“I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.”

-Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason

Earlier this week, the Jackson County, Missouri legislature gave each resident the right to voice their own opinion in the upcoming November election as to whether or not the statue of Andrew Jackson should be removed from its place in front of the downtown courthouse.

This decision comes on the heels of an article posted in the Kansas City Star that asked whether it was time to rename local counties and cities that memorialized slaveholders. Jackson County, named after the seventh president, was included among the list of potential counties and cities to be renamed.

Andrew Jackson deserves his place in history—that much is certain. But if Kansas City voters do decide to remove his statue from outside the courthouse, and if by chance this mobilization spills into a campaign to rename the county, I propose a new historical figure to become the namesake of this fine county: Thomas Paine.

Paine is tragically one of America’s forgotten heroes. He was the man who electrified early America with his persuasive writing. His compelling pamphlet “Common Sense” not only mobilized early Americans to throw off their tyrannical bondage to Britain through revolutionary means, but it also inspired following generations to uphold reason and logic as the sacred foundation to society. His church was freedom, and he worshipped at the altar of individualism.

But it was because of this strict adherence to logic and reason that he was ultimately ostracized from mainstream society. Paine’s condemnation of religion in favor of reason marked him as a leper to American society, pushing him further and further out of the public eye. Although in his earlier years he had mingled with and even influenced powerful Americans such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, by the end of his life, Paine was forgotten, left to waste away in New York with his right to vote revoked. He died to little fanfare, with only six people showing up to his funeral.

Now, Kansas City has a chance to remedy the disrespect showed to Paine in years past. Currently, there is not a single U.S. county named after Thomas Paine. I propose that should Kansas City voters choose to remove the Jackson statue and change the name of the county, then the most desirable choice would be the main persuader behind the American Revolution.

Imagine a brand new Thomas Paine statue in front of the courthouse. In his left hand, he holds the Rights of Man to his chest. In his raised right hand, he holds “Common Sense”, his magnum opus.

If Kansas City follows this proposal, they will choose a man who has no skeletons in his closet (or skeleton at all for that matter). Paine was a staunch abolitionist (he penned the first major American work advocating for the emancipation of African-Americans and the abolition of slavery) as well as a pro-life advocate (he argued that the French revolutionaries should not kill King Louis XVI).

Historian Jack Green notes that “in a fundamental sense, we are today all Paine’s children”, meaning that even if we don’t realize it, we would not be here today in the United States of America without Thomas Paine’s motivation. It is time to give the forgotten Founding Father his due.

The post Will Kansas City Cancel Andrew Jackson? Who Should Replace Him? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Recognizing this as true and common to all humanity, it stands to wonder why we as a human race repeatedly view ourselves as all-knowing, casting concrete judgments on various aspects of society. One of the more striking examples of this phenomenon is the use of the death penalty to exterminate those that society deems deplorable beyond possessing the right to live.

The state of Missouri is somewhat fond of the death penalty, utilizing it 22 times from 2010-2019 to kill those guilty of heinous crimes. May saw Missouri’s first use of the death penalty in 2020 as Walter Barton, a man convicted of first-degree murder over three decades ago, was killed by lethal injection. The case was especially controversial because Barton had always maintained his innocence, and the Innocence Project, the leading organization dedicated to freeing those unjustly convicted of crimes, believes that Missouri likely killed an innocent man.

Barton’s guilty conviction relied upon testimony from a jailhouse snitch coupled with bloodstain pattern analysis, a practice that has been widely condemned by the scientific community.  But the most damning evidence against Barton’s conviction is the fact the three jurors who initially found him guilty have since rescinded their verdicts, believing that in light of new evidence, such as the condemnation of the bloodstain pattern analysis, there was no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to kill Barton.

Barton’s case parallels an earlier Missouri death penalty case in which another perhaps innocent man was put to death. Larry Griffin, a St. Louis man found guilty of 1980 murder, was killed via lethal injection in 1995. At the time of his killing, the case against Griffin had all but collapsed, with two key witnesses modifying their statements about seeing Griffin at the crime scene. Another crucial witness who could have exonerated Griffin did not testify, meaning that the jury that convicted Griffin did so with insufficient evidence.

This hubristic propensity to forge ahead with one’s belief without acknowledging that they may be wrong cut short the lives of at least two Missouri men. Missouri Legislator Sarah Unsicker crafted legislation that would end the death penalty in Missouri. The bill, which did not make it out of committee in the 2020 regular session, would eliminate the death penalty as punishment and instead sentence anyone convicted of first-degree murder to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The Missouri Legislature must pass  legislation like this as soon as possible so as not to kill any more potentially innocent men and women. While many arguments can be made against the death penalty, including the ones laid out here, the one stipulating that human nature is fallible and thus never in the right to condemn another person to death is all-encompassing.

By ensuring the possibility of error, we allow one another the opportunity to prove that they may have a more convincing case. This would mean that Walter Barton and Larry Griffin would still be alive today, fighting for their freedom. Whether they would ultimately achieve this end goal is anybody’s guess, but the most important thing is that they would still have the right to battle for their lives. The death penalty takes this away.

The post No Right to Life: Death At the Hands of The State. appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

As American troops withdraw from Afghanistan, all that remains in the broken country is the tattered remains of American arrogance. The Bush triumvirate, composed of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, fomented this arrogance. These three imagined themselves as 21^st Century military and cultural innovators, re-pioneering the nature of war to always ensure that American exceptionalism (AKA exporting democracy) would prevail no matter the conditions on the ground. Combining airstrikes with proxy forces would surely defeat al-Qaeda and their Taliban protectors they thought. And at first, they appeared correct. Bush declared victory in 2004 and the country seemed peaceful.

But there were warning signs. America’s light troop presence allowed high ranking al-Qaeda members like the notorious Osama bin Laden and Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Omar to slip into Pakistan. Settling in the mostly autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan gave both al-Qaeda and the Taliban breathing room to regroup. This helped the Taliban in particular as it gave them the strength to organize an insurgency that still plagues Afghanistan to this day.

Failure on the media’s part kept this insurgency from resonating with the American public. By relegating Afghan coverage to the back pages, Americans became complacent and disinterested. This, combined with the fact that few body bags came home during the 19-year conflict, Americans gradually lost the awareness that we were still at war in Afghanistan.

But interest wasn’t the only thing Americans lost. As of December of 2019, the United States spent about $2 Trillion on fighting the Taliban. But there are other, non-quantifiable losses that the American public incurred. Afghanistan is the world’s foremost opium producer, accounting for about 90% of the worldwide heroin supply. Thousands upon thousands of Americans have undoubtedly suffered because of the inability to stifle this production.

My heart goes out to all the soldiers who have lost their lives in this once noble pursuit. My heart throbs because they were not only put in harm’s way for a result that will be much like the one they initially encountered but also because of the horror and torment they were subjected to. Witnessing suicide bombings and the horrors of war is not a thing I would wish on anyone. It seems that American soldiers were truly never safe in Afghanistan, whether they were patrolling the countryside or relaxing at base. While on patrol, they battled an enemy they could see. But on base, they waged war against an imperceptible, and for some, a more dangerous foe. Upon return to the U.S., Afghan war veterans have reported cancer diagnoses at staggering rates, which is probably attributable to exposure to radiation at several bases in Central Asia. What’s even more tragic is that the government refuses to acknowledge the link between being stationed at these cancer-causing bases and future sickness. As a result of this, sick veterans must cover their own medical costs.

We also cannot forget the thousands of innocent civilians who have lost their lives due to indiscriminate bombings and airstrikes carried out by American forces. Countless Afghans and Pakistanis have lost their lives because of these strikes and tragically, they are forgotten, seen as collateral damage in the mission to secure American exceptionalism in Afghanistan.

American arrogance has paved the way for all this to occur. But this arrogance has achieved nothing substantial. The situation on the ground is no better now than it was on September 10, 2001. All that remains is the American military, withdrawing with its tail in between its legs, like a wounded pup. Left behind are the memories of those lost in battle—both Americans and Afghans—as well as the scars all those directly and indirectly affected by the war carry.

Will America learn from this mistake? Probably not, as complacency has found a home in America. Indiscriminate killing of civilians as well as deflecting of accountability are as much a part of the American Dream as apple pie and baseball. American arrogance reigns unabated.

The post Forgotten and Full of Folly: America’s War in Afghanistan Draws to a Close appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

But this “beating a dead horse” is not unique to just my father and his joke-telling. Just as my father does not learn from his not-so-witty mistakes, the state of Missouri does not learn from theirs as well.

Repeatedly, the state meddles in what should be decided by the private sector, not learning that this intrusion brings more harm than good. The most recent occurrence of this was just announced a few days ago, with the state releasing the names of the businesses that received licenses to sell medical marijuana in Missouri. 

Over 900 applicants sought a license to sell medical marijuana in Missouri. To obtain a license, they were tasked with filling out a lengthy application that included writing responses to numerous questions regarding how they would impact the community and their plans for marketing among other valuable questions. These answers were then judged and scored by a third-party company that the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services delegated the process to.  

This is the first of many problems in the process. According to the Kansas City Star, to find a third party to judge the applications, Missouri “put out a call for bids for companies to score the medical marijuana applications, [but] it got no responses.” This should have been the first red flag that this process was a horrible idea.  Nonetheless, the state was undeterred and on its second call, received interest.

To judge the third party, Missouri instituted a scoring system that would rate the prospects. The highest possible score of this system was 218, but the highest scorer and ultimate winner of the job to judge the medical marijuana applications, a company called Wise Health Solutions, received a whopping 106! This is red flag number two because Missouri handed out the task of judging the applications to a company that received less than 50% on its scoring test.

This does not exactly inspire confidence in this third-party scorer and whatever confidence that the state of Missouri had in Wise Health Solutions should be erased after the licenses were released. Since those who qualified for medical marijuana licenses became public, numerous applicants and lawyers who were associated with the process have cited irregularities and inconsistencies within the scoring process. 

One notable instance of this was applicants provided the same answer to a question and received wildly different scores. Some applicants who applied for multiple licenses “copy and pasted their answers on basic questions. But those identical answers received wildly different scores”. This happened even though the Missouri scoring guide stated that the same answer should receive the exact same score. This is red flag number three, with Missouri blatantly disrespecting the rules that it set out for applicants to follow. 

But the abuses don’t end there. In addition to indiscriminately giving the same answer different scores, applicants also received zeros for lengthy responses to application questions. One applicant stated that she received zero points on a question even though she provided exactly what the questions asked. The Missouri Medical Cannabis Trade Association ascertained that about 67 percent of the application pool received a score of zero on a question about marketing plans. The Association that this was so egregiously bad that it had to have been an error in the process.

Another applicant had support from the Mayor and 297 out of the 300 people in the small town that he planned to build his dispensary. In addition to this support, he planned to use revenue from the dispensary to aid the local police force. But this got him nowhere on the question on the application about the economic impact on the local community as he scored poorly on it. This apparent lack of attention to the application process earns Missouri a fourth red flag.

Apparently, though, Missouri is blind to the faults of this process. State officials still claim that the process was “secure and legitimate”, even though it was obviously not. Disgruntled applicants and their lawyers have started to file lawsuits against the state, causing an unnecessary headache for the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS). The DHSS has already begun soliciting bids from attorneys who can defend the state in these lawsuits, which will be a misuse of taxpayer dollars.

But the underlying point remains: all of this could have been avoided if Missouri had left the task to the private sector. Hopefully, Missouri voters and legislators will learn their lesson so they will not repeat the same mistakes when recreational marijuana becomes legal.  I am not optimistic though. Missouri loves to beat a dead horse.

Image: Paul Sableman

The post Don’t Give Missouri License to Beat a Dead Horse appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Gideon was a military figure who led the Israelites to freedom, erasing the burden of servitude that they had been subjected to by the Midianites. As a reward for this deliverance, the Israelites desired to make the House of Gideon the ruling family of Israel, creating a hereditary monarchy to last until the end of time. The men of Israel said to Gideon, “‘rule over us, both you and your son, also your son’s son, for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian’” (Judges 8:22). 

This falling lockstep behind a leader is not a unique phenomenon. In fact, we see the same happening today regarding the mainstream Republican party bowing to President Trump. This time, however, the support from some previously opposed members of the party seems disingenuous and shallow.

We are not too distant from calls by prominent Republican leaders such as Ted Cruz, who urged Americans to vote their conscience, and Lindsey Graham, who reported that he could not in good faith support Trump.

But that was 2016.

Now more than ever, Republicans equate the Democrats with the Midianites – usurpers attempting to commit sacrilege against the Great American Dream. Trump, though, is their savior, their Gideon figure, who will lead the Republicans to freedom.

But Gideon, when presented with the proposition of establishing a family monarchy in Israel, resolutely rejected the offer, claiming “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you” (Judges 8:23).

Oh Gideon, where are you now?

There will be no humility this time. There will be no claims of “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you”. This time, we are screwed, stuck with a braggadocio, prideful con artist as commander in chief. I could list all the numerous brags that Trump has proclaimed about himself, but that would ring hollow. Everybody by now knows that nobody reads the Bible more than Trump or that no one respects women more than the chief executive. Trump is the savior who can do no wrong, remember?

In 2020, Trump is king with no regard for the Constitution and Samuel’s prophecy rings true. Samuel was the prophet of Israel from whom the Israelites requested a king to rule over them. The prophet was adamant that they should have no King but God, predicting that a king would only bring them hardship and oppression. Samuel proclaimed that a king “will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots (1 Samuel 8:11).

Trump, just as countless presidents before him, has taken the young people of this country and sent them overseas to fight in conflicts that have little bearing on national security. Conflict is brewing with Iran and Trump seems poised to send more American soldiers to run in front of his chariots, putting them in harm’s way.

The similarities do not end there.

Samuel proclaimed that the king “will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.  He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants” (1 Samuel 8:14). All along the Southern border, federal authorities are seizing privately held land in order to build Trump’s “big and beautiful wall”. The sanctity of private property means nothing to Trump. His kingdom is America and he apparently is fit to rule over it in whatever manner he chooses, even if that means confiscating the vineyards and olive groves of ordinary Americans.

But the reign of Trump may not even end after 2024 when Trump would be theoretically term-limited if he by chance wins a second term this November. A few days ago, Axios published a poll that surveyed name ID for who could potentially be the Republican GOP nominee in 2024. Two of the top four names on the list were children of the current president.

The Republicans have devolved into nothing more than the Israelites of old, desiring that first Donald Trump rule over them and then his son and perhaps even his son’s son to govern over them after that, creating a seemingly hereditary autocratic government. 

Samuel’s prophecy ends with a very dreary prediction that the Israelites will become slaves to the king. While this is obviously true for the Republican party, evidenced by Cruz and Graham bowing before their leader, I believe there is still time before the rest of the country becomes indentured to Trump.

We need to stand up for personal freedom and promote humility in our leaders. Gideon and Samuel both cried out that the only leader the Israelites needed was God. For contemporary Americans, our god should be liberty and justice, which provide a much better blueprint for society than the one we are currently subjected to.

The post Choose You This Day: Liberty & Justice Or a King? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Since taking office in May of 2018, Parson has acted on just one of these cases. But Parson does not deserve all the blame; previous governors such as Eric Greitens and Jay Nixon also deserve blame for creating this mountain of inaction. Parson though currently controls the Missouri government, so the duty falls to him to remedy the problem.

Historically speaking, Missouri acts of clemency usually revolve around highly publicized cases, as in the instance of Darrell Mease, whose sentence was commuted in 1999 after the visit of Pope John Paul II. But clemency should not strictly pertain to these extraordinary cases.

Given the legalization of marijuana for medicinal use, the governor should immediately grant a full pardon to anyone in a Missouri prison who has been convicted of a marijuana-related offense. Not only should this be an easy task for the governor to accomplish since it is the logical thing to do, but it will also initiate dismantling the rest of the backlog. It would get the ball rolling so to speak.

While Missouri is currently on track to full legalization of marijuana, it still has some of the toughest marijuana laws in the nation on the books. While possession of under 10 grams of marijuana is decriminalized for a first-time offense, selling and trafficking cannabis is still heavily cracked down on.

Attempting to sell less than 5 grams of marijuana is categorized as a Class C felony in Missouri and punishable with up to seven years in prison and $5,000 fine. While obviously logically contradictory, the current laws have contributed to enormous amounts of people wasting away in prison in Missouri for marijuana-related offenses. 

But why should Parson grant clemency to these people in addition to all those in Missouri prisons who used marijuana for medicinal uses? The governor should do so because marijuana legalization is coming quickly to Missouri. Marijuana is already decriminalized in the state, meaning that any adult possessing 10 grams or less of cannabis is only fined anywhere from $250-$1000 and charged with a misdemeanor for a first-time offense.

Ballot initiatives to recreationally legalize marijuana are collecting signatures to be on the ballot in 2020, which could make cannabis fully legal in the state by 2021. Even if this initiative does not succeed in passing, it is only a matter of time before marijuana is recreationally legalized in Missouri. The legal marijuana train is coming, and Parson better hop on before it is too late.

Granting clemency to those with marijuana-related convictions in Missouri would also generate positive press for the Parson administration. Acting on only one of the 3,500 petitions for clemency is a sin against his office. It not only signifies laziness but an utter contempt for the prison population of Missouri.

Since 1981, Missouri governors have acted on about 6,000 petitions for clemency. This means that on average that Missouri governors have responded to 158 petitions for clemency per year. Parson is totally behind the 8-ball in rejecting clemency in his only foray into the topic. Pardoning those in prison for marijuana offenses would signify that Parson is committed to lowering the backlog.

By granting clemency to these people, the governor would also contribute to lowering the prison budget in Missouri. For the 2016 fiscal year, the Missouri Department of Corrections spent $710 million dollars to maintain the Missouri prison system.  Granting clemency to inmates with marijuana convictions would reduce this budget substantially, freeing up money that Parson should then return to the taxpayers. 

This avenue would be a nice start for Parson to take in approaching the clemency backlog. He has already kicked the ball down the road in refusing to hear any petitions. The governor should learn from his mistakes and lead in 2020.

Missouri residents should prod the governor along by signing the marijuana initiative to get it on the ballot in 2020. This would signify to Parson that Missouri is ready for a change, spurring him to grant clemency to all those in prison on marijuana-related offenses.

From this, Parson should begin to attack the rest of the backlog. Not only would this address the serious neglect of clemency petitions, but it would also thrust Missouri into the progressive world of marijuana legalization.

The post Marijuana Legalization and The Crisis of Clemency in Missouri appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.