The First Philadelphia Libertarian Meeting of 2012 is tomorrow,

MONDAY JAN 16 7:00 PM

We’d love to see you there.

How anyone could confuse the radical libertarian Ron Paul for a moderate liberal like Fred Krugar is anyone’s guess. Maybe they really thought Ron Paul was the first openly gay presidential candidate.

Ron Paul might not be the Libertarian Party’s candidate for president, but he’s certainly more philosophically libertarian than most of the recent LP candidates.

So, in honor of this typical media smear, let me direct you to his money bomb for today, which is appropriately called: Black This Out.

Was he just chatting away with his friends? No, he was rather serious. In fact he was having a serious discussion with his supervisor. What could be so serious that he would endanger his riders by talking and driving at the same time?

Well, he was warning his supervisor that he was going to soon be over his federally mandated maximum driving hours for the week. To convince his supervisor, he even took the time to calculate out loud how many hours of driving time he had remaining. This got a little complicated, so he took his eyes off the road to find his notebook, in which he recorded his driving hours.

So while the bus driver was reading, calculating, chatting on the phone and driving, I was sitting there thinking about how much safer I am thanks to arbitrary federal limits on bus drivers.

Thanks government.

Higher Grounds
631 N 3rd St
Philadelphia, PA 19123

Check out the meetup page for more details.

Extreme Ironing

Media bobble-heads and the political zombie hordes take it for granted that being extreme is bad and being moderate is good. Politicians would agree, since that is the easiest way to maintain power. Yet, there is nothing inherently wrong with extremism.

We want our food to be extremely tasty, the weather to be extremely pleasant and our benefactors extremely generous. It is only in the realm of politics, where people are artificially pitted against each other, that moderation seems to be a virtue.

Few would argue that we should take a moderate view of robbery. One extreme is no robbery, the other extreme is lots of robbery. A moderate view is that there should not be too much or too little robbery, which is absurd.

Similarly, libertarians take the extreme position that all human interaction should be voluntary, not just the part that the government hasn’t gotten around to regulating. If you don’t want to have sex with someone, that is your choice. If you don’t want foreign families obliterated to keep up Boeing stock and the president’s erection, you shouldn’t have to pay for it.

The fundamental question is, who should decide what is best for each individual? Should each person choose their destiny, or should others force them to do things that they do not want to do?

Currently, the government dictates what people can eat, drink, smoke, who they can marry, who they can associate with, where they can travel and whether or not they can bake cookies to raise money for charity.

On the other hand, Libertarians think that if you want to drink raw milk, that’s fine since you’re not hurting anyone else. Hell, you can drink gasoline if you like, just make sure that your corpse doesn’t hit anyone on its way to the ground.

Now, personally, I don’t want anyone to commit suicide. However, if an adult decides that life isn’t worth living and I can’t convince them otherwise, then what right do I have to strap them to a bed and force them to live in anguish for the rest of their life?

That’s basically it. Libertarianism doesn’t specify what is good and what it bad, it only prohibits interfering with the lives of others. This simple, unshakable rule (called the non-aggression principle) means libertarians won’t compromise your happiness for their own ends. That’s what makes us extreme — we’re extremely respectful of the lives of others.

If your government shuts down the internet, shut down your government.

Egypt is in rebellion, and this is a good thing for those of us who recognize the State for what it is.  As Lew Rockwell states:

Those of the young generation, people too young to remember the collapse of Soviet bloc and other socialist states in 1989 and 1990, are fortunate to be living through another thrilling example of a seemingly impenetrable state edifice reduced to impotence when faced with crowds demanding freedom, peace, and justice.

There is surely no greater event than this. To see it instills in us a sense of hope that the longing for freedom that beats in the heart of every human being can be realized in our time.

This is why all young people should pay close attention to what is happening in Egypt — to the protests against the regime of Hosni Mubarak as well as the pathetic response coming from his imperial partner, the United States, which has given him many billions in military and secret-police aid to keep him in power.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian government is doing everything it can to maintain its illegitimate power.  Attacking civilians, shutting down cellular networks, even cutting off the internet.  This is not surprising, since the spread of information makes it harder to control those who want to be free and killing hundreds of people helps keep the remainder in line.

Here in Philadelphia, we can rest easy since the benevolent US government would never dream of doing the same thing.  Yet, as governments continue to lose power during the Great Recession , they will become desperate and take drastic measures against their captive populations.  It’s getting dangerous.

Libertarians would prefer that everyone just cast off governments with a shrug, ignoring them to death.  However, governments have taught too many people, by example, that fighting is the solution to problems.  So, it seems inevitable that there will be some conflict.

In this case, we can only hope that people will follow the example of Anonymous, a group of activists who have engaged in non-violent resistance of the State.  As the wise Guy Fawkes Pharaoh stated in the image above, “If your government shuts down the internet, shut down your government.”

Here is their Declaration of Freedom:

As far as ignoring the government to death, the market is already devising ways to circumvent tyrants who try to crush free communication.

So, what are the key things to remember about the revolt in Egypt? First, have multiple modes of communication, especially decentralized ones like two-way radios. Second, the military is not necessarily going to side with the politicians.

Finally, remember that governments won’t hesitate to destroy prosperity (all those people and property that it is supposedly protecting) in an attempt to save itself.  Fortunately, the government is just a small portion of the population, so find strength in numbers and stick together!

Starring Stacy Litz and Aaron Proctor

Our story begins with Aaron Proctor, author of the Philadelphia Libertarian Examiner blog.  Proctor is a self described “conservatarian”, which is a contradictory combination of conservatism and libertarianism. He seems dedicated to confusing people who are interested in libertarian ideas.

The story then quickly moves to an actual libertarian, Stacy Litz.  Litz is the author of the Philadelphia County Libertarian Examiner blog and a leader in local libertarian circles.

The names of these blogs are similar, but the similarity ends there.  While Proctor is content to merely relate his own opinion, Litz is tapped into the local (and global) libertarian community.  Her contact with both activists and intellectuals makes her posting both informative and relevant.  More importantly, however, she has a definite set of principles that she is advocating.

Proctor, on the other hand, is only relevant in the sense that he is commenting on current events.  Trapped in the false left-right paradigm like an ant in a jar, he occasionally recommends a libertarian conclusion, but refers to it as “real” conservatism and fails to explain the underlying rational for free markets, etc.

So, while Proctor is raging against the “Stupid ass Democrats” and offering Big-Government Conservatives as the solution to Big-Government Liberals, Litz is actually explaining why government is the problem, not the solution.

This is not to say that Proctor takes the role of a villain for talking about libertarianism with false authority. Any publicity is good publicity, and libertarianism certainly needs a lot of it.  This is especially true in Philadelphia, a city hell bent on being just as good at oppressing its population as New York and DC.  However, Proctor has yet to find the key to libertarianism that brings all of the various political topics together: the non-aggression principle.

If Proctor would get in contact with Litz, she could direct him to the various resources that libertarians have created for people like him.  He is one of the many who are interested in liberty, but who don’t fully grasp that politics is not a fight over who gets to rule and who gets to be ruled.  It is a fight between those who want to live peacefully, and those that sanction the violence of the State.

Meanwhile, Litz is a leading people like Proctor to a higher level of understanding and a greater respect for the lives of others.  Hopefully, she will get through to him soon, so he can join the fight for liberty instead of playing the political game.  That would certainly be a happy ending.

Let's not add to the confusion.

How is it that libertarians can have a political party, ostensibly dedicated to principles, when libertarianism is fundamentally opposed to the use of political power?  This seeming contradiction arises both on convention floors, where delegates debate whether or not to compromise the message to “broaden appeal”, and in various libertarian writings.

Take, for example, the confused and contradictory platform of the LPPA, the Pennsylvania State Libertarian Party.  It is full of great ideas, most of which stay true to libertarian philosophy:

We, the members of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania, support and defend the rights of individuals.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to do the same…

We stand firmly for the Principle of Non-aggression: that no one—neither a government agent nor any individual nor any group—may initiate force or fraud against an individual or his property.

A number of excellent quotes could be taken from the LPPA platform.  Most of it is dead on.  Yet, somehow things like this slip in:

Because each individual has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market, and because government interference can only harm such free activity, we oppose all action by government in the market except to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework to protect voluntary trade.  Efforts to forcibly redistribute wealth or forcibly manage trade are intolerable.

I think the technical term for this is “turd sandwich”. The initial statement is perfect.  No government interference in the private affairs of individuals.  Yet, they carve out an exception to this rule.  How can there be an exception to the non-aggression principle?  Is aggression only evil in certain cases?  Yes,  redistribution of wealth is wrong, but you just implied that government should redistribute wealth through taxes.  Thankfully (?) this is contradicted a little later in the platform:

Since we believe that all individuals are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor, we propose phasing out all state, county, and local taxes.

The problem here is that libertarians can only be true to the non-aggression principle by advocating that the government not do anything.  If a libertarian advocates that the government do something, he is implicitly advocating taxes, which are theft, aggression, evil, etc.

There is no need for libertarians to justify government just because they are using the political system to advocate libertarianism. Personally, I even supported state apologist Rand Paul because I thought he would annoy the other criminals in Congress.

To be fair, the LPPA platform gets this right almost completely.  However, examples like the following make a mess of things:

The minimal state that we envision, with a vastly reduced budget, would have no need for these taxes or the “tax farmers” to collect them.  Instead, the minimal state can be financed by user fees, contributions, and other voluntary means, such as by proceeds from the state lottery and by fees for state enforcement of individual or business contracts.  Section III of this platform will show how we can make the transition from the present regime to a minimal state.

If you want the government to be Walmart, why not just say that you don’t want a government at all?  Is it really necessary to tip-toe around your principles?  It makes sense for other parties, but for the “Party of Principle” it’s just pathetic.

So what does the LPPA need to do?  Copy-edit statism out of their platform and join LPPhilly in delivering a consistent message of peace and prosperity.