This evening I rushed home from the make-up fireworks display in Cary, North Carolina’s Koka Booth Amphitheater to watch “The Libertarian Alternative” on Raleigh Television Network’s Channel 10. Raleigh Television Network (or RTN) is one of the community access offerings available to Time-Warner subscribers in Raleigh, North Carolina. “The Libertarian Alternative” is the show that I scheduled and injested to run on RTN for this quarter. As the name suggests, it’s about public policy and issues, except told from a uniquely libertarian perspective.

While I had seen this episode a number of times, I was curious to see how it played on air. It turns out that it’s third weekly airing on Saturday at 11:00pm puts it coming on after a black minister guy giving a sermon. If he only knew that the inaugural episode featured a Thomas Jefferson impersonator. Sorry, no mention of Sally Hemings was made in this episode.

During the entire show, I kept thinking that this Thomas Jefferson bore a certain resemblance to Mike Munger, Duke professor and candidate for Governor of North Carolina. You be the judge:

Maybe that’s a good indication that people should vote for Mike this year. Just be sure to keep him away from the slaves when he gets elected.

The end of the show had wrong contact information that I tried to remove at the studio to no luck as one second of it was still left. Oops. This gave the RTN staff ample opportunity to play a message emphasizing that it’s a community station, just anybody can become a producer, and you might see things you don’t agree with (like more freedom and less government, for example). This was a good transition to the show that followed, “David Young: A Musical Journey“. Amazingly, he can play two recorders at the same time. While I dissed this concept at first, his show may oddly enough be my new favorite show on RTN. Other than “The Libertarian Alternative”, that is.

It’s that time of the year again. Independence Day is one of my favorite days of the year, but for the past six years it has been more of a bittersweet experience. Ever since that first July 4th after 9/11, I just haven’t been able to really feel free. I often sarcastically say that we are still free to pay our taxes, still free to get a driver’s license, and when we want to say something, we are now free to go to a “free speech zone” to say what we want to say — so why am I complaining? Yeah, there’s been a marked reduction in freedom over the few years. A frog will allow itself to be boiled alive as the temperature in the pot is slowly raised. So goes our freedoms.

As typical also for this time of the year, I am also railing on about the perception that we have a choice — a choice of two polished, professional politicians to vote for every year. While this angst is typically geared toward getting political parties on the ballot, my focus is now encompassing the plight of the lone write-in candidate whose votes get thrown out if they can’t complete a petition drive before the election (as is the case in North Carolina).

But even getting past the politics, I’m finding more and more that I’m not free. Getting past the existence of the government in my life, I am a slave. I look at where I’m at situationally. Who got me there? For the most part I did. How do I deal with my situation? Not well usually. I’m angry, anxious, exhausted, fearful, nervous, and depressed most of my waking hours now-a-days. I could live in an anarchist paradise, with only myself calling the shots for my life, but I still wouldn’t be free because of what I’m feeling and how I’m dealing with it.

As I reflect upon the true meaning of freedom, independence, and liberty, I’m reminded of the title of a book by 1996 and 2000 Libertarian Party Presidential nominee Harry Browne. It’s called “How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World“. I’ve read excerpts. It sounds like something we all start reading immediately as we not only reflect, but as we begin to realize what being free truly is. Hey, it’s Independence Day — what are you doing just standing there? Watching fireworks?!

Having been an aspiring political strategist for a number of years, I’ve sure that I’ve heard the term “triangulation” before today being used in a political sense. Today, one of the talking head bimbos of 24-7 cable “news” used the term in reference to Obama’s move toward the center over the recent few days. Saying one thing in the primary and then changing to appeal to a more general audience is one of the most glaring examples of why I would rather vote for candidates from alternative political parties. At least you know where so-called “third party” candidates are coming from, which is something I wholeheartedly agree we need in American politics today.

Beyond that, though, as a Libertarian, it only backs up what I’ve been saying for years is the basis of the Libertarian Party’s hidden appeal and potential electoral strength. Libertarians don’t need to adopt positions of conservatives or liberals or move to the middle, since libertarianism is a consistent political philosophy that embraces what some would call fiscal conservatism or social liberalism. And what it amounts to — leaving individuals alone so they can live their lives the way they want — is much more easily marketable than the hodgepodge of arbitrarily deciding what part of your life you should want controlled by the political bureaucracy.

Six months after the Version 2.0 release of TheRealJohnnyCrawford.com and BSODmyself.com, both sites have been merged to bring about Version 3.0. This site is now officially “BSODmyself” while retaining and expanding upon the content of “The Real Johnny Crawford”. The Real Johnny Crawford has been a very successful project thusfar, garnering a lot of attention and resulting in many cathartic literary moments. Unfortunately BSODmyself never really took off as the activist training resource that I had hoped it would become. And since I’ve been feeling predominantly down and stressed lately, the merger/re-brand into a site with a suicidally-suggestive name was a natural decision. With my attention not being split, I should have a greater potential to create one really rocking website that gets even closer to the realism that I have always hoped to express.