The Humble Libertarian original

CTV News Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada will ban single-use plastic as early as 2021. When a reporter asks, "What are you and your family doing to cut back on plastics," he has one of the most amazing on-camera meltdowns of any politician I've ever seen. This clip gets funnier every time I re-watch it. Follow @thehuli

An Inconvenient Truth: The US Government Is The Biggest Polluter On Earth. Fist Bump: The Art of Not Being Governed

Today being Earth Day, I wanted to share some libertarian perspectives and resources on the environment. You might be likely to encounter conversations about Earth Day and the environment at the workplace, around the dinner table, or when you're out and about today and for the rest of this week. Don't be caught unprepared with libertarian arguments : 1. Remind people first of all, that the worst polluter in the world is the United States government . Even if every last U.S. citizen aggressively reduced their use of energy and water, started recycling and reusing, and became just the most hardcore environmentalist in their personal lives that they possible could, it wouldn't make a dent in the amount of pollution in our world because state and county governments, and the federal government ( especially the Department of Defense), pollute so much. Any earnest, intelligent, and effective effort to reduce pollution and environmental impacts MUST begin with rolling back t...

"Imagine living in a home that costs you nothing to heat or cool. Imagine building this home yourself. Imagine growing your own vegetables year-round in this home. Imagine no utility bills. Imagine easily available, limitless natural [and salvaged] resources to build this home..." Expect to start hearing more survivalists ( like this one ) talk about earthships. These are just way too cool. I want one:

"The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday not to review a California Supreme Court ruling from last June that upheld the constitutionality of vehicle stops made by California game wardens to make sure motorists leaving hunting or fishing grounds haven’t bagged any wildlife out of season. By denying review of the ruling, the nation’s high court handed California game wardens the authority to conduct vehicle stops without a warrant. While it was the National Rifle Association that joined the defendant’s legal counsel in requesting a hearing from the Supreme Court, the ACLU might have had more at stake than the NRA in a case that has more to do with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution than the Second Amendment..." Read the rest of my article at The Independent Voter Network . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Newt Gingrich is definitely regretting the commercial he once made with Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. It was 2008 and Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project cut the commercial, which featured former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sitting on a couch with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We don’t always see eye-to-eye, do we, Newt?” said Pelosi. “No,” answered Gingrich, “but we do agree– our country must take action to address climate change.” Now, as Newt Gingrich seeks the nomination of a political party whose members are often skeptical of man-made global warming concerns, he’s not seeing so “eye-to-eye” with his adversary from across the partisan aisle any longer. Late last year, Gingrich called the commercial “The single dumbest thing I’ve done in years.” He even chucked a chapter of his book on the environment from a “conservative” perspective. So what changed? 2011-12 Newt finds the actions of 2008 Newt completely inexplicable, superlatively “dumb” even. Between then and ...

Reuters reports : Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, a government official told Reuters on Monday, making it the first nation to pull out. The official did not give details, but Environment Minister Peter Kent, who has said it was a mistake for Canada to have signed up for Kyoto, has scheduled a media availability for 5 p.m. (2200 GMT) in Ottawa. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Remember the "ClimateGate" scandal I covered two years ago ( here and here )? Here's Ed Morrissey's recap at HotAir.com : "Two years ago, a group calling itself FOIA.org dumped a treasure trove of e-mails from climate-change advocates and researchers that revealed abundant evidence of data manipulation and dishonest attempts to silence and discredit critics. Called “Climategate,” the exposure greatly damaged the standing of the scientists involved and their public statements. Now the same group has celebrated the second anniversary of the Climategate release with another release of 5,000 e-mails, which have only begun to be parsed by interested bloggers." So it's happening all over again , and this time the media has jumped on the story lightning fast. Here are just a couple of the earliest findings as bloggers sift through the cache of compromised emails: (3115) Mann: By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year rec...

"The Obama Administration fast tracked Solyndra's loan application and now $535 million dollars of American tax payer money is gone along with 1,000 green jobs. How many more examples of green jobs failure do we need before we realize you can't centrally plan economic prosperity?" Hat tip: Young Americans for Liberty Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

During my brief trip to Korea, on the ten year anniversary of 9-11, I did exactly what the terrorists didn't want me to do: I lived without anxiety. I lived without regrets. I lived without fear. I let nothing intimidate me. I let my soul be still. I laughed with my friends. I tried something new. I marveled at nature. I sang at the top of my lungs... badly. My heart was at ease, because I spent all day knowing that for me, this day and every one that preceded it for the last decade was not about the terrorists, but about loving my life, the world I live it in, and the people with whom I am so lucky to share this world. The best memorial I could offer for so many thousands murdered ten years ago, was to ignore their murderers, live without terror in my heart, and in its place let blossom joy. This post is dedicated to you, chingu . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

What's especially satisfying about this news is how arrogant, how condescending, how incredibly smug the global warming alarmists have been all along in accusing the skeptics of being scientifically ignorant, backwards, hill billies clinging to our Bibles along with our belief in a flat world held up by pillars on the backs of elephants. The way many of them painted us, we would confine Galileo to his house all over again if he were alive today. I ask the climate alarmists now, what do you say to these new NASA data? How do you respond to these observable data and their implications, you who claim to represent science? You know the scientific method has more steps to it than just hypothesis, right? Ask any fourth grader. You've actually got to do some observation of the real world. You've got to take measurements. You've got to test the observed results against your hypothesis to see if it was correct... and your models were incorrect. No, that's not the opinion o...

New York legalizes gay marriage and now all of a sudden people are shooting rainbows out of their fingertips! Pretty soon America's just going to become one giant pagan orgy!! Nah, just wanted to share this awesome picture with you. While out rollerblading with a friend we saw the most amazing and vivid double rainbow. We responded something like this: Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

So according to ThinkProgress , a top climate scientist has said that "it is irresponsible not to mention climate change" in connection with the devastating storms that rampaged through southern states this week (hat tip: memeorandum ) . Just like the birthers, climate alarmists will interpret anything and everything as validating their dogma. Lots of storms? Must be global "climate change" --as if devastating storms did not exist prior to the Industrial Revolution. Earthquake hits Haiti? Yeah, celebrity climate alarmist Danny Glover pinned that one on global warming. It's getting warmer? Global warming. It's getting colder ? Global warming-- er-- climate change-- yeah-- that's it! Climate change! Remember that earlier this week in my discussion of the "After-Birther" movement I wrote: That is the hallmark of a true "wingnut," "barking moonbat," or whatever other dysphemism you want to use for someone who has decid...

Here I begin the first of a series about voluntary environmentalism, about people and organizations that are repairing the planet without any force compelling them to do so. Undoubtedly Earth is a wreck, but state imposed solutions are not the answer. Let's see who is making a difference within a grassroots, force-free framework. Today we look at the Isha Foundation’s Project GreenHands . “Trees are our closest relationship. What they exhale, we inhale. What we exhale, they inhale. This is a constant relationship that nobody can afford to break or live without.” As said by Indian mystic and guru Sahdguru. He’s certainly right too. Anthropogenic global warming may well be a crock, but trees are very important. What's beautiful though, is that while many would petition the state to plant trees, institute regulations, or even wait on someone else saying, “Somebody oughta …”, Sahdguru and his Isha Foundation (which also teaches yoga and inner wellbeing) took it upon themselves t...

In this video, Judge Napolitano (filling in for Glenn Beck) absolutely demolishes any pretense that voluntary decisions, by private parties, on a free market were in any way responsible for the oil spill in the gulf. Instead, a series of bad decisions by the government, following the collusion of corporate special interests with Congress, caused this spill and the subsequent mishandling of it. W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief Articles | Author's Page

In this video, Wes Messamore takes to the streets of Washington to ask people what they think about the recent oil spill in the gulf. Will more regulation solve the problem? Are they aware of the rampant corruption in US regulatory agencies? Who regulates the regulators, and why should we trust them? This video was a project of Young Americans for Liberty : W. E. Messamore , Editor in Chief Articles | Author's Page

With Earth Hour 2010, which is to say: "anti-poor, anti-freedom, anti-humanity, anti-progress, anti-happiness hour 2010" just a day away , let's review what Earth Hour really means: Anti-poor: It is anti-poor because its organizers support strict, coercive carbon mitigation policies which will destroy the ability of the third world poor to develop and become affluent. It's easy and fun to sit in the dark for an hour with friends when you know you can turn the lights back on, but you're being incredibly dense, insensitive, and cruel to the people of the world without your advantages, who have a dream of developing and becoming affluent like you. Those people often sit in darkness anyway, not by choice, but because of substandard power systems and intense poverty. They live in countries that need to industrialize, that need to burn fossil fuels, that need to use energy in order to develop. The carbon-regulatory schemes at issue with the Earth Hour supporters, will...

Reports Gateway Pundit : "A seven-month old baby girl survived a shot to the chest after her parents shot themselves and their two-year-old in a global warming murder-suicide pact." Is it all Al Gore's fault?

Republican Governor Gary Johnson 's advocacy group Our America Initiative is starting to gain steam by putting some fantastic ideas out there and helping Americans to understand that good government is easy! I am proud to announce that I will start making regular contributions to the Our America Initiative blog and am honored to be a part of what I hope will be an historic initiative to restore America to its former greatness by restoring her freedoms. The following is an excerpt from my first blog post at Our American Initiative : One important question for our era is: How do we create clean, affordable, renewable energy? It would seem that Silicon Valley engineer, K.R. Sridhar has found an answer to that question, the Bloom Box. With its dazzling premiere on 60 minutes Sunday evening, the Bloom Box is making a big splash on the Internet as the next best solution to our energy needs. It’s a small fuel cell that produces a lot of energy, allowing its users to unplug from the powe...

The global warming debate has long been shrouded in a veil of "scientism" and the leading climate alarmists in an aura of untouchable scientific expertise. Indeed, they have become modern oracles, unquestionable purveyors of a privileged knowledge. Today's commencement of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, could not have come at a more embarrassing time for the climate alarmists. The jig is up. The oracles are not such pure and objective adherents to the conclusions of science after all. The first sign came this October with Levitt and Dubner's publication of SuperFreakonomics . In it, they concede that average global temperatures have been on a warming trend over the past century. Then they outline the most cost effective solution to solve global warming, if it turns out to threaten human civilization or fragile ecosystems. All it would take is several miles of hose lifted into the upper atmosphere by a helium balloon and a stream of s...