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Wednesday, June 19

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They Say They Want a Revolution
Original article
Molyneux or Rand (or Long)?
Original article Approaches to libertarian ethics. 
Can I Get Your Number?
Original article
Right and Left
Original article One examination of the relationship between Left and Right.
Memo To Authoritarians: The "Oath" is to the Constitution, Not to Secrecy
Original article Author and former intelligence officer, Barry Eisler examines the recent NSA abuses. 
The Eyes Watching You 1984 and the Surveillance State
Original article
Thank You For Your Service, Mr. Snowden
Original article
We Are All Bradley Manning
Original article
Politics: Michael Hastings, 'Rolling Stone' Contributor, Dead at 33
Original article Michael Hastings, one of the few real journalists in America, died in an auto accident. 
Gary Webb's Glorious Comeback
Original article
What the French Teach Libertarians About Our Own Homophobia
Original article I don't agree with all of the author's assertions, but I do think this is an article that is absolutely worth reading. 
Surveillance Is For Perverts – Stop PRISM Surveillance
Original article
John Stossel on Why Libertarians Have Better Things to Worry About Than the NSA
Original article With friends like these, libertarians really don't need enemies. 
Why John Stossel is Wrong: NSA is Definitely Something to Worry About
Original article Excellent rebuttal to Stossel by Sarah Harvard. 
Flying Bicycle Gets Off the Ground in Prague
Original article
Sometimes When Things Get Really Stressful, I Close My Eyes, Sit Back, And Pretend I’m Back In Kenya
Original article Satire.
Timing Is Everything
8.66667
Bill Butler 2010-02-01 04:00
Exclusive to STR Time preference is an economic concept that compares time in relation to an individual’s need for material gratification. Time preference is a comparison, not a measurement. Time preference is immeasurable because it is, by definition, subjective. That is, each individual has a different time preference and each individual’s time preference can change...
Creeping Totalitarianism
8.8
Alex Schroeder 2010-02-01 04:00
  Exclusive to STR   In the past decade, public smoking bans in America have become increasingly commonplace; governmental efforts to institute such bans often prove successful, primarily because the majority of Americans do not smoke. In other words, the majority can only gain from such legislation. Supporters reason that they should not have to inhale second-hand smoke every time they...
Governor of Virginia Embraces Romans 13:1-7
7.33333
Robert L. Johnson 2010-01-29 04:00
 Exclusive to STR   Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s newly elected governor and graduate of televangelist Pat Robertson’s RegentUniversity, said at a prayer breakfast before his inauguration that he looks at his political career and being governor as a ministry.  He also said, “For a ruler to be just and to be fair and to have the wisdom needed in order to do right for...
Love and Freedom in Avatar
8
Glen Allport 2010-01-25 04:00
Exclusive to STR [Spoilers ahead] A month after its opening, “Avatar” has brought in more than $1.8 billion worldwide and is still packing theaters, which suggests that it may become the first film to pull in $2 billion or more.   There are many reasons “Avatar” is so popular – it is visually gorgeous and inventive, it tells a good story, and the film's casting...
Fortuna and the Free Market
10
Michael Kleen 2010-01-21 04:00
Column by Michael Kleen.   Exclusive to STR   “And thus does Fortune's wheel turn treacherously And out of happiness bring men to sorrow.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer   Imagine you and another man are standing around a roulette wheel at a high-end casino. You place $50 on black and the other man places $50 on red. The ball had landed on a black or red number the past dozen times...
Half Full
8.33333
Jim Davies 2010-01-21 04:00
  Exclusive to STR   I've been re-reading a couple of excellent, recent articles on Strike The Root, each of which in its way predicts a gloomy future.   One is Glen Allport's "Year Ahead" and the other, Tzo's "Got Money?. Glen provides us as usual with a wealth of evidence to prove his point, piling one piece atop another until there can be no doubt of the message...
The Divine Right of Kings in Sheeple's Clothing
9
tzo 2010-01-21 04:00
  Exclusive to STR   The art of political discourse is the art of deception. Since government is, by definition, an unethical enterprise masquerading as an ethical organization, then whatever comes out of a politician's mouth or pen is necessarily meant to deceive his audience. Whatever the politician proposes is unethical in that it is based on aggression, and so the proper spin must...
Sorry, Wendy and Lew
3.8
John deLaubenfels 2010-01-19 04:00
Exclusive to STR Because I send occasional feedback to libertarian-leaning websites, I tend to get added to their lists and solicited for donations.  Two such sites are WendyMcElroy.com and LewRockwell.com.  To each, when I'm asked to part with hard-earned cash, I write back saying that I cannot in good conscience donate to them because of their opposition to all forms of...
The State Will Never Win the Drug War
7.5
Bob Wallace 2010-01-19 04:00
Exclusive to STR   There are several reasons why the State will never win the Drug War, but one not often discussed is the Arndt-Schultz Law. It is a biological law that states, "Small doses stimulate, medium doses poison, and large doses kill."   Probably the best-known examples of this law are vaccines. They are small doses that stimulate the body's immune system to defend...
How to Survive Obamacare
8
Tamara Wilhite 2010-01-19 04:00
1. Get all necessary but schedulable treatment in before rationing kicks in. If you have needed a new hip or knee, rotator cuff injury or lazy eye treatment, have it done BEFORE the government can deny you the right to have the surgery. 2. Have all elective surgery and treatment done before the insurance mandates drive about 40% of doctors out of the profession. If you have been considering...
Successful Secession, Failed Revolution
7
tzo 2013-01-23 08:10
Column by tzo. Exclusive to STR Once upon a time there was a nation divided. The southern region used human beings from Africa as slaves while the northern region did not. Of course the North still benefited financially from the South’s system of involuntary servitude, and so even though only the South utilized slave labor directly, the entire nation condoned it and profited greatly from it...
Karl Marx: The Most Evil Man to Ever Live
7
Alex R. Knight III 2013-02-18 08:05
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR He perhaps fancied himself a liberator, though history has since more than amply demonstrated the utter moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this delusion. From no other philosophical doctrine to date has there yet arisen such a surfeit of sophistry, abuse, tyranny, oppression, corruption, malice -- and even genocide – as has due to the result...
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...
Mr. Snowden Departs
7
Jim Davies 2013-06-17 08:25
Column by Jim Davies. Exclusive to STR When I mentioned here last year that I'd made a little web site at TinyURL.com/QuitGov, there were, incredibly, some who poured scorn on the idea – which was, as stated, to introduce to its employees the news that it's dishonest to work for government, and so to prepare their minds for the day when one or more of their friends invites them to...
Why Minarchists Are the Enemy
6.88889
Per Bylund 2011-02-16 04:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   Libertarians want to roll back government to a much less oppressive size. In this goal, libertarian minarchists and anarchists often stand together and aim for the same goals, at least short term. In a limited sense, this may not be such a stupid idea. After all, pushing back the powers of government is a good thing, is it not?   But what...
Taking the Bull by the Tail
6.83333
Duane Colyar 2011-06-08 00:00
Column by Duane Colyar. Exclusive to STR While reading news reports in a local daily that is now so small it would barely cover the bottom of a birdcage, my mind wandered over the dark scenes of modern-day America: endless wars of dubious constitutionality and military occupations spawning future wars; hit squads flying uninvited into a sovereign nation; the spectacle of police dressed in...
The Voluntaryist Art of Not Debating
6.75
Alex R. Knight III 2013-02-14 08:50
Column by Alex R. Knight III. Exclusive to STR That’s right: Not debating. There seems to be a penchant, if not almost insatiable urge among those in our movement to constantly confront and debate those who adhere to one statist philosophy or another. Voluntaryists/Libertarian Anarchists burn up thousands of hours on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and such arguing our case,...
Just Call Me a Capitalist
6.5
Westernerd 2011-08-23 00:00
Column by Robert Taylor   Exclusive to STR   In the current media climate of talking heads, sound bites, and bumper sticker slogans from politicians, debate--both in public and in private--is severely hampered by a lack of proper definitions of the terms and ideas being discussed. One could definitely make the cynical argument that this process of dumbing down the language is done...
A Quick Response to Per Bylund
6.4
John deLaubenfels 2011-02-17 04:00
Column by John deLaubenfels.   Exclusive to STR   Per Bylund's most recent column on STR is titled Why Minarchists Are the Enemy. That's a pretty strong statement, especially as it identifies minarchists not as AN enemy, but THE enemy, and the text of his column reinforces rather than softens the message. We read, for example, that (in some sense at least) "minarchist...
The Triumph of the Bankers
6.33333
George F. Smith 2011-05-25 00:00
Column by George F. Smith. Exclusive to STR   In spite of its success in bestowing wealth on some men while funding an unnecessary war, [1] the National Banking System proved unsatisfactory to financial leaders. Even with laws discouraging or restricting redemption, crises still occurred, and banks had to contract and deflate to survive. They were unable to inflate their way out of...
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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