on government regulations and programs that distorted the housing market and removed the incentives of financial firms to make responsible lending decisions.

"If Americans want a political party that believes in the true meaning of a free market, they must look to the Libertarian Party," Davis concludes. "The Libertarian Party is the only voice for capitalism in politics today."

Nov. 12th, 2008
The State Executive Committee announced today that the annual business meeting/state convention will be held in Jacksonville, Florida on March 28th and 29th. The convention will take place at the Deerwood Park Hampton Inn located at 4415 Southside Blvd from 9am-9pm. Attendance will not cost anything, but if you want to be a delegate at the convention you have to be registered to vote as a Libertarian as well as be registered with the national party for at least 60 days prior to the meeting. You can register with the national party by clicking here.

Oct. 9th, 2008
The ACLU held a rally in front of the 23rd street Starbucks to vote no for Florida Amendment #2. Members of the Bay County Libertarian Party showed to support them by holding signs and our new LP Banner. If the second amendment on the ballot is passed, it will make mariage in the state of Florida only between a man and a woman. The Bay County Libertarian Party recently voted to support voting no on this issue as we don't believe marrriage should be licensed by the government in the first place. Check out the pictures section for photos of the event.

Oct. 8th, 2008
On September 20th, The Libertarian Party of Bay County hosted the Bay County Liberty Jam at local contemporary art gallery "The Gallery Above" in Downtown Panama City. The turn out was so good, at least 150 people, that the owner had to stop letting people in due to the fire-code; a first in the gallery's 4 year history. The event began with county Chairman Geoff Scott thanking everyone and giving a quick explanation of the ideas of Libertarianism which was followed by local bands Smokestack Joe and the Whiskey Barrels, The Dreamers Disease, and The Naysayers. Throughout the night the crowd engulfed itself with the libertarian literature and many new voters filled out voter registration cards and became new active party members.

The Libertarian Party is the third largest Political Party in the United States. The basic platform of the Libertarian Party follows the beliefs of the founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that the role of Government is to ensure the freedom of its people and ensure the protection of "Life, Liberty, and Property".