The Humble Libertarian original

If the man were as immortal as his ideas, Friedrich Hayek would be 110 years old today. His words, from The Road to Serfdom , are as relevant today, in a world of bailout and stimulus packages as they were in his day: It is often said that political freedom is meaningless without economic freedom. This is true enough, but in a sense almost opposite from that in which the phrase is used by our planners. The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably carries the risk and the responsibility of that right. The key words for us today are "the risk and responsibility of that right," concepts that are entirely alien to bailouts or stimulus. Responsibility means consequences. And ap...

Photo by Chris Hack ( CC ) A Deleted Scene With Libertarian Content Yesterday was Star Wars Day or Awesomely Nerdy Pun Day - May the 4th (be with you... get it?), and in honor thereof, I want to share with you a rare, deleted scene from Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope : The Anchorhead Sequence (named after a town Luke Skywalker visits to hang out with his friends). The scene was unfortunately deleted to improve the flow of the movie, but in it is a powerful and explicit critique of big government policies and government nationalization of industry. The value of this scene is to put in more explicit terms the underlying libertarian quality of the Star Wars movies, which pit the revolutionary remnants of a peaceful and free Old Republic against a warmongering, socialist Galactic Empire that has supplanted it. As you view the scene in the embedded video below, look out for this quote by Biggs Darklighter: "What good's all your uncle's work if the Empire takes it over? ...

Economist Milton Friedman superbly answers the major objections to drug legalization in this short video. Highlighted quotes from the video: Why legalize marijuana? "I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, 10,000 fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there's a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts, not being subject to become criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they're sure of the quality." Isn't it a gateway drug to harder substances? "The effect of criminalization is to drive people from mild drugs to strong drugs... Crack would never have existed in my opinion if you had not had drug prohibition. It was drug prohibition- why was crack created? Because cocaine was so expensive." [Cocaine was so expensive because of drug prohibition .] But what about the morality ...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Snoutbreak '09 - The Last 100 Days thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days Beyond making you laugh till you soil yourself, the above depiction of the fearmongering of the media should raise some questions. After seeing it, I got to thinking about the role of the media in our society. Freedom of the press, friends of liberty have always thought (and rightly so), is an essential safeguard against government power. The press helps to keep its people informed and to question authorities and expose their failures. Most contemporary media outlets, however, it seems to me, totally fail to serve this purpose. The media are friends of the government, not a means by which it is kept in check. They nurture the fear that big government feeds upon. And this is just as true of Fox News as it is of CNN. The right has scared us into an unnecessary war, and the left has scared us into unprecedented deficit “stimulus”...

T H L 's monthly libertarian blog carnival, featuring last month's outstanding libertarian articles from all quarters of the libertarian blogosphere. T H L gives you magic powers. j/k Intro April was a phenomenal month on our end here at T H L . We got to celebrate our Six Month Anniversary on April 2nd, and then blow past (by more than doubling in some cases) all the records we had set in the first 6 months & which I mentioned in that update (e.g. T H L 's record for unique visitors in one day was 616 at the start of April and by the end of the month- yesterday in fact- we had beaten that w/ a record of 1,527). Folks, I am not writing that to brag to you- though I am very pleased about it. I'm writing it to thank you and to let you know that your participation is making a difference. It is building a thriving community of people who love freedom and think critically about the issues our world faces. Your readership is helping to bring a message to the world and I...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After more than 18 years on the nation's highest court, Supreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring, a source close to Souter told CNN Thursday. Souter will leave after the current court term recesses in June, the source said. Filling Souter's seat would be President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court appointment -- and the first since George W. Bush's picks of Samuel Alito in 2006 and Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005. Souter, 69, was tapped for the court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, but disappointed many conservatives when he turned out to be a typical old-fashioned Yankee Republican -- a moderate, with an independent, even quirky streak. And abortion debate in 3... 2... 1... ! Get ready for more drama, invective, and empty partisan rhetoric. Things are about to get interesting (by which I mean, things are about to stay boring and predictable). And Mr. President, make sure your nominee paid his (or probably her ) taxes! In the me...

Photo by Pete Souza While I published a list of 100 blunders, lies, gaffes, and bad policies the day before President Obama's hundredth in office, I was kicking myself for not publishing mine a little earlier because the New York Post beat me to the punch . I must say I am a little partial to mine because the New York Post's list has several items on it that I don't consider valid criticisms of Obama in his first hundred days as President. Here they are with my responses: 9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn't properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey's induction into the European Union. That's a little more of a criticism of Turkey than it is of Obama . Sarkozy and Merkel may have been outraged, but does that mean that they don't support Turkey's ind...