Truth 
in politics. 
What a concept!

Why I’m Running For Congress 

By Kevin Barrett

Why am I running for Congress? 

Simple. I sat down and asked myself, “Do I really want to go into politics?”   

From deep down inside me, a voice that I recognized as my true self boomed out: NO WAY!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND?!! 

Then I noticed that it wasn’t my true self yelling in my ear. It was my wife. 

So I asked myself again.  

And I got the same answer. It really was myself this time. I realized that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was become a politician. 

That was what convinced me to run. 

You see, the only people who can be trusted with power are those who don’t want it. And guess what? I REALLY don’t want it. That makes me a pretty good candidate. 

Most politicians can’t run for office and tell the truth at the same time. A lot of them can barely chew gum and walk. I think it’s time for someone to run for federal office and tell the truth.  

The truth is that this country is barreling down the wrong road so fast it isn’t even funny. Did you hear about that guy who strapped a rocket engine under his 1967 Chevy Impala, took it out into the desert, and impacted 125 feet up a cliff at 300 mph? That story turned out to be an urban legend. But it pretty well describes what the Republicans and Democrats are doing to this country. The 1967 Chevy Impala is the USA. The rocket engine is turbo-charged military spending, which doubled after 9/11. And the cliff ahead of us is economic Armageddon. 

The Iraq war was supposed to cost a couple of dozen billion dollars. That estimate was a lie, just like everything else they told us. The real cost may top five thousand billion dollars! 

The giant sucking sound you hear is YOUR money being drained out of productive activities and sent to Iraq. The giant sucking sound you hear is WISCONSIN’s money being siphoned off into the high military spending states. The giant sucking sound you hear is a monster military mosquito the size of a B-52 with its proboscis rammed straight up YOUR jugular vein, draining the life blood out of you, your family, and your hardworking friends and neighbors. 

High military spending kills empires and ruins whole societies—check out realeconomy.com for the details. 

We are facing a real possibility of economic collapse. Why? Because the legalized counterfeiting operation known as the Federal Reserve, which is neither federal nor has any reserves, is printing more money than it can count to pay for the war in Iraq and all our other useless military adventures, overseas bases, research on fancy new high-tech ways to kill people, gold-plated toilet seats, and other boondoggles. 

The “war on terror” is really a war on our economy. And it is a complete scam—the biggest hoax ever foisted on a shocked and gullible public. Even if you accept the official story of 9/11, that means that in fifty years of terrorism, we have lost two days worth of cigarette fatalities, four days worth of deaths caused by medical treatment, or 29 days worth of highway deaths. You are more likely to drown in your bathtub, or be struck by lightning, than to be killed by terrorists. More people die of peanut allergies than terrorist attacks. The whole media-hyped story that you need to be afraid of terrorism is a sick joke. 

Along with their war on the economy, they’re waging a war on freedom—a treasonous war against the Constitution of the United States of America. My opponent, Ron Kind, voted for the unconstitutional Patriot Act 2, which is even worse than the original. The Patriot Acts help the feds keep tabs of the books you borrow from the library. It allows them to “sneak and peek,” a fancy term for breaking and entering, to get into your house when you aren’t home—a clear violation of the Bill of Rights protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.  

But the Patriot Act is the least of it. We’ve lost Habeus Corpus—the most basic freedom of all, the one that came in with the Magna Carta. Bush claims the right to kidnap and torture anyone, anywhere, any time, including American citizens, in complete secrecy, without having to explain it to anybody, without having to offer any reasons or justifications for the kidnapping and torture. American citizen Jose Padilla was secretly kidnapped and tortured until he became a human vegetable, without any charges being filed or any formal explanation being given. (After he was a vegetable, they convicted him in a kangaroo court.) For all we know, Bush has done the same thing to other American citizens without ever telling us. And the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, including Ron Kind, have gone along with it. This makes them complicit in high treason against the Constitution of the United States of America. 

I could go on like this—and I do. Check out my issues web page.  But for now, let’s ask what can be done. 

It isn’t that complicated. First, we need to face the truth: We’re in bad shape. Then we need to unite—left and right, black and white, male and female, young and old—behind a simple truth: The United States of America is supposed to be a Republic, not an Empire. It’s time to end the Empire and restore the Republic. 

Bring all the troops home—from everywhere. Close all foreign military bases. Return to a “defend the borders” posture, while negotiating worldwide military spending cutbacks.  

Know how much it will cost to defend our borders? Less than one one-hundredth of what we’re spending now to police the world. All of that money, pumped back into the productive sector of the economy, will allow us to rebuild the powerful economic machine that made it possible to have such a bloated military in the first place. But this time, we’ll use that economic machine to provide a decent standard of living for ordinary folks—not to go all over the world killing people. 

 The military and its National Security State do not make us more secure. They make us less secure. By attacking people and governments all over the world, they create enemies. We are blessed to have two oceans and two non-threatening countries on our borders. If we don’t make enemies all over the world, there will be no incentive for anyone to attack us. The concept is simple: It’s called minding your own business. 

Frankly, I would rather be minding my own business than running for Congress. But as the old Chinese proverb has it, we are cursed to live in interesting times.  

I’m sure you’d rather be minding your own business, too. But if you can take a few moments or spare a few bucks to help save this country, I’d really appreciate it.
 

–Kevin Barrett, Libertarian Candidate for Congress, Wisconsin’s 3rd District