Boobs, Panties, and Courage: How honest elections could change Alabama

A woman's voice for freedom in the birthplace of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller.

As Americans deal with the issue of honest elections, feeling for good reason, that an honest election may well be an impossibility today, the citizens of Alabama are confronting the most interesting and provocative choice that has faced them for a good long time.

It is happening in the race for governor of the Camellia State.

The Civil Rights Movement started in Alabama, where Rosa Parks made her stand. So conflict over the issues of individual rights hold place in the minds of its people. A generation ago the issue was the vote for Black Americans. Today the issue is still elections and the individual rights that either die from the steady encroachment of government or are sustained and renewed through the action of courageous individuals.

As with Rosa Parks, Loretta Nall got a wake up call on the nature of government and took action. Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, Loretta Nall defied the powers and then had the audacity to refuse to back down. After writing a letter on the issue of drug legalization Nall's house was raided. Nall, refusing to be intimidated, came outside to photograph the black helicopter hovering overhead. Standing trial before a judge she was convicted of simple possession of a tiny amount of pot and paraphernalia; she has appealed, the only way she could have a trial by jury. She and her supporters expect that she will be exonerated.

But that did not end her physical confrontations with despotism in Alabama. While visiting her brother at the State Correctional Facility both she and her mother were forced to have their underclothing checked by the Commissar the Panties Believe it or not, Alabama has determined that not wearing panties under your pants is cause to deny visiting privileges to the mothers and sisters of those they incarcerate. Loretta came away determined that bureaucrats would learn that they are hired hands, working for the people. After that, the twin issues of the panties she does not wear and the plenitude with which God endowed her, became campaign issues and fundraising opportunities to this plucky activist. As America's original revolutionaries learned, you use what you have to do the job.


Loretta Nall is not your typical gubernatorial candidate in any way. Along with being well endowed she is articulate, focused, dedicated, and honest. George W. Bush is not what the Founders had in mind when they created the office of President of the United States. Loretta Nall,is the mother of two; her husband stays home and she works to support them. Her formal education ended with a GED; she married when she was 16. She is a long time activist for individual rights. She is as different from the power elite now infesting government, especially Washington D. C., as is possible and nothing about her is as different from the D. C. Elite as her values.

She describes herself as 'dirt poor.' Certainly she is far from wealthy; she did not come from a family that could routinely buy of judges and viewed the public coffers as her own personal piggy bank. She has never owned a football team.

Loretta has always worked for a living, something George W. Bush doesn't really understand. His core constituency is Mega Corporations; Nall's is, well, Alabamans. The economy of Alabama lags behind that of most of states. Alabama's people are, according to Ms. Nall, characterized by their wish that government, particularly the Feds who inflicted Reconstruction on them and theirs, should jump in a hold and pull the top in after them. Running as a Libertarian, Ms. Nall sees her fellow Alabamans are people who really want to do the right thing – when government does not make that impossible. The values of most Alabamans, good Christians, are very different than the values asserted through their government.

In a recent interview Loretta Nall commented, 'If what Jesus wanted was for us to live our beliefs, and if you live by what He did and said, you have to stop using government to push people around. Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that our rights are there before government. Therefore how can government tell us what to do in every part, or any part, of our lives, as long as we do the right thing towards others?” A novel idea. Ms. Nall, an atheist herself, firmly believes that the original message of Jesus, to use only persuasion to get your way; offer loving support to everyone, remains true today.

Nall's activism has been in the area of drug legalization and she has been all across the country speaking out on the right of the people to use marijuana as a medicinal aid – and to smoke it if they choose.

Americans have more questions about government every day.

Americans all over the country are beginning to question both the two party system that has delivered them choosing the lesser of evils and to a government that has converted them from individuals possessing there inherent rights enunciated by Jefferson to 'economic units' dependent on the will of an all powerful government.

If the electoral system in Alabama is as honest as it should be, and the people speak, then the people may well choose a very different exemplar of American values to lead them. Loretta could be Governor of Alabama. Loretta understands the problems that the people of Alabama face today as no other candidate could.

Such an election would be revolutionary. But for the people to make their will known the vote must be honest. All Americans are now asking themselves, in the face of the many assaults on the electoral system, if an honest election is even possible. But while the people of Alabama admire courage the political establishment there is grouped among those who want to win at any price.

Until the 1970s all you had to do to become a political party in Alabama was to call the Secretary of State's office and ask to have the name of your party placed on the ballot. That remains true today. In Alabama you can still have a party but you can't run candidates; they are happy to list your selection. But unless you fulfill the ballot access requirements that have become increasingly onerous since the first time someone but a Republican of Democrat actually won you must petition for every candidate for every election.

Alabama's political establishment is like that. This is the state that also shaved a few numbers off Pi to make it come out even.

Asked to comment on ballot access for the gubernatorial race in Alabama Richard Winger, the most prominent expert on the subject said, “Alabama is the worst state in the country for all state wide races for third party candidates.”

Alabama changes the rules every time a different political party looks like it is again going to crack into the Good 'Ol Boys Club. The changes are rammed through the legislature with no debate and with no consideration of 'fairness' or the access guaranteed by the Constitution. Since the 70s the percentage of signatures to place a new party on the ballot has risen from 1% to 3% of the voting population with the time requirement shortening until it is nearly impossible. This is a foot ball game played in Alabama with the goal post for the opposition to be located in California.

Ms. Nall and her supporters are determined, however. Her campaign headquarters receive more calls than can be returned from Alabamans registered in the major parties who hope they will have the opportunity to vote for her instead. Alabamans, like all Americans, are searching for honesty and for the hope of freedom in a world gone mad.

Now we are awaiting word that Alabama has dispensed with voting machines and, in an attempt to save money, will instead call the White House to find out what outcome they would like to see declared.

Ms. Nall will be a guest on the Spiritual Politician this Friday, May 5th, at 4pm PDT at BBSRadio.com to talk about her race and the state of freedom in America today.