Re-Awaken Liberty

We are all very familiar with the following phrases and sentiments:

All men are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.

“Give me LIBERTY, or give me death.”

“To secure the blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and our posterity.”

“One nation, under God, indivisible, with LIBERTY and justice for all.”

We have a LIBERTY Bell and a Statue of LIBERTY. Pull out any coin in your pocket, and there in big letters is the word LIBERTY. Why? Why not a Statue of Freedom, or “Give me Independence, or give me death?” Why did our Founders and their successors favor the word LIBERTY? Why not other perfectly fine words like INDEPENDENCE or FREEDOM? The answer is clear by just looking at the definition of the words. FREEDOM connotes more of a lack of physical bondage or restraint, while LIBERTY suggests the emancipation of free will. According to dictionary.com Liberty is “the power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.” That is the message our Founders wished to accentuate and perpetuate.

I truly believe that 2012 is the “Year of the Libertarian.” This is a Libertarian country, founded as a Libertarian country, by Libertarians, and Americans today are a Libertarian people. I see my candidacy as not just a campaign for a seat on the State Board of Education. I approach it as a small crusade to re-awaken in voters the “blessings of Liberty” that our Founders accepted as indisputable truths but which have, over time, become viewed by some as antiquated ideas, inconsistent with a modern “progressive” society. I’m optimistic. I have faith in the American people. I believe the default setting programmed into the hard-wiring of human nature is for liberty. When people become aware of the benefits inherent in a libertarian society and are exposed to the dangers of the incremental usurping of individual sovereignty by an ever-expanding government, people embrace liberty and reject statism.

Our challenge, as Libertarians, is to scrape away the “candy coating” that envelopes statist thought in the form of arguments for the “greater good,” “social justice,” or “national security.” The assertion goes like this, “Just give up some of your individual rights. Forfeit a bit of your free will. Sacrifice just a tad of your self-reliance. And, in return we, the government, will keep you safe, healthy, and free from want.” The catch, of course, is that statists minimalize the first part of the argument where you are compelled to submit, but they campaign aggressively on the supposed benefits of government control. They are masters at, as the old song says, “accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative.” Over time, few recognize the negative aspect of the statist covenant even as more of their rights are incrementally abridged; and, although the alleged “positive” benefits may lose some of their luster, people resign themselves to the false belief that it has always been this way, it can be no other way, and so this must be as good as it gets.

Libertarians must remind people that this is NOT how it has always been, there IS another way, and this is NOT as good as it gets. Free markets, choice, competition, and the freedom to innovate, experiment, and explore unhindered by government intervention has improved our standard of living beyond anything our grandparents or great-grandparents could have ever conceived. This enrichment of the human condition has not been confined within the borders of our blessed country. The rewards of free-market principles have alleviated human suffering and have ameliorated the circumstances of millions around the world. Not surprisingly, it is in countries with the greatest government control and the least individual liberty where poverty and deprivation is most endemic.

My goal is to expose the fallacy that only government can educate our children, and to demonstrate how the same free-market principles that have advanced civilization so dramatically over the past two centuries can be used to advance education for the next two centuries.

My campaign will focus on 6 objectives, to:

• Apply Proven Free-Market Principles to Our Education System;

• Promote School Choice;

• Encourage and Support Home Schooling;

• Reduce Government Interference in Our Children’s Education;

• Restore Independence to Local School Districts; and

• Return the Authority to Determine a Child’s Education Where it Rightfully Belongs – With Parents!

It is an honor and a privilege to be the Libertarian nominee for the Texas State Board of Education from District Six.



Stop the spending, end the "wars," lower taxes, and leave us alone!

Think Libertarian.