Answering Misconceptions About the DREAM Act

Now that the DREAM Act has been reintroduced for the Nth time, it’s brought out the usual suspects in terms of misconceptions and incorrect characterizations of both the nature and effects of the Act itself. It’s time that someone created a comprehensive “FAQ” if you will of misconceptions that its opponents frequently disseminate. Now, I should preface this with a slight rebuke of major journalists in the media who have a responsibility to report honestly and seem to just skim facebook/twitter for their political discourse these days, rather than consult the bills themselves and maybe a freaking lawyer. Shame on you, on both sides, for exaggerating and holding back an issue that delves into correcting a divisive hypocrisy in our immigration system.

Quick disclaimer/info about myself that are relevant to this post: I am taking all answers to the misconceptions I post here straight from immigration law and the bill itself as written, not 3rd party sources, Glenn Beck, or a magic eight ball.

Misconception 1: This is AMNESTY, and nothing more.

Why it’s misconceived: I chose this misconception first because it’s the one that will be most frequently presented by the DREAM Act’s opponents. The misconception lies in the reflex nature to automatically label everything as either “amnesty” or “anti-immigrant” legislation. Both of these categorizations of most legislation oriented towards this subject matter are incorrect and destructive. For the purposes of the DREAM Act, it’s not even close. To understand why it’s not amnesty, we really need the legal definition of amnesty.

The legal definition of amnesty according to Black’s Law Dictionary (the legal dictionary that is the standard in most courts and law offices) reads as follows: “A sovereign act of pardon and oblivion for past acts, granted by a government to all persons (or to certain persons) who have been guilty of crime or derelict…” Now, the entire idea that any legislation is a form of amnesty hinges on the assumption that the proposed legislation is in fact pardoning a crime committed against society or state. So theoretically, for amnesty to be a possible conclusion, there has to have been a crime committed. This is where some handy-dandy research (read “Google”) becomes very useful. The DREAM Act itself has key components relevant to this misconception that I will list here and for use in other answers as well:

  1. The target of the DREAM Act is to provide an opportunity (not a gift) to acquire citizenship that was not already available to its indicated demographic of affected persons. This is because the affected persons in question are in fact in a sort of immigration limbo due to the fact that their immigration status as it currently stands is directly inherited by those who are/were in the parental roles in their lives.
  1. DREAMers, as they are often referred to, are non-native born US “residents” who were brought here after birth but before the age of 15 (previously 16 in older legislation). Potential immigrants in this particular bracket are unable to legally affect their own status because of the “age of majority” concept in the United States, reflected in the immigration policy itself of having the age requirement of 18 to apply for citizenship proceedings.

So, let’s recap. According to Black’s Law, amnesty is roughly defined as a pardon for a crime committed. Therefore, a crime must be committed in order to qualify to be pardoned. One cannot happen without the other, and you cannot grant amnesty for a crime that did not occur. Is the DREAM Act amnesty?

1. Crime Committed?

No, because if the main affected demographic targeted by the DREAM Act was in no way legally responsible for their status because of their age, they cannot therefore be reasonably expected to be held responsible for the results of actions not their own.

2. Amnesty?

If no crime was committed, then no amnesty can be granted. It is NOT amnesty.

Misconception 2: The DREAM Act is a reward for illegal immigration.

Answer: While I can certainly understand this perception, it’s drastically overblown, and the comfort lies in the already existing legal provisions in the statutes that many DREAM opponents currently claim to demand that the government “enforce”.

  1. The parents/legal guardians are in no way rewarded from this Act. Though there is a legal form that allows permanent residency recipients to file for immigration papers/status on behalf of certain relatives, this form still has its caveats and so does immigration status. Since the parents are undocumented, even with permanent residency or even naturalization completed the DREAMer will not be able to apply for any sort of status change for his/her parents until after that relative has left the country for over 10 consecutive years, due to the 3/10 bar rule that is frequently ignored in all this.

2. Since DREAMers are the ones who benefit the most directly, are they being rewarded? No, this isn’t a reward. It’s an exercise in deferred justice that has taken way too long due to underlying issues of frustration the immigration front. They never had a chance to decide their own immigration status, and this Act provides them with the opportunity to either become an American citizen of their own volition or violate those statutes on their own terms. Either way the choice is theirs now.

Misconception 3: The DREAM Act allows criminals into the country.

Answer: If you took the criminal record of the combined members of congress and the federal government and compared them with the DREAM Act qualifying recipients, you’d want to change our borders so that Washington, D.C. is in a different country. Heck, some of us already wouldn’t mind that. Just let us keep the cherry blossoms. Anyways, the DREAM Act is very explicit in designating strict criteria regarding background checks using biometric and fingerprint data (something it lacked previously), and criminal background minimal criteria for qualification for this program. It explicitly states “no convictions of any state or federal offense that resulted in a maximum sentence of 1 year or more” (paraphrasing, but you have Google, you’ll be okay), along with meeting every other criminal background criteria we’ve set for immigrants that are over 18 and going through the process naturally. Again, the answer is in the statutes and bill text itself. I’ll let you look it up for yourself.

Misconception 4: The DREAM Act will cost taxpayers money and take away school spots in colleges.

Answer: This is a touchy subject, because I certainly agree that spending taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars on unworthy causes is grounds for termination of employment for government officials (at least it should be, these days it seems more like grounds for promotion). This is why it’s important to understand the costs v. benefits of passing the DREAM Act. I’m not going to give you a spreadsheet here, so I’ll keep it simple:

  1. If the Act doesn’t pass, then consider the public school education money spent on them as good as gone.
  1. We’ve already spent taxpayer dollars educating these youth because a Supreme Court ruling in the 70’s decided that education fell under the 14th amendment’s protection and therefore we educate whoever walks in. To take this education time, effort, and money and send it back to another country is both inefficient and ill-advised, because that education is something we need here, to make America better, not Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc.
  • Taxpayer subsidized education:
    1. Yes, in-state tuition is subsidized approximately 60-40 taxpayers to tuition paid by attendees. However, as stated above, the opportunity cost of not allowing these kids to get a legitimate education and compete as functioning members of our society is too great to risk. Remember when competition was supposed to be a good thing? If it raises the bar, let them in, you’re only going to raise the standards of winning and increase overall quality, not decrease it.

    For now these are the major misconceptions I encounter. Please e-mail me at Parris2010@gmail.com or comment here to let me know if you’d like me to do a second addition with a longer list. Feel free to share, and thanks for reading!

    July 1, 2011 – 1:28 AM Categories: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

    Want to Fix Education? Here’s How. Part 1 of a 3 Part Series

    It seems like education policy is something that we mull over time and time again every election cycle and yet there seems to be no solution that’s reached. As a current college student and avid promoter of education and education resources I firmly believe that education is one of our most important resources and sources of prosperity for the future. If America is to continue its supposed prominence in today’s world we’re going to have to make some changes and the first thing we should start with is education.

    However, it’s not just education policy that we have to fix, we have to shift the paradigm in which we view education, its role in our society, and how we view those who are the stewards of our children’s educational progress. This requires a fundamental and unanimous placement of priority upon the tenants which will make our education system the envy of any country around the world. These tenants include a cultural emphasis on the importance of the role of the family structure in education, proper understanding of the roles of government officials versus teachers and educators, and a universal societal emphasis that education should be a priority of any civilized nation. If we simplify these tenants and understand and embrace them in their most basic form, I believe that the policies which will shape and form education in a way that will provide us with the most opportunity for success for every student with access to it will naturally follow as a result of our embracing of these tenants. Let’s break down each one and see what it means. Since this is part 1, we will be exploring the first tenant:

    “Cultural emphasis on the importance of the role of the family structure and education”

    First let me define family structure. When I say family structure it’s not meant to construe any designation as to whether it should be a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman or whatever else is out there. This is more of a pointed observation that a proper emphasis on the priority of education from the household perspective will positively reflect itself in the future behavior of the student as time goes on. For instance, in a child’s formative years if I understand correctly is when they develop a lot of values and formal understandings as foundations for understanding that they will build upon for the rest of their lives. Assuming this is true, all other things constant acclimating that child to the understanding that education is a source of basically limitless mental power to learn anything that he or she wishes should translate into an eventual appreciation for that power of education. However this is not always the case when it comes to the way children view education in today’s society. In fact it’s reasonable to say that from both a parenting and teaching perspective there is a certain negative or cynical view about education that gets handed down to the students and the idealism is lost and therefore the magic and wonder of education gets lost with it.

    For instance the constant answer whenever a child, younger or older, asks a professor or a parent or an adult why they have to go to school or why there is a need for education, the most frequent answer that I hear is that it’s “because you have to”. Now understanding preteen and teen psychology as well as I do having been in those years only nine years ago(oh wow has it been that long?), it’s an instinctive reaction to acquire an immediate disdain for any subject matter that has the impression of being forced upon us. If we teach our children to embrace the wonder of education reminding them that whatever they want to be, whatever they want to become, whatever they want to do education is the key that unlocks that door, we could empower an entire generation to not sit back and accept any circumstance because education is always a way out of it. In this day and age it’s an absolute shame that the United States of America is as far back in education as it is with the wealth of educational resources we have, including the one limitless educational resource itself: the Internet.

    A study I read that was done by Google once said that only two or 3% of the Internet was anything but pornography. However, that two or 3% contains virtually free access to the vast accumulation of knowledge that humanity has built up ever since we’ve been able to collect it and keep records of it. The fact that in a country as civilized and forward thinking as we like to imagine ourselves, the Internet is not embraced and exemplified as the limitless tool that it is or can be for those who can tap in to even the most minimal of its resources. If I go to Google right now I could find the website khanacademy.org, where I can learn everything from intermediate and pre-algebra all the way up to calculus and physics and environmental sciences. If I go to Google right now I can get explanations and instructions on how to start a business, I can learn about governments all over the world, I can share ideas and information with people on the other side of the planet within minutes. The Internet is the ultimate comprehensive learning tool. It is a library that builds itself through the continual submission of content from the entire human race. 

    Now what does the fact that the Internet is awesome have to do with family structures and emphasis on education? The whole premise of this particular tenant of the philosophy from which I’m proposing we base our education policy is that almost any tool can be used for good or for educational purposes if used and taught properly. For instance there are many properties that videogames can teach about effort, teamwork, cooperation, problem solving etc. These multiple forms of media and continuous forms of stimulation do not have to be a bane of our society or have a negative impact on our progress if we as a society control the means and moderation or if we do use them in excess as a tool for good and for progress and for stimulation of the mind rather than stimulation of purposes that don’t really help us. It’s important for us to embrace every medium necessary for us to be able to comprehensively give ourselves the tools necessary to learn and acquire as much knowledge as humanly possible.

    If this fundamental shift doesn’t happen at the family level; if mothers and fathers and family units; aunt’s,  uncle’s, nieces, nephews are not communicating to younger generations within their family structure that education is important but not just that it is important that it’s empowering that is fine that his visitors so much to learn were going to lose yet another generation to an attitude of being apprehensive about learning. This attitude is incredibly difficult for oneself to get out of once that age is reached where independence is fully embraced virtue. This is something about which I feel very strongly, in fact it’s safe to say that we have to train our minds in the minds of our younger generations at a young age to understand and grasp and accept the importance and empowerment of education. When this paradigm shift is universally accepted it’s much easier for people to have open minds; to embrace the idea of learning, to be more open to reaching out for one’s own human potential.

    In the next post I will explore the 2nd Tenant: have a proper understanding of the roles of government officials versus those of teachers and educators!

    June 26, 2011 – 12:10 AM Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

    Promoting the Human Race’s Potential

    This is a case; no, it’s a plea for the future of humanity, for the human potential, that embodies itself in each one of us, but also can be trapped, and by association, set free by one another. Everyday I see it, I know you see it, and sometimes we unwittingly do it to both ourselves and others; we trap each other, we confine one another, we steer each other, ourselves, and our future generations in directions that can never result in a positive outcome.

    A subject I’ve often thought about, but never seriously pondered maybe in the way that I should, is the subject of the human race, and its potential for the future. I wonder about our investments, both physical and ethereal in the future and what those investments will repay to us when it comes time to collect. I look at government spending, moral trends,  and the dominant forces in cultural direction that guide the path on which we are currently set, and I fear. I see hope in some places, but ultimately I fear that we are losing our humanity, that there is a sense of us reaching a point where we may not be able to hold on to it for much longer.  But why now? Why do I feel that after millions of years on this Earth we are just now reaching critical mass? I see it occurring in a number of startling scenarios on the macro level, and I encounter it on a daily basis at the micro level. I’ll explain each one in its own right.

    1. The hypocrisy of our leadership and vicariously our citizens when it comes to social issues and their prioritization.

    One of the things that bothers me is our current group of majority leaders and its generation that seems to hold (albeit illogically) the view that military spending that seems to increase almost exponentially is somehow more justifiable than even the remotest fraction of an increase in school spending, especially school spending. As it currently stands, we’ve spent trillions upon trillions of dollars on guns and ammunition, yet we’ve spent a fraction in comparison on bringing up America’s best and brightest. No, the “best and brightest” spot is currently reserved only for those who are privileged into the position, not those who hail from poorer communities, inner-city families, foreign nations whose GDP’s are less than half of ours. I watched today a performance of the Adagio section of “Concierto de Aranjuez” (composed by Joaquin Rodrigo), and I nearly burst into tears and a fit of anger at the realization and sudden understanding of what we face, and I felt apprehension at the feeling that I was alone in this notion. Here were dozens of talented musicians, all who at one time were children, playing one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. They didn’t just one day decide on their own to be violinists, oboists, floutists, and cellists. The gentleman playing classical spanish guitar didn’t start his trade as  a mid-life crisis, someone guided him, someone encouraged him, someone bought him his first guitar, and lesson books, and lessons. Someone guided him, someone helped him follow his dreams.

    We’re never alone in what we do, ever. It saddens me to think that finding ways to eliminate human lives is more of a priority than finding ways to extricate and amplify the human potential, the potential of the human mind, body and soul. Athletics shouldn’t be the only way for an inner-city kid to get out of there if he/she wants to. It’s fine for it to be a way, but not the way. Where is the glorification of mathematicians, economists, scientists, accountants, and doctors? Where is the promotion of role models that promote the human potential? Where is the commercial, or poster, or movie that brings a young man or woman to think “I can be that one day. I can be there, I can do that. I WILL do it”, and where is our collective encouragement of that initiative? Sure, LeBron James can hit a 30 foot jump shot, and as a sports fan I appreciate that, but will hitting the game-winning shot in a basketball game inspire a young child to explore the potential of their own mind?

    As this trend continues, we set a disastrous course for ourselves, and we are approaching a fork in the road. This fork has two paths, and we as a collective society must decide where our priorities lie: Do we embrace our ability to destroy, and continue down a backwards path that leads us to only discovering new ways to kill each other and sacrifice countless lives for petty purposes, or do we harness our potential as a race to create, to build upon one another, to continue to grow in new ways, and encourage that in our future generations so that each one will grow leaps and bounds beyond their predecessors?

    2. I feel that as we continue to try and embrace the image of the common man, we are mistaking it for promoting that its okay to dumb down society, rather than build up our intellectual standing.

    Since President Obama’s election, I’ve heard and seen countless groups of people on both a national and local basis lament his Ivy League education. Is it envy? Is it resentment for lack of an opportunity that those lamenters feel they deserved and did not (unfairly) receive? I feel that it comes from a progressively more natural inclination to confuse education with income level and therefore, classes of association. It’s becoming common in some circles (like some Tea Party groups, not all but some), and even some is more than enough, that a college education serves only to disconnect one with the “real world” and the perils and problems of the common man; that someone with a college education couldn’t simply understand at all what its like for someone at the middle or lower “class” level (I despise the term “class”). I’ve often had my own assertions, and likely will with this one, met with the popular position that I’m in college, and therefore cannot have experienced enough of a life to reflect and understand those of people with real problems.

    What are we supposed to do with these issues, how do we solve them?

    The first supposition I feel is obvious. The notion that we should invest in ways to kill each other rather than build each other up is absurd, simply absurd. It is easy for those in power because they are not asked to fight the wars they start, and they are not asked to make the sacrifices they ask of those who they send off to their deaths. As a nation we must lead the way for the human race as a beacon of hope, prosperity, and promotion of the human potential through investment in education. Why, why do we fight those who wish to shape the minds of our children, over salaries and bonuses and pensions while we simultaneously agree that 3 wars and troops in dozens of countries is an acceptable usage of those children once they are grown? Where is the research and development for the growth of humanity?

    I suggest, no I plead, for our leaders and my fellow humans to embrace this notion, this plea: Let’s together pool our collective mental resources to lifting up, building, and pushing forward the progression and evolution of humanity. Let’s work to embrace the ideas of peace, success through interdependence and cooperation, and personal investment in one another.

    Let’s make our goal the push for the progression of the human race towards a greater end, not the systematic destruction of it.

    As well, our current push towards embracing a lack of higher education as being common is a trend that must be reversed if we as a race are to grow and evolve. Instead, this is proof positive that we must make a push to provide substantial education for all, and this must be our focus, to bring an education to those who will be doctors, cancer researchers and curers, the discoverers of time travel and space commerce and contact with others if they’re out there, and all manners of intellectual promotion.

    We must do it not for the present, not because of the past, but for the future that we have. I leave you with a quote from Lupe Fiasco (fantastic rapper who promotes a positive message) from his song “All Black Everything”:

    and I know it’s just a fantasy
    I cordially invite you to ask why can’t it be?
    Now we can’t do nothing bout the past
    But we can do something about the future that we have

    Let’s work towards a better future.

    May 30, 2011 – 12:23 AM Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

    We Have a Lot of Work To Do, and I’m a Man with a Plan.

    It’s coming time for us to select another Chairman (I would say woman but none are running) for the State of Florida for the Libertarian Party, and the question on many registered Libertarians including myself is “What are we going to do to gain a foothold?”.  The question is a nagging one, because a philosophy with as much attention as it has gotten is significantly underpowered and undermanned, and this is due to administrative inadequacy on several fronts. Quickly, let me make a distinction between inadequacy and effort. I’m not even for a minute saying that past Libertarian (Florida and otherwise) officials haven’t tried to grow the party and make waves, I’m just saying that it’s time to rework the way we do things.

    Now, on to the good stuff. I always said that if anyone was going to come to me with a problem they might as well have a solution to go with it, otherwise all we have is a problem. I have some ideas, and I’m also putting my money where my mouth is because I am running for State Chair of the Libertarian Party of Florida. Right now the contention lies in what the State Chair really should be doing in terms of the definition of the role, as well as where our efforts should be focused.

    I make the following positions:

    1. We need to think big but work small.

    I can elaborate further and make many more points, but let’s stick with these for the time being. Keeping it simple is important, because there’s a lot to be done. So we’ll start with point number one, which is “think big, work small”.

    When I posit the idea that we need to think big but work small, it means this: We’ve got the right long-term goals in mind, but that’s just it, they’re long-term goals and because we haven’t adequately set structured benchmarks for measuring progress associated with timelined goals, we’re not doing anything but shooting for the moon with a hobby-level rocketship. What needs to happen is that the Chair, whoever it may be in the end, needs to promote a vision that progress isn’t instantaneous, that we currently don’t have the resources for a Senate run right now, we don’t have the resources for Gubernatorial campaigns and the like. We don’t have the resources both political and fiscal to throw our weight around like that. If we did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. A perfect example of our current mindset that will only hinder progress for another 2 years at least is this paraphrased reply to my mention of recruiting college voters “they aren’t the mainstream voters, the ones we need to reach out to”. Again, that’s a paraphrase but if you listen to the debate done this past Friday the 25th, it is clear the intent of the statement. I’m replying here because I got no chance to rebut since they were closing statements. Ignoring college voters is ignoring an entire generation of voters. Our cultural and political revolution will not be won in one election, two elections, three elections, I hate to break this to you.

    We have to think incrementally in order to segment our progress. We have to do this by providing ourselves with ways of measuring our progress, like measuring membership growth, voter turnout, volunteer levels, website hits, and strong analysis of voter demographics in order to accurately point our efforts in the right directions in the coming years. If we don’t think incrementally, and try to build for the future, we’re going to have to continue to reinvent the wheel EVERY election cycle.

    2. The roles within the party structure to be accurately defined so as to avoid overlap and provide for maximum productivity.

    Think about this. I’ve heard of people interested in running for certain positions in the Libertarian Party Executive Committee, and yet many of them don’t know what those roles really do. If you asked what the overall strategy was of the Libertarian Party of Florida and asked for a written action plan with benchmarks, chances are there isn’t one, and if there is, it hasn’t worked.

    Just like any effective corporation or well-run business, every individuals’ role in the business needs to be defined so as to understand how we can grow the party and promote our product, which is liberty and individual freedoms. So far, the definition of the Chair’s role has been up for debate as to whether he/she should be the voice of the party, or be an administrator. Some of my opponents maintain the position that he should be a voice (Adrian Wyllie), while others maintain the position of administrator (John Wayne Smith and Char-Lez Braden). I myself consider the position of Chair to be about 70% administrator, 30% voice. In reality the true voices of the party are registered members, candidates, volunteers, and elected officials (once we get some), while the Chair maybe makes some speeches or appearances here and there. I believe that the role of Chair is to provide a vision both philosophically and functionally, to build and maintain confidence in the constituency, and to maintain that vision by executing plans through the executive committee, regional directors, and county leaders. It is also imperative for the Chair to be keeping track of progress and making adequate adjustments to plans when necessary.

    3. We need unified vision, action, and implementation.

    To truly succeed, we have to, as individuals, work together towards a common goal. This is especially difficult with libertarians because we’re all so strong-willed and anti-authority. So it has to be YOUR choice to do this, to make the party succeed. I propose that once a vision and plan is selected, we as libertarians have to unite in a party mindset in order to gain any sort of progress.

    I propose that the party do as the other parties do (emulate successful practices, am I right?), and rally resources behind the most viable races, except on a smaller level. I also believe it would be a great boost to our image for us to have unified formats for websites for our candidates that they can use in order to help them out and provide some identifiable unity amongst our candidates. These don’t have to be mandatory, but I think they will have a great additional public image benefit for us (this idea was given to me by a poster on www.reddit.com). We are also going to need candidate training (not philosophical, but I think image, presentation on camera, etc), and training for volunteers as well.

    Unfortunately, if we cannot become unified as a group, we can never begin to make progress. I want to build a foundation up so that in a few election cycles’ time, people like Alexander Snitker can run and have an actual chance to win the election.

    March 28, 2011 – 10:21 AM Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

    T.U.S.C.

    Testify

    “Testify” is the culmination of Unify, Clarify, and Simplify. It is the end result in a chain of changes, modifications, and tweaks we will have made to allow our message to be spread by even the most uninitiated of libertarians.

    More often than not, I have yet to see a lack of knowledge as a problem for libertarians around the country. It’s usually quite the opposite, really. We are so full with either long-known or newfound knowledge that we wish to share with others that we often can let our message get convoluted and lose the average voter as a result.

    Let me explain, that this first is not about just reaching voters. I want to cultivate generation after generation of people that believe in the true ideological heritage of this country. TUSC is not about changing our message, or dumbing down our message, it is in fact about making our message appeal to and grab a larger share (eventually a decisive majority is our hope) of our great nation.

    To do that, we have to spread that message. I have no doubt that it would be much easier to convert and convince fence-sitters and those unsure of libertarianism’s philosophical foundations if our message were easier to spread, understand, and communicate, and it must be one single message that anyone who encounters a libertarian on the street will easily identify as consistent and unified.

    Therefore, before we can begin to testify, we must first Unify.

    Unify

    “Unify” is what comes right before “Testify”, because before we can spread our message, that message must be unified and consistent. It must be unified and consistent in order to build a following that will become a powerful ideological force for that will rise up and create the change we desire.

    Our message, while powerful once understood, is victim to a sometimes obvious and sometimes not so obvious divide that we struggle with internally. It sounds a bit painful to say so, but we must come together, and while internal discussion and change is wonderful, especially when that change is an evolution that is consistent with principles and yet progressive (not the political kind of progressive) in effectiveness, it is altogether detrimental to not have a consistency of ideology and fundamental beliefs when promoting our belief system altogether.

    So it is with that goal in mind that I promote that we “Unify” our message so that we can promote our message and “Testify” consistently. I recommend (this is only a recommendation, it is up for debate):

    1. Size of Government Consistent with Constitutional Principles

    2. Free Market Economic Philosophy

    3. A Foreign Policy of Non-Interventionism

    4. A Domestic Policy That Promotes Growth and Self-Reliance

    5. A Political Philosophy That Embraces the Above Principles

    Once this message is unified, then it can be testified; but before it can be unified, it has to be simplified. With a simplified message that still embraces the essence and purity of libertarianism, we can be more unified in both our philosophy and our communication of that philosophy.

    So, before we can unify, we have to simplify.

    Simplify

    Before unification comes simplification. Be careful not to confuse simplification with what is easily, but incorrectly associated with it: fundamental change. By simplifying our message, it makes it easier to communicate, and we can create a simplified message that resonates without losing or changing the overall philosophy that is our belief system’s foundation. As was mentioned previously, lack of a message to communicate or points or evidence to communicate is not our obstacle, rather it is the overwhelming abundance of these positive assets that bottleneck our message and basically put us in our own way.

    So how do we get out of our own way? We simplify the message, by taking the essential structure of a libertarian philosophy and its history and create a message that could easily be communicated in a couple of e-mails, or in a 20 minute conversation at work/ a social setting.

    The first way to do this is “word economy”. The idea of “word economy” is that the communicator simplifies their message by taking sentences or phrases that exceed the necessary word content and replace them with fewer words of the same meaning, in order to communicate more effectively. A 5-7 word phrase is more simply communicated than a 20-30 word sentence, in both written and verbal communication.

    The second pathway to simplification lies in the notion of being able to understand our philosophy well enough in both its simplified and complex forms to communicate it to anyone based on that particular individual’s personal political concerns. Never mind what “our” concerns are, we know those, the idea is getting people to embrace at least one notion of our philosophy, and bring them into the fold slowly.

    So we Simplify, but before we can Simplify, we have to Clarify.

    Clarify

    Clarify, though listed last in the TUSC acronym, is the first crucial step to achieving a greater foundation and following for our party and our future leaders. So why is clarification so important? Look at our two largest political dissidents, the republicans and the democrats. Now, without going into semantics, there is something that occurs in the average American’s mind when they hear Republican and Democrat. They hear “big vs. small government”, or they hear “conservative vs. liberal” on social/economic issues. Disregard for the moment that we know that this is a false paradigm, the average American that we are trying to wake up and bring into the fold does not quite grasp this yet. It’s a challenging notion to understand that Democrats and Republicans are essentially mirror images of themselves.

    More important to notice, however, is that they have established notions associated with their designations, and this creates a grouping. Why? Because they have had a simplified and consistent message (regardless of their actions behind them), and that message is clear. Every Republican claims to stand for small government and strong foreign policy, every Democrat claims to fight for the poor and stand for those who have not acquired social justice. Those are their paradigms which are communicated to voters.

    For us to achieve any long-term standing and success, we have to craft and clarify our message so that “Libertarian” is associated with “constitutionally limited government, civil liberties, defense of the individual and his/her rights, and economic prosperity without government interference”. We have to have this clear so that when we have completed the TUSC process, we will have a:

    Clear and

    Simplified message that we can

    Unify behind and

    Testify to the public and the world.

    February 22, 2011 – 12:00 AM Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

    Establishing Our Message

    We have a lot of detractors out there. In fact, I would say that the two-ideology system wages a war on our ideology more consistently than against each other. I think it would suffice to imply that this is because our ideology is the true constitutional ideology, the one that our Founders embraced and weaved throughout our unmatched and unequaled Constitution. Our message is the right one, the correct one, the most appealing one, especially in these times, yet we are finding it harder than ever to splice the divide between left and right paradigms, making it more difficult for us to gain political, social, or economic successes on even the most local of battlefronts.

    Why is this? Is it because the party duopoly has waged a tireless effort to split Americans along a political divide? Is it because the undercurrent of American politics screams and rages against any sort of perceived neutrality, deriding it as weak, politically indecisive, and more destructive than blind action? Or, is it because we have acquiesced to a notion of perceived control by the so called two party system, making us feel helpless, down-trodden, and unmotivated to act beyond any capability than what is allowed us by these political duopolists?

    I believe that it is a combination of all, and possibly more, of these factors, and in fact I would say that paramount above all of these contributing factors is that we have not taken control of our own destiny, and instead have given way to those who we think control our political fate. Well, I believe that the turning of the tide in this nation, and more narrowly, this state lies in our own effort, and our own pursuit of what we constantly are told is impossible or unachievable.

    To turn this tide we must take this righteous message of which we are blessed to possess an understanding, and we must take our own message to the streets, and convert those who do not understand the cause, root, and overall belief of libertarianism. It is not changing the message, merely changing the way in which we communicate that message.

    In order to achieve this, I have created the action plan TUSC, which stands for Testify, Unify, Simplify, Clarify. We will initiate TUSC to create a stronger, simpler message that will allow us to concisely convince and convert those who are libertarians deep down and just don’t know it yet.

    A professor once mentioned to me that he believed that more people are libertarian than they understand that they are, because the idea and perception of libertarianism is one that stretches far from the actual truth.

    It is with that understanding that I have created TUSC, because TUSC will allow us the means to convert and convince those who are our future libertarian constituents.

    TUSC is intended to be a procedure that will allow us to communicate better to the entire world, not just our local constituents, and as we go along, the procedure can evolve and change to suit our needs as we see fit.

    I will outline the TUSC procedure in a fairly unique fashion: by working backwards. Testify is the end result, but Clarify is where it starts. At the end, I will outline some practical methods I plan to implement to put this philosophy and idea in motion.

    February 21, 2011 – 11:49 PM Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

    Is The Two-Party System Really Holding Us Back?

    I hear it every day when I talk Libertarian Party politics and elections: The Two-Party System prevents the Libertarian Party and libertarianism as a philosophy from taking a foothold in this country.

    Is it true? Is this really a case of hopelessness where we are running ourselves around in circles? What is the “two-party system” as it is referred to in the so-called alternate party discussions? Is it something that really exists in physical form as we describe it or is it something that exists in a skeletal form and our willingness to submit to its perceived power gives it ‘muscle’?

    Taking a philosophy of self-reliance and self-empowerment into account, I truly believe that the control that the “two-party system” lords over us is facilitated more by our own complacency and acquiescence than any actual conspiracy, no matter how truly existent any or all of those might be. This is because I also take into account some historical perspective using numerous accounts of the masses waking up over time and over-throwing the ruling class. Referring to my first blog, none of these revolutions of which I speak happened overnight, despite our textbooks and historical accounts making it seem as if they were.

    Think about it like this: Can anything have power over us if we truly allow it to? I’ve never once believed that libertarianism and determinism ever went hand-in-hand, because determinism eliminates the idea of free will, and if I recall correctly libertarians are pretty big on free will (correct me if I’m wrong). So if we allow ourselves to be subservient to the notion that there are forces determining our political future that essentially are impervious to our own influence, how can we truly believe in the notions of self-reliance, free will, and ultimately, the American Dream?

    The short answer is that we can’t. It’s impossible to do both, so in that vein I make the bold notion that if we claim ourselves to be libertarians, we cannot allow ourselves to believe in the perceived power that we create for those who would either willingly or unknowingly oppress us through the policies that we create as a nation.

    How many times throughout history, and even the present day as we see happening in Egypt, have we seen the oppressed many rise up and overthrow their few persecutors? It’s as the song “Renegades of Funk” states: Nothing stay[s] the same, but there [are] always renegades. So I ask again, is the two-party system really what is holding us back? Or are we holding ourselves back, using the two-party system, conspiracy theories (that may still be true, I’m not saying they have no merit) and whatever else we can think of to justify our complacency?

    There will always be a certain degree of things that are outside of our control spiritually, physically, metaphysically, socially, etc. However, there are more often than not more things WITHIN our control than not, and its up to us to identify, target, and focus on those aspects we can control rather than the ones that we cannot. By focusing on the aspects that we can control, we are slowly, surely, and definitively chipping away at the power structure of those who we believe oppress us.

    Instead of

    “We’ll never have success because of those who work against us.”

    We need to embrace the phrase/thought

    “They’ve only held us back to this point because we’ve let them, and that ends now.”

    Positive, motivational thought is what we need to embrace. The old guard thought of placing the blame and responsibility for our failure to stimulate the movement that needs to take place needs to stop, lest we never be able to foster it.

    January 30, 2011 – 12:04 AM Categories: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

    The Libertarian Party Needs Some Swagger

    After only a couple of months of being involved with the Libertarian Party, I can easily see some things structurally, organizationally, and philosophically that need fixing or tweaking at the very least.

    Focusing on the philosophical, I’m going to use a popular phrasing from pop and hip-hop culture referred to as “swagger”. Defined loosely as “arrogance or prideful boasting”, (for a source just ask any rapper you may happen to know) “swagger” is something we are missing as Libertarians. Sure, we’re intelligent (well you guys are, at least), well-read and introspectively confident individuals in our own political standing and philosophy, but we’re still as a group intimidated by a false set of restraints that we have put on ourselves: the two-party system.

    Now, if you’ve taken a political science course or understand our electoral system as it was structurally designed, elections naturally have tended towards two parties because of our FPTP (first-past-the-post) system of selecting our delegates and representatives in government. Societally, it developed this way, and has been this way for a long time, and will more than likely stay that way unless we somehow manage to initiate a parliamentary system in the United States, and though it is a possibility, there are much easier routes to take with this system.

    First, we have to stop worrying about the perception of the Libertarian Party and libertarianism in this country, especially when we interact with people whether it be through social media, in person, phone, or e-mail. Look at it as a salesperson would, “My product is the best and that’s just something you’re going to eventually realize.” Now, we’re not going to convert everyone on the first try, or even the second or third try. So we have to keep that knowledge in mind at all times, while promoting, living and preaching libertarian ideology whenever possible. Part of our sales pitch comes straight from our confidence, however. We need to stop worrying about how many people “right now” are going to vote just based on R or D next to their name. Instead, we need to focus on expanding and promoting our ideology to anyone who will listen and join our fight.

    Remember, just because we abhor violence doesn’t mean we abhor confidence too.

    Second, let’s keep in mind some realistic time frames. If you look back in history, especially at our own, our American Revolution took years to come to fruition before it peaked and became what we learned about in our history texts. Years, not days, not months, not a single 2-year electoral cycle. We’re hurting ourselves by expecting unrealistic results in an unrealistic timeframe, which in turn leads to results we don’t want (which we weren’t going to realistically get anyways), demoralizing us and centering this false sense of power by the Republicans and Democrats squarely in our mind’s eye. In all reality, WE have the actual power here, but we continue to abdicate these opportunities by not focusing on real progress through benchmarks and realistic goals.

    Set realistic long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals to build confidence and create a foundation for success.

    Finally, the Libertarian Party needs an attitude overhaul. What I mean by that is that we emit a perception that promotes a negative perception about our philosophy and us. The best way I can summarize the observations that I have encountered (and these are personal, but careful observations) as thus: right now we are the political equivalent of hipsters. For those of you that don’t know or aren’t familiar with the term, you’re definitely familiar with the idea behind the term.  Hipsterism, or being a hipster, embodies a couple things: 1) purposely being non-mainstream for the sake of being individual, 2) being selective about inclusion into membership, 3) accenting and promoting those purposely sought differences at every opportunity that presents itself, thereby alienating others rather than bringing them in.

    The Libertarian Party isn’t being called hipster by anyone in particular, but what IS happening is that these perceptions of being what we are because we’re doing it to be different is what is hurting us the most as well, because our ability to accurately and positively communicate our philosophical beliefs and have poignant discussion with others is hindered and ultimately stopped in its tracks by that perception that precedes us. We have to work to reverse that perception in order to be able to effectively have our conversations with people and bring them into the fold.

    January 26, 2011 – 3:42 PM Categories: Uncategorized | Comments (7)

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