In episode 13 of The Art of Liberty Podcast, John and I proffer some advice to a young libertarian who posted on the libertarian subreddit. Google agorism, look into direct action. Explore dual power. We also talked about Egypt, Edward Snowden and all our other usual fun stuff. Give it a listen. This is a spirited, joyous conversation. John and I both had fun with it.
What if we could take the liberty focus that New Hampshire enjoys, like a searchlight on a rotating base, and focus it on another location? What if we could, this month, place that focus on Vermont? Next month, Delaware. The month after that, Cleveland. Early next year, we might take it to Los Angeles, New York and eventually places like Egypt, Turkey and Syria. The only limits are our imagination, our attitudes and our wallets. Here is a plan for doing just that.
In this sixth episode of the new video blog, I explain why, for several reasons, the self-ownership principle is utter foolishness and makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, it fails the test for logical soundness on two counts. I put together a pretty detailed argument here, complete with solid references so if you assign a lot of importance to the self-ownership principle, this is going to shake you up!
In episode 12 of The Art of Liberty Podcast, John and I talk about whether or not libertarians use an excessive amount of self-centered language and talking points to sell the ideas of libertarianism. John is responding to a video I made a couple weeks agoarguing that instead of telling people that taxation is wrong because it’s MY money, we should instead take the tack that we are better stewards of our resources than the government is. An exciting conversation that gets tense at times. Give it a listen.
My friend Carlos Miller asked a great question on Facebook last week. Are libertarians OK with moving prisons to private, non-governmental control? Won’t that lead to greater abuse? Or perhaps the same abuse but with less control? Watch the video to hear my answer to this difficult question.
Do you hate libertarian infighting? Are you tired of the minarchist-anarchist clone wars? Well, me too. But it’s unreasonable to claim that infighting is pointless. In fact, it’s practically a strawman to say that. Infighting, otherwise known as discussion and debate, is an absolutely essential activity for us who deal in ideas and innovative activism. Don’t stress out over infighting. Join the conversation instead!
Libertarianism is about self-determination and decentralization. It’s not a different vision of control. It’s not about guns and marijuana.
You may be the kind of republican or democrat who is happy about NSA domestic spying, or perhaps you just don’t know why you should care. You may think that this enables greater security for you and your family. In the short-term, there is a very small chance of this being true. But the bigger picture for you who are not anarchists is that NSA spying enables the intelligence community to subvert democratic government (if you believe in that). Just like J. Edgar Hoover manipulated lawmakers and harassed heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr., so might the J. Edgar Hoovers of today be doing the same thing. That’s not just my opinion. That’s what former top members of the intelligence community have said. Watch this short video to see what I’m talking about.
In our 11th episode of The Art of Liberty podcast, John and I talk about peaceful parenting and Walter Block, an austrian economist and an-cap who argues that kids are not protected by the non-aggression principle and that parents are justified in using aggression against them. John and I obviously did not let this insanity pass unnoticed.
Is our movement really at a crossroads? Must we choose between violence in the streets or a life of couch-bound apathy? Are we doing as much as we can to be effective or are there aspects of our activism and our behavior that we can improve on to achieve greater happiness, prosperity and effectiveness?