The Humble Libertarian original

Let's start off with an easy question: Whose Internet would all of the cool, hip, California-smug, Obama-liberal/libertarian-lite, techno-pundits say is more "neutral?" America's or China's? A: China's right? The Great Firewall of China You see, there's nothing neutral about an Internet on the leash of state regulations. Which is why "Net Neutrality" is as Orwellian a name for it as the Patriot Act is for that piece of unpatriotic trash. Once you put on the leash, just so long as Washington is tugging it in the direction of your pet issue ( this time , you fool)... It doesn't matter if you give yourself a mile of leash. It will keep getting shorter until the state is yanking you around by the neck. Net Neutrality activism is for people with short eyes and long ears. Sounds great to people who can't see past next week. And people with short memories too. Because when oh when will we ever learn that Washington...

Hahaha, nice one /u/MBoudet .

Credit: Kitty Hell The existence and availability of gun technology is a great equalizer for the physically weaker and more vulnerable among us. Take for instance, this 15-year-old boy and his 12-year-old sister , who were home alone one Tuesday afternoon in 2010 when two strangers tried to break into their house. Without gun technology, these two children would have certainly been in worse danger. Gun technology confers physical parity upon those who are physically disempowered against stronger bullies or intra-species predators, because they have smaller or weaker bodies. Two thundering, violent, adult, male brutes breaking into a house don't need gun technology to overpower and abuse or even kill two children. But without gun technology, the children would likely never be able to overpower and neutralize these predatory adults' physical advantage. The quality of the technology is relevant to its effectiveness and the best interests and best practices of million...

#DEFCAD has gone dark at the request of the Department of Defense Trade Controls. Take it up with the Secretary of State. — Defense Distributed (@DefDist) May 9, 2013 I warned you about this . Push back against this intrusion on our liberty NOW. No, NOT by calling your Congressman! Download the gun files anyways ! It's easy. You can do it in under five minutes. 1. Download uTorrent and install on your computer. 2. Then visit the following link. http://thepiratebay.sx/search/defcad/0/99/0 That's where all the gun files are. 3. Click the magnet icons under the Liberator printable gun link and the most recent version of the DefCad Mega Pack link. Use uTorrent to download BOTH of these! This is important! This is urgent! This isn't even about the Second Amendment anymore. This is about the First Amendment. No, it's not even about that. It's about: are you afraid of the Washington regime, or are you laughing at it? UPDATE: DefCad....

CISPA Lobbyists are easily startled, but they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers.

One set of rules for small business owners. Another set of rules for the people who make the rules. How many more examples are we going to need?

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...

Yesterday, the closely watched “Obamacare” proceedings at the Supreme Court focused on the issue that most commentators are calling central to the debate over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act: mandates. The campaign of Republican presidential candidate and 2012 frontrunner, Mitt Romney, probably hates that mandates are the key topic of discussion in this week’s news cycle, and will be for the rest of the Republican Primary until the Supreme Court hands down a decision on what pundits are calling “The Case of the Century.” Or maybe not... Read the rest of my article at The Independent Voter Network . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Is it merely a coincidence that every time the government steps in to make something more affordable and more readily available, that very thing becomes more and more expensive over time (and usually diminishes in quality too)? It’s a story we’ve seen repeated again and again, especially throughout recent American history. For decades now, the federal government has been in the business of attempting to regulate, subsidize, and decrease the prices of things like housing, higher education, and energy, but their prices have only gone steadily upward following Washington’s involvement, and their quality has arguably declined. Why? Read the rest of my article at The Independent Voter Network . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

When I first read a headline saying that the city of Rocklin, California was considering banning residents from smoking outside of their homes on their own property, I was outraged. Even though I acknowledge the dangers of smoking, the idea of a city government telling a resident that they couldn’t choose to smoke on their own porch, in their own driveway, or in their own backyard seemed patently absurd to me. It didn’t seem too absurd to believe, however, especially about a city in California, which is notorious for city governments that pass “nanny state” regulations to meddle in matters like whether or not a fast food chain can put toys in meals that consumers willingly elect to purchase for their children. But when I followed the link to the CBS Sacramento article bearing the headline, I discovered a discrepancy between the text of the article and the words of the reporter in the video at the top of it.... Read the rest of my article at The Independent Voter Network Wes M...

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...

What if when we black out the Internet to protest SOPA... they pass it because no one's watching! -Conspiracy Keanu Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

SOPA and the spectre of censorship: How would you like to open your browser one day to find your favorite websites blocked or censored by an act of the relentlessly growing regulatory regime in Washington? How would you like to find an image like the one above in place of your favorite content or even political commentary? If you haven’t heard about it by now already, SOPA (the “Stop Online Piracy Act”) is a concerted effort by various special interests in Old Media to cope with the rapidly changing world of information and its effects on the distribution and monetization of media, but like many major regulatory reforms pushed by special interest lobbyists, while the key players are fighting over something petty, they are unwittingly working to build the infrastructure for future oppression and tyranny, or as Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute puts it : the legal and technological architecture for censorship . Julian Sanchez writes at the link above: “SOPA is a 70 pag...

Worst. Idea. Ever. If you're worried about SOPA, take a look at this : In a Monday speech, Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined a draft proposal that would reform the commission’s Lifeline program to include provisions to encourage broadband adoption. The program, currently aimed at providing affordable telephone service to low-income Americans, is supported by the Universal Service Fund. “The program is outdated, focused on phone service when high-speed Internet has become our vital communications platform,” he said. In his remarks, Genachowski said the program has been successful, but has also been plagued with problems of accountability and efficiency. Multiple service providers are often supplying Lifeline subsidies to the same households, he said, because there is no centralized system. To address the issue, Genachowski said, the draft proposal creates a national database of Lifeline users to prevent duplicative billing. It also sets a budget fo...

Well here's a little bit of good news : The House Judiciary Committee adjourned its markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act on Friday afternoon after spending the previous day and a half in heated debate over the bill's potential impact. A vocal minority of committee members introduced more than 50 amendments intended to delay and derail the legislation, which would authorize the government and copyright holders to seek court orders forcing search engines and other Web firms to delete links to foreign sites dedicated to copyright infringement. But the majority of those amendments were shot down by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and his fellow supporters, who belittled claims the bill would lead to censorship and stifle innovation on the Internet. Still, the delay could add fuel to the grassroots backlash that has been growing online against the bill. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Here's what conservative columnist Jack Hunter recently had to say about The Primal Blueprint , a book advocating the "paleo diet" or "caveman diet" (a diet of mostly meats and vegetables): In its philosophy, the Primal Blueprint is essentially a conservative diet. Author and Primal Blueprint creator Mark Sisson says, "Forget everything you thought you knew about diet, exercise, and health. It's time to go back to the beginning." He believes that the "experts" at the Food and Drug Administration, with their food pyramid and nutritional advice about what constitutes a well-balanced meal, are full of it. According to Sisson, "The Primal Blueprint is validated by the magnificent 2-million-year scientific study that is human evolution. Our genes prefer natural hunter-gatherer foods, such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, meat, fish, fowl, and eggs." What we should avoid are grains and sugars, writes Sisson. "Processed ca...

Glen Allport writes : Much of the growing transfer of wealth to the rich is in fact only possible because of government coercion. Many of today's corporations (some portion of our military contractors, for instance) would not even exist in a free society, and those which did exist would have to be selling something that people (not government) were willing to pay for. But today, we don't have a free society, and government power is massive enough to make or break any corporation or industry. Government power is now being used to hand billions and even trillions of dollars to failed businessmen (many of whom failed due to serious fraud, as with "liar loans" in the banking industry) and to connected corporations and other groups. Today, government control of various industries (misleadingly called "regulation") enables bad corporate behavior, stifles competition, allows massive pollution to go unpunished, and raises prices to artificial and even absurd le...

TechDirt.com reports : "It appears that more and more members of the House are realizing just how bad SOPA is. Joining Reps. Issa and Bachmann, who had previously spoken out about SOPA, a group of ten House members have signed a letter opposing SOPA. The letter was organized by Rep. Anna Eshoo, the leading Democrat on telco & tech -- but whose committee was not involved in the crafting of this bill for reasons that only make sense if the purpose of the bill was to regulate the internet without input from the industry being regulated... Among those who signed onto the letter are Ron Paul, showing that he continues to be internet savvy and recognizes that regulating the internet is a bad, bad idea." SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act . Read that Wikipedia entry and check out who all opposes it. It's a pretty impressive list of opponents. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

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 a gotcha attempt occurs, questioning a candidate's belief in the elimination of the Department of Education... "I'm afraid you're confusing the elimination of the Department of Education with the elimination of education itself. The Department of Education didn't come into existence until 1980. And its removal would eliminate the guidelines, requirements and mandates that prevent individual states, districts and schools from implementing pedagogical tactics they believe might create dramatic improvements in learning. Now, if you are able to present me with evidence that the Department of Education has impro...

Sometimes all you need is the headline. " Christmas Tree Tax ." Yeah. Here's the story : ' Obama Administration to Delay New 15-Cent Christmas Tree Tax The U.S. Department of Agriculture is going to delay implementation and revisit a proposed new 15 cent fee on fresh-cut Christmas trees, sources tell ABC News. The fee, requested by the National Christmas Tree Association in 2009, was first announced in the Federal Registry yesterday and has generated criticism of President Obama from conservative media outlets. The well-trafficked Drudge Report is leading with the story, linking to a blog by David Addington, a former top aide to then-Vice President Dick Cheney, at the conservative Heritage Foundation assailing the president thus: “The economy is barely growing and nine percent of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do? And, by the way, the American Christmas tree has a great image that doesn’t need any ...