When do you predict the War on Marijuana will end?

While almost every area of Big Government is growing apace — making Americans less free every year — one area of government is moving in the direction of freedom: marijuana laws.
Because of the success of many statewide ballot initiatives, efforts to pass legislation, and the 42-year influence of Libertarian candidates and the LP calling for an end to the War on Drugs, recreational use of marijuana is now legal in two states and decriminalized in 10 states. Medical marijuana is legal in 19 states plus Washington, D.C.
More pro-marijuana freedom legislation, candidates, and ballot initiatives are lining up for 2014.
Many marijuana freedom supporters believe that we’re nearing the day when the 80-year-old, failed prohibition of marijuana in this country will be over. Others believe that Big Government forces will continue to wage the war for many years.
What do you think? When (if ever) do you believe the War on Marijuana will end?

Take the poll.

---

Please donate to the Libertarian Party, working to advance peace, individual rights, and American prosperity.

Paid for by the Libertarian National Committee
2600 Virginia Ave, N.W. Suite 200, Washington D.C. 20037
Content not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

From The Foundation For Economic Freedom

The New Libertarianism

Emerging leaders in a young movement are putting their ideas into practice

OCTOBER 28, 2013 by JEFFREY A. TUCKER

I spent a fascinating weekend hanging out with a few hundred of the smartest, most forward-thinking college students I’ve met in years. It was a real inspiration to see how these young people are preparing to navigate an economic and social environment that is so radically different from anything their parents knew. 

Rather than defeatism and despair, I detected a strong dedication to creativity, entrepreneurship, and living a great life despite a system that seems dedicated to bringing them down.

They were gathered for the New York regional conference of Students for Liberty, an organization that is absolutely on fire in its growth and spread around the world. My trip and closing speech were made possible by the Foundation for Economic Education, an innovative partner with Students for Liberty and other students. 

This was one of four regional conferences taking place on that very day! 

What seems at first to be a political movement is becoming more of a social movement of young people who are determined to claim human liberty as an operating principle in their lives and careers. 

Many of the students I spoke with, for example, are thinking very seriously about launching startup companies and actively taking steps to make that happen. They are assembling their network of talent and sharing ideas. They are dreaming of independent lives and making it big—on their own terms. 

So here is the plan, which many out of college are already pursuing. Their educations and degrees are parlayed into a job of whatever sort, a 9-to-5 thing that pays the rent and the cell phone bills. But it is not their career or their dream. It’s just something they do. Thinking of it this way, even a terrible job can be endured with a sense of humor. 

Meanwhile, on nights and weekends, they work on their real goal. They are writing apps, working on digital services, thinking through new ideas, and cobbling together business models. They are acquiring new skills and filling in the gaps in their education. And they are very careful about money too—all too aware of the dangers of debt from bad experiences in college. 

Think of dumpy apartments with four or five people living off ramen noodles and cheap beer. This is where the mega-businesses of tomorrow are being hatched. These young people seem to live on two levels: their conventional lives, which they see as temporary holding points, and their revolutionary lives, which they see as their real passion and their actual path to the future. 

When I was in college, I can’t remember anyone doing this. We trusted that the system would take care of us, and our job was to fit in. These young people do not have this view. The existing system is something they will use, but only on the path to bypassing it with new innovations and businesses to change the future. 

To be sure, this is a group that is very commercially astute. They see business as the way to change the world. The tools they use every day to navigate the world—buying everything from coffee to concert tickets, getting around cities, planning trips, talking to friends and family—came to them via the private sector. Government contributes nothing to their lives apart from annoyance. 

What’s more, among these libertarians, there is very little hope that political change is a viable option. What would be the mechanism of change? The two-party system? The trends in politics are inexorably worse, regardless of the promise. The trends in commercial life are toward progress every day. Which seems like the better path?

Having been around this world some time, I see within Students for Liberty the emergence of a new form of libertarianism—something more intellectually and strategically sophisticated than forms from the last century. 

First, among these young people there is a vast openness to radical ideas that rethink the relationship that politics has to the world. Rejecting the old-style collectivism of the prevailing regime is only the beginning. What about anarchism? If the state is useless and decaying, anarchism becomes the operational intellectual tableau through which to understand the world. This is a contrast to previous generations who romanticized about some mythical past of freedom as guarded by a constitutional state. 

As the hope that the state can ever purify itself has faded, a new hope in freedom has emerged. In the same way, edgier thoughts about production without intellectual property, Internet-based monies and cities, and new patterns of global social engagement are on the table. These visions are not dark, but hopeful: at once bourgeois and breaking bad, principled but broad, literate but also intuitive.

Second, there is a new pattern to learning among this generation. Whereas libertarians of the past learned from classic texts, large books of integrated but contained theory, these young people extract information from an hourly blizzard of news, memes, videos, social media threads, texts, forums, tweets, and group hangouts. There is no such thing as a protected sector of ideas, much less an information cartel. This setup produces broader and more agile minds with a less defensive posture. 

For this reason, the ideological leanings borrow rhetoric and language from many sources. The most popular T-shirt among the Students for Liberty reads: “Peace, Love, Liberty.” My own shirt that came with the conference is a blizzard of short words: Tolerance, Compassion, Entrepreneurship, Love, Reason, Trade, Wealth, Freedom, Creativity. 

So you can see what’s happening here. It’s finally dawning on libertarians that they have no model to impose on the world, no preset formula to improve society, and, therefore, no strict dogmas on how things should or should not work in a world of freedom. The point is to free themselves and the whole of society from the shackles of statism and regimentation to allow for experimentation, evolution, and trial and error—an agenda that stems from the conviction that only a free people can discover the right path forward for themselves.

Third, liberty for these young people is not just a political ideal, something that pertains to the State and civic affairs but otherwise has no personal application. As with the old classical liberals, these young people are dedicated to discovering the relationship between the political ideal and their personal lives. They want to find ways actually to implement an ethic of liberty and live with character and an entrepreneurial drive. So, for example, if you can use a free-market cab service over a government one, you should. If you don’t believe in “intellectual property” you should publish without it. If you believe that cooperation with others is the essence of social flourishing, you should seek to be a cooperative person. If entrepreneurship is the primary force behind economic progress, you should seek to make a contribution to that end.

Fourth, there are some non-negotiables, and they aren’t only about the ban on the use of power. As an extension of the above point, this generation puts a premium on civilized thinking and behaving that includes absolute exclusion of bigotry in all its forms. Racist, sexist, and anti-gay attitudes are not only tacky, but embody the opposite of the tolerance that old liberalism (e.g., Ludwig von Mises) identified as a main bulwark against State oppression. This necessarily means a special identity with groups that have been victims of state oppression and remain so in many parts if the world.

So, for example, it is true that in our time many feminists look to the State for privilege, but it is also true that many racial minorities (and people of all races and classes) look to the State. But the fundamental history and drive of feminism and the anti-slavery movement, historically understood, are about empowering every member of the human family with the freedom that is his or her right. 

If we love capitalism, we must remember that it alone has done more to bring about that empowerment than any political change. For this reason, we should embrace the ideals of feminism in the same way we embrace the anti-slavery cause. It is our cause, our banner, our history, our movement. We should never give this up to the oppressor class. 

Fifth, there is a generation of liberty-minded thinkers who are filled with hope about the future, and rightly so. The digital world has opened up new frontiers for them to make a difference in their own lives and the world at large. The space in which this is allowed to happen is limitless, and so are the possibilities. Despite all the despotisms in the world today, the digital cloud makes possible a new path of progress in which individual and community expression can take new forms outside the reach of power.

Consider that Students for Liberty itself wouldn’t be nearly as successful without all the organizing tools of social media. 

All of this crystallized for me this weekend. It is a gigantic departure from the darkness of the past and a new paradigm for the future. It reflects a confidence that liberty is right and effective, not only as a political philosophy, but also as a personal principle that helps us achieve new heights of personal accomplishment and well-being. 

Thank you, Students for Liberty, and also Foundation for Economic Education, for existing and providing the platform and inspiration for the building of a new and better world.

Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-new-libertarianism#ixzz2j9wTb7n6

News Release
October 29, 2013
 
LP Chair Geoffrey J. Neale to speak at Adam Smith Forum in Russia

Adam Smith Forum

Libertarian Party Chair Geoffrey J. Neale will be an honored guest at the Fifth Annual Adam Smith Forum in Moscow, being held at the National Research University Higher School of Economics on Nov. 3.
His visit is part of a European tour which will also include stops in Germany and Spain.
"Libertarians in the United States and our allies around the world have everything to gain by sharing our insights and experiences in our quest to advance liberty," Neale said.
The annual Adam Smith Forum is the first regularly held public event in Russia that makes the case for libertarianism. The forum brings together leading libertarian political writers, scientists, bloggers, politicians, and activists.
Neale will join three prominent Russian libertarians for a three-hour presentation and panel discussion moderated by Andrew Goryanov, editor-in-chief for Slon.ru. The other panelists are:

• Vera Kichanova, federal committee member of the Libertarian Party of Russia and elected deputy of the municipal assembly of Yuzhnoe Tushino district in Moscow.
• Toine Manders, president of the Libertarian Party of the Netherlands.
• Yaroslav Romanchuk, Belarusian politician, well-known blogger, Austrian economist, and head of the Ludwig von Mises Centre in Belarus.

Panelists will speak about challenges facing the libertarian movement, how to promote libertarian ideas, strategies for success, libertarian allies, and key policy issues on which to focus. The presentation will run from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
On Nov. 2, Neale will speak at a seminar for employees of the Research Institute of Finance on the topics of government debt, the government "shutdown," and financial implications of burgeoning entitlement programs in the United States.
That evening, Neale will attend a welcome dinner for international speakers at the forum.
On Nov. 4, Neale will meet with Russian Libertarian Party (LPR) members and follow that with media interviews.

Visit LP.org to share this release!

---

Please donate to the Libertarian Party, working to advance peace, individual rights, and American prosperity.

Paid for by the Libertarian National Committee
2600 Virginia Ave, N.W. Suite 200, Washington D.C. 20037
Content not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

From Our Dear Friend In Liberty, John Todd!

AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY--KANSAS 

Wichita Area Chapter Breakfast Meeting

November 1, 2013

7:15 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.

Petroleum Club, 9^th Floor (Meeting Room)

Bank of America Building, 100 N. Broadway  

Wichita, Kansas 67202

David M. Hart, Ph.D.

Director of the Online Library of Liberty Project at the Liberty Fund

http://oll.libertyfund.org/person/25

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

“Bastiat’s Lessons for the 21^st Century: The Broken Window Fallacy Revisited (again and again).”

Breakfast buffet provided by Americans for Prosperity--Kansas

 RSVP’S REQUIRED:

 Online registration: http://bastiat-breakfast-wichita.eventbrite.com/

OR PLEASE CONTACT:

John Todd, Wichita AFP volunteer coordinator

john@johntodd.net, (316) 312-7335 cell

Or

Susan Estes, AFP Field Director, Kansas

sestes@afphq.org, (316) 681-4415

http://americansforprosperity.org/kansas/

The Kansas Chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP-KS) is committed to advancing every Kansan's right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP-KS is an organization of grassroots citizen leaders who engage in spreading the message of fiscally responsible government, free market ideals and regulatory restraint to policymakers on the local and state levels.

From The Foundation For Economic Freedom

Why Free Markets Are Difficult to Defend

The abundant but diffuse benefits of free markets are difficult to explain.

OCTOBER 01, 1993 by D. ERIC SCHANSBERG

D. Eric Schansberg is Assistant Professor of Economics at Indiana University-Southeast.
When posed as a general question, most people are inclined to support free markets and capitalism rather than government control and socialism. They have seen the fruits of “free market” economies and the failures of socialism. They support freedom as a principle and generally dislike the intrusions and bureaucracy of government.
Yet when it comes to specific government programs, the public is frequently enthusiastic about them. And whenever the economy is not running smoothly, the public demands action from the President and the Congress to “do something.” By giving explicit or tacit approval to such programs, people reveal that they think government can solve problems better than the market. Thus, people support free markets in general, but support government intervention on particular issues. The free market is difficult to defend against calls for government activism.

 

The Visible and Invisible Hands

Many people would agree that socialism is a less productive system than capitalism. But socialism has one advantage. To the extent it does work, one can see exactly how its success was achieved. As a pure economic system, every step between the inputs into production and the final product is controlled by a central planner the “visible hand” at work. In other words, one can precisely point to how the loaf of bread got to the consumer’s table.
Under a free market system, the “invisible hand” is just that—invisible. People pursuing their own interests are guided by the invisible hand of relative prices and inadvertently promote the well-being of society. Few people, if any, are able to enumerate exactly how the market is able to provide consumers with any particular good.
One of the contributions of public choice economics has been to note that costs and benefits are perceived in a similar manner in microeconomic settings. The benefits of individual government programs are as visible as the (albeit limited) successes of socialism as a macroeconomic system. When government creates new jobs through increased spending or preserves existing jobs through some form of protectionism, the additional employment is easy to see and is quickly attributed to government.
In addition, the costs of government activism are difficult to see. With programs that entail additional spending, government may choose to pay for the program with higher taxes now, higher taxes later (deficit financing), an inflation tax or some combination of the above. The visibility of these “payment plans” differs but all are more obscure than the benefits they bring. The costs of higher current taxes are the easiest to see (and thus the least politically popular) but even they are subtle. Note that a one-billion-dollar program costs only four dollars per capita; for a family of four with a single wage-earner, taxes increase by only $1.33 per month. Who would notice another dollar being taken out of his paycheck each month? Further, who will hold government accountable for the jobs that are lost as a result of taxpayers having less disposable income? The one billion dollar loss to consumers will destroy a few jobs in many industries since that money will no longer be spent on dry cleaning and appliances, or invested in new businesses. (See Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson [1946]. In Mr. Hazlitt’s words, “the art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists of looking at the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”)
Another way for the costs of a program to be hidden is for government to mandate that firms be responsible for providing it. A government program that subsidizes parents or firms to encourage or allow the parents to stay home with newborns would involve some direct expense. But if parental leave were to become a “worker’s legal right,” the benefits would still be easy to see and the costs would be nearly invisible. Who would attribute the subsequent long-term impact—some combination of greater unemployment, lower compensation for workers (in terms of other fringe benefits and wages), and higher product prices—to government’s activism? These costs are extremely subtle.
The benefits of government programs are easy to see and their costs are difficult to see. In contrast, the benefits of less government involvement—a move toward freer markets—are subtle and its costs are quite visible. Thus it is not surprising that governmental activism is relatively popular.

 

How Incentives Differ

Economics provides another important explanation for the paradox of why government activism often “wins the day.” It turns out that those who receive the relatively large and easy-to-see benefits have incentives different from those who bear the relatively small and difficult-to- see costs.
Suppose that the benefits of the one billion dollar program cited above are split equally by 1,000 people; each will receive one million dollars. Remember that this will cost every citizen four dollars. It is unlikely that they will notice. But even if they did, it is improbable that they would want to devote significant resources either to obtaining information or to fighting the proposal. On the other hand, those receiving a million dollars will go to great lengths to obtain their favor from government. At the very least, they will have an incentive to present eloquently and forcefully the merits of the program (but not its costs). At the other extreme, they might provide disinformation to “rationally ignorant” voters or (at least implicitly) bribe legislators.
Further, the bureaucrats who administer the programs passed by the legislative and executive branches have an incentive to see their programs’ scopes and budgets enlarged. They have the same incentive structure as the other “winners.”
In sum, there are at least two plausible explanations for the paradox of why people support free markets in general and government activism in specific areas. The visible benefits of government activism are easier to explain than the more abundant but more diffuse benefits of free markets. And due to the different incentives that winners and losers face for any given proposal, the benefits of government programs are more forcefully argued since their proponents will (out of ignorance or deceit) discuss the program only in its most favorable light.
Government programs may be bad economics, but why they are bad economics may be difficult to explain. That is why an effective defense of the free market must be based on moral principle.


Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/why-free-markets-are-difficult-to-defend#ixzz2isUM9ZeV

From The Foundation For Economic Freedom

7 More Falsehoods about the Free Market

OCTOBER 25, 2013 by SANDY IKEDA

My last column enumerated several “timeless falsehoods” about the free market. The list doesn’t end there, of course, so this week I would like to add seven more (in no particular order).
1) The free market is “dog eat dog,” encouraging people to cheat and steal from one another with impunity. The free market operates within a framework of rules. Some of these rules are formal or explicit, such as property rights and contracts, while others are informal or tacit—such as rules of honesty, reciprocity, and fair play. No serious advocate of the free market denies that either kind of rule is essential for social order and that effectively enforcing them, by government or by private governance, promotes peaceful exchange.
2) The free market promotes monopoly. In the competitive market process, monopolies may sometimes emerge. They usually don’t last long, but if they do it’s not necessarily bad. By monopoly I mean a single seller of a product in a market. In a free market monopolies arise for two reasons: (a) a business drives competitors from the market by being more efficient or providing a better product, or (b) an entrepreneur is the first to offer a new product. In each case, if the monopoly persists it means that provider is more efficient or more innovative than its rivals. When government protects businesses from competition or subsidizes costs, efficiency and innovation suffer. But that, of course, is not the free market. (See No. 6, below.
3) The free market stifles innovation. Now, some argue that a big company will buy up innovations from potential competitors in order to protect its market share. But as a rule, in a free market a business’s primary concern is not market share, it’s making profit. If an innovation is profitable it makes no sense for anyone to withhold it from the market. Company X may buy a new invention from Company Y in the hopes of, say, being better placed to market it; but if it turns out not to be profitable then, well, the company won’t sell it. That’s not stifling innovation, it’s avoiding a loss. When the L.A. Angels obtained the slugger Albert Pujols from the Cardinals, they didn’t do it to sit him on the bench but so he could hit more home runs for them. When he did “ride the pine” it wasn’t to hurt St. Louis, but because he couldn’t help the Angels.
4) The free market makes people selfish. People are just as selfish under socialism as they are in the free market (if not more so). Any system has to address the problem of how to harness that selfishness to promote the general welfare. The free market does it by maximizing the potential for voluntary exchange: Jack and Jill don’t have to trade unless each of them expects to gain from doing so. As Adam Smith explained in The Wealth of Nations: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
Some interpret Smith to mean that people will (or should) only help one another for material gain. But as Smith explained in his earlier book The Theory of Moral Sentiments: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness necessary to him though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” In the daily, face-to-face contacts between buyers and sellers in a free market, people deal successfully with all kinds of strangers, which gives them the confidence to be beneficent. It’s not just good business (which of course it is), but the kind of sympathy Smith writes about is essential to the greater Free Society of which the free market is only one aspect.
Which brings us to . . .
5) The free market discourages charity and sympathy. Strange that some would think that voluntarism wouldn’t thrive in a social order that is all about voluntary action and non-aggression. Perhaps that’s because many, including too many libertarians, believe the libertarian credo is, “Don’t tread on me!” Instead, I think it comes closer to the truth to say, “Don’t tread on others!” In an unfree society beneficence is typically limited to those you know well; the free market broadens our contacts. As Dierdre McCloskey has explained, the “bourgeois virtues” go well beyond what she terms “prudence alone.” And as a practical matter, wealth makes charity possible, and there is no better system for creating wealth than the free market, which decades of research has confirmed again and again.
6) The free market means profit comes at the expense of others. This falsehood conflates profit-seeking with rent-seeking, or the free market with crony capitalism. In a free market, a person will voluntarily trade only if she expects to profit—that is, if she thinks the value of the house she gives up is less than than the value of the cash she gets in return. If the trade takes place it means both sides expect to gain. (Whether they do depends on their alertness and the unavoidable uncertainty of the world.) But in crony capitalism people use political power for privileges and benefits paid for by taxes, regulation, and inflation. Here, one person’s gain is indeed another person’s loss—truly “dog eat dog”—which characterizes our current “mixed economy.” That means, unfortunately, that today it’s very hard to tell whether the “profits” and “losses” we see are due to profit-seeking or rent-seeking.
7) The free market means that we approve of everything that goes on in it. I’ve written before that a free society flourishes in the presence of radical tolerance and radical criticism. One manifestation of criticism is free-market competition among goods and services. If you like something you buy it, if you don’t you don’t. But a free society is also tolerant: “Don’t tread on others!” I wouldn’t want my son to smoke meth, but I’m willing to allow its open sale. One of the risks we take in a free society is to allow ourselves and others to make mistakes. Why? Perhaps because we can never be certain when something is a mistake or not. And in a free society, even if we do feel certain about something, we refrain from using political power to force our beliefs onto others. True, we don’t compromise on the principles of private property and non-aggression, but we do tolerate (and peacefully criticize) what we disagree with.


Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/7-more-falsehoods-about-the-free-market#ixzz2isU9iuKc

America is ready for libertarian president; Rand Paul is the man

from the Kansas State Collegian at www.kstatecollegian.com 

Laura Meyers Oct 21, 2013

Scenario: You want Indian food. Your friend wants Mongolian barbeque. You know what you get? Chinese. Why? Look at a map; it’s in the middle. Compromise is good, unless you want Mexican, then bargaining is out of the question.

You know what’s cool about the libertarianism? It’s like Chinese food, except less communist.

We’ve got a country that’s divided into two groups: the left and the right. Each side is then divided into more groups, stemming from specific ideological concerns.

Within the left, for example, we’ve got economic progressives, pro-choicers, greenies and the most modern major influence: gay marriage advocates.

Within the right, there are the gun rights advocates, pro-lifers, capitalists and the major influence: the fiscal conservatives.

I get so hyped when I think about America’s democracy, because there is a party that can appease both parties’ majorities simultaneously. No strings attached. It buys you the beer and cures the hangover all in one.

Allow me to introduce libertarianism. Libertarians want a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives, and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.

Let’s break this down. The left pushes for social freedom and economic progressivism. The right pushes for social order and economic freedom. Libertarianism believes in total freedom, both social and economic.

It is arguable that social and economic freedom could appease the majority of modern voters. So let’s hear from Rand Paul, a liberty-minded Republican Senator. In March, CNN political analyst Mo Elleithee described Paul as “the effective leader of the Republican Party.” According to a Sept. 23 article in the The Hill, Paul has repeatedly polled as the leading contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Seriously, doesn’t a libertarian president sound almost too good to be true for a solution to this country’s ideological division? I believe a libertarian president could solve the current and controversial gay marriage push by removing marriage as a federal government entity.

Personally, I am a Christian, and I do believe that marriage is a religious ceremony under God, between a man and a woman. Call me any name in the book you want, but there is a solution between my view, and the opposing view.

I’ll let Paul take this one.

“I’m an old-fashioned traditionalist. I believe in the historic and religious definition of marriage,” he said. “That being said, I’m not for eliminating contracts between adults. I think there are ways to make the tax code more neutral, so it doesn’t mention marriage. Then we don’t have to redefine what marriage is; we just don’t have marriage in the tax code.”

Okay, so I’m only fan-girling a little bit, but come on, how can anyone deny that? It’s a compromise that really does work. Besides, it’s a true separation of church and state that is outlined in our constitution.

Our tax code needs a little bit of simplifying anyways. Can I get an “Amen?”

Now we’ve got one major issue down, and onto the next: fiscal policy. Some Americans on the left, the right and even moderates agree that the debt needs to be reduced. Of course conservatives believe that our spending needs to be a little more, well, conservative, but so do libertarians. See, isn’t this fun?
Paul supports cutting government spending, a balanced budget amendment and lowering taxes.

I can tell you, from personal experience, that this policy will please every single fiscal conservative out there.

In all, a libertarian will multiply freedom, detract spending, appease all the equal signs on Facebook and hopefully cure this country’s deep divide.

I’m not saying utopia exists. One president cannot make everyone happy, but they sure can try. Open your mind up to libertarianism. If not for yourself, please do it for me, because I’m in love with Paul’s perm.
Laura Meyers is a freshman in journalism and political science. Please send comments to opinion@kstatecollegian.com.

One We Missed Last Week!

Libertarian speaker David Boaz expresses optimism in Dole Institute talk

from the Lawrence Journal-World at www.ljworld.com   

• By Elliot Hughes
• Posted Friday, October 18, 2013

David Boaz doesn't think the United States is "going the way of Rome."
The notable Libertarian, who has made many appearances in national media and is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute think-tank, told a crowd of about 100 that he's optimistic about the direction his country is taking in terms of liberty.
He pointed to such things as the removal of certain New Deal regulations, a decrease in tax rates and reduction in racism and sexism as examples of citizens' improved autonomy from their government over the last several decades.
"We are still a dynamic society," Boaz said. "We are not going the way of Rome."
Nevertheless, he still had much to say and critique in a 90-minute talk at the Dole Institute of Politics Thursday night.
Boaz's appearance began with an introduction of sorts to his position on various contemporary issues. With moderator Bill Lacey, who is also the director of the Dole Institute, issuing the questions, Boaz touched education choice and marriage, among others.
He voiced support for school voucher programs that help children attend private schools, but said ideally, the school system would exist in a free market. He said if schools were placed in a more competitive atmosphere, it could lead to more innovation.
"The reason our cars are better than they used to be is because of a competitive market," Boaz said.
The government should also not be in the business of approving marriages, he said. Boaz argued marriages should be handled like private contracts, with the terms decided by the two parties while the government is only there to enforce it.
With this kind of system, individuals could marry regardless of one's sexual orientation, Boaz said, except for cases regarding close relatives.
"Why do you need the government to give you the license to marry someone you love?" he asked.
Boaz, seated on a stage in the Dole Institute's main exhibit hall, then fielded questions from the audience, who prodded him about the Cato Institute and other issues.
Before the talk began, more chairs had to be added in the hall to accommodate listeners.
Russell Falmer, a professor at Emporia State University, described himself as a libertarian and admirer of Boaz's work.
He called the talk, "excellent and thought-provoking."

National LP News

Table of Contents:

·         There's only one way to stop Republican and Democratic reckless overspending: Vote Libertarian

·         Chair Neale makes moral case for Libertarian Party at CPAC

·         Reminder: Rally to protest mass surveillance in D.C. Saturday, Oct. 26, will feature Gov. Gary Johnson

·         Libertarian candidate Laura Delhomme aims to end state income tax, prohibitions on marriage and drugs

There's only one way to stop Republican and Democratic reckless overspending: Vote Libertarian
Statement by Carla Howell, political director for the Libertarian Party, on the Democratic-Republican passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014:
"They did it again.
"With overwhelming majorities, Democrats and Republicans passed one more government debt and spending hike: The Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014.
"Republicans who control the U.S. House, and who therefore control the purse strings of the federal government, sold Americans down the river — their job prospects, their kids' future, the security of seniors, and everyone's vital health.
"Republicans caved on the government slowdown, falsely pegged as a ‘shutdown,' bowing to political gamesmanship and media propaganda.
"They supported the pretense that furloughing overpaid and unnecessary government workers — most of whom should be freed from their meaningless, wasteful, bureaucratic government jobs and encouraged to find productive, satisfying jobs in the private sector — was some kind of tragedy.
"They should have let the slowdown go on indefinitely to force much-needed spending cuts."

Read the rest and share at LP.org!

---

Chair Neale makes moral case for Libertarian Party at CPAC

Libertarian Party Chair Geoffrey J. Neale represented the Libertarian Party at the Sept. 28, 2013, Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in St. Louis in a panel discussion titled, "Can Conservatives and Libertarians Ever Get Along?"

From the transcript:

NEALE: The Libertarian Party was built on a very simple principle: liberty. Freedom to do what you want as long as you respect the rights of others.
One of our [party's] founding fathers, David F. Nolan, who sadly passed away three years ago, created this little chart, a test, known as the Nolan Chart or the World's Smallest Political Quiz. It differentiates people based on whether you should have the right to decide your life on economic issues or social issues. [It shows where] you fit in a [two-dimensional] political spectrum.
People in the middle, we call centrists. People who are strong on social freedoms, but not on economic freedoms, we call Democrats. People who are strong on economic freedoms, but not so much on social issues, we call Republicans. People who are strong on both we call Libertarians, and people who are strong on neither we call authoritarians.
David Nolan wanted to make a differentiation. He said, "It's really not about left or right, it's about authoritarian vs. libertarian."

Read the rest and share at LP.org!

---

Reminder: Rally to protest mass surveillance in D.C. Saturday, Oct. 26, will feature Gov. Gary Johnson
The heroic revelations made by whistleblower Edward Snowden have let the world know: The NSA is watching you and has undermined the fabric of the Internet. Its overreaching surveillance creates a climate of fear, chills free speech, and violates our basic human rights — your Fourth Amendment right to privacy.
But a movement is building to change all this.
The Libertarian Party was among the first groups to join a growing coalition of organizations operating under the umbrella Stop Watching Us, which aims to stop the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of Americans.
The coalition will hold a rally in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 26, 2013, on the 12th anniversary of the signing of the Patriot Act. Thousands of people from across the political spectrum are expected to unite in Washington, D.C., to demand: Stop watching us.
Speakers at the rally will include 2012 Libertarian presidential candidate Gov. Gary Johnson. A march before the rally, music, and other festivities are planned for the day.
Show your determination to stop government surveillance and come to Washington, D.C., on Oct. 26. For more details about the rally, visit: https://rally.stopwatching.us/

Visit LP.org to share this with your friends!

---

Libertarian candidate Laura Delhomme aims to end state income tax, prohibitions on marriage and drugs
Libertarian Laura Delhomme, who is running for delegate in Virginia’s 47th district, aims to end the state income tax, enact marriage equality, end the failed War on Drugs and remove state restrictions on means of transportation.
"Taxes are too high," Delhomme said in a debate with her opponent, Democrat Patrick Hope. "That's because Virginia's state spending is too high. I want to reduce both."
Earlier this year, the legislature and governor passed a massive tax increase with the support of both Republicans and Democrats, including Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell.
"If elected, I will file a budget bill that cuts state spending immediately by 25 percent or more," she said. "That will allow us to end the income tax and give back, on average, more than $3,400 to each Virginia household — every year!"
Delhomme vows to file a bill to end marijuana prohibition in Virginia.
"By establishing drug prohibition, our government has taken a modest problem and turned it into a huge problem," she said. "Now we have to deal with drug gangs and black markets, and taxpayers have to pay to keep thousands of people in jail. I want to end this nonsense. Ending marijuana prohibition will make our neighborhoods safe; respect the rights of peaceful, responsible marijuana users; and keep taxes down."

Read the rest and share at LP.org!

---

Please donate today to the Libertarian Party today. Shrink government — expand liberty.

Paid for by the Libertarian National Committee
2600 Virginia Ave, N.W. Suite 200, Washington D.C. 20037
Content not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

Dear Friend of Liberty,
By now you may have heard about my upcoming European tour. Next month I'll be visiting with libertarians in Russia, Germany, Spain, and other European countries.
I consider it an honor and a duty to represent the U.S. Libertarian Party in a positive light to the world.
International travel is not new to me. I was born in Bristol, England, immigrated to the U.S., and spent many years working in Europe, primarily in Germany and the Netherlands.
I am looking forward to this global outreach to various libertarian parties and groups.
However, your LP Headquarters staff insisted that I inform you and the rest of our membership that the Libertarian Party is not paying for this trip. Additionally, I am taking time off from work, unpaid, for this tour.
While I think some Libertarians might want the party to fund an outreach trip like this, and would contribute for that purpose, that's not what I'm asking of you.
Instead I'm simply asking you to make a donation to our General Fund.
Last month, Libertarians like you came through for us in establishing and funding our Legal Offense Fund. Many thanks.
Now I'm asking for another donation for our General Fund to help fund everything else we do.
Please donate today.

— Geoffrey J. Neale

Visit LP.org to share this release!

---

Please donate today to the Libertarian Party today. Shrink government — expand liberty.

Paid for by the Libertarian National Committee
2600 Virginia Ave, N.W. Suite 200, Washington D.C. 20037
Content not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

News Release
October 16, 2013
 
LP Chair Geoffrey Neale to address European libertarians in Spain

As part of a European tour, U.S. Libertarian Party Chair Geoffrey J. Neale will be the featured speaker at a conference hosted by the Individual Freedom Party (P-LIB), the Spanish equivalent of the U.S. Libertarian Party, on Nov. 6 in Madrid.
Neale's tour, which will include stops in Russia and Germany, coincides with the emergence of a new pan-European party — the European Party for International Liberty (EPIL) — which aims to advance libertarian policy in Europe.
A distinguished panel of libertarian leaders will speak at the conference and will pose questions for Chair Neale, followed by an open discussion with conference participants. The panelists are:

• Juan Ramón Rallo, an Austrian school economist and media pundit who writes for several newspapers and regularly appears on radio and TV. He is the director of the Instituto Juan de Mariana, the main Austrian school think tank in Spain.
• José Carlos Rodríguez, chief editor of The Gazette International (La Gaceta) daily newspaper.
• Roald Schoenmakers, secretary of international relations for P-LIB and provisional chair of EPIL.

Spanish P-Lib affiliate chairs from Andalucía, Basque Country, Valencia, and Catalonia will travel to Madrid for the event, as will representatives from other European libertarian organizations.
Juan Pina, President of P-LIB, will introduce Neale. A private dinner with Neale is being offered to supporters and affiliates as part of the program after the conference.
Several radio, national TV, and national newspaper outlets will interview Neale on the day of the conference. He will also meet with libertarian leaders to discuss strategy on November 5.
The Utrecht Declaration and Covenant of European Classical Liberal and Libertarian Parties was signed on Sept. 28 in the Netherlands by Libertarian representatives from France, Germany, Holland, and Spain to form EPIL.
P-Lib conference organizers are billing Neale's appearance as "a great honor" and refer to him as "the head of the first expressly libertarian political party on earth, the Libertarian Party of the United States of America."
Neale will share with conference attendees the evolution of the U.S. Libertarian Party, and will express his desire for libertarians around the world to unite in mutual support.
"We're thrilled to see the formation of libertarian parties in Europe, and welcome them with open arms," Neale said. "Unlike our imperialist masters in the United States, we seek partnership with our European allies and wish them every success."
Neale is encouraged by recent and proposed independence movements in Europe, from Slovakia to Great Britain.
"Several European countries are making great strides in a libertarian direction," he said. "We're on the cusp of a global libertarian movement."
The conference will be held at the VP El Madroño in the Salamanca district of Madrid.
The entire conference will be conducted in English. Both English and Spanish versions of Neale's speech will be distributed at the event.
Reservations are available on a first come, first serve basis by calling P-Lib at 666 11 24 24, or by sending an email to eventos@p-lib.es.

Visit LP.org to share this release!

---

Please donate to the Libertarian Party, working to advance peace, individual rights, and American prosperity.

Paid for by the Libertarian National Committee
2600 Virginia Ave, N.W. Suite 200, Washington D.C. 20037
Content not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

From Our Friend In Liberty, John Todd!

AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY--KANSAS 

Wichita Area Chapter Meeting

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Spangles Restaurant (Meeting Room)

612 S. Broadway (Kellogg & Broadway Downtown)  

Wichita, Kansas 67202

WE STILL HOLD THESE TRUTHS

Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future

A presentation by Michael Pochek

Based on a book by Matthew Spalding, of The Heritage Foundation

Constitutionalism: The Architecture of Limited Government

The bedrock of a civil society is based on the expression of human nature through voluntary exchanges.  These exchanges are rooted in the merits of common law; those that allow the establishment of a commercial republic. The construct of the United States Constitution explicitly bounds the expansion of power at the national level.  The framework of the Constitution provides for the adaptation of society without the violation of the checks and balances put in place to protect the civil society from oppression of central governance. 

Suggested Reading:  Chapter 6
The book has a website with a great intro video

http://www.westillholdthesetruths.org/

The Session 6 Study Guide our group leader will follow is available:

http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/pdf/WSHTT-StudyGuide.pdf

The presentation will be followed by group discussion.

For additional information please contact:

John Todd, Wichita AFP volunteer coordinator

john@johntodd.net, (316) 312-7335 cell

Or

Susan Estes, AFP Field Director, Kansas

sestes@afphq.org, (316) 681-4415

The Kansas Chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP-KS) is committed to advancing every Kansan's right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP-KS is an organization of grassroots citizen leaders who engage in spreading the message of fiscally responsible government, free market ideals and regulatory restraint to policymakers on the local and state levels.