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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.
What Anarchism Means to Me
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Cat Farmer 2003-02-13 17:00
Anarchism is my declaration of peace with you. It is a repudiation of the use of coercive power to achieve my own ends, or to abet the domination of any man by his fellows, or over his fellows. It is a renunciation of the use and support of structures that function to create discord and disparity among men and between nations, and peddle mayhem and mischief under the aegis of security and...
The Case for Preemptive Attack
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John Bottoms 2003-02-13 17:00
For more than a year, the Bush administration has been trying to justify a preemptive war against Iraq. They've said that Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction, but so do many others countries, so by itself this is not a cause for war. If Iraq is a threat to Israel , as we're told, let Israel defend itself. There's no justification for a US attack here. We're told that Iraq might arm...
Colorizing Terroristism
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Joseph S. Bommarito 2003-02-13 17:00
Note: The following memorandum was leaked to me by a prominent, highly-placed government official who, while he was sweeping up one night, found it crumpled up into a ball and tossed into a waste basket. Intra-Departmental Memorandum To: Secretary, Department of Homeland Security From: Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for Color Coordination Subject: Colorizing Terror
The PATRIOT Game Begins Again
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Amanda Bowen 2003-02-12 17:00
I got a letter from a friend just today which told me that there was something I should read. He included a link to this site, and I got an eyeful. When I got done staring angrily at the wall, I wrote him back. This is what I said. "Mate", First thought: Oh God, I'm moving to Canada . Second thought: OH, GOD!! I'm moving to Canada . Third thought: Batardes Stupides! (pardon my French) But...
In the Crosshairs of the Government
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Roland M. Renne 2003-02-11 17:00
On September 28, 1965, with only 10 days remaining on his tour in Vietnam, Marine private Bobby Garwood fell into enemy hands just north of Da Nang. For the next 14 years Garwood endured abuse that few of us can fathom. But it wasn't just the Viet Cong who kicked him around. Garwood was on a hit list -- his own government wanted him dead. Monika Jensen-Stevenson gives us the details in her...
What's G-d Got to Do With It?
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Joseph S. Bommarito 2003-02-11 17:00
Note: The deities portrayed in this work are entirely the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. They do not bear any resemblance to any actual deity, either living, dead, immortal, or yet to come. I hold in the highest regard and admiration those men and women who venture forth into the unknown. Pioneers are always aware of the risks involved in exploring new frontiers.
Schools Get Dunce for Self-Esteem
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George F. Smith 2003-02-10 17:00
Last year a California school banned the game of tag because it created a self-esteem issue. Someone had to be "it," and that someone was a victim. Schools might not teach anything and students might not have any fun, but no one would get their feelings hurt -- assuming we rule out all the disappointed kids willing to risk it and play the game anyway. A junior high school...
Federal Register Watch
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Mike Powers 2003-02-10 17:00
What freedoms have you lost this week? The Federal Register is the official daily publication for Rules, Proposed Rules, and Notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as Executive Orders and other Presidential Documents. This column attempts to summarize the highlights (or lowlights) of the Federal Register during the preceding week. Instructions for subscribing to the Federal...
An Ode to Anarchy
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Donald Mills 2003-02-09 17:00
The causes of the powerful elite Need not be the focus of the masses Their cries for blood and retribution Growing ever more bombastic While good folk of modest means Seek naught but peace and joy Our rulers, in the folly of hubris Bid us do their work, to pillage and destroy They deem themselves fit to lead But only from a distance The lives of us and those abroad Worth no more than a...
Fake Terror Alerts
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John Kaminski 2003-02-09 17:00
How stupid do they think we are? Only hours after our much-praised Secretary of State is revealed to have been using material plagiarized from a college student to justify why we're going to kill thousands of people with bombs, our government issues a terror alert and expects us to believe it? And how stupid are we? We believe it.
Untitled
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Joseph S. Bommarito 2003-03-17 17:00
Beyond the count of years I walked the world, and my children built their shrines to me.  Decades and centuries and millennia pass, and still the shrines are built. Temples insubstantial to men, clear to my eyes.  No foundations or walls or roofs, but shrines nonetheless. Holy ground, consecrated  Today, every day, somewhere in the world, the earth is prepared for my coming. ...
Taoism and Anarchy
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Mark Gillespie 2003-10-21 16:00
I have studied many religions in my search for truth. In my searches, I embraced a few. I was a nominal Christian for many years and converted to Islam about six years ago. Of course, I have left all of those religions behind, in my never-ending quest for truth. However, there is one "religion" that I studied that seemed to contain more truth than any other. That way is Taoism.
An Open Letter to the Peace Movement
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Roderick Long 2003-03-10 17:00
Dear Peace Activists:All honour to you. In your opposition to the United States' impending war on Iraq, you represent a welcome voice for sanity and civilisation, lifted up against the incessant baying of the dogs of war.But I want to urge you to follow the logic of your position just a bit further.Much has been said, and eloquently so, about the need, in dealings between nation and nation, to...
Supreme Court Lets Dogs Go Fishing...for Drugs
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Rex Curry 2005-01-25 17:00
A new Supreme Court case states that cops can take dogs fishing. Dogs can go fishing for drugs in Illinois vs. Caballes. As an attorney, I am often consulted by people victimized in searches by dogs trained to smell drugs. A drug dog's skills are often overestimated because people anthropomorphize dogs. A humanlike quality that dogs have is that they are natural libertarians with no interest in...
The Suppression of Dissent
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Jim Davies 2005-10-25 16:00
Exclusive to STR The jury is still out, as I write these words. Its verdict may be in by the time you read them, and there's a blog with the latest news--but that's okay because the point of this article is not to comment on the trial's outcome but to show what government had to do, in order try to silence an influential advocate of freedom. Its conclusion will be that government is wholly unfit...
The Power of One
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Jim Davies 2005-11-21 17:00
Exclusive to STR Nobody is better qualified than my friend Per Bylund to propose, as he did in a recent STR article, that we who yearn for liberty "save the world through saving [our]selves." Per is not only a brilliant thinker and prolific author (in two languages!) he founded an anarchist website before many of us got our brains in gear and has engaged in debate there all comers from...
Be Free
10
Mark Davis 2005-07-10 16:00
The state has grown too big and powerful and conversely the individual appears small and powerless. Libertarians of all stripes can debate endlessly on why this has come about and where we should ideally be instead. When the question of what to do about it comes up, there is typically a moment of silence and perhaps a chuckle or two coupled with some frustrated cynicism. After this moment of...
Utopia vs. Liberty
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Richard Rieben 2005-07-18 16:00
In his insightful analysis of the Dark Side, STR writer Jonathan David Morris notes that, "The Dark Side of the Force is not evil for evil's sake. It's evil because it believes the ends always justify the means . . . .
The Preamble Reconsidered
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Jim Davies 2006-05-17 16:00
Exclusive to STR The Preamble to the United States Constitution is surely one of the most sublime paragraphs ever written. Before this dissection begins, let's prop it up and admire it in all its glory: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure...
A Personal Thanks to Strike The Root
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Per Bylund 2006-08-23 16:00
Exclusive to STRA August 24, 2006 Yes, I should have done this a long time ago. And when the editor encouraged everybody to write about Strike The Root for its fifth anniversary, I thought this is the time. There is so much I want to say, but I just seem to never get around to saying it. So I missed the chance again. But better late than never, I guess. Here it goes. I've been a market anarchist...
An Armed March on Washington? MUST READ
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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