Abolish Marriage Licensure - And Stop Collecting Data

In the continuing saga of the state sticking its nose into marriage, three couples in Virginia are suing the state government because the state refused to issue them marriage licenses -- because the plaintiffs refused to state their races on their license application.

Instead of fighting it in court, the Commonwealth should make the suit moot by immediately eliminating the marriage license system and all associated requirements, benefits, restrictions, and regulations.

Every state, not just Virginia, collects demographic information for marriage licenses.  Even if they don't ask directly on the form, all states require a state-issued ID at some point in the process, and those demographic entries are either shown in the clear on the ID itself or it's behind it on the DMV database -- which means that the state marriage license database has all of that as well.

Libertarians support marriage equality -- because we favor the immediate abolition of marriage licensure, for all of the same reasons we favor the elimination of all other forms of state permission slips.  Libertarians regard licensure as the government taking away a right all individuals have, and then selling them that right back as a privilege.

Americans have been fighting this battle over the details of how government permission slips are issued and to whom for decades now.  It's time to bring that battle to a close by eliminating all marriage license laws.

Interestingly, Republicans have picked up the idea from Libertarians, and have recently eliminated marriage licensure in Alabama and introduced repeal bills in other states.

Who or how many somebody loves is none of the government's business.

Libertarians support separation of marriage and state. Government marriage license regimes were introduced as tools of control like any other license, and therefore we call for their immediate abolition.  No free individual should be expected to obtain a "permission slip" from the state in order to marry.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, May, 2019.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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A Libertarian Response to The Fat-State Address by Jared Polis, 2019

In his first "state of the state" address, new Colorado governor Jared Polis proved something: Namely, he is just another in a long line of tax-spend-regulate-subsidize-suppress-penalize political hacks who think they have any moral right to govern the affairs of private individuals.

Libertarians in Colorado listened, where we could stay awake, to Polis' comments with same understanding we have had with every other new governor:

• Taxes will go up
• Spending will fatten
• Regulations will suppress more and more entrepreneurs
• More individual rights will be trampled upon
• Transparency will fade further
• More citizens will be killed by police enforcing ever more new laws
• The war on the recreational choices of individuals will rage on and expand
• Health care will be further taken over by the state
• Bureaucrats will expand their drive to choose economic winners and losers
• Colorado will continue to become the exclusive playground of the upper classes

In short, Polis will do all of the same things that every other governor has done.

Some Libertarian reactions to Polis' fat-state policy desires:

THE ECONOMY

POLIS: "Our economy is strong. From agriculture and outdoor recreation to aerospace, bioscience, energy, and cannabis, we've watched industries succeed and create jobs."

LIBERTARIANS: Meanwhile, the political class, including Polis, have endeavored mightily to destroy and marginalize industries they don't like, ruining the jobs those sectors supported.

Libertarians call for a free, unfettered market economy and elimination of regulations that stifle growth and eliminate hobs.

BIPARTISANSHIP

POLIS: "We've become a model for how we can put politics aside and work together."

LIBERTARIANS: That's what everyone is afraid of.  Thinking individuals know that whenever politicians agree with one another, your right, liberties, and property are at risk.  Gridlock preserves liberty to some degree.

The only reason that statesmen should put aside differences and work together is to repeal and eliminate the Byzantine layers of law and bureaucracy in Colorado.  The state code could be halved, and no one would die and everyone would benefit.

THE POOR AND MARGINALIZED

POLIS: "Despite all of our progress, far too many people are either barely getting by, or falling behind."

LIBERTARIANS: Well, when you increase the tax and regulatory load on taxpayers, some of them break and can no longer keep up.

The cure for that is to eliminate the load on the taxpayer by eliminating taxes.

BROADBAND INTERNET

POLIS: Seeks local government takeover of broadband internet.

LIBERTARIANS: Competing with the private sector is never a good idea.

And what happens when "communities" decide they can disconnect or deplatform individuals or groups who wish to freely exercise their right to freedom of speech or religion?

It's bad enough that private-sector entities sometimes refuse to allow uncensored speech (much of that so-called "private sector" censorship, by the way, is driven by government pressure).

It will be much worse if there is only the government monopoly provider and no other outlet for free speech.  And cost per user will skyrocket, same as with everything else bureaucrats take over.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

POLIS: "We [must] address the inequities in our criminal justice system. That means tackling discriminatory practices that make people of color, individuals living with mental illness, and Coloradans experiencing poverty more likely to face incarceration. And it means working to make sure Coloradans who do serve prison or jail time are able to live a dignified and fulfilling life after they've paid their debt to society."

LIBERTARIANS: The biggest single issue looming over criminal justice is the number of nonviolent drug offenders who go through the system.

Libertarians suggest the one reform that would eliminate much of the injustice of our current syustem is to fully decriminalize all victimless crimes, including all recreational drugs, sex work, and gambling.  It's time to end our national experiment with the Progressive Era's national socialist legacy of Prohibition.  Prohibition has been a disaster, costly in both human lives and in expense.  It has decimated several generations of young men in minority communities -- which were revenue-farming targets for law enforcement for decades prior to Prohibition.

Private, consensual behavior is none of the government's business. 

Ending state prosecution of drug and other victimless offenses will eliminate the need for many drug warrior jobs, allowing government employed individuals currently fighting that utterly unwinnable war to seek productive work in the wealth-producing private sector.

EARLY CHILDHOOD INDOCTRINATION

POLIS: "[We will introduce] state-funded early childhood education."

LIBERTARIANS: Hasn't government done enough to our children?  In Colorado the average public school spends a little over $10,000 for each child already, and the results are sub-par.  Meanwhile, homeschoolers and private schools continue to outstrip their government indoctrination centers' results.  The real reason for the push to get kids into the government's indoctrination system earlier and earlier is... well, to increase the amount of time the state has to indoctrinate.

The same kind of bureaucrats who can't seem to deliver mail or keep violent criminals locked up should not be trusted around children.

PARENTAL LEAVE

LIBERTARIANS: Polis' budget package coming up on the 15th includes a formal request to provide paid parental leave for all state employees.

He also wants to force the private sector to establish a paid family and medical leave program.

So he's going to make it more expensive for the private sector to pay their own employees, and then he's going make sure they pay for his patronage of Colorado bureaucrats too.

Where does he think that money is going to come from?

Libertarians call for government to stop regulating everything in life.  Whether one's employer provides leave or not is a private matter that should be left to negotiation by employers and employees.

As for leave for government employees, it would cost a lot less if government employees simply left.

HEALTH CARE

POLIS: Wants to lower "the outrageous cost of health care".

LIBERTARIANS: The only way to do that is to get the fickle fingers of bureaucrats completely out of the health care pie.  A good start would be to eliminate the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, end all government funding of or subsidies to the health care industry, and begin eliminating state licensure so that private certification can take over.Perhaps the most laughable of Polis' demands is his proposed "Office of Saving People Money on Health Care".

Maybe this will buck the trend of government agencies being created for a purpose but then having the exact opposite effect in reality (and growing to gargantuan proportions in the process), but that's probably a pipe dream.

PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS

POLIS: Wants to "address the appalling costs of prescription drugs", and cites the factoid that "Canada has the same drugs from the same manufacturing plants that we have here in the United States; but often at one-half, one-third, yes, even one-quarter of the cost."

LIBERTARIANS: And the reason for that is Canada's government lets those manufacturers sell their drugs there only at the prices the government sets -- edicts which do not take into account drug development costs.  So when Colorado and other states start buying drugs from Canada and elsewhere at regulated prices, and re-importing them here, expect the pipeline of new life-saving drugs to start drying up.

Polis is just like every other politician in that respect: They are too shallow and ignorant to look for the real reasons why things are the way they are.

ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE DEBATE, GREEN ENERGY

POLIS: Wants "good-paying jobs in the clean-energy sector that can never be outsourced."

LIBERTARIANS: This is an example of politicians thinking they have any moral right, or the authority, to pick winners and losers.

What the green energy sector needs is for the government to get completely out of meddling in any kind of energy -- green or not.  Eliminate the subsidies, eliminate the penalties, and protect property rights, and the markets will gravitate towards clean energy just fine and without government help.Perhaps the most ironic part of Polis' state of the state speech was his twin arguments for spending billions and writing impossible-to-comply-with regulations to mitigate climate change, and forcing a changeover to electric vehicles on the one hand, but then building more and bigger highways.

If Polis really wishes to reduce emissions, then he should be working towards eliminating land-use regulation by localities that force builders to spread out developments further and further away from city centers.  He should also be looking at privatizing infrastructure so that users pay the full cost of building and maintaining it.

In the meantime, one of the methods Polis and populist politicians like him use to "help" get electric vehicles into use is by penalizing the use of fossil fuels.  Libertarians suggest instead getting government out of the way: Don't subsidize or penalize **any** form of energy.

It is also ironic that Polis cited the all-solar coffee shop and windmill plant in his address.  Politicians like Polis, by making mining the minerals needed to build windmills, solar panels, and other tech either impossible or costly.  Which means that mining such minerals goes overseas, where slave and child labor is used and where environmental oversight is lax or nonexistent.

Polis says he wants to "help" businesses of all kinds start, grow, thrive, and create good-paying jobs.  Once again, this means he will attempt to pick economic winners and losers, when the only thing he needs to do is to get government out of the way by eliminating taxes, fees, licenses, permits, and regulations.  This is clearly not what he intends.  He wants to protect the "right" of communities:

"to have a voice when it comes to industrial activities within their borders. It's time for us to take meaningful action to address the conflicts between oil-and-gas drilling operations and the neighborhoods they impact, and to make sure that all of our communities have clean air and water."

"Communities" don't have rights.  Governments don't have rights.  Only individuals do, and only by protecting the right of individuals to do what they wish with their own honestly-acquired property will liberty be preserved.  If a company damages neighboring properties, the solution is to allow those damages to be addressed in court.

STATE INCOME TAXES; TAX CODE

POLIS: Wants to "make our tax code more fair, so that we can reduce rates for Colorado families and small businesses. Our tax code gives too much power to the special interests who can afford expensive lobbyists, while forcing ordinary families to pay more. As legislators, I know that many of you find these tax giveaways offensive."

LIBERTARIANS:  Again, this is because previous iterations of Polis have tried to pick winners and losers using the tax code.  Rather than continuing to trifle with who gets the better deal at tax time, the Libertarian Party suggests making all taxpayers the winners by eliminating taxes for all and allowing the private sector to provide better services at lower cost -- and without the free rider problem.

Polis referred to alleged "tax breaks" for this or that group as "tax expenditures".  In other words he assumes every penny of your money actually belongs to government, and if the government deems you worthy of keeping some of it, that's "spending" by the government.  That is a disease just about every politician suffers from.  A name for it might be "Grabitis".

Libertarians think you and everyone else in the private sector own every penny you have earned, saved, and invested; while the leeches of government should not expect a penny.

So yes, Jared -- let's modify the tax code.

By eliminating it.

SALES TAXES, OTHER TAXES

POLIS: "90 percent of the retailers in our state are small businesses. It's time to cap the vendor fee, which is a giveaway to the largest and most profitable retailers in the nation, and use the savings to lower rates, which will benefit small businesses and millions of working Coloradans."

LIBERTARIANS: Again, Polis wants to use the tax code to pick winners and losers.  But the only way to level the playing field is to abolish the vendor fee (tax) altogether.

POLIS: Wants to implement "true tax reform that reduces taxes for hardworking Coloradans instead of giving breaks to special interests while forcing families to pay more."

Families pay all taxes.  No corporation pays one cent of tax -- because taxes for corporations are just one more expense of doing business.  If you buy a loaf of bread one day for $1.00, and the next day a new $1.00 per loaf tax takes effect, that family will then have to pay $2.00 for the same loaf of bread.

Libertarians want an "economy where Coloradans from all walks of life don't just get by, but thrive," same as Polis said he wants.

But the difference between Polis and Libertarians is Polis wants you to believe he can wave his wand and do that by saddling Coloradans with higher taxes and more regulation; while Libertarians would eliminate barriers to producing wealth and improving one's lot in life.

MAKING THE STATE "WORK BETTER FOR ALL"

POLIS: He says he "will work tirelessly to make our state work better for you - so that you can earn a good living and share in our special way of life. And I know that this Legislature will do the same, because every single one of us wants to see every single Coloradoan succeed. A Colorado for all."

LIBERTARIANS: What he doesn't say:

• Except oil workers, whose industry is slowly being restricted into oblivion.
• Except the poor, who are being displaced rapidly from their homes due to escalating real estate taxes.
• Except gun owners, who are being threatened with confiscation.
• Except for antique car hobbyists, who are being regulated and harassed out of working on their own cars.
• Except for Republicans, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and other political minorities.
• Except for the victims of police shootings and beatings.
• Except for those who believe Freedom of Association is an inalienable right.
• Except for those who say unpopular things.
• Except for people in alternative relationships, like polyamory.
• Except for singles.

Polis asked a few rhetorical questions.

Which, unfortunately for him, are easy to answer.

POLIS: "Will our ideas be good for Colorado?"

LIBERTARIANS: Nope.  His ideas will mean more job security for bureaucrats, and more looting from taxpayers.

POLIS: "Will they reduce health care costs?"

LIBERTARIANS: No.  Polis' "solution" for health-care costs are no different than any other worshiper of state meddling.  They will increase costs and make the health-care system even more difficult for patients to navigate.

POLIS: "Will they improve our schools and help our kids get a strong start?"

LIBERTARIANS: No.  Schools will continue to deteriorate and leave students further behind homeschoolers, private schools, and the rest of the world.

POLIS: "We all agree that every child deserves a great education, so let's start there."LP: Excellent idea.  A terrific start would be to begin transitioning government indioctrination centers by selling them to parents.

POLIS: [Detailed a long laundry lists of things he wants to burp forth using other people's money.]

LIBERTARIANS: Sigh.

In summary, Polis is just another in a long line of tax-spend-regulate-subsidize-suppress-penalize political hacks who think they have any moral right to govern the affairs of private individuals.

Libertarians suggest an alternative to politics-as-usual:

• Get government out of the way.
• Eliminate taxes.
• Stop allowing localities within the state to violate individual rights; including property rights.
• Slash spending.
• Eliminate government jobs.
• Abolish regulation.
• Repeal all all unconstitutional regulation of freedom of speech, conscience, religion, expression, and Freedom of Association.
• Privatize government functions.
• Allow the private sector to work.
• Leave people free to improve their own station in life, and don't penalize them for doing so.
• Get government out of education.
• Cease all regulation of private, consensual behavior.
• Eliminate all state laws that compromise citizens' rights as protected by the Bill of Rights; particularly the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments.

And leave us the hell alone.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, January, 2019.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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Blue Wave?

What "Blue wave"?

I am no Trumpkin, but the Left needs to up its game.

Obama lost SIXTY-THREE House seats and SIX Senate seats in his first midterms in 2010.

Clinton lost FIFTY-FOUR House seats and NINE Senate seats in his first midterm in 1994.

And THEY had an adoring press.

[Bush actually bucked the long trend and gained 2 Senate seats and 8 House seats in 2002.]

Trump has been under unrelenting, vicious attacks by most of the press, yet he is going to GAIN at least 2 seats in the Senate and will lose only between thirty and forty seats in the House.

Y'all are in trouble. Because the 2020 elections just started today, and what you thought was going to be a rout, really wasn't.

In addition, you squandered your opportunity to work with Republicans to get a more balanced Supreme Court by your underhanded treatment of the Kavanaugh nomination.  Your handling of that nomination assured that you will be run over if there are any more vacancies -- two more may well be in the cards within the next year.

Playing the "If you aren't a leftist, you're a creepy racist woman-hating redneck ignorant nazi gun nut homophobic bigot" card is probably too yesterday to work anymore.

What might work better for the left is working on actually solving problems.

Like, repealing the Prohibitions on drugs, gambling, and prostitution that drag the poor and minorities into the justice system disproportionately, ending all the wars, and working towards accountability and transparency for government workers -- including the police, who inflict such a horrendous toll on minorities through policing for profit and revenue farming in general.

And fixing those absolutely corrupt, murderous, bankrupt, and broken Left-led major cities all over the United States.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, October, 2018.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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Welcome to the Libertarian Party, 2018

To all the new people who have discovered an interest in the Libertarian Party these past few weeks:

Welcome!

There are nearly half a million registered Libertarians in the 27 states where it is not illegal to register as a Libertarian.

What makes us different from the other parties? Well...

We have called for the repeal of all Drug Prohibition since our founding in 1971.

We have called for abolishing the income tax and eliminating the IRS, and have said that "Taxation is Theft", since our founding in 1971.

We have called for replacing inefficient, wasteful, and brutal government "services" -- yes, even those flashing-lights emergency services -- with private-sector alternatives since our founding in 1971.

We have called for abolishing government indoctrination centers (public schools) since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all foreign aid, regardless of how evil or good the recipient nation is, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all military adventurism, and the removal of all US military assets from foreign lands, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the repeal of all regulations on guns, including regulations on modified and automatic weapons, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the abolition of the Federal Reserve and for sound, free-market money since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the elimination of all corporate and individual welfare and subsidies since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the privatization of transportation infrastructure since our founding in 1971.  Where we're going, we don't need "roads".

We have called for the complete separation of government and health care, and for abolishing medical regulation and licensing, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to government meddling in private voluntary agreements, such as minimum wage laws and requirements that businesses recognize unions, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for eliminating all restrictions on the right of people to cross imaginary lines since our founding in 1971.

We have called for private property rights to be fully respected by governments, and for the repeal of land-use regulations and zoning, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all marriage regulation and licensure, as well as for an end to all *government* discrimination for or against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans individuals -- and heterosexuals -- since our founding in 1971.  And we actually mean it.  In 1972, our very first national Platform stated our support for the rights of sexual minorities (http://www.lpedia.org/1972_Libertarian_Party_Platform#Crime .

We have called for an end to all government sex discrimination since our founding in 1971.  We actually walk the talk, too: our very first nominee for Vice President, Tonie Nathan, was the first woman to receive an Electoral College vote.

We believe all individuals should be treated equally by governments. Unlike the Johnny-come-latelys, Libertarians actually take the idea of equal rights seriously -- and we started that conversation long before Democrats opportunistically embraced it.

We have called for the abolition of all laws restricting Freedom of Association, and for the elimination of all subsidies, regulation, special rights, privileges, penalties, preferential treatment, either for or against any subset of individuals or "favored" groups, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all government interference in the freedom of religion and conscience since our founding in 1971.  We don't want churches taxed -- we want taxes abolished.

So, welcome to the Libertarian Party.

Leave those big-party ideologies at the door -- you won't be needing them any more.

Cast off those chains!

Remember -- those stale old ideas have turned the United States into a police state.

Libertarians believe people should be able to marry who they want, gamble if they want, party with a hooker, smoke weed or partake of other recreational drugs, live as a woman (or a man) if they want ... but they should also be left free to start a business without asking for "permission", keep their money and property, travel without papers, and enjoy any guns they can afford.

Enjoy your freedom, and we're glad you're here.

VOTE LIBERTARIAN * 800-ELECT-US or http://www.LP.org/

Get active! http://www.LP.org/volunteer

-- end --

Personal agency: It's actually a thing.

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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, for the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus.  Revised April, 2018.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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Anarchophobia

Anarchophobia: The ignorant fear of anarchists.

Anarchophobia is normally used as an excuse to paper over the fact that almost all Libertarian candidates fail to seek adequate volunteer and donor support for their campaigns, to explain away the reason more Libertarians are not being elected to office.

Most anarchophobes are clueless about:

- ballot access censorship and judicial bias favoring the D/R monopoly of the ballots in all states.

- the many extensive contributions anarchists have made to the modern Libertarian Party.

- the fact that anarchists were among the founding members of the Libertarian Party, and,

- the fact that anarchists comprise a large fraction of the current donating membership of the Libertarian Party.

[paraphrasing D. Frank Robinson]

FACT: Until ballot bias is eradicated, the votes cannot come.

FACT: When the votes come, the money will follow.

FACT: When the money arrives, oaths of office will administered.


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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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Originally written April 2018, by Marc Montoni, for the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus.  This version released 2018.

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Bottom-Shelf Sustenance

[Editor's Note: This article was written in 2010 by Chad Quella, who retains all rights to it.]

With a cartful of our staple groceries at the usual family trip to the Mechanicsville Kroger, we got into the shortest checkout line and waited.  But after a while of staying in one spot and not advancing in line, I began to pay attention to what was going on ahead of me.

It appeared that there was a new trainee on the register with a more seasoned employee beside her, but what had caused the delay was a non-standard transaction that required some hands-on training.  She would get plenty of experience with that type of transaction by the time her customer finished checking out.

Lined-up on the conveyor belt were five separate clusters of items, each topped with a receipt-like strip of paper.  It immediately struck me as poor decision-making that this customer in front of me had selected several gallons of milk, but also several pints of milk.  The milk in a pint bottle of course is more expensive than the milk in a gallon bottle, and anyway I couldn’t imagine what might be going on in this woman’s home that would require that much milk, or even allow it to all get drank before it spoils.  But hey, it isn’t my milk.

There were a few other things too, I recall a package of individually-wrapped cheese food slices, and a tub of cottage cheese.  Big dairy fan, I chuckled to myself.  But there was one last cluster of items, different from the rest in that it didn’t have a slip of paper on top, and rather than dairy, it was a package of seafood salad, a styrofoam tray containing a pair of deviled crabs, and a bag of fresh lobster from the seafood counter.

As I stood and waited and watched, these clusters of food slowly made their way down the conveyor belt being rung up in separate transactions, I realized that the little slips of paper were not coupons or shopping lists, they were being used as payment!

For the first time, I took a look at who was making these purchases.  A couple, probably in their mid-30’s, both quite overweight, sporting sweat pants and t-shirts.  No kids were to be seen.  I began to put together that the paper slips must be some kind of government-issued vouchers, and the pints of milk and other small items were probably rounding out the value of each voucher.  I was informed later that this is the form that WIC benefits are paid in, and the fact that it was the first of the month made this the likely case.

I watched, incredulous, as the gallons upon gallons of milk went back into the cart, and the lobster, crabs and seafood salad were rung up.  The lady produced a card for payment of these items.  I couldn’t see what kind of card it was, but the standard “debit or

credit” question went unasked.  The dairy-laden couple went on their way, allowing the Kroger bagger to take their load out for them, and leaving us to bag our own items.

Now maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, but I don’t recall ever having seen such a thing before.  I went home and googled “WIC lobster” on a whim.  Turns out I’m not alone!  A quick search turned up these results:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-jersey/333767-middle-class-food-stamps-9.html

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/grand-rapids-mi/TA3IUSIOJUJT93DGV/p2

Almost right on cue, local media added a little more insight – just not in the way they intended.  First, a story in the 8/10/10 issue of Style Weekly highlighted a Whitcomb Court mother of six, and her monthly early-morning dash to the nearest supermarket to exchange her government-provided purchasing power for food.  The story was meant to call attention to the “food deserts” that exist where, coincidentally, the few food stores that remain do almost all of their business at the beginning of the month, and almost exclusively in government benefits.

Then, our local TV news monster ran a similar story into the ground on their channels 12, 35, and 65 afternoon, evening, and night broadcasts on 9/1/10.  It was meant to highlight another Whitcomb Court resident who was fit to be tied because a government computer system snafu had delayed the automatic deposit of money-for-nothing into her account.

The TV story even went so far as to bemoan the plight of a sink full of dirty dishes – dirty because the woman couldn’t afford to buy soap.  But after she called an automated service for the umpteenth time that day and discovered that she had received her handout, the last shot in the story showed her at last standing over the sink scrubbing a frying pan. 

What the article and TV news report really did for me was provide some perspective on the welfare state and the establishment and political attitudes that produce it.  In neither case did the journalist inquire about how these poor, downtrodden mothers ended up single, living their pathetic existences in government-funded housing, clinging to government-provided money to go to some horrible store and use it to buy bottom-shelf sustenance for themselves and their children.

All they focused on was the fact that they were waiting for that check, and couldn’t wait to spend it when it came.

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Chad Quella lives with his family near Richmond, Virginia.

Gaza

Something that annoys me about Libertarians is that there are so many who think they know what is going on in the Middle East, but they've never been there.

Plus, they seem to have blinders on about half of the discussion about the region.

Yes, AIPAC and other such propaganda organs hold a disproportionate share of eyeballs in the policy-making community.

But the policy-making community is notoriously prostitutional in nature, and so the flood of petrodollars from the Arab governments into the American political marketplace ensures the Arab point of view likewise gets an outsized share of attention.

I find it very distasteful to find Libertarians jumping on the anti-Israel bandwagon. There is nothing about Israel that isn't true about a hundred other US allies.

My main concern with Libertarians singling out Israel for our ire and derision is that doing so makes us sound like Nazis who only find fault with Jews.  Yes, there are so-called libertarians who *are* prejudiced against Jews, just as there are libertarians who are bigoted towards women, men, blacks, caucasians, and so on.

A pox on all their houses.

Bigots -- Nazi or otherwise -- should not be allowed to hijack the movement or the Party.

The only real "Libertarian position about Israel" is that we regard them no differently than any other government: We call for disengagement from all foreign conflicts and abolishing all foreign aid, regardless of the recipient.

A recent discussion reminded me of the lack of investigation libertarians are sometimes guilty of.  Specifically, a friend related a claim from WikiLeaks

"... The State of Israel is conspiring to keep their economy at the lowest level of subsistence possible..."

I found this statement to be ridiculous -- regardless of the alleged source being a US Embassy cable.  The Embassy is part of the US government -- and the US government is invompetent at everything it does.
 

The Israelis are no more capable of "keeping" the Gazan economy "on the brink of collapse" than the US government is capable of controlling the flow of guns, drugs, people, counterfeit products, or anything else across the Rio Grande.

Israel was for decades the largest buyer of goods made (or grown) in Gaza. The decline in exports from Gaza and the resultant economic repercussions were primarily a result of the Israeli regulatory boycott on goods which was instituted in response to repeated murders and rocket attacks. I suspect Americans wouldn't want to buy anything from Canada either if it was throwing bombs across the border every day.

There is NO prohibition on Gazan goods going to other countries from Gaza. Slowdowns of trucks (and ships) to accommodate searches for weapons and bomb precursors (as well as to calculate taxes), yes, but prohibitions, no.   As if the USA doesn't have exactly that same policy.  Ever heard of "US Customs"?  Same freaking thing.  Well, except there are a lot more things the US government prohibits from crossing the border (such as foreign medications, etc).

Despite the so-called economic "blockade" nee bureaucracy at the border, Gazans manage to smuggle $3 billion in goods into Gaza every year, and almost that much in exports -- all outside of the normal regulatory trade markets.

Formal trade -- in other words, good NOT smuggled, mainly between Israel and Gaza -- amounts to about $6 billion per year, or about twice the informal sector.  Indeed, formal business between Israel and Gaza & the West Bank together amounted to about $20 billion in 2013.

I suspect the KFC imports from Egypt are no more difficult than it would be doing the same thing across the border from Tijuana into California.  Or even across the border from Windsor ON to Detroit MI.

Americans -- and Libertarians -- need to worry about our own house.

The Bamiyan Moment for America's Bigoted Social Justice Warriors

This is the Bamiyan Moment of America's intolerant social justice warriors and the perpetually offended: Vandalizing monuments.

OK.

Let's destroy them all. Every monument, any flag. We should even turn all the museums with any of that offensive garbage into rubble. Erase everything.

And let's slaughter those who still "cling to their flags and guns".

Screencap of a CNN video of Afghan Taliban doing to
the Buddhas at Bamiyan what the American Taliban
want to do to statues and monuments in America

After all, we have to model our cultural cleansing after what the Taliban did to all of those offensive statues of Buddha at Bamiyan and elsewhere.

But let's not stop there.

George Washington was a slave holder. So was Jefferson. Let's shove their monuments into the Potomac.

Maybe the William Ellisson historical marker in Sumter SC should be taken down, also?

We could spend years figuring out how to get our society completely rid of all symbols that offend someone.

In fact, we could make a "War on Offensiveness", that will last us for generations, like the War on Poverty or the War on Drugs.

Or -- as a much quicker alternative -- we could take all the American Taliban Social Justice Warriors and dump them over Niagra Falls.

Those willfully and stupidly ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. And the worst thing is everyone else pays for their folly. The way Obama and the rest of the idiocracy is poking at Russia and China, one day it will be the USA that will be overrun, demonized and erased from history.

But I guess that will be just fine with the American Taliban leftist swills who will be sucking at the breast of the state in that era.

Abolish Blue Privilege: Abolish Government Police Agencies

It's not white privilege that keeps starting up the riot furnace, it is Blue privilege.

Government Bureaucracy Logic 101: Constantly maim and kill people for little to no reason -- then act surprised when violence erupts.

The State kills roughly 1,400 Americans every year, and injures or threatens to injure half a million or more.  That isn't a statistic, it is a documented LIST.  See below for the source for that number.

Yes, that's *every* year.

The dead are also disproportionately black, but only by a few percentage points.  The majority of the dead in that list of 1,400 are *white*.

How many times does a child whack a hornets nest until he learns not to whack hornet's nests?

Once.

The State apparently never learns.

No, actually, that's not right.  The state knows very well that whacking a hornets nest will get the hornets in the air -- but the state also knows that when the hornets are in the air, it won't be politicians, bureaucrats, or the teeming nerds and hangers-on who suck at the government breast who will be getting stung.  It will be innocent civilians who will begetting stung because of the state's manipulation of the hornets.  When your house is under attack, your car has been destroyed, your daughter raped, and your son beaten up, you're desperate to find something that will protect your property and your family.

Government has forced alternatives to itself off the market -- which means those innocents who are getting hurt have only one practical thing to turn to: the very same batch of criminal bureaucrats who started it all in the first place.

Stirring the hornets' nest is extremely profitable for the government, and that's why government thugs do it.

Cops *know* when they break someone's spine, or shoot people in the back, or crush the life out of them, that they will not be prosecuted.  Their fellow government employees will protect them; the system is set up to give them license to murder.

Cops also *know* at some point when they kill someone in a particularly pointless, brutal way, that the community will erupt.

They KNOW it.

There is NO WAY they DON'T know it.

They also KNOW that the system refusing to throw them in jail when they do it can ONLY have one result: Throw gasoline on the fire.

Once the cop-ocracy has set the firestorm, they usually pull back from it to save their own tails, and they leave the Korean store owners, the Jewish deli owners, and the corner drug store to fend for themselves.  They don't even bother trying to evacuate anyone.

Cops also know that once they've finished each cycle, their department will have a fat budget increase, and some of that loot -- which is stolen from the families of their victims -- is going to go to those very same cops in the form of bonuses, pay raises, and the inevitable paid vacation most cops get after they kill someone.

Paid vacations which look an awful lot like "paying a bounty" for killing civilians.

After a year in which a constant stream of brutality was captured on video, and grudgingly "discovered" by the lamestream media, one would think that government police bureaucracies would at least try to restrain their worst officers for a while.

But no.  They continue to put the worst of their thugs on full display.  Instead of getting rid of the thugs, they harass and arrest people who try to video document their actions.

For example, Baltimore cops engaged in harassment and eventually arrested the videographer who caught the six Baltimore cops in action, there's enough illegal activity to send the perps to jail for several years (but only if they were Mundanes).  Let's start with "witness intimidation".

President John F. Kennedy: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable."

Government policing cannot be "reformed".  There simply far too many perverse incentives against any lasting change.

The only way to make police behave like responsible citizens is to eliminate their blue privilege and subject them to a healthy dose of the free market.  Already, private security plays a larger role in protecting lives and property in America than government cops do.  And insurance helps to make crime victims whole.

Government-run police on the other hand have proven to be failures at the job time and time again.  Every time they fail, their budgets increase, their pay and benefits fatten, and innocents pay the ultimate price for their failure.

Someday, people *will* wake up to just how big a failure it is, and they will start building alternatives.

Interactions with police are far, far more dangerous for citizens than for the cops.  ~1,400 Americans are killed every year by the cops, and many of them were people who simply didn't deserve to die.

The Kelly Thomas story: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/us/california-homeless-beating-verdict/

These sites have documented that ~1,400 Americans are killed by police every year:

http://practicallawandjustice.liberty.me/2015/01/01/killed-by-police-preliminary-2014-data/

http://www.killedbypolice.net/

http://regressing.deadspin.com/were-compiling-every-police-involved-shooting-in-americ-1624180387

http://gawker.com/what-ive-learned-from-two-years-collecting-data-on-poli-1625472836

Police work is actually one of the safer occupations.  Deep-sea fishermen who put food on your table are ~100 times more likely to die any given year in work-related accidents.  Law enforcement does not make the top ten list of most dangerous occupations.

Law enforcement is made dangerous to a large degree because police themselves willingly escalate to extreme violence in way too many encounters.  Police also make their own job more dangerous by voluntarily enforcing immoral and unconstitutional laws.

How many cops would be alive today if they weren't so slavishly handcuffed to shock and awe tactics, flash-bang grenades, sledge hammers and door-breaching devices used in breaking through doors...

... at 3:00 am?

Since government policing simply cannot be reformed, the only thing that will increase citizen safety is to abolish government police forces, and replace them with neighborhood-hired private security.

There is a growing body of study on what a privatized system of security would look like:

http://www.guns.com/2015/02/27/opinion-its-time-to-consider-privatized-policing/

http://www.copblock.org/130/public-vs-private-police-which-would-you-choose-2/

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/tag/privatized-police/


The only thing that might help reform American justice is privatization. At least then if the neighborhood-hired cop starts beating up his customers, they will have some hope of recourse.

Private cops actually get prosecuted when they break down the wrong door (example: "Two Bounty Hunters Charged In Henrico / They Smashed Way Into Woman’s Apartment", ­ Richmond Times ­ Dispatch ­ Richmond, Va. ­ Date: Jul 7, 1995 ­ Start Page: B.1).

In contrast, government cops can break down the door, shoot the dog, shoot a sleeping innocent unarmed person, throw a grenade into a baby's crib, ransack the house ­ -- and yet get away scot-free.

Is the prospect of private police really so much scarier than what goes on now under the current paradigm?

Further reading:

Support Your Local Private Peace Officer: He Has A Dangerous Job


  -- By William Norman Grigg

Taxpayers Near Ferguson Must Turn to Private Security
  -- by Ryan McMaken   

Without "Qualified Immunity," Would Cops Be So Quick to Kill?
  -- By William Norman Grigg

Darren Wilson and the Reality of "Blue Privilege"
  -- By William Norman Grigg
 
"We Have Been a Paramilitary Organization": How the Police Talk When They Think We're Not Listening
  -- By William Norman Grigg

Why "Good Cops" Stay Silent: The Persecution of Officer Adam Basford
  -- By William Norman Grigg

Police Union Commissar: If You Resist, You Should Expect to Die
  -- By William Norman Grigg

To Crush a Cop-Watcher: Prosecutorial Abuse in Ada County, Idaho
  -- By William Norman Grigg

Enhance Public Safety: Disarm the Police!
  -- By William Norman Grigg   

Walter Block has a bibliography to offer on the subject of Privatize Police.

Can War Ever Be Justifiable?

A recent article by EJ Dionne noted the upcoming 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, and it urged the widespread adoption of the leftist view of that war: that it was all about slavery. Unfortunately, the article ignores the fact that, as in all things politic, "it ain't so simple".

There is no such thing as a "good war".

Ever.

The desire to go to war is all about one thing, and one thing only: Money. The slavery issue was just a way for Lincoln to make war into a “moral imperative”. In our time, “terrorism” is similarly used to justify government aggression.

Conquest is little more than a means for the elites -- who profit from the endless financial rape of mass numbers of people -- to either gain or retain "tax territory".

Tax territory simply translates into "wealth" -- money. Control more territory, and you control more people and the wealth they create. The more tax territory a government seizes, the more powerful an army and spoils system it can support. A powerful army makes possible further conquests of additional tax territory. Of course, if anything comes along that threatens a government's tax territory, expect a brutal response.

Which brings us back to the Civil War.

To believe the North's fight was motivated by an altruistic purpose, such as abolishing slavery, is to believe in fairy tales and Santa Claus. It, like every other fight in history, was about tax territory. The United States government didn't want to lose a large chunk of its tax territory, and so a fight was inevitable when the southern states decided they didn't want to continue being the cash cow for the Northern-dominated congress and its decades-long transfer of billions in southern wealth to the North.

Had Lincoln allowed the South to secede, slavery as an institution would have collapsed on its own. Besides the fact that it had become a huge political liability, there were pricey related expenses (enforcement, social, uprisings, mistreatment) which were rapidly overtaking any profitability. One can look at modern examples of subsidized industries that collapsed even after decades of government protection and subsidization -- steel, autos, textiles, etc.

The Fugitive Slave Act was in effect a direct subsidy to slaveowners at the expense of federal taxpayers. It worked to an extent, socializing the costs of capturing runaway slaves. But even with it, slaves still escaped. Had individual owners been required to pay their own enforcement costs for chasing down runaways, the entire institution would have collapsed before the War. Fugitive slave laws were subsidies that skewed the actual costs of the chattel slavery system, thereby helping it compete in the market against free labor.

Economic reality would have caught up with slavery in very short order under an independent south. Private slavery was subsidized by the public treasury and in that respect it functioned only as well as any other implementation of socialism: it externalized the costs of its activities on others. But eventually, all socialized industries collapse on their own.

"Two wrongs don't make a right". The principle applies to governments as much as it applies to children on a playground. While the slaves were freed from private owners as a result of the Civil War, the entire population of the country became enslaved to overbearing government bureaucracy that intruded into daily life with surveillance, subsidies, taxes, the draft, speech prohibitions, and regulation. That government has only continued to grow to the point where it now steals half of all wealth individuals create every year. Americans to this day are enslaved to the colossus that emerged from the Civil War.

Can one justify freeing slaves by enslaving free men? Can altruistic motives be ascribed to northern politicians who dragged 168,649 young men off the streets to fight for the freedom of others? Lincoln’s draft caused the death of about a fifth of them. One must not deny the fundamental injustice done to those young men. An instructive read on this subject is Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s 'Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men'.

Can one justify freeing slaves at the price of subjecting non-slave-owning women and children to rape and murder? Unleash an army and rape and plunder will always travel with it. The Civil War was no exception. In her treatise “Rape in the American Civil War: Race, Class, and Gender in the Case of Harriet McKinley and Perry Pierson”, Maureen Stutzman found few rapes (335) prosecuted by the Union army. Most of the recorded instances were limited to 1863 and 1864 . One wonders why there were no rape prosecutions recorded earlier in the war, or in 1865. Lack of records does not equate to a lack of rapes. Southern legal records were often destroyed – so civilian reports of rapes and other crimes by invading troops are hard to come by. In addition, in an environment of subjugation of the southern citizenry, there was considerable reluctance to report rapes committed by conquering troops.

Can one justify freeing slaves at the price of slaughtering non-slaveowners? Various estimates suggest over 50,000 southern civilians were killed as ‘collateral damage’ due to the indiscriminate shelling of towns and cities – many of which were occupied mostly by women and children.

Slavery could have been ended the same way it was done within the limits of Washington, D.C., as well as in many other places in the world, and without bloodshed: simply by compensating slaveowners for the change in national rules. But apparently, that was too much to ask of the northern states, which had been transferring southern riches in a northerly direction since 1783.

Another bloodless alternative could have been simply an official declaration of an end to all enforcement of fugitive slave laws. The resulting uncontrollable exodus of slaves would also have brought collapse.

The slavery issue was a great propaganda tool for Lincoln – a white supremacist and separatist who cared little for the black race. John Wilkes Booth’ bullet elevated the man into a myth; otherwise Lincoln’s blathering about shipping blacks back to Africa would have ruined his legacy.

Lincoln, in his first year of office, rapidly implemented an unreconstructed Whig agenda of a centralized sultanate of government meddling and subsidization of the railroads, tripled protectionist tariffs, and federalization (and debasement) of the money supply.

A few years ago, liberals were criticizing George Bush for imprisoning people without charges, access to counsel, the right to confront accusers, or even a trial. Of course, now that Obama is doing the same thing, they are silent – but the point is that it was Abraham Lincoln who showed Bush & Obama that a president can get away with it.

Far from encouraging peace and compromise, Lincoln’s actions fanned embers into flames.

-------------

Addditional reading:

Are you aware of the extent to which free blacks held slaves?  Then check out "Did Black People Own Slaves?" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.


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Breathless Media Treatment For One; Yawn for Another

OK, let's see.

Scenario 1:

A guy (with two full carloads of very large friends, as well as a BB gun that looks like a pistol and a bunch of baseball bats loaded in the cars) chases down two very small guys and one girl. One of the small guys shoots at one of the following cars, killing one of the occupants. Despite the chase, the deceased becomes an "innocent victim", and outrage and protest follow. The jurors remain awake and alert during the trial and deliver a guilty verdict for the shooter and his cousin. They are sentenced to long prison terms -- terms which don't satisfy the family and friends of the deceased.

No charges are ever leveled against any of the other individuals in the two following cars for their role in the situation. Every one of the reporters covering the trial itself mention the racial composition of the jury, as well as the race of those involved -- repeatedly.

Scenario 2:

A business man steps out of his truck one morning, is immediately accosted, shot to death, and robbed by three crackheads. The initial shooting was reduced to a footnote and hidden on inside pages of the local daily, and not reported at all by most other papers and radio/tv stations in the area.

Two years later, the police at last arrest three suspects, with what would be considered pretty solid evidence in other cases. At the trial of the first one of the three, several jury members -- all but one of whom is the same race as the defendant -- fall asleep during the trial. Eventually they return a "not guilty" verdict, and set the defendant free. Outrage and protest follow, but again not on the front page. None of the reporters covering the trial itself mention the racial composition (or the sleep habits) of the jury; that's left to the victim's wife to say.

What's the main difference between the cases?

The first story was reported almost as thoroughly and endlessly as Michael Jackson's death; with almost daily updates on the progress of the case. Every reporter managed to play the race card in every story.

The second story was almost completely ignored; with only two major articles in the regional daily during and after the first trial. The reporters leave out the race of the victims and perps; except when the reporter on the second story mentioned that the march by family and friends of the victim was "all white" -- even though a black man is clearly seen in the accompanying photo of the march.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/PBUR22_20090621-221803/275243/

So why the breathless coverage of one case, while the other, where there was a clear criminal (actually three) and an entirely innocent victim, elicits a media yawn? And speaking of yawns, what judge in his right mind fails to declare a mistrial when the jury falls asleep?

**************

Marc Montoni is a network technician and a frequent columnist on the issue of individual liberty, Drug Prohibition, gun laws, and land-use regulation. He currently serves as the Secretary of the Libertarian Party of Virginia and publishes a commentary blog at FreeVirginia.blogspot.com.


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