The Humble Libertarian original

Look, I normally wouldn't draw attention to something like this, because this debate was embarrassing and frustrating beyond words to listen to, not the kind of thing I want to shed light on as representative of the best we libertarians have to offer. But with this thing front-paging The Daily Paul on Friday, I've decided I just have to speak up, because now it's received plenty of exposure, and commentary about it all over the place except for Reddit and on the YouTube video of the debate itself, is making me wonder what planet the commentators were on while they were listening to this. To clarify my opening remarks, my primary problem was with Robert Wenzel's presentation, not with Stephan Kinsella . G B Shaw reportedly once said, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." Kinsella definitely got dirty and Wenzel definitely liked it. I've got to give Kinsella credit for remaining as patient ...

Grab a cup of coffee, you're in for some deep digging into the philosophy of liberty and the non-aggression principle: I'll let Matt Zwolinski make his own point in his piece, "Six Reasons Libertarians Should Reject The Non-Aggression Principle." You can read it here. Thoughts as I'm reading this: I. I do appreciate Bryan Caplan's sentiments, in this piece, which Matt Z links to in the article above: But in any case, all this talk violates the fundamental rule of philosophical reasoning (indeed, all reasoning): You don't use the obscure to argue for the obvious. It's silly to say, "Murder violates man's nature, so murder is wrong," when you can just say, "Murder is wrong." Rothbard's at his strongest when he points out that governments habitually perform actions which almost everyone would admit were wrong if they were committed by a private individual. This , in my view, is real moral reasoning - inste...

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...

Thought SOPA and PIPA were bad? Despite the Internet's incredibly successful SOPA protest , the world's troublemakers just can't seem to get their hands off the Internet. It's like the battle over ObamaCare. Remember how hard so many Americans fought to keep that from passing? Remember how many attempts there were to pass it over the objections of a majority of the voting public? Remember all the changing votes, back room agreements, and other shady dealings? And just through sheer force of persistence they passed it. The establishment is at its same old tricks with Internet regulation. After the SOPA blackout spooked enough lawmakers in Washington to forestall its passage, I just knew it would come back again with a new name. And if we fight the latest affront off, it'll come back with another new name. They'll rinse and repeat until they've got the Internet in their grimy little bureaucratic hands. So what's the latest affront? ACTA. The Guardian...

Irony is Andrew Jackson's face on a central bank note. In today's Rebel of the Week piece at The Silver Circle, I lead in with Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett's beat down of a would be assassin on the House floor this Monday in 1835, but then I take a look at Jackson's principled and ultimately successful opposition to the central bank of his era, and I even give Crockett props for opposing Jackson's Indian Removal Act, which shouldn't be ignored nor defended while we admire Jackson's opposition to central banking. Read the entire article here . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

A Chinese village in revolt is under siege by police who hope to cut off its food supply and starve the protesters out. There response as they barricade their town to keep the police out: "...there’s no need to worry." Read my full coverage at The Silver Underground . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

The LA Times reports : Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said. Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties. He also called in a Predator B drone. As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare. But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base ...

No, it's not an Onion piece, as much as it sounds like one. The BBC reports that U.K. lawmakers are going to "clarify" that it is in fact not a crime to defend yourself from someone who breaks into your house. I guess it's a step in the right direction: Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said a householder who knifes a burglar will not have committed a criminal offence under plans to clarify the law on self-defence in England. He told the BBC people were entitled to use "whatever force necessary" to protect themselves and their homes. David Cameron recently said the issue should be put "beyond doubt"... "It's quite obvious that people are entitled to use whatever force is necessary to protect themselves and their homes," Mr Clarke said. Asked about what this would mean in practice, he said: "If an old lady finds she's got an 18 year old burgling her house and she picks up a kitchen knife and sticks it in him she has...

Affirming the old aphorism that actions speak louder than words, the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta asserted that “the revolution consists more in deeds than words.” Malatesta saw that “each time a spontaneous movement of the people erupts,” there is an opportunity for progress toward society without authority. A similar idea is encapsulated in the Samuel E. Konkin III’s notion of the “counter economy,” all of that economic activity that exists in defiance of the state’s hierarchical control. Where the net results of people working within real market relationships — arrangements free from outside coercion — are adaptability and local-community strength, the product of hierarchy and compulsion is irresponsibility. Read the rest of David D'Amato's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

You know the drill: A formerly useful dictator outlives his usefulness to the U.S. government, becoming a public embarrassment, or maybe even a loose cannon who can no longer be relied on to follow orders. So — they suddenly discover he’s a dictator! The folks in Washington develop a sudden enthusiasm for “People Power,” and start replaying inspiring footage of the Berlin Wall coming down. Then the people marching in the streets, despite all their sincere sacrifice and hopes for building a new kind of society, find — when the smoke has cleared — their revolution stolen out from under them and trademarked as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Soros Foundation, NED or IRI. And the face of Vlaclav Havel or Nelson Mandela is slapped on the side of the box as a brand-name icon. Read the rest of Kevin Carson's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

I’m frequently asked how an anarchist society would deal with things like pollution and other kinds of corporate malfeasance in the absence of a regulatory state. One remedy commonly put forward by market anarchists is tort liability, enforced by local juries or arbitration services. For example, a corporation that spilled large quantities of gasoline and polluted the groundwater would be sued by the farmers whose wells were affected. Libertarian writer Don Boudreaux ( “Demsetz on the Costs of Markets,” Cafe Hayek, Jan. 21) cites economist Harold Demsetz to the effect that property rights (like the right to clean air) may go unprotected in a free market because protection costs too much. The transaction costs of defining the property rights, assigning a market value to them, and identifying and punishing violations, are simply more than it’s worth to those who are protected. If this is the case, Boudreaux’s argument essentially mirrors that of progressives: That the prevention of pol...

When I write semi-clever blog titles it is usually with the intention of "hooking you in" so I can blather on about some topic or the other. But this one is a little more serious even if some may accuse it of being slightly over the top. This morning the Drudge Report carried a link to a story and news video from an Oklahoma news station which told the story of the Payne County Bank's run-in with the feds over their overtly religious celebration of a Christian holiday. You know the one. It's the same one that has been renamed a hundred different things over the last few decades by the politically correct, the militantly secular, or the pitifully ashamed Christians in our society. It's Christmas, not a "winter festival" or other PC happening. And despite the fact that many other folks celebrate parts of it, it's still a christian holy day. As the above image explains, the US Congress (or its extensions such as the Federal Reserve) may not l...

When I was growing up, my father would occasionally tell me the story around this time of year of how private property rights saved the Pilgrims from starvation. When the Pilgrims first arrived in 1620, as my father told the story, they tried to live communally according to the spirit of the Mayflower Compact. What crops they grew were put in a common storehouse and then apportioned according to each family’s need. The small colony struggled to survive for two or three years until its leaders declared that every family henceforth would be responsible for growing its own food. The new system proved much superior at putting food on the table. Read the rest of the essay by Daniel Griswold At Cato-at-Liberty.org Daniel Griswold is The Director of Trade Policy at The Cato Institute Filed by Grant Davies , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

The two sides arguing over the “Ground Zero” mosque could hardly be more hysterical if they were dreamt up by a comic book writer. Political figures like Sarah Palin and New Gingrich, who would seem to have 2012 aspirations, have weighed in with their invectives on the issue of whether New York City Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf can build (or renovate) a multiple-purpose community center that happens to have a mosque in it as well as a plaque offering condolences for the victims of September 11. But it's the intransigents on both sides in this argument who have made this a no-win situation. Just what exactly is to be gained by anybody regarding this mosque? Will terrorism go away if they can’t build this mosque? Will we be unable to mourn those who died a few blocks away on 9/11 if a Muslim prays nearby? And since two New York City blocks from Ground Zero is an affront to the families of 9/11 victims, would three blocks be sufficient to remove the insensitivity of this undertaking? Four? ...

Last month marked the five year anniversary of Kelo v City of New London, a contested US Supreme Court decision voted 5-4 that allowed eminent domain to be used by the government to force property transfers between two private parties. In this particular case, a homeowner was uprooted from their home so the property could be rented to a private developer for $1.00 a year, with the intent of flushing the city with money, jobs and tax revenue. Five years later the lot sits vacant, the private developer never obtained funding, and not a dime of revenue was ever generated. Besides thousands of dollars in court costs the next largest publicly paid expense was the relocation and additional compensation of the homeowner. “This is simply another example of how government intrusion, despite whatever story politicians drum up, always involves less liberty for private citizens and is rarely effective and never efficient,” stated Charlie Earl, Libertarian Party Candidate for Ohio Secretary of St...

I have often heard it loudly proclaimed, as if bellowed atop a great mountain in triumph, that x is a “human right” -everything from food, clean water, education, and even health care. The socialists on my campus routinely make such proclamations. But are any of these things a human right? As flowery and “compassionate” as it is to say yes, I must put my foot down. Food, water, health care, education, all of these things are very important. Certainly I want everybody to have these things. But here is my barometer of whether something is a right: Can you demand this “right” from a stranger? Neither you nor I can stop someone on the street and demand to be educated. It is equally as silly to stop a doctor and demand heart surgery, or an inspection of an ingrown toenail. The stranger is not obligated to teach nor to look at your toenail. On a more serious note, even if someone is starving and dehydrated he is not entitled to demand food and water from anyone. Now, if I see someone starv...

"...if we’re going to accept the libertarian view of property rights—which I do—then we must conclude that Palestine doesn’t belong to any one ethnic or political group. Rather, portions of the land belong to Palestinians, and portions of the land belong to Jews. Among other things, this means that the 1948 refugees and their descendants have the right to return to their homes. This also means that most of the Jews currently living in the land have the right to remain exactly where they are, as only a small number of Jews are living on land expropriated from Palestinians (Laila El-Haddad, ' Palestinian right of return is feasible ,' Al Jazeera , 31 May 2005)." Read the entire article Don Emmerich's Peace Blog . W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief Articles | Author's Page

OpenMarket.org has the latest in stupid regulations: "Ladies’ night bar specials are now illegal in Minnesota. They are unfair gender discrimination, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights." Matt Collins , Regular Columnist Articles | Author's Page

“I abhor racism; I think it’s a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant - but at the same time I do believe in private ownership, but I think there should be absolutely no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding.” - Rand Paul, May 20, 2010 Fresh off a resounding primary win, Rand Paul didn’t leave himself much time for a “honeymoon” this week when he inadvertently uttered one of the Things You’re Not Allowed To Say . Just what did he say? Did he espouse the merits of racism? Did he lament that the country did not elect Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats in 1948? Did our good and benevolent media handlers, who cannot possibly have an agenda of their own, catch Rand changing out of his surgical scrubs and into his Klan hood? No. Rand Paul simply made a statement intolerable to our political and cultural elites when he suggested that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not infallible. Rand Paul’s entire campaign thus far has been about keeping gove...

I recently took to the streets to film a video for Young Americans for Liberty , asking people if they thought that a black restaurant owner should be forced to serve a Klansman or if he has the right to refuse in his own establishment. Here it is: So far this video has been picked up by LewRockwell.com (thanks, David Kramer!), with the following commentary: "Apropos Jacob Hornberger’s excellent excoriation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, here’s a video that takes it to the street. Why Rand Paul didn’t use this sort of argument—except replacing Black owner/Klu Klux Klan customer with Gay (like Maddow) Owner/Homophobic customer—is beyond me. I guess Paul was blindsided. He’ll know for the next time." I must say, David, that I hope Rand Paul is too smart for there to be a next time. Let pundits like me make these arguments and defend libertarian beliefs- Paul should stick to his core Tea Party platform (less spending, lower taxes, and more accountable government) and po...