Libertarians

This stuff almost writes itself.

Buncombe County Republicans lost everything in the November, 2006 elections, and it's been a bitter pill to swallow. While I don't pretend to know about the private machinations of the BCRP, the public faces of the party present a bitter struggle between conservatives and libertarians, and Party regulars.

In the fight to elect a County Chair to the Party earlier this year, Mike Harrison won over Chad Nesbitt. Harrison resigned shortly after his election:

"The chairman of the Buncombe County Republican Party on Monday said he resigned from the post after personal attacks on his character and his wife’s character.

Mike Harrison said in a written statement that he left the job May 1. He had hoped his election to chairman in March would bring the party together, he said, but that did not happen." - link

Harrison supporter, Tim Peck, got into a very public conversation with Nesbitt supporter, Don Yelton. Peck and Yelton gave us a glimpse of the beginning of each group's encampment in what may be a long war of attrition:

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If you've been following the moldy trail of crumbs being dropped by the writers at the John Locke Foundation, you've noticed a recent upsurge in the rhetoric around free-market fundamentalism. One after another, the Puppets march forth, spewing their simplistic delusions about the nature of our civilization and how the world should work. Their hatred of public service knows no bounds.

Of particular interest to me is their oft-repeated mantra that it's wrong for government to force people do things they don't want to do. And of course, the biggest thing the free-market fundamentalists don't want to do is pay taxes.

This is true not only for taxation, but also for nearly all the methods used by government to get what it deems to be desirable. The Endangered Species Act is enforced by denying land owners the right to cut down trees, build homes, or sometimes even walk on their property, again denying their rights to the “enjoyment of the fruits of their labor” and “the pursuit of happiness.” The minimum wage law denies the right to be employed to people who cannot find someone willing to hire them for at least the mandated minimum wage, denying them the right to gain fruits from their labor. Clearly this list is a long one and gets longer with every legislative session and every meeting of every city council and every government regulatory body.