The Open Mind With Richard Heffner: Professor Milton Friedman- 'On The Maintenance of a Free Society (1975)'

Source:Libertarianism.Org- Professor Milton Friedman on The Open Mind With Richard Heffner, in 1975.

"Milton Friedman, the recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economic Science, was one of the most recognizable and influential proponents of liberty and markets in the 20th century.

This is a clip from Friedman's first guest appearance on The Open Mind, a public affairs interview show hosted by Richard Heffner. This tape aired on public broadcasting stations nationwide on December 7, 1975.

For more on Friedman's life and work, and to watch more videos of and about him, visit:Libertarianism.Org." 

From Libertarianism.Org 

"I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintenance of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind. It requires a willingness to put up with temporary evils on the basis of the subtle and sophisticated understanding that if you step in to do something about them you not only may make them worse, you will spread your tentacles and get bad results elsewhere." 

From the Self-Educated American

What a free society or what I prefer to call a liberal democracy is, it's a country where the people are free to live their own lives. Not free to hurt innocent people, but free to live their own lives. Which are  two different things that so-called Progressives (Socialists, in actuality) and Christian-Populists don't seem to understand. 

A liberal democracy is a society where we recognize that there are dangers in the country and there are consequences that come from making decisions in life. And that we accept that there isn't a perfect system, that there isn't a perfect society, but that there are liberal societies where people live in freedom. 

Authoritarian societies are where people are subjects of the state and less freer societies where people live in freedom, but not as much as in a liberal society. Where government does have a role in protecting people from themselves at least to some degree, so then it's just a matter of which of these societies that people decide to live in. How much freedom do they want, if any and what would they do with any freedom that they may have. Then we would be better off in deciding what type of country that we are and where we want to go in the future. That it's not about building a perfect society, but creating the best society that we can.

And again when I talk about free society, I'm talking about a liberal democracy where Americans would have the Freedom to live their own lives. To be self-sufficient and not have to depend on government to take care of them.

In a liberal democracy, the role of government is to protect individual freedom. And to protect the innocent from predators, but not try to protect people from themselves. That individuals are free to live their own lives, as long as we not hurting innocent people with what we are doing. 

In a liberal democracy we accept that there are dangers in life and people will do things that are not in their best interest, like drink, smoke, do drugs, sleep with people they don't know. (To use as examples) But trying to prevent these things from happening, doesn't mean they'll go away or locking people up for doing these things, won't make them go away. They'll just be done underground. That if government wants to protect the people, then don't try to punish them when they do something that might be in their best interest.

In a liberal democracy, make sure we have all the relevant and credible information that they we might need and then be able to make the best decisions for ourselves known what we need to know. And then have to deal with the consequences of our own decisions for better and for worst. 

To state the obvious, there really isn't a truly free society in any civilized country. Otherwise that would be anarchy where people could do whatever the hell that they want to, including hurting innocent people. And the only consequences that would come to them, would be how others retaliate against them when they hurt them. Which is what Anarcho-Libertarians seem to want. What we can have is a liberal democracy where people are free to live their own lives but not hurt innocent people. 

Liberal democracy isn't just about voting. But it's also about individual rights and that inside constitutional rights where we can't lose our freedom simply because one more person than not believes that freedom isn't worth having and that freedom gets voted away. And that is what a free society in a liberal democratic society is. 

Liberty Pen: Milton Friedman: 'Free Trade Vs Protectionism'

Source:Liberty Pen- Chicago economics Professor Milton Friedman, giving a lecture on free trade.

"Professor Friedman clarifies the motives of protectionism and explains why free trade policies benefit the masses. (1978) Apologies for poor video quality at times. Liberty Pen."

From Liberty Pen

As huge as the United States is a country of roughly 320M people that basically the size of a continent, that stretches from one ocean to another, we still represent around 5% of the entire world. With two countries that have at least four times as many people as we do. And for our economy to do as well as possible, we need to be able to produce as many products as we can as possible, so we can sell them to as many people as possible. Not just in America, but the rest of North America, Latin America, Europe, Arabia, Asia, etc, to as many people as possible that can afford to buy our products and in exchange other countries that allow us to sell our products in their countries. 

The whole point of free trade is for one country to be able to sell their products in other countries. And in exchange other countries would be able to sell their products in your country with both sides paying low tariffs.

And we get to see what the rest of the world is producing and what they do better than us and not as well as us and develop competition out of it. That's why it's called free trade, an exchange of products and ideas between these countries. That gives us and them and idea what they are up against, what they do well and what they need to do a better job of.

I don't know what's good about protectionism, but world trade (as I prefer to call it) is an exchange of free ideas, and products and when it's done right might be the only true free market in the world, because the people in each of these countries gets to decide who makes the best products.

One thing that comes from world trade is that jobs get cut and moved oversees and as a result well qualified Americans are left unemployed. Because their jobs no longer exist, or have been moved to another country, which is why we need to finance retraining for these workers so at the very least they can find new jobs in other fields that they would be qualified to do, to make world trade as effective as possible. 

Foreign trade like any deal is give and take and comes with pluses and minuses. The trick is to run up the pluses and make the deals as good as possible for yourself and limit the minuses. Limit the damage of the minuses and when it comes to trade, you know jobs will be lost, because now your companies will be free to do business in other countries. Which is why you need trade assistance for employees that lose their jobs as a result of trade. That includes something in the effect of a severance package, retraining and help if needed finding another job. 

Reason Magazine: Lisa Kennedy- 'Greg Lukianoff: How Colleges Fight Free Speech'

Source:Reason Magazine- talking to Greg Lukianoff.

"You can get in trouble for saying almost anything these days on a college campus," says Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Lukianoff's latest book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, discusses 11 years of free speech restrictions and the how college bureaucrats have hampered open debate and encouraged a culture of uncritical thinking.

Reason correspondent Kennedy sat down with Lukianoff at FreedomFest to discuss the book, his work at FIRE, and what students can do to fight back. 


Held each July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is attended by over 2,000 limited-government enthusiasts and libertarians a year. ReasonTV spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing interviews over the coming weeks." 

From Reason Magazine

According to Dictionary education is: "The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.

"a new system of public education"

So if education is about learning, then what's educational about shutting up and cracking down on speech that you simply disagree with, even it's hateful and even offends groups that you claim to care about? Seems to me all people could learn from that is that some supposed educators think they know what's best for others to hear and learn about that some people are simply too dumb to figure these things out for them. 

Supporters of what's called free speech zones, Left and Right and not just leftists who are the supporters of political correctness, but the supporters of these zones may say that we need to silence some speech for protect people who are vulnerable or to protect out national morality and American culture, but what they really want to do is to protect people from having to think and act for themselves.

Reason: Matt Welch- Interviewing Yaron Brook: 'Ayn Rand vs. Big Government'

Source:Reason Magazine- Author Yaron Brook on Ayn Rand. 

"People don't vote their pocketbooks, people vote what they think is right," says Yaron Brook, president of The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and author of Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government."

From Reason Magazine

Even though Ayn Rand didn't describe her own politics as libertarian, Libertarians love her because she was always talking about the importance and need for individual freedom. And we as individuals should be free to live our own lives and worry about ourselves. As well as the dangers of coercion, especially from government. That government shouldn't be forcing people to do things. Just punish people when they hurt innocent people. As a Liberal I love the idea of individual freedom, as long as someone is not using that freedom to hurt innocent people.

That government shouldn't be in the business of protecting free adults from living their own lives, as long as they don't get in the way of other free adults in living their own lives. And they aren't hurting innocent people along the way either. But as a society that we also have a responsibility not to take care of each other, but to help people who can't take care of themselves. Empower those people to be able to have the freedom to take care of themselves and live their own lives. This is a big difference between me and Libertarians as well as Ayn Rand. Who would simply just say this is not the business of government, that private charity should be handling this themselves.

Freedom works best when as many people as possible have it and where we aren't hurting innocent people with our freedom. And when we are empowering people who don't have that freedom, because they don't have the skills to take care of themselves, get those skills so they can take care of themselves. Freedom doesn't work very well when we have a high concentrated population of poor people, compared with the rest of the country.

Take parts of Mexico to use as an example: where some people there have so little freedom in their own country, that they feel the need to leave their homeland to live in a country where they can get freedom. Emigrating to America (to use as an example) or in this country where our poverty hasn't gotten that bad yet. But where some Americans become so desperate, that they do things that they wouldn't otherwise do, just in order to survive. Because they don't have enough money, or food to use as examples and end up going to jail.

So what we should be doing is building a liberal democracy where people have the individual freedom to live their own lives. As long as they aren't hurting any innocent people with their freedom. Where government isn't trying to protect people from themselves. But where everyone has the opportunity to freedom, because they can get themselves to not only live in a free country, but have the skills to be free in a free country. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Reason Magazine: Lisa Kennedy- 'What We Saw at the Drug Enforcement Administration Museum'

Source:Reason Magazine- Don't do drugs, unless you want these boots up your ass. Well, I guess Uncle Sam could say that.

"Since 1999, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has run a museum in Arlington, Virginia that showcases the agency's "tradition of excellence" and the "impact of federal drug law enforcement on the changing trends of licit and illicit drug use in American history."

Visitors can check out a replica of a '70s-era head shop, jerry-rigged works for shooting up and getting high, exhibits dedicated to the opium wars and cocaine cartels, and good, old-fashioned propaganda such as the classic movie Reefer Madness.

Take a guided tour of the place with ReasonTV correspondent Kennedy. And don't forget to exit through the gift shop and pick up DEA compression shorts by Under Armour or a K-9 plush dog stuffed animal.

Shot by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain. Edited by Swain." 

From Reason Magazine

This is what you won't see at the DEA Museum: 

10s of thousands, if not 100s of thousands of drug addicts in our taxpayer funded jails and prisons, for simply being drug addicts. 

10s of thousands, of not 100s of thousands of taxpaying Americans who are arrested every year for simple possession of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, meth, and other illegal narcotics. 

10s of billions, if not hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars being wasted on private prisons in America, because our politicians and taxpayers no longer want to pay any new bonds or taxes to fund additional prisons, or expand current prisons, because the so-called War On Drugs is sending so many Americans to jails and prisons in this country. 

I'm not pro-narcotics (illegal or otherwise) unless you consider salt, sugar, and caffeine to be narcotics. I don't even drink alcohol or smoke tobacco. And I'm sure as hell not pro-predatory drug dealers who rely on juveniles and addicts to stay in business. I think there is special place in Hell for predators like that. But the War On Drugs if anything is even worst than illegal narcotics and needs to be abolished for the sake of every hard-working taxpayer in this country.

Liberty Pen: John Stossel- 'Charter Schools & Teachers Unions'

Source:Liberty Pen- Harlem Village Academies CEO Deborah Kenny.

"From his TV special "Stupid In America" John Stossel reports on the success of charter schools and the effects of the teachers' unions. Liberty Pen." 

Education is one of the most important part of any economy. Without a good education system, we can't produce the workers we need to have a strong economy with the workers to fill the high-skilled jobs that we need to have a strong economy and good society, teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc. And without educated workers, we won't have the market that we need that will be able to purchase the products that we need to purchase the products that we produce and we would end up importing a lot more than we already do. 

This is what education unions don't understand, or haven't acknowledged. Because it's in their interest of survival to just have public schools and no competition, because then they won't have any competition and their members will always have a job in education. Whether they deserve to have that job or not. This is why our education system has dropped as far as it has in the last twenty years.

This is one of the reasons why we are now importing workers to fill jobs that we don't have enough Americans qualified to fill. If we are producing more well-educated workers, we would be able to create not just more jobs in America, but good high-skilled jobs, with good pay and benefits, to pay the taxes that so-called Progressives (Socialists, in actuality) want them to, to support all of those programs they like. 

This is why choice in education is so important whether it's charter schools or public school choice, something I also support, where parents could send their kids to the best school for them, instead of being forced by the school district to send their kids to a school, based on where they live. Because it would force all public schools to either do a good job, actually teach their students to the point that they are actually learning and can remember what they learned. Otherwise face the possibility of losing those students to a better school, where they can get the education that they aren't getting in the low-performing school.

What school choice does is gives the parents the option of sending their kids to another school. Because now they will have other options other than to send their kids to a school, where the kids aren't learning and perhaps be able to send their kids to a school, where they wouldn't have to worry about public safety and focus on getting a good education. 

Public school choice would also be good for so-called Progressives (Social Democrats/Democratic Socialists in actuality) because we would have a better skilled workforce to pay the taxes to fund the social programs that they want. 

Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie- Matt Kibbe: 'Hostile Takeover of The GOP'

Source:Reason Magazine- interviewing the President of Freedom Works, Matt Kibbe.

"We understand that Republicans helped get us into this fix," says FreedomWorks president and CEO Matt Kibbe, who has been instrumental in supporting Tea Party challengers within Republican primaries. "It's a little bit like Groundhog Day: I feel like we keep teaching Republicans the same lessons over and over again"

Kibbe's newest book, Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America, calls for a grassroots rebellion against the "upper management" of government.

"The phrase Hostile Takeover actually comes from an op-ed [former Rep.] Dick Armey and I wrote leading up the the 2010 election where we argued we had to beat the Republicans before we beat the Democrats."

Reason's Nick Gillespie caught up with Kibbe at FreedomFest to discuss the book, the power of the Tea Party, and the marquee races to watch in 2012.

 

Shot by Tracy Oppenhiemer and Alex Manning. Edited by Meredith Bragg. About 4:30 minutes.

 

Held each July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is attended by over 2,000 limited-government enthusiasts and libertarians a year. ReasonTV spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing interviews over the coming weeks." 

From Reason Magazine 

To sort of cut through the chase (if not bullshit) here: I think what Matt Kibbe is really arguing for is for a conservative-libertarian (or constitutional-conservative, if you prefer) takeover of the Republican Party. Where the establishment sort of Center-Right folks, including Progressive Republicans, but also the Christian-Right, populist wing of the Republican Party, would no longer be in charge of the Republican Party. 

If the Tea Party movement has two wings in it, it's the Christian-Right, populist wing from the 1980s and 90s, who push the cultural war issues over everything else that's going on in the country, versus the conservative-libertarian or constitutional conservative wing. 

I know enough about Matt Kibbe to know that he comes from the constitutionalist side of the Tea Party. Not the Christian-Populist and he's basically saying that his side of the Tea Party should take over the Republican Party. And we'll see if that's even possible this year. 

JD Talley: ‘John Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics’

Source:JD Talley- U.S. Senator John McCain campaigning for President, in 2008.

Source:Real Life Journal 

“John Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics”  

From JD Talley

We can blame American politicians all we want for our problems in government and society as a whole, but we should at least first know how our politicians get their jobs before we decide to blame them or not. And I’ll give you a few clues which will hopefully give you an idea where our politicians come from: 

Our politicians don’t fall from trees.

Our politicians don’t go down to some central office and volunteer to serve in public office and then are just given the job like they’re applying for charity work or something.

Our politicians don’t wake up one morning and find themselves as U.S. Senator’s or Representative’s, Governor’s, etc or inherit the jobs that they now have.

If you really don’t know where our politicians come from, I’ll tell you anyway: they come from the communities that they are supposed to represent and decide to run for office and are elected by the people that they’re supposed to represent and then sent to that office.

The great political satirist George Carlin once had a comedy monologue called: “Maybe It’s Not The Politicians Who Suck” and his point was all the politicians are doing is what they were elected to do. Yes, you can blame politicians for being dishonest and crooked, incompetent even, but if they keep getting reelected, isn’t there someone else to blame for that?

Politics and government is just like just about everything else in life, because it gets down to personal responsibility. If you don’t like the politicians who are supposed to represent you, maybe you should look at your own too feet and see if you have any self-inflicted wounds there. Or perhaps run for office yourself or do what Ronald Reagan said and vote with your feet. But don’t complain about crooked politicians, if you keep voting for them or don’t bother to run for office yourself, or don’t even bother to vote.  

Reason Magazine: Matt Welch- Judge Andrew Napolitano: 'On The 2012 Election, Obamacare, and The Future of Liberty'

Source:Reason Magazine- former Judge and current FNC Freedom Watch host Andrew Napolitano.

"Those of us who really yearn for a return to first principles, the natural law, the Constitution, a government that only has powers that we have consented it may have... are frustrated by the choice between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney," says Judge Andrew Napolitano, author of the upcoming book "Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Your Constitutional Freedoms," Fox Business contributor, and former host of "Freedom Watch." 

Reason Magazine's Matt Welch sat down with Napolitano at FreedomFest 2012 and discussed the ramifications of the Supreme Court's ruling on the individual mandate and whether or not there's a substantive difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney from a libertarian perspective. 

Held each July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is attended by around 2,000 limited-government enthusiasts and libertarians a year. ReasonTV spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing interviews over the coming weeks. For an ever-growing playlist, go here now... 

From Reason Magazine 

Judge Andrew Napolitano perhaps giving some speech, somewhere, perhaps even in the United States. But you might have to ask him yourself where exactly this photo is from and when it was taken and by who.

Source:Reason Magazine- former Judge and current FNC Freedom Watch host Andrew Napolitano.

I'm sure that Gary Johnson has figured out by now that he's not going to be elected president in 2012. That even finishing a solid third where he's at least in double figures, would be a big victory for him. He's currently running at 5% nationally and that's according to his own campaign. He's running just 13% in his home State of New Mexico, where he was governor for eight years, where he's clearly a name there. Unless this entire State of two-million people were in a coma or vacationing in Pakistan or somewhere outside of New Mexico that entire time. So I'm sure that New Mexicans have gotten the message that their former governor from 1995-03 is currently running for president in 2012.

But that's not the point or the goal of the Johnson Campaign. The goal of the Johnson Campaign should be divide and conquer, but in the most positive sense. Not in the Karl Rove sense where you win elections by destroying the other side: "We know you don't like us, but you should dislike the other side even more. And vote for us by default." 

The way Governor Johnson should divide and conquer, is by pulling Liberal Democrats such as myself and the few Conservative and Libertarian Republicans that are left in the Republican Party, to vote for him.

And of course the Johnson Campaign, should be courting with every single Libertarian that's alive and breathing and eligible to vote in the United States, to get up to 10-15% in the national polls and get Federal financing for the 2016 elections. And get into the presidential debates and put the Libertarian Party on the map in American politics to make it a major third-party that can compete with Democrats and Republicans across the country. Not just in the West where libertarianism is strong.

Liberty Pen: John Stossel & David Boaz- 'The Future of Liberty'

Source:Liberty Pen- David Boaz is a fellow at the CATO Institute in Washington.

"David Boaz (CATO) and Nick Gillespie (Reason.tv) join John to discuss the politics of individual liberty, social tolerance and fiscal responsibility. Liberty Pen"

I'm a get Big Government out of my wallet and bedroom and any other aspect of my life where I'm not hurting anyone else Liberal. These people are called Classical Liberals and sometimes Libertarians but this this is actually what liberalism is about, which is to have liberty that benefits the country. It has to benefit everyone, so when people who are successful in life and have that freedom, because they got themselves the skills that they need to be free and successful in life.

Don't have to indefinitely subsidize the people who don't, because the people who haven't freed themselves in life have the opportunity and have been empowered to go out and get themselves the skills that they need to be free and successful in life. Which is one thing that separates liberalism from libertarianism.

Liberals understand that liberal democracy and capitalism are the best systems in the world, but of course it isn't perfect and we need some type of safety net. It doesn't have to be run by the Federal Government but some type of system to catch the people who fall through the cracks of the economy. So they can survive in the meantime and have an opportunity to get themselves on their feet.

One of the reasons why I'm a Liberal and not a Libertarian, is that Libertarians today sound more like Anarchists, something that I could never be, than Libertarians. If you are an actual Libertarian, you believe that we need government at all three levels, but that it should only do what the people can't do for themselves and that it should be very limited, cost-effective and that the power should be with the people in how we live our own lives, as long as we are not hurting innocent people with what we are doing. Thats basically what libertarianism is about.

But what you hear from today's Libertarians, is that government is basically incompetent in basically everything that it does, so why should we even have one. Let the private sector figure that out instead. Anarchists don't believe in government otherwise, they wouldn't be Anarchists. Maybe they would be Socialists, or even Communists and wake up one morning and decide that now they don't just like government, but have fallen in love with big government.

If Libertarians just stuck with the message of individual liberty and responsibility, based on limited government that only does what we need it to do, not what we want it to do, which is different and since that its limited that it doesn't need to tax us much and that it should stay out of our wallets and bedrooms, not try to control how we live our own lives, then Libertarianism would've advanced a lot more in America, than it has in the last forty years.

Liberty Pen: The Open Mind With Richard Heffner- Nat Hentoff: 'Journalistic Integrity & The Minority View'

Source:Liberty Pen- Nat Hentoff appearing on The Open Mind With Richard Heffner, in 1989.

"Syndicated columnist Nat Hentoff opines on the necessity of modifying one's precepts in the face of evidence and reflects on a troubling trend beginning to take root at college campuses. (1989) Liberty Pen." 

From Liberty Pen 

I agree with I believe 99% of what Nat Hentoff said in this interview. 

The only exceptions would be that Robert Bork would've been a more acceptable Supreme Court nominee over Anthony Kennedy. As a Liberal (or Classical Liberal, if you prefer) I much prefer someone like a Tony Kennedy, over a Bob Bork, because Bork comes from more of the unitary executive perspective. It might have been Bork who told President Richard Nixon in 1973 or 74: "That when the President does it, it's not illegal." 

And the other exception being that its Liberals who are cracking down on free speech on college campuses. I mean anyone who actually understands what liberalism really is, knows that the number one liberal value is free speech. It's closeted Socialists and Communists who don't believe in free speech, not Liberals. 

But most if not the rest of what Nat Hentoff said in this clip , I totally agree. It's not that difficult to be popular. Just do everything and say everything that all the supposed cool people are doing and saying, wearing, eating, drinking, etc. But it takes courage to be honest, to be right, to express one's own views, to be an individual. And in a liberal democracy like America, we're supposed to be individuals, not sheep.

Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie- U.S. Senator Tom Coburn: 'How Both Parties Bankrupted America'

Source:Reason Magazine- U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (Republican, Oklahoma) talking to Reason Magazine about his book The Debt Bomb.

"Both parties have equally participated in abandoning the limited role of the federal government," says Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), whose new book, The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting Our Economy, argues that Republicans and Democrats together have brought the U.S. to the brink of fiscal calamity.

First elected to the house in 1994 as part of the "Republican Revolution," Coburn is a staunch fiscal and social conservative, who's been outspokenly critical of members of his own party for compromising their principles out of political expedience. Coburn has publicly taken former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to task for lacking leadership and resolve during his battles with the Clinton White House to cut spending in the mid-90s.

Coburn, who's known in the senate as "Dr. No" for vetoing almost all new spending initiatives, says the federal budget is rife with "waste, fraud, and duplication." In 2006, Coburn co-sponsored legislation that created USASpending.gov, which makes publicly accessible a list of all recipients of government funds. In 2010, Coburn was instrumental in getting the Government Accountability Office to undertake researching and documenting wasteful government programs.

A supporter of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, Coburn was a co-author of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003, and he supported a 1996 law requiring that "V-chips" be placed in all television sets to allow parents to block programming deemed unsuitable. In 1997, Coburn criticized NBC for airing the Holocaust-film "Schindler's List" on the grounds that it included "vile language, full-frontal nudity and irresponsible sexual activity." NBC characterized Coburn's views as "frightening."

ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie sat down with Sen. Coburn to discuss wasteful spending, cutting entitlements, the need for free-market health care, and whether he's losing faith in the government's ability to enforce values." 

From Reason Magazine 

If people want to know my political affiliation: yes, I'm a Democrat, but I'm at best an Independent Democrat. And what I mean by that is I'm not a politician, I'm not a member of the Democratic National Committee, I'm not even a Democratic politico who even works for Democratic politicians or Democratic political activists. I don't even have a Democratic leaning radio or TV talk show who talks about why it's great to be a Democrat and why the Republican Party sucks. I vote for Democrats who believe in progress and who are better than their Republican opponents. 

My point here is when I hear Senator Tom Coburn (Republican, Oklahoma) whose a member of the Senate Finance Committee, whose been in Congress for almost 18 years now, whose served in both the House and Senate, say that both Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible debt and deficits situation, I mostly agree with him. 

Democrats tell their voters that they can have all sorts of government services and new government services for free. Or they'll say that since interest rates are now low, we can just borrow all the money to pay for those government services. 

Republicans today will flat out tell you that deficits and debt doesn't matter. Or that's what they were saying when George W. Bush was President and they had complete control of Congress in the 2000s. Now that there's a Democratic President, their fiscal talking points have changed dramatically. Except they don't have any real plan to actually get the budget deficit under control and at the very least get the economy growing faster than the national debt, at least. 

So yes, I agree with Senator Coburn that Democrats and Republicans are both at fault when it comes to our national debt and budget deficit. I just think that they're guilty for different reasons. Neither party wants to take on their base and say: "We can no longer afford that, or we're going to have to cut it, or make you pay more for it." 

Gary Johnson: 'End The War on Drugs'

Source:Libertarian Party- a Libertarian Party ad about the so-called War On Drugs.

"Gary Johnson: End the War on Drugs" 

From the Libertarian Party

"Tomorrow’s Sunday New York Times’ editorial calling for an end to cannabis prohibition in America, affirms in my mind, after nearly twenty four years publicly advocating for cannabis law reforms at NORML, the end of cannabis prohibition in our nation is nearly upon the rest of the country (beyond Colorado and Washington State, where cannabis is taxed and regulated like alcohol products for responsible adult use). This is the same editorial board and opinions page that would with great frequency in the 1980s/90s publish some of the most stridently pro-cannabis prohibition editorials and columns found anywhere in the world, let alone from the urbane and ‘liberal’ New York Times, led by ardent cannabis foe, former editor and columnist A.M. Rosenthal."

Source:NORML- can't honestly say I disagree.

From NORML 

I'm not saying that we should legalize all illegal narcotics in America. I'm saying we shouldn't put people in prison from using or simply possessing narcotics that are currently illegal. So that's where I disagree with the let's say the base of the Libertarian Party (assuming they even have a base) on narcotics policy in America. I'm all in favor of penalizing people who sell narcotics to minors and addicts, especially minors who are addicts. But that's not what we're talking about here. 

The War On Drugs has failed simply because it's a war against personal choice. We're not talking about murder, rape, battery, or any other serious crime that of course is a felony simply because there are victims involved. We're talking about here what people to do themselves, not others, and what they put into their own bodies. So forcing others to take what they don't want to take. 

CNBC: Maria Bartiromo- Peter Schiff & Diana Carew: Debate Student Loans Bailout

Source:CNBC- Peter Schiff debating Diana Carew on CNBC. If you want to call it a debate. It's more like who can get more words in about 5 minutes.

"Barclays warns student loan defaults are underestimated by at least $225 billion. Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital, and Diana Carew, Progressive Policy Institute, debate whether the government should have gotten involved in the first place." 

From The Leak Source 

If you want to ask me who won this debate on CNBC (if you want to call it that) next question, because it really wasn't a debate. And Maria Bartiromo the supposed moderator, apparently was just there mostly as a spectator I guess enjoying the action. But what they were supposed to be talking about here is obviously an important subject which is college affordability in America. 

I guess it depends on what side you some down on here: if you think that the government, especially the Federal Government has any role in the economy, then you think they have a role in education as well. Probably not to run education or to try to Federalize education, including higher education. But a role (whatever that role is) in seeing that as many people as possible have access to a quality education, including a quality higher education in America. 

Now, if you think that government has no role in the economy, like a Libertarian (classical or Anarcho) you think that of course government has no role here. And you'll use the familiar talking points: it's unconstitutional or corrupt, incompetent or all those things. Which is basically what Libertarian economist Peter Schiff was doing here. 

What I think we need in this country is a system where all qualified students whether they're just about to graduate high school or are looking to go back to school and get additional skills, like people who are now working part-time to some job that they're way overqualified for, because they can no longer find a good job in their field, can go to college, or just go to a junior college or vocational skills to get those skills. But you don't get there by putting the Federal Government completely in charge of the student loan industry. Which is what we have now.

Randy Magazine: Damon Root- Randy Barnett: 'Losing Obamacare While Preserving the Constitution'

Source:Reason Magazine- Georgetown University Law Professor Randy Barmett.

"We won in our effort to preserve the Constitution and, in fact, we moved the ball in a more positive direction," says Georgetown Law's Randy Barnett, one of the legal architects behind the constitutional challenge to Obamacare.

Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision upheld Obamacare's individual mandate as an exercise of Congress' tax powers, while simultaneously rejecting the Obama administration's sweeping assertion of federal power under the Commerce Clause. Barnett argues that the chief justice "substituted a less dangerous tax power for a far more dangerous Commerce Clause power." Had the Supreme Court accepted the government's theory of the Commerce Clause, Barnett explains, Congress would have had the power "to do anything it wants with respect to the economy."

A professor of legal theory at Georgetown University Law Center and the author of nine books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2004), Barnett represented the National Federation of Independent Business in its challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Reason Senior Editor Damon Root recently sat down with Barnett to discuss the Obamacare decision, the "echo chamber" of liberal academia, and why the Constitution is fully consistent with libertarian principles." 

From Reason Magazine

The Affordable Care Act was ruled constitutional based on the taxing power of the Federal Government, not through the Commerce Clause. Which means Congress can tax people based on when they believe Americans are doing something thats unhealthy or bad for the country as a whole. 

For example, people who can afford to pay for their Healthcare but have chosen not to and get their healthcare at the expense of people who pay for their healthcare. Which is a victory for Liberals (meaning real Liberals) who don't want to deny people the ability to do things that are unhealthy to themselves. They just don't want people to be able to pass the costs of others unhealthy activity onto people who make better decisions. 

The ObamaCare decision is a lost for Libertarians because now the Federal Government can penalize people for things that they've decided to do on their own. But it's a victory for Libertarians, Conservatives and why would argue for Liberals, as well as a Liberal myself as it relates to the Commerce Clause because the Supreme Court decision limits the Federal Government in what it can do under the Commerce Clause.

My opinion of the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is similar to Chief Justice Roberts, that it's very hard if not impossible to make the case that its constitutional based on the Commerce Clause, that the Federal Government can force people to purchase something in the private market. But that it can penalize people when they do things that are not only bad for them but bad for the rest of the people who have to pay the price of these bad decisions. 

The Affordable Care Act doesn't say that Americans can't make bad, unhealthy decisions for themselves. But what it says with the individual health insurance mandate, is that American's can't pass the costs of their unhealthy decisions onto others. Which is actually a conservative value when you think about it, at least in the classical sense.

Reason Magazine: 'Bikini Banners and Freakin Cops Cracking Down on Curse Words! The Nanny of The Month For June 2012'

Source:Reason Magazine- Nanny of the Month for June, 2012.

Source:Real Life Journal

"June's busybodies want to shield your eyes from bikinis and remind you that they're not above ripping your garden out (even if you are complying with city codes).

But top dishonors go to the police chief who admitted on camera that his officers had "more important things to do," but still championed a measure that fines folks for swearing in public.

Presenting Reason.tv's Nanny of the Month for June 2012: Middleborough, Massachusetts Police Chief Bruce Gates!"

From Reason Magazine 

Here’s more evidence that we overpay our politicians and don’t give them enough work to do. That they would actually take time, taxpayers time that is to look for new ways to restrict how the people who pay their salaries in how they live their own lives. That they would look for new ways to protect people from themselves. That individual freedom is too risky and some people might not know what to do with it and since they can’t take all of our freedom way from us and turn America into an authoritarian state, they look for new ways.

Nanny statists have to be clever and look for new ways to do this, without officially at least taking all of our freedom from us. Even risk violating the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution to do so. Which is what they are doing in Massachusetts by putting new limits on what people can say in public, the target of course of this being curse words. 

New Jersey trying to install crackdowns on what women can wear in public, meaning certain bikinis at their beaches. All they are doing there is just giving more men reason not to vacation in New Jersey. But they would be welcomed along with their women to come down to nearby Delaware and Maryland, where they wouldn’t have those restrictions.

These are just examples of what a nanny state looks like where the state takes it upon themselves to protect people from themselves. It ranges from speech, to what people can wear and say in public, to what they can eat, drink and smoke, to what they watch on TV, or listen to on the radio. All in an effort of course to protect people from themselves and to prevent us the people from doing things that they either don’t like, like cursing and certain forms of entertainment, which of course so-called Christian-Conservatives of course hate and see these things as a threat to our national morality and even national security.

When I hear those arguments, I think they must be high on something they believe should be illegal for everyone else. Or hate speech that today’s so-called Progressives (Neo-Communists, in actuality) hate, because they are worried that it may offend people they care about who are too sensitive to deal with it by themselves in an adult way and need the State to protect them. 

But my Nanny of the Month for June, 2012 is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is now the Mayor of the Nanny City thanks to his efforts to protect New Yorker’s from themselves, as it relates to junk food, soft drinks, marijuana, and even pornography. And represents why the term nanny is even involved in American politics and why we have the term nanny state. Government’s that want to protect their people from themselves.