The Humble Libertarian original

Gardasil, a controversial vaccine for the sexually transmitted HPV virus, might soon be given to minors in California without parental consent if the sweeping proposal in a new bill-- AB 499-- becomes law after a Senate vote this week and a signature from Gov. Brown. Read all the gory details at my latest CAIVN piece. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Last week, when I published a list of videos of ten major conservative voices saying great things about Ron Paul , one commenter didn't like that I included Rand Paul in the list, saying: "His son agrees with him? Were you just looking for a tenth person and threw that in there hoping no one would notice?" I kinda definitely already addressed that in the article: "Okay fair enough... this one's obvious. Though while possibly nepotistic, Rand Paul's endorsement of his father is also clearly grounded in their shared philosophy of Constitutional Conservatism and their principled application of it to law. It also carries weight as Rand Paul is one of the most visible leaders and successful candidates from the Tea Party movement in 2010." But just to be clear, I certainly wasn't scraping the bottom of the barrel for a tenth conservative figure to include on the list. There were a lot of other voices I could have added, including Ronald Reagan, ...

Seriously. The Huffington Post has the details : It is not hard to imagine how Americans would react if they learned that Al Qaeda had hired top lobbyists to help promote its agenda in Congress. Or if they heard that influential active and retired government officials were being paid to attest to Hezbollah's good character. They would be appalled. But, amazingly, a group similar to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah is doing just that. It is the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group that is on the Department of State's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations alongside other more prominent groups such Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Shabaab. The MEK wants to be removed from the terrorist list because, by law, its presence there prevents it from directly promoting its agenda in Washington, and most importantly, from fundraising. So it has recruited some of officialdom's biggest names to convince Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "delist" MEK and free it ...

You won't believe the government's latest feather-brained idea to subsidize agriculture and create distortions in the marketplace (actually, if you read this website with any degree of regularly, you totally will believe it!). Meg Duffield of the Silver Circle movie has the details . ...and I've got a funny chicken fight video from Family Guy: Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

The New York Times reports : "A drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency killed Al Qaeda’s second-ranking figure in the mountains of Pakistan on Monday, American and Pakistani officials said Saturday, further damaging a terrorism network that appears significantly weakened since the death of Osama bin Laden in May." So we have killed or captured Number 1 and Number 2 (and most of the other numbers)... can we finally declare victory and come home ? Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Ten years after the tragic events of 9-11, it's time for America to declare victory in the War on Terror. With Osama bin Laden dead, Al Qaeda destroyed, and our objectives accomplished, it's time to bring America's brave young men and women home to a hero's welcome-- not because we have lost, but because we have won, not because we are weak, but because we have shown the world our resolve and our strength. The mission creep and other difficulties in the Middle East over recent years are not an indication of American defeat, but a clear sign that our military is struggling to find new objectives after successfully accomplishing the mission Congress gave our President in the aftermath of 9-11: "...to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001..." It has been done. Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda's le...

I normally loathe this sort of self-promotion but I'd probably be remiss if I didn't at least say something here. [Editor's note: and I had to encourage him to promote this and you are definitely encouraged to help Carl's alternative voice reach thousands of mainstream readers per the details below! -W- ] Several weeks ago I entered a column writing contest for The Tennessean newspaper and I am one of eight finalists. I submitted two articles and this contribution on Mormons and the GOP ran in Friday's Tennessean . (Note: I did NOT pick the title and I believe my other article on the debt ceiling was better but it is outdated). The grand prize is an 8-week column in The Tennessean and if you think an independent voice cutting through the usual Red vs. Blue noise in a major daily newspaper would be good, even for only 2 months, please vote here . Come on! Let's spam the vote Ron Paul style ! Carl Wicklander , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles Autho...

Over at the paleoconservative Chronicles magazine website , Dr. Thomas Fleming has a very sober take on Ron Paul's presidential run. He very concisely sums up the corruption of the political and media classes and why Ron Paul has been ignored in the mainstream media. Here's the crux of the article: "[Ron Paul] is being ignored because unlike every other candidate of either party in the field, he is issuing a fundamental challenge to the regime. Rick Perry, for all his insincere secession and God talk, is the lackey of the regime who led the Al Gore campaign in Texas. Michelle Bachmann does not simply look like the deer in the headlights: she Is the deer in the headlights. And if anyone is going to oppose the establishment, it won’t be a wealthy member of the Romney clan. . . . "Ron Paul probably cannot win, but he can make the voters begin to think or least to wonder if it is possible to confront the truth and give up the fantasies of equality that underly th...

Earlier this week, hundreds of you got a major kick out of the photo I posted of Ron Paul being kissed by a baby: So I figured I'd end the week by tying it all up in a neat little knot and providing a picture of what happens when an establishment candidate tries to kiss a baby on the campaign trial. It's not pretty: ...and it literally makes me laugh out loud the longer I look at it. It's just too perfect. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Could it get any more stupid than this? A new Wikileaks cable reveals that before he pushed hard for war this year against Gaddafi's regime in Libya (by actually aiding Al Qaeda forces among the Libyan rebels with U.S. airpower ....yeah), Senator John McCain was the dominant congressional voice in pushing for military aid to Gaddafi in the form of providing lethal and non-lethal U.S. military equipment. The Politico reports : A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable shows that Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain promised to help Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi obtain U.S. military hardware in 2009. The cable, released by the open information group WikiLeaks, reveals the pledge came at meeting that was attended by other prominent members of Congress, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). In the meeting, Muatassim Qadhafi, the Libyan leader’s fifth son and national security adviser, requested U.S. assistance in obtaining militar...

Rasmussen reports : "Paul, whose long run afoul of the GOP establishment with his libertarian policy prescriptions, picks up 61% of the Republican vote, while 78% of Democrats fall in behind the president. Voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties prefer the longtime congressman by 10 points – 43% to 33%." Hmmm. Independents heart Ron Paul. Time to send in the real maverick. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Conor Murphy writes: Even before Rick Perry entered the race for President, he was a top contender. In the latest Gallup poll he has surpassed Mitt Romney and is now seen as the candidate with the best record on jobs, taxes and the economy. But is Governor Perry the real deal? If one ignores Perry's campaign website and checks the facts, it is clear that the governor of Texas does not have a very sparkling record. Read the rest of the article at The Washington Times . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Saw this on Facebook. Made me smile wince. I would attribute somebody for making it, but there's no indication on the picture. Feel free to speak up in the comments if you know who made this. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

This is good stuff, folks: Tom Woods dismantles Jeffrey Lord's August 23, 2011 American Spectator article "Ron Paul and the Neoliberal Reeducation Campaign." Hat tip: The Daily Paul Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Alex Altman writes in a TIME article entitled " The Prophet ": "Twilight descends in new Hampshire as an old man climbs onto his soapbox. LIBERTY: TOO BIG TO FAIL reads a banner hanging in the jam-packed tent. He is hardly a commanding figure, but a thousand people chant his name and lean in to listen, ready to follow, as Ron Paul delivers his genre-bending stump speech. There are no focus-grouped slogans, no empty calories: Paul's talk is more like a high-fiber graduate seminar on economic theory, forgotten history and the nooks and crannies of the U.S. Constitution." The mainstream coverage is certainly encouraging, and the little blurb above does have some flattering words for Ron Paul, but do be cautious about mainstream coverage (not-so-)subtly insinuating that Ron Paul's revolution is some kind of cult. It's not accurate and it's not relevant. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Hey, if you missed Carl's excellent piece on Libya here at THL yesterday, check it out today at Young Americans for Liberty, and learn what lesson Obama just inadvertently taught Iran about dealing with the United States. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

"And conservatism seems to be saying government can’t run Amtrak, but it can run the Middle East." -George Will Exactly! If conservatives don't believe government can possibly run Amtrak, public radio, Fannie Mae, food stamp programs, or the American health care system with any level of efficiency or success, what on earth has possessed them for the last decade to believe that the government could possibly have any success running the Middle East? Got this quote from an excellent op ed by Jack Hunter entitled, " Was Bill Buckley a foreign policy leftist? " Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Nick Schulz has a great lesson for us at National Review Online, drawing from the failures and successes of Steve Jobs, who recently stepped down as CEO of Apple: Lots of digital ink will be spilled about Jobs in the coming days, most of it focusing on his truly marvelous successes. It’s better to focus on his failures. Jobs failed better than anyone else in Silicon Valley, maybe better than anyone in corporate America. By that I mean Jobs did what only the greatest entrepreneurs can do: learn from their failures. I don’t mean learn from their mistakes. I mean learn from their abject, humiliating, bonehead, epic fails. Everyone today thinks of Jobs as the genius who gave us the iPod, MacBooks, the iTunes store, the iPhone, the iPad, and so on. Yes, he transformed personal computing and multimedia. But let’s not forget what else Jobs did. Jobs (along with Steve Wozniak) brought us the Apple I and Apple II computers, early iterations of which sold in the mere hundreds and we...

Even as it appears that Moammar Gaddafi is on the run, there are still numerous potential setbacks in the future of Libya. Who will comprise the leadership of the new government? Will the different tribes that were unified in rebellion continue to work together or will a new civil war erupt over control of the county? Will there be a strong central government that will have to be propped up by the West? Will Libya partition itself into its traditional provinces based on tribal loyalty? The end of Gaddafi’s reign in Libya marks both the end and the beginning. It’s the end for the former “Mad Dog of the Middle East,” the beginning of what will inevitably become another nation-building effort, and the fate of Libya portends a perilous future for the United States. When American intervention began in March, I wrote : “[t]he UN Security Council resolution only authorizes that there may be ‘all necessary measures’ to ‘protect Libyan citizens.’ If the Authorization for Use of Military...

"Paul is dangerous to the status quo. And that's a reason not to ignore him." So said John Kass, a columnist at the Chicago Tribune , in a piece which appeared in Sunday's paper . Many of you who don't get the Tribune missed his comments. But since his column is one of the few things in the "Trib" worth reading, no one could be blamed for not subscribing to it. I often wonder why I do. The article is worth your time for a few reasons, but the most compelling of them is that Kass goes where most journalists refuse to go. He actually covers a story that only is a story because of the purposeful manner by which it is being ignored by the vast majority of the media. Heck, even lefty comedians pretending to be journalists (John Stewart) have noticed the " ignor amuses"' cover-up attempts. It's amazing that "journalists" who see stories in almost everything that isn't important, can resist the temptation to write about ...

Go Michelle Malkin! The following is an excerpt from a National Review piece by Malkin, detailing exactly how bad of a president Rick Perry's record in Texas suggests he would be: "Texas, we have a problem. Your GOP governor is running for president against Barack Obama. Yet one of his most notable acts as executive of the nation’s second-largest state smacks of every worst habit of the Obama administration. And his newly crafted rationalizations for the atrocious decision are positively Clintonesque. In February 2007, Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl to submit to a three-jab regimen of the Gardasil vaccine. He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available “free” to girls aged nine to 18. The drug, promoted by manufacturer Merck as an effective shield against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital warts, as well as cervical cancer, had been approved by the Food and Drug Administrat...

Photo: Actual image of the damage caused by the earthquake in Virginia ( source ). Americans on the West Coast have relished the opportunity to make fun of East Coast residents this week after an earthquake struck Virginia. Late Wednesday night, Californians had another laugh when aftershocks struck Virginia and residents took to Twitter to report " another earthquake " on the East Coast. While it might be funny to West Coast residents, it is worth considering how scary it might have been to feel a heavy rumble in Washington D.C. mere days before the ten year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Thank goodness that wasn't what caused the rumble, but what did? One of my colleagues, Jared Fuller, founder of YAL's Year of Youth program, said: "Don't worry America - in D.C., that rumble we just felt was the debt ceiling collapsing, that's all." But I've got another theory: I think the earthquake they felt in Virginia and Was...

Have the recent wave of riots in London been the handiwork of uncivilized foreign immigrants, an unthinkable example of a culture entirely alien to the civilized West? Peter Ackroyd, the greatest living chronicler of London-- particularly its seamy, violent underside-- says no: Speaking in a book-lined office near King's Cross, London, within walking distance of where the rioting began, Mr Ackroyd resolutely refused to see a new epoch dawning. "I can't get at all worked up about these most recent phenomena," he said. "They simply show a pattern of activity in the city that will endure as long as the city itself endures. "I don't like those commentators who keep on saying that London will never be the same again. London is always the same again. I remember those comments were made very loudly after the [July 2005] terrorist attacks – 'London will never be the same again, London has lost its innocence' – it was all nonsense. London was exactly ...

This one's been making its rounds on the blogosphere for a few days now, but it absolutely needs to be showcased here in case you haven't seen it. My hat is off to you, Jack Cafferty: Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

After a recent Gallup poll put Ron Paul-- along with Bachmann, Perry, and Romney-- in a statistical tie with President Obama were the general election to be held today, there can be no more question that Ron Paul is certainly electable, and has as good a chance as any of the other GOP front runners at defeating President Obama. In light of these new numbers, the Christian Science Monitor asks: Has Ron Paul become electable? Look behind you Mitt Romney – has Ron Paul suddenly become electable? That’s a conclusion one might draw from a new Gallup poll that pits Republican presidential candidates against President Obama in head-to-head matchups. The GOP establishment’s view of Representative Paul, an anti-foreign-intervention pro-gold-standard libertarian, is that he’s a sideshow, and not an amusing one. He is dismissed as someone with a committed core of supporters but little appeal to Republican voters as a whole or the country at large. Yet in the Gallup survey, among regist...