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Wednesday, May 22

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Eric Field is the guest editor today.
 

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photo courtesoy of ixtussy
Adam Kokesh Arrested in Philadelphia while Engaging in Free Speech
Original article
Bullhorning Philly Fed Detention Center
Original article Video footage of protest. 
On Target Pressure Points: Government Paranoia
Original article
Verizon Wireless Secretly Passed AP Reporters' Phone Records to Feds
Original article Thanks, Verizon.  Way to go with your customer service. 
IRS Denied Nonprofit Status to Free State Project
Original article
The Collapse of Journalism, and the Journalism of Collapse
Original article
Dan Carlin: Probing the President
Original article
Pentagon Spec Ops Chief Sees ’10 to 20′ More Years of War Against al-Qaida
Original article
Robert Anton Wilson and Karl Hess: Subversion for Fun and Profit
Original article Video of a 1986 conversation between R. A. Wilson and Karl Hess. 
Scott Horton Interview with Jed Morey
Original article Jed Morey, a journalist with Long Island Press, discusses the Pentagon’s “power grab” of unilaterally granting itself authority over civil disturbances; giving local military commanders the same authority as the president during some ill-defined emergency; preparing domestic military operations with the NDAA and Northern Command; and the pushback coming from Congress and the National Governors Association. Podcast by Scott Horton. 
Washington Gets Explicit: Its 'War on Terror' Is Permanent
Original article
Theres a Question Mark Hanging Over the Apostrophes Future
Original article An everyday example of conflict between the state and society. 
Little Boy Has New Hand 3D Printed
Original article
Building Bridges
8.5
Alex R. Knight III 2013-04-19 07:20
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR Linda Waite-Simpson, an ultra-left, pro-government “state representative” here in Vermont, recently lamented to local press that her rejected bid to impose sweeping gun control measures upon the residents of the most gun-friendly tax farm out of the 50 was shot down (pun intended) because of the “strong libertarian bent in this...
Paradoxes, Inconsistencies and Political Anarchists
7
Lawrence Samuels 2013-04-17 08:21
Column by new Root Striker L.K. Samuels. Exclusive to STR The article below contains excerpts from L.K. Samuels’ new book, In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action. Why do things rarely turn out as they should? Why do plans routinely backfire? Why is life so contradictory? Is there some logical explanation or theorem that would account for so many...
Six Misconceptions About the NAP
8.75
kborer 2013-04-16 08:06
Column by new Root Striker Kris Borer. Exclusive to STR The guiding star of libertarianism is the Non-Aggression Principle. Regardless, in his recent article on libertarianism.org, Matt Zwolinski attacks the NAP and Rothbard's deontological approach to ethics. Zwolinski makes many errors, but his major mistake is that he does not know what the NAP is. Small wonder that he cannot navigate the...
A Cold Day in April
9.25
Emmett Harris 2013-04-15 07:52
Column by Emmett Harris. Exclusive to STR The prior day's clinging dampness had given way to clear yet cool conditions by the pre-dawn hours of April 19, 1775. Gusts of wind came from the west and the temperature felt colder and rawer than the 46 degrees showing on local thermometers. A robust fire kept the chill away inside Buckman Tavern, but the atmosphere stubbornly maintained an unseen,...
Laissons Faire!
9.5
tzo 2013-04-12 08:04
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR Many Voluntaryists expend much energy attempting to convince people that society can operate without a central coercive government organization, and this can be quite exhausting work for what sometimes seems like negligible results. There are also some Voluntaryists who take a slightly different approach: We don’t need to convince anyone of anything except to...
Maggie
10
Jim Davies 2013-04-10 08:40
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR Freedom cannot be imposed by force. I (and many others) have said that before, yet the Libertarian Party continues to exist. There are also those who imagine that if there is a general economic collapse, free-market businessmen will step into the power vacuum and set up a libertarian or anarchist society with which everyone else will then cooperate (or else...
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...
Bank Robbers
9.5
Jim Davies 2013-04-08 07:47
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR There are people who rob banks, and banks that rob people. This is about the latter. Our friendly Main Street banker is a robber; in two ways now, and with a third in preparation. Way #1 applies directly and terribly, but to only a few of his customers, and until he strikes, it's fairly well hidden. Some years ago I opened a bank account, and eventually...
April Fools 2013 Honorable Mention
0
kborer 2013-04-08 07:18
Column by new Root Striker Kris Borer. Exclusive to STR In what was probably the most subtle April Fools joke of 2013, Matt Zwolinski posted an article called "Libertarianism and Pollution" on libertarianism.org that attacks the very foundation of the libertarian ethical system: the Non-Aggression Principle. Unfortunately, it was such a cleverly disguised ruse that not everyone will be...
Is Christianity a War Religion?
10
Freeman's Persp... 2013-04-03 06:50
Column by new Root Striker Paul Rosenberg, FreemansPerspective.com Exclusive to STR Yes, I know that there are some churches and individual Christians who don't approve of war, but a huge wing of Christianity in the US has put itself in service to a warfare state. If you've ever spent time in Red State America, you know what I mean. Please understand that I am not endorsing the Blue State...
The Confessions of Osama Bin Laden
10
Douglas Herman 2008-11-17 17:00
I confess I did not know then, but I know now, why you Americans stopped chasing me at Tora Bora in October 2001.
Do You Really Want Freedom, Or Are You Just Kidding Yourself?
10
Wilton D. Alston 2009-06-09 16:00
Exclusive to STR June 10, 2009 'The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.' ~ Plato 'Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to...
A New Strategy For Liberty - Part 1: An Open Letter To Ron Paul Supporters
10
Stewart Browne 2009-05-17 16:00
Exclusive to STR May 18, 2009 Dear Ron Paul Supporters, Thank you. Thank you for giving your time, effort, and money to the cause of liberty. Thank you for taking a stand for what you know is right, and putting yourselves out there in favor of opinions the State would rather you didn't hold.
A New Strategy For Liberty - Part 2: Secession in Three Easy Steps
10
Stewart Browne 2009-05-17 16:00
Exclusive to STR May 18, 2009 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
Objectivist Resistance to Anarchy: A Problem of Concept Formation?
10
Carrie Burdzinski 2009-05-19 16:00
Exclusive to STR As a former Orthodox Objectivist who now recognizes anarchy's intrinsic coherence, I have particular interest in studying the ethical basis of anarchism. Roy A. Childs, Jr.'s "Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand" and "The Epistemological Basis of Anarchism: An Open Letter to Objectivists and Libertarians," and Nicholas Dykes' "Mrs....
Charity Never Faileth
10
B.R. Merrick 2009-05-13 16:00
Exclusive to STR May 14, 2009 The title of this article comes from 1 Corinthians 13:8. I can't call myself a believer anymore, but I do believe quite strongly in the need for each of us to be charitable. I think it's good for us. I know that for me, it helps to remind me of things I tend to forget, when I think of what it is that I lack. There are plenty of people worse off than I am, or...
Functional Rights: The Elephant in the Parlor, Part II
10
Scarmig 2009-06-03 16:00
Exclusive to STR June 4, 2009 Part II: Rights are' So what are rights? If there are none of these things, functionally, despite what anyone might claim, then what are they? How do they function in daily life? How are they exercised inalienably by every person everywhere that has ever existed, regardless of the government that claimed authority over them? George Potter wrote:
A Juggernaut of Destruction
10
George F. Smith 2009-02-19 17:00
Exclusive to STR February 20, 2009 Nature is stingy; the things we need to sustain life above a primitive level are scarce. Fresh tomatoes, iPods, and rotator cuff surgery do not come forth as easily as the air we breathe, and thus man had to discover on his own how to produce or acquire them.
Ringo's Law and the Healthcare System of Doom
10
Glen Allport 2009-08-12 16:00
Exclusive to STR - 1 - The Law Some years ago, noted philosopher Ringo Starr described an important and now-famous discovery: "Everything government touches turns to crap." That observation clearly deserves elevation in status from the mere "something Ringo said" to the more formal Ringo's Law. Ringo's Law generates accurate predictions and explains events in useful fashion;...
Separation of Me and State
10
B.R. Merrick 2009-07-26 16:00
Exclusive to STR I listened to Dr. Laura every once in a while years ago, back when I was proudly religious and conservative. She was, and I assume still is, unabashedly conservative. She took a lot of abuse for it, but she stuck with it. (Of course, it did make her a millionaire.) One time when I was listening, a man called in to tell her that a young woman he knew had just had an abortion...
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...
A Look at the True Collectivist, Socialist and Communist Nature of Today’s Conservatives Recommended
10
Scott Lazarowitz 2011-12-06 01:00
Column by Scott Lazarowitz. Exclusive to STR Many of today’s conservatives speak of traditional moral values and free-market capitalism, and say they are “against collectivism, socialism and communism.” But an examination of the actual policies they support and the way they want to implement their “values” shows that many conservatives are really the collectivist,...
Tug O’ War: Libertarians and Progressives Recommended
9
BrianAnderson 2011-11-16 01:00
Column by new Root Striker Brian Anderson. Exclusive to STR Nearly one year ago, Ron Paul and Ralph Nader appeared on “Freedom Watch” to announce a “libertarian-progressive[1] alliance.” At first I was extremely skeptical; libertarians and progressives are polar opposites when it comes to the idea of positive obligation. The libertarian non-aggression principle (NAP)...
Heartless Libertarians Recommended
9.33333
tzo 2011-11-03 00:00
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR   The specter of the heartless libertarian arises when it is suggested that society could perhaps be better organized without a coercive government at its core. The proponents of this shocking scheme are dismissed as being either blatantly naïve or else accused of being calculating, soulless monsters who don’t want to be bothered with the less...
User's Guide to Spreading the Philosophy of Liberty Recommended
10
livefreeretiree 2011-09-19 00:00
Column by Vahram G. Diehl. Exclusive to STR Whatever the collective heading they arbitrarily choose to fall under, the supporters and practitioners of free choice who reject coercion through force or fraud as a viable ethical standard are constantly facing barriers in the path to spreading this moral precept to those around them. Those who believe in a stateless and free society absent of...
Against State-Sponsored Gay Marriage Recommended
9
R. K. Blacksher 2011-06-29 00:00
Column by R.K. Blacksher. Exclusive to STR In an 1877 essay titled “Against Women’s Suffrage,” Lysander Spooner wrote, “Women are human beings, and consequently have all the natural rights that any human being can have.” These natural rights, Spooner argued, do not include the “right” to use the power of the state to engage in theft and coercion against...
Patriot Pauls and Patriot Acts, Part II of II Recommended
10
tzo 2011-06-28 00:00
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR   Part II: Get Real   Reality check: There is little I can do to change society as it is currently configured, and the Constitutionalist must come to grips with the fact that he is in an identical situation. The Voluntaryist is ridiculed for holding a position that hardly anyone understands or is aligned with, but the same may be said of the Ron Paul...
Why Experience Libertopia? An Interview with Sky Conway – Paraphrased Recommended
10
Lawrence M. Ludlow 2011-04-27 03:00
Column by Lawrence M. Ludlow. Exclusive to STR In February, Sky Conway introduced Libertopia to the anarchists who gather regularly at Café Libertalia in San Diego. I decided to interview him again to explore his concept for the Libertopia weekend (October 21 to 23) a bit further. I gave up on writing a formal interview article, but the following paraphrase is an accurate depiction of what...
'Anarchy or Minarchy' Is Only Half the Question Recommended
10
Glen Allport 2011-04-05 03:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR Hello Wesley,     I loved your Libertarian Dilemma: Anarchy or Minarchy? in today’s Humble Libertarian (March 22, 2011). Since founding the site, you’ve shown a knack for asking interesting questions and a willingness to consider views outside your comfort zone. In this new column, you say, among other things, that “I am...
Why Is Social Security Going Broke? Recommended
10
Glen Allport 2011-03-08 04:00
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR - 1 -   In plain language, there is no good reason for the unfolding Social Security nightmare. Yes, the Baby Boomers are retiring, but so what? It's a big group, but this same big group has been paying into Social Security their whole adult lives. It's not like the money hasn't been set aside or anything.   Right?   - 2 -   Of course,...
Rights Are Santa Claus Recommended
7.25
Dabooda 2011-02-24 04:00
Column by new Root Striker Dabooda. I question the usefulness of the idea that people have natural, god-given, inalienable human rights.  It's been given a fair trial over the last several centuries, and it doesn't work. As philosophers have noted, "rights" are a moral concept, without existence outside the human mind.  In the context of a particular moral code, one may...

 

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