Wayne Allyn Root

By Jim Fryar

American libertarians are fortunate in that they live in a nation founded on libertarian values, with many of those values enshrined in the constitution. They have ‘inviolable rights’, because of the healthy distrust with which government was held by the founding fathers. The basic principle of government in America is, that it gains its power from the consent of the governed.

Despite the constant white-anting of the foundations of liberty over the years by statists, and authoritarians, those pillars still stand, the torch still lights the sky, though a little derelict, and obscured by neglect, authoritarian rhetoric and “sacrifices to the greater good”. Americans can still boast of living in freedom, though in this day and age I fear that few of them cry ‘Give me liberty or give me death’, probably more like the cry in the other democracies of the world, ‘Give me social security or give me….’.

When Australian statists argue for more control or against liberalization of existing controls, they use the slogan, “We don’t want to be like America”, perhaps American libertarians should adopt “We don’t want to be like Australia, New Zealand, England, France, etc”.

All of this aside, Americans are fortunate enough to have a solid libertarian philosophical base to the point that they have the option in many cases, of voting for Republican candidates, who in some cases are near enough to the real thing to not matter when no Libertarian candidate is available. For this reason I find that when I visit Libertarian sites over there, I find that some sites back Giuliani, some McCain, others long for Fred Thompson to throw his hat in the ring. Oddly, for someone who claims to have huge support in the polls, none of the sites I visit support Ron Paul.

The reason for this I believe is that my kind of sites are the practical/mainstream/blue collar/real world libertarian sites, the kind of people who not only support fiscal responsibility and social tolerance, but the right to defend liberty. The no shit libertarians.

This brings me to the subject in hand, after digressing somewhat.

After perusing Wayne Allyn Root’s site (see my link on the side, I still can’t get them to work in the text), I am convinced that he is one of us. This guy has a solid philosophical base in the subject, plenty of practicality about him, and supports the military. While he has reservations about aspects of the Iraq war, he offers practical solutions, and has no intention of joining the Democrats in “getting that old white flag up, and fast”. He understands that ‘Old Glory’ and peroxide don’t mix.

Demtel ads would now say, “but wait there’s more”, after checking out his site, I find more locked down policy items than all of the others have put together. Most candidates hold back on this while they test the water to see what the voters want, then ‘reinvent’ themselves accordingly, Wayne is putting it on the line now.

The best part, and the reason I am telling everyone on our side to check this guy out is that he makes it attractive, even in my opinion to non- libertarian conservative voters. This guy can sell the product.

Pushing a principled political product, one that doesn’t offer all things to all people, in today’s environment requires the ability to sell dog shit to the RSPCA.

I think this bloke can do it.

I hope so, I want to see a government of an acceptable size.

My ideal is a government that is so small that when the pollsters ask, “What improvements would you like to see in the government”, 50% of the respondents say “Government? We have a government”?

Oh well, a man can dream.