Arpad Toth Speaks Out Against the Bearcat and Fear

January 31, 2012 by Ian · 5 Comments
Filed under: Copblock, Essay, Living Free, National, New Hampshire, Police, Update

Arpad Toth writes the Sentinel this excellent letter about the Bearcat and how fear is hurting us:

Fear leads to BearCat

There is a specter haunting our nation — a specter of fear.

To me, and I know that in this evaluation I am not alone, it is apparent that since Sept. 11, 2001, fear has been the motivating force for change across the United States.

Where do I see fear? For the present I use but one parameter — despair, the need to arm one’s self, seek protection against the “other.” The “other” is too often an illusion than a reality but what a powerful one it is. Read more

Rebel With A Cause – How I Became A Voluntaryist

January 26, 2012 by Kelly · 43 Comments
Filed under: Essay, Living Free, Your Evolution

I was always a rebel.

One of my earliest memories is of my mom telling me that touching the hot iron would result in burning my finger. Subsequently, I attempted to touch the iron with just my fingernail. Much to my disappointment, I got burned, but the experience didn’t dissuade my affinity for questioning the status quo and inventing innovative ways to subvert authority. My parents are both employed at institutes for “higher” education and always emphasized that earning good grades, going to a good (preferably Ivy League) college, and getting a good job is the way to achieve a good life. To them, such values are intrinsic and thus uniformly the best thing for every individual. I had different ideas. Read more

Can libertarians be liberals?

January 6, 2012 by Skeptikos · 48 Comments
Filed under: Democrats, Essay, National, Your Evolution

Working in Democratic politics can do strange things to libertarians. Part of the job is selling libertarian economics to hardcore liberals– and that’s a daunting task. Perhaps impossible. It led me to re-evaluate major aspects of my libertarianism (Liberals support x. Libertarians oppose x. But is libertarian philosophy really opposed to x?) and take a much closer look at liberal ideas.

When I started, I was already skeptical of some core libertarian arguments, due to my near-obsession with academic economics. My work with liberalism opened the floodgates. Eventually I was forced to admit that I was probably wrong in advocating free market anarchism and adopted a position awkwardly in between liberalism and libertarianism.

Since then I’ve struggled to find a way to describe my views. “Left-libertarian” was an obvious candidate, but it seems that most people using the term are anarchists, and I’m not nearly that radical. Taking a cue from Will Wilkinson, I started to use “liberaltarian“. But, in many cases, people simply interpreted that as “libertarian”, defeating the purpose.

For a while, if asked, I would just shake my head and laugh nervously. Finally I gave up and called myself a liberal.

So I was intrigued to find an essay at the Bleeding-Heart Libertarians blog by left-leaning libertarian Will Wilkinson, titled “Why I’m Not a Bleeding-Heart Libertarian“: Read more

Fuck Capitalism

December 2, 2011 by Ian · 16 Comments
Filed under: Essay, Free Manch

Don’t miss this excellent piece about the term “Capitalism” from Ofer at Free Manch:

I don’t mean that in the sense that poop is a bad word. I mean bad as in poor, suboptimal, tragically flawed – worse than useless, in fact.

The Words

Capital

The term capital refers to a store of value (like gold), or supplies and equipment that can be used to produce goods and services (like a hammer or a pile of wood). If you get stranded on a deserted island, and go find and sharpen a stick to use to spear fish with, that sharpened stick is capital, and you’re now a capitalist— congratulations! Read more

New Hampshire: A three year retrospective, with advice

November 24, 2011 by Skeptikos · 29 Comments
Filed under: Essay, Free State Project, Keene, Living Free, Your Evolution

As of this Monday, I have been in Keene for three years. Three years may not sound like a long time, but, in the Keene activist community, three years makes me an experienced veteran, and in this time I have grown immeasurably. For the sake of newer activists, and those considering moving, I’m going to share some of my experiences here, to give a sense of what to expect, and offer some hard-earned advice.

In 2007, at 19, I was attending Texas Tech as an engineering student. But I had hated school for years, and didn’t like college any better. I also became fascinated by economics and the social sciences, and found that engineering, in comparison, was intolerable. I dropped out.

Around the same time, I decided I was an anarcho-capitalist, and, via the MySpace Libertarians group, I stumbled onto the Free State Project. Read more

4 reasons Manchester needs its own blog

November 12, 2011 by Skeptikos · 11 Comments
Filed under: Essay, Free Manch

I talked to a few Manchesterites last week who are working to relaunch the Free Manch blog, which has been abandoned for a long time. I’m excited, and I want them to be successful. So, to help motivate people to make this happen, here are 4 good reasons that every liberty activist in Manchester should want a well-maintained blog:

1) Attracting new movers.

The Free Keene blog has attracted all sorts of liberty activists to New Hampshire. (Myself, for example!) It does an excellent job of showcasing local activism, and gives liberty-lovers elsewhere a taste of New Hampshire. In my judgment, this is the biggest reason that Keene is a hub of libertarian activism, rather than just another small NH city.

From what I’ve heard, there’s plenty of activism in Manchester– but it doesn’t seem that way to the rest of us, because there’s no good blog to present it. How many more people would move if they were aware of Manchester’s activism? Read more

Guest Blog about Central Sq.

October 20, 2011 by Ian · 8 Comments
Filed under: Essay, Issues

Brian Anderson, a potential future mover to Keene, comments on the Central Square controversy. He does get one major point wrong though, and that is that “Free Staters” were not the ones accused of cursing loudly at Central Square – it is only a few of the Juggalos that have been doing that. Most of the Juggalos are peaceful and are not causing that issue. That said, here’s Brian’s essay about what might be done:

To the people of Keene, New Hampshire:

A quick introduction—my name is Brian Anderson. I’m 21 years old and will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in the biological sciences (concentration in human biology) in 2013. I hope to attend medical school and open a private surgery practice. I write a weekly opinion column for the university’s newspaper, and my writing is featured at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, and a few other organizations.

I’m thrilled to think about moving to Keene after graduation, but recently the excitement hasn’t been as bright. Read more

Voluntary Alternatives: Pollution

September 12, 2011 by Trifith · 89 Comments
Filed under: Essay

Pollution seems like an insurmountable problem for a stateless society. After all, without government regulation, who will prevent companies from dumping toxic waste everywhere? This overlooks the fact that a company has a strict liability for damage it causes, even through it’s dumping practices. This liability is something that the company itself, as well as its insurance provider will want to control. And because all property is privately owned, there will always be a damaged party from indiscriminate dumping. Read more

Voluntary Alternatives: Education. Home/Un-School

September 9, 2011 by Trifith · 16 Comments
Filed under: Essay

Continuing our look at education in a stateless society, lets examine homeschooling and unschooling. Because of the similarities between the two, I’m going to present both in this post, rather than repeat myself. Both home and unschooling are very student driven, giving focus to each individual students needs. The parents, who will act as instructors, are very involved in the child’s education, which is more difficult when the children are sent to an outside school. Home/Un-schooling also has an incredibly low cost.

Voluntary Alternatives: Education

September 7, 2011 by Trifith · 4 Comments
Filed under: Essay

Lets take a look at how various state services may be provided in the absence of government. Education, Roads, Protection, Courts, pollution control, and many other services currently monopolised by the state can not only be provided by the private market, the will be more affordable, less intrusive, and respond to customer needs faster. Education is often a service that people just can’t seem to imagine without the state. But as I hope to demonstrate, the private market can, and will, provide, if only the state got out of the way.