The Humble Libertarian original

"A Swedish man was forced to have his penis amputated after waiting more than a year to learn he had cancer." Yeah- long lines matter. Think government can keep things flowing smoothly and efficiently? Really? The rest of the article reports : "After three weeks passed without the prescribed treatment alleviating the man’s condition, he was instructed to seek further treatment at Blekinge Hospital. But it took five months before he was able to schedule an appointment at the hospital. When he finally met with doctors at the hospital, the man was informed he had cancer and his penis would have to be removed." When I posted this link with the title of this post as a caption on my Facebook page, a very pro-Obama friend of mine commented: "I'm glad that nothing like this could ever happen in the United States (oh whoops: http://www.parkerscheer.com/lawyer-attorney-1615566.html)." To which I replied: "The United States? You mean where gove...

 "During one of those pat downs, the TSA goon even looked IN MY PANTS and UNDER MY SHIRT! My crime (that time)? The metal detector beeped when I walked through." In this truly outraging email, Humble Libertarian reader, Karen follows up her horrible experience in the quote above with a story of TSA vandalism that makes me livid: Dear Wes, I used to love to travel. Until recently. You know the rant - the TSA! I was patted down on two separate trips even before this recent craziness. During one of those pat downs, the TSA goon even looked IN MY PANTS and UNDER MY SHIRT! My crime (that time)? The metal detector beeped when I walked through. I had NO metal on me - I was sure of it. A very thorough wanding (front, back, sides, and up between my legs) confirmed that I had no metal on me. Still, I was taken into the back room for the pat down. Naturally, nothing turned up. Today I discovered another, lesser, cost of the TSA pat downs. I was actually breathing a sigh ...

A colleague of mine, John Logan Jones, whom I first met at the Young Americans for Liberty National Convention in Washington DC this summer, has started a new blog entitled Crushing Bastards and you should check it out . He says on his about page: 'Today, the world is run by bastards. Most people in a position of power are there for their own benefit, or the benefit of powerful special interests. The bastards are in control and nobody is coming to save the Good People of Earth from their oppression. It is up to those of us who see this problem to do something about it... To be clear, this blog’s purpose is not to encourage the ACTUAL, physical crushing of any bastards. Rather, it is to serve as a source of information to provide readers some of the information they may need to accomplish proverbial “crushing.” Exposing lies and hypocrisy is one VERY effective way to to crush bastards. This site exists as a way to empower the Good People of Earth to do something about these ...

The late Harry Browne wrote a pretty good list of New Year's resolutions for libertarians to present themselves and their message to the world in an attractive and humble way. I like the one about not raising your voice in a discussion about politics. There's never any need for that. If you start raising your voice, you're getting too emotional and need to subtly change the subject. Read the list of resolutions here . Hat tip:  Lee Wrights 2012 Filed by: W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

In his most recent video "National Security?" Jack Hunter "The Southern Avenger," opines that the term "national security" has been bandied about so much that like the equally overused term "racism," it is losing its meaning altogether. Filed by: Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Before I submit the following C. S. Lewis quote (which is remarkably relevant to the issue of Islamic terrorism the world faces today), let me remind you that Lewis lived in a world far more terrifying than the one we inhabit today. The United States suffered a horrifying attack ten years ago and a few intermittent attacks in the following years, such as the Ft. Hood shooting, but consider for a moment, how widespread the devastation of World War II's air raids were on Europe's major cities. The atomic bomb introduced another horror to the mind of mid-twentieth century man, and in his essay "On Living in an Atomic Age (1948)," C. S. Lewis wrote the following sage admonition: "If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things -- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts -- not huddled ...

"On the web are blog posts and columns that attempt to link Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks organization to Israel, or to the Rothschilds, or to the CIA. WikiLeaks, these pieces insist, is a psy-op designed to somehow help bring about the New World Order, to bolster the power elite at the expense of the rest of us, to undermine (or enhance, depending on who you read) American power or Israeli influence." The rest of this article defends WikiLeaks against the absurd notion that it's an "inside job" even though the author believes 9-11 was an inside job... so all the smears against WikiLeaks are too far out even for a Truther. (And PS: I happen to like this Truther despite our disagreements on 9-11 and have featured his other works here before. In our e-mail correspondence on the matter I have never discussed 9-11 truth with someone so civil and reasonable in his disagreement with me over it.) Check out Glen Allport's piece here .

This post could be entitled, “So many bad decisions, so little time,” but let’s have some fun and turn it into a contest. Which bone-headed decision by a local government best exemplifies mindless bureaucracy, politically correct nonsense, and government waste? Contestant Number One is an officer of the Baltimore County Natural Resources Police , who fined two men $90 each for the vicious, horrible, nasty crime of … (please don’t faint) … rescuing a deer. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. Two hardened criminals used an inflatable raft to free a helpless animal, but they flouted the law by not wearing life jackets. Since I already did a blog post about a man being fined for rescuing a wounded deer , I guess the moral of the story is that bureaucrats don’t like Bambi. Contestant Number Two is ... Read the rest of Dan Mitchell's essay at Cato-At-Liberty.org Daniel J. Mitchell is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute Filed by Grant Davies , Regular Columnist, T H L Artic...

"Looking back on 2010, we'll all remember what a strange year it was. But while replete with iPads, vuvuzelas, Lady Gaga outfits, earthquakes, treacherous winter storms, Old Spice commercials, Taylor Swift, and YouTube videos of that 2-year-old Indonesian baby chain smoking, the single most significant event of 2010 might very well be the mobilization of the Tea Party protests into an electoral machine." Find out which Republican Senators the Tea Party is targeting for intense primary challenges in 2012 by reading the rest of my article at CAIVN . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Perhaps the biggest media story of 2010 was the influence of Tea Party voters on the congressional landscape. The new congress comes to Capitol Hill with a mandate to end profligate spending and restore fiscal sanity, we are told. But when the House and Senate convene in January, the newly elected members will face tremendous pressure to maintain spending levels for entitlement programs. Even the most modest proposals to trim Social Security or Medicare spending will be met with howls of indignation and threats of voter revolt. Legislators who propose any kind of means testing or increased retirement ages can expect angry visits from senior citizen lobbyists ready to fund a candidate back home who supports the status quo. But millions of Americans now realize that the status quo is an illusion that will not last even another 10 or 20 years. The federal government cannot continue to spend a trillion dollars more than it collects in revenue each year, because we are...

Our friends at Silver Underground have the story and the video here ! Ross Kenyon , Assistant Editor, T H L Articles | Author's Page

In some big news out of Bahgdad, " Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ruled out the presence of any U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of 2011 , saying his new government and the country's security forces were capable of confronting any remaining threats to Iraq's security, sovereignty and unity." He further clarified that the last troops will leave by the appointed time at the end of 2011, and that, "This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed." So much for making good on that investment in the huge palace like US embassy recently built in Iraq. It had been previously speculated that Obama realistically pulling out by 2012 was rather unlikely, that Iraq was to be a US positioning point for it's interventionist foreign policy. Now, the agreement will have to go through, or Obama will face some serious conflict from Prime Minister al-Maliki and the Iraqi Parliament, " Mr. Maliki said the only way for any of ...

I made this yesterday just for fun. The fascinating thing about Julian Assange is that all the people are on all the wrong sides. "Conservatives" think he's some kind of miscreant when he's exposed how Washington has recklessly put our troops in danger, how it uses our tax money to bully other countries into accepting strict global carbon regulations, and that all their worst fears about Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State are actually true. Meanwhile "progressives" think he's a saint, but his information discredits their blind faith in the best intentions of our government. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Who let the Logs out!? Wikileaks drops 400,000 classified documents shedding new light on the Iraq war—the biggest leak of classified military documents in history—sending shockwaves across the Fourth Estate. Rap News marks the occasion by inviting into the studio the former US Secretary of Offense, Donald Rumsfeld. But what starts out as a conventional Rap News interview soon descends into mayhem as the live feed is hijacked by News World Order, eager to spin the record like a disc jockey on crack. Enter Bill O'Really, the champion of Fair & Balanced journalism, dragging us screaming into the No Spine Zone. Only divine intervention can save us now, from a fate worse than death. But beware of imitators; not all is what it seems to be! Join us for a rollercoaster episode of Rap News, featuring a very very special guest appearance. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Here's some more in depth commentary I wrote for CAIVN on Pat Robertson's recent statements regarding the decriminalization of marijuana use. Apparently, Christian Broadcasting Network is trying to do some damage control and say that Robertson only advocated less strict sentencing, not full-blown decriminalization. That may or may not be his actual position, but in my most recent CAIVN column , I show that Robertson's recent statements were clearly and explicitly in favor of decriminalization. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

"... Austrians therefore argue for privatizing money production, shutting down central banks, and letting the market decide what kind of money people want to use. Government wouldn't have to play any active role in the workings of a free-market monetary system. One may hold the view that precious metals — in particular gold and silver, and to some extent copper — would be the freely chosen, universally accepted means of exchange. In other words, they could become money once people have a free choice in monetary matters. However, Austrian economists wouldn't call for establishing a gold standard, let alone a gold standard with (government-sponsored) central banking: they would argue for free-market money, under which, presumably, gold would become the freely chosen money" Read the rest of this article by Thorsten Polleit at mises.org . Eric Sharp , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles Author's Page

Reports ( M ) The New York Times : "Pat Robertson, the televangelist who once ran for president, said on his show 'The 700 Club' that he thought marijuana should be legalized." Pat Robertson's exact words on the issue of decriminalizing marijuana were: "I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kind of thing, it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That’s not a good thing." You can watch the full video of Pat Robertson explaining his surprising new stance on marijuana legalization below: Though of course CBN News is backpedaling with the following statement: "Dr. Robertson did not call for the decriminalization of marijuana. He was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws...

I recently viewed Tron Legacy and was enamored with the message of freedom, individualism and anti-statism. We can see this clearly through character analysis. C.L.U.: the Statist and molder of systems and individuals FLYNN SR.: the libertarian individualist (and Taoist) !::POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT::! (though I am covering the basic plot, heads up all the same) Let's expound on this. When Kevin Flynn created C.L.U., they both wanted to create the perfect system and vowed to do so together. However, when the ISOs came this all changed. The ISOs were spontaneously and inexplicably generated digital individuals . They are not programs like the other people in the movie. Quorra and Zuse are both ISOs. Kevin Flynn realized that he could not create perfection around these dynamic individuals that needed to grow and make their own decisions. C.L.U. on the otherhand saw their individuality as a imperfection in the system he was molding. So he staged a coup, and systematical...

More fun for area commuters: Last Thursday, DC Metro officials announced that "anti-terrorism teams" will immediately begin conducting random bag searches. Metro released plans for a similar scheme in October 2008, but never implemented it. That month, in an online chat with Washington Post readers, Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn was woefully short on straight answers. "Can I carry my pocketknife?" an Alexandria resident asked, "and what if I'm returning from the supermarket with lighter fluid for my grill?" Owners of "contraband" will be "subject to prosecution," Taborn replied: "If you are unsure of whether a particular item is contraband, you should seek legal advice." So budget that into your travel time. It's nice that the searches won't be as invasive as an airport porno-scanner or a Transportation Security Administration agent's cold rubber glove. But if ..... Read the Rest of the Gene Healy article...

Last month, in November the Mises Institute of Canada was unveiled. This is a historic moment for a nation so riddled with collectivism and socialism. (Not that the US is in very much better condition) To quote their About page "The Ludwig Von Mises institute of Canada was founded in November of 2010 in order to spread the teachings of the Austrian School of Economics to Canada and around the world. Please sign up to receive the Canadian Mises Daily in your in box. It has been 80 years since the beginning of what later became known as the “great depression”. Canada made many of the same mistakes that the United States made when it came to economics and state intervention in the market that Herbert Hoover and FDR did. A quote from R.B. Bennett (Conservative PM of Canada, August 7, 1930 – October 23, 1935) On his own Canadian take on the New Deal “In my mind reform means government intervention. It means government control and regulation. It means the end of Laissez-faire …. I...

"I think it's eerily like 1994. Not much will change." That's what Rich Hamblen told me about the 2010 midterm elections on our way to a political conference sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Tenth Amendment Center. And Rich would know. With decades of political activism under his belt, and a year of hard time for civil disobedience pertaining to a Second Amendment issue dear to his heart, the man has some serious street cred when it comes to politics. Read the rest of my story at CAIVN . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

George Orwell warned us about the use of “meaningless words” in politics, words that are endlessly repeated by sloganeering politicians until they have no meaning at all. Meaningless words certainly were on display during last week’s congressional debate over the latest tax bill. Over and over again we heard trite, empty phrases like “tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%,” “tax giveaways,” “tax earmarks,” and “borrowing money to give to millionaires.” Time and time again the same falsehoods were presented as fact, and reported as such by a credulous media. But all of these clichés about taxes are based on the presumption that government has a right to all of your income, and so government “gives” you something when it allows you to keep a portion of that income. To this mindset, tax cuts represent a “cost” to government. After all, they argue, money that really ought to go to the most noble of purposes-- wealth redistribution via taxation--is being kept by greedy people a...

When I write semi-clever blog titles it is usually with the intention of "hooking you in" so I can blather on about some topic or the other. But this one is a little more serious even if some may accuse it of being slightly over the top. This morning the Drudge Report carried a link to a story and news video from an Oklahoma news station which told the story of the Payne County Bank's run-in with the feds over their overtly religious celebration of a Christian holiday. You know the one. It's the same one that has been renamed a hundred different things over the last few decades by the politically correct, the militantly secular, or the pitifully ashamed Christians in our society. It's Christmas, not a "winter festival" or other PC happening. And despite the fact that many other folks celebrate parts of it, it's still a christian holy day. As the above image explains, the US Congress (or its extensions such as the Federal Reserve) may not l...

"With Republicans anxious to find a leader who can unify their party and mount a successful challenge to President Obama for the White House, CNN and the Tea Party Express are teaming up to host a 'Tea Party debate' next year during Labor Day week." Find out what concerns me about their approach. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

The Canadian Senate finance committee has recently set about determining whether to do away with the penny . The committee has determined that a century of inflation has eroded the value and usefulness of the penny. Since 1908 the coin has lost 95% of it's value according to the statistics of the Bank of Canada. There seems to be overall support for abolishing the penny (and the Senate too). After all, why maintain a useless and expensive coinage? But I will submit that this discussion and conclusion misses the point that inflation caused this devaluation of the penny . And who, pray tell. is the master and supreme arbiter of inflation in Canada? Why none other than Mark Carney and his Bank of Canada of course. Inflation has in effect killed the penny, so how much longer will it be until the loonie (Canadian dollar) is "revalued" and considered useless and valueless? Will it be 30 years? 20 years? Perhaps 10 years or less? Why should Canadian's idly watch their money ...

No, this isn't an ad for the new Government Motors car, the Chevy Volt. In fact, the idea that anyone (not intellectually impaired) would actually buy one of these $41,000 turkeys with their own money is preposterous to me. Unless, of course, they MUST because it became against the law not to buy one. The whole concept would have been ridiculous to even contemplate until just over a year ago. That is when the same government who took over GM, fired the president of the company, refused to pay off any of the bond holders who lent the company money, gave a huge ownership stake to their union buddies and started making political donations back to themselves decided that you really MUST buy health insurance as part of their takeover of the US healthcare industry. Those of us who weren't consumed with excitement running up our legs over the recent election of Hopama and Company knew at the time that the whole scheme was unconstitutional (to say nothing of being completely immo...