Candidate enters ongoing O-A News 2nd Amendment dispute

(This Letter to the Editor was submitted to the Opelika-Auburn News on 17 June 2006 in response to a number of published letters by a local sociology instructor, Mark Konty. Be sure to read the Clark campaign gun rights platform plank.)

Dear Editor,

For some time on this editorial page, Mark Konty has attempted to persuade readers that the 2nd Amendment to our federal Constitution protects not an individual right to keep and bear arms, but rather some collective right. Anyone can easily deduce that the government needn't amend the constitution to maintain its own arms and thus that the 2nd Amendment is either a ridiculous redundancy or is a recognition of an individual right.

I don't suppose that Mr. Konty will admit this, so I would simply say that I am glad that our inalienable right to keep and bear arms is also enshrined in Section 26 of our state constitution, and, I might add, in a manner that is far less open to creative interpretations such as Mr. Konty's. Alabama's Constitution of 1901 clearly states "That every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state." I trust that Mr. Konty would concede that this bit of the legal canon is explicit in its statement of an individual rather than collective right.

It is important to note in light of the discussion of freedom versus prohibition that our right to arms isn't the result of a pragmatic analysis, although many argue for the practicality of widely available firearms. Each individual has a natural right to defend himself (or herself), and the right to arms proceeds directly from that.

Mr. Konty may be a very able sophist, but I doubt that he will convice many that an individual should be prohibited from engaging in self-defense, and yet that senseless position undergirds his whole argument. To paraphrase former US Chief Justice John Marshall and others, "the power to regulate is the power to destroy." Why then should we ever consider allowing our government to regulate our means of self-defense?

Dick Clark
Candidate, Alabama House of Representatives, District 79
Chairman, Libertarian Party of Alabama

How to lower healthcare costs

(This Letter to the Editor was submitted to the Opelika-Auburn News on 24 March 2006 in response to this editorial.)

Dear Editor,

In your 22 March 2006 edition, a staff editorial called for an "overhaul of national health care." While I agree with your staff's call for change, I must differ as to what kind of change is needed.

It is true that many Americans cannot afford the healthcare of the highest quality, but government intervention is a major cause of the problem, not a solution. The high cost of drugs is a consequence of ever-lengthening drug patent terms and the almost insurmountable cost of getting a new drug approved by the FDA. For a single drug, this can run anywhere from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars. This high level of regulation discourages new companies from engaging in just the sort of competitive innovation that could seriously lower drug costs in the long-term.

The "strong lobbying influence" wielded by the pharmaceutical industry is a direct result of the public policies that have made the government itself the industry's most important customer. If individuals were to pay for their own healthcare, there would be far less opportunity for companies to seek special favors from politicians and bureaucrats.

Finally, the government's guarantee of health care to all removes an important incentive for living a healthy lifestyle—the real monetary cost of poor health. No one wants those in poverty to be neglected medically, but a sense of entitlement to taxpayer-sponsored health services is sure to encourage overeating, smoking, and other unhealthy lifestyle choices among those least able to afford the consequences. The real solution to the healthcare crisis is liberty and personal responsibility, not government.

Dick Clark
Candidate, Alabama House of Representatives, District 79
www.CitizenClark.com

New Campaign website

For folks who are interested, check out my campaign website for my AL House of Representatives, District 79 race. You can find it at CitizenClark.com.

Letter to the Editor of the Opelika-Auburn News

(Published 13 January 2006 in the Opelika-Auburn News)

In the Sunday, 8 January 2006 OA News, AP writer Phillip Rawls informed your readers that the AL Republican Party is considering a reform of their party primary rules.

As a libertarian, I am happy to see the GOP consider the possibility of limiting outside influences on their internal party politics. This will provide principled conservatives with the opportunity to have greater influence within the Republican Party.

I would encourage these conservatives to follow the example of the Libertarian Party of Alabama. Because libertarians believe in small, low-tax government, those of us in this state decided long ago that we would not saddle the taxpayers of Alabama with the costs of our party activities. This is why the Libertarian Party selects candidates by privately-funded convention, rather than by taxpayer-funded primaries. If Republicans are really serious about being fiscal conservatives, perhaps they should take this step to demonstrate their convictions to the voters of our state.

Dick Clark
Candidate, Alabama House of Representatives,
District 79