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Friday, June 23

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Ken Kraska is the guest editor today.

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photo courtesy of Trey Ratcliff
Men, Women and Automobiles
Column by Paul Hein. Exclusive to STR It comes as no surprise that “mater,” (Latin for mother) forms the root for “MATERnal.” But it also forms the root for “MATERial.” That’s significant, I think, suggesting that the woman’s world is the world of stuff, of things. Men, on the other hand, live in a land of ideas, abstractions, and dreams. How nicely the sexes complement each other! And isn’t it interesting that the ovum is the largest cell...
Will Self-Driving Cars Eliminate Police Car Stops?
Original article "If traffic violations [become] mostly a thing of the past, [because of self-driving cars] the police won’t be able to use pretextual traffic stops anymore. They can follow self-driving cars all day but won’t be able to pull them over. Because the power to make pretextual stops requires a traffic violation, we may see a sea change of enforcement away from traffic enforcement." Some utopian-minded otaku has fanatsies that they'll finally leave us alone, someday.
Sen. McCain: Americans 'stupid' enough to go to North Korea should sign a waiver with the US government
Original article The crazy old warhawk is tired of the mighty USGov always being embarassed as a toothless tiger by Turd-World  kakistocracies, (like North Korea), proving yet again that they can't protect anyone or anything. Let's take him up on this, eh? Finally there'd be credible evidence by admission that the USGov can't and won't protect their citizens at home or abroad, which is after all the professed reason for a state's existence.
Congress Now Fighting Like Hell to Get Concealed-Carry Legalized in D.C. and on Capitol Hill
Original article But just for THEMSELVES, of course. WTF? What about the rest of us? They wanna be armed because, as they found out last week, 911 is a joke.
Michigan City Uses a Farmer's Views on Gay Marriage to Ban Him From Farmers Market
Original article Yeah, whatever, Farmer Jones. There are LOTS of farmers markets in mid-Michigan, so go sell at one of them instead. If you want SWPL bucks, then you have to play by their rules. How the world works, dude.  
SCOTUS: You Can't Ban People from Using the Internet, No Matter What They've Done
Original article The ability to access the internet is required to exist in modern society. 
The U.S. Air Force's Next Killer Drone is a Disposable
Original article So go ahead and blow 'em all up guys! We'll just buy more! Only $3 million each too.
STR Blog
Original article
A Vital Religion: Automatic Voter Registration in Vermont
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Alex R. Knight III 2016-05-19 08:04
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR Recently joining the proud tax farms of Oregon, Commiefornia, and West Virginia, bureaucrats of Vermont, desperate to muster support for the continuation of the statist cause, recently enacted a measure that will automatically register all “eligible” applicants for driver’s licenses (a government tracking and identification device...
10,000 Miles Alone Around America by Bicycle
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Douglas Herman 2016-05-19 07:28
Column by Douglas Herman. Exclusive to STR “A voice said to him, Why do you stay here and live this mean, moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you?” ~ Henry David Thoreau   Imagine taking a 10,000 mile bicycle trip around North America today without a cellphone, credit cards or keys. No sponsors or support vehicles either, and never more than $100 in cash....
Rich: A State of Mind
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Paul Hein 2016-05-18 08:23
Column by Paul Hein. Exclusive to STR Many years ago, when I was young and foolish enough to believe that the truth mattered, I would lecture interested groups about our money, or, rather, what passes for money today. In the question and answer period following my remarks, one of the attendees would invariably raise the question: What does it matter what we use for money? The other attendee,...
May A Libertarian Take Money From The Government? A Modification To Block's Argument
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floppytilleyhat 2016-05-16 07:20
Column by new Root Striker David Rogers. Exclusive to STR Back in August 2015, Walter Block and Bob Murphy debated on the Tom Woods Show whether a libertarian could rightly take government money. Bob Murphy's argument was simple and effective: the government stole the money from taxpayers, and that libertarians who take money from the government knowingly receive stolen wealth. Walter Block...
Tyranny Hits the Road Running
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Retta Fontana 2016-05-13 07:58
Column by Retta Fontana. Exclusive to STR Early humans were as free as anything imaginable. They learned that living in loose bands and tribes provided some warmth and protection against predators and the elements. As long as they didn’t violate someone else’s space or challenge a stronger person for any possession, every living thing was free to roam. It was the unquestioned norm -...
The Aborted Fetus of American Fascism?
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Kevin M. Patten 2016-05-07 15:37
Column by Kevin M. Patten. Exclusive to STR As of late April, the remnants of an enthralling legend still stand within the hills of Pacific Palisades. Down here, some seventy years ago, a potential Fascist headquarters was being cultivated for the day that Adolf Hitler announced victory in World War Two. Afterwards, the Third Reich would make its way across the ocean to the shores of Los Angeles...
The First & Last Tabloid Presidential Elections?
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Douglas Herman 2016-05-05 07:17
Column by Douglas Herman. Exclusive to STR Our Republic Reels from Absurdity to Obscene in Prez Selection 2016   Maybe I’m getting old. At 66, I certainly don’t recall another presidential election so entertaining in a sleazy, openly corrupt sort of way.  I don’t recall Nixon vs. Kennedy with such rancor and mud-slinging.  I was ten at the time, in 1960. ...
Light, Metal, Shadow: The Freedom of Welding
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Alex R. Knight III 2016-05-03 08:07
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR I suppose my first serious exposure to the trade, craft, and art of welding came during a brief five-month stint I did working for a railroad company. Technically, my job title was that of forklift driver, loading and unloading rail cars when freight came in to a small ex-airport on the Vermont side of the Connecticut River. On days when no such...
Not Surprised: Thoreau Pissed Off Some New Yorkers
9.5
Douglas Herman 2016-04-26 07:24
Column by Douglas Herman. Exclusive to STR Years ago, while working in LA as a struggling scriptwriter, I observed that Hollywood is a Moronocracy:  movies made by morons, for morons and about morons.  Rainman, Forrest Gump, Waterboy, Dumb & Dumber, Batman vs. Superman, etc. You see the trend? Intelligent, insightful opinions, subtlety, cleverness, playful and caustic remarks have...
A Method For Achieving Panarchy (Part 1)
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Paul Bonneau 2016-04-22 07:50
Column by Paul Bonneau. Exclusive to STR I wrote up a recipe for achieving Panarchy, and posted it on a forum frequented by anarchists. It was intended as a focus for discussion more than an actual plan of events. This is a slight re-write, version 2. *What is Panarchy?* Panarchy is that condition, when people are affected by, and can only affect, those political institutions and structures in a...
Blame Wikileaks?
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Patrick Coleman 2010-08-27 03:00
By Patrick Coleman.   Exclusive to STR   The media controversy concerning the recent leak of over 91,000 military reports, termed the “Afghan war diary,” by Wikileaks.org has focused very much around the supposed moral culpability of Wikileaks as an organization, its founder, Julian Assange, as well as the accused leaker, Bradley Manning, who now faces 52 years in prison for...
Why People Believe Government Is Here to Help Us Recommended
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Paul Bonneau 2010-08-27 03:00
By Paul Bonneau.   Exclusive to STR     The tenacity of the meme, that government is here to help us and protect us, is hard to understand. All evidence throughout history points in the opposite direction--that government is here to prey on us, and that if there is anything we need protection from, it is our own governments. Why do people cling to this harmful meme?   A...
Declare 9-11 'Government Blowback Day'
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 2010-08-31 03:00
By Lawrence M. Ludlow.   Exclusive to STR   This September 11, let’s help to change the “meme” that has been used by the U.S. government to terrorize Americans into submission and to cynically manipulate the grief of those who lost loved ones in the 9-11 attack of 2001. This year in your community, join hands with others who understand the meaning of the event. Carry...
The Fake TV Challenge Recommended
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B.R. Merrick 2010-09-02 03:00
By B.R. Merrick   Exclusive to STR   In spite of my opposition to The War on Certain Kinds of Drugs, I wish to inaugurate a new war against another one. I have good reasons for doing so. This drug is cheap. It is everywhere. It is insidious. Once it is in your bloodstream, it is nearly impossible to extricate. It becomes infused with the cells of your body...
Aristophanes' Law MUST READ
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tzo 2010-09-24 03:00
Column by tzo.   Exclusive to STR   Some 2,400 years ago, the Greek playwright Aristophanes put forth an idea in one of his plays that I would like to codify into a law of human behavior. Here are the pertinent lines from his play "The Frogs":   The course our city runs is the same towards men and money. She has true and worthy sons. She has fine new gold and ancient...
The Census Taker's Gun
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B.R. Merrick 2010-09-24 03:00
Column by B.R. Merrick.   Exclusive to STR   “A Census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” ~ Hannibal Lecter, “The Silence of the Lambs”   Okay, so a while ago, I had to go to a specialist to get something cleared up. Quite mild, all taken care of. It reminded me of how nice it is to have a...
Education for the Individual
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Michael Kleen 2010-10-11 03:00
Column by Michael Kleen.   Exclusive to STR   Previously, in “Education and the Individual,” I discussed how the two competing educational methods in the public education system in the United States both presuppose a State monopoly on education, and how both seek to impose a uniform purpose and set of standards for all children. In this article, I will lay out the...
The Failed Theory of Relativity
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tzo 2010-10-14 03:00
Column by tzo.   Exclusive to STR   Voluntaryism is, primarily, an ethical philosophy applied to the organization of society. Most of the common modern social organization theories (e.g., “democracy”) focus on organizing society based upon what the majority feels is right and always with an eye toward the utilitarian target that is the greatest good for the greatest number....
Our Moral Duty to Pay Taxes
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Guest 2010-10-14 03:00
Column by Jake Roundtree.   Exclusive to STR   The view of the government as the savior of mankind, the organizer of society and the progenitor of morality, is in present times “profoundly integrated into the depths of our consciousness” (Ellul, 216). Keen observers, since Nietzsche, have recognized the overwhelming degree to which citizens of the West are afflicted...
Just Say No!
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Paul Hein 2010-10-19 03:00
Column by Paul Hein. Exclusive to STR   It is interesting to read what St. Augustine had to say about what we now call government: A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires...
Do We Need a Vaccine for Hubris? MUST READ
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D. Saul Weiner 2015-02-13 09:13
Column by D. Saul Weiner. Exclusive to STR There are a lot of heated exchanges going on right now in social media related to vaccination. Many people have become convinced that parents who do not vaccinate are jeopardizing the health of others and that vaccines for children should be mandated. Politicians who are expected to run for president in 2016 are starting to weigh in on the topic and some...
'Obamacare Nightmare Edition' of Ringo's Law and the Healthcare System of Doom MUST READ
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Glen Allport 2013-10-30 08:02
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR Introduction for this 2013 Edition As I write this – October 28, 2013, more than four years after the column below was posted (here with minor edits; see the original at this link if you wish) – NBC News is reporting that the Obama administration “knew millions could not keep their health insurance" under Obamacare, and has known...
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
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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...
Chaos Gets a Bad Rap: Importance of Chaology to Liberty Recommended
9.75
Lawrence Samuels 2015-02-18 08:43
Column by L.K. Samuels. Exclusive to STR Chaos gets a bad rap—from the academic and scientific world, even from some uninformed libertarians. Few people realize that without the dynamics of chaos, order would not exist. In fact, nothing would exist. Without chaos there would be no creation, no structure and no existence. After all, order is merely the repetition of patterns; chaos is the...
An Apostate From the Government Religion Recommended
9.66667
Paul Bonneau 2013-10-23 08:00
Column by Paul Bonneau. Exclusive to STR I was reading an article about Roger Williams. The more I learn about him, the more impressed I become. "Roger Williams was not a man out of time. He belonged to the 17th Century and to Puritans in that century. Yet he was also one of the most remarkable men of his or any century. With absolute faith in the literal truth of the Bible and in his...
Murray's Missing Plan Recommended
9.66667
Jim Davies 2013-10-07 08:37
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR I've been continuing to read the fascinating story of the modern libertarian movement's early years, as told in the Libertarian Forum, edited and often written by Murray Rothbard. It's vast, but very worthwhile – warmly recommended. I've supplemented it recently with a re-read of parts of Justin Raimondo's excellent biography of him...
Left-Libertarians and the Ring of Power Recommended
9.5
Glen Allport 2013-10-01 08:32
Column by Glen Allport. Exclusive to STR Whoever cannot hit the nail on the head should please, not hit it at all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche Image of The Ring of Power from Wikimedia Commons – 1 – If I had the Ring of Power, I would only use it for GOOD!   Recently, I was reminded that to at least some extent, left-leaning libertarians and anarchists do not understand that...
Government Denial Recommended
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Alex R. Knight III 2013-07-31 08:31
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR During my years as a practicing alcoholic, I employed any number of tactics to avoid the ultimately invariable conclusion that in order to solve my numerous problems, I needed to stop drinking altogether. Even long after I had made the inner admission that I was, in all likelihood, suffering from the disease – and I knew or understood very...
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
8.5
Greg Haley 2013-01-04 01:00
Column by Greg Haley. 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...

 

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