Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
Give Me Cognitive Liberty
by Salim Muwakkil from In These Times
"Established in early 2000 as a 'nonprofit law, policy and public education center,' the CCLE [Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics] was formed to advance the argument that true intellectual freedom includes control of one's own awareness. The group defines cognitive liberty as 'the right of each individual to think independently and autonomously, to use the full spectrum of his or her mind, and to engage in multiple modes of thought'."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2382/
A Call to Action to Protect Free Speech
by Carolyn Dean from NewsWithViews.com
"Fed up with being denied our constitutional right to obtain truthful and not misleading information about how dietary supplements can benefit our health, a rapidly-growing group of customers, manufacturers, doctors, lawyers and others have banded together to form The Coalition to Stop FDA and FTC Censorship. They have also drafted a bill called, “The Health Freedom Protection Act” to correct this disgraceful situation."
http://www.newswithviews.com/Dean/carolyn19.htm
Freedom Riders
by Jacob Sullum from Reason
"The key to resisting motorcycle helmet laws was convincing legislators they would pay at the polls for trying to force helmets onto adults. The laws' opponents did so in ways both dramatic and mundane. They rode into state capitals, thousands at a time, to protest existing laws or forestall new ones. They packed legislative hearing rooms. They met with legislators, wrote letters, and got involved in party politics. They campaigned for politicians who supported the right to ride without a helmet and against politicians who didn't."
http://www.reason.com/0511/fe.js.freedom.shtml
Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on the cause of Liberty.
The Ultimate Parent?
by Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Two issues deserve attention: (1) Judge Stephen Reinhardt's claim that parents' freedom regarding education is limited to choosing the schools to which they send their children; and (2) the doctrine of parens patriae, under which the judge ruled that the school district has the legitimate authority to look after not only the education, but also the mental health, of children."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0511e.asp
New York's Subway Search Program Earns a Failing Grade
by Charles V. Peña from Antiwar.com
"I know the NYPD takes its job of protecting the citizens of New York seriously, so one has to wonder why their container search program would have such a gaping loophole. The answer lies in the fact that, apparently, this and other details of the program were designed by a lawyer in the department's legal bureau, not their counterterrorism division."
http://antiwar.com/pena/?articleid=7953
Surveillance Society
by Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute
"The national security letter, however, is only one of the many provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that broaden government surveillance powers while having little demonstrable effect on preventing terrorism. At the same time, these provisions erode, by diminishing judicial or congressional oversight, the checks and balances of the Constitution. "
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1614
Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.
An Uncivilized Argument for Anarchy
by Per Bylund from Strike The Root
"[W]hoever came up with the idea of presenting a blueprint for anarchy? The very idea of a free society is that there can be no blueprint! That is what free means; you cannot make society into something of your preference. A free society is voluntary, spontaneous and will be whatever it will be depending on the billions of choices made by individuals acting to the best of their knowledge and in their interest. There is no way to predict in detail what a free society would be like at a certain point in time. It will be dynamic and ever-changing; it is never the same."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/bylund/bylund5.html
These Cages Are Only For Beasts
by Stefan Molyneux from LewRockwell.com
"In short, either the majority of human beings can cooperate for mutual advantage, or they can't. If they can, then the stateless society will work -- especially since millions of minds far better than mine will be searching for the best solutions. If they can't, then no society will ever work, and we are doomed to slavery and savagery by nature."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux3.html
French riots: talking sense to right wing friends
by Brad Spangler from BradSpangler.com
"People respond to incentives. I do not think that government should provide positive incentives -- the way statist liberals do. The implementation of such attempts is inevitably twisted to benefit the elite at the expense of the common man. I’m just pointing out that the French government has been providing some powerful negative incentives to those folks for a long time."
http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/174
Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
When Leviathan Is a Republican
by Jacob Sullum from Reason
"This [federalism] is not the sort of distinction Democrats, traditionally fans of a powerful federal government, usually worry about. But perhaps they should start. After all, Republicans have been running Congress for a decade and the executive branch for half that long, and they are not shy about using Leviathan for their own ends. A minority party should recognize the advantages of federalism, which lets New York and Utah go their separate ways on contentious matters such as abortion instead of subjecting them both to decisions made in D.C"
http://www.reason.com/sullum/110905.shtml
Seceding seldom succeeds, but Vermonters try
by Josh Burek from The Christian Science Monitor
"Politics, like fall foliage, turns faster in Vermont. The state was out front opposing slavery and first to approve civil unions. And if the activists who met here last month succeed, the state will set another precedent: first to secede since 1861."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1108/p01s04-uspo.html
The Defense of Marriage
by L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise
"This position didn't come easily or automatically to me. I was a child of the 50s. I never really met any homosexuals (nobody called them 'gay' back then) until I was a grown man in the Libertarian Party. What I noticed then was that not one of them burned any less fiercely to be free than I did. Most importantly, they didn't need my permission to live, or to love, or to do whatever they wished about it."
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle344-20051106-05.html
The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
Power Über Alles
by Paul Craig Roberts from LewRockwell.com
"The Bush administration is in violation of the US Constitution, the rule of law, the Geneva Convention, the Nuremberg Standard, and basic humanity. It is a gang of criminals. The Republican Party is so terrified of losing power that it supports a tyrannical administration that has brought shame not just to the Republican name but to all Americans."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts131.html
Cheney's 'Dark Arts'
by Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice
"With the 90 Senate votes forbidding abuses, including torture, of American prisoners in mind, Cheney is determined to kill McCain's attempt to force the president to adhere to international treaties against torture the U.S. has signed--and our own anti-torture statute."
http://villagevoice.com/news/0546,hentoff,69992,6.html
The Police State Has Come
by James Leroy Wilson from The Partial Observer
"[W]e are not Germans, so Nazism would look different here. Our history, culture, and institutions are not Italian. Or Spanish. Or Chilean. So what we recognize as fascism over there wouldn't quite look like it over here. The communist revolution came in the wake of a decrepit monarchy, so it can't be imposed here the same way. But the abuse and terror of the Police State can happen here."
http://www.partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=1671
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
How to argue like a conservative
by Vox Day from WorldNetDaily.com
"[A]fter observing how conservatives argue in the blogosphere, both among themselves and with liberals, I have decided that some of them might find a few suggestions to be helpful in honing their debating skills. I hope they will be received in the humble manner in which they are respectfully offered."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47261
Who's Your Daddy?
by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Don't let anyone ever tell you that President Bush isn't a brilliant politician, one who has mastered the psychological intricacies of the welfare-warfare state that conservatives and liberals have imported to our nation. "
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0511b.asp
The Trouble With Liberal Democrats
by Kurt Nimmo from LewRockwell.com
"Democrats and liberals seem incapable of understanding it does not matter if a Democrat or Republican is in office -- there will be invasions, mass murder, corporate thievery, neolib foreign and economic policy, encroachments on the Constitution and liberty, and an ever-growing police state and police state outrages (the Democrat Clinton, after all, oversaw the incineration of babies at Waco). Moreover, as history demonstrates, more Democrats have started wars than Republicans."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/nimmo1.html
Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.
Why is Economics So Boring?
by Donald Cox from Library of Economics and Liberty
"Two economists, Stan Sigma and Ollie Omega are overheard talking in the faculty lounge. Stan: Ollie, you know the worst part about being an economist? You meet someone at a cocktail party, you tell them you teach economics... Ollie: ...and they say 'Oh, yeah, I took that in college. I hated it. It was sooo boring!' "
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2005/Coxequation.html
German Gloom, Chinese Boom
by Sascha Matuszak from Antiwar.com
"Contrast German gloom with Shanghai's reckless abandon: a city where 25-year-old Chinese girls work for Citibank training the national workforce, and 20-something Americans brief Boeing execs on the China market and fill orders for 25 miles of plastic fittings. Deejays, chefs, and dancers from all over the planet are moving to Shanghai to find their fortune. And when they're all done working, they take to the streets and revel in each other: multinational orgies under the skyscrapers of possibly the most dynamic city in the world."
http://antiwar.com/matuszak/?articleid=7990
Inherit the Windfall
by Shikha Dalmia from Reason
"The price of oil has gone up because of growing demand from emerging economies like India and China and disruptions in supply due to natural disasters in North America and political instability in Latin America and Iraq. If we could collude to raise oil prices whenever we pleased, why didn't we do so last year when prices at the pump dropped to nearly a dollar a gallon? Moreover, why would the inflation-adjusted price of gas still be no higher than what it was a decade ago?"
http://www.reason.com/hod/sd110905.shtml
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.
Bush's Fowl Play
by Jeffrey Tucker from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Now, should this mass-death come about, our future would be rife with many uncertainties. But one thing we can know for sure: any attempt by government to manage the crisis will add calamity to disaster. It will be 9-11 plus New Orleans plus a few other amazing failures all rolled into one. And the worst part of government failure will present itself: rather than make a mess of its own responsibilities, the government acts to prevent people from doing what they should be doing to deal with the crisis. 'Stop in the name of the law' isn't just a slogan from cop shows; it is the sum total of everything the government does."
http://www.mises.org/story/1960
Bush Doing Corporate Bidding While on the Clock
by Evelyn J. Pringle from dissidentvoice.org
"By now, the records of the House Ethics Committee confirm that the Bush administration and its puppets in Congress do little more than provide a trolley for private gain. I for one am getting tired of watching these lobbyists doing their bidding while on the clock, in addition to taxpayers having to foot the bill for all-expense-paid trips to foreign countries. While pursuing these trade agreements, Bush is doing the bidding for Pharma, his party's top campaign contributor."
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Pringle1106.htm
Globalization Rocks, but African Leaders Fail to Understand It
by Franklin Cudjoe from The Independent Institute
"It is widely reported that an African child dies of hunger and malnutrition every three seconds while in the same period African leaders steal $14,000 from their people and put it in foreign bank accounts. In the words of Milovan Djilas, they squander the nation's wealth as though it was someone else's and dip into it as if it were their own. Isn't it strange that exactly two weeks after the G8 deal that wrote off 80 percent of my country's debt, all our parliamentarians, who earn $300 per month, are to receive $25,000 each in free car loans and $60 a day in rent allowance? I call it free car loans because five years ago they each received $20,000 but have yet to pay it back."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1613
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.
The Philosopher's Stone
by Chris Floyd from CounterPunch
"The moral rigor of his defiance has sent tremors through the British military establishment, already shaken by the strange, unexplained shooting deaths of two military inspectors investigating atrocity allegations in Iraq, the Guardian reports. British brass are panicky about the Goldsmith revelations; indeed, the leader of the UK invasion force, Admiral Michael Boyce, said he now believes the British military does not have 'the legal cover necessary to avoid prosecution for war crimes,' the Observer reports. Boyce added that if he and his officers are eventually put on trial for waging aggressive war, he'll make sure that Blair and Goldsmith are in the dock beside them."
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd11092005.html
The 'War on Terror' Scam
by David MacGregor from Strike The Root
"I repeat: the war on terror IS the war on freedom. But it's worse than that. Governments are not only incapable of protecting us from terrorists, they are the very CAUSE of terrorism in the first place. Just think of all the historical examples of terrorism. In every case it was some group, fighting some government. Sure, they target civilians, but their real enemy is some government. And why is this? Because they claim to have been wronged by some some government. They have a grievance against some government. They want to secede from some government."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/macgregor/macgregor7.html
Second-Term Blues and the War
by Alan Bock from Antiwar.com
"The Iraq war is therefore at the root of many of Bush's other problems and his point of greatest vulnerability. Most Americans now think it shouldn't have been started and an increasing number are convinced it was begun under false pretenses. Those who seek to prevent an unlikely comeback by Bush the Lesser would be well advised to remember this and keep hammering away at their criticisms, demanding a withdrawal of U.S. troops at the earliest possible date. It will help to keep the administration back on its heels."
http://antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=8005
Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.
Four Thousand Years of Price Control
by Thomas DiLorenzo from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"With the wave of a hand, or the flash of a legislative pen, they promise to make everything cheaper. And for more than four thousand years the results have been exactly the same: shortages, sometimes of catastrophic consequence; deterioration of product quality; the proliferation of black markets on which prices are actually higher and bribery is rampant; destruction of a nation's productive capacity in the industries where prices are controlled; gross distortions of markets; the creation of oppressive and tyrannical price control bureaucracies; and a dangerous concentration of political power in the hands of the price controllers."
http://www.mises.org/story/1962
ancient Chinese secret
by B.K. Marcus from lowercase liberty
"In 'Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire,' Rothbard wrote: 'The first libertarian intellectual was Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism. Little is known about his life, but apparently he was a personal acquaintance of Confucius in the late sixth century B.C. and like the latter came from the state of Sung and was descended from the lower aristocracy of the Yin dynasty. Unlike the notable apologist for the rule of philosopher-bureaucrats, however, Lao-tzu developed a radical libertarian creed'."
http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/2005/11/ancient-chinese-secret.html
Follow-Up: Goo-Goo Historical Mythology
by Kevin Carson from Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
"Corporate liberals are like a farmer who's smart enough to figure out that he'll get more work out of his animals in the long run if he takes good care of them; Banana Republicans, on the other hand, figure they'll come out ahead by working the animals to death and then replacing them. If I had to choose between systems of class exploitation, I guess I'd prefer to be smothered with paternalism in the Brave New World of social democracy than to get a jackboot in my face in the Orwellian world the neoliberals have planned for us." There are many links and viewpoints at them in this blog discussion, but especially so is Tolstoy's parable to which the quote above refers.
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/11/follow-up-goo-goo-historical-mythology.html
War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.
A name that lives in infamy
by Mike Marqusee from The Guardian
"Iraqi NGOs and medical workers estimate between 4,000 and 6,000 dead, mostly civilians - a proportionately higher death rate than in Coventry and London during the blitz. The collective punishment inflicted on Falluja - with logistical and political support from Britain - was largely masked by the US and British media, which relied on reporters embedded with US troops."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1638829,00.html
Their Terrorism, and Ours -- Napalm is back in style
by Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com
"The War Party is going bonkers, these days -- maybe it's the indictment of Scooter Libby. Or the way the war itself is going – badly. In any case, the war's proponents seem to be in a downward spiral of what can only be described as utter craziness. Why else would this administration -- or, at least, the office of the vice president -- be openly pushing to exempt the CIA from U.S. laws against torture?"
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7993
On Rumsfeld's Watch
by Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice
"Early in the program, Frontline illuminates the repellent complicity of the 'small circle of lawyers who surrounded the president' and 'together would create a legal theory that would permit the United States to act unilaterally in defining the 'rules of war'--and justifying the unprecedented powers to be given to George W. Bush--including the authorization of torture."
http://villagevoice.com/news/0545,hentoff,69754,6.html
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.
Feminist -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton : Nov. 12, 1815
from About.com
"When Elizabeth Cady married abolitionist Henry Brewster Stanton in 1840, she'd already observed enough about the legal relationships between men and women to insist that the word obey be dropped from the ceremony."
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blstanton.htm
Sculptor -- Auguste Rodin : Nov. 12, 1840
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"[H]e is often given a pivotal role in the history of modern sculpture, as both excelling at and rebelling from the Beaux-arts tradition. His unique, virtuoso ability to organize a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface set him apart from the figure sculpture traditions before and since his time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin
Actor -- Claude Rains : Nov. 10, 1889
from Meredy.com
"He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor four times for his roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Casablanca, Mr. Skeffington, and Notorious, but amazingly never won. In 1946 Rains became the first film actor to receive a million dollars for his role as Julius Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra."
http://www.meredy.com/clauderains/cr-bio.html
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.
Being There (1979)
Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism
Political & social satire stars Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas, directed by Hal Ashby. "Being There is political satire. Like Dr Strangelove and The Mouse That Roared it targets the American government. However, there is no bomb in it, and none of the major characters have anything other than benign or peaceful intentions. The situations, political and otherwise, propel events and make this film both funny and insightful. In many ways it is a very anti-political movie.”
http://endervidualism.com/agora/being_there_1979.htm
A Somewhat Belated Review of the Movie "Election"
by Jonathan David Morris from The Free Liberal
"Election
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001625.html
"Serenity" Makes Quick Voyage to DVD
from Zap2it.com
"The film reunites the stars of 'Firefly' -- including Nate Fillion, Gina Torres, Adam Baldwin, Sean Maher and Alan Tudyk -- in another adventure that combines outer space fantasy with Western action. Although writer-director Whedon was able to complete his first feature with a relatively modest budget (somewhere in the $40 million range), the box office for 'Serenity' fell short of what most observers thought would be required to greenlight a theatrical sequel." Soon to be on DVD in time for Christmas, do your part to encourage a sequel by pre-ordering Serenity
http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---27209,00.html
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.
President's Remarks To Adoring Latino-Ricans Marking The End Of His Super-Successful Five-Day Visit
from whitehouse.org
"THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, thank you. Gracias whatever. It's a real pleasure to be here on the airport tarmac of whatever backwater Hispanostan I'm in today, and I want to thank its poor, needy people for being powerless to prevent me from coming."
http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2005/110705.asp
Lewis Black
from LA City Beat
The 'Daily Show' regular on bringing the news and why this government is horrifying and funny. "Lewis Black isn't angry. He just can't believe this shit. Nothing makes sense. He is a man in black, standing alone on stage 250 nights a year, totally at a loss about the society swirling around him, shaking his head and looking up at nothing in particular, seeking guidance. (It doesn't come.) "
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2852&IssueNum=127
U.S. Dollar Slips Against Canadian Acorn
from The Onion
"The acorn, a symbol of Canadian lumber futures, is a stable commodity rich in calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and niacin. Patient investors who bury their holdings generally see their investments increased tenfold in the form of great oaks that live for hundreds of years and provide a rich return in acorns. In comparison to the acorn, the dollar is volatile, its value dependent on such relative intangibles as the unpredictable U.S. stock market. According to Aucker, irresponsible domestic trading has hurt the dollar's image in the foreign exchange market."
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42363
Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles
Disproving the State -- Four arguments against government
by Stefan Molyneux from LewRockwell.com
"[P]eople generally make two errors when confronted with the idea of dissolving the State. The first is believing that the State is necessary because evil people exist. The second is the belief that, in the absence of a State, any social institutions which arise will inevitably take the place of the State."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux4.html
It's All In Her Head
by Roderick Long from Austro-Athenian Empire
"I'm not making the silly charge that Dr. Reiss and the other scientists who produced this study are evil sexists deliberately plotting to perpetuate women's subjection. What I am saying is that the conceptual tools we use to analyse the societies in which we live are also the products of those societies and will often share their shortcomings."
http://praxeology.net/unblog11-05.htm#06
Some Bad News Could Be Good News
by Anthony de Jasay from Library of Economics and Liberty
"[I]t is never possible altogether to outlaw and smother the adjustment process by which an economy pushed off balance by shocks and extra-economic constraints, seeks to right itself. If cowardly politics shuts down one corrective mechanism, another will start up. The result will not always be as smooth or efficient as if the first, most obvious mechanism had been allowed to work, but adjustment will still take place, albeit in roundabout and costlier ways."
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2005/Jasaybadnews.html
Miscellany
Articles not easily classified
Am I My Brothel's Keeper?
Kerry Howley interviews Tracy Quan from Reason
"I think outlaws are more trustworthy people. They're forced to think about what they think is right and wrong. You are forced to think about the ethics of your behavior in terms of loyalty. It's a very tribal mentality: us against the world. In the respectable world, it's about what you can get away with legally. There are a lot more loopholes in the respectable world. People will tell themselves: 'It's OK because it's legal.' An outlaw doesn't have that option."
http://www.reason.com/links/links110705.shtml
There is No "Joe Sixpack"
by L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise
"The simple fact of the matter is that there is no Joe Sixpack--or, rather, that everybody is somebody else's Joe Sixpack. You may think that what the other fellow likes to do with his life, his time, his energy, and his money is trivial, unworthy, even disgusting. And he may think the same of what you do. Every one of us is interested in very different things, dedicated personally to all kinds of different pursuits. And that's exactly how it should be, and what it's all about."
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle344-20051106-02.html
Familiar anti-capitalist sound bytes
by Vin Suprynowicz from Las Vegas Review-Journal
"You see, Mr. Hilliard, the kind of people who want to run our lives don't see an armed populace as a good thing. An unarmed populace is necessary for the completion of their 'war machine.' Why do you think they sneer and ridicule anyone who tries to remind us why the founders said an armed populace was 'necessary to the security of a free state'?"
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Nov-06-Sun-2005/opinion/3921441.html