South Carolina Endorses Green Socialism

Back in 2007, Gov. Mark Sanford created the South Carolina Climate, Energy & Commerce Advisory Committee (CECAC). Today, it was announced that CECAC had produced it’s final paper on the results. And they are scary…

First, what I didn’t notice until now is the composition of the group. Take a look through the list. Notice anything? There’s lots of academics, industry leaders and special interest groups represented. But not a single “common man”. Nobody is there representing the people of South Carolina. Which makes the recommendations not that surprising.

Here’s the final report in all of it’s glory. Covering 600+ pages, I doubt that anyone is going to take the time to read through all of it’s heft, including the myriad of policy suggestions that the group is making. Here, I’m going to focus on the “cross-cutting” issues, because those are the policy ideas that are the most disturbing to me, and to anyone who values freedom of ideas.

Mostly this is on the basis of “education”. This is the FIRST paragraph on their education section:

A well-articulated, meaningful, broadly implemented and sustained educational process is the means to achieve effective and durable actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Much of
the response to climate change requires a disciplined alteration in lifestyle that shares many things in common with a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, people have to be motivated to attempt and succeed with basic changes in lifestyles. Individual responsibility, community action, conservation, and prevention are the principles upon which change of this magnitude is accomplished. It is no less than a shift in culture. The effort will benefit all aspects of society.

The educational process must define the basic aspects of climate change, including the evidence for cause-and-effect issues; it must specify the significance of climate change for the target audience and each individual; it must clarify and emphasize the role of the target audience and each of its members for a plan of action to mitigate and adapt to climate change; and it must relate the necessary changes in all aspects of people’s lives and their basic beliefs and values— e.g., health, environment, and economic viability.

Public education and outreach programs must build upon existing efforts and institutions, avoid unnecessary duplication, and promote best practices. The sustained success of policy actions recommended by the CECAC, as well as those that might evolve in the future, depends upon lifestyle changes resulting from education, experience, and practice. (All emphasis added)

This is a shocking amount of changing people that’s involved here. But that’s just the start of it. Here are some sections of the policy recommendations that should be, at the least worrisome for anyone who values academic freedom:

• Future generations—Integrate climate change and healthy lifestyle issues into educational
  curricula, post-secondary degree programs, and professional licensing. Emphasize the common basis and goals of response to climate change with protecting the environment and
  achieving optimum health for all people. Consider creating the South Carolina Health Corps, as outlined in Annex B of this document.

• What this means: Teachers will HAVE to follow the party line if they want to be certified as teacher. It will also mean that some climate change education may become required for graduation from HS or college, and this education will have an environmentalist bend to it. I’ll go into the Hitler Youth Health Corps further down.
• The coordinators for each of the target audiences should be credible with those audiences and have the ability to recruit and energize statewide networks of volunteers within each target audience. The state legislature should provide funding for the basic operations of the committee and the coordinators. Funding should be structured in such a way as to take maximum advantage of established mechanisms for education of each of the audiences.
• What this means: The idea is to get as many people “fired up” about climate change as possible. And it’s going to be paid for by your money, whether you like it or not.
• Level of Group Support: Unanimous
• What This Means: All of the people in the advisory panel approved of these measures. There was probably strong pressure to put out a united front (about 90% of these had unanimous approval). I don’t know how you get 20+ supposedly independent people together and get them to agree THIS MUCH on something as controversial as climate change/environmentalism. This goes to speak to the probability that the people put on the committee were selected more on ideological purity than representativeness.
• The state legislature should provide funding to support development and ongoing revision to the
  state Climate Change Adaptation Plan, including (but not limited to) funds to support the analyses needed to guide and inform the development and implementation of the plan and to cover expenses incurred by the Commission on Adaptation to Climate Change and its members.

• What This Means: A legislative blank check for the panel. Not surprising considering that this is coming from the group that would BENEFIT from the blank check.
• Add climate change to public education performance standards for science and social studies; identify gaps in climate change education and specific curricula to fill gaps. [From their notes] Someone has to be the initial teacher of the science of climate change. Integrate climate change and sustainability into core college curricula. (A more direct way of saying what I gleaned from above.)
• Introduce core competencies on climate change into professional licensing programs (energy efficiency in building design and construction, use of recycled materials, etc.).
• What This Means: Now even your plumber has to know the party line on climate change.
• Identify individual community leaders who are not yet acting on climate change, and make a special effort to educate and encourage them to act.
• What This Means: Target the politicians and those in the community who do not parrot the environmentalist/global alarmist policy. May include shaming or punishing those people.
• Develop and use a state-based “brand” on climate awareness and action.
• What This Means: You probably start seeing the Palmetto Tree/Crescent Moon tied into environmentalist agitprop. Possibly the same with “Carolina Girls: Greenest in the World”.

And that’s just ONE section. I’m going to go after the Hitler Green Youth in my next post, because it’s just that troublesome.

And these ideas are not just limited to South Carolina, as 30 other states have done something very similar. For example, compare the South Carolina website to the Montana website, or the Vermont website.

Look similar. I can only hope that South Carolina didn’t spend too much for the Center for Climate Strategy’s expertise. Because they’re pretty much copying the same exact template for every state. Which means that it’s pretty likely that Gov. Sanford got steamrolled on this one. Which is a shame, because Gov. Sanford is supposed to be a maverick Republican, who’s supposed to be a hawk on fiscal issues. I guess not here.

The Energy Deficit and the Pickens Plan

This graphic is from the EIA in their energy brief on energy subsidies:

From this graph, we consume more energy (blue line) than we produce domestically (red line). The difference between the two is how much we have to import to balance the books, so to speak. This deficit amounts to about 30% of all energy consumed on a yearly basis.

The question now goes to those who want the US to become “energy independent”. How do you get those two lines to converge. You have to either bring down consumption, increase production or end up with a combination of the two. But if you don’t, then you’re still going to be importing energy. That’s the bottom line.

This is the elephant in the room for the Pickens Plan. Right now, the plan is to shift consumption sources around, from oil to natural gas in road transportation and from natural gas to wind in electricity. But shifting the production resources doesn’t address the fundamental imbalance between demand and supply. The difference will still need to be made up, and the Pickens Plan doesn’t do that at all. He’s just playing Three Card Monte with energy.

But one argument would be: yeah, but we’re reducing our imports of oil, so that’s something. But something will have to replace it if you don’t increase energy production by 30%. That is not the goal of the Pickens Plan, so there will still be energy imports even if the Pickens Plan is implemented.

But we have to make sure those dirty Arabs and other terrorist nations don’t get any American oil money, even if we end up buying their natural gas, uranium and other energy sources, which then means that the Pickens Plan will accomplish nothing. Well, except put money in Pickens’ pocket.

Pickens Continues to Use $700 Billion Myth

From a Cato Institute Blog Post by Will Wilkinson:

Pickens: It’s more than me. I mean, this is about America. This isn’t about Boone Pickens and whether Pickens’ wind farm makes money or whatever happens to it. But I mean, here with $700 billion going out of the country, and let’s say that we could cut it in half — $350 billion in the United States, can you imagine how that would multiply for jobs here. I’d much rather that gonna $350 billion was being used here than to give some for foreign oil.

As I’ve stated before, $700 billion is a falsehood. In fact, all we’ve done in the past is import $320 billion or so, and given current oil prices, are on track for something in that neighborhood, say $400 billion. So even if we do NOTHING, we’ll get to that $350 billion number that Pickens would “like to see happen.”

Here’s another issue with this argument. Lets say the Pickens Plan is successful and it cuts down on oil imports by half (to $150 billion, not $350 billion). He says that all that money would be going towards American jobs. Yes, but at what cost? That’s something that Pickens does not address at all (nor has anyone else for that matter). If it costs $150 billion in tax incentives, infrastructure and whatever else is needed to get his plan off the ground, then it’s a wash. Sure some workers are happy, but consumers are left in the cold. And that’s if his plan works exactly as he thinks it will. As I’ve pointed out before, on both transportation and electricity, that’s far from a given. But this is the point that Will makes rather well in his post.

But I’m glad that at least more people are starting to call out Pickens on his economically illiterate thinking.

I also recommend the Cato@Liberty blog as an excellent resource or non-partisan thinking on political and economic matters.

John McCain Uses the Pickens Lie

From John McCain’s acceptance speech last night:

My fellow Americans, when I’m President, we’re going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front. We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we’ll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles. (Emphasis added)

I’ve documented the fact that $700 billion is a bald-faced, economically illiterate number that was conjured up by T. Boone that has no basis on the realities of the oil market or just plain facts. Add to the fact that McCain just lumped natural gas in with solar and wind (“one of these things is not like the other, one of these things is just not the same”), and T. Boone must have been jumping for joy with the speech last night. I’m sure one of the first things McCain will reach across the aisle to Nancy Pelosi is to force private fleet vehicles to run on natural gas.

So if you oppose the Pickens Plan, or don’t like the fact that it’s based on sketchy numbers, has a significant chance of screwing up our electricity market and backed by someone who has a huge financial stake in it, then you don’t have a choice in the election. Well you do, but you won’t hear about it in the media.

I would call on John McCain’s campaign to fully disclose their relationship with T. Boone and fess up to the fact that he cited a horribly incorrect number during a nationally televised speech. It’s the least that he can do “for the country.” But I doubt that will happen.

Politics as Usual with Palin and the Media

So we’ve gone through a weekend of hearing about Sarah Palin as the new Republican VP nominee. And, to no one’s surprise, it was all about personal characteristics and almost nothing on policy.

There were thousands of stories on Palin’s children, both newborn and almost adult. But that’s the essence of the game as the liberal media and the blogosphere tried to find something against Palin that would stick in terms of criticism. I know it’s hard to find some actual information on three day’s notice, but I was somehow able to find information on her in five hours on Friday afternoon. You’d think the media could do that, since they’re getting paid for it after all. But instead, we get innuendo and slander, going after her personality, but not her policies. And it’s not like she’s a blank slate, as she’s got two years as governor and a couple of years as mayor to find information on. So, as usual, the ancien media fails at their job of investigation and reporting.

Meanwhile, the GOP side of the media is just ecstatic about the pick, as if this is all the people needed to warm up to McCain. To his credit, he did reinforce his social conservatism at the Rick Warren forum, and it appears that this is another pick along those lines. Which is why the anciens wanted to go after her personal life as to make the hypocrite tag stick. But there’s nothing to those attacks, which is why the GOP side is going after them on this issue. So instead of introducing their candidate and filling in the gaping holes on her policy ideas and where she stands on the issues, they’re, once again, playing on the other team’s field. But as this weekend has shown, there’s nothing to this issue, which is why the GOPers are attacking this hard.

But it doesn’t help us in the minority who actually, you know, still care about the issues and policies that government puts in place. And more to the point, both sides have been strangely silent on Palin’s energy policy while in Alaska. It’s supposed to be her strong point, and she even mentioned it in her introductory speech. But as I outlined in my Palin on Energy post, it’s at best a political pander, and at worst, a contradiction of the national Republican policy on taxation and a gold mine for the Democrats, if they’re going to take the bait.

In case you don’t know, Palin instituted a new severance tax on oil pumped from state-leased lands. And contrary to usual Republican policy, this tax was higher than the previous level. In fact, it became a windfall profits tax, as the structure of the tax was that it increased as the price of oil increased, the very definition of a windfall profits tax.

But people aren’t interested in the fact that it’s a tax increase out of the Obama handbook, they’re more interested in covering it up as “giving a tax rebate back to the people”, as epitomized by the Rush Limbaugh show this afternoon:

CALLER: And you asked him a specific question, and what he picked out was so mundane, I mean it was on everyone’s mind. You asked him what were Sarah’s accomplishments here, and he had an ability to tell you a whole litany of things. And he picked out oh, you know, “She’s going to send us some money.” Well, yeah. It’s a small part of a much larger plan by the state —

RUSH: Well, but wait a minute.

CALLER: — to help us out.

RUSH: No, I knew what he was talking about at the time. Alaskans — she gave them a rebate on rising gasoline prices added to whatever it is you guys already get for allowing the Alaska pipeline and other things up there, but she was simply saying, she made it a point in her announcement to say that she didn’t keep the money as a governor and put it in government coffers; she sent it back to the people who were experiencing this rapid increase in gasoline prices. Remember, Obama at the time the gasoline prices were skyrocketing up, said, (paraphrasing) “I’m not really worried about the price but I am concerned about how rapidly it went up.”

CALLER: Yeah, it was disgusting.

RUSH: She turned it back to the people, that’s all. No different than a tax rebate.

CALLER: Right, which was the original idea of the original permanent fund in the first place, because the oil revenue of the state, according to Hammond, our governor at the time, belonged to the people. And so the people get a tiny little portion of the interest, and that’s what that dividend is about, but I wouldn’t have chosen that as her most important accomplishment. Frank Murkowski was expected to be a really good governor, and he was just a bust. She beat him in the primary, and she filed his deal that he had made with the gas companies — or the oil companies, she filed that right in the trash. (Emphasis added)

First of all, it’s not a tax rebate, as the $1200 doled out by each citizen was never collected from the citizenry. It was collected from the oil companies and redistributed to taxpayers. That’s NOT a tax rebate. It’s the same problem that the Bush tax rebates/stimulus payments have, the rebates are uncorrelated with tax payments. So it can’t be a rebate if you don’t pay the tax in the first place.

But the bigger problem is that there is this entitlement to the oil company revenue because the oil came out of state-owned land. The fact that the state owns any land is something entirely different, but that’s different from a federally owned parcel (which was in most circumstances expropriated and definitely unconstitutional). Under the Alaska Constitution, the state can own land, and lease mineral rights, but it doesn’t own the oil. Well, they can own the oil, but they allow private entities to explore and produce the oil, at least until politicians decide to take over the production as a whole (or just go ahead and tax it 100%).

In the grander scheme of things, this should sound at least some concern for conservatives, but I haven’t heard a peep from either side of the aisle, but it’s actually pretty obvious once you think about it.

Republicans don’t want to dirty up the image of Palin, especially when she says that it’s not a tax increase, but it’s getting a fair valuation on the resources. If a Democrat tried doing that on a tax on… anything, Republicans would skin that Democrat alive.

Democrats are either waiting for a “gotcha” moment, possibly during the debate or closer to the election. The question will be obvious: “During your time as governor of Alaska, you passed a tax increase on oil companies that were then sent taxpayers as an energy rebate. Barack Obama has proposed the same thing, but John McCain and the Republicans have attacked this proposal. Do you support Obama’s plan that is very similar to your policy in Alaska?” And then she’s going to have to square the circle, saying that it’s ok to do it on the state level, but not on the national level, or backtrack on her record in Alaska. Either way, the Republicans are going to have to figure that one out quickly, because either she’s going to piss off fiscal conservatives or be attacked (rightly so) as a flip-flopper.

Right now, there’s no sign of what she’ll do, even if she highlighted the policy (in a limited way) in her speech in Dayton. But unlike the pregnancy/child issues, this is a serious issue that could very well put her in a bad position.

(UPDATE: The Cato Institute has done some research into her tax policies: Gov. Sarah Palin’s Record on Taxes and Spending and Palin: Uninspiring Tax Policy Record. Leave it to the libertarians to do the political work of the partisans. There’s a thesis to be had there, do non-mainstream party outlets cover the issues that the Big Two parties do not want to have discussed? I’m also thinking Obama/climate change and environmental parties.)

National Party Platforms on Transportation and Energy – Constitution Party

Continuing the series on party platforms on transportation and energy, we come to the Constitution Party.

They do not have a section on transportation issues, much like the Libertarians. They do have an energy section:

Energy

James Madison said: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” (Federalist Papers #45) The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution , nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people (Amendment X).

We call attention to the continuing need of these United States for a sufficient supply of energy for national security and for the immediate adoption of a policy of free market solutions to achieve energy independence for these United States. We call for abolishing the Department of Energy.

Private property rights should be respected, and the federal government should not interfere with the development of potential energy sources, including natural gas, hydroelectric power, solar energy, wind generators, and nuclear energy.

Pretty simple when you get down to it. Abolish the Department of Energy (much like the old Republicans, and no government interference. Pretty much a libertarian/free-market approach to energy.

I wish they would have something on transportation issues, but including everything risks having an unwieldy platform. It’s still an important federalist issue that would need to be addressed by any major candidate.

National Party Platforms on Transportation and Energy – Green Party

I have to give credit where credit is due: the Green Party is very, very open about what they want to do. Sure it’ll involve massive government intervention in everyone’s daily life, but they’re putting it out there in very specific terms.

The entire platform (including changes from 2004 to 2008) on energy and transportation policy, which they call “Ecological Sustainability” is available from the GP website. Unlike the Libertarian Party, the Greens are very specific about what they would like to do.

So lets see what they have on energy:

• “Our oil and gas addiction in particular has led to wars and human rights abuses in many countries….U.S. dependence on oil and gas has driven an unparalleled assault on the global environment and on human rights in many nations.” Of course, if we were to not use oil or natural gas anymore, these third world countries would be liberal democracies with no disputes or conflict whatsoever. This, of course, confuses the fact that the countries themselves start these wars. There are plenty of countries that have petroleum resources that don’t abuse their citizens (e.g. Canada), and there are countries that DON’T have oil resources and DO abuse their citizens (e.g. Zimbabwe). Removing the oil would not remove the source of these problems (the backwards societies and the lack of governing structure)
• “We oppose energy utility deregulation…. We recognize that deregulation and its reliance on markets – as opposed to state-based regulations – is incapable of providing affordable, reliable and clean energy…. We support state efforts to regain control over electricity by establishing democratic, public control systems to locally coordinate supply and demand and by eliminating energy trading.” It’s funny how people have no idea how economics (and socialism) work. PUCs are NOT democratic by any stretch of the imagination, and the current market system somehow does enable people to have affordable and reliable energy, and if you’re in a fully deregulated market like Texas, you can have clean energy too. If you’re in California or most other states, you have no choice in where you get your electricity and it’s “cleanliness”. But the Greens see markets as bad, no matter if they actually enable clean energy or not.
• “New construction should be required to achieve substantial portions of its heating energy from the sun.” Man, I’d hate to live in the Pacific Northwest under the Greens.
• “We oppose further oil and gas drilling or exploration – especially that which would occur in other countries, (emphasis mine)” I’d LOVE to see how they’d enforce banning oil exploration in other countries. This further enforces the general criticism of the enviros as wanting to keep the poor countries poor.
• “We call for independent, public-access radiation monitoring at all nuclear facilities.” If you want to do this, do this. Go to your nearest nuclear power plant, set up shop with a Geiger counter, and report your results. I’m not going to stop you and if the government does, then THAT’s your problem. But you don’t need the government to do this for you.

And their section on transportation:

• “We call for major public investment in mass transportation, so that such systems are cheap or free to the public and are safe, accessible, and easily understandable to first-time users. ” hahaha Short of spending TRILLIONS on mass transit, you’re never going to get all three… and since we’re talking about the government running this system, you’re NEVER going to get anything that’s easily understandable. No matter how much you spend.
• “The present-day approach of upgrading streets to accommodate increased traffic generates new traffic because access is now easier, and people will now take jobs further from their homes or purchase homes further from their jobs. Some people shift from public transit to private cars due to the trip time in cars being shorter. As patronage for public transit decreases, public transit loses funding, becomes less viable, and service deteriorates thus encouraging even more people to use their cars. ” This is the best part, the Greens admit that people don’t like taking transit, admit that private transport is faster, and that public transit wouldn’t work without massive subsidies. So, their solution is to make people do something they would prefer not to do in the first place. A winning political strategy.
• “Redirect resources that currently go to enhancing auto capacity into expanding human-scale transit options….Develop affordable mass transit systems that are more economical to use than private vehicles. ” What the hell is a human-scale transit option? And I’d love to see the day when a public mass transit system is more economical to use than a private system. That’s also the day communism will finally work. And pigs will fly.
• “Emphasize the use of light and heavy rail for freight transportation. ” WHY? It’s slower, it has a lot more delays and is constrained in where and how it can go. An airplane or truck can bypass congestion. A train can’t. Just ask anyone who’s taken Amtrak. Speaking of which…
• “Expand our country’s network of rail lines, including high-speed regional passenger service.” Because outside of the Northeast, there is not a single place that is built in a similar way to that region. So you’d be trying to shoehorn a system that works (barely) in one region, where it’s not needed elsewhere. And as most people who take Amtrak can attest to, Amtrak is beset by delays and general incompetence.
• “Ban flights between cities where land-based travel options can get a passenger to their destination within four hours.” Since you have the Acela, all of the Northeast just lost their air service… sorry. Not to mention the whole hub-and-spoke system for the airline industry. So for example, I live in Columbia, SC. Since nobody in their right minds wants to travel to Columbia, there are not many direct flights, so you have to have connections in many cities. Thus, you have alot of flights from Columbia to Atlanta (4 hours away) and Charlotte (1 hour away). Congrats, you no longer can fly that route. So this will either:
  1. Force people to drive up to 4 hours to get to the airport
  2. Force airlines to have you connect from somewhere MORE THAN 4 hours away.

  Either way, you’ve just made the whole air travel system ALOT more complicated and wasteful. But environmentalists are pretty ignorant when it comes to the law of unintended consequences. And to put a cherry on top of their economic backwardness…

• “We encourage the social ownership and use of land at the community, local, and regional level.” The Greens have never studied or heard about the Tragedy of the Commons.

So overall, the Greens have set out an expansive list of things they want to do, which is ballsier than most political parties. Of course, given that most of what they want to do would be economically wasteful at best, it’s not a very smart plan either.

Stephen Spruiell on Energy & Environment on National Review Online

Stephen Spruiell on Energy & Environment on National Review Online

Sigh… is there any more reason to realize that Republicans made a huge mistake in nominating John McCain?  They’re going through all of these problems trying to square the platform with the candidate.  Of course, in a rational electoral system, the candidate would reflect the base and not have to be grafted together like “trying to write a lawsuit against yourself.”

But as a result, Republicans have now gone along with the environmental movement in calling all this “climate change” instead of “global warming.”  Which is a tautology, or some kind of logical infallacy, since CLIMATE IS ALWAYS CHANGING. Somehow, this society has become so narcissitic that the current climate SHOULD be the only climate on Earth for as long as humans remain here.  Try telling that to the people of North Africa, who have been screwed the past 1000 years or so with advancing desert conditions, which cannot be explained away in the past 50 years of industrial development.

So in continuing with my plan to review all of the party platforms, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like what I see in the Republican platform when it is formally adopted next week.

Response to a Barrett Comment

From the comments on the Gresham Barrett Brings the Stupid post:

Right on, Mike! I’m with you all the way. Next time I’d like to hear you thoughts on Jane B Dyer the Democratic Party’s candidate for Barrett’s job.
She is the kind of candidate SC needs but the media seem to be conspiring to keep her candidacy quiet. She’s been an Air Force flier, She is now a FEDEX captain on one of those big freighters besides being a Mom and a Grandmother. She lives in Easley and she needs the help of guys like you.
Bill

Well, lest anyone think that I’m partisan in my distrust of politicians (unlike most of the media out there), here’s my thoughts on Ms. Dyer:

Sorry Bill, but it looks like Barrett doesn’t have any kind of competition in this race. Ms. Dyer is parroting the same rhetoric that has become standard for all politicians. But I think she’d get the T. Boone Pickens seal of approval.

Below is a more detailed look at Ms. Dyer and her environmental energy policy.

National Party Platforms on Transportation and Energy – Libertarian Party

In a multi-part series, I am going to find and post the party platforms for all of the national political parties, concerning transportation and energy. Today I’ll start with the Libertarian Party.

2008 Platform

Nothing on transportation. On energy, they have this to say:

2.3 Energy and Resources

While energy is needed to fuel a modern society, government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.

Short and to the point. But this has it’s good points and its bad. You can boil down the Libertarian platform to “free markets good, government intervention bad”. Which is pretty much what they did this year. Even to the point, that they don’t even have a stated position on transportation.

Of course, it isn’t to say that they’ve never had a position on transportation. They even had a position on public utilities once upon a time. That’s something only a policy wonk would love, but framed the right way, the Libertarians could even put this in a winning message:

“You know why you pay $80 a month for 200 cable channels you don’t watch. Government policies don’t allow you to pick and choose the channels you want to watch, even though the technology is available. You can choose an individual plan for your cell phone, but the government forces everyone to have a one-size fits all plan for cable. It’s time to take cable out of the hands of bureaucrats and lobbyists and back where it belongs, the customer.”

So as an idea of where Libertarians stand on more complex issues, below is the 2004 Libertarian Party platform on some key issues.