Hello Liberty Lovers of Riverside County!
If you would like an essay featured in the Liberty Letter, or if you read or watched something awesome that you think should be in the Suggested Reading of one of these newsletters, reach out to us at admin@rclp.us and let’s chat!
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From the Chair
It’s tax time again for no good reason (if the government can just invent money why do we pay taxes at all?). Planes are losing parts in flight. An out-of-control cargo ship destroyed the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore. War continues in Ukraine and Gaza. And the hot topic in the halls of government is the sale of TikTok. Things seem really … strained. It almost feels like everyone is paralyzed, holding on for dear life, tossed around by huge forces beyond any control. It’s not hard to see it, anywhere you look. Consider the guest essay below for a sense of how colossal some problems seem to be, and how unmanageable a lot of things have become.
Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of atmosphere in which authoritarianism thrives. When anxiety is the main emotion everyone is feeling, strongmen of all stripes will rise to point fingers at the “guilty” and promise you relief in return for power over everyone’s life. Don’t buy what they’re selling. Don’t trade your freedom away because you’re afraid. Fear makes you do really destructive things. Things that can be avoided.
These United States are in trouble. Of that there can be no doubt. And it can feel like there’s nothing you can do about it. And if that feeling makes you hunker down and wait for someone to come save you, then you’re right, there’s nothing you can do about it, because you’re refusing to do anything about it.
Do something about it. Instead of shaking your fist on social media and grumbling at the TV, go to a city meeting. Re-engage with a church. Volunteer with a youth sports program. Get out of your head, get out of your house, and get active in your town.
That will start small. It will feel weird and frustrating. But America won’t change from the top. There is no sweeping single action that will change it. Electing some specific president won’t change anything any more than “taking out” Carol Baskin would have saved Joe Exotic. And our national elections are just as bizarre and irredeemable a clown-show as anything surrounding the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park. It’s all just too absurdly big (again, check out this month’s guest essay below for an example of how hard it can be to get your arms around the sheer scope of the problem).
Change must come from the grassroots. You must be part of it at the grassroots. You can be part of it. As we enter spring, start planting seeds and cultivating the garden that is your community. Your community will be better for it, and you will be better (and calmer) for it.
–Loren Dean
In the News: How much is 7.3 trillion dollars?
(an essay by RCLP Secretary Marcus Schuff)
The Biden Administration's proposed budget for 2025 is a whopping $7.3 trillion (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-2024-us-government-budget-is-also-campaign-pitch-2024-03-11/).
It's difficult to grasp the magnitude of $7.3 trillion. To put it in perspective, if the entire sum were to be divided equally among every man, woman, and child in America (including both citizens and immigrants, documented and undocumented), each person would be responsible for $21,470. This is in addition to the already staggering $102,547 in federal debt that the government has accumulated per person (https://www.pgpf.org/national-debt-clock).
In order to get a better idea of how much money we’re talking about here, let’s look at what $7.3 trillion could buy.
One of the more expensive items in America's arsenal are aircraft carriers at a cool $13.3 billion each (https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-are-us-navy-aircraft-carriers-so-expensive-207813). With the proposed budget of $7.3 trillion, the US Navy could purchase or build 548 aircraft carriers.
The cost to build the home of the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers SoFi Stadium is estimated at $5.5 billion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoFi_Stadium). For $7.3 trillion dollars you could build 1,327 SoFi Stadiums. That's enough for 1 in 3 colleges and universities in America to get a SoFi Stadium.
For $7.3 trillion, you could build 3,173 Las Vegas Spheres, estimated to cost $2.3 billion to build (https://www.architecturaldigest.in/story/the-sphere-in-las-vegas-5-things-to-know-about-this-dollar23-billion-concert-venue/).
How about nuclear power? How many nuclear power plants could be built with $7.3 trillion? Almost 1,000 nuclear power plants could be built for the cost of Biden's proposed 2025 budget, based on an estimated cost of about $7.5 billion each (https://www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/SynapsePaper.2008-07.0.Nuclear-Plant-Construction-Costs.A0022_0.pdf). In 2017, 54 US nuclear power plants produced 805 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power 73 million homes. That's about 1,351,851 homes powered by each nuclear power plant. One thousand nuclear power plants could power over 1.3 billion homes; more than enough electricity to power a home for every single man, woman, and child in North and South America combined (1.1 billion people).
Speaking of homes, for $7.3 trillion you could build nearly 18 million new homes at the national average cost of $408,000 each (https://www.houzeo.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-house/). For perspective, that's nearly 5-times the number of housing units in New York City (https://data.census.gov/profile/New_York_city,_New_York?g=160XX00US3651000).
I'm not advocating that the federal government spend $7.3 trillion in the ways described above. The purpose of this article is to try to help people understand the scale that they're talking about when the President proposes a federal budget of $7.3 trillion.
For perspective, when President George W. Bush entered office in the year 2001 the entire US National Debt was $3.339 trillion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt). It took America 225 years to accumulate that much debt. In the 23 years since, America's debt has exploded to over $34 trillion (10-fold), and now the President is proposing an annual budget of $7.3 trillion; more than double the entire national debt in 2001.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in a 60 minutes interview, "The U.S. federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path. And that just means that the debt is growing faster than the economy … . I think the pandemic was a very special event, and it caused the government to really spend to ward off what looked like very severe downside risks. It's probably time, or past time, to get back to an adult conversation among elected officials about getting the federal government back on a sustainable fiscal path." (check the suggested viewing section below for the link)
We need to remember how much money is being spent on the national credit card that our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will be paying for with lower standards of living for their entire lives. The problem will continue to get progressively worse until the dollar collapses, or the federal government regains fiscal sanity. Which will come first is hard to tell at this point.
Election 2024 Updates
The Curing Period
We’re out of the 30-day “curing period” after the March election, and now we all get to live with the consequences. Check the results at https://voteinfo.net/ .
The New Blood
There is a good chance that somebody new got elected to something in your town. Find out who, and figure out who they are. Go see them sworn in if you can. Meet the local electeds near you. Knowing who these people are is the first step to doing anything else. It’s worth your time.
More Suggested Reading/Viewing/Listening This Month
23 March was the anniversary of Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech, which is a masterpiece of American oratory that never gets old. Check out the Tenth Amendment Center’s tribute here: https://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2022/03/patrick-henry-give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death/
In case you missed it, the open-source Linux crowd caught a massive backdoor hack before it could spread into wide distribution across worldwide Linux installations. It’s apparently years in the making. Given the fact that Boeing seems to be losing the ability to catch serious errors (new Boeing motto: when one door closes, another opens … ) it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the value of open-source quality control versus corporatist capture. The former is directly responsible to the end users, and has every incentive to get things right. The latter uses government as a shield so it can rake in profits with little or no liability. Check out Ars Technica on the hack here: https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/04/what-we-know-about-the-xz-utils-backdoor-that-almost-infected-the-world/
Here’s that interview with Jerome Powell. Please have your airsickness bag ready:
https://news.lp.org/ is the website for the newly launched Libertarian Party news portal. What was once a periodic newsletter will now be a 24/7 web presence. Check it out, subscribe there for updates, and check out how to contribute yourself!
Calendar Notes
As always, bookmark and regularly check our website for the most up-to-date event details:
10 April 2024: Spike Cohen debates gun control with David Hogg. This event is being hosted at Dartmouth College, which means it’s at 3pm PDT here on the left coast. But this is sure to be phenomenal viewing, as Hogg, apparently desperate for exposure as his 15 minutes of tragedy-based fame come to a close, tries to debate Cohen, as stalwart and articulate a libertarian as there is. Find details at: https://www.spikecohen.com/
20 April 2024: LPRC Q2 Central Committee Meeting. Come have lunch with us at our April tax revolt shindig concurrent with our Q2 Central Committee meeting. We will be meeting at the Derby Room in Perris at 11am (check the website above for the address and whatnot), which is a great place where those so inclined can observe 4/20 in the way they prefer. If you know what we mean. After doing your taxes, you might be inclined, too.
23-26 May 2024: The Libertarian Party National convention. Under this year’s theme, “Become Ungovernable,” libertarians from all over the country will discuss and debate the issues of our time. LPN will also conduct its regular election of officers. As this is a big election year, this will also be the event where the LP nominates its presidential ticket for the general election. Find details here: https://lnc2024.com/
Voter Registration and Party Membership
If you vote, be sure your registration is Libertarian. Whether you vote or not, stay abreast of your registration details on the California Secretary of State page at this link: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/cavoter
Being a registered Libertarian voter certainly allows you to call yourself a real libertarian. However, there is more you can do. You can join the national Libertarian Party as a “sustaining member" by signing the membership application statement and paying dues (currently a minimum of $25 per year) to the national organization. Note that while paying dues at the state level (California) makes you a local "central committee member," national membership is separate.
If you aren't a dues-paying member at all, you can join as a national member AND as a state/county member using a single online form:
Combined National/State/County Membership Form
Join us in taking a stand for a world set free!
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