The Humble Libertarian original

The following is a list of 100 Anti-War quotes. Many of them come from America's venerated Founding Fathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. Many also, come from conservative voices like Pat Buchanan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Ayn Rand, and even George W. Bush (before he became president and went back on his campaign promises to keep America out of open-ended wars and nation-building). So if your family, friends, or co-workers question your patriotism for opposing war, refer them to this list so they can see how the American Founding Fathers felt about war. And if you like this list please follow the links above to my FB and Twitter and Like and Follow The Humble Libertarian to get updates from me in your news stream. 1. "As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral." -U.S. WWII General Omar Bradley 2. "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the ins...

In response to this recent post and this recent comment , both regarding the state's role in protecting fetal humans (short version: the only thing I want the Washington regime to do to make the world a better place is go to hell), I've received the following comments asking me if I am an anarchist: Paul : Does this mean you've become a full out anarchist? March Hare : W. E. You have completely lost the plot here - unless you're going anarchist on us. There have been over 1 million abortions per year since 1973, if the role of government is to enforce the rights of people, and foetuses count as people, then it would be right and proper for the government to get seriously involved in [stopping] abortion. And, yes, forcing the rest of us to pay for said enforcement. Fortunately my own thoughts on the subject are not subject to anger with the current government and don't fall into the slippery slope fallacy (which isn't a fallacy!) that yours does about the...

In response to some recent comments on my popular libertarian essay about abortion , it's time for me to mention that my views have shifted. I would argue that for the purpose of discussing law and public policy, the critically relevant issue is not the nature of the fetus as I have argued before, but the nature of the state. Let's come up with a libertarian consensus on abortion that even if a human fetus is a living human being entitled to self-ownership and non-aggression, and even if to abort a human fetus is to murder a human being, that we still don't want to pass a law against it in a monopoly legislature, appoint a standing army of career policethugs, and try to enforce that law with money we take from people against their will and under threat of violence-- because if all that isn't bad enough to begin with, even if protecting human fetuses was the only thing this government did, before long it would end up doing a hundred other unrelated things that make us ...

By: Wes Messamore In this eighth full episode of the back-from-the-dead Wes Messamore show , Wes Messamore and Drew Martin take your calls to discuss and debate alternative libertarian strategies for achieving a free society. What works best? What is morally sound? Educating the general public? Agorism? Political activism? Seasteading? Taking over the Republican Party a la Ron Paul? The Free State Project? Aggressive truth-seeking/telling along the lines of WikiLeaks-style disclosures? Show runs from 5 - 7pm Central today (Monday, April 2), streaming live to your computer! Visit this page to tune in or to catch the archived podcast afterward if you miss the live show. We will be taking your calls ! Call in number is: (646) 716-4214. If you missed Friday's awesome episode on the intersection of Art and Liberty, you can listen to the archived podcast of it here ! Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

When you think of an abusive relationship, what adjectives come to mind? Controlling? Violent? Humiliating? Jealous? Obsessive? Go figure, it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to apply these same adjectives to many of the world’s governments throughout history and certainly the absolute states that emerged in modernity with their absolute warfare, constant surveillance, and obsessive control of every aspect of their citizens’ lives from cradle to grave– the federal government of the fifty American states being no exception to this unfortunate state of affairs. To explore this idea a little further, I took a look at a list of warning signs of abuse, to see if our relationship with our government truly is analogous to an abusive relationship with a romantic partner. Spoiler alert: it is. The list was prefaced thusly: “The following questions ask you about your relationship. If you are not currently in a relationship, these are signs or ‘red flags’ to assist people in ident...

The Washington Post reports ( m ): Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) on Sunday defended a statement he made last October in which he said that he “almost threw up” when he read John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Houston address on the role of religion in public life. The statement by Santorum marks the GOP contender’s latest defense of his long-held views on the separation of church and state, although in his Sunday appearance he doubled down on the colorful language he employed in his October speech at a New Hampshire college. In remarks last year at the College of Saint Mary Magdalen in Warner, N.H., Santorum had told the crowd of J.F.K.’s famous 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, “Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.” Now just what kind of things did Rick Santorum find so objectionable in Kennedy's speech? Things like this: "I believe in an America where the s...

This dissenting comment left on my libertarian pro-life argument post was so good I had to share it: "What you miss - what you call evasive - is the fact that the fetus lives inside and is entirely dependent on the woman. So, even if the fetus does have rights, this is a clear case of a conflict of rights. Now, it's pretty clear that if we care about equality, we have to address the fact that women can have children. That can be a wonderful thing when you want it, but an oppressive experience otherwise. And this is where the conflict occurs. If you protect the rights of a fetus, you deny women a significant amount of freedom to choose the life she wants to live. This is why science won't help us here. If a fetus is fully a life and endowed with all rights, that just makes the resolution even harder. That's also why it is ridiculous to call it murder. I can't think of anywhere else in the world where you can find such a similar conflict of rights. The thing is,...

In this series called " Libertarian Talking Points ," we pose a talking point that aims for the heart of an issue - avoiding the "politically safe" answer to actually try and convince people of both the moral and effectual justifications for liberty. You argue its effectiveness, or propose how to rephrase it to win hearts and minds. If the topic of viewing the Constitution as a "living" and "breathing" document comes up... "Yes, the U.S. Constitution is 'living' and 'breathing' in that it is not a static document. It is why amendments exist and the Congressional procedures by which to amend it. But, as for the notion that we should ignore this ritual altogether, and assume the enlightenment of non-democratically elected justices is better able to interpret the Constitution based not on its words, but on today's 'societal necessity', then no. The 'breath' of the U.S. Constitution is based upon the wor...

Is anyone even surprised about this ? (CBS) Should the government regulate sugar, just like it regulates alcohol and tobacco? A new commentary published online in the Feb. 1 issue of Nature says sugar is just as "toxic" for people as the other two, so the government should step in to curb its consumption. The United Nations announced in September that chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes contribute to 35 million deaths worldwide each year, according to the commentary. The U.N. pegged tobacco, alcohol, and diet as big risk factors that contributed to this death rate. Two of those are regulated by governments, "leaving one of the primary culprits behind this worldwide health crisis unchecked," the authors, Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis, argued. They said that over the past 50 years, sugar consumption has tripled worldwide. That's also helped contribute to the obesity epidemic - so much so that there are 30...

Oh yes, we’re tackling the big question today. No more subtly alluding to a certain view of money and economics while assuming you “get it” too. I’m going to break it down to the fundamentals here and do so as painlessly and simply as possible. If you’re an advocate of “sound money” or “honest money” and you want to understand your own views better or find an easier way to explain them to others, read on! If you have a friend who is new to this kind of economic thinking, this might be a good article to share with them. Economic thinking isn’t hard. In fact, it’s quite natural and intuitive in a lot of ways. People who make it more complicated than it really is are doing so to keep you from thinking about it and to convince you that you can’t really understand it like they can. Knowledge is power. So the less honest stewards of economic thought have decided to keep that power to themselves by making the knowledge seem unattainable to people without advanced degrees or Nobel Prizes. Don’...

As the nation celebrates Martin Luther King day , many libertarians might wonder how compatible his views are with libertarianism. The libertarian Republican Congressman and presidential candidate, Ron Paul has said of Martin Luther King Jr., for instance: "One of my heroes is Martin Luther King because he practiced the libertarian principle of peaceful resistance and peaceful civil disobedience, as did Rosa Parks." Martin Luther King's struggle against the government, against the war in Vietnam, which he spoke out to criticize passionately , his belief in non-aggression, which is an axiom of libertarian political theory , but his belief in the necessity of armed self defense (something he shared in common with the pro-Second Amendment Malcolm X ), as well as his use of civil disobedience and peaceful resistance to tyranny-- all these things appeal to libertarians. But was Martin Luther King Jr. a libertarian? Here's Reason Magazine 's take on the question ...

Earth to Rick Santorum: Libertarians Founded the United States By: Tom Mullen Republished with permission. Original article here . Visit Tom Mullen at TomMullen.net Andrew Napolitano recently showed a clip in which Rick Santorum explained his views on libertarianism. His comments are also instructive in understanding his animosity (politically) towards Ron Paul. Santorum said: “One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a Libertarianish right. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. That is not how traditional conservatives view the world. There is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.” As David Boaz pointed out in the interview with Napolitano, Santorum seems...