by Skeptikos | Dec 17, 2010 |
Summarizing my political views is hard. In the forums, I’ve been calling myself a “liberaltarian” — because I’m too libertarian to call myself a liberal, and too liberal to call myself a libertarian. (I posted an essay here, at Blue Hampshire, where I discuss particular policies and describe how I reached this position.)
But in this post I want to focus on a more interesting aspect of my views.
Beyond policy lies another level of politics. This is the structural, or institutional, level. Institutions determine, not individual policies, but how policies are chosen. When New Hampshire Democrats and Republicans fight to make it harder or easier for college students to vote, they are making crude forays into structural issues. Campaign finance reform would be a structural change.
While straightforward republican democracy has been working relatively well in America, it suffers from well-established flaws. Special interests and voter biases, in particular, create the most obvious problems. Anarchists (of whatever variety) and communists are unique in that they actually propose an alternate set of institutions to deal with these flaws. No other major political philosophies do this.
In opposition to anarchists and communists, however, I would like to see more structural experimentation: let a thousand nations bloom. (more…)
by Ian | Nov 4, 2010 |
The joke is on you if you still think the “justice” system actually renders any. Case in point: Eight activists were charged with misdemeanor trespassing at the county jail earlier this year. (That one can “trespass” on property that is open to the public is another ludicrous issue, but I digress.) All eight activists were arrested together, so the circumstances of the cases were identical. The activists’ trials were broken up over multiple months. First, in August, was Jim Johnson. Jim was convicted of misdemeanor trespass and is currently appealing to a jury trial. Then, in September, was a multi-defendant trial involving yours truly, Lauren Canario, and fellow Free Keene bloggers Sean Murphy and Dale Everett. In this trial, the same man in the robe, Edward Burke, admitted that we couldn’t be found guilty of misdemeanor trespass, meaning it was not proven that it had been adequately communicated to us that we needed to leave. However, he convicted us all of violation-level trespass. Of course, this wasn’t what we were charged with at the start of the trial and unlike the misdemeanor charge, the requirements for conviction of this charge revolve around the defendant supposedly knowing he or she was not supposed to be in the place in question. Of course, we thought we could be there, as we’d been to the old jail countless times doing the exact same thing and had never been told to leave. However, we were not allowed to ask questions that would have been relevant to such a defense, because at the time of the trial it was still a misdemeanor, so the robed man ruled against those questions, saying they weren’t relevant to whether or not we were told to leave and didn’t, which is what needed to be proven by the state gang for a misdemeanor conviction.
If that wasn’t inconsistent and arbitrary enough for you, we come to the trial of Menno Troyer, who was quietly found NOT GUILTY of violation trespass a few days after his trial! (more…)
by Dale Everett | Oct 7, 2010 |
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In one of the most famous episodes of the original Star Trek series, The Trouble with Tribbles written by David Gerrold, much of the crew is convinced to buy these adorable little cooing furballs known as tribbles. A crafty salesman manages to unload quite a few of these before the crew realizes that they reproduce faster than Mormon bunnies overdosing on Viagra. Would he have managed to sell so many had the customers known they could make many more of their own by just over-feeding them a bit?
The trouble with selling tribbles is they just aren’t a scarce commodity. It’s built into their nature. The shifty Star Trek character wasn’t just selling tribbles. Every tribble he sold was also a tribble factory!
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by Trifith | Sep 17, 2010 |
Over the last year activists associated with the Free Keene website have engaged in civil disobedience in Keene’s Central Square. The City of Keene has made several efforts to stop this activism, using the only tool they have available, arrests. So far this tactic has utterly failed to stop any activism, at best displacing it to a different park. I would like to present an alternative method that the City of Keene can use that provides the greatest chance of ending the 420 celebrations, the nightcaps, the vigils, and all other activism in Central Square.
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by JJ Epic | Aug 7, 2010 |
Libertarianism is a political philosophy based on the idea that no person or group of people has the right to aggress against the Life, Liberty, Property or Pursuit of Happiness of another, either by force or by fraud. Libertarians know and accept that aggression cannot be eliminated from the world, and our philosophy does allow for the use of force in defense of self or others. The question which, for us, settles the issue of who is right or wrong in and violent conflict is a very simple one, probably familiar to readers from childhood: “Who started it?” The person who ‘initiated force’ is the person who is wrong, every time.
Simplicity is one of the great strengths of Libertarianism. It allows a person to understand the legal consequences of his actions without consulting high priced lawyers or studying huge tomes filled with their ever changing statutes. This is probably the reason that there are so few Libertarian lawyers. Simplicity is the enemy of any privileged class.
Some people believe that they should, in some cases, be permitted to do violence against people who do things they don’t like, even though these people are harming only themselves. They argue that a person who takes drugs, for example, might possibly someday do some sort of harm to someone else, so he should be punished before he has the chance. Of course, this belief is absurd. Punishing someone because they might someday aggress would require, if applied consistently, the punishment of every person, since any human might someday commit an act of aggression. The law, however, should punish only criminals, not potential criminals.
Still other people believe that a sufficiently large majority should be permitted to do violence against a sufficiently small minority, in the democratic tradition. The belief that numerical “might makes right” is the ‘moral’ basis of democracy. The idea that the majority is always right can be easily dispelled with a simple thought experiment. Imagine a true democracy which consists of 9 men and 1 woman on an island. The men vote that the woman must have sex with all of them. According to the democratic ideal, this is perfectly acceptable, since the men outnumber the poor girl, and should she refuse their demands, then she is a criminal. This is why Benjamin Franklin described democracy as “Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner,” and why America was founded as a Democratic Republic, not a democracy. Sadly, modern America is closer to the democratic than the republican ideal. (Note: Please do not confuse these words with the political parties similarly named. The connections are lost in the mists of time.)
Libertarianism is, in my humble opinion, the only truly moral political philosophy. Whether it is expressed through a minimal State–like that specified by our Constitution–or through anarchy–private arrangements in the absence of any State–it is the only political philosophy which can bring peace and harmony to our society. If you would like to learn more about this philosophy, please check out the short youtube video “The Philosophy of Liberty,” the Free State Project, the Libertarian Party, or meet some real live Libertarians and the 4:20 rally which occurs every afternoon on the Keene Common, or the Night Cap which occurs every night around 11:00pm in the same place. You may also write to me at the address below:
Rich “420 Guy” Paul
C/O Cheshire County Jail
Cell Block ‘D’
825 Marlboro Street
Keene, NH 03431
by Dale Everett | Jul 17, 2010 |
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This comic was inspired by a controversy over the Shire Society Declaration. The construction of the declaration was begun with a work by Libertarian author, L. Neil Smith. Many changes were made after a lengthy discussion, but they remain quite similar according to a number of people. I haven’t actually read the original work and I got turned off to the discussion for reasons described here. I did ultimately find myself in enough agreement with the final product to sign it. (more…)
