Category Archives: Libertarianism

One of the fun conditions of this project is that the three teams did not in any way collaborate with each other or get an advance look at what the others were going to say. As a result some recommendations overlapbetween teamsin a positive way, some conflict, and many others simply don't engage one way or the other. For example, we at Team Libertarian reached very similar conclusions to Team Progressive on reforming the Electoral Count Act, but a mostly opposite conclusion (as Prof. Foley has noted) on whether government should seek to regulate false statements about elections. And although Team Conservative's comments on restricting presidential emergency powers both dovetail with ours and add useful detail, few of our other recommendations engage.

Although we and Team Conservative may have marched off in different directions, I and many Cato Institute colleagues are on board with much of what they say. Runaway administrative agencies usurping legislative power? Yes, a big problem. Congressional abdication of power stretching over for a half-century or more, shifting responsibility to the President and the judiciary? Definitely. I agree too that there's a decent case for making it at least a bit easier to amend the U.S. Constitution. (Here's a Cato fellow writing in 2011 proposing a modest reduction in the threshold number of states needed for proposing and ratifying an amendment.) The need to move past a broken primary system in which candidates with independent and crossover appeal get knocked out because they can't appease their party's most zealous base voters? Right again.

On the topic of elections, we're also in agreement with Team Conservative's observation that campaign finance reforms have backfired and that we should be repealing such laws rather than adding more. But let's also get real: the election world wasted much of 2021 in a battle over whether Democrats would succeed in ramming through an omnibus package expanding these laws yet further. As I've argued, this package, the so-called For The People Act, 1) put its thumb in the eye of libertarian and constitutionalist principle, and 2) was supremely irrelevant to the distinctive challenges of the events leading up to Jan. 6. Shouldn't we focus on reform efforts that have a chance of doing relevant good between now and the next grave election crisis down the road which we might find ourselves in the middle of by a date as early as, say, 2024?

Which brings me to some policy disagreements with Team Conservative. I can't say I'm persuaded by the idea of letting Congress override presidential vetoes by simple majority vote, as Tennessee does. The Founders meant to establish serious checks and balances against the dangers of hasty legislation, and gutting the power of the president's veto would knock out one of the most important of those checks. (For what it's worth, my home state of Maryland sets its veto-override threshold at three-fifths rather than two-thirds not that I'm recommending that, either.) On bringing back the legislative veto, I share the misgivings about that innovation expressed by Antonin Scalia, then editor of Regulation, many years ago.

Now on to Team Progressive. On one major point we agree strongly: it's incredibly dangerous when a controlling faction of one of the two great political parties wrongly contends that honest and correctly tabulated elections were stolen or rigged. The Progressive report gives this problem a central place in its analysis, and that seems right to me.

Yet there are differences of mood and terminology in our approaches as well. As I commented on Twitter the other day, I continue to search for phrases other than "Big Lie" and "election denier" that would let us criticize both these things without using terminology associated with you-know-what. Millions of persons sincerely believe the false claims in question. They are truly convinced that they, not we, are doing the right thing and standing up for fair and free elections. There are some genuine villains out there feeding them lies, as well as crazies irresponsibly stoking mass delusion. But the ordinary believers are also our friends, our relatives, and our neighbors. We cannot stop being those things to them if America is to gather back its wits and turn back down the road toward some semblance of unity.

As to policy, I'm a convinced advocate of ranked-choice voting, but I'd caution that its advantages are relatively subtle; it won't put out the fire of public disbelief in election results. The fact is that in some key states, election fabulists may presently be popular enough to win, or at least put up a strong contest, under whichever set of rules is used. (I also think the plain-vanilla version of RCV, sometimes called instant-runoff voting, is better suited to today's America than the more complex "round-robin" variant that Foley recommends.)

We and Team Progressive likely part company on some issues of federalism and decentralization. Ned Foley and Ilya Somin have already discussed this a bit as to foot voting, and I suspect that our teams may also diverge on to what extent the federal government should play a greater role in supervising the states in election administration; we caution against this at several points.

Also on the Foley-Somin exchange linked above, I'll mention for what it's worth that I'm probably a little more positive about civics education than Ilya is. Still, I do recognize there can be difficult problems in legitimately educating the public about how the electoral system works, on the one hand, while avoiding the specter of taxpayer-funded propaganda campaigns,on the other. (As an example of the challenges involved, here's how the Nebraska Secretary of State set about refuting myths and rumors about the 2020 count.)

Thanks to the National Constitution Center for making possible this summer's exchange of views with writers and scholars we respect, and to the Volokh Conspiracy for hosting this shorter symposium this week.

The rest is here:
Guardrails of Democracy, Extended: Comparing Notes On The Team Libertarian Report - Reason

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In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll conducted last month, Warnock led Walker 46% to 43%, which is within the surveys margin of error. Oliver drew support from 3% of respondents. About 8% said they were undecided.

History shows that support for Libertarians tends to erode by Election Day. In 2020, Libertarian candidates received between 1% and 3% of the vote in Georgia.

In a tight race, that can be enough.

Oliver was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and moved with his parents to Snellville when he was 7. He described his childhood as a standard middle-class existence. His dad was a salesman who at different times peddled postage machinery, suits and magazine ads. His mother held different jobs and now works in retail.

Early on, Oliver was interested in politics and public service. He was 14 when he manned phones for Al Gores 2000 presidential campaign.

But he said his real political awakening came during the Iraq War, which he vehemently opposed.

I felt very strongly that the evidence wasnt there (to support the war), he said. I was at an age where the people who were going go over there and fight this war were the same people I had just been in class with.

He became an avid supporter of Barack Obama, who had promised to extract the United States from the conflict and also to close Guantanamo Bay, but Oliver became disillusioned when, as president, Obama didnt move quickly on either. Politically, he was adrift.

Then, at the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival in 2010, he came across the Libertarian booth. Oliver, who is gay, was impressed by the partys early support for gay rights in the immediate aftermath of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York. His views on limited government and restrained foreign involvement also aligned with the Libertarians.

I said, You know, I think I found a political home here, he said.

Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Chase Oliver worked as a teenager in Democrat Al Gore's campaign for president in 2000, and he backed Barack Obama for president in 2008. But he liked what he learned about the Libertarian Party after visiting its booth at the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival in 2010. He eventually gained a seat on the party's executive committee. Miguel Martinez / miguel.martinezjimenez@ajc.com

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Chase Oliver worked as a teenager in Democrat Al Gore's campaign for president in 2000, and he backed Barack Obama for president in 2008. But he liked what he learned about the Libertarian Party after visiting its booth at the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival in 2010. He eventually gained a seat on the party's executive committee. Miguel Martinez / miguel.martinezjimenez@ajc.com

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

He became increasingly active in the state party, rising to a seat on the executive committee.

His first run for elected office was in 2020 when he was one of seven candidates who ran to fill the remainder of U.S. Rep. John Lewis term in the House after the congressman died. Oliver said he was running to honor Lewis legacy and to highlight how Georgia laws still limit ballot access for third-party candidates. He placed sixth with 2% of the vote, bested by all five Democrats in the race.

When it came time to select a candidate for the 2022 Senate race, Oliver threw his hat in the ring.

Oliver, who worked in logistics but recently took a job as a liaison between businesses and lenders, said he was drawn to the Senate because he enjoys coalition building and working as a team.

I would love to go to a UGA football game with Herschel Walker on a Saturday. I would love to listen to Rev. Warnock preach on a Sunday, Oliver said. But I am the only one in this race who would be an honest broker for the people of Georgia.

In Georgia, Libertarians get to stay on the ballot in statewide races as long as at least one of the partys candidates received at least 1% of votes cast from the total number of registered voters in the previous general election. That requirement was satisfied in 2020 by Shane Hazel in the U.S. Senate race, along with two Libertarian candidates for the state Public Service Commission.

Libertarians are the nations largest third party but have failed to get more than about 3% of the vote in national races.

Christopher Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton who has written about Libertarians, said the party has long cast itself as the fiscally conservative, socially liberal alternative.

They want to be the Goldilocks option, Devine said.

But he said studies shows Libertarians tend to be right-leaning, and if they pull support from other candidates, it is most likely from Republicans candidates.

Some have speculated that Republicans, unsure about Walker as a viable candidate, could cast a ballot for Oliver as a protest vote.

Georgias election law requires candidates to win 50% plus one vote to win outright. So, in races that are tight, just one third-party candidate can throw things to a runoff.

And the state has had some memorable ones. In 1992, Republican Paul Coverdell ousted longtime Democratic U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler, a harbinger of the GOP wave to come, because of third-party votes in the general election. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss trounced Democrat Jim Martin in a 2008 runoff. The Republicans win effectively ended Democratic hopes of securing a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Senate majority that year. Then there were the twin runoffs in January 2021, where the wins by Warnock and Jon Ossoff handed control of the Senate to Democrats.

U.S. Sen. Chambliss, shown with his wife, Julianne, figured in one of Georgia's most memorable runoff elections. He trounced Jim Martin in 2008, denying Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Credit: Jason Getz / jgetz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / jgetz@ajc.com

U.S. Sen. Chambliss, shown with his wife, Julianne, figured in one of Georgia's most memorable runoff elections. He trounced Jim Martin in 2008, denying Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Credit: Jason Getz / jgetz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / jgetz@ajc.com

Runoffs are costly and require each side to work frantically to turn their voters out again.

Partisans from both sides are hopeful this years Senate race wont come to that, especially if control of the chamber hangs in the balance, as it did in 2021.

I dont think anyone looks forward to a runoff, said Jason Shepherd, former chairman of the Cobb County Republican Party and a professor at Kennesaw State University. We want to win this thing outright and have a quiet, peaceful holiday season.

Former Democratic U.S. Rep. George Buddy Darden agreed.

People can say it benefits this candidate or that candidate, he said. But the truth is, its a crapshoot.

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Chase Oliver could send Georgia's Senate race to a runoff - he's OK with that - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

CONCORD, NH Here are some share-worthy stories from the New Hampshire Patch network to talk about this afternoon and evening. Thanks for reading!

James Daniels of Manchester, a felon was arrested on Thursday, was accused of shooting another man in Eagle Square on Saturday.

Gubernatorial candidate Karlyn Borysenko of Merrimack, Senate candidate Jeremy Kauffman of Manchester filed thousands of petitions Monday.

Hampton woman arrested on crash charge; Deerfield man faces theft warrant out of Somersworth; Rochester man arrested on revocation charge.

No one was home at the Gilson Road house when responders arrived. The house was engulfed in fire with debris spread over a large area.

Teens face unlawful possession charges; pair charged with trespassing at Ballroom; Somersworth man arrested on disorderly, other charges.

NH AG: From oversold flights to operational disruptions, too often, airlines shift their problems onto their passengers.

Plus: DUI charge on Borough Road; assault and theft arrests; woman cited after dog attacks; teen charged with unlawful possession.

Chanphanou Pou, of Hudson, NH, who owns Tutti Frutti locations in Manchester, Salem, Peabody and Auburn, faces violation of privacy charges.

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Attempted Murder Arrest; Libertarians On The 2022 Ballot? PM Patch NH - Patch

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Rep. Stephen Handy, a Republican, announces his plans to wage a write-in campaign for the District 16 seat in the Utah House at a media event on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022. Trevor Lee defeated Handy at the Davis County Republican Party convention in March and is the official party nominee for the post.

Photo supplied, Stephen Handy

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Trevor Lee, the Republican candidate for the District 16 seat in the Utah House in the 2022 cycle.

Photo supplied, Davis County Clerk/Auditor Office

LAYTON Itll be Republican versus Republican versus Libertarian in the race for the District 16 Utah House seat.

As he had previously said was a possibility, Rep. Stephen Handy the six-term incumbent defeated by Trevor Lee in the Davis County Republican Party convention last March will wage a write-in bid to hold onto the Davis County post. That makes the race a three-way contest heading to Nov. 8 Handy, Lee and Libertarian Brent Zimmerman duking it out.

Handy held a formal kick-off event to his write-in bid in Layton, his hometown, on Tuesday. He told the Standard-Examiner on Wednesday that his decision stemmed in part from feedback from constituents. He initially indicated he was mulling a write-in bid last May after news emerged that Lee had used language in an April podcast subsequently deemed transphobic by the Davis County Republican Party, which Lee later apologized for.

I want to give the people the opportunity to vote, Handy said. Even though its a write-in, thats the option thats before me. Im listening to the voters who feel disenfranchised.

Lee, seeking election to office for the first time, defeated Handy 59 votes to 35 at the March 26 Davis County GOP convention, which Handy maintains isnt reflective of broader GOP sentiment in District 16. Nearly 12,000 registered Republicans live in the district, which has 21,000 registered voters in all.

Lee, for his part, rebuffed Handys move and focused on his status as newcomer to the political scene. Lee is a more conservative Republican while Handy is more moderate and the situation seems to have unleashed some of the tensions between the varied party factions.

I dont think Steve has accepted the results of our convention race, Lee told the Standard-Examiner. We need a new, fresh perspective on things.

Write-in candidacies typically have a tough row to hoe. Voters favoring Handy who registered his intent to wage a write-in bid with election officials will have to actually write his name on a line on the ballot section corresponding to the District 16 race. District 16 covers north Layton and small parts of South Weber and Clearfield.

Still, Handy thinks the mail-in balloting system will help him. Registered voters will get ballots mailed to their homes three weeks or so before Election Day, Nov. 8, and, he said, theyll have time to get to know the intricacies of how to vote for a write-in hopeful.

Plus, Handy has a financial edge, at least for now. Handy said hes received some $50,000 in donations, with more coming in since he announced his write-in plans on Tuesday. Lee reported $3,482 on his latest financial disclosure statement filed last June with state election officials.

As for messaging, Lee, operator of a finance company that handles wealth management, said he sides with families fighting to get by as inflation pushes prices up. I want to help struggling families. Im just like they are. Im an average citizen, he said.

Handy, a marketing consultant, put a focus on his service to the Layton area and connections to the people of District 16. Aside from his tenure in the Utah House, he served two terms on the Layton City Council.

My message is that I have a long, long history of tremendous service to the legislative district, said Handy. He called himself a considerate conservative.

Lee sparked headlines last May after it emerged he had used a disparaging word in referencing transgender people as a guest on a conservative podcast. He also expressed a measure of aversion in the podcast to the LGBTQ community. I wouldnt want to be associated with those people, he said.

In a statement at the time, the Davis County Republican Party said it unequivocally condemns the transphobic comments by Lee. Lees comments were also the spur that got Handy mulling a write-in campaign.

Lee posted a statement on Facebook soon after the April podcast saying he hadnt known the term he used referencing transgender people was derogatory and that hed stop using it. He told the Standard-Examiner at the time that he was sorry for the flare-up over the comment.

That wasnt the end of things. Lee subsequently condemned Handy for his statement to KSL Radio at the time that Lees commentary during the podcast in question comes off to me as almost white supremacy.

Handy subsequently offered an apology for his white supremacy comments. I walk that back and I apologize for saying that. I do not think hes a white supremacist or racist, Handy told the Standard-Examiner at the time.

As winner of the Davis County Republican Party convention last June, Lee gets party backing. The DCRP bylaws require the county party to recognize the will of the delegates and the party will continue to support our nominee, Trevor Lee, in the General Election, reads a message posted Tuesday on the party Facebook page.

Whatever the case, responses to the Facebook post indicate the Lee-Handy situation has spurred sharp discord among Republicans.

Andrew Badger, who unsuccessfully ran for the GOP nomination in the 1st District U.S. House primary last June, took aim at Daniela Harding, chairperson of the Davis County Republican Party. Harding was forced to make the message of support for Lee against her will, Badger wrote in the Facebook message string.

The party rebuffed the charge, saying Harding had been the force behind release of the statement of support for Lee. We will not tolerate personal attacks or baseless accusations. We are focusing on helping Trevor and other Republicans win this November, reads the Facebook response.

Another poster alluded to social media messaging from Harding in support of Handy in his successful 2018 Utah House campaign. Harding responded, saying she has had no role in Handys write-in bid and wont play any part going forward.

Steve Handy has honored my request and has deleted all the videos off his website and social media I did in 2018 in support of his campaign when I served as the (House District) 16 Legislative Chair on the DCRP Executive Committee, Harding wrote in response.

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Rep. Stephen Handy, ousted at GOP convention, to wage write-in bid - Standard-Examiner

(Image: Andres Iga @andresiga | Unsplash.com)

Great literature is, almost inevitably, a political affair. It could hardly be otherwise. Poetry, as Aristotle recognized long ago, plays with the universals of human experience and man is a political animal. Thus the poet can hardly avoid touching questions of social order, whether directly (as in the case of Virgil, Dante, and Milton) or indirectly (Homer, the Beowulf-poet, and generally Chaucer).

But if art imitates life, life can also come to imitate art. Given literatures power to embody universals, appeal to the emotions, and give order to experience, it quite naturally becomes the lens through which readers interpret their everyday experience. Witness the droves of millennials who read every cultural conflict as a reenactment of Harry Potter or Star Wars. And what is true of inferior literature is doubly true in the case of great literature: both Jefferson and Adams interpreted the American struggle for independence in Miltonic terms; Virgils ordered piety helped to define Romes Augustan aspirations; the Duke of Essexs rebels commissioned a revival of Shakespeares Richard II before launching their uprising against Elizabeth. Percy Shelley doubtless exaggerated when he crowned poets as the unacknowledged legislators of the world but not entirely. Where there is no vision, the people perishes and, as often as not, poets provide that vision.

As we survey the wreckage of the twentieth centurys liberal order all around us, we are most certainly a people in need of a vision: the old certainties no longer hold, and it is not yet clear what will emerge to replace them. English-speaking Christians are therefore fortunate to have their own great poet in J. R. R. Tolkien, the traditional Catholic, Oxford don, and the great English-speaking author of the twentieth century. It is therefore most regrettable that the political implications of Tolkiens work have been so consistently misunderstood both by many of his professed admirers and his harshest critics; he is praised for values utterly foreign to his work and condemned for views he never held.

Tolkiens radical, practical politics

While politicized readings of Tolkien are varied and legion, the dominant reading of Tolkien is as a kind of politically quietist libertarian; in part because of this, Tolkien-influenced politics are dismissed as nave and fanciful and (as suggested by one celebrated magazine) the province of wacky neo-medievalists dreaming of the Shire.

Part of the confusion, it must be admitted, can be attributed directly to the professor himself: both his fiction and his private writings can, on an initial reading, seem to support this view. The peaceful, disorganized, and luddite Hobbits have been countercultural icons since the 1960s; Tolkien himself said that his political beliefs tended towards anarchism; he was moreover deeply suspicious of political reformers, calling their action Sarumanian. And of course the entire narrative thrust of the work centers on the quest to destroy the Ring of Power and thereby liberate the free peoples of Middle-Earth from the threat of tyranny and domination; in C. S. Lewiss review of the work, he identified the dethronement of power as its central theme. The libertarian, anarchic reading of The Lord of the Rings, then, would seem to be vindicated.

A closer reading, both of Tolkiens letters and his fiction, makes it clear that Tolkien has little common ground with any modern form of anarchism or libertarianism. The Lord of the Rings, after all, assumes monarchy as the natural form of politics and ends with the establishment of Aragorns reunified kingdom something very nearly akin to a Holy Roman Empire. Even the agrarian Shire is hardly a pure democracy: it is governed by tradition, custom, and (perhaps most importantly) a handful of ruling families. And Tolkiens letters profess a politics even more radical: such as his disagreement with C. S. Lewis over the Spanish Civil War. Tolkien lamented that Lewis was so swayed by Red propaganda that he believes all that is said against Franco, and nothing that is said for him; by contrast, Tolkien held unshaken sympathy for the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War. He befriended and defended Roy Campbell, the English poet and adventurer who fought alongside the Nationalist forces and even went so far as to compare him, repeatedly, to a real-life Strider.

It is hard to square all of this with the picture of the anarcho-libertarian Tolkien. But perhaps the clearest expression of Tolkiens practical political theory comes in the draft of a letter (never sent) to C.S. Lewis. In the pamphlet Christian Behavior (eventually republished as a part of Mere Christianity), Lewis had argued in good classical liberal fashion that Christian influence in the public sphere should be strictly limited. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. Lewis therefore proposed England adopt a two-tiered marriage system, recognizing civil marriage, a dissoluble contract endorsed and regulated by the state, and Christian marriage, permanent and under the supervision of the Church.

In his letter, Tolkien rejects Lewiss argument, root and branch. He notes, in the first place, that Lewiss comparison of the Christian law of marriage and the Islamic law on alcohol is a most stinking red herring: put simply, the Christians permanent monogamy is demanded by the universal moral law; the Muslims complete abstinence from alcohol is not. This is because Christianity is true. No item of compulsory Christian morals is valid for only for Christians, he notes; the natural law is binding universally. Deviation from Christian morals is therefore an abuse, tolerable only as a most reluctant expedient. The law, after all, is a teacher and the mass of citizens will shape their behavior to the contours the law provides. Under Englands liberal divorce laws, Tolkien argued, A situation is being, has been, produced in which ordinary unphilosophical and irreligious folk are not only not restrained by law from inconstancy, but are actually by law and social custom encouraged to inconstancy.

Because of all this, Tolkien takes exception to Lewiss attempted fusion of Christianity and liberalism: especially his suggestion that toleration of divorce is somehow related to the Christian virtue of charity. Far from being an extension of Christianity, liberalism is in fact an implicit denial of the faith; its pretended neutrality presupposes that religious claims are irrational. The separation of civic and religious marriage would thus be a piece of propaganda, a counter-homily, as though the State was in fact saying by implication: I do not recognize the existence of your church; you may have taken certain vows in your meeting-place but they are just foolishness, private taboos, a burden you take on yourself: a limited and impermanent contract is all that is really necessary for citizens. If the law does not direct citizens towards their final end, it will direct them away from it.

To recapitulate: in his letter to Lewis, Tolkien claims that all compulsory Christian morality is compulsory universally; deviations from it can be granted legal toleration only as a reluctant expedient. The law is necessarily a teacher and thus it should support, rather than undermine, Christian morality. We see here an anticipation of arguments later made by the likes of Brent Bozell and Cardinal Danielou; a twenty-first century integralist could hardly ask for more.

A rebuke and a warning

Here, of course, we run into a natural objection. If Tolkiens private beliefs are so far removed from the logic of anarchy and libertarianism, why do his imaginative works seem to enshrine it? This question, alas, merely reveals the lack of reading comprehension (or, perhaps, the lack of reading simpliciter) among the twenty-first century public. The Hobbits do enjoy, it would seem, something like an anarchic or at least stateless society: the Mayor of the Shire, one might remember, is primarily responsible for presiding at feasts; the shiriffs are chiefly considered with stray animals. It is undeniably true that Lord of the Rings presents this as a desirable state of affairs.

But it also makes it clear that the simple way of life enjoyed by the Shirefolk is very much an exception. After all, the hobbits have the good fortune to inhabit former royal farmlands (thus the mighty task of clearing and ordering their country was accomplished before they ever arrived in it) geographically isolated from the main conflicts of their age (thus they need not worry, much, about militaries or borders). As others have pointed out, even the hobbits social order is built upon the remnants of a higher civilization. By force of habitual obedience, they keep to the Rules and reverence the King the remnants of the old royal law, as they understand it. Even so, the peace and quiet enjoyed by the Shirefolk is not of their own making: the Rangers the last ragged remnants of the old empire keep the country under a continual, thankless guard.

The social order of the Shire is, then, the political equivalent of a carefully tended garden. The soil is prepared; the seeds planted and tended; weeds are removed until, in the end, what is in fact highly artificial appears to be natural. Thus, while hobbits may think that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right of all sensible folk, Tolkien immediately makes it clear that this belief is nave to the point of ingratitude: they forgot or ignored what little they had ever known of the Guardians, and of the labours of those that made possible the long peace of the Shire. They were, in fact, sheltered, but they had ceased to remember it. The reader, however, must not forget: time and again, Tolkien shows us that the peaceful simplicity of the hobbits is only made possible by the laborious complexity of the Men of the West.

The hobbits are not the only ones to benefit from the exertions of others, however: so too does the enigmatic Tom Bombadil. As Tolkien describes him, Bombadil represents what many take to be the Tolkienian ideal: the complete and total abnegation of power. In this, he stands apart from every other character in the story. For all their differences, Tolkien noted, both Aragorn and Sauron seek a measure of control: the only question is whether the West will have Aragorn as its generous and benevolent king or Sauron as its god-tyrant. Bombadil, by contrast, has renounced control entirely, and so enjoys a special privilege. If youtake your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war.

As Tolkien makes clear in his letter, however, Bombadils quietistic renunciation is an insufficient response to the problem of evil. The disinterested freedom he enjoys may be an excellent thing but it is, like the hobbits peaceable agrarian life, a luxury that depends on the painful work of others. Though the Ring has no power over Bombadils simplicity, there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. The innocence and simplicity of Tom Bombadil and the more simple hobbits may merit our admiration the patient labors of Gandalf and Aragorn merit our praise.

But if Tolkiens work stands as a rebuke to a naive and anarchic post-liberalism, it also serves as a warning to the more active and authoritarian branches of the movement: political power may be necessary, but it can still be the proximate cause of a mans damnation. The fall of Denethor, the steward of Gondor, is almost a parable about the dangers of politics. Where other characters in his novel place their duties to God and humanity first,Denethor was tainted by mere politics: and hence his failure. Put simply, the steward had placed second things first: the preservation of Gondor (and his authority within it) over the Common Good of all. It is, of course, a wholly natural error for a public man to make. Political affairs are immediate, concrete, and pressing; the Good is remote and abstract and elusive. But a natural error can still be fatal, and all of Denethors most grievous sins his hubris in using the palantr, his willingness to claim the Ring, and his ultimate despair and suicide can be traced to this.

Here Tolkien presents his readers with a thorny paradox. Had Denethor neglected the political good of Gondor, he would have been an unjust steward and indeed Aragorn would have had no kingdom to return to; in attending too much to it, he lost his own soul. This central paradox of politics runs through Tolkiens fiction and his letters. Power is not evil per se but the Will to Power most certainly is. The ruler must use his power justly (to oppose evil, promote the good, and all the rest) lest he neglect the central duties of his office but he must do so without succumbing to the libido dominandi. The governor is, as St. Paul tells us, a minister of God, executing good and evil but we must never make a god of the state. The man most fit for rule is the one who does not desire it. And so on.

How can we resolve this dilemma?

The wisdom of Romance

This is the point where many contemporary readers lose patience with Tolkiens fantasy. Isnt it all rather a dodge? After all, fantasy allows Tolkien to simplify and clarify the often muddled reality of the real world; the evil lust for domination is made external and concrete in the Ring, and the diabolical Will to Power is thereby exorcised from the legitimate use of power.

This is, I would suggest, precisely the point. Simplification and clarification of moral issues has always been, after all, one of the chief functions of the fairy story; Romance, as Tolkien noted, grew out of Allegory. The first step towards resolving a dilemma is simply to recognize that it exists.

And that is not the only way Tolkiens wisdom can guide us in darkening times. Though we cannot, naturally, derive policy proposals from a work of fantastic fiction, we can draw inspiration from the moral and spiritual underpinnings of Tolkiens imaginary world. His eucatastrophe hinges, as all Catholic thought does, on the interplay of human work and divine grace: tireless effort on behalf of his heroes, only made fruitful by the good favor of God.

And with grace comes hope, and hope is perhaps ironically, given Tolkiens reputation as a pessimist the final note of Tolkienian political philosophy. The future is impenetrable especially to the wise, he wrote, for what is really important is always hid from contemporaries, and the seeds of what is to be are quietly germinating in the dark of some forgotten corner, while everyone is looking at Stalin or Hitler. We do not know when the new Spring will come, or what it will look like when it does, but that is not our business. All we have to decide, in the end, is what to do with the time that is given to us.

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J. R. R. Tolkien among the Illiberals Catholic World Report - Catholic World Report

More than 200 candidates are still in the running for federal, state and local offices and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as Hawaii moves toward Election Day on Nov. 8.

Most candidates are affiliated with the Democratic and Republican parties, although a few Libertarians, a few from the Green and Aloha Aina parties and even two nonpartisan candidates survived the Aug. 13 primary for Congress and the Legislature.

The primary election is always the most important in Hawaii because the state is so heavily dominated by one political party the Democrats.

The big race this year is for Hawaiis governor and a heated Democratic primary ended with Lt. Gov. Josh Green getting the partys nod. He and running mate state Rep. Sylvia Luke will face former Republican Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona and Seaula Jr. Tupai in the general.

About 50 candidates are left in races for county councils, mayors offices and the OHA board of trustees. Those are all nonpartisan races by law.

A dozen state legislators won their seats outright in the primary, either by defeating a primary opponent or because they had no one running against them. All 76 state legislative seats were on the ballot this year due to redistricting, which happens every 10 years.

Eight of the nine Hawaii County Council seats also were won in the primary because the candidate received more than 50% of the vote. Only District 2 advanced to the general.

Maui and Kauai voters still need to select mayors as well as council members in the general election.

And four of Honolulus nine City Council seats will be decided in November after a number of candidates advanced to runoffs from the primary.

The run-up to the primary was tense, with candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and the 2nd Congressional District advertising heavily and fending off attacks either from opposing candidates or super PACs that spent millions of dollars attacking certain candidates.

Several races, including several in the Republican legislative primaries, were so close the votes had to be recounted. Several candidates ended up winning by slim margins, but the closest was the Democratic primary for House District 35 where Cory Chun prevailed by five votes over Nathan Takeuchi.

Hawaii has historically had one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country. But that changed dramatically in 2020 when Hawaii implemented mail-in balloting statewide. Overall voter participation was the highest it had been since 1994, although it still lags behind the tremendous turnout rates after statehood in 1959.

Many political observers were disappointed in the turnout for the Aug. 13 primary,which reached 39.5%.

Voters are also able to register online to vote. The deadline to register to vote for the Nov. 8 election is Oct. 21.

If you miss the deadline to register for the election, you can still walk in and register before and on Election Day (with proper ID or documentation of your residency) at Voter Service Centers, which will be open Oct. 25 through Nov. 8.

You can find the dates for early voting and the steps and deadline to request an absentee ballot on the stateOffice of Elections website.

The elections office says ballots for the general election are expected to begin arriving in the mail by Oct. 21. But ballots actually were sent out a few days earlier than the anticipated date for the primary.

The County Elections Divisions also provide voter service centers that will be open 10 days prior to and on Election Day. Services include accessible in-person voting and same-day registration. And all counties have drop box locations.

Ballots must be received by the state and counties by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Drop boxes will be locked as soon as the clock strikes 7. If you vote in person at one of the voter centers you can still vote as long as you are in line by 7.

This map from the state Office of Elections shows the locations of voting centers and drop boxes:

You can read the full list of candidates who will be on the general election ballot here.

Federal races are at the top of the ballot. No U.S. senator from Hawaii has ever lost reelection, and only one U.S. representative from Hawaii failed to get reelected. Such is the power of incumbency in Hawaii, especially for majority Democrats.

In November, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz will face Republican state Rep. Bob McDermott as well as candidates from the Green, Libertarian and Aloha Aina parties.

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Ed Case in the 1st Congressional District (the greater Honolulu area) easily defeated his primary challenger, political newcomer Sergio Alcubilla. Hes up against Republican Conrad Kress and the Green Partys Calvin Griffin in the general.

Former state Sen. Jill Tokuda won a nasty Democratic primary fight against state House Rep. Pat Branco and four other Democrats in the 2nd Congressional District (the rest of Oahu and all the neighbor islands). She faces GOP contender Joe Akana and Michelle Tippens from the Libertarian Party in November.

The CD2 seat is open because U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele decided not to seek a second term in Congress and instead ran for governor. That turned out to be an ill-fated venture he and businesswoman Vicky Cayetano were defeated in the gubernatorial primary by Green, who prevailed with about 60% of the Democratic vote.

Luke also fended off a close challenge in the lieutenant governors race from several candidates in a primary fight marked by a barrage of negative attack ads.

The pair will square off against Republican candidates Aiona, who prevailed over a number of contenders in the gubernatorial primary, and Tupai, a little-known Honolulu resident who goes by Jr. and defeated two other candidates in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor.

At the Hawaii Legislature all 25 Senate seats and 51 House seats were up this year due to reapportionment, which redraws district lines every 10 years based on the latest census data. While House seats are always for two years, the four-year Senate seats will be staggered: Districts 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23 and 24 will serve a two-year term beginning in 2023 while Districts 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21 and 25 will serve a four-year term. The 12 seats up for election in 2024 will then resume the normal four-year term.

Departures of top lawmakers such as Sen. Roz Baker and Luke mean the 2023 legislative session will have leadership changes. There are also many incumbents seeking reelection although several lost in the August primary.

Three state senators Democrats Gil Keith-Agaran, Dru Kanuha and Republican Kurt Favella faced no opposition in either the primary or the general and have been reelected.

In the House, seven members have been reelected due to a lack of opponents they include Republican Gene Ward and Democrats Mark Nakashima, Richard Onishi, Nicole Lowen, Scott Nishimoto and Linda Ichiyama.

There will not be any constitutional amendment questions on the general election ballot in 2022. But Hawaii, Maui and Kauai counties are considering amendments to their respective governing charters. There may also be charter questions from the City and County of Honolulu, and this guide will be updated once that is determined.

If the proposed charter amendments are adopted, the approved language of the ballot questions are due to the Hawaii Office of Elections in late August.

The Hawaii Office of Electionswebsite is the best place to find any information you need about the elections including how and when to register, how to find your polling place and when you can begin casting your ballot.

You can keep up with all of Civil Beats coverage as the election season progresses in our Hawaii Elections 2022 Guide.

Meanwhile, here are some other resources weve put together to help you through the 2020 elections:

Unofficial 2022 General Election Ballot: Our way to help you keep track of races and candidates in your district. We are once again sending out questionnaires to candidates, asking them to give us their positions on key issues that are particular to the office for which theyre running. You will be able to find links to these Q&As on this page. Please note that not all candidates return the surveys despite repeated requests by our elections editor.

Hawaii Civics 101: Our series of short, explainer videos helps you understand politics, government and democracy in the Aloha State.

The Civil Beat Poll: We conduct our own independent polls on a variety of topics and issues as election season moves along. The first of the 2022 election season polls published in late June. Check here to read what Hawaii has said about statewide and local races and issues in previous polls.

Civil Beat Politics: Learn more about candidates and issues by joining our Facebook Group, Civil Beat Politics. We aim to promote civil yet spirited discussion of and participation in the 2020 election. You can air your thoughts on campaigns, candidates and issues along with your friends, colleagues and even political rivals. But its also a place to connect with others in the community who want to become more active in this years elections.

Get information and help from these organizations:

League of Women Voters of Hawaii

Pew Charitable Trusts/Research Center

Vote Smart

Both the stateand the federal government impose contribution limits when giving directly to candidates. Money has been flowing to candidates and political committees for the 2020 elections. You can follow the money yourself on a number of online campaign and political sites:

Federal candidates and committees:

Center for Responsive Politics

Federal Election Commission

Campaign Finance Institute

State candidates and committees:

Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission

National Institute on Money In State Politics

These offices oversee the elections in Hawaii:

Hawaii Office of Elections

City and County of Honolulu

Hawaii County

Maui County

Kauai County

Democratic Party of Hawaii

Hawaii Republican Party

Libertarian Party of Hawaii

The Green Party of Hawaii

Aloha Aina Party

Constitution Party of Hawaii

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We Made It Through The Primary. Now It's On To The November General Election - Honolulu Civil Beat

American life, and American politics, are increasingly divided: by party, by geography, by education. Red and blue are separating so completely that its getting harder to find common ground. Why is this happening? And what can we do to fix it?

Megan McArdle, an opinion columnist for the Washington Post since 2018, will discuss these questions on Sept. 14 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 198 of Statler Hall. This event, free and open to the public, will also be streamed. To participate online, please register here.McArdle is a wide-ranging writer, smart and funny, libertarian-leaning but not dogmatic. She has a knack for stating, judiciously and concisely, where things stand in America today, said Barry Strauss, Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies, History and Classics, and Director of the Program on Freedom and Free Societies, which is sponsoring the talk.

David Guaspari works on communications for the Program on Freedom and Free Societies.Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.

Excerpt from:
The Great Separation: Why American Politics Is Coming Apart at the Seams | Cornell Chronicle - Cornell Chronicle

SCOOP: DEPARTURE LOUNGE Quentin Palfrey is planning to end his campaign for attorney general as soon as today, according to three people familiar with his thinking.

Chatter about Palfrey potentially exiting the Democratic primary and endorsing one of his competitors has grown in recent days as new polls showed the former assistant attorney struggling to keep pace with Andrea Campbell and Shannon Liss-Riordan, and with key endorsements breaking for his rivals. He also cut $140,000 of his $231,000 in pre-primary ad buys, according to ad tracker AdImpact. Palfrey did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Palfrey began telegraphing his attorney general campaign over a year ago, when the 2018 Democratic lieutenant governor nominee told the Boston Globe he would run for the states top law enforcement job if Attorney General Maura Healey ran for governor.

He racked up endorsements from Democratic Party activists and progressive groups after formally launching his campaign in February and went on to secure the state partys endorsement at its June convention.

But Palfrey has struggled to grow his campaign beyond party insiders. Hes been outpaced in fundraising by Campbell and trounced by Liss-Riordan, whos now poured at least $4.8 million of her own money into her campaign. And he's trailed in polling while Liss-Riordan is closing the gap with Campbell after blanketing the airwaves since early July.

The path to victory got even narrower this past weekend, when Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and former Boston Acting Mayor Kim Janey endorsed Liss-Riordan. Their late-breaking support effectively recast the primary as a two-woman race between the Brookline labor attorney and Campbell, the former Boston city councilor whos backed by Healey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Sen. Ed Markey and other prominent politicians.

Palfrey may endorse one of his rivals to blunt the others rise. Most political watchers would assume Palfrey would endorse Liss-Riordan, who he often teamed up with earlier in the campaign to attack Campbell over super PAC spending and certain policy stances. But theres a chance Palfrey, off-put by the millions of dollars Liss-Riordan has given her campaign to fuel her more than $5 million in advertising, could set aside his differences with Campbell and back her instead.

GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Primary day is a week away! What races are you watching? What mailers are you getting? Share your thoughts: [emailprotected].

TODAY Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito attend the Greylock Glen ceremonial groundbreaking at 10 a.m. in Adams, announce Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grant awards at noon in Williamsburg and visit Valley Venture Mentors at 2 p.m. in Springfield. The GOP governor/LG team of Geoff Diehl and Leah Cole Allen hold a media availability at 1 p.m. at UMass Lowell. LG hopeful and state Rep. Tami Gouveia casts her ballot at 6 p.m. at Acton Town Hall.

Many Dems will breeze through election amid shortage of GOP challengers, by Christian M. Wade, Eagle-Tribune: Dozens of democratic lawmakers are getting a free pass to another two-year term with the Republican Party fielding few challengers in the upcoming elections. Every seat in the 200-member state Legislature is up for grabs in the fall elections, but the majority of incumbents will cruise to another term with few contenders vying to unseat them. Among 18 House races in the North of Boston region, only two Republicans were nominated to run against incumbent Democratic lawmakers. In three wide-open races to fill House seats the newly created 4th Essex in the Merrimack Valley, and 7th and 8th Essex Districts on the North Shore Democrats dominate the field of candidates. There are no Republicans aiming for the seats.

ENDORSEMENT ALERT: State Rep. Chynah Tyler is endorsing Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden at 1:30 p.m. at the Malcolm X mural in Roxbury.

It sounds like I dont want to vote for either of them: Controversy defines Suffolk DAs race, by Danny McDonald and Tiana Woodard, Boston Globe: With little more than a week to go before primary day, voters find themselves contemplating two Suffolk district attorney candidates buffeted by controversy. Thats left many local residents changing their minds about the race; still others greeted the whole firestorm with indifference. Revelations that Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, a former public defender, was twice investigated though never charged for possible sexual assault as a teenager have rocked city politics. Meanwhile, District Attorney Kevin Hayden continues to face questions and criticism after a Boston Globe investigation exposed a coverup by Transit Police officers that raised questions about how prosecutors handled the case.

Chaos on Boston City Council: Flynn moves to strip Arroyos leadership assignments; Baker and Lara file dueling records requests, by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald: The Boston City Council is tearing itself apart as President Ed Flynn moves to strip embattled councilor Ricardo Arroyos committee leadership assignments a move Arroyo slams as undemocratic and city councilors pursue each other with pointed records requests: Frank Baker against the DA candidate Arroyo and Kendra Lara in turn against Baker.

FROM THE OPINION PAGES: A year after endorsing Andrea Campbell for Boston mayor, the Boston Globe editorial board has endorsed the former city councilor for state attorney general.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: The Boston Teachers Union, which represents about 10,000 educators, and the Greater Boston Labor Council, which represents about 100,000 workers, have endorsed state Sen. Diana DiZoglio for auditor, adding to her broad union support.

Teamsters Local 25 has endorsed Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll for lieutenant governor.

Sen. Ed Markey has endorsed Sydney Levin-Epstein for Hampden, Hampshire and Worcester state senator, saying in a statement that shell fight to make sure the region gets its fair share of resources and to create good jobs.

State Treasurer Deb Goldberg has endorsed Worcester Mayor Joe Petty for First Worcester state senator, saying in a statement that Petty is a consensus builder who will bring that same work ethic to the State House.

State Rep. Russell Holmes has been endorsed for reelection in the 6th Suffolk District by 1199 SEIU, SEIU Local 509, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the Massachusetts & Northern New England Laborers' District Council.

A right-wing agitator who attended Jan. 6 riot is running for the Mass. House, testing state GOPs appetite for extremism, by Emma Platoff, Boston Globe: A little-watched legislative contest on the northeast coast of Massachusetts could be a bellwether for the bitterly divided state GOP, as party leaders consider throwing their support behind Samson Racioppi, a right-wing agitator who led a 2019 Straight Pride Parade in Boston and organized buses to Washington, D.C., for the protest that became the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Massachusetts district attorney races and the progressive prosecutor, by Deborah Becker, WBUR: San Francisco residents recalled progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin after he was blamed for a rash of brazen thefts across the city. Pennsylvania Republicans are trying to impeach the liberal DA in Philadelphia. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis removed a progressive prosecutor in his state this month. And Suffolk DA Rachael Rollins faced a bitter confirmation fight before she became U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts early this year. Now the conflict has shifted to Massachusetts, where the battle is playing out very differently from one county to the next.

Coppinger touts reforms as he seeks another term, by Christian M. Wade, Eagle-Tribune: When former Lynn Police Chief Kevin Coppinger took over as Essex County's sheriff nearly six years ago, he never expected to play the role of a reformer. But a few years after taking over the helm, the veteran law enforcement officer found himself at the center of a national debate over whether to allow medication assisted treatment in jails and correctional facilities to help blunt the impact of a wave of opioid addiction that had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. In the Sept. 6 primary Coppinger faces a challenge from Virginia Leigh, a Lynn social worker who argues he hasn't done enough to improve access to substance-abuse treatment and mental health services for inmates.

More: Leigh vows close 'revolving door' at Middleton jail, by Christian M. Wade, Salem News: As a clinical social worker, Virginia Leigh has spent years working with individuals struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues whose lives often become tangled up in the state's complex criminal justice system. Her work has taken her into county jails and state prisons and convinced her that the best way to reduce crime and the number of people serving time is to deal with the root causes of incarceration.

Have a mail ballot sitting at home? Do not trust it to the mail at this point, top Mass. elections official says, by Samantha J. Gross, Boston Globe: Have a mail-in ballot sitting on your kitchen table or tacked up on your refrigerator? Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin advises that you fill it out and take it to a secure drop box, early voting site, or your local city or town hall before 8 p.m. on Sept. 6 if you want it to be counted for the state primary election.

Report finds regionalization may only be partial solution to challenges posed by low enrollment, less rural school aid, by Chris Larabee, Daily Hampshire Gazette: In Franklin and Hampshire counties, regional school districts including Pioneer, Mohawk Trail and Gateway already draw from a wide pool of towns across a large geographic range. If those schools were to join up with their neighbors, school officials and state Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Sunderland, who co-chaired the Special Commission on Rural School Districts, say serious consideration needs to be taken into whether the pros of regionalization outweigh the cons.

Grid operator, utilities call for energy reserve, by Bruce Mohl, CommonWealth Magazine: The operator of the New England power grid and six of the regions major utilities are calling on state and federal policymakers to develop an energy reserve that can be tapped when energy supply chains are disrupted.

Worcester to begin construction on micro-units for chronically homeless, by Sam Turken, GBH News: Amid a rise in homelessness across Worcester, the citys housing authority will start constructing what officials called the first-in-the-state building of micro-units to house people who have been chronically homeless.

New Hampshire governor denounces tweets by state Libertarian party as horribly insulting, by Emily Sweeney, Boston Globe: The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire has drawn outrage for mocking the Holocaust and the death of Senator John McCain on social media, with New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu calling the Twitter posts horribly insulting. In a recent interview on CNN, Sununu said that should pretty much be the end of the Libertarian Party in New Hampshire.'"

WEEKEND WEDDING Megan Corrigan, an Eric Lesser and Lydia Edwards campaign alum, and Kevin Lownds, deputy chief of the Medicaid Fraud Division at the attorney generals office, were married on Friday at the Gardens at Elm Bank in Wellesley. Garrett Casey, policy director and counsel for state Sen. Cynthia Creem, and Nelson Tamayo, a foreign service officer at the State Department, officiated. SPOTTED: Edwards, former state transportation secretary Fred Salvucci, John Sasso, Nick Mitropoulos, Dewey Square COO John Giesser, former U.S. Ambassador to Portugal Gerry McGowan; Will Poff Webster, Matt Shapanka, Elizabeth Keyes, former Rhode Island state Rep. Aaron Regunberg, Tim Flaherty and Mary-Jo Adams.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the Washington Posts Martine Powers, a Boston Globe/POLITICO alum, and Julia Hoffman.

Want to make an impact? POLITICO Massachusetts has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Bay State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause youre promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness among this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: [emailprotected].

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Palfrey eyes the exits- POLITICO - POLITICO

Colorado teachers earn 36% less than other college-educated workers, the worst gap in the country, claims the Colorado Sun. Colorado teachers have the largest pay disparity in the country, declares 9News. Colorado has highest pay gap for educators in the U.S., says Colorado Newsline.

These headlines are highly misleading. The claims are technically correct according to the peculiar measures of the study on which they are based, yet they obscure important facts.

My claim here is not that teachers in Colorado make great money; they do not. Ill talk about that in a bit. My starting remarks pertain only to the usefulness of the study in question and to the news medias presentation of the studys findings.

The first thing to notice is that the study comes from the Economic Policy Institute, an independent, nonprofit think tank that draws partly on funding from teachers unions and other unions, including the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. Obviously this organization is going to produce papers that support more tax funding for public schools and that play up how rough public school teachers have it.

This is not a strong criticism; Complete Colorado is a project of the Independence Institute, an independent, nonprofit think tank that draws on conservative and libertarian funding and that tends to produce materials supportive of conservative and libertarian policies. Yet we should approach the study at hand knowing what particular axe its author and publisher wish to grind.

The biggest problem with the study is that it compares the salaries of teachers to the salaries of relatively high-earning Coloradans often working in fields of science and technology. Wow, what a shocker that someone with a chemistry or engineering degree from the School of Mines who takes an industry job earns more than someone with a typical teaching degree. (Mines does offer a BS in Engineering with a STEM Teaching focus area.)

Notably, Colorado is near the top of median household income, coming in eleventh at $72,331, according to World Population Review. Maryland is first at $84,805, while Mississippi is last at $45,081.

As the EPI study measures things, a teacher with exactly the same standard of living is deemed worse off simply by virtue of living around higher earners. Thats ridiculous. If anything, teachers lives are better, not worse, by virtue of living around a bunch of relatively wealthier people. By EPIs absurd accounting, if everyone in Colorado besides teachers suddenly lost half their revenues, Colorado teachers would move higher in the rankings.

Chalkbeat handles the nuances well. The fourth paragraph of its article clarifies: But this [wage comparison] doesnt mean Colorado teachers are the lowest paid in the nation. Colorado teachers earn below the national average, according to annual data collected by the National Education Association, but theyre roughly in the middle of the pack. For obvious reasons, click-oriented and ideological publications shy away from such bland headlines as, Colorado teachers in the middle of pack in pay.

The document that Chalkbeat cites from the NEA (the same organization that helped fund the EPI report) shows that Colorado teachers rank 26th for 202021 at $58,183, compared to the U.S. average of $65,293. The highest is New York at $90,222, while the lowest is (again) Mississippi at $46,862. The big finding is that, starting in 2019, teachers salaries are not keeping up with inflation. Of course other people also are having trouble with inflation, but EPI says its worse for teachers.

Chalkbeat helpfully paraphrases the author of the study, Sylvia Allegretto, as saying that more highly paid workers in other fields contribute to Colorados gap. Chalkbeat also paraphrases another economist, Phyllis Resnick, as pointing out that the variation in the jobs mix in each state serves as a major driver of the gap.

The next problem with the presentation of the EPI study is that it leads with raw numbers for a pay gapand this is what most of the headlines picked upbut then clarifies that benefits account for around 40% of the gap. The paper explains, The benefits advantage for teachers has not been enough to offset the growing wage penalty. The teacher total [national] compensation penalty was 14.2% in 2021 (a 23.5% wage penalty offset by a 9.3% benefits advantage).

You might be wondering, dont teachers on average work fewer hours relative to people in other, higher-paid professions, what with summers and more holidays off or on reduced workload? Allegretto claims in a footnote, We provide evidence that teachers work weekly hours similar to those of other professionals. But if you look at the cited 2019 paper that Allegretto coauthors, youll find that she offers weak evidence for the point. She barely addresses the issue, saying she wants to avoid an unproductive debate about the number of hours teachers work compared with other professionals.

She offers one piece of relevant evidence, a 2012 Gates Foundation article claiming that teachers work an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes a day, but that doesnt account for number of days per year worked. (The 2012 paper relies on survey responses. A person might suspect that these self-reported numbers might be a little like reports from Lake Wobegon.) Another oldish study (2014) suggests that teachers work an average of 34.5 hours per week on an annual basis (38.0 hours per week during the school year and 21.5 hours per week during the summer months). Education Week says teachers work more, especially during the pandemic. Anyway, Im not sure what hours for Colorado teachers look like compared to hours for higher-paying jobs, but the issue seems relevant. Were talking about averages; some teachers put in a lot more hours than others.

Regarding the salary comparisons, Chalkbeat continues, For Allegretto, thats a strength of her approach. Fewer people are going into teacher preparation programs, with one reason being that young people see they can earn more in other professions. Comparing teachers with other workers in their state, who face similar cost of living, rather than with teachers in other states, gives a better sense of what people are giving up to go into education.

There is something to this point, of course. If we had anything resembling a market in education, schools would, if they needed to, increase how much they pay teachers in order to attract more talent, and pass on the costs via higher tuition (or more fundraising or whatever). I think that, in a real market, teachers probably would make more on average, and salaries would range more widely depending on skill.

Given that most teachers work for the governments monopoly system of education, it would seem that the only way to increase teacher pay is to direct more tax dollars to teachers. Thats what EPI and its water-carriers in the media would have you believe. But not so fast. Maybe we could direct more of existing funds to teachers. The Colorado Department of Education says that the average per-pupil funding is $9,014 for 202122 and that the pupil-to-teacher ratio is 17.1 (to one).

That means that around $154,000 is available per classroom, but teachers make only around $58,000 (talking averages). Obviously teachers need things like school buildings and supplies, but are the relevant government agencies really spending our educational dollars as effectively as they could? Thats a little hard for me to believe at first glance, but Id like to see a detailed accounting.

We could always consider more-radical approaches to transition the system of government-monopoly schools to something resembling a free market. Then teachers would be more likely to be paid what their work is worth. Maybe the government-monopoly schools offer many teachers a level of security. But, as perhaps more teachers are coming to realize, such security comes at a price, and one measured not only in dollars.

Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.

Our unofficial motto at Complete Colorado is Always free, never fake, but annoyingly enough, our reporters, columnists and staff all want to be paid in actual US dollars rather than our preferred currency of pats on the back and a muttered kind word. Fact is that theres an entire staff working every day to bring you the most timely and relevant political news (updated twice daily) from around the state on Completes main page aggregator, as well as top-notch original reporting and commentary on Page Two.

CLICK HERE TO LADLE A LITTLE GRAVY ON THE CREW AT COMPLETE COLORADO. Youll be giving to the Independence Institute, the not-for-profit publisher of Complete Colorado, which makes your donation tax deductible. But rest assured that your giving will go specifically to the Complete Colorado news operation. Thanks for being a Complete Colorado reader, keep coming back.

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Armstrong: Behind those misleading headlines on Colorado teacher pay - Complete Colorado

Libertarian Theory

Libertarians believe in the governing and economic concepts of individualism, spontaneous order, rule of law, and limited government.

Most Libertarians tend to believe in conservativism on economic issues. They believe strongly in free-market capitalism, deregulation of business through laissez-faire practices, and any other liberty that a business enterprise can enjoy. Libertarians are against the current progressive income-tax system and support a revamp of the entire system. They will also more closely align with conservatives when it comes to limited government involvement, not just in business but also in state or local matters.

Libertarians base their economic leanings on the spontaneous order concept. They argue that society will experience the most efficient economic model through self-interest and self-preservation. Businesses and individuals overtime will naturally find the most useful ways to combine resources to be both profitable and efficient.

When it comes to enforcing laws and the legal system, Libertarians want the government restricted to its proper place as defined in the Constitution. Libertarians continue to stress limited government but with a strong sense of rule of law, which means no person or entity is above the law. Libertarians believe that rule of law, under the guidance of the Constitution, is the supreme law of the land in the United States and all else falls inferior to that.

On the left-leaning side of the spectrum, Libertarians are against almost all forms of government involvement in private or family matters. They strongly believe and will advocate for individual rights. Libertarian social stances include decriminalizing marijuana, having no authority or regulation on abortions, and promoting a strong defense of individualism. This usually means that a person has strong authority over themselves and is not centrally controlled by another entity like a government. They also agree with more liberal policies for a clear separation of church and state.

On foreign policy and military matters, Libertarians are typically more conservative. They believe the military should be only used to secure national borders or defend against domestic threats. Libertarians usually oppose most wars and the foreign relations the U.S. has been involved in.

Regardless of the political spectrum, which the Libertarian Party will argue they do not belong on either the left or the right side, their main principles are:

The Libertarian Party is most well known for its specific pro-business or business-friendly policies. Libertarians believe that businesses owners best operate in a mostly free enterprise economic system. Libertarians often take the position that the more freedom businesses are able to enjoy, the more beneficial they can be towards society creating goods and services.

The party pushes for deregulation of business through laissez-faire practices and any other liberty that a business enterprise can enjoy. Libertarian proponents will argue that if the government stays in its constitutional sphere of influence and does not interfere with business operations through regulation or taxes, the economy will prosper.

In economic terms, this makes the whole of the laissez-faire argument align with supply-side economic policy. This means that the government would be cutting taxes, deregulating businesses as well as making financing easier to come by so that business can increase their production.

Though the modern Libertarian Party was founded in the early 1970s, its roots trace back to key political figures in Europe and the US founding fathers. In the 18th century, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke constructed "libertarian" ideals in Europe through their works. Thomas Hobbes wrote the Social Contract Theory which directly represents the base of the Libertarian "Spontaneous Order" belief. John Locke wrote the Treatise of Government that primarily discussed that the whole purpose of government is to protect the natural rights of its citizens, which is the foundation of the Libertarian movement. People like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine all wrote and debated the purpose of government and how a limited government that protects the rights of its citizens would be the best foundation of the new nation of the United States.

The Libertarian Party was founded and became official in 1971 and had its first national convention in 1972. The party quickly became the 3rd most popular political party in the U.S. because of the growing neo-libertarian movement brought on by the resentment of government in the post-Vietnam timeline, as well as the district of government following the Nixon Administration era. By 1980, they were able to place a candidate on the ballots in all 50 states.

Today, the Libertarian Party has representation in all 50 states and supports candidates in elections ranging from local officials all the way to candidates for Presidential Office. The party is also heavily involved in high school and college campuses nationwide. There are multiple private organizations that are associated with the Libertarian Party that help with fundraising, election or poll working, membership, and advertising.

Some of these organizations include:

The official symbol of the Libertarian Party is the Statue of Liberty however a lot of organizations associated with the party utilize the hedgehog as the unofficial mascot symbol. The hedgehog animal is a defensive animal that does not bother anyone but will act in an aggressive way when provoked.

Although no Libertarian candidate has won the Presidential election or a Governorship, they have seen some limited success in local and other state-wide elections. Some candidates have made switches to other parties for better exposure and success. Most Libertarians have switched to the Republican party, but a few have changed over to the Democratic Party when they needed more national or state recognition.

Libertarian Presidential Candidates have never earned an electoral college vote (270 total electoral votes to win Presidency) but they have secured hundreds of thousands to millions of the popular vote across the U.S. This has greatly impacted close elections on the national stage.

With the growing partisanship in modern-day politics, third parties like Libertarians have been gaining a sizeable following and influence in national politics. Several members from other political parties even show tendencies to align more with Libertarians to gain their support in elections or on important pieces of policy.

Some of the more well known "Libertarian Friendly" politicians are:

President Donald Trump (R) was able to gain a following from some Libertarian voters during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns by appealing to "hands-off Government" policies that Libertarians support.

In recent state-wide campaigns, discontented Democratic and Republican voters are starting to show more support for independent third-parties and will start to vote or align themselves more with Libertarian causes.

With more and more American citizens discouraged by the two-party system, many are looking to find a "new home" with the Libertarian cause. The Libertarian Party has seen more involvement with their movement and is seen at the forefront of some of these key national hot topics in the U.S. :

Examples of Libertarian stances on more conservative, or right-leaning, economic issues:

Examples of Libertarian stances on more liberal, or left-leaning, social issues:

Libertarians face constant criticism from the general population but also from Democrat and Republican officials. Since the platform is strongly opinionated on hot-topic issues, they often receive many negative comments towards their officials or policies.

For example, critics would argue that the belief in a deregulated economy, markets, and businesses free of government involvement, could abuse the nation's resources or does not necessarily create efficient economic opportunities for all citizens.

Opponents against the Libertarian Party have even cited that there are no historical or modern examples of a nation being successfully lead by majority libertarian policies. Opposition towards the platform also debates that the concept of Libertarianism is borderline neo-anarchism where, if there is not enough government involvement, it could lead to a collapse of a nation.

The U.S. political system is still dominated by the two major parties, Republican and Democrat, but independent third parties like Liberatairians play a key role in local, state, and national elections and policy influence.

The modern Libertarian Party was founded in the 1970s but has historical influence from European politicians like John Locke and Adam Smith. Founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine all played an important role in establishing a base of beliefs for the modern Libertarian movement.

Multiple organizations support and associate themselves with the Libertarian Party from various sectors like education advocates, business groups, religious organizations, other political parties, and more. The party and movement have gained small success in local, state, and national elections.

Libertarians usually align themselves with conservatives when it comes to economic or financial issues. They usually support more liberal stances when it comes to individual liberties, civil rights, family, or private matters. When it comes to foreign policy, the platform takes more of a pacifist isolation stance.

Modern politicians, even if they are not Libertarian party members, try to appeal more to Libertarians because of the growing popularity in the party's platform.

Libertarians have faced strong criticism, mostly concerning their stance on the lack of government regulation. Critics argue this would only encourage anarchism and a failed government would lead to a dissolved nation and a collapsed society.

Because of their strong beliefs about personal freedoms, Libertarian platforms tend to focus heavily on business and free trade. For example, in the United States, business and economic trade is heavily monitored and regulated by the government to ensure that it's fair and safe. Libertarians might claim that this governmental involvement restricts a person's right to make a living however they choose and would advocate for no governmental restrictions.

Rather than support the government's role in economic trade and commerce, Libertarians tend to encourage an open and unregulated system in which people are free to conduct their business as they see fit. This type of economic system is what is known as laissez-faire capitalism.

Unlike other political belief systems, like Republican and Democratic, it can be difficult to pinpoint where Libertarianism started and how it evolved. This is because Libertarianism isn't really a political affiliation; it's more of a personal philosophy that strongly influences a person's political views.

For example, Libertarian thought can be traced back to 18th century Europe, during a time in which many people began to advocate for smaller governments and increased personal freedoms. These 'free thinkers,' as they're known, placed considerable importance on personal autonomy, which emphasized an individual's right to make decisions for themselves and act on their own behalf.

In the United States, Libertarianism grew out of the Neoliberal movement during the 1970s. Like Libertarians, Neoliberals wanted a more open and unrestricted form of commerce and society that was free from governmental interference.

The Libertarians became an official U.S. political party in 1971, in an effort to challenge American policies on issues like the Vietnam War and economic depression. For more than 40 years, the Libertarian party has run in elections on a platform that opposes foreign intervention, advocates free trade, and encourages limiting governmental powers.

As you might imagine, such strong opinions and beliefs about politics and society are not without their critics. The most common criticism of Libertarianism is its focus on the individual. The right to do whatever you want, whenever you want may sound good in theory, but nations are made up of different people who need to compromise in order to make it work. In light of this, there are no examples of a Libertarian nation anywhere in the world.

Another common criticism of Libertarianism is their perspective on substantially reduced government. Once again, in theory, getting rid of restrictions and governmental involvement may sound like a good thing, but it has substantial downsides. For example, imagine what would happen if the government eliminated the Department of Education. This would save federal money and reduce governmental involvement in private life, but it would dramatically affect the number of people that could go to college in the United States by eliminating federally subsidized student loans.

Though some critics will admit that Libertarian beliefs and perspectives are not entirely invalid, it's widely believed that these theories don't work in the context of a functioning society, and would likely lead to much larger earning gaps, social inequality, and so on.

In theory, the perspectives and beliefs of Libertarianism may sound reasonable, or even enticing. After all, personal freedom, autonomy, and the right live your life the way that you see fit are admirable goals. From the critics' perspective, however, limiting the government and engaging in laissez-faire capitalism would have a harmful effect on society, and perhaps even worsen the problems that Libertarianism hopes to solve.

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What is a Libertarian? Beliefs & Examples | Study.com