Vote for Inclusiveness, Freedom, and Peace

I’ve survived another week, barely. I’m not exactly behind on my studying, but I’m not exactly caught up either. I should be in the midst of drafting a predictive memo for a negligent hiring case, rather than just briefing the source cases, but hey, that’s what weekends are for.

Then again, this one has a Habitat for Humanity thing on Saturday and manning the Libertarian booth at the Takoma Park Folk Festival on Sunday. Hmm…

Yesterday was a huge media day for the Badnarik campaign. Articles in Las Vegas City Life, the Las Vegas Mercury, the Denver Post, USA Today, a TV interview with 9News in Denver, and even a mention on CNN.

On top of that, there was an endorsement of Badnarik from the Pink Pistols, a gay gun rights group. Excerpt:

“We’re excited to endorse the only candidate in this election who stands for equal rights — and the means to defend those rights — for everyone,” says Douglas L. Krick, founder of Pink Pistols. “With the ‘major’ parties competing to see who can be most strident in encouraging different standards for the queer communities, it’s more important than ever that we stand up for ourselves — and support candidates who stand with us.”

Badnarik, 50, of Austin, Texas, welcomes that support. “Pursuit of political reform is best exercised through the ballot box and the jury box,” he says. “But ultimately the cartridge box must be there, especially when lives are at stake. In America today, it’s still considered acceptable in many places to attack gay men and lesbians for no other reason than who they are. When that happens, the victim can’t wait for a police officer or a jury to try to sort things out.”

After class, I went to the AU College Libertarians meeting to discuss strategy for getting the message out to voters on campus. Lots of new people showed up and a good number of them seemed excited about having a real option. Mike’s right, selling his message is “like selling ice water in hell”.

Speaking of selling the message, the following is a letter I submitted to the American Jurist:

Dear Editor,

Thank you for covering the Presidential campaign in your August 2004 issue. I was dismayed that the Libertarian candidate, Michael Badnarik, was omitted from your candidate profiles.

Mr. Badnarik supports the rights of gay Americans to equal protection under the law, including the right to marry whomever they choose. In contrast, Bush and Kerry only disagree over whether gay marriage should be prohibited at the state (Kerry) or federal (Bush) level.

Mr. Badnarik opposes the encroachment of our civil liberties by the Patriot Act. Bush and Kerry only differ in that Kerry voted for the law and Bush signed it.

Mr. Badnarik opposes the war in Iraq and supports bringing our troops home. Bush brought this country into the war and Kerry has gone on record that, even knowing what he knows now about weapons of mass destruction, he’d still vote to authorize the war.

It seems obvious that Mr. Badnarik’s positions on issues that may be of importance to the WCL community stand in stark contrast to Mssrs Bush and Kerry. I would urge your readers to vote for a candidate that shares their values of inclusiveness, freedom, and peace. I would urge them to vote for Michael Badnarik.

We shall see if it gets published next month.

Yours truly,

Mr. X

…keeping it real…