What an asshole Huckabee is. You know, who cares if Huckabee knows how to play the guitar and knows a Lynyrd Skynyrd riff or two. He’s a complete asshole, and a total enemy of liberty and libertarians.

1. Eric Dondero Says:
   May 29th, 2008 at 9:04 pm

I’m right here. How much more strongly can I say it?

Mike Huckabee is a complete and utter asshole. Trying to think of some stronger perjoratives from my past Navy days. But asshole pretty much sums it up.”

This is one of those rare occassions where I completely agree with a post from Eric Dondero.

You should realize that Huckabee and Giuliani represent what Republicans are, not libertarianism. Huckabee was just telling you what the rest of us have been telling you – you don’t know what you’re talking about.

If you’re looking for a libertarian Republican check out Cong. Jeff Flake of Arizona. Or, Tom Feeney of Florida. Or, soon to be Congressman Tom McClintock of California.

Do you know what can be said about exceptions? They aren’t mainstream.

In other words, you and the Huckster agree that libertarian Republicans like Ron Paul are the exception, not the Republican mainstream, since the minority by definition cannot be the mainstream.

The story of Huckabee and the smoking ban is one that I had to deal with several times during the campaign. It’s always a typically ill-informed story.

The question arose when the MSNBC liberal Chris Matthews raised it with Huckabee at Lance Armstrong’s cancer forum. Matthews asked Huckabee if, as president, Congress put a smolking ban on his desk, would he sign it?

Huckabee very specifically said that he would not support a regulation of privately owned businesses like bars and restaurants. But, he said he would support an OSHA-like workplace regulation.

What libertarian or constitutionalist conservatives leave out of the question is the cold FACT that whether we like it or not, the federal government has ALREADY assumed a massive liability for health care expenses. In this environment, to express discouragement of unheralthy behavior is bare fiscal prudence.

Yes, I know that the danger of second-hand smoke is overstated. But, the mere discouragement of smoking as unhealthy will send a message with a positive impact, with little cost on the front end and a lot of saving on the back end, both in financial and human suffering terms.

The smoking ban that Huckabee signed as Arkansas governor exempted businesses that catered only to adults and/or had 3 or fewer employees. And, like other health measures and taxes that were raised for highways and education, the measure dramatic and measurable consequences. Habits and health improved, as highways and public education did dramatically, both from the bottom 10 to the top 10 systems in the country.

To talk idealistically about idealistic libertarianism is anabstraction that will never happen. However it might offend your abstract ideolgy, improved infrastructure, education, and health are financial and quality of life realities.

Now, texpat needs to be clear that McCain’s support of the effort in Iraq is not a fiscal difference, but a practical one. If you live in a bad neighborhood, you need to spend some money on firearms. You may believe that the fate of Iraq is of litrtle or no consequence to us. I think that both global and American security and Declaration of Independence-style humane values are at issue in Iraq and McCain agrees. But, THAT is the difference, not fiscal prudence. To dispute that seems to imply that an otherwise frugal man cannot spend money to protect his family.

Tell me please which Political Party do the legislators around the Nation who fight seat belt laws, smoking ban (mostly in California), speed limit restrictions, and the 21 year old drinking age, belong too?

90% Republican.

Yes, there are many asshole Republicans who are Nanny-Staters and go along with the Dems on smoking bans. In fact, Huckabee’s one of them.

But if you get a Nanny-State issue these days in a State Legislature, chances are very, very good that it’s a Dem introducing the bill, and a few brave Republicans standing up to oppose it.

That’s how you essentially define libertarianism: Someone who wants tax cuts

Then why is Barrbie calling for more taxes?

http://www.barrwatch.com/

But McCain is right in one place where Bush was terribly irresponsible. That is on spending. And controlling spending today is not just a good idea: it is an essential first step in attempting to avert financial calamity. The huge entitlement liability that the federal government has taken on is coming due. I expect liberals will want to raise FICA taxes, cut benefits, and greatly inflate the dollar.

By the way, your man-crush Giuliani probably agrees with Huckabee.

So libertarians are defined by their position on taxes only. I guess you forgot that old farce “can’t be a neocon am pro choice” bit, perhaps because I mentioned Hillary to you too many times and it actually sunk in. Some of us consider “all that other stuff” that you so graciously throw in to be equally important to the bit on taxes.

So you call Huckabee an asshole. Is he wrong? Mind, if being an asshole is an automatic disqualifier you should have stopped commenting years ago.

Taxes has always been, and will always be the number one issue for libertarians.

It’s not everything. It’s not the only thing that defines who is and who is not a libertarian. I’d add in opposititon to Nanny-state restrictions such as smoking bans, seat belt laws, gambling restrictions, low speed limits ect…

That’s how you essentially define libertarianism: Someone who wants tax cuts, but is also opposed to the Nanny State.

Huckabee has already apologized and said the attempted joke at the NRA meeting was a stupid, offhand remark. By the way, Huckabee is probably the most pro-Second Amendment Republican candidate of our lifetime. He has a Concealed Carry permit and is an avid hunter.

And Kenny:

“It would be useful for Barr to publicly denounce or debate his former colleague Huckabee on live television. ”

That would definitely be useful. Huckabee could capably account for his disposition.

And speaking of that, actually joining and attending conventions, I voted third-party in 2000 and 2004 after a lifetime of Republicanism. When Bush was elected in 2000 I said, “Leviathan gets a night manager,” and I was exactly right. Under Bush and a Republican Congress, the federal government saw greater proportional growth than it has since Johnson and “The Great Society” in the 60’s.

From Jan. 2007 until he withdrew in March, I supported and blogged for Huckabee. Too many conservatives misunderstand and misrepresent him, based on politically propagated caricatures.

And, I am supporting McCain, including at my state’s Republican convention in a few weeks. I well know McCain’s philosophical incoherence. I opposed him more strongly than Bush in 2000. But, I see that a little differently now. McCain is often resolutely and genuinely mistaken, while Bush is not as resolute about anything.

But McCain is right in one place where Bush was terribly irresponsible. That is on spending. And controlling spending today is not just a good idea: it is an essential first step in attempting to avert financial calamity. The huge entitlement liability that the federal government has taken on is coming due. I expect liberals will want to raise FICA taxes, cut benefits, and greatly inflate the dollar. If a Democrats hold Congress and the presidency, they will do all three. And in the long run that will only make matters worse.

If McCain is elected, at least he will cut the spending dramatically. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is probably the most conservative US Senator. And despite his other differences with McCain, he is strongly supporting him for the very fact that McCain is probably only next to Coburn, the strongest anti0spending hawk in The Senate. The statements above about McCain being one of the most responsible for government expansion are more than a little overstated, I assume by people like Coburn and myself who disafree with him on most of the standard catalogue of McCain infidelities.

And again, Huckabee was the most conservative Republican running. What he referred to as the libertarian threat was the steely-eyed purity, even in rhetoric that makes those sort of ideologues entirely unelectable and ineffective. Yes, Huckabee talks about “caring for Main Street as well as Wall Street, which in fact, The Fair Tax does, taxing consumption not income and making savings, investment, and frugality a boon to all. News flash: if conservatives can’t even address this population, which is by far the majority of voters, they will never come close to winning.

http://www.bigheadpress.com/TheTimeSink/?p=117

Hope you don’t mind. Gonna lift this story for use and comment over at Libertarian Republican blog. With credit to TPW, of course.

Thanks