The Humble Libertarian original

If I believed the Jews killed God, I'd worship the Jews. There's some bad asses on that team! I think Israel should use that as their propaganda, you know? "You got nuclear weapons? Pssh. We killed the Lord." -Bill Hicks The quote above starts around 19:15 in the Bill Hicks stand up video below. The whole thing is pretty funny! (And probably NSFW):

Analysts continue to consider CPAC’s strategical takeaways weeks after the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where attendees were constantly faced with both questions and propositions of how the Republican Party must, as the NRA’s David Keene put it, “adapt or die.” If the tremendous surge in support seen recently from the right-wing political base for officials like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, and Thomas Massie--candidates that just a few years ago would have been impossible to elect-- are any indication, the GOP is, indeed, adapting. As conservative writer George Will stated on a Sunday morning talk show recently, what he saw “at CPAC was the rise of the libertarian strand of Republicanism, which has an affected foreign policy that is a pullback from nation-building and other ambitions abroad that they never countenance from government at home, and a sense of ‘live and let live’ with subjects such as decriminalization of certain drugs and ga...

Get the Privatize Marriage t-shirt . A government powerful enough to give you the right to marry is a government powerful enough to take it away. The only way for both sides to protect marriage as they understand it and achieve true marriage equality is to give all individuals the equal right to define marriage the way they see it. Pooling our definition of marriage in the public sphere is problematic in the same way and for the same reasons as pooling our money in the public sphere: it leaves us all bitterly divided and endlessly fighting over what to do with a "public resource" that belongs to everyone and no one. As long as one monolithic giant gets to define marriage for everyone, everyone will be fighting for their own definition to prevail. Conservative advocates of the traditional family are constantly reminding us of the critical importance of marriage. LGBT activists and their supporters, who have tenaciously fought to legalize gay marriage, clearly value m...

'At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, eve...

My friend Craig Schlesinger is on a roll getting the libertarian message out there. In one letter to the editor which made it into The Wall Street Journal, Craig reminds a Journal opinion columnist that the nation's fiscal problems aren't just the fault of the blue party. The red party's compassionate conservatism ramped up federal spending to unprecedented levels under George W. Bush. Then in a letter to The Tennessean, Craig takes down the regulatory state with a solid dose of economic thinking regarding anti-gouging laws and ticket sales . He concludes with a particularly tasty sentence: "...the vulnerable person is hurt the most by removing the distributive justice of the market." Yes. On his blog, Spatial Orientation , he credits Matt Zwolinski 's research into the ethics of exploitation as inspiration for his letter on anti-gouging laws. ( super cool videos on the Matt Z link) Like his work? Check out " The Almighty Dollar? " on Spa...

Made up characters that give you free stuff if you behave yourself. So I Googled " libertarian easter eggs ." I don't know what I was hoping to find. Maybe some egg dyed bright yellow with the words "DONT TREAD ON ME" stenciled on. Or a half black, half gold anarcho-capitalist Easter egg. Or a half black, half red anarcho-communist Easter egg. Or a red, white, and blue Easter egg. Or something. Anyway, I found this pretty cute article from Parents.com's DadaBase Blog by a libertarian dad about his two-year-old son's successful egg hunt. The dad thinks his son learned a subtle capitalist message. I don't know. I think an egg hunt is probably more mercantilist than anything. It's also definitely zero-sum. If you want to teach the kid a capitalist message, arrange to take him on a tour of a local family farm where they actually create new eggs. Have him buy a couple with some money he made doing simple age-appropriate chores. Take them hom...

Wow, for some reason John McCain looks like someone I could vote for now. Last week, the Republican National Committee released a major 2013 report entitled " The Growth and Opportunity Project ." In the words of its report, the purpose of the project was "to dig deep to provide an honest review of the 2012 election cycle and a path forward for the Republican Party to ensure success in winning more elections." Here's a shovel. Keep digging. Using your handy-dandy Cmd+F function, you will be unable to find any of the words from the following list in a report about why the Republicans are losing elections and how to start winning them again: liberty freedom capitalism constitution founding fathers libertarian(s) tea party ron paul civil liberties federal reserve national debt jeff frazee rand paul 2016 we seriously ****ed up; we submit our resignations That last quip aside, if the chairman's people didn't dig deep enough to ev...

From Barack Obama's speech in Israel (hat tip: reddit ): "It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day." I know, right? That Palestinian child deserves to have a state of her own to control the movements of her parents every single day! Oh yeah-- and which country sends money to that foreign army that controls the Palestinian child's parent's movements? Speaking of foreign armies, how many foreign countries is the US army occupying or bombing right now, Mr. President? Are people still taking this whole thing seriously? I don't mean Obama. I mean this whole thing . What a circus.

As Voyager ventures out into the furthest reaches of our solar system, reaching a new region , I highly recommend the following video of astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson's Authors@Google talk on Pluto and our solar system-- specifically the history behind the human family's understanding and classification of the solar system. It's soooo cool: Yeah, he wants more funding for NASA. No, I don't think that's a good thing. But I can still enjoy his vast knowledge and artful storytelling. One of my favorite quotes from the video came immediately before one of my least favorite quotes, during the Q&A when someone asked a question about children and funding for science education: "We spend the first year of their lives teaching them how to walk and talk, and the rest of their lives, telling them to shut up and sit down." Awesome. Very libertarian, specifically Stefan Molyneux / unschooling movement libertarian. "Plus, Obama put science ...

DailyPaul.com has frontpaged another recent look at the RonPaul.com dispute. I hadn't mentioned it here before because it unfolded while I was still on my mostly silent hiatus. Here are my thoughts: Dr. Paul, I can't respect you enough, but this is embarrassing. Jonathan Goodwin writes at LewRockwell that Ron Paul isn't actually using aggression to take the domain from its current homesteaders, but a private arbitration that they agreed to voluntarily when they signed up for the domain. I think that's beyond the point. The real point is here in Goodwin's  article: "[Ron Paul] is acting in good faith to attempt to recover something that he believes rightly belongs to him..." Sorry. Whether the method is technically forceful or not, there's no way I can twist my brain to possibly understand the notion that this domain rightly belongs to Ron Paul. Its current owners haven't just been squatting on it. They've properly homesteaded it. T...

Barry Randall writes : 'But getting consumers to buy millions of these devices isn’t about the price of the box. It’s about the time and effort necessary to make anything useful. As for effort, consider that industrial design is done by professionals with years of education and practical experience. Capable designers make high five-figure salaries. Because of the high labor expense of industrial design, there has already been sufficient motivation to create easy-to-use CAD-CAM software. And yet none exists. Catia, AutoCAD, Creo and other CAD programs are powerful, but as yet they have not become easy to use, even for professionals. So the idea that the existence of cheap 3D printing will somehow beget easy-to-use design software is delusional. Some have compared the arrival of cheap 3D printers with that of cheap word-processing software and ink-jet printers 30 years ago. But that was different, because typing was a skill already possessed by the majority of e...

Reddit frontpaged this video (posted in Feb 2011 to YouTube) today: "If they don't got no warrant, don't open the door." The guy in the red jacket was smart as hell. He knew his rights and refused to be intimidated. His poor friend was scared, confused, and clearly unsure of his rights. Let's call them Gallant and Goofus. The goon lies to Goofus and tells him that if he doesn't open the door, she'll charge him with "obstruction." (Police are legally allowed to lie to you. Conclusion: Don't trust police.) She then actually puts him in cuffs for exercising his Constitutional right not to submit to a search of his house without a warrant signed by a judge. Cops everywhere are fighting our right to film them breaking the law, but these cops brought their own camera crew! Then the goon tells Gallant, "You need to keep your mouth shut or you're going to get cuffs on you too." Exercise your 4th Amendment right-- get cuffed....

"Earth, you don't have to be crazy to live here, but it helps." I warned of this in January! 'Don't get the government involved in mental health either. Don't encourage policymakers to try to fix mental health problems. They're not going to be able to. Their track record of solving problems isn't exactly exemplary, and their record of making problems worse is well, pretty impressive to say the least. What takes the cake, however, is their record of taking some problem, real or imagined, and to see it everywhere, to artificially expand its scope to epic proportions, and thereby expand the scope of their prerogatives to solve it. You want policymakers to find solutions to mental health problems? Well that means, to begin with, that you want them to define mental health problems. Who says they'll have the right definition? Who says the definition won't expand? Who says they don't already think you have a mental health probl...

Exercise your 5th Amendment right! A law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police. Not only is this incredibly informative, it's incredibly entertaining! It's like Robin Williams giving a lecture on how to exercise your rights.

Earlier today, I wrote : "My goal is to write a book before the end of March. My goal is to spend no more than a week from start to publication, spending as much time as I need in order to get it done during that week. My goal is to give it away to you for free here on HumbleLibertarian.com. What's a goal you have? Something you may have been putting off for years? Something you could accomplish in one month if you were determined? If it's near-term enough of a goal, and specific enough of a goal, and you share it in the comments below, feel free to tell me how I can help you and I'll do whatever I can. If it's a libertarian / news / politics-related goal, my manner of help would be easy to determine. I could promote it, introduce you to someone via email, (etc.). If it's something apolitical like quit smoking cigarettes, start exercising, learn guitar, start a business, gain more Twitter followers, learn another language, eat a paleo diet, or...

Last year a day ahead of the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire, I published a nasty attack on some of the libertarians (anarchists, agorists, voluntarists, sovereign people, however you like to be called) of the Free State Project living in New Hampshire. I said if you weren't going to be voting for Ron Paul, that you were hypocrites. I said even worse things than that. I was very wrong in substance and style. I was petty, small-minded, and stupid. I am now embarrassed that I ever attacked you and I have removed the offending post from this website. I am deeply sorry. I will never attack another liberty-lover again. I extend my warmest regards and I ask sincerely: What can I do to make it up to you? Let me know in the comments below!

I've wanted to be a writer since I was 12 or 13 and first read Isaac Asimov's classic science fiction trilogy, Foundation . Around the same time, I became very interested in politics. My desire to be a science fiction writer lingered for awhile (and lingers still), but soon I knew I wanted to write non-fiction books as much or more. It's over a decade later and I've become a writer for sure. I've written so much on this blog and elsewhere, but I still haven't written a book. Books are very special as a medium for a lot of reasons, and I've been "working on" writing more than one book for years now with no results. That's unacceptable. Are there any goals you have, goals perfectly within your power to achieve, but for some reason you just have no steam? I'm finally fed up with this. In 2013, I write a book. I mean, I guess I wrote this one , but its format is too similar to everything else I write. I want something you can read on your...

Michael Bloomberg nanny state: when will the mayor of New York City stop his madness? At first Michael Bloomberg came for the trans fats. But we didn't eat at fast food restaurants, so we didn't say anything. Then Michael Bloomberg came for the salt. But we only use pepper, so we didn't say anything. Then Michael Bloomberg banned food donations to city homeless shelters. But we are not homeless, so we didn't say anything. Then Michael Bloomberg came for the baby formula because he wants moms to breast feed. But we are not newborn babies, so we didn't say anything. Then Michael Bloomberg restricted painkillers at city hospitals. The poor will just have to suffer a bit, he said. Then he came for our 16-ounce sodas, forcing everyone to buy two. What a jerk! What's next Michael Bloomberg? Let's ban all cars from the street. After all, walking is healthier than driving.

"But there's a way out of hell. The truth is, after pondering for many long hours, I just don't believe the story in Atlas Shrugged. I believe the one in The Fountainhead. And in a following post soon, I will explain why." -Me in January " They Burn Heretics at the Stake The image of the stake is hard to forget. It touches us in a way that's almost primal. But it's also obsolete. Marketing has made sure of that. The same forces that taught us to drink Coke for breakfast and spend $800 on a handbag are now at work on the status quo. Heretics are too numerous to burn at the stake. So we celebrate them." -Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us [ Spoiler Alert - Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead] In January, I wrote about the inverted stories of Ayn Rand's Dominique Francon and Dagny Taggert, noting: "Dominique learns not to run from the world, but to live in it and ignore it. To keep her eyes focused on that ...

Hat tip to The Independent Institute's David Theroux for passing this on to me: Gregory's thoughts reminded me a lot of Justin Raimondo's take (h/t Jack Hunter ): 'Part of what made this a signal event was that this was no pro forma type filibuster of the modern school, in which the Senator merely has to make known his or her intention to filibuster, but not actually get up there and speak. This was the real thing, and it was substantive. The Senate actually debated an important policy matter in the old style, with references to Shakespeare, and rhetorical flourishes the like of which we haven’t seen in many years. It was, in short, a paleo moment – and, politically, it was the Libertarian Moment, i.e. that moment in which a substantial body of Americans was rooting for a champion of liberty against the puffed-up conceit and criminal depredations of an overweening federal government... What we are seeing is a seismic shift in the two parties’ approach to civi...

You can read all about the background on this and listen to it on Glenn Greenwald's column at The Guardian. I haven't had a chance to listen. Right now I'm working on my follow up essay to the Dagny Taggert / Dominique Francon post from January, but when I get it finished, I'll give Manning a listen and update this post with my thoughts. Feel free to share yours, and please help spread the word. Rand Paul stood for 13 hours to defend your liberty. Bradley Manning has spent 23 hours a day, every day, in solitary confinement to defend your liberty and reveal to you what Washington wants to hide from you. UPDATE: So I listened to the whole thing. If you haven't yet, I must warn you that the audio is a little rough because it was being recorded secretly in defiance of the rules for this hearing, and that Manning uses a lot of military jargon making it a tough listen. In order to help me know what to listen for, I was reading a word on this audio tape by Danie...

One of the most enjoyable films I have ever watched came strongly recommended to me by my brilliant friend, HK, who knows a ton of 80s science fiction movies with strong libertarian themes. "They Live" (1988), starring the former WWF's Rowdy Roddy Piper has too many good things to discuss here, though I may write a review of it later this year. The delightfully bizarre film is filled with an impressive number of eerie parallels to our present day, insightful predictions of what the future would hold. Last week, Rand Paul voiced his worry that drones might be used to police Americans. The creators of "They Live" were worried about it a quarter of a century ago, and they showed viewers just what to do when a nasty government drone comes a'droning: Watch the full movie on Blu-ray , DVD , Amazon Instant Video , or for free right here:

Writer, speaker, and entrepreneur Seth Godin explains why you need a home business: "Here's the thing: The recession is a forever recession. There's a cyclical recession that comes and goes, and there's this other things, and it's the end of the industrial age. It lasted for eighty years. For eighty years, you got a job, you did what you were told, you retired-- and good people could make above average pay for average work. And it ended... The industrial age is going away and a new thing is going to take its place." Read that? Very interesting take! The recession is never going to end. The typical libertarian understanding of our current economic situation is that it is the result of a century of resource misallocation by coercive central planners in the world's governments, driven heavily by aggressive monetary expansion, which has reduced the value of the US dollar by 95% over the last century, shaving off a little bit of value at a time from each...

We all know how Senator Rand Paul courageously demanded some answers from the White House last week about its use of drones against American citizens in the United States. But setting aside the chilling precedent the Obama Administration set with its summary execution of US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki , National Review columnist Mark Steyn made an interesting point on Hugh Hewitt's radio show : "I’d like to speak to that, because I’m not, you said the people who are at ease with the use of drones in Waziristan and Yemen, and not at home, I’m not actually all that comfortable about the expansion of their use overseas. I think in a psychological sense, it fits into al Qaeda and the broader Muslims’ worldview of the West, which is that we are technologically advanced, but that we are deficient in a kind of moral fiber, and that the sort of antiseptic drone strike that hovers above your Waziristani village, and then takes out the bad guy, but also takes out 27 members...

It's looking good: Living in NYC, Boston, LA, Mesa, DC, Austin, or Spokane? Check out upcoming screenings in your area. SilverCircleMovie.com

It was truly awesome to see #StandWithRand trending on Twitter the other day. Just as awesome as all the love for Rand Paul on Twitter, was all the anger directed at Senator Lindsey Graham. From Politico last night: 'As good a day as this was for Sen. Rand Paul on Twitter, it was at least that bad for Sen. Lindsey Graham. Laced throughout the thousands of tweets cheering on the filbustering Kentucky Republican was a vicious, visceral anger aimed squarely at the South Carolinian up for reelection next year. The rallying cry hashtag: #PrimaryGraham.  “This very well could be a defining moment in this particular campaign — the moment Lindsey Graham lost his grip on the boots on the ground in South Carolina,” Daniel Encarnacion, state secretary for the Republican Liberty Caucus, said in an interview. Paul emerged as a folk hero whose appeal spread far beyond his tea party base for perhaps the first time, as seen by the enduring strength of the hashtag #StandWithR...

In the midst of the darkness and a host of determined Goliaths, there stands one David, one true man with a spine, and a chest, and a heart of flesh, slinging amendments as stones to fell the Goliath menacing at our gates, filibustering for hours alone as David once stood brave and alone against the mighty Philistines. There stands one man, America's Senator, Liberty's Senator, a voice of the People raging mightily against the hosts of tyranny and lawlessness that would renew this act which slanders true patriotism by its very name. This true patriot-- Senator Rand Paul. -Me I wrote the words above in May of 2011 regarding Rand Paul's filibuster of the Patriot Act extension . My spirit and mood are the same tonight. I might include updates on this post later Thursday (feel free to add your own in the comments on this post), but for now, there's little more I can add to the spot on analysis in a single tweet by one Matt Drudge: Obama busy courting Grah...

It'll never happen. And you'll drive yourself nuts. And you'll always be unhappy. And if it becomes too compulsive of a problem, you'll be paralyzed and unable to write your next blog post because you are seriously uptight enough to feel like you need to completely systematize all of reality before you can write your next blog post and be happy enough with it to publish it. Incorrect to use the second person. It's me. But it might be some of you too (actually, I personally know quite a few of you are this way), so I thought writing about this might help us both. In fact, crippling over-analysis is a common problem, not just among libertarians, even though I sometimes feel like it must present more often among our folk than the rest of the people I meet. I can't remember if it's in The Dip or Tribes that Seth Godin says "Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late." In organized hu...