Freedom2008.com

Due primarily to developments in my career path over the past few years, I have decided to withdraw from the 2008 race for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination and the presidency.

Put simply, I’m just not ready yet. I would not be able to be all the candidate I should be, if I were to stay in the race.

I apologize to anyone who may be disappointed — it’s likely that no one is more disappointed than I — though I can assure you that this is for the best.

When I decided in 1994 to run for president in 2008, the reasons for choosing the year were twofold: it was the first year I was eligible to run (I will be 36 in November 2008), and I believed I would be ready to run by then. (By “ready to run”, I mean “in a position to provide the voters with the candidate they need to help them liberate themselves from the current political situation in America”.)

Had circumstances turned out differently, the second of those two things might have been fulfilled. But just as my campaign in general has always been a long shot, so, realistically speaking, was the likelihood that I would be the best choice as a presidential candidate at age 34 (my present age). It was in 2004 that I began to suspect that I might not make that mark, and it was in the second half of last year that I came to conclude that I wouldn’t.

Since then, it’s been a process of trying to figure out the best way to publicly withdraw from a race that I have publicly inserted myself into for so long. Turns out, there is no best way. I just have to do it. And so here it is.

My long-term goal to seek the presidency, which always spanned beyond 2008 anyway, is still in place. It’s actually due to that long-term goal that I feel it’s inappropriate for me to run at this time. This has always been about making the best run I can for the position, not about sticking with a fairly arbitrary timeline. In the service of making the best run I can for the presidency, I’m choosing not to stick with the original timeline I set back in 1994.

It’s been a tough decision, but I’m sure it’s the right one. I do apologize to those who may be disappointed. (I’m disappointed too.)

With that finally off my chest, I hope to post more here soon. Though I’m going to have to change a few things around the site.

Be well, be free,

Lance M. Brown

Brian Doherty displays caustious optimism about the prospects of two TX LP candidates:

Reason: Campaign Wishes and Libertarian Dreams: Will the LP be the Texans or the Mexicans in this year’s electoral Alamo?

Libertarians see shot at DeLay seat — The Washington Times

Libertarian Party officials say the problems facing Republicans in former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s Texas district have created “the perfect storm” that could give their party its first victory in a congressional race.
Libertarian candidate Bob Smither got a boost yesterday when he was endorsed by former Rep. Bob Barr, a conservative Georgia Republican. …

I can sympathize with presidential hopefuls, no matter what their party or their problems. It takes a certain kind of hope to make someone run for president, and much of the challenge of running is trying to keep a firm grip on the roots of that hope, while trying to navigate the practical realities of the campaign itself. (Said realities being largely out of your control, and/or dependent on world events or the actions and statements of others.)

In that sense, I can sympathize with what must be Kerry’s internal struggle over his external struggle over his relationship with the war in Iraq.

Kudos to him for finally making a straightforward mea culpa on the war, and here’s hoping he has the political sense to dig in even harder on that front. (Hoping that, I am, if only because it might help move the public debate forward, not because I want Kerry to succeed in his ambitions toward higher office.)

Do I think Kerry can trod forward steadily on the issue of the war, and do I think that he can salvage his presidential aspirations by doing so?

I’m doubtful.

Kerry demands US troop pullout – The Boston Globe

This is pretty clever activism for a career politician. I’m impressed.

(Not that I think his proposal should become law, or that I recommend legislative activism in the common sense of the term. He is clearly not trying to make a new law – he is using his position (and cleverness) to call out a peer for his position.)

I’m archiving the whole article because I’m worried it won’t stay available at its current location.

Lawmaker’s proposal: Bar Republicans from adopting

AKRON, Ohio – If an Ohio lawmaker’s proposal becomes state law, Republicans would be barred from being adoptive parents.

State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to “introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents.” The e-mail ended with a request for co-sponsorship.

On Thursday, the Youngstown Democrat said he had not yet found a co-sponsor.

Hagan said his “tongue was planted firmly in cheek” when he drafted the proposed legislation. However, Hagan said that the point he is trying to make is nonetheless very serious.

Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.

“We need to see what we are doing,” said Hagan, who called Hood’s proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill “homophobic.”

Hood’s bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.

To further lampoon Hood’s bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that “credible research” shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.”

However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims.

Just as “Hood had no scientific evidence” to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said.

“It flies in the face of reason when we need to reform our education system, address health care and environmental issues that we put energy and wasted time (into) legislation (Hood’s) like this,” continued Hagan, who has been in the Ohio Senate nine years. Before the Senate, he served 19 years in the Ohio House.

Salon.com | More than a “few rotten apples”

A U.S. soldier who tortured an Iraqi general to death got his wrist slapped. Yet his appalling sentence made a certain sense.

By Brig. Gen. David Irvine and David Danzig

Some companies helped the NSA, but which? | Tech News on ZDNet

Even after the recent scrutiny of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance project approved by President Bush, an intriguing question remains unanswered: Which corporations cooperated with the spy agency?…

Synthetic Pot Aids Jailed Activist – Los Angeles Times

A medical marijuana activist who long argued that he needed the drug to cope with his cancer surprised a judge and supporters Friday morning by announcing that a synthetic substitute provided to him in jail has proved an effective replacement.

…

United Press International – Security & Terrorism – Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) — A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans’ Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a “special access” electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress. …

From the First Amendment Center (via RRND):

VA nurse’s letter to newspaper prompts sedition probe

By The Associated Press
02.08.06

“In a democracy, expressing disagreement with the government’s actions does not amount to sedition or insurrection,” he wrote. “It is, and must remain, protected speech….