Categories
Libertarian

We Must Live in Alignment with our Principles

We can’t change the folks doing business as the US government. We can’t stop the wars or the torture. We can’t end the Federal Reserve. We can’t legalize marijuana. Holding unregulated cops accountable for their abuses is outside our purview. Freeing non-violent prisoners is beyond our reach. There are a lot of wrongs we simply […]

Categories
Agorism

What Have You Done Today to Render Government Obsolete?

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. – R. Buckminster Fuller Instead of fighting government, we should simply render it obsolete, argues Dave Ridley in one of his best videos yet. For example, Dave’s journalism works toward making mainstream media […]

Categories
Libertarian

Would Wal-Mart be a Problem Without its Government Privileges?

Would Wal-Mart be so powerful, so destructive and so hated if not for the power granted it by governments? That’s the question that plagues me after watching Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005). Wal-Mart gets government subsidies, a government grant of limited liability and favorable tax cuts. So why does an otherwise fine […]

Categories
Libertarian

The Problem with Intellectual Property is – Surprise – Government Aggression

Intellectual property, and the resistance to it, is something I’ve tried to grok for awhile now. RiP! A Remix Manifesto is a solid step towards remedying my ignorance, but it falls short of explicitly noting exactly why intellectual property has become the scourge that it is: government (aggression). A Queen is a Government Official The […]

Categories
Libertarian

A Day in the Life of John Q Public – New Versions

I‘ve created two new and hopefully better versions of the John Q Public story. The short one fits nicely on both sides of a 5.5″ x 8.5″ piece of paper for public distribution. The longer one may be helpful as a menu from which you can pick and choose when designing your own version. If […]

Categories
Libertarian Opinion

A Day in the Life of John Q. Public

John gets up at 6 AM and fills his coffee pot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and pure because he bought a reverse osmosis filtration system to clean out the lead, iron, sediment, viagra and prozac that comes in from the local government water monopoly. His Daily Medication With […]

Categories
Libertarian

How to Improve my Statist Deconversion Tactics?

Can we take Mr Obama at his word? Are the right’s criticisms of his planned attack on the health care industry invalid just because they have no basis in current bills? Can we trust that today’s power grab won’t enable unexpected future abuses? That’s what a friend of mine implied when they posted a link […]

Categories
Libertarian

What is the Libertarian Problem?

I‘m talking about solutions, but have I defined the problem? How do you know if the solution works for you if you haven’t explicitly identified the problem it’s meant to solve? We’ve got to keep that horse in front of the cart. Short and Simple: Aggression Some people think the ends justify the means. They […]

Categories
Libertarian Misc

Are Minarchists Worse than Socialists?

Jay4Liberty recently posted a great question in the comments: “Which is worse…flat out socialists who want to increase the size, expense and tyranny of government or minarchists who want to shrink down as far as possible.” And my answer is the minarchists are worse. Counter-intuitive, perhaps, but here’s why. Government is Inherently Evil Government can […]

Categories
Libertarian Opinion

Liberty-Lovers Need Both Guns AND Honey

Dave Ridley – star of The Ridley Report and Free State Project early mover – makes a passionate plea for less concern with self-defense and more non-violent activism in the above video. Anti-government violence just strengthens the government, he says, so instead of preparing for violent conflict we should instead use media to seek more […]