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The Voluntary Voice (Book Review #4)
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR Most of us are familiar with scores of libertarian books written by movement luminaries or anthologies containing scores of them, both past and present. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so refreshing to see a volume go into print straight from the grassroots. The Voluntary Voice: A Book by Individuals (Volume One, 2013), is a compendium of writings from a variety of libertarian perspectives that all exude what the title in part...
U.S. Military ‘Power Grab’ Goes Into Effect
Original article By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.
Australian Government Initiates Covert Internet Censorship
Original article The country's financial regulator, has quietly started issuing legal notices to ISPs requesting them to block certain types of websites deemed illegal. There's no oversight or appeals process, and already a false positive event has resulted in some 1,200 innocent websites being blocked from Australians viewing them.
Lawsuit Says IRS Illegally Seized 60 Million Health Records
Original article The suit said the 15 IRS agents involved in the raid did not have a search warrant or subpoena for the medical records which “may concern the intimate medical records of every state judge in California, every state court employee in California, leading and politically controversial members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, and prominent citizens in the world of entertainment, business and government, from all walks of life."
Argentina's Modest Proposal: Buy Bonds Or Go To Jail
Original article Argentina's president Kirchner, a keen observer of recent events in Cyprus, has figured out a way to kill two birds with one stone, namely attempt to put an end to tax evasion, and fund the capex of the recently nationalized state oil company YPF (now that its former owner, Spainish Repsol, is less than keen to keep investing in its former Argentine subsidiary). To do that she will present the local tax-evading population (pretty much anyone with any disposable income and savings) with a...
Florida Quietly Shortened Yellow Light Standards & Lengths, Resulting in More Red Light Camera Tickets for You
Original article The 10 News Investigators discovered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) quietly changed the state's policy on yellow intervals in 2011, reducing the minimum below federal recommendations. The rule change was followed by engineers, both from FDOT and local municipalities, collaborating to shorten the length of yellow lights at key intersections, specifically those with red light cameras (RLCs).
Desensitization Training: Police Practice Fighting 'Angry Parents'
Original article Puyallup, Washington police ran a SWAT-based training exercise to prepare for the possibility of angry, armed parents attempting to take over a school.
Apple Deluged by Police Demands to Decrypt iPhones
Original article ATF says no law enforcement agency could unlock a defendant's iPhone, but Apple can "bypass the security software" if it chooses. Apple has created a police waiting list because of high demand.
The Free State Project Grows Up
Original article Excellent article by Reason magazine about the history and some of the successes - so far - of the Free State Project.
Restaurant Owners Blast Proposal to Tax Employees' Tips as Business' Income
Original article Help us save New Hampshire, and the business and people in it. Join the Free State Project.
"Give people a second chance" -- George Zimmer, founder, Men's Wearhouse
Original article One more contrarian thing: It is Zimmer's policy that no employee or interviewee will ever undergo a criminal background check. Conventional retail wisdom says this guarantees petty larceny on a grand scale. In fact, the company loses a mere 0.4 percent of revenue to theft, way less than the typical 1.5 percent loss suffered by big retailers.
Amateur Beats Gov't at Digitizing Newspapers: Tom Tryniski’s Weird, Wonderful Website
Original article One computer expert working alone has built a historic newspaper site that's orders of magnitude bigger and more popular than one created by a federal bureaucracy with millions of dollars to spend. Armed only with a few PCs and a cheap microfilm scanner, Tom Tryniski has played David to the Library of Congress’ Goliath.
Music: Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson
Original article
Photo Gallery: Lightning
Original article Awesome !
Walks and Talks
8.33333
Paul Hein 2010-11-08 04:00
Column by Paul Hein.   Exclusive to STR   I enjoy taking the dog for a walk, although he probably enjoys it more. These Fall mornings the fresh air is bracing, and the chance to be alone with my thoughts is welcome.  I’ll even grudgingly admit that the exercise might be beneficial, although I’m not convinced of that. It’s meeting other walkers that pleases me most...
Millions of Petty Tyrants
10
tzo 2010-11-05 03:00
Column by tzo.   Exclusive to STR   The empirical evidence that power corrupts goes a long way in explaining the inevitable one-way course to tyranny trod by all governments. Having a monopoly on force, corruption within the government monopoly cannot be effectively checked, and growing corruption and its attendant increasing power eventually congeal into absolute power and absolute...
Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Libertarian
9
Duane Colyar 2010-11-05 03:00
Column by Duane Colyar.   Exclusive to STR   Over the years I’ve enjoyed introducing my children and grandchildren to the concept of liberty and the freedom-threatening hazards of the welfare-warfare state. This introduction has started when they were as young as three years old. The reader might ask, “How can this be? Children that young can’t...
Ebooks Everywhere
5.66667
Glen Allport 2010-11-04 03:00
Column by Glen Allport.   Exclusive to STR  (Paper is so Fifteenth Century) A Review of Amazon's E-Book Software and the Devices it Runs On     I resisted ebooks until recently, despite my somewhat geeky background. I've been a heavy reader since childhood, which means that books – real books, printed-on-paper books – have been a big part of my life for a darn long...
Your Sticker Makes a Lot of Sense Recommended
9
Per Bylund 2010-11-03 03:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   Election Day means there are a lot of people walking around proudly carrying a sticker on their collar or lapel: “I Voted.” It bothered me at first that they would take pride in such ugly, immoral, and destructive behavior and that they so urgently wanted me to see that they had cast a ballot. I do not particularly like that these...
Inflation Infatuation
8
Emiliano Antunez 2010-11-02 03:00
Column by Emiliano Antunez.   Exclusive to STR   Don’t you just love three dollar a gallon gas and spending almost $250 a week on groceries that used to cost you just $200 only two or three years ago? Whoever coined the statement “money is no object” was either Chairman of the Federal Reserve or a high-ranking economist of the Weimar Republic.   Last week in a...
Taxation: Murder on the Installment Plan
10
Lawrence M. Ludlow 2010-11-02 03:00
Column by Lawrence M. Ludlow.   Exclusive to STR   Government messages employ lots of slave-speech. For example, we are told that “children are the nation’s most precious resource.” Note the misuse of the possessive. The assumption is that people are the property of the state. In a similar way, we hear about “un-renewable resources.” Usually it’s a...
Political Observations with a Personal Note
9.5
Vaughn Bateman 2010-11-01 03:00
Column by Vaugn Bateman.   Exclusive to STR   Everyone has their eyes peeled back for election season. It’s the bi-yearly socially glamorous magnet for politiphiles and laymen alike. Even if you don’t find the flavour appetizing, it proves impossible to evade the inescapable gravitational pull of politics. The particular action of some bug-eyed crazed enthusiast does not...
Immigration
5
Alex Schroeder 2010-11-01 03:00
Column by Alex Schroeder.   Exclusive to STR   While myriad exceptions certainly abound, in contemporary American politics two prevalent views seem to frame the immigration debate. There are those to whom the label “open border advocates” can be rightly ascribed, typically associated with the political Left. Alternatively, there exists a sizeable grouping of people who...
Voting Is Even More Worthless Than You Think
6.25
Paul Bonneau 2010-11-01 03:00
Column by Paul Bonneau.   Exclusive to STR   I wonder how many of our readers ever participated in an election, in which their vote was the decisive one? The chances are pretty small, mathematically. But they are actually even smaller than the math predicts!   Let’s imagine a race between Statist Candidate A and Statist Candidate B, and in the vote count, they differ by only...
Walks and Talks
8.33333
Paul Hein 2010-11-08 04:00
Column by Paul Hein.   Exclusive to STR   I enjoy taking the dog for a walk, although he probably enjoys it more. These Fall mornings the fresh air is bracing, and the chance to be alone with my thoughts is welcome.  I’ll even grudgingly admit that the exercise might be beneficial, although I’m not convinced of that. It’s meeting other walkers that pleases me most...
The Absurdity of Hating Walmart...and Not Government
8.33333
Alex R. Knight III 2011-06-10 00:00
Column by Alex R. Knight III   Exclusive to STR   It seems to invoke the ire of the dogmatic leftists to no end, the largest corporation on earth; this homegrown business, now global in scope, second in size only to the U.S. federal government. They inveigh against it as if this department store chain were the summary of all total malfeasance – a horrible capitalist-pig...
Caveat
8.33333
tzo 2011-07-19 00:00
Column by tzo.   Exclusive to STR   Any rational conversation on ethics must begin with the following caveat:   If you, as an individual human being, are interested in creating and maintaining a society based on justice, cooperation, freedom, and equal human rights, then there exists a set of objective, ethical rules that can be discovered. Let’s explore them.   But if...
Strike The Root Can Teach Everybody Something
8.33333
jd-in-georgia 2011-08-12 00:00
Column by John Shelkop.  Exclusive to STR  On its 10th anniversary, it has been both a joy and an education keeping up with the links and commentary on Strike The Root. One month before thousands of Americans were killed on September 11, 2001, a site filled with links to stories and ideas of a classically liberal slant had begun. I will confess that I did not even know this site...
Dear American Minarchist Recommended
8.3
tzo 2011-02-02 04:00
Column by tzo.   Exclusive to STR   Dear American Minarchist,   I share your frustration at the course currently being set by the federal government of this nation. It is expanding its power to ever-more dangerous levels, thereby reducing the freedoms that can safely be enjoyed by all the human beings who find themselves within its purview.   Your contention is that the...
Food Stamps for Fat People
8.25
S.E. Seachman 2010-01-05 04:00
Exclusive to STR    If ever there was a clear example of the welfare state’s self-destructive tendency, this perhaps ranks top on the list: giving food stamps to people no matter how fat.    With two-thirds of Americans overweight, obesity-related health spending at almost $150 billion per year, federal debt growing out of control and no one in Washington able to find...
The Emotional Truth about Intellectuals
8.25
livefreeretiree 2011-11-04 00:00
Column by Vahram G. Diehl.   Exclusive to STR   Intellectualism and emotional depth of character have notoriously been considered mutually exclusive and opposite goals for an individual to work for in life. The rule has been that to seek progress in the field of reason and empirical observation must concurrently result in a decrease in one's ability or inclination to experience the...
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...
Broken
8.25
tzo 2013-04-24 07:39
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR Every day there are people starving to death in many parts of the world as I step out from work and go enjoy my lunch. What am I—some kind of monster? Don’t I realize that: No man is an island,
 Entire of itself.
 Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.
 If a clod be washed away by the sea,
 Europe is the less.
 As well as if a promontory...
The Year Ahead: 2010
8.2
Glen Allport 2010-01-08 04:00
 Exclusive to STR "'A lot more people were living on the edge than we ever even anticipated,' Haynes said. 'So many people were just barely making it. It's absolutely shocking.'" ~ Hospitality House spokesman Barry Frost, quoted in Economy Creates Newly Homeless by Kimberly Edds, OC Register, December 11, 2009   "There is no normality and no recovery. You cannot spend...
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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