New links

I am continuing to add and edit my Links page (on the menu under the masthead). Here are my latest additions:

• A listing of Ohio Tea Parties (also in the sidebar under "Join the Ohio Liberty Movement")
• Bill Yarbrough's Yarblog, a Libertarian perspective on Ohio politics
• Townhall.com, a conservative publication that contains many articles of interest to libertarians.
• TheTeaParty.net, a national clearinghouse of information for Tea Parties.

Blogs I like

Regular readers already know about Rebellion and DumpDC. Here are some other blogs I like:

For those of you who like your libertarianism on the more personal family/neighborhood level, I would like to recommend a blogger who is new to me. Karen DeCoster, a resident of Detroit,  writes on such topics as distracted walking, the nutritional snow job being pulled on schools by Domino's Pizza*, Coca-Cola, and terrorist backpacks. She also is one of the workhorses in Lew Rockwell's stable. Lew Rockwell, a radio talk show host and founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (a libertarian economics think tank) publishes an extensive compendium of libertarian writing every day from a number of authors.

An Ohio writer I regularly follow is Wood County's Charlie Earl whose littlestuff-minoosha brings the big topics down to a human scale. I particularly like his curmudgeonly style, of which he is justly proud. His most recent posts deal with the bankruptcy of state governments. He was a state representative in the early 1980s, and brings that experience to bear in his political insights. Another Ohio-based blog that I check into occasionally is Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, completely devoted to restoring the states' role in the federal government by returning to the election of U.S. Senators by the state legislatures.

If you want to follow the secession and nullification movements across the U.S. of A., you can get brief news summaries from Bill Miller's Secession and Nullification -- News and Information, and from the Tenth Amendment Center (which also provides model nullification legislation and extensive resources to learn about, and persuade others to support state sovereignty).

Links to other Ohio and libertarian blogs are available on my Links page. 

And if you are suffering from insomnia, and want a sure-fire sleep aid, there's my old blog (2005-2006) on theology and politics, The Middle Way. I suppose it's conceited of me to put it under "Blogs I like," but it was a learning experience that helped train me for the blog you are now reading.

* I'm sure Donato's in Columbus won't mind :)

Why we need to repeal the 17th Amendment

My fellow Ohio blogger Brian has been running a blog for some time dedicated to the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution. I have to admire his tenacity -- to regularly post to and maintain a blog on such a limited subject. His point is that the states would have a stronger hand against federal tyranny if we returned to the original system of having the state legislatures elect the U.S. Senators, instead of them being elected directly by the people. That way, the states as states would have a stake in how the federal government is run. You can be sure, at the very least, that Senators elected by state legislators would end unfunded mandates on state governments. Right now.

In today's post, Brian uses the Food Safety Bill (S.510) to explain how the U.S. Senate has been rigged to favor corporate special interests, and presents a convincing argument based on today's news for repealing the 17th Amendment. It is well worth your time to read.

Update Dec. 7: Brian posted a comment in his own blog that is worth reposting here:

Thanks Harold. It's been up and down over the years but the blogging keeps me partially focused on the shenanigans in the US Senate.

Getting this repealed is a tough fight, but at least for now I hope we are waking people up to the origins of the US Constitution and the creation of Congress and the role the US Senate once had.

But even if the repeal did happen we would still need to make a modification and add a recall provision that was left out of the Constitution from the Articles of Confederation. That would put the states back into the Federal Government and restore the 10th Amendment.

Further update on Manna Storehouse

My friend Ed has given me a personal update on the Manna Storehouse situation, reported here last Wednesday and yesterday:

"Reading the blogs as well as local press reports gives us differing accounts of the incident. I spoke with a co-op member and friend of the Stowers' who talked to them shortly after the incident. I was skeptical about the blog reports, so I asked about some of the details. She assured me that indeed there were large weapons that were drawn and aimed at the family, based on information given to her by family members she spoke with. She said, also, that the family seems to be well, and the children were about their normal activities."

As I wrote yesterday, the trial should be very interesting.

All posts on Manna Storehouse.

Plate tectonics

Tim Higgins at Ohio's Just Blowing Smoke has an interesting theory on the development and death of political parties. He compares them to the plate tectonics in the earth's crust -- that is, they rub together and form mountains (political parties) which erode over time. He notes that the Democratic-Republican Party was founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 1792 to enforce a stricter interpretation of the Constitution; then the Republican Party in 1856 which came to espouse a stricter interpretation of the Constitution; and now that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans do so, he sees a new mountain range rising (the Libertarian Party). I hope he's right, because we need a strong third party with a Consitutionalist bent, but we don't have millions of years to wait...

An inconvenient truth

Ohio's voter registration scandal cuts both ways. I agreed with the Democrats about the conduct of the 2004 election; but now Democrats who are jubilant about the U.S. Supreme Court decision on voter registration need to remember that the U.S. Appeals Court decision that was overturned still found their Secretary of State in violation of Federal law.

Then we have this: “Well, I tell you what, it helps in Ohio that we’ve got Democrats in charge of the machines.”- Barack Obama (Columbus Dispatch, Sept. 4).

I hope Bob Fitrakis* is taking notes.

* Outspoken critic of the 2004 general election in Ohio.

9-12

As you can see from our masthead, today marks the first anniversary of The Ohio Republic. When I started, I hoped I could write three posts a week and gain the attention of a few hundred readers. The response has greatly exceeded my expectations. In all honesty, the fact that I started the day after the anniversary of 9-11 had not occurred to me until I had written this blog for several months.

This is our 188th post, so we are writing a post every other day; and from October 11, 2007 to Thursday midnight, we have had 3,008 visits and 5,665 page views. Normally, about half of those visits are from Ohio; with the other half from the rest of the world. Many of the non-Ohio viewers are our secessionist colleagues in Alaska, Vermont, and the South. We are pleased to be included in The Carnival of Ohio Politics, and linked to many blogs, both in Ohio and elsewhere. With a thankful heart, I have noticed that The Ohio Republic frequently has excellent placement in Google searches.

There is no question that The Ohio Republic has begun to raise the consciousness of Ohioans to the possiblity, even desirability of independence of the United States; and for that reason, I feel that our early efforts have been successful.

I pledge to you that The Ohio Republic will continue to offer news and opinion from a secessionist and Constitutionalist perspective as long as the Feds don't come after me; or until a happy day when the Founders' vision will again grace this land.

If I lack faith that such a happy day will appear, please be assured that I have very great faith in the common sense of the people of this State; that when properly aroused, they will come to the defense of government that will act in their own interest and will, if necessary exercise their Constitutional right to alter or abolish the government to which they had become accustomed.*

* Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 2.

Ohio blog links added

On the right panel, I have added several Ohio political blogs to my links list. They are of both liberal and conservative persuasions, all well-written, and most have at one time or other expressed cordiality to this writer.

I will use this opportunity also to highlight The Carnival of Ohio Politics, to which most of these blogs (and The Ohio Republic) regularly contribute.

Do you blog on politics in Ohio?

If so, come on and join the Carnival. The Carnival of Ohio Politics is always looking for new talent, for its weekly digest of the Ohio political blogosphere, and it gives your blog great exposure! Just send the editor a brief paragraph listing up to three of your best posts in the last week.

If you don't blog, remember that we do keep the Carnival of Ohio Politics as one of our links on the right side of this page.

Joining Ohio’s political blogging community

Sometimes we can learn from our good experiences. In the last few weeks, I have been getting in touch with Ohio’s political blogging community. I now understand just how little I know about our State’s politics, even though I live in Columbus and am a faithful reader of the Dispatch.

Too many secessionists seem to be living in a philosophical ivory tower. The truth is, the State politics we have now will become the national politics under the Republic. More immediately, we need to understand the environment in which we are operating.

The quickest and simplest way to do this is to read the weekly Carnival of Ohio Politics, which I am adding to our Links list. It is a handy digest highlighting the contents of Ohio’s political blogs. Up to three selections are made by the bloggers themselves; and they are, of course, linked. This week, The Ohio Republic, a first-timer, had the honor of taking the lead entry in their special 100th edition.

Jill Miller-Zelman of Writes Like She Talks, is an experienced observer of Ohio politics and editor of the week. Her take on The Ohio Republic: “I can say with complete honesty, I've never heard that seriously argued before, and blogs are the perfect place to start such discussions.” I completely agree, and look forward to us learning from each other in the weeks ahead.