So I am a Libertarian. And I support the NI4D. Why is that?

First of all, let me begin by saying that I will not directly enact the NI4D if I were ever elected to Congress. I would just be another person voting in favor of it when the matter came before the people. That being said, let me go on to explain why I do support it.

In my position debating politics on a daily basis at rtrradio.com, I got into debates about this often. There are certainly compelling arguments on both sides of this issue. But I think that a lot of it comes from one side being largely ignorant as to the truth of what the NI4D proposes.

The NI4D proposes that we add a check and balance to the system that allows for the people of the United States to call for a federal ballot initiative Very much like we have on the State level in many states. This same system allowed former Libertarian candidate for President Steve Kubby to legalize medical marijuana in the state of California. It has helped the Swiss people to protect their freedoms for hundreds of years. It just helped the people of Ireland prevent the EU from depriving it's member nations of individual sovereignty. What is a ballot initiative? Well basically what it entails is that the people can put together a petition to allow a matter of law to be brought before a majority vote of the citizens in the jurisdiction it will affect.

Is there a possibility for abuse? Well as Senator Gravel points out in his book, when the people make a bad law they are more likely to feel the pinch and want to change it. And with the ability to do so they would get together and actually change it. Politicians on the other hand are more likely to try and cover it up, or continue to try and justify it because they don't want to be out of a job at the next election.(Bob Barr's flip-flopping on the various blunders he committed as a Congressmen come to mind...) Another serious misconception about the National Initiative is that it could be used to deprive us of our constitutional rights. The Supreme Court still has the ability to overturn anything unconstitutional that is passed in any law. Whether that law is made by the Congress, or by the people. This would still protect the minority from any such abuses.

Another compelling question that I asked myself when I was coming to the decision about how I felt about the national initiative is what is wrong with our current representative government? I run into a lot of problems with some people in the "freedom movement" who spent a lot of time initially complaining about the flaws in our republic, and then afterward when this issue was brought before them suddenly ardently defended it. If the people in the republic actually elected our representatives it might be different. But we don't. We cast our votes of course. (All Diebold hacking and voter fraud accusations aside) But to what end? Of the representatives I know of in Congress now, I can think of two that I trust for sure, and possibly one more. That would be Congressmen Ron Paul, Congressmen Dennis Kucinich, (aside from social issues of course). So, that's two. Two people out of the entire Congress, and no Senators that I trust at all. If you can name me even ten that you trust and you are a Libertarian I would be highly surprised.

So, lets consider the real math of the situation. As this is often brought up.

Should the 51% be allowed to tell the 49% what to do?

That is certainly not an ideal equation. And thankfully it rarely comes up. And people apply it to the NI4D often. Especially my fellow Libertarians who are concerned about the possibility of tyranny of the majority over the minority. They often quote Ben Franklin and his analogy of the wolves and the sheep voting on what's for dinner. I doubt Mr. Franklin was given a scenario where there would be a Constitution defending the rights of that minority of sheep to not be subject to any votes where they could become dinner. It is an excellent example how the founding fathers are often quoted out of context by many people debating this issue. So the first part of this that needs to be clarified is that with the NI4D, the 49% can ONLY be told what to do by the 51% if the law in question is Constitutional. Period.

One of the things that Mike Gravel was trying to make Libertarians understand during his final speech before the voting to determine who our Presidential nominee would be, was that we already employ majority rule constantly in every day society. And that we had done so working on our platform throughout the convention. Should 51% of the Libertarian party be able to tell the other 49% of the party what should and should not be in the platform? We use that system because mathematically it is the fairest system that will treat the most people fairly most of the time.

What about when electing representatives? Should Bob Barr's delegates that represented the majority by a narrow margin of delegates been able to force their choice for our nominee on the other portion of the Libertarian party? Hey, maybe we should all be able to pick our own candidate. That is the only way to be fair right? Wait a minute, pick our own candidates? Why not just have everyone be empowered to vote as they want to on their own? Hmm...

The republic already forces tyranny of the majority on us right now as Libertarians, as thanks to it we have no voting power in the Congress, or in the Senate, and we are not likely to elect a president in the foreseeable future. (.32% of the vote in the last Presidential election I believe?) Because we are that minority. So is the republic still the best answer?

I am honestly more worried about a different set of math. And that would be the tyranny of the minority. If you are uncomfortable with 51% vs 49% let's talk about the republic's numbers. As right now we have 0.000176% (This number includes all of the Congress, the Senate, and the President.) telling the other 99.999% what to do. Well hey, that should be fine because the majority elects those people right?

Wait a second, didn't we just say that majority rule was bad?

Will it be "mob rule" of the majority of the people? Or "mob rule" of a minority elected in a corrupted system where money buys your vote?

And we tell ourselves that we are fine, because after all, the Constitution will protect us. Our representatives can't do anything against the Constitution. Like say...the Patriot act? The Iraq War resolution? There are now about a dozen or so more examples I can provide. But I am hoping if you are reading this you already know what I am talking about.

But hey, that's against the rules! Can't they be impeached?

The only person trying to do this right now is Dennis Kucinich. He is doing all his power as a Congressmen provides him with. Just as he tried to do with our Vice President. And he is not having as much success as we would hope. Especially considering how blatantly obvious it is that his allegations are likely all 100% well founded. Should be easy to impeach someone for blatantly lying to the American people right? Particularly if they did so to take us to a war that some people think we will be in for hundreds of years?

If we had a federal initiative, we wouldn't have to depend on Dennis Kucinich to impeach people like this, we could immediately recall them. It is absurd that we have to suffer through four years of any President with an approval rating below 30%. Or any other statesmen for that matter.

But instead we get to watch Congressmen Dennis Kucinich struggle against insurmountable odds. Because the majority of the Congress, and the Senate are all bought and paid for by campaign contributions from companies that are raking in billions on the wars that the Bush administration lied to get us into. It's possible and even likely that a good deal of the people who would have to vote on such an impeachment resolution might even be profiting right now from those wars or seek to do so in the future. It is known that a lot of politicians retire from their positions to go immediately into the private sector for companies that gave them contributions during their careers.

So now we look at an even smaller minority. That minority is the elected representatives who actually care about us and are not bought and paid for by the companies that use our government as a means to more profits. So, that two or maybe three Congressmen out of the 0.000176% of the population.

You still confident that our republic alone is the means to achieve our Libertarian goals? People with Libertarian ideals are notoriously difficult to elect. We have this principled tendency to tell special interests and lobbyists to take a flying leap. So that means instead of at least having our own personal piece of the political power in the form of our votes on a federal ballot initiative, we get ZERO power other then the power to run for elections we cannot win and post on blogs that most people will never read. We have the power to speak out for candidates that we cannot possibly afford to fund campaigns for even a fraction as much money as the opponents they face will have. People will point to the money we raised for Ron Paul. I would then like to ask when the "freedom movement" has been able to reproduce that effort? Every attempt at a money bomb I have seen for anyone other then Ron Paul has failed. A lot of people donated to his campaign and now they are looking at their empty bank accounts and wondering if they wasted their money. It makes them naturally reluctant to do so for anyone else. And honestly I don't blame them.

Libertarians often say that most people are Libertarian and just don't know it. Statistics also show that when the people are given the power to vote on the issues themselves they have a much better track record of voting in a Libertarian fashion. Why is that? Like Dr. Paul said, "Freedom is popular." So who are you more scared of? The majority deciding if we want to live in a fascist state? Or a minority of elites propped up by corporate money that is already passing fascist laws as we speak?

People are concerned about the media. Could the same thing that is being done to elect our representatives also be done to affect a federal ballot initiative? The NI4D has provisions in it to prevent anyone other then natural persons from donating to a campaign for or against an initiative. I should also point out that it is much easier to elect someone who claims they are going to do something for you and find out the hard way they were lying to you after election day, then it is for a law that you voted on as written suddenly changing it's mind later. Laws are written on pieces of paper. They cannot be bribed. They do not have an ulterior motive of their own. It is a lot harder to lobby and bribe the people into giving away their freedoms then it is to convince a struggling Congressmen, Senator, or President to do so for the fair price of a good solid campaign contribution and a promise of a job after they are out of office.

It is much easier to sell a stupid person then it is to sell a stupid idea.

Yes, it is inevitable that some bad idea or another will be passed with a federal ballot initiative. Just as we see people vote for "bad ideas" in the form of politicians like the ones in our current administration. The difference is when we vote for bad people we cannot do anything to stop them until after they can do plenty of damage. And we have to wait them out for the two or four years in office before we can make them answer for it.

When "We the people" can oversee our own laws then we can change them ourselves. And we can do that without having to be elected in uphill campaigns against opponents who are not interested in the common good for the United States and instead are interested in the good for their corporate sponsors.

Some Libertarians say they don't trust the people. This argument also applies to the republic model, as the people elect those representatives as well. (Doing a bang up job of that aren't we?)

So unless a large portion of Libertarians win the lottery and are willing to buy themselves some Congressmen, Senators and Presidents (Even if we are just "buying" them by getting good people elected for the right reasons it still costs money and lots of it.) I do not feel that we will ever see anything resembling a Libertarian society in our lifetimes. It just is not in the best interest of the people in charge to allow that to happen. And make no mistake, they with the money are the people in charge. As long as our government is bought and paid for the republic will fail. Unless the people who gave money to Ron Paul are willing to go down the line and money bomb for a candidate for Congress, and Senate in every Congressional district and in every state, and unless they are willing to do more then just sit and complain about how much they dislike the way things are going in chat rooms and on message boards and instead actually get out there and help these people, you will never see this republic do anything more then it has and is doing when it comes to freedom. Watch C-SPAN for a while to get a feel for that. I doubt you will like what you see.

Our Constitutional republic is not enough on it's own to protect our freedoms.

Read Chapter 12 of Mike Gravel's book "Citizen Power" and learn the truth about why our government was designed the way it was. You will not only be shocked, you will be angry. I know I was. The short form of it is this. We wanted to ratify our Constitution. We used to do things by town hall meeting majority vote in the colonies. That ended when Madison realized that he could not get a Constitution ratified with slavery in it if the people were allowed to ratify it themselves. So the idea of electing delegates to handle our Constitution was pushed past the people. And you will never guess who won those elections? The rich elites of the early United States. And as soon as the matter was taken out of the hands of the people we got ourselves a constitution with slavery.

Our founding fathers were great. But they had their own flaws as well.

Do you think the majority of the people want to be slaves?

Do you think an elected minority empowered in elections that are controlled by forces outside of the will of the people would be more likely or less likely to make us slaves?

I know what my answer is to that. And it scares the hell out of me.

That is why I support a Constitutional republic, that allows for federal ballot initiatives to be the final check in the system when the people we elect to represent us fail to do so. With a Constitution to protect the rights of the few. And a democratic ballot to protect the rights of the many.