The Humble Libertarian original

Everyone's talking about some actress named Connie Britton because she wore a shirt to the Golden Globes that said "poverty is sexist." Well I agree with her.

By: Wes Messamore On Russia Today , Alex Jones discusses how global power players are working to orchestrate global control over the world's economy and natural resources to advance an agenda of radical population reduction and a return to pre-industrial feudalism. If you think this is over the top or hard to believe, I have only one question for you: Why? Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

By: Wes Messamore At the level of production humanity is now capable of in the world today, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should go hungry, and yet so many still do. Why? The answer is no great mystery. The proximate causes and their root cause are easy enough to ascertain. Cross-reference a map of conflict zones in the world with a map highlighting areas of malnourishment and it isn’t difficult to draw the correlation between starvation and war. Look again at which governments rank as the most corrupt, and note that they typically govern nations that also rank as the least well-nourished. Government corruption, then, is strongly correlated with world hunger. Finally, pay close attention to one of the most far-reaching and historically significant, yet under-reported stories of our era: the dramatic rise in global food prices , and it should be no wonder that so many of the world’s people remain hungry even at a time when there’s no good reason for anyone not to have enoug...

"I personally care more about eliminating real poverty in the world than the relative poverty of America's lower class." As a Presidential candidate, you could never get away with this statement. But, as an individual, it's hard to disagree with the ethical argument here, isn't it? You see, our political arguments are currently caught in a morality debate - which I think is fair game. But, libertarians keep getting caught in situations where their non-support in something "good" ends up looking evil. You don't want the 30 year-old man without a major medical policy to have his cancer treatments covered by the government? You're a monster. As a fellow monster, I want to have this debate. But, to do so, it becomes necessary to mainstream the concept of "good" vs. "great" in a world of finite resources. For instance, buying popcorn to support a Boy Scout troop is a "good" thing. Buying wrapping paper to support y...

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 ...

"Cat groomers, tattoo artists, tree trimmers and about a dozen other specialists across the country . . . are clamoring for more rules governing small businesses," reports the Wall Street Journal in a front-page story today. "They're asking to become state-licensed professionals, which would mean anyone wanting to be, say, a music therapist or a locksmith, would have to pay fees, apply for a license and in some cases, take classes and pass exams." The Cato Institute has been taking on this issue for decades. Read the rest of the David Boaz commentary at Cato-at-liberty.org It takes something really amazing to grab my attention, so I’m almost grateful to Ike Leggett, the head bureaucrat of Maryland’s Montgomery County. He has restored my faith in the extreme foolishness of the political class with a proposal that would require bums to get a panhandling license from the government. And read the rest of Dan Mitchell's blog post at International Liberty Dav...

Governments—local, state, and federal—spend a lot of time wringing their hands about the plight of the urban poor. Look around any government agency and you’ll never fail to find some know-it-all with a suit and a nameplate on his desk who has just the right government program to eliminate or ameliorate, or at least contain, the worst aspects of grinding poverty in American cities—especially as experienced by black people, immigrants, people with disabilities, and everyone else marked for the special observation and solicitude of the state bureaucracy. Depending on the bureaucrat’s frame of mind, his pet programs might focus on doling out conditional charity to “deserving” poor people, or putting more “at-risk” poor people under the surveillance of social workers and medical experts, or beating up recalcitrant poor people and locking them in cages for several years. But the one thing that the government and its managerial aid workers will never do is just get out of the way and let po...

I intend to ask the question, "Is it libertarian to dumpster dive?" -dumpster diving being the activity of retrieving food products from dumpsters or grocers and feeding them to people that need it. The first obvious question is whether the grocer still possesses and owns the food upon placing it in the dumpster. Well? There are two sides to this. On one hand, the owner of the dumpster would in concrete terms have ownership of the food and any other refuse in the dumpster. But on the other hand, by discarding materials into the dumpster the grocer has arguably discharged ownership of the refuse. A case can be made for the food being ethically retrievable from a property rights standpoint. If we accept this premise, then there are multiple organizations that can be embraced into the libertarian fold. An excellent example of this is Food Not Bombs . As quoted from their website homepage: " Food Not Bombs shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,0...

After yesterday's horrific earthquake rocked the Caribbean nation of Haiti, there are calls everywhere for people to help, from the USA's largest Registered Nurse union calling for volunteers to assist in Haiti, to " Help Haiti " trending on Twitter, to the American Red Cross 's call for "text donations" (via HuffPo ) , to the White House's thoughts and prayers . It's heartwarming to see such an outpouring of love and help for the troubled island nation. This desperately needed emergency and medical aid will certainly make a huge impact on the lives of the people in Haiti, but let's also ask what we can do over the long term to help Haiti. You see, by just about any economic standard, Haiti is the poorest nation in the entire Western Hemisphere. But it doesn't have to be that way. How to Help Haiti Emerge From Poverty The carnage and devastation wrought by the earthquake in Haiti would have been horrifying if it had occurred in Miami, b...