The Freedom Bulletin

Today I went to the 2010 Boston Tea Party on the Boston Common. As I expected, it was absolutely awesome, with three hours of speeches, music, and liberty! The most high-profile speaker, of course, was Sarah Palin, but the other speakers included WTKK radio host Michael Graham, WRKO radio host Todd Feinburg, Greater Boston Tea Party president Christen Varley, and Debbie Lee, whose son was killed in Iraq. There had to have been thousands of people there, and as usual, great signs and lots of flags.

This Tea Party was organized by the Tea Party Express, a national organization. It was a little different from last year’s Tax Day Tea Party. This one felt a little more Republican and was more organized, while last year’s was more libertarian and “anarchist,” with lots of different organizations handing out literature, talking to the media, and fighting for attention. Each was awesome in its own way.

I took some videos of Palin’s speech and the songs, which you can check out at my YouTube account, since this post would be way too long if I posted them here.

I also took lots of photos:

For more coverage of the Tea Party, check out:

• Boston Globe
• Boston Herald

The Massachusetts legislature is trying to take away even more of people’s freedom than they already have, specifically the freedom to drive a car.

The version of the bill passed by the House of Representatives bans drivers from using cell phones without hands-free devices and from texting, and required drivers over 75 years old to have vision tests every 5 years in order to keep their licenses.

The Senate bill is even worse. It makes texting a primary offense, bans junior operators from using cell phones at all, and requires people at age 75, 80, and every three years thereafter to be tested by doctors in order to keep their license, although they are allowed to take a road test if that fails.

Why are people unable to understand that driving should be treated as a right, not a privilege? Texting does not violate anyone’s rights. Neither does using a cell phone. Neither does driving, no matter what age you are. It is true that texting, talking on the phone, and age affect the probability of being in an accident. Hitting someone with your car violates their rights. But doing something that might increase your chances of violating someone’s rights is not the same as violating someone’s rights. The government only has the right to ban the latter.

This is going to sound radical, but it is what I believe: People of all ages have a right to drive. We have a right to text and talk while driving. Forcing people to take tests, pay money, or undergo medical exams in order to drive violates our rights.

I am especially disturbed at the part of the Senate bill that forces elderly people to be screened by their doctors. Sen. Brian Joyce, one of the leaders in the fight against driving freedom, said that this “makes it a lot less threatening to seniors.” I completely disagree. I would much rather have a driving test at the RMV than a medical exam. A test of your driving abilities, by people who treat you as a person, preserves one’s privacy and dignity much more than being examined by a doctor. Although I am strongly opposed to requiring road tests for older drivers, I am even more strongly opposed to requiring medical exams. This law, if it passes, would be an almost unprecedented violation of liberty, on the level of the Durham-Humphrey Amendment and required strip searches at airports and much worse than taxes, gun bans, or security cameras. The government does require medical exams for certain jobs and if I’m not mistaken to attend public school, but they have never, to my knowledge, required adults to have a medical exam to do something as basic as driving. Mandating medical exams is the exact opposite direction that the world should be moving in.

I do not understand why so many purportedly pro-liberty people choose this issue on which to take a position that is diametrically opposed to their overall ideology. Why don’t the Libertarian Party, Republican Party, and Tea Party movement make a fuss over these abuses of our right to drive? Why are so few people willing to bravely take a stand?

If you live in Massachusetts and you agree with me, won’t you contact your state Senator and Representative and ask them to vote against all bills that further restrict people’s right to drive?

In an article at the Huffington Post, Bob Cesca argues that the only thing the tea party movement stands for is racism. His patently false conclusion is supported by a collection of inaccurate premises combined in illogical ways to create what just might be the most offensive, stupid, and just plain wrong opinion piece I have ever read in my life.

Cesca writes, “When you strip away all of the rage, all of the nonsensical loud noises and all of the contradictions, all that’s left is race. The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there’s no comparative group on the left that’s similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred.”

It seems that Cesca’s argument goes like this: the tea party doesn’t stand for any consistent ideals, and a few people associated with the tea party have said racist things, so therefore all the tea party stands for is racism. Also, there are no left-wing organizations that are racist like the tea party; therefore the tea party is more outrageous than any left-wing organization.

I will go over this argument premise by premise and show why it fails:

1. The tea party has no consistent ideals, goals, or platform. This premise is false. Not only is it false but anyone who thinks it is true has no concept of, and places no value on, freedom. Although the tea party movement encompasses people with a wide array of views, its main platform is liberty. This means a smaller government that spends less, taxes less, and restricts people’s choices less. It is troubling that someone would be unable to understand this concept. Cesca calls the entire tea party movement contradictory because one particular tea partier opposes both the bank bailout and fees on banks to recover the money, and because the tea party movement did not exist during the Bush presidency. But one might believe it is better for the government tojust  interfere in the economy once by giving banks free money than to interfere even more in an attempt to get the money back. As for Bush, there are a million non-racist reasons for people to become more outraged during Obama’s presidency. Many tea partiers opposed Bush’s violations of liberty too, some people’s philosophies may simply have evolved, some people might feel more passionate about economic issues than security, or perhaps the state of freedom in our country is worse than ever before. Under Obama, none of Bush’s oppressive laws have gone away, and many things, such as airport security and government interference in the economy and potentially health insurance, have gotten worse! Opinions within the tea party movement are diverse, but they are not contradictory. I can’t think of a more simple, meaningful, or important cause than liberty.
2. A few people associated with the tea party have said racist things. I’m willing to grant this. Cesca does give a few examples in his article, some of which are dubious (Karl Rove?) but some of which I have no reason to doubt the factual accuracy.
3. Therefore, the tea party is a racist organization. Even if the first two premises were true, which only one is, this would not follow. The fact that a few members of a group have a certain view does not mean that the group as a whole has that view. For example, some Democrats (and some Republicans) are atheists. Would Cesca say that the Democratic Party stands for atheism? Didn’t think so.
4. There are no left-wing groups as racist as the tea party. Since I just established that the tea party is actually not racist, it seems that there are plenty of left-wing organizations that are also not racist. So this premise is false.
5. Therefore, there are no left-wing groups as outrageous as the tea party. This obviously isn’t true. In addition to the near certainty of there being a left-wing group that is more racist than the tea party (because the tea party isn’t racist at all), there are definitely left-wing groups with more outrageous platforms than the tea party’s. For example, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts supports both “elimination of the private possession of handguns” and “protection of basic constitutional rights.” Now that’s contradictory!

Besides this dubious argument, Cesca also makes the laughable claim that “it’s impossible for the majority race…to be on the receiving end of racism.” Really? In South Africa in the days of apartheid, blacks were the majority but they were still oppressed by whites. Additionally, in America today, affirmative action penalizes people in college admissions for being white. Is that not racist?

Another fact that I should mention: at the two Boston Tea Parties that I participated in, people of all races were in attendance. I specifically remember some really nice black teenagers/college students selling anti-Obama t-shirts. So much for the tea partiers being a bunch of white supremacists.

Articles like Cesca’s are the reason why liberals have a reputation for being pompous snobs. If you disagree with someone, you should criticize their arguments. Instead, Cesca insults his opponents’ intelligence (“I’m not even entirely sure they realize that the bailouts and the recovery act (stimulus) are two different things”), assigns us a motive that we do not have (racism), and uses epithets (“teabaggers”). It is ironic that Cesca accuses us tea partiers of being motivated by ignorance and hatred, when he is so blinded by his disdain for us that he refuses to make a serious attempt to understand our ideology. Now that is ignorance.

Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul, is officially running for the Senate! He formed an exploratory committee and website a while back but did not formally announce his candidacy until today. Paul is running for the Kentucky Senate seat currently held by Republican Jim Bunning, who is not running for re-election. He is facing two challengers – Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson and businessman Bill Johnson – in the Republican primary.

Rand’s political views are a lot like Ron’s, making this great news for libertarians and libertarian-leaning conservatives. America really needs more people in Congress who support liberty!

To learn more about Rand Paul or find out how you can support him, check out his official site: RandPaul2010.com.

A while ago, I promised to make a post going into more detail on the issue of airport security, and how the backscatter machines that show people’s naked bodies are a violation of privacy rights and of the Constitution. However, I found this absolutely awesome article at the Campaign for Liberty which says it better than I could. This is probably the best article that I have ever read, on any topic, in any newspaper, magazine, or website. In it, he says everything that I’ve always believed. It makes me happy that someone I’ve never met before thinks exactly the same thing I do. You simply must read this article:

“Liberty is an absolute” by Tom Mullen

Having said that, there are also a few updates in the battle against the naked machines. As you may recall, the TSA decided to switch from making everyone go through metal detectors and only go through the naked machines if they set the metal detector off, to making everyone go through the naked machines. This is obviously a change for the worse.

Thankfully, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced a bill restricting these machines to people who fail the primary screening method (metal detectors), and the House of Representatives passed it! This bill is the least the government could do to secure people’s privacy rights at the airport. I think it would be ideal if the naked machines were banned entirely, as well as the practices of making people take their shoes off and take out all the liquids that they’re carrying. Chaffetz’s bill is very moderate and reasonable, and the Senate would have to be crazy not to pass it. I don’t know when they’re going to vote on it, though. Unfortunately, there has been very little media coverage of the whole naked machine issue, and Congress is more focused on “health care reform” than stopping everyone who boards a plane from being forcibly strip searched.

Also, the Electronic Privacy Information Center is campaigning against the naked machines, and the TSA responded last month to their criticism by simply saying exactly what they’ve been saying since the naked machines were invented: your face is blurred, the officer who sees the naked images is not near you, and the images are never stored or transmitted. These things may be true, but they really don’t make anything any better. The reason why EPIC, myself, and others who believe in privacy rights oppose the naked machines is not because they reveal people’s faces or identities, but because they reveal people’s naked bodies. None of the TSA’s so-called privacy measures do anything about this. I don’t want people looking at my naked body, even if they don’t know my name or see my face.

I will blog again if there are any significant developments. I hope there will be soon, since I’m not boarding an airplane if I have to go through the naked machines first.