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Wednesday, May 22

Guest Editor

Robert Taylor is the guest editor today.

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photo courtesoy of ixtussy
Holder: We’ve Droned 4 Americans, 3 by Accident. Oops.
Original article The Obama administration finally admits it.
Guitars, Eccentric Billionaires, and Space Travel
Original article Space travel, once the domain of Russian dogs and astronaut golfers, is being taken over by private enterprise and entertainment moguls. And it's fabulous news.
The Government Wants A Backdoor Into Your Online Communications
Original article The new proposal reportedly allows the FBI to listen in on any conversation online, regardless of the technology used, by mandating engineers build "backdoors" into communications software.
Does Innovation Require the Patent Office?
Original article It’s the market, not the bureaucracy, that innovates.
Bangladeshi Workers Need Freed Markets
Original article Crony capitalism deprives Bangladeshis of property rights, freedom of exchange, and work options. The people need neither the corporatist status quo nor Western condescension. They need radical land reform and freed markets.
No Taxes? There's an App For That!
Original article It's called internationalizing yourself and your wealth.
Liberty Activist Illegally Searched and Arrested After Kokesh Hearing
Original article "Your megaphone might be a weapon," says the arresting officer to liberty activist and former Marine Kyle Prouty when he asked why he was being detained.
War: Big Government’s Best Friend
Original article A resource page by Thomas Woods.
Bitcoin Can’t Be Stopped, But Can It Be Spoiled?
Original article Government and Bitcoin businesses both think more regulation of the private digital money is inevitable.
Massachusetts Teenager Facing Terrorism Charges and 20 Years in Prison
Original article For a rap song and Facebook posts that didn't show subservience to the state.
The 'Smart Gun' That Terrifies the Gun-Grabbers
Original article Technology proving once again that perhaps the future is brighter than we think for liberty.
Power Corrupts
Original article Give some people power over others and they will use that power to further their agenda, and to protect themselves from attack, without regard to the consequences of those others.
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution
Original article Neighborhood workshops, desktop manufacturing, household micro-enterprises and online horizontal networks of peer producers will come to dominate the informal economy that must arise as the state-allied formal economy stagnates and decays.
Gun Rights and Gay Rights Go Hand in Hand
Original article It may baffle Seattle liberals, but a poster combining the two being seen around the city is perfectly consistent and libertarian.
Obama Fed Grapes While Urging Press Conference To Enjoy Orgy
Original article Satire.
A Different Perspective
7.5
Paul Hein 2012-06-14 00:00
Column by Paul Hein. Exclusive to STR I recently watched a video clip of a TV commentator remarking about random shootings, in Tucson, as I recall. He said that the shootings presented three elements for our consideration. The first one, he said, was the fact of mental illness, and the need for better treatment of the mentally ill. He then, perhaps predictably, questioned whether gun ownership or...
Thoughts on Bullying and Respect
9.2
Paul Bonneau 2012-06-14 00:00
Column by Paul Bonneau. Exclusive to STR When I was in my teens and twenties, John Wayne used to annoy the Hell out of me. Nowadays I see that that was so because I was ignorant. There was actually a lot I could learn from his movies, and I was thoughtlessly rejecting his message out of hand.   One standard plot element of his films that I found completely implausible was a conflict he would...
Dickens, Reconsidered
10
Jim Davies 2012-06-12 00:00
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR Few novels if any can have so profoundly assisted the spread of socialism in the century following 1850 as those of Charles Dickens, for they portrayed vividly the slums in English cities during the Industrial Revolution which enabled Karl Marx, who lived in London with support from his friend Friedrich Engels, to denounce the capitalist system he said had...
Black and White (Are You Experienced?) - Part II
9
Mark Davis 2012-06-12 00:00
Column by Mark Davis. Exclusive to STR   Part II – It’s the Little Things When I was a kid, of about 10 or 11 years old, my younger brother (9 or 10) and I would visit my grandparents’ house. My grandmother sometimes would let us walk to a little store about a mile away to get a soda, candy or snack. There wasn’t a straight road to the store and we had to...
Black and White (Are You Experienced?) - Part I
7.33333
Mark Davis 2012-06-11 00:00
Column by Mark Davis. Exclusive to STR   If you can just get your mind together Then come on across to me We'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sunrise From the bottom of the sea   But first, are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have   I know, I know you probably scream and cry That your little world won't let you go But who in your measly...
Gary Johnson: Statist
10
Scott Lazarowitz 2012-06-08 00:00
Column by Scott Lazarowitz. Exclusive to STR Economist Robert Wenzel recently gave Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson a tough interview. Wenzel pushed hard for honest answers on behalf of mainly his “hardcore libertarian” readers and listeners. By “hardcore,” he refers to those with a bias toward Austrian School economic thought, Rothbardian ethics and an...
The Revolution Is a Relay Race
7
JGVibes 2012-06-08 00:00
Column by JGVibes.   For many centuries, the dismal state of civilization has been largely ignored by those who have had to live through it.  The pain, depression and confusion that can come from admitting the twisted nature of our day to day existence has been far too much for most people to cope with, so throughout history, people have created extremely complex justifications and...
Measure 2's Measure of Common Sense
0
George F. Smith 2012-06-08 00:00
Column by George F. Smith. Exclusive to STR Measure 2 is a proposal to amend the North Dakota constitution to eliminate property taxes.  According to polls, most people oppose Measure 2 because it would require legislators to replace lost revenues from other sources.  K-12 school funding would be heavily impacted.  A vote on June 12, 2012 will decide its fate. Measure 2...
The Wonders of the World
9.2
tzo 2012-06-07 00:00
Column by tzo.   Exclusive to STR   I will say that the Taj Mahal is a fine and impressive piece of architecture.   It was commissioned by Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his third wife, who died during the birth of their fourteenth child.   It obviously wasn’t cheap. Where did the Shah get the money to finance such a project? Well, the Mughal empire accumulated money...
CISPA: Should We Care?
8.33333
Paul Bonneau 2012-06-07 00:00
Column by Paul Bonneau.   Exclusive to STR   Yet again the puppet masters have gotten all the puppets jumping about in a frenzy. It makes me wonder whether there is actually reason to get exercised about this bill.   Certainly, the notion that the U.S. government will protect the Internet from attacks is absurd, given that the source of all the most serious attacks (of which CISPA...
Democrats Demonstrate Why Voting Is a Fraud
10
Robert L. Johnson 2012-09-11 00:00
Column by Robert Johnson. Exclusive to STR This past Wednesday, September 5, 2012, is a day that should live on as a day of true education. For on that day the Democratic Party let all the world see, and it was preserved on video for posterity to witness and learn from, what a truly senseless and foolish act voting is. Thank you, Dems!   The powerful and clear lesson came as Los Angeles...
The Anti-Social Fed
10
Anonymous Person 2012-09-14 00:00
Column by Anonymous Person. Exclusive to STR A social institution doesn’t deteriorate society if it is worth its name. One thing it definitely doesn’t do is conduct anti-social behavior, such as fraud. Yet here we are, untold trillions in debt, with a Federal Reserve bank chairman, Ben Bernanke, who has claimed that the purpose of the Fed is simple--that of preventing bank runs....
Seven Samurai, Times Ten
10
tzo 2012-09-17 00:00
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR In Akira Kurosawa's classic film Seven Samurai, a village of farmers must contend with raiding bandits. Not being skilled in or equipped for the martial arts, the farmers are easy prey for the armed thugs on horseback.   Near the beginning of the story, the bandits are about to invade the village when they realize that they did just that not too long ago and...
If You Believe in Right and Wrong, Don't Vote Recommended
10
Angelo Mike 2012-09-20 00:00
Column by Angelo Mike. Exclusive to STR It always strikes me as odd when someone encourages me to vote, but they say they don’t care about who I vote for. They’re just concerned that I participate. Really? These people are that infatuated with the process of voting that they don’t care if you vote for something they believe is wrong?   I can hardly think of any institution...
A Proof of Anarchy: The Rulers Themselves
10
Paul Bonneau 2012-10-01 00:00
Column by Paul Bonneau. Exclusive to STR Day after day we read that cops or other minions of the ruling class never suffer any legal consequences for various and sundry vile actions on their part. No doubt you can find an example today and every day among the Strike The Root articles.   One working definition of government might as well be, “those people for whom the laws do not, in...
Every Group Is a 'Cult'
10
Dylan Delikta 2012-10-03 00:00
Column by Dylan Delikta. Exclusive to STR   …or at least that’s what I’ve encountered.   It seems that there is a lot of intellectual dishonesty within the confines of the Internet. There are many bloggers, journalists, and commentators who, instead of pointing out what they find as flaws to certain ideas, claim that there is a cult raised around one person or idea...
Harming the Cause for Liberty
10
Bradley Keyes 2012-10-05 00:00
Column by Bradley Keyes. Exclusive to STR Harm - a small but powerful word with a strong, emotional pull. No one wants to be harmed. But is it the best word to use when trying define liberty? Phrases such as: "As a voluntaryist, it is my personal opinion that, we should take individual responsibility, that our decisions regarding our bodies should be left to us, individually...
Can Voluntaryism Fix the Machine?
10
Alex R. Knight III 2012-10-10 00:00
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR The much vaunted libertarian journalist and commentator H.L. Mencken once wrote: “I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”   I don’t consider it a stretch at all to say that this is how any voluntaryist worthy of the title feels. But statists – left, right, and...
Free Health Care!
10
Jim Davies 2012-10-12 00:00
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR   That was the promise, made by politicos in the England of my youth; health care, they said, is a right, an entitlement. In Churchill's wartime cabinet, William Beveridge, whom I briefly met 15 years later, had designed a scheme by 1945, and it was rushed through and implemented in 1947. The exodus of British doctors to North America began shortly...
Who Loses 2012?
10
Tim Hartnett 2012-10-12 00:00
Column by Tim Hartnett. Exclusive to STR   Every four years the undecided American whipping boy is in for some lumps from his betters. During mid-term elections, the non-aligned generally go unscathed in the two-party turf war. Where the Commander-in-Chief is concerned though, mass movementarians are less forgiving. You’re either a Guelph or a Ghibilene. The theory is that only a dolt...
An Armed March on Washington? MUST READ
10
Alex R. Knight III 2013-05-07 06:52
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR Perhaps never before have I encountered a proposal within Liberty Movement circles that has generated more controversy faster and further than Adam Kokesh’s planned July 4th march on Washington, District of Criminals, in which he states that himself and the other participants “will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to...
The Orwellian Paradigm--Killing You, For Your Own Safety MUST READ
9.625
fmoghul 2013-04-10 08:12
Column by Faisal Moghul. Exclusive to STR Almost 30 years ago, cultural critic Neil Postman argued in Amusing Ourselves to Death that television’s gradual replacement of the printing press has created a dumbed-down culture driven by mindless entertainment. In this context, Postman claimed that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World correctly foresaw our dystopian future, as opposed to George...
Frameworks, Virtual Reality and Civil Society: A Manifesto for the Doctrine of Love and Freedom MUST READ
10
Glen Allport 2012-12-06 08:44
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR Perhaps I should say this paradigm shift is resuming. The healthier incoming paradigm is a modern, more accurate, better-supported, and better-understood version of one that began the shift towards a free, healthy, and prosperous world more than three centuries ago and which informed the creation of the United States itself: Classical Liberalism. - 1...
Timeline of a World-Killing Paradigm Shift MUST READ
0
Glen Allport 2012-05-14 00:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR   Part 3 of "Could the Non-Aggression Principle Stop the Sixth Great Extinction?"   Part One of this series discussed the Non-Aggression principle, calling it "the libertarian half of the Golden Rule" (compassion being the other half) and describing the function of aggression in creating not only tyranny and war but also...
Terrorist Alert: Government Extremists Threaten Americans MUST READ
9
Glen Allport 2012-03-26 00:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR   Question: are you more terrified by Muslim extremists, by "domestic terrorists" – or by your own government? Which group is more likely to assault you? To kill you? To unjustly imprison and even torture you?   The U.S. federal government has ALREADY:   Built and is staffing a huge gulag of concentration camps ["...
The State Is a Firing Squad MUST READ
10
JGVibes 2012-02-17 01:00
Column by JGVibes.   Exclusive to STR   Although the common perception of human nature is very negative, the truth is that most people who aren’t mentally ill have a very difficult time committing acts of violence. Usually it takes a sizeable payment and a fair amount of manipulation to convince someone to act violently, and even then a tremendous amount of guilt typically...
How the 1% Took America's Wealth--and How to Get It Back MUST READ
9.25
Glen Allport 2011-12-01 01:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR  - 1 - Plundering Wealth vs Producing Wealth   In recent decades, the rich have gathered an increasing share of the total wealth in the United States. As this wealth disparity grows and especially as large numbers of the formerly middle class fall into poverty and even into homelessness, this flow of wealth from main street (from anyone not...
'Anarchy or Minarchy' Is Only Half the Question, Part 2 MUST READ
9.5
Glen Allport 2011-04-13 03:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR  This is Part 2 of a response to a column by Wesley Messamore. Last week's Part One of this column discussed the following:   ·      Minarchy: Lighting a Match to the Fuse of Tyranny ·      Anarchy: By Itself, Yang without Yin ·      The Missing Key...
Oh, Stanley MUST READ
10
tzo 2011-03-30 03:00
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR   Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist best known for his Milgram Experiment, a study conducted in the 1960s.   Dr. Milgram wanted to research the relationship between obedience and authority, and he was at least partly motivated to do so by the events of the Nazi Holocaust. It greatly troubled him that so many supposedly good people could...
The Pathocracy Unmasked MUST READ
10
Glen Allport 2011-02-11 04:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR - 1 - Exposed as Criminals and Psychopaths, the Coercive Elite are Desperate to Stop the Flow of Honest Information     "When Bush cancelled his trip to avoid prosecution, the human rights groups who prepared the complaints made it public and announced that the Bush Torture Indictment would be waiting wherever he travels next." CCR...
The Licensing Effect Recommended
0
Lawrence Samuels 2013-05-10 08:28
The article below contains excerpts from L.K. Samuels’ new book, In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action. Column by L.K. Samuels. Exclusive to STR Good intentions rarely make good laws. Those who do evil almost always think they are doing good for goodness’ sake. Nobody sees himself as evil. As Will Smith, the American actor, once quipped, “...
The Pugsley Plan Recommended
8.5
Jim Davies 2013-01-14 08:46
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR Prior to Harry Browne's first run for US President in 1996, his friend John Pugsley wrote him a passionate “open letter” urging him not to. As far as I know, Harry didn't reply, but he did continue his campaign – and repeated it four years later. He got few votes more than the LP normally receives, but his platform and campaign were...
Ed Schultz and His Alleged Middle Class Heroes Recommended
10
Angelo Mike 2013-01-04 01:00
Column by Angelo Mike. Exclusive to STR Ed Schultz has set quite the task out for himself. On his New Year’s Eve broadcast on MSNBC, he announced who his “Middle Class Heroes of 2012” are. Schultz is a self-styled liberal, so his recipients of the title “Middle Class Hero” are predictable and worthy of a certain amount of eye rolling. The general reverence for...
The Trials Recommended
8.33333
tzo 2012-12-11 08:49
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR To anyone who has seen or read The Reader (a synopsis of the relevant part of the story is here), one of the main questions raised in the story is, "What should be done with Hanna?" Was she responsible for her actions even if she was so thoroughly indoctrinated so as to be completely confused by the charges against her? She asked more than once, while...
464 Lost Years Recommended
8.25
Jim Davies 2012-12-10 08:48
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR Recently I re-read part of that seminal essay, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Etienne de la Boëtie, written in 1548, or 464 years ago. He said that if you want to topple a tyrant, all you need to do is to withdraw support. No violence, no sweat, just stop helping him. Yet 24 years later there was a massacre of Huguenot Protestants, indicating that...
The Duty to End the State Recommended
10
Jim Davies 2012-11-30 08:53
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR Many reading this already understand the Self-ownership Axiom; that we each own our own lives by right, and hence that all government is an unnatural and ruinous appendage. Among those who do, though, surprisingly there is disagreement over what to do about it. Some hold that resistance by such voluntaryists in the present government-saturated environment...
Why I'm Leaving America Recommended
10
SailboatDiaries 2012-11-07 01:00
Column by new Root Striker Michael Fielding. Goodbye, America. For as long as I’ve lived you’ve been my only home. I’ve had a wonderful life here. Your inhabitants are almost universally kind, and I’ve become lifelong friends with many of your citizens. All of my family lives here, everyone I have ever known or loved, and I will miss them all a lot. But after 22 years, I...
Voting Is Not Rational Recommended
9.66667
Stephen Nichols 2012-11-01 00:00
Column by Stephen Nichols. Exclusive to STR While reading Paul Bonneau’s recent column on STR entitled “Voting Is Not Irrational,” I was taken aback by the obvious flaws in his analysis and the conclusions resulting from that analysis. It’s been a few days since his article was published and I’ve been formulating my response to it for some time. Let me now share with...
St. Abe Recommended
0
Jim Davies 2012-10-23 00:00
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR When the Church of Rome has in mind to elevate one of its heroes or heroines to the status of sainthood, it follows a certain procedure – one element of which is to hear the opinion of an advocatus diaboli – a devil's advocate. His job is to reason against the proposed canonization, so reducing the probability of error. That task fell in...
A Reason Not to Vote Recommended
10
Stephen Nichols 2012-10-18 00:00
Column by Stephen Nichols. Exclusive to STR I don't know about you, but I take a look at my financial situation pretty regularly. I like to keep tabs on my family's spending and keep things under control. I also like to reduce or eliminate any unnecessary expenses. Take a moment to review this chart of some recent family spending: Notice anything big that sticks out there? Yeah, me...

 

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