The Humble Libertarian original

Never before have I seen a more succinct, convincing, and well-substantiated argument for less government and more economic freedom from a perspective of maximizing human happiness and quality of life. I just don't see how anybody could watch the following video and not become a libertarian. You'd either have to willfully ignore the facts presented below or else have no heart: Please share this video with two or three people right now! Or link it on your Facebook page. We have to get this message out! Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

On Tuesday’s Rachel Maddow show, Maddow asked author Thomas Frank about the prospects presented by the defection of some allegedly libertarianish Tea Partiers on the renewal of USA PATRIOT. Isn’t there a split between the libertarian and authoritarian strands of the conservative movement?, she asked. Well, yeah, Frank said. There’s some underlying tension between the socially conservative wing and the pro-business wing (“or as they prefer to be called, ‘pro-market’”). In hinting at the pro-business vs. pro-market distinction, of course, Frank scored at least an oblique hit on an important point: The so-called “libertarian” wing of the conservative movement, for the most part, is more pro-business than pro-market. As he suggested himself, if you examine their agenda closely, despite all the rhetoric it’s not really about whether government is big or small. It doesn’t matter so much what size government is as who it helps out. What they mean by “pro-market” is a big government tha...

A long running debate among the anarchists, especially between individualist and more communist type, centers around the justice of wealth disparities. Certainly the existence of the State serves to enrich particular interests at the expense of others, but in anarchy would the rich dominate society – just as they do with the State? Even if we could immediately switch off the institutions that forcibly manipulate society, there is danger that the legacy of privilege and accumulated wealth could persist for some time, distorting markets and continuing the frustrate the balance of power between individuals. Individualist anarchists have had a variety of responses to the problems of historical property and wealth distribution. Even anarcho-capitalists who see large scale social coordination as the natural direction of society have different views, such as Hans Hermann Hoppe’s theory of a natural elite and Murray Rothbard’s support of syndicalist takeover of State-supported corporations. On...