*Written by Rob Rimes.

Driving up from Bonita Springs, FL to Orlando early on a Friday morning can be strenuous, especially during season. For those that don’t know, season is what we Floridians call the time of year that all the “snowbirds” come down to overtake our roads, restaurants and lives. It’s a very annoying period for most of us in the Sunshine State but for those in the tourism or service industries, it is a time for making serious bank. In fact, I remember the days when I used to work to service these often times nasty and irritable snowbirds. I pretty much hated life, as I worked in a few different top notch joints around Naples and Ft. Myers, and even though I busted my ass and made a boatload of cash, often times I had to work twice as hard because the tips were shit. Here I go venting about life a decade ago and getting off track.

Anyway, my trip up to Orlando was full of several near accidents, none of which were caused by me. The problem is that many of these glaucoma-afflicted snowbirds shouldn’t be driving. Additionally, they really shouldn’t be driving these ten ton M1-A1 Abrams tanks around like they own the goddamned road! It’s deadly on I-75 and I-4 with these people, especially when early morning rush hour hits! Funny huh? A libertarian trying to restrict these old birds’ freedoms. Whatever. Between having to dodge these kamikaze tank drivers with no regard for painted lane lines, I was also distracted by the countless billboards up and down the highway. It’s as if Disney, Universal Studios, Sea World and Anti-Abortion groups are in a competition to see who can plaster the Florida Interstate System with the most advertisements. When I was a kid traveling these roads with my dad, we had a better class of billboards. One in particular that comes to mind featured scantily clad women with bad 80′s hair with the words “We Bare All!” I know that these lovely signs still exist but they are seemingly far and few between. Let’s celebrate these hard-working beautiful single mothers and get away from sprinkling the roads with pictures of fetuses and Shamu.

So after three hours of dealing with all this madness, I arrived at the Embassy Suites near the Orlando International Airport; I’m not sure if that is the official name of the airport or not. The reason why I am at this hotel is to experience and cover the 2012 Libertarian Party of Florida Convention and Presidential Debate. Even more importantly than that, I came to meet and shake the hand of Gary Johnson. He doesn’t have the Party’s nomination yet but many feel that the thing is basically a done deal. Regardless of that, there is a debate to be held on the second day of this event, which will feature all of the candidates trying to get the Party’s nomination to run against Obama and whomever the fickle doublethinking Republicans choose between Romney, Paul, Gingrich and Santorum.

Now just because Johnson is known nationally and was even involved in some high-profile Republican debates last year, doesn’t mean he is just going to run away with this thing. There are several very qualified candidates in the hunt. First up is renowned author and documentary filmmaker Bill Still, who is best known for his films ‘The Money Masters’ and ‘The Secret of Oz’. Next is R.J. Harris, who has been building up a lot of steam online. He is an Afghan war veteran and a Kiowa Nation member. There is R. Lee Wrights who is a lifetime Libertarian Party member, as well as co-founder and editor of ‘Liberty For All’, an independent online magazine. There is also Roger Gary who is a former Texas Libertarian Party State Chairman. Last but not least is attorney Carl Person. I must admit that I really only know Still and Harris, apart from Johnson, but after recently reading up on the other three, I am psyched for the debate.

As I arrived at the hotel, not even an hour ago, as I type this, I met a delegate from New York in the elevator and he invited me to a meet and greet with Governor Johnson in his hospitality suite. Now I already had a meeting set up to meet Johnson later this evening with my friends from the Libertarian Party of Collier County but it looks like I will have the pleasure of double dipping and getting two chances to pick the man’s brain tonight.

As I am just over an hour away from the first encounter, I must wrap this up and start to get ready. Plus I’m looking down at the bar from my seventh floor window and it looks like there is a seat with my name on it right in front of an incredibly gorgeous bartender. Looks like it is going to be a whiskey night. Libertarian Party Convention, here I come.

*Written by M. Hines.

Rob has been after me for some time to write something reasonable to post on The Swash.  I’ve never really had anything to say, but prompted by the primary in my home state today and recent conversations with good friends, I thought I would share a couple short thoughts. (Not necessarily reasonable, and in no particular order.)

Part A.

It’s hard to decide where to start when the premise of a later subject may be defining what it means to be pro-life by illustrating the severity of our military action in order to set the stage for redefining what it means to be pro-life.

But what the hell, here we go.

“Why are we fighting terrorism? What are the motives here? Who struck first?”

Lately, in the back room, this very argument has been growing. It is growing amongst those who do not know the history of the Middle East region and are not being taught the inconvenient facts by our leadership.

It is understandable as to why this subject wouldn’t be discussed. A brief glance through the pages of history reveal mass involvement from the West in the establishment of what we know of the Middle East today. For example, most are not aware that the modern state of Israel is less then a century old. Even less known is that the roots of the country lie in a backhanded treaty made between the British and French to provision a space for the Jewish people in their process of “re-arranging” the Middle East colonies. This act set the stage for the later violent overthrow of the Arab population living in the area and the creation of what we now know as Israel and Palestine both in border and conflict.

In 1977, the first Islamic Terrorist attack against the US occurred in what was called the Hanafi Siege, a curious event that ironically seemed to consist of Islamic Extremists targeting ultimately other Islamic Extremists. The interesting element here is that popular cause for the Siege is attributed to the their leaders secondary request, which was to have a film titled Mohammad, Messenger of God destroyed as they perceived it to be sacrilegious.

One of the next most notable attacks occurred in 1993 when a small group managed to detonate a truck bomb at the base of the World Trade Center. This attack, which was largely unsuccessful, was planned by Ramzi Yousef. The following can be read in the Wikipedia article regarding Yousef’s motivations:

According to the journalist Steve Coll, Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to ‘Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion’.[8] These letters made three demands: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a demand for a pledge by the United States to end interference “with any of the Middle East countries’ interior affairs.” He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met. In his letters Yousef admitted that the World Trade Center bombing was an act of terrorism, but this was justified because “the terrorism that Israel practices (which America supports) must be faced with a similar one.”

Interesting. So, perhaps there is a shred of logical motivation that extremist groups would have for attacking Western Groups. So, what is our motivation?

“They hit us first.” Did they?

Who has been putting their hands in the Middle East and stirring the pot for decades now? Is it possible that the western action of creating and promoting the state of Israel could be likened to China invading Alaska, giving it to the Canadians sending our people to Idaho and saying, “Hey, us and our friends got your back… Forever”. Is it really that unreasonable to say that an action like that might be cause to promote irritation with our way of doing business? Is this not what we’ve been doing for the last sixty years?

I’m not trying to make any definitive statements here, just some things to think about.

It is estimated that our war in Iraq has caused the deaths of some 150,000 Iraqi Civilians since it started…

It is estimated the Nazi’s killed between 160,000 and 180,000 German Jews during the Holocaust.

Part B.

Pro-Life – the term that has become defined-as and synonymous with “advocating full legal protection of embryos and fetuses (especially opposing the legalization of induced abortions).”

I once heard a pastor respond when asked if a politicians stance on abortion was reason enough to vote for them, his response was this, “being pro-life does not simply mean that we protect the unborn, it must also must mean that we protect the living”.

Choosing who should live and who should die on any grounds passes a judgment that only a higher being has the right to make, and effectively assigns a value to a person’s life no different than if they were slaves.

I hope that when put this simply to others; it is as profound as it was to me.

Currently there is a majority percentage of the GOP field that is running on both pro-life and pro-war agendas.

I do not see a way for these to co-exist.

References

Almost everything here is referenced from Wikipedia. If you have a problem, comment with the conflicting facts, and we’ll chat about it. If you don’t have conflicting facts, Fuck Off.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I described the last Huckabee fourm as “..about as fun as using a power drill on one’s own head.” With that said, I doubt that this second attempt at trying to grab ratings for Huck’s lackluster Saturday night show was any better. Considering that the first forum was so awful and that Ron Paul didn’t even participate in this one, I opted out of watching it and instead went out and had some sushi, ribeye and drinks with some friends to celebrate one of their birthdays. Sometimes life is more important than politics for a political commentator and since this was just a circus of five statist shitcocks claiming to be conservatives, I couldn’t bear to sit through another shit show trying to take itself seriously.

So what could I possibly write about the debate, considering I didn’t even see it? Well, I think it is important to acknowledge it and important to explain why I didn’t watch it, as I already have. Truth be told, it isn’t hard to know exactly how this night went without even witnessing it.

I’m sure Mitt Romney gave us the same old crap about being the King of Job Creation and his claims weren’t attacked by the other candidates, as this was probably like the last Huckabee forum where candidates weren’t allowed to share the stage or talk about each other. Doesn’t Huck know how lame that is? No one wants to see these people not rip each other’s throats out! We want blood! That’s the only way you can separate the bitches and bastards from the generals. Anyway, Romney pimped his job creation skills, talked about how much of a dickhead Obama was and warned that China was going to murder American puppies. I also assume that he was wearing Garnier Volumizing Anti-Humidity.

Newt Gingrich probably ranted about the Romney-Bain issue and spent most of that time defending himself from looking like an asshole for continually harping on ol’ Mittens about it. Newt probably name dropped Ronald Reagan six dozen times. Huckabee probably had Newt explain why he is the thirty-seventh version of the second coming of Reagan. Gingrich most likely pandered to the South Carolinians regarding parts of his platform that might be frowned upon by the people of the South. Newt most assuredly filibustered about everything from his controversial illegal immigration stance to allowing the Confederacy to rise again.

I’m sure Jon Huntsman went on to talk about how no one but him understands China. He also would have talked about bringing our troops home. He probably talked down all of our wars and offered up some good foreign policy points that differ from everyone else in the forum quite drastically. He may have talked in Mandarin or Klingon at some point in an effort to confuse the South Carolinians. He also would have played up his success in New Hampshire as some sort of great win, even though he was in third place. I would gather that he probably said “truth deficit” nine-hundred times give or take a few dozen.

If history is any indicator, Governor Perry talked about sanctions on everyone and pushing our troops back into Iraq to continue on some pointless conquest. Perry probably used a lot of fear-mongering to sell South Carolinians on the idea that every other country in the world wants to steal our wives and sell our children to Martians. He went on to ramble incoherently but got applause for it nonetheless. He was also blind to the fact that he is not just at the bottom of the barrel, he has been nailed, glued and stapled to it.

Gay-hating penis muffin Rick Santorum went on to talk about how awesome Jesus Christ is and how he was going to give him the power to cure fags and revive dead fetuses. With the first power, he would most assuredly put Marcus Bachmann out of business but then again it would be a true cure to the gay disease and Mr. Bachmann and Mr. Santorum wouldn’t have to worry about hiding their ravenous sexual appetites, as they would only be interested in women after the cure. With the second power granted by Jesus, Santorum would build a small army of undead baby zombies that he could use to achieve several evil deeds. For instance, they could be used for espionage work, as they could hide in small areas and move around undetected. They could also be used to clear mine fields before our military moved in to claim another country. Hell, they could even be used as a pack of piranha-like undead parasites that Santorum could unleash on his political enemies, where they would be devoured or zombified – either way making them a part of Santorum’s undead fetus army.

What did Ron Paul do? He sat this one out and probably didn’t even bother watching it as it was just a forum to display the same old establishment bullshit and propaganda. Now I am not sure if Dr. Paul chose to sit this out or if Huck was just a dick and didn’t invite him. Typically, even at shit events like this one, Ron Paul takes advantage of any free time given to him. The only way I could see him not participating, if he was invited, would be due to being locked in to a prior engagement. Whatever the reason, he’s the real winner here for not even being a part of this mess. Besides, the first forum was just a waste of his time.

In the end, I couldn’t care less about this forum. This should be obvious after reading through this bullshit article. I’ve also learned that most of these candidates have nothing more to say. At this point they just need to go after each other in a free-for-all brawl leaving no punches pulled! To take these people, at this point, and put them in a scenario where they can’t talk about each other or even share a stage is just stupid and careless. I know Mike Huckabee wants to be above the bickering and name calling but that’s all we’ve got left! Let them bleed out! It’s time to release the sharks!

There is no grading scale for this debate. Just assume everyone in it got an “F” and Ron Paul got an “A” for not taking part.