New FreedomPolitics.com: Democratic Party and Liberal POV Lacking

Chris Prevatt and I received an invitation to the party for the new FreedomPolitics.com website being launched by Freedom Communications, the people who published the Orange County Register.  After reviewing the site, I have to wonder if the invitation wasn’t misdirected somehow.

This isn’t to say there are times when the Register’s editorial writers don’t agree with us. They were against the war in Iraq, against Prop 8, and against the rise of the Imperial presidency and expansion of presidential power under George W. Bush.  But it’s always the lesser of two evils argument.  I don’t see FreedeomPolitics ever carrying a leftist POV a la Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Max Blumenthal, John Amato, Thom Hartman (who’s work should on on this site) or Glen Greenwald.  And if it does, it will be because the content of said piece wouldn’t be a traditional lefty column.  We’ve repeatedly asked the Register’s editorial page for a lefty columnist citing the changing demographics in OC only to be told there’s not enough space for one such columnist even though Mark Steyn gets to prattle every week. But with the Web, there are no space restrictions but still no lefty columnist (nothing showed up in the search function).

Please spend a little time on the site here. And you’ll find its a conservative-leaning Libertarian site that carries a lot of the same right wing nut-job columnists that the Register runs each and every week.  Not one liberal, Democratic or Left wing voice to be found except by a few brave souls in the comments section.  Because I guess Liberals and Democrats and Lefties in general must hate freedom, right?  How’s that Milton Friedman free market economy working for you right wingers these days?  I am weary of this notion that Democrats are somehow against the concept of freedom because it doesn’t sync up with a Libertarian point of view or the point of view of R.C. Hoiles.

Liberals love freedom of speech, yet we were unpatriotic for speaking out against the War and the conservative doctrine pushed by the Bush Administration.

Liberals love the rule of law; we look to the Constitution as a living document where the same laws apply to everyone and not as some “Goddamn piece of paper.”

Liberals love a well-regulated market that has a system of checks and balances where everyone has the same chance to compete.

Liberals believe freedom should be expanded, not restricted.

Liberals believe taxes are for the common good and that funding education and social programs is as important as funding a national defense.  Conservative legislators spend tax dollars too.  Liberals have different priorities.

FreedomPolitics.com is a site seems to pine for the day that Republicans will find their way again. And by that, a push to limited government, lower taxes and limited government intrusion — something that NO Republican has ever managed to do while in elected office.  Reagan didn’t do it.  Nixon didn’t do it.  Neither of the Bushes did it. 

I used the “search function” on this site to try to find Jon Lansner’s excellent column about how America seems to create more jobs when a Democrat is the president.  It ran in Sunday’s Business section.  And Jon even had a disclaimer of sorts to keep the rabid right wingers at bay.  No results.  No column.  Job creation is at the heart of the economy and it was a column that showed Democratic history in a positive light.  But you’ll have to go to the regular Register website to find it. But it was a column favorable to Democrats.  Can’t have that now, can we?

The site is a way for Freedom Communications to leverage its considerable editorial content in one location that can be cross-marketed to their multiple cities.  Its actually a smart thing for newspaper publishers to do.  The problem is the Libertarian Party represents a teeny tiny percentage of the electorate.  Democrats still dominate but we don’t have a majority of the voters in place.  Republicans are in a massive decline and will be playing defense again in the 2010 midterms.  The fastest growing party affiliation is Decline to State.  So when you target content to a small base, this is more of a principle play than one likely to generate profit.

While we wish FreedomPolitics.com well, we wish they’d recognize that that the term “freedom” is non-partisan.