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As some of you know, I'm running for the Kent County Recorder of Deeds as a Libertarian. I've just posted my Candidates Introductory Message on the Kent County Libertarian Online Forum. I'd like to share it with you. I think it's a little unusual.
Hi. I'm Jess McVay, and I am running for the Kent County Recorder of Deeds on the Libertarian Ticket. I'd like to tell you why.
I believe in Libertarian principles, and I believe that there has never been a time in this nation's history where those principles have been as important as they are today. But Libertarians are at a significant electoral disadvantage in this country simply by virtue of America's long tradition of two party politics. I believe that without that tradition, Libertarians would win majorities today in most political debates on the merits of our ideas. But many voters have never heard of a Libertarian. All they know is Democrats and Republicans
Even among voters who are attracted to libertarian principles, there are two major reasons why Libertarians don't get more votes than they do.
1) People don't think the Libertarian can win, and
2) If the Libertarian doesn't win, voters think they may have helped elect the guy they least wanted to see elected.
How do we overcome these disadvantages? I believe we overcome them by starting with baby steps. First, Libertarians have to get their names on the ballot. Voters need to see as many names on the ballot followed by the Libertarian Party ID as we can muster. This will reinforce the impression that Libertarians are a serious and credible force in Delaware politics. The Recorder of Deeds position represents another one of those baby steps. The election for Recorder of Deeds is among the least likely to be subject to the aforementioned perceptions about electability and consequences of defeat.
Pop quiz: Why is the Recorder of Deeds a partisan elective office?
Answer: I have absolutely no idea.
Does anyone believe that a Democrat would run the Office of the Recorder of Deeds in an ideologically different manner from the way a Republican would run it? Would a Libertarian's ideology dictate any different policies in the Recorder's office than the ideology of the Democrat or the Republican? I'm thinkin' your answer to both questions is no.
So how do most people decide who to vote for in the Recorder of Deeds race? Well, if they're registered Republican, they vote for the Republican. If they're registered Democrat, they vote for the Democrat. And if the other candidate wins, they don't lose one minutes sleep over it because it doesn't really matter, and they don't really care that much.
I believe that many voters, if not most of them, are fed up with politics as usual. They believe both parties have made a hash out of recent policies. There has never been an election where voters were more receptive to the idea of a third party candidate. Their attitude toward the Democrats and the Republicans is, "A pox on both your houses."
My candidacy offers those voters a low risk place to register their protest. If I win, great. They've sent a message to members of their party. Stop the stupidity. If I lose, who cares. It's only the Recorder of Deeds. Does this sound like a lunatic's approach to running for public office? Maybe so. But I think it makes perfect sense. If I win, I represent one small baby step on the path to demonstrating the electability of Libertarian candidates. And if I lose? Well I won't lose a minutes sleep over it because it really doesn't matter.
My campaign slogan suggests itself:
Vote for Jess McVay. What have you got to lose?
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Visit the Kent County Libertarian Online Forum
There's a Kent County Libertarian Forum available now on the internet. I plan to visit often and contribute regularly. I hope you will do the same. Here's the link. Here's a link to my introductory post.
Jess
Jess
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Michael Bloomberg is a Tool
The award for the stupidest remark of the week goes to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his speculation on the identity and motive of the perpetrator of the attempted Times Square bombing. Click here for link. Hey Mikee, it never occurred to you the guy might have been a Muslim terrorist? You're such a dope!
Jess
Jess
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Get Ready for a New Cable Channel
Get ready America. You are about to learn a whole lot more about wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico than you ever wanted to know. The recent oil spill in the Gulf has provided the liberal mainstream press with its latest mission in life. A blitzkrieg of anti-drilling propaganda is about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Now I don't mean to belittle the importance of the ecological disaster that may be evolving in the Gulf of Mexico. I am a believer in offshore drilling, but even a proponent like me has to pause and ask the question, "Is it safe?" You don't need to be an Environmentalist (capital E) to value the environment.
Sensible people will want to find out what happened, how bad it will it get, what are the chances of it happening again, and can we learn from this accident to prevent the next one. The Green movement in this country won't let on if they're smart, but I'll bet they're jumping for joy at the news. I'll bet they are gearing up to demagogue this thing to death. The eco-missionary evangelists will want no part of a sensible discussion. This will become a mother lode of anti-drilling news "content" and sensationalism. It will be the Chernobyl and the Three Mile Island for the Offshore Oil Industry.
So get ready for the deluge. You won't be able to turn on your TV or open a web page on your favorite news source without being bombarded with images of oil soaked birds. Poor, helpless, innocent, dying oil soaked birds. Oil soaked birds for breakfast, oil soaked birds for lunch, and oil soaked birds for dinner. 24/7 oil soaked birds. The mainstream media are going to eat this stuff up. "Who's gonna waste time on rational debate, when we've got visuals like these?" the news producers and the editors will say.
We will not see the end of this story for a long time to come. Your local cable provider has got to be cutting the deals and figuring out how to rearrange the channel line-up even as I write this. Let's see. We've got the Golf Channel. Nothing but golf. We've got The Weather Channel. How interesting can you make the weather 24 hours a day? We've got a couple of shopping channels. Shop until the remote is too hot to handle. We've got a bunch of food channels, and God knows we've got a whole slew of channels devoted to nothing but sports. But get ready for the mother of all one dimensional programming alternatives. They'll call it The Oil Soaked Wildlife Channel. All oil soaked birds, all the time. Get out the manual for your TV. You're going to have to learn how that V-Chip thingy works. You're going to have to block this channel from your young impressionable kids lest they wind up with nightmares of slick stained seagulls and petroleum permeated pelicans. And who wants to face the perpetually crying four year old begging for you to reassure him that Big Bird was not a victim of mayhem at the hands of the evil oil companies.
Yes, it will get ugly America. Ugly in a way that only the left can do ugly. It's as if heaven has bestowed a gift on the Obama administration. One more industry to demonize and subjugate to the will of the big government agenda. Don't shed too many tears for the poor birds. Save some for American industry, capitalism and the free market system. They're likely to be the real losers when this is over.
Jess
Sensible people will want to find out what happened, how bad it will it get, what are the chances of it happening again, and can we learn from this accident to prevent the next one. The Green movement in this country won't let on if they're smart, but I'll bet they're jumping for joy at the news. I'll bet they are gearing up to demagogue this thing to death. The eco-missionary evangelists will want no part of a sensible discussion. This will become a mother lode of anti-drilling news "content" and sensationalism. It will be the Chernobyl and the Three Mile Island for the Offshore Oil Industry.
So get ready for the deluge. You won't be able to turn on your TV or open a web page on your favorite news source without being bombarded with images of oil soaked birds. Poor, helpless, innocent, dying oil soaked birds. Oil soaked birds for breakfast, oil soaked birds for lunch, and oil soaked birds for dinner. 24/7 oil soaked birds. The mainstream media are going to eat this stuff up. "Who's gonna waste time on rational debate, when we've got visuals like these?" the news producers and the editors will say.
We will not see the end of this story for a long time to come. Your local cable provider has got to be cutting the deals and figuring out how to rearrange the channel line-up even as I write this. Let's see. We've got the Golf Channel. Nothing but golf. We've got The Weather Channel. How interesting can you make the weather 24 hours a day? We've got a couple of shopping channels. Shop until the remote is too hot to handle. We've got a bunch of food channels, and God knows we've got a whole slew of channels devoted to nothing but sports. But get ready for the mother of all one dimensional programming alternatives. They'll call it The Oil Soaked Wildlife Channel. All oil soaked birds, all the time. Get out the manual for your TV. You're going to have to learn how that V-Chip thingy works. You're going to have to block this channel from your young impressionable kids lest they wind up with nightmares of slick stained seagulls and petroleum permeated pelicans. And who wants to face the perpetually crying four year old begging for you to reassure him that Big Bird was not a victim of mayhem at the hands of the evil oil companies.
Yes, it will get ugly America. Ugly in a way that only the left can do ugly. It's as if heaven has bestowed a gift on the Obama administration. One more industry to demonize and subjugate to the will of the big government agenda. Don't shed too many tears for the poor birds. Save some for American industry, capitalism and the free market system. They're likely to be the real losers when this is over.
Jess
Be Careful What You Wish For
By all accounts, the Republicans are going to have a good year come November 2010. I'd like to point out that this may turn out to be a disaster disguised as a blessing. There are a lot of people like me who believe that our economy is on the verge of a collapse much worse than the one we just went through. I believe that the Federal Government has been throwing money into a deep dark abyss in hopes of jump starting an ailing economy. Why do I think the economy is failing? Let me count the ways:
1. Huge bailouts rewarding bad behavior on Wall Street have kept alive institutions that should have been allowed to fail.
2. Relaxed accounting rules that have allowed banks to hide their insolvency by masking billions of bad debts on their books.
3. A housing market with rising foreclosures and staving off further collapse in prices only because of government tax incentives, low interest rates and Fannie and Freddie buying up over 95% of all mortgages in the US.
4. Jobless "recovery" with unemployment high and anticipated to stay that way for years.
5. $787 billion in a stimulus package that failed to create jobs, and only added to the deficit.
6. Annual budget deficits in excess of a trillion dollars a year for as far as the eye can see, adding to a national debt that is approaching 13 trillion dollars. We are the next Greece!
7. We're one failed Treasury auction (foreigners lose confidence and stop buying our debt) away from rising interest rates on our borrowing and a huge rise in interest payments as a percentage of our national budget.
8. Unfunded entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare coming due, going cash flow negative, and the government passing new entitlements instead of reining in costs on existing ones.
9. A new stock market bubble in the making based on speculation by big banks with money borrowed from the Fed at near zero interest rates, and with an implied bailout when it all goes kablooey 'cause they're too big to fail. That bubble will eventually burst and destroy trillions in phantom "wealth". The banks will be saved by Uncle Sam. Joe Sixpack, to the extent that he gets sucked in to the apparent rally in stocks, will be on his own as will the pension funds that pay his retirement.
10. States and municipalities on the verge of bankruptcy.
11. A government so broken by corruption, bad policy, and addiction to special interest campaign financing that they can only be part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
I could go on. No, really. That's not just a rhetorical phrase. I really could go on for a while. But I want to get to my point.
Mervyn King is the Governor of The Bank of England. They're about to have an election over in the UK, and the Conservative Party is looking like they're going to push the Labor Party out of power. Mr King said recently that whoever wins the next election will be OUT of power for a generation. I was confused when I read that. Doesn't he mean they'll be IN power for a generation? No. He meant OUT of power. Things are so bad in Britain today that the new government will have to institute austerity measures to salvage the economy that will be so Draconian that they will quickly lose power to whomever will promise less pain to the electorate. The unfortunate peddlers of austerity, ie. the grownups, will subsequently be banished from power for a generation.
I said above that the US was the next Greece. That's not entirely true. First will come Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Iceland (there already), and the UK. But make no mistake. The United States holds a place well near the front of the line. Our day will come as well. If the present administration can hold the illusion together until November, they may inherit the biggest political windfall one could imagine.
Picture this. An economy struggles to recover. The administration does all it can to create the illusion of success just around the corner. November comes and the Republicans reap huge gains due to voter outrage over the Healthcare bill and a myriad of other insults suffered at the hands of this administration. Then, whether due to fiscally responsible and necessarily austere policies by a Republican Congress, or simply to the inevitable breakdown of the economic illusion, the economy goes off a cliff. The Democrats blame the Republicans, an economically naive and hurting electorate buy the story, and we see Obama re-elected in 2012 with a bigger majority than he has today, and it's the fast track to a socialist America.
Now I'm not saying this scenario is inescapable. But it is not impossible either. I hope I'm wrong. But expectations have a way of disappointing us. We need to be very careful what we wish for.
Jess
1. Huge bailouts rewarding bad behavior on Wall Street have kept alive institutions that should have been allowed to fail.
2. Relaxed accounting rules that have allowed banks to hide their insolvency by masking billions of bad debts on their books.
3. A housing market with rising foreclosures and staving off further collapse in prices only because of government tax incentives, low interest rates and Fannie and Freddie buying up over 95% of all mortgages in the US.
4. Jobless "recovery" with unemployment high and anticipated to stay that way for years.
5. $787 billion in a stimulus package that failed to create jobs, and only added to the deficit.
6. Annual budget deficits in excess of a trillion dollars a year for as far as the eye can see, adding to a national debt that is approaching 13 trillion dollars. We are the next Greece!
7. We're one failed Treasury auction (foreigners lose confidence and stop buying our debt) away from rising interest rates on our borrowing and a huge rise in interest payments as a percentage of our national budget.
8. Unfunded entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare coming due, going cash flow negative, and the government passing new entitlements instead of reining in costs on existing ones.
9. A new stock market bubble in the making based on speculation by big banks with money borrowed from the Fed at near zero interest rates, and with an implied bailout when it all goes kablooey 'cause they're too big to fail. That bubble will eventually burst and destroy trillions in phantom "wealth". The banks will be saved by Uncle Sam. Joe Sixpack, to the extent that he gets sucked in to the apparent rally in stocks, will be on his own as will the pension funds that pay his retirement.
10. States and municipalities on the verge of bankruptcy.
11. A government so broken by corruption, bad policy, and addiction to special interest campaign financing that they can only be part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
I could go on. No, really. That's not just a rhetorical phrase. I really could go on for a while. But I want to get to my point.
Mervyn King is the Governor of The Bank of England. They're about to have an election over in the UK, and the Conservative Party is looking like they're going to push the Labor Party out of power. Mr King said recently that whoever wins the next election will be OUT of power for a generation. I was confused when I read that. Doesn't he mean they'll be IN power for a generation? No. He meant OUT of power. Things are so bad in Britain today that the new government will have to institute austerity measures to salvage the economy that will be so Draconian that they will quickly lose power to whomever will promise less pain to the electorate. The unfortunate peddlers of austerity, ie. the grownups, will subsequently be banished from power for a generation.
I said above that the US was the next Greece. That's not entirely true. First will come Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Iceland (there already), and the UK. But make no mistake. The United States holds a place well near the front of the line. Our day will come as well. If the present administration can hold the illusion together until November, they may inherit the biggest political windfall one could imagine.
Picture this. An economy struggles to recover. The administration does all it can to create the illusion of success just around the corner. November comes and the Republicans reap huge gains due to voter outrage over the Healthcare bill and a myriad of other insults suffered at the hands of this administration. Then, whether due to fiscally responsible and necessarily austere policies by a Republican Congress, or simply to the inevitable breakdown of the economic illusion, the economy goes off a cliff. The Democrats blame the Republicans, an economically naive and hurting electorate buy the story, and we see Obama re-elected in 2012 with a bigger majority than he has today, and it's the fast track to a socialist America.
Now I'm not saying this scenario is inescapable. But it is not impossible either. I hope I'm wrong. But expectations have a way of disappointing us. We need to be very careful what we wish for.
Jess
The New Money Killers
I saw this picture on one of my favorite websites, The Automatic Earth. I wanted to share it because I have a fondness for old photos like this, and because I thought we would all benefit by updating the photo a little.
Harris & Ewing The Money Killers 1917
"Treasury Department, Bureau of Printing and Engraving. Destruction Committee. Maceration of old currency." The lady is Mrs. Louise Lester, "in charge of mutilation."
"Treasury Department, Bureau of Printing and Engraving. Destruction Committee. Maceration of old currency." The lady is Mrs. Louise Lester, "in charge of mutilation."
That is how they used to destroy the currency. Now we have the Federal Reserve to do it!
The Money Killers 2010 Maceration of the new currency.
Move over Louise. Were in charge of macerating the currency now!
Jess
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