The Humble Libertarian original

I was organizing some files on my computer today and stumbled across some questions I had to answer for an application for an Institute for Humane Studies summer seminar last year. I took a glance at my answers and was struck by the quality of some of them. Sure, after a year more of school, there's several things I'd say a little differently now, but I loved the raw feel of this, so I thought I'd share: The question: Choose a political or social issue that is of importance to you and that you believe is of pressing concern. (This issue may be, but need not necessarily be, related to the topic of the seminar you wish to attend.) In 500 words or less, discuss why this issue is significant to those it affects and to the larger community or the world. What is the best way, in your view, to address this issue? My answer: One of the most important social issues today is that we can’t stop this silly talk about issues. This is rooted in a deeply impoverished view of human beings...

Earlier this week, Humble Libertarian reader Ray, who works in the DC office of the public relations firm Edelman , alerted me to the firm's yearly study of public opinion, particularly how much trust individuals have in corporations, the government, media, NGOs, and even their peers. The results of the study were announced Wednesday . I highly recommend you visit the link and hear how public opinion has changed and been shaped by recent events. It has a series of embedded YouTube videos of the firm's CEO, Richard Edelman, announcing the results. The cool thing about it is that they are all relatively short and break up the talk into its smallest meaningful pieces with helpful, descriptive headings so that you can actually skim through video. I was just talking to Humble Libertarian contributor Ben Bryan yesterday, who told me how he seldom watches videos on the Internet because they're impossible to skim like text to quickly gain important information and determine...

It's sad that the solution is so obvious that ignorance of it is laughable... and yet so many are still so ignorant, or worse, they know better and get into debt anyways. If only our politicians used this kind of common sense: Look familiar? If not, it's because you didn't watch this (it's in there). BTW, even though it's totally unrelated, if that mention of Natalie Portman at the very end of the skit made you go, "Awe man, I'd love to see that," here it is (and it's really, really funny): See? Told you it's really funny. Too bad Natalie Portman's political views aren't so great (but you're awesome, Natalie! I heart you!): Wow. Got a little stream-of-consciousness there. What am I trying to say? Be smart. Live within your means. Don't buy stuff you cannot afford. Natalie Portman rocks. Her political views, not so much. And call the Senate if you have not already done so to let them know not to vote for one of the w...

After coming to a vote late Wednesday, the $819 billion spending bill cleared the House in a vote of 244-188. Eleven Democrats opposed the bill. Zero Republicans supported it. I keep seeing varying figures for the legislation's price tab, so I'm not sure which one is exact- just remember that over the next decade the total cost of the bill will exceed $1 trillion. The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 promises to make "supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization." This website makes it easier to read through and navigate, and provides commentary from a liberty-minded perspective. The ultimate problem with this "stimulus" package is that it doesn't stimulate anything. It is not as if this money comes from some magical place and infuses our economy with new cash. It comes from our economy...

This is an incredibly eye-opening documentary about America's runaway government spending and enormous deficits . It's especially timely and relevant as President Obama proposes to raise spending by $1 trillion over the already unprecedented spending of the Bush Administration. Its graphs and charts are also brilliant in their ability to help you really see and visualize what all the numbers mean. You should definitely make yourself a cup of tea and watch this right now. Here's their description: By now, you may have heard about our acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A., a film that boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. The film has been a huge hit, getting rave reviews from Roger Ebert and others. Now, we proudly release a 30-minute condensed version of I.O.U.S.A. designed specifically for watching and sharing on the web - for free. So if you haven't had a chance to see the movie yet, watch the con...

Source Material (edits are mine and Copyright of the Humble Libertarian 2009) Today we have this headline: Obama presses for tougher controls on US car emissions Barack Obama made his opening move in the greening of America's economy yesterday, using his presidential authority to press for tougher emissions controls on cars and promising global leadership on climate change. In signing a pair of executive orders, Obama delivered his strongest repudiation to date of the policies of George Bush, inviting environmentalists to the White House to announce that America would play a global leadership role on climate change. Less than a week after an inauguration unprecedented in size, cost, and pollution levels, Obama has shown some audacity for sure. This is another example of America's systemic failure to live up to the wise adage of the venerable Mahatma Gandhi- to be the change that we want to see in the world. Instead we force the change that we want to see in the world on ever...

Clinton speaking at a rally in support of Barack Obama; October 2008. ( source ) Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution addresses compensation and says the following: No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office. In other words, if a Senator or Representative was serving in Congress at a time when the salary of a civil office was increased, they cannot be appointed to that civil office during the time for which they were elected, because it would create a conflict of interests. That Senator or Representative would be benefiting directly, personally, and financially from legislation that passed through their house and became policy. Because the Pr...

United States Constitution ( source ) Wednesday night, President Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts had a do-over of the flubbed Oath of Office in an otherwise smooth Inauguration the day before. Their reasoning for administering the Oath of Office a second time was that the Constitution specifically prescribes the words to be used, and they wanted to be sure to do everything by the book. Oh great! So we can expect this level of careful attention to the Constitution and rule of law for the rest of Obama's administration, right? Wrong. Barack Obama has already demonstrated abundantly that he doesn't give a flip about the Constitution or rule of law. He demonstrated it when he voted for the Troubled Asset Recovery Program, a huge spending bill that originated in the Senate even though the Constitution requires spending bills to originate in the House; then again when he promised to illegally and unconstitutionally extend the funds authorized in that bill to non-fi...

Okay, before we move on to more serious business here on the Humble Libertarian, we just have to take a moment out for a caption contest. These photos from yesterday's inauguration ceremony are too good to pass up: First we have former Vice President Dick Cheney looking like a comic book villain: My caption? "And I'd have gotten away with it too... if it weren't for those meddling kids!" Then we have White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel making faces and wiggling his fingers in front of his face in a moment of levity (the text is my edit): Ooh... and here's another good caption: "Time to put away childish things." Please submit more captions for these two pictures in the comment thread. And this is a really cool satellite photo of the massive crowds at the inauguration. It really gives you a sense of the scale. And here is a hilarious headline that you bet CNN took down fast! Tomorrow... in contrast to yesterday's post ,...

Photo by Pete Souza Watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama today, I was struck by what an amazing country America is. Here we have one group of people with all the power, and they willingly and peacefully hand that power over to another at the decision of the electorate. A stable democratic system in the context of a liberal society (by which I mean a free society) can certainly be a blessing. It's unfortunate then, to note on this day of triumph for American electoral democracy, that we have used it to elect for ourselves a leader who is likely to wield more power than any who preceded him, and to do so in favor of an ever-expanding, more intrusive government. President Obama ran a campaign on the theme of hope, using the slogan "Yes we can!" At a time when Americans desperately needed words of hope and optimism, Obama convinced America that he was the candidate of hope. We were duped. Listen again to the words of his campaign- it was a cynical campai...

Photo from WhiteHouse.gov With just a day left before he leaves office, here is a review of the major actions and results of George W. Bush's presidency, a post-mortem- if you will- on the Bush Administration. As the title of this article discloses, the review is quite unfavorable. Twice, the so-called conservative wing of the Republican Party was instrumental in electing Bush to office on promises of limited government and reform. It was the con of the century. Bush's presidency has looked nothing like his campaign promises. If we assign to the words "conservative" and "liberal" their conventional (and confused) meanings in modern American usage, with "conservative" meaning "someone who supports more limited government" and "liberal" meaning "someone who supports more active government," then Bush is by far the least conservative and most liberal president we have had in decades, or possibly even our entire h...

With President George W. Bush on the way out, it's time for us to exercise one of my favorite freedoms as an American, the freedom to make fun of our own leaders, even our President. From the beginning, Bush wasn't known for his sparkling oratory skills. Here's a list of hilarious Bush gaffes and quotes: Here's a video clip of President Bush saying, among other things, the following quotes: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 "Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean, you're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." -Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004 "I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draf...

Source : Photo of a Bank of America branch in Lowell, MA. They've done it. Bank of America has been nationalized. It's government owned now: Two weeks after closing its purchase of Merrill Lynch at the urging of U.S. regulators, the government cemented a deal at midnight Thursday to supply Bank of America with a fresh $20 billion capital injection and absorb as much as $98.2 billion in losses on toxic assets, according to people involved in the transaction. .... The second lifeline brings the government's total stake in Bank of America to $45 billion and makes it the bank's largest shareholder, with a stake of about 6 percent. .... In exchange for the new support, Bank of America will give the government an additional $4 billion stake in preferred stock. It has also agreed to cut its quarterly dividend to a penny, from 32 cents, and accept more stringent restrictions on executive pay. When will the madness stop? It said nothing in the article about Congress. Is the...

A few days before George W. Bush leaves office it is maddening to consider what things could have been like if he had only stuck to his original campaign promises and pursued a humble foreign policy of no nation building and no wars. It leaves me frustrated to no end to watch this series of clips from a 2000 debate with Al Gore: As with his statements back in November defending capitalism and the free market while he poo-pooed all over both, if the man had just governed according to the words coming out of his mouth, America would have been a lot better off.

Tim Geithner (left) meets Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus - Source A big headline yesterday was that Tim Geithner, Barack Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary didn't pay his taxes from 2001 to 2004. Whoops! There are plenty of people in Congress however, standing up in Geithner's defense, saying things like: "I believe that these errors, although serious, do not rise to the level of disqualification. He is an extremely competent man. The errors were, in my judgment, honest mistakes. He did not in any way intentionally make those mistakes." -Finance Committee Chairman Max "Voted-for-the-Bailout" Baucus, D-Montana Senator Baucus, I certainly hope that this was an honest error and that our new Treasury Secretary is not a crooked, dishonest man who would do something so petty as cheating on his taxes while serving a powerful international banking organization. But if that is in fact the case, then it necessarily calls into question his competence. ...

Photo by the USMC Okay. Seriously? I promise to get back into doing posts that affirm and defend a proper theory of government and liberty rather than just complaining about the effects of a false theory of government (or just as likely, a complete lack of deeper thinking at all), but I just could not believe my eyes when I read this today. Popular on Digg.com this morning was an article which said of college football: It is also the only major sport that doesn’t use a playoff to determine its champion, which is the source of much debate pretty much every year. And for the last couple years, we’ve had lawmakers trying to influence the process, saying that the NCAA should have a playoff for college football. Seriously(!)? I continued to read through the article and found a link to another on ESPN.com (from barely a month ago on December 10th) and was horrified at what I read: Taking aim at a BCS system he said "consistently misfires," a member of Congress planned to intr...

Photo from WhiteHouse.gov Barack Obama has asked President Bush to submit a request to Congress for the second half of the $700 billion TARP fund so that it will be available to him shortly after his inauguration. Obama promises changes in how the funds will be used, missing the point entirely that it's the very use of the funds in the first place that is egregious and off-putting to the American people, who overwhelmingly opposed the bailout's passage. Even more alarming however, is how the president-elect says he plans to spend the money: Separately, Larry Summers, Obama's choice for National Economic Council director, said the new president intends to broaden the goals of the remaining bailout package... Obama intends to use the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help community banks, small businesses, consumers and homeowners as well as large financial institutions . Excuse me, but that's illegal ! It is clearly and plainly contrary to the legislation. As I noted...

Photo from RepublicDomain It is a common belief among Libertarians- especially proponents of Austrian economics- that a monetary system should be based on the gold-standard to protect it against inflationary measures taken by an expansive government. I happen to be among their number as a strong advocate for returning America to the gold standard and abolishing the Federal Reserve system. Yet it is important to remember that this claim and the claim that you should personally invest in gold with your individual savings are entirely different claims. While I'm not telling you not to invest in gold (in fact, I'm not going to give you any kind of investment advice, just information that you might find helpful), I do just want you to be aware that your support for a national monetary system based on gold does not necessarily require you to also believe gold is a sound personal investment (but you might end up believing that anyways for other reasons, which will depend on your ...

It's old news now that gun sales have been through the roof since Barack Obama's election to America's highest office in November. "Buyers and sellers attribute the surge to worries that Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress will move to restrict firearm ownership, despite the insistence of campaign aides that the president-elect supports gun rights and considers the issue a low priority." Then the shocking headline made its rounds earlier this week that Congress could pass legislation allowing Barack Obama's Attorney General- Eric Holder- to "ban guns at will." Let's certainly hope that this does not come to pass (I have my doubts- the backlash would be too great), but if it does, here are some great alternatives for your self-defense: Amazon.com Widgets 1. The Knife Smith & Wesson SW3B Special Ops M-9 Bayonet Special Force Knife, Black Don't worry. Handguns aren't the only thing your pals Smith & Wesson manufacture. Y...