Seriously, that’s all Libertarians could do in Texas 107?

(MARCH 2011 UPDATE: The bigoted atheist videos have been removed from Facebook.)

(CORRECTION: The site mentioned at bottom is in fact about Brandon’s wife’s current campaign for the State Board of Education. Her Dallas Morning News profile is much better than Brandon’s but omits her affiliation with anti-religious bigots. She’s in the video linked below.)

Texas House District 107 has the typical Republican and Democrat candidates. It also has an oddball Libertarian, Brandon Parsons.

Brandon Parsons's atheist and anti-religious clubs on FacebookI am scratching my head that the Texas Libertarian Party fielded this guy.

First problem: he’s an avowed atheist. That doesn’t work in Texas. Worse, most his Facebook “likes” suggest anti-religious bigotry. His “likes” are at right (assembled from his Facebook profile). Let me explain some code words:

  • Free-thinkersfreethought, and skeptics refer to bigoted people or belief systems. Not only do they deny the possibility of God’s existence, they think believers are delusional (fast forward to 3:14 in this video of Brandon’s “pastor”–yes, some kind of atheist “church”!).
  • Center for Inquiry is a freethought group that tries to debunk religion.
  • Camp Quest is where atheists get their kids indoctrinated with secularist dogma and anti-religion.
  • Reason, at least in the context of Brandon’s Facebook “likes”, generally means toned down, professorial anti-religious bigotry.

Now look at Brandon’s flippant, ignorant, or wordy responses to the Dallas Morning News’s candidate profiles for 107: http://www.thevoterguide.org/v/dallas/race-detail.do?id=192188559

Come on, man! You didn’t answer many questions!

The ones he bothered to answer stroll past the subject. For example, on the rainy day fund, he gave this 41 word humdinger of a sentence:

I think it may be reasonable in some of the worst economic times to use a portion of the funds if they can be exceeded with long-term proposals to reduce expenses by a larger amount to avoid returning to these circumstances.

Or how about this meander through the death penalty, brought to you with a 40 word sentence:

Given recent history of releases due to wrongful convictions, the sensible action in the short-term would be a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and a thorough review of any present death-penalty inmates at minimum before re-instating it.

Huh. Bold proposal. (snicker)

This isn’t communicating. These are sleep aids!

But wait, there’s less! He’s even ideologically inconsistent with his own party.

Libertarians are very anti-government. They believe in dismantling the vast majority of today’s government.

An example: the Libertarian position on schooling is basically “separation of education and state,” that public schools shouldn’t even exist. Tell me, how much of that position is in his treatises on measuring achievement and dropouts?

No, I think the measurement system the state is using impacts that which they are measuring far too greatly to be of much use–far too much class time is devoted specifically to the existing measurement scheme. I understand the desire to measure performance, but if a measurement scheme impacts what you are measuring by more than 5%–maybe a little more if it can be demonstrated that the benefits far outweigh the costs–then it isn’t worth it. Furthermore, one has to consider what incentives are being created, and ensure that the incentives create the desired behavior. Measuring teacher and school performance isn’t an easy task, I admit, so it’s one that requires careful consideration before implementing. I think the best approach here is to take a timeout and research new or existing alternatives.

We should face the realization that a large portion of even the students who graduate do not go to college, and take steps to ensure that our education system is relevant to those students as well.

(Zzzz….)

(Zzzz…)

(snort) wha… what? Oh, I fell asleep. What did you say?

Let me summarize with two points:

First, don’t waste your vote on Brandon Parsons. He’s an atheist and possibly an anti-religious bigot, he can’t communicate as one should expect of a politician, he apparently doesn’t take voter education seriously, and he’s ideologically inconsistent with his own party. Voting for Brandon is not “making a statement”, it’s just squandering your vote. If you want to make a statement, participate in the Republican or Democrat primaries in spring 2012!

Second, the Libertarian Party doesn’t field quality candidates. The Libertarian Party is a dumping ground for disaffected um….well, I don’t know what Brandon is! But it’s apparently not where you go to find electable candidates!

Disagree? Check out his campaign site at http://www.parsonstx.com/. Oops, sorry, he hasn’t taken down his prior campaign site yet.

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