Blogs

Economist Robert Murphy previews his upcoming Mises Academy short course on healthcare in this video.

Wonderful thing, the Internet! Surfing happened to lead me to the story of Robert Kahre. He's in prison now,  where he may stay until 2023, having committed the grave error of trusting what the government said.
 
He was a Vegas businessman, but paid his employees a pittance. He was never charged with violating minimum wage laws, for none of them complained; but typically he was paying only about $1.25 an hour. Very surprising that anyone would work for him.
 
But they did, because he paid them with government money in the form of one-ounce gold coins clearly embossed with "50 dollars", about once a month. Such a low wage didn't trigger any "reporting requirements", and that was what got up the government's snout.
 
Read details at http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2012/03/26/use-real-money-go-to...

One down, many thousands to go: an innocent man has been prised loose from the government's prison system. Ryan Ferguson was sprung this week, after nearly ten years in a cage for a murder he didn't commit.
 
He was convicted on the basis of two witnesses. One was mentally unstable, the other admitted later to having said what the prosecutor wanted him to say. There was zero forensic evidence.
 
He commented that getting into prison is easy, getting out very hard. Ryan had the advantages of a determined father, a competent lawyer working pro bono publico, a campaign on change.org that swelled to over 260,000 petition signers, and several appearances on Dateline NBC. Even then, after an appeals court had castigated his prosecutors for poor work and overturned his conviction, he had to wait while the AG decided whether or not to re-try the case.
 
If he had lacked one of those advantages, he'd still be imprisoned on a 40-year sentence - and lucky, at that, not to have been executed. This is government "justice."

The market is responding to the obscenity of wall-to-wall NSA spying. http://www.darkmail.info/ shows what's in the works.

Opposition to the excessive use of prescription medicines, especially for children, is the theme of this carlos morales video. 

In this misesmedia video, Mark Thornon explicates the difference between data and knowledge.

Governments love to have a war or two simmering; it helps solidify popular support for their continued existence. Were peace and prosperity to prevail, too many people would ask that fatal question, "Government - who needs it?"
 
So Kerrybama are having a bad year. They're out of Iraq, nearly out of Afghanistan, and Peacemaker Putin pulled the rug from under their plans to battle Syria. Now, even the Iranians are saying "yes" instead of "no" and the prospects for some kind of war there are pouring down the toilet. A Man from Moscow has headed for Geneva to ensure nobody wriggles out.
 
What do they have left? - the "War on Terror"? That one is losing credibility by the month. Shrub invented the phrase and it's had an amazing life, given that nobody can actually wage war on an emotion, but its day is nearly done - like the War on Poverty that's been running for half a century but has produced nothing but more poverty.
 
So with any luck, the future might actually be bright.

In October of 2011 I began the Vermont Voluntaryists page on Facebook, with the intention of creating a Vermont-specific internet hub for voluntaryist ideas, activism, communication, and strategies.  To date, there are a mere 77 Likes -- the vast majority of whom, while either voluntaryists or those interested in voluntaryism -- do not reside in the Green Mountains.  While all others are still most certainly welcome to remain on board and continue to join, I am seeking to build a greater body of Vermont residents who are interested in creating a voluntary society.  If that's you, or you know of someone who might fill that criteria, please Like the linked page or forward the URL.  As with this STR blog, I'm seeking to ramp up the level of awareness and interest in my own neck of the woods using a narrower focus as an additional resource.  Thanks.  Now back to drinking raw milk and eating pancakes slathered in maple syrup while carrying concealed with no license in the middle of a field full of cows.  :-)

I was unaware, until recently, that I once lived in the same city as libertarian George H. Smith for several years.  If I had known, I would have done everything in my power to persuade him to act as my libertarian mentor.  In this Libertarianism.org video, Smith details, brilliantly as usual, the criminal origins and purpose of State-funded education.

Political action. That's how not to do it, and there are plenty of soundly reasoned articles here in the STRchive to prove the point. But this week the Governor's race in Virginia added a nice practical iullustration to help.
 
There were a Dem, and a Rep, and a Libertarian (Richard Sarvis) running. The Rep was Ken Cuccinelli, a Tea-Party social conservative. Ron Paul has been criticized for endorsing the latter over Sarvis, and perhaps he should have just kept quiet; but the real reason may be that the Rep was more Lib than the Lib.
 
Today the LP is celebrating Sarvis' quite healthy 6.5% showing, but fails to mention that he has been credibly criticised as a LINO - a Libertarian In Name Only. Consider Charles Cooke's comments here; Sarvis is on record as saying he's not an Austrian, preferring “more mainstream economics” and that he favors "putting chips in people’s cars so that they can be taxed for their mileage."
 
And this is the best the Libertarian Party can do? After forty years? This is even worse than the tax-hike proposal by a NH Libertarian that caused me to quit that affiliate in 1998.
 
What Sarvis did achieve was to split the anti-Dem vote so that the Democrat won. In one sense that's a welcome comeuppance for the Republicans after they so viciously excluded Ron Paul from their last Convention, but the net effect is to weaken the relatively pro-freedom activity of the Tea Party faction.
 
Politics won't cut it. Systematic, universal re-education will.