The Freedom Bulletin

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

On Sunday, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote one of the most offensive, inaccurate, mean-spirited, and, frankly, stupid things I’ve read in a while. Entitled “Romney Is President,” Dowd’s piece was at the top of the Times‘s “most read” list for a while and seems to be quite popular, so The Freedom Bulletin feels the need to respond to it. Like what I discussed in my previous post, Dowd’s column is another example of the tendency not to argue against your opponents’ ideas, but instead to ridicule your opponents and assign them completely fictitious motivations and beliefs.

Dowd argues, basically, that Mitt Romney is the president of “white male America,” allegedly the only group of people he cared about when running his campaign.

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Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

So apparently it’s not enough that Democrats beat the you-know-what out of Republicans last week. They also have to ridicule Republicans based on racist, sexist stereotypes and presume to know, more than Republicans themselves, how Republicans view the world and why they believe what they do.

Am I the only person who is completely, utterly sick of people implying that anyone who dislikes President Obama must be a racist?

For example, CNN columnist LZ Granderson writes:

“Each time I see one of those ‘Take Our Country Back’ signs on someone’s lawn, I want to knock on the door and ask, ‘from whom?’

From whom are you trying to take this country back?

But I don’t, because I already know the answer.”

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I was planning on doing a recap of the good and bad of the election… but it turns out there was so much bad, and so little good, that I need three categories: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The latter category contains those results so bad, disappointing, and wrong that merely putting them in the Bad category would not do justice.

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Wasting your vote is voting for somebody that you don’t believe in. #bethe5percent twitter.com/GovGaryJohnson…

— Gov. Gary Johnson (@GovGaryJohnson) November 5, 2012

On election eve, here is a roundup of news, opinions, interviews, and endorsements of Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, some new and some a tad old but still worth a read. Although he is most likely not going to be our next president, I hope that all liberty-minded people will take a few minutes out of their way to vote for Gov. Johnson tomorrow, and think positive thoughts for him to get as many votes as possible.

Anti-Johnson Crowd of Full of Cowards – Jeremy Kolassa, United Liberty, 10/11/12. “Not a day goes by when I get a message from a conservative telling me that I must vote for Mitt Romney, not just because a vote for Gary Johnson (or anyone other than Romney or Obama) would be a wasted vote, but that we must vote for the one guy who has a shot of defeating Obama to save our country.”

Let Gary Johnson debate - Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Fox News, 10/11/12. “President Obama has been a failure. On his watch, the American economy has significantly deteriorated largely because he has stifled free market forces by over-regulating them and because he has laden taxpayers with debt.”

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The last in The Freedom Bulletin‘s series of 2012 election endorsements is Question 3, which would legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes in Massachusetts.

Question 3 reads as follows:

This proposed law would eliminate state criminal and civil penalties for the medical use of marijuana by qualifying patients. To qualify, a patient must have been diagnosed with a debilitating medical condition, such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV-positive status or AIDS, hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, or multiple sclerosis. The patient would also have to obtain a written certification, from a physician with whom the patient has a bona fide physician-patient relationship, that the patient has a specific debilitating medical condition and would likely obtain a net benefit from medical use of marijuana.

The proposed law would allow patients to possess up to a 60-day supply of marijuana for their personal medical use. The state Department of Public Health (DPH) would decide what amount would be a 60-day supply. A patient could designate a personal caregiver, at least 21 years old, who could assist with the patient’s medical use of marijuana but would be prohibited from consuming that marijuana. Patients and caregivers would have to register with DPH by submitting the physician’s certification.

The proposed law would allow for non-profit medical marijuana treatment centers to grow, process and provide marijuana to patients or their caregivers. A treatment center would have to apply for a DPH registration by (1) paying a fee to offset DPH’s administrative costs; (2) identifying its location and one additional location, if any, where marijuana would be grown; and (3) submitting operating procedures, consistent with rules to be issued by DPH, including cultivation and storage of marijuana only in enclosed, locked facilities.

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A YES VOTE would enact the proposed law eliminating state criminal and civil penalties related to the medical use of marijuana, allowing patients meeting certain conditions to obtain marijuana produced and distributed by new state-regulated centers or, in specific hardship cases, to grow marijuana for their own use.

I am voting yes on Question 3 and urge everyone else to join me, for the simple reason that people have the right to make their own medical decisions and decide for themselves which substances they wish to put into their bodies.

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The Campaign for Liberty has created surveys, which it sent to candidates for the Senate, the House of Representatives, and state legislatures across the country, to gauge how committed they are to the principles of liberty and constitutional government. This is not the only factor to take into account when deciding who to vote for, of course, and many candidates did not even bother to answer their surveys, but the results are certainly worth checking out before you head to the polls on Tuesday.

You can view the answers of the candidates for the Massachusetts state senate and state legislature here – or at least the answers of those few candidates who chose to return their surveys. Sadly, neither Elizabeth Warren nor Scott Brown nor any of the Massachusetts congressional candidates took the time to answer.

If you don’t live in Massachusetts, you can find the surveys for your state’s candidates here.

It is rare that a ballot question has such a direct impact on individual liberty and autonomy as Question 2 in Massachusetts. If passed, this initiative would allow people with terminal illnesses to end their own lives in a dignified manner, something that is currently illegal in Massachusetts and all other states except for Oregon and Washington. I strongly support Question 2 and urge everyone to vote Yes on it on November 6. Question 2 reads as follows:

This proposed law would allow a physician licensed in Massachusetts to prescribe medication, at a terminally ill patient’s request, to end that patient’s life. To qualify, a patient would have to be an adult resident who (1) is medically determined to be mentally capable of making and communicating health care decisions; (2) has been diagnosed by attending and consulting physicians as having an incurable, irreversible disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, cause death within six months; and (3) voluntarily expresses a wish to die and has made an informed decision. The proposed law states that the patient would ingest the medicine in order to cause death in a humane and dignified manner.

Many different arguments are used by assisted suicide opponents to scare people into voting no on Question 2. Here are some of the main arguments against Question 2, and my responses to them:

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