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  • David Libertas
Bush, Obama, Trump: sixteen years of war.

The Unknown Cost of Endless War Jul 28, 2017

We are entering the 16th year of the US occupation of Afghanistan. It is not America's longest war. Officially, the US is still at war with North Korea. That 67-year conflict never had an official peace treaty, the last 64 years technically being a ceasefire while the two sides negotiate peace. But in terms of active violence, it is the US' longest war. It is time to ask: what is the unknown cost of endless war? The obvious cost is the carnage, maimed and dead soldiers, cities turned to rubble, families destroyed and pushed into the hands of ISIS by...

By David Libertas Vote1 0
FDA = fail. Poison approved: Olean, NutraSweet, high fructose corn syrup.

The FDA Fails Us All Jun 30, 2017

Do you remember the time you got on board with libertarianism? I remember it clearly. The Libertarian Party intrigued me, but some of the bureaucracies they opposed seemed important. Then I saw one of their presidential candidates, back in the old days when the party ran  actual Libertarians rather than failed Republicans. He made the case against the FDA. He explained how aspirin comes from before we had an FDA. The problem is it causes birth defects and serious gastric lesions in most animals, making it the FDA-mandated animal models for drug toxicity. Never mind the fact humans don't get...

By David Libertas Vote2 0
March not for science.

The March Not for Science Apr 23, 2017

Yesterday there was an alleged march for science in Washington, DC, and other cities. It was, of course, not about science. Let's explore what this march was really about and what libertarians can learn from it. Marches in support of benign-sounding things like "science" are rarely about that thing. They are usually about leftist causes packaged in a way to sound otherwise. Their real purpose is messaging. The subtext of these events are to create mental associations of conservatives with being opposed to science or opposed to women, to children, to poor people, or whatever the march is about. In...

By David Libertas Vote5 0
Donald Trump riding a missile

The Early Term Abortion of Trumpism Apr 14, 2017

Trumpism is dead. It was given an early term abortion long before it could have been born. Pre-Election Trumpism The most interesting thing about the Trump campaign was his appearance of authenticity. He said thing that you just don't say when running for president. I don't just mean his crass manner of speaking but even the substance of his issues: opposing free trade, opposing foreign interventions, and a hard line against illegal immigration. There are certain issues position you just don't openly admit to having when running for president. This is why Bush and Obama both pretended in public to...

By David Libertas Vote2 0
Trumponomics

Trumponomics Doom in Argentina Mar 10, 2017

Try to think of a country that elected a populist president: someone who wanted to boost manufacturing jobs, insists that domestically-sold products should be made domestically, and threatens to use tariffs to shut off foreign competition. How would that work out? I am, of course, referring to President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina, not President Donald Trump. It's too soon for Trump to have implemented his economic plans, but we can see how Trumponomics will work by looking southwards to Argentina. It is a portent of the doom that awaits us. Argentine Protectionism President Kirchner pushed through laws mandating that certain items sold in...

By David Libertas Vote3 0
Evil Donald Trump

How Evil Is Trump? Feb 24, 2017

Is Donald J. Trump the most evil president to take office? Many of his opponents would have you believe so. The hysteria against trump is beyond any president in modern history, even surpassing the anti-Obama reaction from the fringe right. There's even a dating website for helping Americans meet Canadians for romance so that they can flee to Canada and escape Trump's evil dictatorship. But let's put this into perspective. Has Trump expressed support for secretly infecting blacks with syphilis? If not then he's less evil than countless bureaucrats working in federal health department who did just that for forty years...

By David Libertas Vote4 0
BackWordz

BackWordz Upcoming Tour and Album Feb 4, 2017

Winning the culture for liberty comes before winning minds and elections. In support of that comes "Veracity," the debut album of BackWordz with front man Eric July and an accompanying live tour. BackWordz hit the liberty scene last year dropping several singles on YouTube. Their sound leans towards early oughts metal rock with an interspersing of rap that I for one sorely miss. Good hard driving rock has slowly faded away with greats like Slipknot, Korn, and Tool giving way to abominations like Lady Gaga and the Biebster. Now you can get quality rock without the leftist drivel. (I want to like to Rage Against...

By David Libertas Vote4 0
Your vote does not count. Fart instead.

The True Value of Voting Jan 20, 2017

Today is Inauguration Day! It marks the peaceful transition of violent power over the lives of billions in American and abroad from one person to another. As we celebrate or mourn or shrug off today's inauguration of Donald Trump, let us reflect on the election. I don't mean the campaigning and the candidates, but rather the act of voting. The question we must ask ourselves is which act is more meaningful: voting or farting. A Serious Question! No, this is a serious question! I am in no way being flippant nor facetiousness. The answer to this seemingly ridiculous question reveals...

By David Libertas Vote4 0
Meet Ethan and Emily. Your kids will learn about liberty alongside the Tuttle Twins!

Teaching Kids Economics: The Tuttle Twins Jan 15, 2017

More important than winning elections is winning hearts and minds of young people. Connor Boyack of the Libertas Insititute has made an important effort to this end. A parent dismayed at the lack of books to teach liberty to very young children, Connor has taken it upon himself to create books to teach economics to children aged 5 through 10. In these books the young Tuttle twins go through adventures based on literature with which you may already be familiar: I Pencil, The Creature from Jekyll Island, The Law, and The Road to Serfdom (or in this case, The Road...

By David Libertas Vote4 0
Friedrich Nietzsche gazing upon Trigglypuff

Free Speech, Nietzsche, and the Morality of the Left Jan 7, 2017

I recently watched the documentary film "Can We Take a Joke?" It was made with help from Reason and FIRE. The film explores how our culture has become less and less tolerant of offensive speech from the perspective of controversial comedians. It starts with prosecution of Lenny Bruce, a comedian arrested and charged for saying dirty words. The public reaction, largely from the left, was to defend his act from government censorship. Fast forward to today and now it is the left, especially universities, that are stamping out offensive speech, even comedic speech meant for a laugh without any malicious...

By David Libertas Vote6 0
Hillary Clinton with pile of cash at the Clinton Foundation

Tax Deducting Your Presidential Campaign: the Clinton Foundation Nov 27, 2016

Shockingly, the Clinton Foundation never turned into a major scandal during the election. There was suspicious activity there, but it never had a large "smoking gun" to show criminality. Yet I believe there was a scandal there that the media never pursued. Defenders of the Clintons noted that they never received monetary benefit. This, of course, is irrelevant under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Under that law, if a low level employee of a foreign company donates to my favorite charity in exchange for a favor from me, and that company is even partially owned by a foreign government, then...

By David Libertas Vote2 0
Donald Trump versus China

Bastiat and the Dangers of Trumpism Nov 14, 2016

What is the greatest threat from Trumpism? It isn't racism, as I wrote here. Nor is it his foreign policy, which I touched on as part of this article. Clinton was better on economics, which is rare for a Democrat. Yes, Clinton wanted to raise income taxes, but Trump also wants to raise taxes in the form of import tariffs. This brings us to the biggest danger of Trumpism: war due stemming from bad economic policy. Ironically, war was also the biggest danger of a Clinton presidency, and I still maintain that she would have been the more dangerous of the two. Clinton's foreign...

By David Libertas Vote3 5
Trump sneering

Will Trumpism Last? Nov 13, 2016

Trump is a unique phenomenon. We did not see any other Republicans campaigning on Trumpism. Those that attempted it went down in flames in primaries. Will Trumpism last? I believe Trumpism has a future after Trump's term in office. Even if Trump had lost the election, I would have still written that Trumpism would have continued. There were two key reasons why Trump was successful: nationalism and authenticity. What Trumpism Isn't First, what Trumpism isn't. Notably absent from Trumpism are social issues. Trump did not campaign on hating homosexuals, restoring Biblical morality, family values, drug prohibition, etc. Even his lip...

By David Libertas Vote4 0
Donald Trump der führer

Trump’s Racist Campaign? Nov 11, 2016

The left would have you believe Trump rode a wave of racism to victory: a rising white nationalist movement bringing about the second coming of Hitler. In their mind the photo above is not a completely inaccurate portrayal of the future of our country. The left is delusional: the racist campaign they imagined never existed. While the Trump victory likely had a racial component, it's not the one the left thinks it is. Louisiana, David Duke, and Gary Johnson We can see evidence of this in Louisiana, a state notorious for racism. It's home of the KKK's David Duke, and an...

By David Libertas Vote1 2
Wikileaks: information wants to be free.

WikiLeaks’ Leftist Problem Nov 5, 2016

Please, help WikiLeaks with a donation. It could be the most important organization in existence today, but it might be entering into a leftist problem. You may know about activism revealing the Clinton campaign, but here is a reminder of other things Julian Assange's WikiLeaks has revealed over the past 10 years. Showed the US and Israeli governments caused a nuclear accident in Iran. Video of the US government murdering Reuters journalists in Iraq and then committing a war crime by shooting up an unarmed civilian van with children whose driver had attempted to collect one of the wounded victims,...

By David Libertas Vote4 4
Sex or nukes

Sex or Nukes Oct 21, 2016

The election is unfolding to be a choice between sex or nukes. But first, some background... These have been a bad few weeks for Hillary Clinton. WikiLeaks dumped embarrassing e-mails from her campaign staff. An undercover video was released showing Clinton and DNC operatives bragging about inciting false-flag violence at Trump rallies. Another video showed the same operatives explaining how they register illegal voters and bus them into a state to stuff the ballot with illegal votes, confirming Trump's claims that rigged elections happen. And speaking of rigging, in addition to the previous e-mail leaks showing the DNC rigging the...

By David Libertas Vote1 0
The alt-right Pepe is not the ancap pep

The Alt-Right Is Not Libertarian Sep 17, 2016

A small but growing white nationalist movement called the alternative right, or alt-right, was recently credited by some pundits for Trump's win in the primaries. (Likely an exaggeration.) Some incorrectly describe "alt-right" as an umbrella for several movements opposed to mainstream republican conservatism, including libertarianism and other movements. Libertarianism is about maximizing individual liberty and opposing power. It opposed slavery and Jim Crow laws and supported universal suffrage. The alt-right at its core is about one race wielding power over the others. How can two incompatible movements that are opposed to each other be viewed as somehow under the same...

By David Libertas Vote5 0
Sugar with sugary foods

Sugar and the Myth of Government Nutrition Sep 13, 2016

Advocates for government regulation of food argue that a free market would produce unhealthy food due to corrupt producers putting profits over the public interest. And while it is true that corrupt producers do put profits over the public interest, newly leaked documents show that government regulation is not only incapable of preventing this outcome but even actively facilitates it. In 1977 Congress attempted to define what Americans ought to eat. They relied heavily on Harvard scientists Dr. Fredrick Stare and Mark Hegsted. Hegsted was eventually put in charged of the USDA's human nutrition subdivision where he crafted official governmental...

By David Libertas Vote7 0
Kratom leaves

The DEA’s War on Science and Compassion – Krotam Sep 12, 2016

Today NPR had a wonder story on a "new" drug called krotam. It's not really new as it's a traditional herb (photographed above) that has been used for centuries in Asia to treat pain. I encourage you to read the whole story here; they gave it fair treatment and showed how the DEA victimizes people in pain. Krotam, if you are not familiar, has effects similar to an opioid but is not an opioid. In fact, the plant is in the same family as coffee. Here are the key points from the NPR story: The DEA wants to declare it...

By David Libertas Vote4 0
1960s cultural influences: Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Woodstock, John Lennon's "Immagine," and Normal Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With."

Logic and Rationality: Why Libertarians Lose Sep 3, 2016

One of the major barriers to libertarianism is that we have logic and rationality on our side. This is not how debates are won. Our minds evolved to survive and pass on our genes to another generation, not to be Spock-like rational beings. Any rationality that comes out of our brains is purely accidental. Contrary to what economics has taught, people don’t make decisions based on analyzing cost and benefit. Our decisions are driven more by our emotions than logical thinking. Nothing in Madison Avenue's product marketing is based logic. A product sells based on its colors, the emotions it...

By David Libertas Vote8 13

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