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Goodbye, and Goodriddence to 2009 and this awful decade

We started off the new millennium with lots of hopes. The whole “Year 2000″ thing sounded so exciting and futuristic, and we were all expecting great things to come. Instead, this decade has been an awful start that hopefully won’t set the stage for the next 90. While some areas had wild amounts of success and made our lives better (like all these fancy new cell phones), just about every part of our lives has suffered some kind of step backwards in the 2000s.

Here’s why I can’t wait for the month to end and will be welcoming 2010 with open arms.

The Music of the 00’s

It all started off with this and has just gone downhill.

Linkin Park: Pure awful on a disc

In 2000 the #1 album was “The Beatles: 1″, and by 2005 it was a 50 Cent album. That’s how fast things went downhill. The rest is history. Year after year we are treated to another piece of repetitive trash, a new Britney comeback album, or something else that just makes you dumber every time you hear it. It’s gotten so bad that we now consider a song who’se only lyrics are “Tonight’s gunna be a good night” to be perfectly acceptable. Excuse me while I go barf.

It’s ridiculous how much 90’s music I listen to now just because today’s “artists” have driven me in another direction so rapidly.

The music industry as a whole became something we all hated. Nothing like hearing record labels cry poor from piracy only to find out now that they use unauthorized recordings in compilations all the time.

Cars and The Auto Industry

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The Case for Bob Barr

The Freedom movement has been torn between two people in the wake of Ron Paul losing the GOP Primary. We have been stuck between two candidates that have left many of us in a place where we aren’t sure where to turn. On one hand, you have Pastor Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, and the Libertarian Nominee, former GOP House Representative Bob Barr. There’s little question that the LP had to sell their soul to the devil a little bit to nominate Barr, a man who they once prided on kicking out of office. Baldwin is a strong charismatic speaker and reminds me a lot of the late Harry Browne in his relentless focus in not deterring from his views no matter what. 

However, I’ve been in the Barr camp since the nomination. And the reasoning behind it is simple when it comes right down to it. 

Barr isn’t by any standards the perfect LP candidate. He was part of the GOP takeover of congress in 1994 and was quite a force as a drug Czar and called for Clinton’s impeachment on campaign finance long before Lewinskygate. He voted for the war and the Patriot Act, as well as numerous other skeletons in his closet that make him a less than attractive choice with an option like Baldwin on the table. 

However, he has since changed his stance on numerous issues, including the Patriot Act, the War, the War on Drugs, etc. He’s not 100% Libertarian by any means, but he has recognized that the things he supported in the past did not work. 

Some could easily dismiss this as a simple flip flop on issues, as we are used to seeing in elections. But this goes back deeper than that. Barr did not announce his candidacy for president until May, not long before the LP convention over Memorial Day weekend. And by then his issues were already firmly in place. Unlike former Alaska Senator (I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty sick about hearing about anything alaska-related for a while) Mike Gravel who jumped ship over to the party to try and get the nomination, Barr has been working within the LP for years now, having left congress in 2003 and endorsing Michael Badnarik in 2004. 

What I like about this is that what has happened to Barr needs to be what happens to ALL congressmen. How many times have we seen people in politics refuse to admit that their plans didn’t work? Or that their positions were wrong on something? How many times have you heard a politician say that they regretted a bill they sponsored, voted for, or a position they had? Those kind of statements are unheard of in politics. Yet Barr has the balls to come out and say, essentially, “I fucked up, what I did was wrong, and I’m looking in a new direction now”.

As Ron Paul supporters, we have made it our mission to go out and turn people around. People that would be voting for Obama or McCain have seen our way of thinking, and yet we celebrate their awakening, yet many are quick to jump the gun and call Barr’s awakening fraudulent. Of course there’s no real way of telling for sure if he’s completely genuine. But I find it hypocritical of the Freedom Movement to say that we want to get politicians and people to see our side, and here is a man claiming to have done so, long before the Ron Paul bandwagon I might add, who we immediately question. 

Is it possible that Barr is playing us like a fiddle? Sure. It is possible he’s a GOP plant into the LP? Sure. In reflecting upon this, we must also realize that it’s entirely possible that he is sincere and that he has performed a 180. And if that’s true, we need to show the other politicians that we will support them if they are able to see the way things should be done.

Things get sticky when we consider that Paul has now endorsed Baldwin. This is primarily the effect of a couple stupid moves made by Barr’s campaign manager, Russ Verney (who also headed Perot’s campaign). First Verney decided that Barr shouldn’t appear at Paul’s bipartisan endorsement at the Washington Press Club, for reasons that I’m still struggling to understand. Then we had him get Barr to ask Paul to be his VP, which was just weird. So Paul turned around and endorsed Baldwin, and I’m not going to punish Barr for a few dumb mistakes made by his campaign manager, the same as we didn’t chastise Paul for decisions made by the late Kent Snyder.

I’ve seen Chuck Baldwin speak. He’s a fantastic man and I would have no regrets about voting for him. I’ve watched him speak before, and he is a man of whom I have a tremendous amount of respect for. However, odds are I’ll be voting for the man who I feel has led the example for all mainstream GOP and Democrat politicians to follow, and that is Bob Barr. Best of luck of course to Barr and Baldwin, let’s show ‘em that liberty is NOT dead.