Drug legalization was one of the first issues that helped me down the path towards the ideas of liberty. Growing up in Alabama in the 1980′s & 1990′s I was taught “drugs are bad.” And I remember Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no!” campaign. Like most people, I was taught the government propaganda about drugs, especially the dangers of marijuana as a gateway drug.
Drug Policy Made Me An Anarch
June 9th, 2013 Submitted by Darryl W PerryReconciling the Regression Theorem with Bitcoin
June 6th, 2013 Submitted by Michael Hendricks
When Austrians argue about Bitcoin there seems to be two basic camps. On the one hand there are those who use the regression theorem to argue that Bitcoin isn’t money, and on the other there are Bitcoiners who don’t see the regression theorem as relevant to Bitcoin at all. The regression theorem applies to Bitcoin in the same way that modern evolution theory applies to Darwinism. The regression theorem explains the origins of money, but it does not explain the current state of the money market.
Libertarianism is a First World Problem
June 4th, 2013 Submitted by Roman Skaskiw
WHY FOREIGN HAVENS?
It seems the illusion of good government is in free fall and no one knows precisely what will happen when it shatters upon the rocks. An enormous lie upon which the masses have staked livelihoods and personal identities is about to be shattered. How should we brace for the likely interruption to the global division of labor?
Protocol, Networks, Law, and Anarchism
June 2nd, 2013 Submitted by Seth King
I imagine long ago there was a time when neither verbal nor written language existed for humans. Hand gestures and other physical cues were as good as our ancestors had it. Perhaps the sign for thirsty meant pinching one’s own tongue. Or the sign for hungry meant stuffing one’s hand in one’s own mouth. Misunderstanding was rampant. Quality communication was scarce. And productivity was low.
The Kind of Anarchism I Believe in, and What’s Wrong with Noam Chomsky
May 29th, 2013 Submitted by Davi Barker
An article by Noam Chomsky appeared on Alternet yesterday titled “The Kind of Anarchism I Believe in, and What’s Wrong with Libertarians.” I read with baited breath. See, I used to be what you might call a “vulgar Chomskyite,” meaning I was an enthusiast, but had a crude unsophisticated understanding of what he was talking about. Then, years ago, I had the privilege of hearing him speak at UC Berkeley. That’s when I realized that despite all his erudite pontification, I could not make heads or tails of what principles he actually advocated. I suddenly suspected that I had been taken in by well footnoted rhetorical candy with no nutritional value whatsoever. So, I devoured this new article eager for him to pay off the promise in the headline, but was ultimately disappointed.
Bitmessage May Replace E-Mail
May 26th, 2013 Submitted by Seth KingIf you’re a frequenter of the Bitcoin forums and chatrooms as I am you’ve likely heard of Bitmessage. It’s a new p2p distributed mail server that is completely free and open source software. I had first heard about it a few months ago but paid little attention. In the free software movement there are tons of ideas that come and go and are soon forgotten. Only after something stays around a while or a friend gets into it am I likely to give a project a closer examination. That happened last night when fellow bitcoiner and free stater Joshua Harvey announced that he had installed the software and was impressed.
After reading the Bitmessage wiki I, too, began to get excited. The software is very similar to a type of email protocol that I had found totally revolutionary in the past called i2p-Bote. The problem with i2p-Bote, however, is that it only existed on the i2p network, a very cumbersome onion network that isn’t yet accessible to non-techies. What Bitmessage has done is allow easy access to ground-breaking email software to the technophobe.
What is so revolutionary, though, about Bitmessage? It provides easy message encryption by default. It anonymizes both the sender and recipient of messages. It fights spam like no other, and because of its distributed nature it cannot be shut down. In other words the spam ridden, DDoS vulnerable, corporate data mined, NSA spyware called e-mail is eventually going to get replaced by Bitmessage. So, the next time I get a “Constitutionalist” in my face complaining about how the government is reading all of our emails, I’m going to direct them to Bitmessage and tell them to put up or shut up.
But enough from me. Here’s a nice video that will better explain what Bitmessage is. Enjoy!
Applying Diax’s Rake to Theories of Objective Value
May 22nd, 2013 Submitted by Michael Hendricks
Diax’s Rake is a phrase coined in Neal Stephenson’s novel, Anathem:
“Diax’s Rake: A pithy phrase. Uttered by Diax on the steps of the Temple of Orithena when he was driving out the fortune-tellers with a gardener’s rake. Its general import is that one should never believe a thing because one wishes that it were true.”- (Anathem p. 895)
While this idea already exists in our world, to my knowledge there is no other succinct phrase to express it.
Fractional-Reserve Banking: Not Fraud, Not Folly
May 13th, 2013 Submitted by Wendy McElroy
Fractional-reserve banking is a contentious issue within libertarian theory. This is confusing because I do not consider it to be part of libertarian theory at all.
The Undead Democracy Apocalypse
May 12th, 2013 Submitted by Davi Barker
“They crowd our imagination. They hide under our beds. They lurk within the dark recesses or our primal unconsciousness. You can’t run, you can’t hide – it’s going to get you. The beast, the ravager, the Lusus Natura. What is it, and why do we fear it?” ~Mark Rein Hagen
The best monsters are personifications of real fears, and the monsters that survive the test of time and cinema are those that evolve into psychological metaphors for something human. I want to put forward what may be an uncomfortable premise for some. I believe that the key to the success in the zombie genre lies in their ability to tap into subconscious and unacknowledged fears that democratic government isn’t working.
In Defense of Liberty: State of Denial
May 9th, 2013 Submitted by Michael Hendricks
One of the most common cries of the Statist is “Who would provide defense without the State?” The idea that the State somehow provides protection is observably false. If one examines military campaigns throughout history they will find that armies always defend the capital of the State as its top priority. It defends government facilities and officials first, and civilians are low on the priority list.
Let’s examine the Russian defense of Stalingrad, and the Chinese defense of Manchuria during World War II, and just so you know it can happen here too, the battle known as “First Bull Run” to the Union and “First Manassas” to the Confederates, and the Battle of Gettysburg, both during the American Civil War.
