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And I thought ACORN was intimidating….
You don’t have to look any further than its name – BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) – to get a sense of what’s tactically off-the-table for this communist organization.
In a larger story about The Far Left’s War on Direct Democracy, here’s John Fund:
[M]ore power to ordinary people remains unpopular in some quarters, and nothing illustrates the war on the initiative more than the reaction to Ward Connerly’s measures to ban racial quotas and preferences. The former University of California regent has convinced three liberal states — California, Washington and Michigan — to approve race-neutral government policies in public hiring, contracting and university admissions. He also prodded Florida lawmakers into passing such a law. This year his American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) aimed to make the ballot in five more states. But thanks to strong-arm tactics, the initiative has only made the ballot in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.
“The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the first place,” says Donna Stern, Midwest director for the Detroit-based By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “That’s the only way we’re going to win.” Her group’s name certainly describes the tactics that are being used to thwart Mr. Connerly.
Aggressive legal challenges have bordered on the absurd, going so far as to claim that a blank line on one petition was a “duplicate” of another blank line on another petition and thus evidence of fraud. In Missouri, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan completely rewrote the initiative’s ballot summary to portray it in a negative light. By the time courts ruled she had overstepped her authority, there wasn’t enough time to collect sufficient signatures.
Those who did circulate petitions faced bizarre obstacles. In Kansas City, a petitioner was arrested for collecting signatures outside of a public library. Officials finally allowed petitioners a table inside the library but forbade them to talk. In Nebraska, a group in favor of racial preferences ran a radio ad that warned that those who signed the “deceptive” petition “could be at risk for identity theft, robbery, and much worse.”
Mr. Connerly says that it’s ironic that those who claim to believe in “people power” want to keep people from voting on his proposal: “Their tactics challenge the legitimacy of our system.”
He’s not alone. Liberal columnist Anne Denogean of the Tucson Citizen opposes the Connerly initiative, but last month she wrote that BAMN “is showing a disgusting lack of respect for the democratic process and the right of all Arizonans to participate in it.” She detailed how members of this organization harass petitioners and film people who sign the petition, while telling them they are backing a racist measure.
The police had to be called when BAMN blocked the entrance of a Phoenix office where circulators had to deliver their petitions. “BAMN’s tactics,” she concluded, “resemble those used by anti-abortion activists to prevent women from entering abortion clinics.”
But BAMN proudly posts videos on its success in scaring away voters, or convincing circulators to hand over their petitions to its shock troops. “If you give me your signatures, we’ll leave you alone,” says a BAMN volunteer on one tape to someone who’s earning money by circulating several different petitions.
What about voters’ rights to sign ACRI’s petitions? BAMN organizer Monica Smith equates race-neutral laws with Jim-Crow segregation laws and slavery. She told Tuscon columnist Denogean that voters are simply being educated that ACRI is “trying to end affirmative action . . . We let them know it’s up on the KKK’s Web site.” Mr. Connerly has repudiated any support from racists.
As loyal readers will know, on May 3rd, 2008, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Tim Asher, Executive Director of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative (MoCRI). Video here. BAMN was one of many groups actively blocking the signature-gathering efforts.
McCain, speaking on ABC’s This Week, said he backs a proposed ballot initiative in his home state of Arizona that would prohibit affirmative action policies by state and local governments.
Obama. Not so much. From the same article:
“I am a strong supporter of affirmative action when properly structured so there it is not a quota, but it is acknowledging and taking into account some of the hardships and difficulties that communities of color may have experienced, continue to experience, and it also speaks to the value of diversity in all walks of American life,” he said.
Valuing diversity for diversity’s sake? The Red Eye agrees.
I love this organization.
A couple weeks ago I excerpted from a phenomenal op-ed they wrote.
Today I just want to highlight an event-err…party?-OSPRI is having entitled “Alcohol, Firearms & Tobacco”.
Brilliant and highly offensive tag line: “It should be a convenient store not a government agency”.
Awesome.
Ranked Choice Voting. Also known as Instant Runoff Voting. Seriously, this is one of the best ideas to come from the political world. Ever! How have I not heard of it until now?
No more bullshit squabbling about spoilers, about who Nadered who, about how voting third party is going to take away votes from the “practical” choice. No more discrepancies between values and strategy.
With RCV, your vote – your choice – is meaningful!
Check out the video below and tell me it’s not amazing:
Really. Just think about many election-time political flights would be prevented!
Last week’s Weekly Standard was pretty sweet.
The cover article – The Colorado Model: The Democrats’ plan for turning red states blue – cites my boss Eric O’Keefe in terms of successful political strategy.
Eric O’Keefe, chairman of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance in Chicago, says there are seven “capacities” that are required to drive a successful political strategy and keep it on offense: the capacity to generate intellectual ammunition, to pursue investigations, to mobilize for elections, to fight media bias, to pursue strategic litigation, to train new leaders, and to sustain a presence in the new media. Colorado liberals have now created institutions that possess all seven capacities. By working together, they generate political noise and attract press coverage. Explains Caldara, “Build an echo chamber and the media laps it up.”
First, there are the think tanks such as Bighorn and Bell and supposedly nonpartisan political advocacy groups like the Colorado clone of MoveOn.org called ProgressNowAction.org, founded in 2005. Another clone, this one a local version of Media Matters known as Colorado Media Matters, was created two years ago to harass journalists and editorial writers who don’t push the liberal line.
There’s a “public interest” law firm, Colorado Ethics Watch, established in 2006, plus an online newspaper, the Colorado Independent, with a team of reporters to ferret out wrongdoing by Republicans, also begun in 2006. And there’s a school to train new liberal leaders, the Center for Progressive Leadership Colorado, as well as new media outlets with bloggers and online news and gossip, including ColoradoPols.com and SquareState.net. That covers all seven capacities. Count them.
While I was checking that article out, another entitled Self-Interest Is Bad? caught my eye. It ends with the following thoughts:
For four long years the rest of us will be hectored about pursuing a cause greater than our self-interest, with the unavoidable implication that as we go through the day getting our kids out of bed, packing their lunches, helping them with homework, dragging ourselves to our jobs, enduring an hour’s commute, so we can make enough money to meet our mortgage, attending PTA meetings, feeding the dog, going to church, mowing our neighbor’s lawn while he’s on vacation, planning a birthday party, saying a prayer for a sick friend, picking up a six-pack for our brother-in-law on the way home, writing a check to the Red Cross, shopping for an old roommate’s wedding gift, pretending to listen to the tedious beefs of a co-worker, telephoning an aging aunt, and otherwise doing what it is we need to do to make our lives mean something, we are merely pursuing what our two presidential candidates consider our selfish interest. Because we haven’t joined one of their national service programs.
For now, of course, each of the two men, McCain and Obama, points to himself as an exemplar of service–even as he avoids his family, neglects his job, and hands his everyday obligations over to poorly paid subordinates, all so he can fulfill his lifelong ambition of becoming the most powerful and celebrated man in the world. What do you know: They think their self-interest is a cause greater than their self-interest. Funny how that happens.
Earlier this month it was Flint, Michigan. Last week? Riviera Beach, Florida. Two days ago, the latest nanny-state trend – outlawing saggy pants – made its way to Lynwood, Illinois, a suburb about 30 miles south of Chicago.
This, of course, only reinforces Chicago’s reputation as American’s Most Paternalistic City.
Coming to a city near you…
If mere existence of the law weren’t enough, many of its detractors – too boneheaded to understand that it is a lifestyle, not a skin color, that the ban ultimately seeks to root out (which, of course, it never will) – want to make this into a race issue.
Go America!
I’m in Austin, Texas, at AFP’s RightOnline. Consider it the right’s answer to the Yearly Kos.
Anyways, I – along with a whole bunch of other attendees – have been collectively twittering the conference minute by minute here. Check it out.
From the Americans for Tax Reform website:
On July 16, Americans mark the national Cost of Government Day (COGD), the date on the calendar year when the average American finishes paying off his or her share of federal, state and local spending, and the regulatory burden. Cost of Government Day falling on July 16 means that you had to work 197 days out of the year just to meet all the costs imposed by government. In other words, the total cost of government – far more than taxation alone – consumes 53.9 percent of national income.
The burden imposed by government has increased in recent years, leading this year’s Cost of Government Day to be four days later than last year’s COGD, and sixteen days later than COGD in 2000. The looming entitlement crisis will only exacerbate the problem of government consuming more of the national income and, if left unchecked, will move Cost of Government even later into the year.
For a state-by-state breakdown, click here. My home state, Illinois, is 35th. Wah, wah, wah…
I’m not sure how much of a friend he was to liberty but, guest hosting on the Rush Limbaugh Show 12/31/97, Snow stated: “I’m a libertarian on most points.” Source here.
Agree? Disagree? Tell me what you think…
Consider her Michael Moore 2.0. Yes, Naomi Klein is the new face of anti-free market intellectual dishonesty.
Johan Norberg, Cato fellow and author of the paper The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics, briefly debunks Klein’s major thesis.
For more evidence of Klein’s exaggerations, distortions and misrepresentations, check out the whole paper (linked above).
