While what is printed below was written by Dave Brady, chair of the McHenry County Libertarian Party, it has content.

I want you to think of the last time the local power parties presented anything on their web sites advancing much more than slogans. (Corrections from partisans welcomed. I have not studied either power party site.)

If you are one who thinks issues matter in politics, the re-emergence of a local Libertarian Party might prove interesting.

The following is from the party’s blog (as usual, I have inserted a lot more paragraphs than in the original to make it easirer to read):

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Part 1 of 2: United States – Highest Incarceration Rate

Two studies have come out recently:

1. “The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate and total documented prison population in the world.” &

1. “The United States has the most restrictive and unequal ballot access laws in the world.” Though funny enough most people barely give notice.

The answer is easy for the first one. Justice has been turned into a baseball game.

The higher my conviction ratio the better chance I have to get promoted or elected / re-elected.

It’s the batting average that counts, not justice.

So what’s it take to get the judicial batting up, making sure non-violent offenders are convicted and jailed as well as pushing things to trial that shouldn’t even be there such as iffy or false evidence?

Jailed?

Yes jailed!

They can keep the batting average high by pleading out all the time but then they will be called cowards to court rooms or soft so yes we MUST put in jail that shows “I’m” a serious prosecutor.

McHenry County knows this game well.

Whatever it takes to get promoted or elected / re-elected is what we’ll do.

Is justice really what’s on the mind as they work at 2200 North Seminary Avenue?

As you pass the jail ask yourself this:

How many people are in there to increase someone’s judicial batting average? (Btw, multiply that by every county in the US).

Dave Brady
Chair
McHenry County Libertarian Party

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I would note how impressed I was when former McHenry County State’s Attorney Tom Baker gave his first talk about taking office. He told the McHenry County Republican Women’s Club that his goal was not convictions, but justice. He was defeated by Gary Pack, a state’s attorney whom I’d bet kept score.

Current State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi is surely more in Baker’s than Pack’s tradition. I have never heard Bianchi brag about conviction rates. One of the reasons he engenders such opposition in the Republican primary and now in the general is because he refused to cut the kind of plea agreements his predecessor Pack did.