Chip Taylor

Missing Harry Browne

I was disappointed when I learned that Harry Browne had spent so much of the money donated to his 1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns on high living and feathering the nests of the top people working for him. (Including people who were working for him sub rosa while also on the LP payroll. Read about it here if you're interested.) I don't begrudge anyone the ability to make a living providing political services, but his campaign turned out to be like some bogus charity -- most of the expenses were administrative; very little rubber actually hit the road.

But at least during his campaigns what little media attention he got wasn't cringe-inducing. I looked forward to the limited media opportunities he got and hoped for more. He was able to talk about a radically smaller federal government without coming across like a loon. During his first campaign, my best friend's father saw him on TV (I think it was on Phil Donohue of all things).

He said, "I saw your guy on TV the other day."

"What'd ya think?"

"I didn't agree with everything he said, but a lot of what he said made a lot of sense."

Harry didn't earn his vote, but he made an impression that didn't turn the guy off to the party. When you get right down to it, that's all I expect of a Libertarian presidential candidate.

This time around the LP has Michael Badnarik. I haven't been active in the LP for the last couple of years and haven't had time to keep up with the internal goings on of the party, so I was surprised and dismayed, some time back, when Brock Sides [Signifying Nothing is down right now; link to come later] noted Badnarik's, um..., "unconventional" views on treatment of prisoners, among other things.

Now, by way of Hit & Run, I find out that Badnarik is also a tax protester. Not one of the cranky guys down at the county council meeting complaining about his property taxes. I've got an affinity for those guys; hell, I'm one of those guys. I'm talking about the guys who claim there is no income tax, that it's all a big conspiracy in which we've been duped into paying when we don't have to. (I think the term is "tax honesty" movement.) He also refuses to use ZIP Codes; it has something to do with "federal territories."

I think those guys are loons. Even Irwin Schiff, the granddaddy of income tax conspiracy theorists, claims he was "delusional" for believing his own crap.

I came into the LP because I felt "politically homeless." I feel that way now.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one.