The Humble Libertarian original

So the contest I launched at the end of July was such a huge success that I'm doing a second one for this week only and giving you another chance to win free, inflation-proof silver! As this libertarian website edged close to 400 subscribers, I didn't want to simply pass it and end up at 405 subscribers- I wanted to blow way past it , and you helped me do it! With almost 80 new subscribers from the last contest, we're now in striking range of blowing past 500 if we can duplicate the results we got one month ago! If we can get there, it will truly make The Humble Libertarian one of the premier political blogs on the Internet and set us up for some great success promoting the libertarian ideas and activism that I have planned for the Fall. I'm also doing a second contest because multiple people contacted me right after the contest who were disappointed that they missed the deadline; and because The Silver Circle Movie project was so impressed with the results

'Does anyone really think that Mitt, Sara, Newt, Hillary, Barack or any of those old party types will actually shrink government's role in our lives if they lead the next government? I don't. They may rearrange the Legos, but the toy Tower of Pisa will still eventually topple over and our lives will need to be picked from the rubble. I am not suggesting Gary Johnson is the answer, time will tell. But I do know the question. Do "we the people" want actual change or just the continued decline into ever larger government controlled chaos?' W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

'The record support for Republican congressional candidates is a clear rebuke to the last nineteen months of radically consolidating Federal power, socializing multiple U.S. industries, and spending tax dollars at unprecedented levels (which means the deficit is even higher than it was when the last president was spending tax dollars at unprecedented levels). When Americans voted for change in 2008, they meant the curtailment of a runaway executive branch in Washington, not a drastic reordering of the entire country along the lines of centrally-planned, European-style welfare states. While the Democrats' miscalculation has very likely cost them the 2010 election, the Republicans will only hold on to and strengthen their majority if they heed the voice of the people, and set about the work of curtailing the size, role, and influence of Washington. An elephant may never forget, but any Republican gains for 2010 will be short-lived if they forget what cost their party the 2006 and

By Daryl Luna, Editor at: *In Defense of the Constitution* Can you be opposed to our current wars as well as the influence of the military-industrial complex and still be pro-troops and strong on national defense? Of course, you can! But you wouldn't know it, listening to many of the talking heads who claim to carry the mantel of conservatism but are really just neocons or neocon-influenced. Opposition to preventable, unconstitutional war is nothing new to libertarians and conservatives who made up the Old Right . In the past, adherence to a strict non-interventionist foreign policy was a distinguishing mark of the Old Right, and any self-respecting libertarian/conservative was quick to be weary of war and what Murray Rothbard labeled "the warfare state." Moreover, war was only to be fought according to a strict set of principles. Just War Theory conditions, constitutional parameters, and true defensive needs had to be met in order for those past champions of h

". . . what I find remarkable about this mosque controversy is how blatantly, narrowly political the opposition to this particular construction project has been. It has been an exercise in manipulating public anger and using it for the purpose of waging an ostensibly anti-Islamist political campaign by organizing against harmless Muslims and their organizations. "A distinctive American culture isn’t under threat from this mosque, the Cordoba Initiative or Imam Abdul Rauf. Rauf and those like him do represent a threat to lazy conservative anti-jihadism that treats every Muslim to 'the right' of Ayaan Hirsi Ali as a potential fifth columnist and would-be enforcer of creeping shari’a. "Likewise, Rauf must not say that American policies were accessories to the crime on 9/11, because it is still not really appropriate for any 'good American,' regardless of religion, to say that. Apparently, it doesn’t matter if the statement is true or even debatable. It isn’t

At Young Americans for Liberty 's 2010 National Convention, I went around asking student activists who has better hair: Rod Blagojevich or Mitt Romney? See their many amusing answers and retorts in the video I filmed and edited below: W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

If you want to read an extremely thorough demolition job of the nearly fanatical statist obsession with regulating human action, I cannot more highly recommend Glen Allport's detailed critique of coercive regulation and its deadly results. The article is entitled " Had Enough Government 'Regulation' Yet? " Anyone who thoroughly reads and understands his article and still believes Washington's regulatory regime is a good thing for Americans is either stubborn, stupid, or directly benefiting from it somehow. W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Click here to see 30 awesome examples of " dollar artwork ." From my personal favorite- the "Spartan Andrew Jackson" pictured above- to examples like "Tron Lincoln," these are far more creative and amusing ways to deface US currency than inflating it with printing presses like the Federal Reserve is doing. W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

I filmed and edited the following video for Young Americans for Liberty 's 2010 National Convention. It was a lot of fun and a major learning experience for everyone there. As student activist Craig Dixon says at the beginning of the video, this is about mobilizing our philosophy. Being right isn't enough. We need the best strategy, the best campaign, and more votes than the other guy. This summer our nation's top student liberty activists learned how to make these happen. W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

"In the dog days of August, with temperatures in D.C. rising above 100, Nancy Pelosi called the House back to Washington to enact legislation that could not wait until September. "Purpose: Vote $26 billion to prevent layoffs of state, municipal, and county employees whose own governments had decided they had to be let go if they were to meet their constitutional duty to balance their books. "Workers their own governments thought expendable, Congress decided were so essential, it borrowed another 26 thousand million dollars from China to keep them on state and local payrolls. "Consider, too, the states deepest in debt and facing the largest cuts in employee ranks, pay and benefits: California, Illinois, New York. "In these states, public employees earn at least $10,000 per year more in pay and benefits than the average America worker, who is bailing them out. "Hence, we have a situation where private sector workers in Middle America are being taxed, their

By Grant Davies: 'It's all very confusing, to me anyway. I mean, on the face of it, it seems that he and those of like mind are saying that "Health care is a right" for everyone, which of course includes the poor. But when you try to find quotes where he says that, you can only find him saying that "in a country as rich as this (USA) health care should be a basic right." For Americans at least. So I'm confused because that leaves out the people in countries which are not as rich as this one. Presumably, people in the poor countries of the world do not have such rights. (For a list of such countries just look for any which have little or no economic freedom) It seems those people are out of luck, and not just on that particular "right". Which leads to the logical conclusion that "rights" are a consequence of wealth. Or more correctly, of the wealth of those from whom you have the ability to confiscate it from in order to provide the

Over at the End the Fed Coin Project which sponsored two of the prizes for our most recent contest , they are offering a special deal for any THL reader who didn't win , but would like an End the Fed Coin : 5% off on your purchase if you enter "THL" into the coupon code section upon check out. ----> You can visit their store here . <---- If that's something you're interested in, hurry up and take advantage of it today, because I'm not sure how long the coupon code is good for! W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L PS: There were a lot of people who heard about the contest too late and were disappointed to miss the deadline AND I had another sponsor approach me saying that they'd also like to give away free silver to my readers! Let me know if you think all the contests are getting out-of-hand or feel like I'm spamming you, and I will definitely appreciate your feedback. But the way I see it, who minds getting the chance to w

'But break down unemployment figures by race, and the numbers tell a grim tale: for all the racial sanctimony and race-baiting by certain groups and media personalities, there seems to be hardly a peep over the sharp contrast between black unemployment rates and the rates for the rest of the country. While white males in the United States had a 9.5% unemployment rate for July, black males experienced a whopping 17.8% unemployment rate, nearly twice that of their white counterparts, according to the recent "Work in the Black Community" report from University of California, Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education . And recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that unemployment rates for black teens aged 16 - 19 was 40.6% for July.' Read my entire article at CAIVN . W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

The two sides arguing over the “Ground Zero” mosque could hardly be more hysterical if they were dreamt up by a comic book writer. Political figures like Sarah Palin and New Gingrich, who would seem to have 2012 aspirations, have weighed in with their invectives on the issue of whether New York City Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf can build (or renovate) a multiple-purpose community center that happens to have a mosque in it as well as a plaque offering condolences for the victims of September 11. But it's the intransigents on both sides in this argument who have made this a no-win situation. Just what exactly is to be gained by anybody regarding this mosque? Will terrorism go away if they can’t build this mosque? Will we be unable to mourn those who died a few blocks away on 9/11 if a Muslim prays nearby? And since two New York City blocks from Ground Zero is an affront to the families of 9/11 victims, would three blocks be sufficient to remove the insensitivity of this undertaking? Four?

Before New York Congressman Charles Rangel found himself under this recent firestorm of ethics charges, he was well known for periodically introducing bills calling for a military draft. As a symbolic gesture of course, with no chance of getting passed. The idea is that Americans, as a whole, would be less aggressive about fighting "bad guys" if it was their kids that were going to be doing the fighting. The reason I bring it up is because I keep hearing libertarians tell me that Rangel's is a good idea. That it's funny and clever. And I'll accept the latter premise, but it's not a "good idea". As libertarians, we're not Machiavellian in our desires, are we? We're not merely looking for the beneficial end game that freedom results in, even though we believe there is one. Freedom is the end game. We're not just fighting for drug legalization because we think it will make the world a better place. Freedom is the end game. And while you can

Watch this video that the organization, Bankrupting America , has created, detailing the incredulity of government waste in this country in a wonderfully funny and terrifying way. Now, since you're watching this here, these facts might not be surprising to you. You may have heard of many of these "stimulus" projects already. But, this stuff is mind-blowing to the average person. And media pieces like this are a great way to help make the blind aware of the problem. Kudos to the creators! By: Eric Olsen , Regular Columnist Articles | Author's Page | Website

"On Friday afternoon, the former eBay CEO and Republican candidate for governor said that she would defend Proposition 8 if elected governor. The 2008 ballot initiative amended California's constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage in the state, declaring that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Proposition 8 prompted a heated and expensive political battle, with over $80 million spent in total by supporters and opponents of the initiative, as well as a flurry of celebrity activism. But with 52% of the vote, Prop 8 met California's simple majority requirement for ballot initiatives and became law, facing an inevitable legal battle in the court system. While it prevailed in the California Supreme Court, Prop 8 was overturned earlier this month by a Federal District Court." Read the entire article at CAIVN . A libertarian alternative: Privatize Marriage . W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author

At Young Americans for Liberty 's National Convention, I had the privilege of meeting Jack Hunter and getting better-acquainted with a conservative / libertarian commentator I have admired for some time now. You can listen to an interview I conducted with him on my radio show earlier this year here . W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Hey readers- I just want to know how often you visit The Humble Libertarian on weekends. Do you visit it more, or less, or about the same as you do on weekdays? Would you be disappointed if we stopped publishing posts on weekends (with the exception of important breaking stories) and confined our posts to the five day work-week? It's something I'm considering doing because traffic on most websites is notoriously low on weekends (no exception here) and it might be worthwhile to save that time to create better content on the five days that more people are visiting the site. It might be worth trying for a month just to see the results. But if anyone has any objections, I'd love to hear it. It's not like traffic falls off the map on weekends, we just have fewer visitors, and perhaps the ones we do have are you regular readers, in which case I want to keep providing you with good news and commentary on weekends as well. Let me know what you think! W. E. Messamore , Editor i

In this video I answer the question: Instead of legalizing gay marriage, what if each state de-legalized straight marriage? Why after all, should the state define what many consider to be a private, religious question? You can read the full text of the video here . W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

This hilarious William Warren political cartoon from Liberty Features Syndicate takes the ever-present, false accusation of racism from the Democrats and advertises it as a 5 hour energy drink. Classic. "Democrat? Down in the polls? Need a boost? ... Hours of distraction now. Huge crash in November."

Here's a little video I made for Young Americans for Liberty . I started singing this song in the YAL office just for the sake of irony while doing work that promotes liberty, but it soon got stuck in everybody's heads. Then I started singing it in the voice of Eric Cartman from South Park and it was so epic that I had to make a video. Apologies to Matt Stone and Trey Parker. W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

"The argument over gay marriage, like many arguments in America, has been falsely presented as a single, binary issue: one is either for or against legalizing gay marriage. On one side of the dichotomy are the "social conservatives" who believe that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, and that the law should reflect that reality. On the other side are gay marriage proponents, who believe that two people of the same gender have every right to disagree with social conservatives about what marriage is, and that our nation's laws should include their definition of marriage as well. But one thing that pundits, activists, and politicians often fail to consider is that the legal debate over gay marriage is distinct from the philosophical debate. Whatever your view of the nature of marriage, it is not necessary to legally force that view on the rest of us. Instead of legalizing gay marriage, what if each state de -legalized straight marriage? Why af

Interesting observation : 'Nativism, and some aspects of the Americanization movement of the WWI period (especially the more coercive stuff) has always had the effect of making immigrants cling more tightly to their cultures, their languages, traditions. This is both basic psychology and is historically accurate and can be documented for many groups. Any attack on religion (which frankly, is what anti-Muslim talk is, it's not anti-ethnic, because there's no ethnic group called "Muslim") encourages more orthodoxy, not less, and is totally counter-preductive, because of the 1st Amendment. The American Catholic Church became the authoritarian institution that it was in the 19th and early 20th centuries in large part because of Anglo-American Protestants insisting that Protestantism and Americanism were synonymous and attacking Irish Catholics.' W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

'U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, is still battling charges of ethics violations and financial self-dealing. She is alleged to have used her power as a Congresswoman to personally benefit by orchestrating a meeting between U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and a bank in which she and her husband had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested. But Waters insists that there was nothing wrong, illegal, or unethical about her actions, and- like Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, who faces 13 corruption charges- Waters is fighting the allegations against her, instead of cutting a deal with House Republicans. ... Meanwhile, investigative journalist James O'Keefe- notorious for exposing malfeasance in ACORN leading to its defunding by Congress- has published a preview video to YouTube of his next upcoming piece. After showing multiple clips of past stories, the caption "...WHO WILL BE NEXT?" appears, followed by footage of Congresswom