| No human being has the right -- under any circumstances -- to initiate force against another human being, nor to threaten or delegate its initiation. The Zero Aggression Principle |
| |
|
|
Looking for Freedom?
|
March
26, 2007 Libertarian
Commentary on The News, 18
- 24 March, 2007 As warned, last week, this is a short week for me, and so my commentary is limited. As always, I chose the stories, I wrote the commentary, and mail-bombs can be sent to the address of your choice outside of the Four Corners and the Black Hills! I am starting out with several stories that show how children have been put into unbelievable situations - supposedly in a world and an era when it is all "for the children" we find too many people supporting (or not opposing) murdering hoodlums and statists who not only kill children but do worse. Mesopotamian
Front: As my son said, "and we are defending this kind of people?" - although the more accurate question is, "why aren't we fighting this kind of people more?" I don't mean fighting them as a nation, using military force paid for by theft, but in dozens of different, voluntary ways. The sickness of people who can use children like this is hideous, but they are not the only ones, as the next story tells. (Read the rest here)
Hanging
In There There are various and sundry political action groups for just about anything you'd care to imagine. There are pro-gun and anti-gun groups. There are pro-life and pro-choice groups. There are groups that fight for freedom of religion but from entirely different perspectives. There are economic development groups that find themselves pitted squarely against property rights groups. There are hunting groups and animal rights groups. It's probably a good thing that there are so many groups because there are frankly at least as many political positions taken up by the American voter. It's certainly fair to say that the more liberal voter might be more likely to belong to or agree with certain groups more than others; the same thing would be true of the more conservative voter. But even like minds aren't entirely alike. Not all liberals, for example, are pro-choice and anti-gun; not all conservatives disagree with the majority of liberals when it comes to abortion and firearms. (Read the rest here)
Don't
Blame the Market for Housing Bubble The U.S. housing market, long considered vulnerable by many economists, is now on the verge of suffering a serious collapse in many regions. Commodities guru and hedge fund manager Jim Rogers warns that real estate in expensive bubble areas will drop 40 or 50%. Mainstream media outlets like the New York Times are reporting breathlessly about the possibility of widespread defaults on subprime mortgages. When the bubble finally bursts completely, millions of Americans will be looking for someone to blame. Look for Congress to hold hearings into subprime lending practices and “predatory” mortgages. We’ll hear a lot of grandstanding about how unscrupulous lenders took advantage of poor people, and how rampant speculation caused real estate markets around the country to overheat. It will be reminiscent of the Enron hearings, and the message will be explicitly or implicitly the same: free-market capitalism, left unchecked, leads to greed, fraud, and unethical if not illegal business practices. (Read the rest here)
Hillary
Headed for a Britney-Style Meltdown? A few weeks ago Hillary Rodham Clinton surprised a San Francisco audience with the announcement, "I'm not running as a woman candidate." But then HRC had a change of heart, and on March 6 she unveiled her "I Can Be President" effort designed to appeal to women. That was a smart move, because the last few weeks the Hillary-for-First-Mom bandwagon has hit some rather unpleasant road-bumps. Now Barack Obama is closing in on Hillary's once insurmountable lead. (Read the rest here)
From
The Archives
Folks, we're no longer presumed innocent, we're presumed guilty. We're no longer punished for what we've done, but for what we might do. This "prior restraint" is a slap in the face of our Common Law heritage, and is carried to such ridiculous extremes that 90 year old ladies are now automatically presumed to be people of aggression, theft, and fraud. My point is this: if my elderly grandmother,
has been caught up in the dragnet of modern federal police power allegedly constructed for criminals, then how can you or I ever expect to become free of it? (Read the rest here)
The
Independent Institute WASHINGTON—As I was watching “The Lives of Others,” Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s masterful Oscar-winning film, I couldn’t help thinking how many Cubans, North Koreans, Iranians or Zimbabweans must have been performing little bits of moral heroism in the face of oppression at that very moment. Even their fellow countrymen will never know how many acts of defiance are being perpetrated today by ordinary people against totalitarian regimes—ensuring that the human spirit continues to exist when everything seems bent on crushing it. The German film focuses on Gerd Wiesler, a captain in the Stasi, East Germany’s feared secret police, five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He is ordered to spy on a playwright and his actress girlfriend simply because the minister in charge of culture lusts for the lady and needs an excuse to put the writer away in order to clear the path. (Read the rest here)
The
Future of Freedom Foundation The case of accused terrorist Jose Padilla is moving toward a jury trial on April 16 in U.S. District Court in Miami. It is still unclear whether the presiding judge in the case, Marcia Cooke, will order an evidentiary hearing on Padilla's motion to dismiss the charges based on the government's outrageous pre-trial conduct while Padilla was in military custody as an "enemy combatant" in the "war on terror." (Under post-9/11 jurisprudence, the government has the option of treating accused terrorists either as "enemy combatants" or as federal-court defendants.) (Read the rest here)
External
Articles From my last name, a lot of folks wouldn’t think half my ancestors were English – Clarks and Bishops and Higginbothams, some active in the emancipation movement as much as three centuries ago. Digging through the family archives, I find a yellowed letter to one Zebulon Clark, penned in 1757 – three-quarters of a century before the abolition of chattel slavery in Britain and the possessions. The letter responds to an abolitionist pamphlet penned by my ancestor a short time before: "Zebulon Clark contends the chattels have a right to the fruits of their own labors. Perhaps he doesn’t take sugar in his tea, wear cotton clothing dyed with indigo, or make use of any of the other marvellous products made possible by our modern commerce. (Read the rest here)
Individual
Liberty - 101 Social security systems around the developed world are faced with a looming financing crisis. Unfunded pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) schemes are heading towards bankruptcy due to rising longevities, low fertility, and declining labor force participation rates. Much of this is not accidental. Compulsory PAYGO schemes tend to discourage work in older ages and penalize larger families. Thus they contribute to their own bankruptcy. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
The
Mailbag
From The Libertarian Enterprise
Luke7777777.blogspot.com CATHOLICISM - LIBERTARIANISM - INFOANARCHY (Editor's Note: Very good blog with lots of thoughtful comments. Does not seem to originate in the US and has non-English material on the top of the page, so scroll down for English articles. ML)
Click
Here for the Archives
Friends
of Liberty Links
Special
Feature! Add your signature to the
Contact
The Price of Liberty Editor MamaLiberty
is the owner, publisher, writer, chief cook and bottle washer for The
Price of Liberty. |
Our
Writers No longer active contributors:
Editors And Staff
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
