Liberdon is the Libertarian/Voluntarist Server running Mastodon
There has been a lot of controversy recently over social media websites like Twitter swinging their ban hammer on personalities with opinions they don’t like. As a libertarian, I believe in property rights and so Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and the like should certainly be free to ban people for whatever reason they want. I also believe in the free market’s potential reactions to bad decisions by business owners, which include boycott and competition.
Thankfully, the competition has arrived! Mastodon is a decentralized social media replacement for Twitter and it does an excellent job. I recently joined the “Liberdon” server intended for libertarians and voluntarists. Not only is Mastodon decentralized, in that anyone who wants to can run a server, but it’s also “federated”. Federated means your server can be connected to all the other Mastodon servers, that is so long as the other servers want to be connected to you. Each server sets its own rules for which other servers they’ll federate with. So if the NAZIs or Communists start a server, no one has to link up to them – the market decides instead of a centralized corporation like Twitter. However, even if no other servers federate with, say Chris Cantwell‘s server (I don’t think he has one – just as an example), he can still run his server and hate-filled bigots and racists can join it and talk to each other. Of course, each server can be controlled and its policy set by its administrator, so intra-server censorship is still possible (most servers prohibit spam, for instance), but given you are free to start your own server and set your own policy, you can’t be censored if you start your own platform.
If you are a liberty-minded person, protect yourself from censorship and join Liberdon and the “fediverse” today! If If you aren’t liberty-minded, but want to get a Mastodon account, you can start by picking a server and signing up wherever you feel most welcome. Visit Mastodon.social for their offical site.
Thanks to Darryl W Perry for putting together his ongoing Candidate Spotlight series. This five minute speech will be airing on Cheshire TV, the local cable access channel until the 2018 election. Here’s an HD version with the correct campaign website (http://ianfreeman.nhliberty.info) on-screen. I misrecalled the URL when we were recording.
Ian Freeman, NHLA Endorsed Candidate for NH Senate District 10 in 2018.
According to a letter I received this week by the Chairman of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance Keith Ammon, I have received their endorsement for the NH Senate District 10 race in which I am the Libertarian candidate against a Democrat incumbent and Republican opponent here in the Monadnock region.
The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance has become a respected force in the NH state house over the last decade plus, where they are constantly informing all 400 state reps and 24 senators of the pro-liberty positions on various legislation. They also rate every legislator in New Hampshire each year based on how pro-liberty their voting records are. Here are the recently-announced 2018 rankings of the current state legislature.
As a mere candidate, they can only rate me on my answers to their candidate survey and not surprisingly, I received their endorsement along with a very generous check, which I politely refused, as I’m running a near-zero-budget message campaign and am not accepting contributions.
This year, Ammon’s letter informed me that the NHLA is tightening up their endorsement requirements and only endorsing incumbents who receive a B+ or better in their yearly liberty ratings over the last two years and only endorsing candidates who score at least 85% on the survey. That’s great news! I’m glad to see the NH Liberty Alliance demanding more adherence to principles by their endorsed candidates. I’m proud to be one of them. Here’s their list of endorsed candidates statewide so far for this year’s election.
As part of my near-zero budget campaign for NH Senate district 10, I’ve been posting my responses to various candidate surveys and questionnaires. Here are the latest ones I received this week.
First up, the Marijuana Policy Project’s survey, where I had to answer no to one of their questions about supporting regulation and taxation of cannabis. That’s because I’m against government control of cannabis in any way. I understand MPP is trying to lobby politicians and that’s why they propose such schemes to them. As a principled libertarian, while I’d vote for a tax-and-regulate bill if it were the only way to end prohibition, I don’t support taxes or regulations. I only support freedom, which means ending drug prohibition across the board and letting people grow, sell, possess, smoke, and distribute cannabis without annoying and restrictive government licenses.
Next, it’s the NH Right to Life survey. Abortion is an issue that libertarians have strong disagreements with each other over. While all real libertarians are against aggressive force against other humans, none of them agree at which point a fetus becomes a human. I choose the side that as long as the fetus is dependent on the mother’s connection to survive, it is a part of her and she can decide what to do with it, which will likely not make me popular with the anti-abortion group. That said, I do respect their right to protest and express their opinion. The correct libertarian position on abortion is that the government should neither prohibit or pay for them.
The following press release was received from the Secretary of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire
For Immediate Release
July 29, 2018
(Concord, NH)- Yesterday, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH) wrapped up the business from their State Convention in late April at a second special convention at the Grappone Conference Center. Among the items on the agenda were revisions to the Party’s bylaws and several platform plank proposals, including one regarding sex work decriminalization, continuing their fight against the state run liquor store monopoly, as well as the first Libertarian Gubernatorial Debate in the state’s history. At the special convention there were 32 credentialed delegates from across New Hampshire. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire also has the highest number of dues-paying Libertarians per capita in the United States.
The LPNH added several new planks to its Party Platform, including one calling for the decriminalization of sex work; becoming the first political Party in the state to take a position on this issue. Representative Brandon Phinney (L-Rochester) said decriminalizing prostitution gives sex workers access to reproductive services, and the ability to report sexual assaults without fear of legal repercussions. Phinney went on to say, “This would mitigate the effects of human trafficking. If sex work is decriminalized for adults, then you essentially reduce the incentive for human trafficking. It’s not the role of the state to dictate what a person does with their own body.”
2018 is a historic year for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. Not only do we have full ballot access on par with the Republicans and Democrats, but we for the first time ever actually have TWO libertarians running in a contested primary for governor!
Here’s the full debate between the two candidates vying for the libertarian nomination this September at the primary:
