July 19, 2010
Dear Friend of Liberty,
The Federal Election Commission is harassing and maybe even threatening to silence the Campaign for Liberty.
This is an attack on free speech and an attack on another organization working to promote freedom.
The Campaign for Liberty was founded by Congressman Ron Paul after his 2008 presidential campaign as a way to continue organizing the grass roots activists who helped that campaign. Although Congressman Ron Paul holds office as a Republican, he’s often ostracized by his party’s leadership for holding libertarian views. He’s also a Lifetime member of the Libertarian Party, and he was the 1988 Libertarian Party presidential nominee.
I’m glad when Ron Paul is willing to ignore party allegiance to fight for principles of liberty.
I personally don’t think our freedoms will be secure until government is seen as the problem, and a majority of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and others are fighting over the best and fastest ways to dismantle government programs. So I’m not going to criticize or get in the way of people working through other organizations, when they’re working towards the same principles of liberty and limited government that the Libertarian Party supports.
And I sure don’t appreciate the federal government using its enormous power to silence dissent. I don’t know if the Campaign for Liberty broke any laws. Campaign finance rules are incredibly complicated, and they usually benefit incumbents. I’m against most of those unconstitutional laws in the first place. According to the Libertarian Party platform section 3.6: “We call for an end to any tax-financed subsidies to candidates or parties and the repeal of all laws which restrict voluntary financing of election campaigns.”
According to the Campaign for Liberty’s website: “Our mission is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.”
Additionally, their website states they neither support nor oppose candidates for public office, but they do put candidates on record and report their positions.
Who knows, maybe the Campaign for Liberty will be out there exposing hypocritical Democrats who support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hypocritical Republicans who vote for TARP bailouts and Medicare expansions. Perhaps some of our over 170 Libertarian Party candidates for U.S. Representative will benefit.
I sure hope so.
The Campaign for Liberty has a “Declaration of Support” page here. I plan to sign it. (Please note, the page asks for a donation after signing. I neither encourage nor discourage you from giving financial support to the Campaign for Liberty.)
Sincerely,
Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee
P.S. If you have not yet become a member of the Libertarian Party and
wish to do so, please click here and join the only political party dedicated to free markets and civil liberties. If you need to renew, please click here. If you would like to make a contribution separate from membership, please click here.
