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* LibertyBlog * Libertarian Book Club * Courses * About Us * Shop Liberty * Policy Analyses * libertyLOL Newsletters * more... LIBERTYBLOG: MUSINGS DURING AN ERA OF DECREASING LIBERTY WHY WON'T THE CORPORATE MEDIA SHOW YOU THESE CHARTS? 12/4/2020 0 Comments Every day there are more charts that undermine the "we have to stay home and cancel everything" narrative, and I have a couple of those for you today, but first I want to show you something else. Someone I follow on Twitter just released a Tweet thread that sums up the inhuman COVID response so beautifully that I had to share it with you: The East Coast is home to a little under 130,000,000 people. And 130 million is the number of people in the world that our global overreaction to COVID has pushed to the brink of starvation according to the World Health Organization. Do you support lockdowns? You may think you’re being virtuous, but you're being selfish. Imagine driving from Portland, Maine thru Boston, NYC, Philly, DC, Atlanta, Miami. Now imagine everybody you saw on your trip starving. All 130 million of them. Those are faces of lockdowns. Add to that people right here at home so afraid of COVID they stay home while having strokes and heart attacks. They stay home or are delayed from chemo and other life-maintaining treatments. Some sit alone in despair, drinking alcohol or abusing drugs. Some lash out at spouses and children who have no school or social life in which to find refuge or help -- or detection. Kids growing up spending formative chunks of their lives learning that being close to another human is dangerous and the very breathe we exhale is poison. You don’t think that’s going to have long-term effects? Alzheimer's patients confused, lost in their own fading world with no one working to keep them afloat -- they drown in their isolation. Grandparents denied the joy of one of the definitive pleasures of life -- hugging a grandchild or seeing the joy of their faces Christmas morning. “But lockdowns save lives,” you cry. But denying human contact, scaring people to death, driving people to despair -- is this “saving” lives? And how many lives does it save? All through the US and Europe many places that locked down thought they stopped cases, but it wasn’t lockdowns. It was summer. And when summer was over, COVID returned. Masks, social distancing, lockdowns, all ripped through by COVID like a football team running through a paper banner. No proms, no third-grade shows in a crowded gym, no science fairs, no big games, no school (that they used to say they didn’t like but now walk around like zombies pining for the interactions). Shortcomings in education lead to a lifetime of shortcomings, from career choices and earning power, to emotional development and family building. Supply chains disrupted. Jobs lost. Production slowed. 130 million people in danger of starvation. It’s easy for many of us in the middle class to hunker down and work from home. Just buy a new computer for kids' remote schooling and work from the den. Not everybody has that option. I was originally going to close this issue here, but I can't resist sharing two charts, courtesy of Ian Miller (@ianmSC). Remember when Dr. Fauci said Florida was "asking for trouble" by fully reopening (the state had already been mostly open anyway for a while)? Sure you do. And remember when he said New York was a model of how to handle the situation? Again, sure. Now do you recall him saying anything recently about this? Me either. How about California, where nobody can do anything? They must be doing much better than Florida right now, right? Hmm: Let me remind you: there are no restrictions in Florida. It's almost like all the joy California is taking from its people, and all the ways it's crushing and impoverishing them, is for nothing. -Tom Woods A reminder, nothing here says Covid isn’t real. But the cure is currently more deadly than the virus. Also, your government’s reaction has should make you take pause. Never let a good crisis go to waste. 0 Comments LIBERTARIANS: THE MORNING AFTER THE ELECTION MESSAGE 11/4/2020 0 Comments I had high expectations for yesterday and they were not all met. To the extent you are disappointed by the results, I apologize to you. I would like to offer a bit of a pep talk. Everyone else seems to be in the soup with us. Democrats were anticipating a landslide and spent hundreds of millions to make it happen but it’s looking like the Republicans kept the Senate and gained seats in the House. Republicans expected President Trump to be re-elected and while the election was close, his odds aren’t good with millions of votes left to be counted from blue areas. We will certainly assess the lessons learned, and I hope those conversations are driven by data and observed experience. In that we are not alone, as Democrats will have to confront their socialist and non-socialist wings and Republicans will have to reconcile their Trump and non-Trump directions. For my part, much of my focus is on the need I see for our candidates to have more money, more staff and volunteers, and more help from Libertarian Party brand association. I look forward to hearing the discussion and seeing people try things in different races as we figure it all out. Here are six things I’m keeping in mind today: · Jo and Spike are (as of now) at 1.1 percent, with 1,591,943 (and votes still being counted). This is the second best result of any Libertarian presidential ticket, second only both in percent and votes to Johnson/Weld in 2016. It beats 1980 when we had a billionaire underwriting campaign costs and 2012 (and 2008) when we had a candidate with high name recognition. Despite the media blackout, fundraising disadvantage ($2 per vote! Jo/Spike spent ~$3 million vs. $12 million in 2016; billions for the others), inability to campaign normally due to the pandemic, and lack of name recognition, 1 in every 90 Americans voted for Jo and Spike, and it looks like we beat the spread in some key states like MI, WI, PA, and NV. I’ve been in this party when our baseline was more around half a percent and it’s clear those days are behind us and we have a solid, higher floor. · Relatedly, we had 50+DC ballot access for this election, for only the third time in our history. I cannot understate how difficult this was, overcoming gratuitous procedural obstacle, pandemic conditions, and a bidding war for paid petitioners caused by millionaire and billionaire candidates. As we do after every election, we are just starting to assess what states we retained and didn’t retain last night and our next steps. But I do want to acknowledge the hard work of everyone who helped make Jo and Spike one of the three choices that were in front of every American voter. · Momentum. Jo was up front from the beginning that her goal was to help build the party and in that she succeeded. Membership is up 29% to 21,000, and registered voters is up 7% since March to 652,000 (in the 32 states that have partisan registration). The LNC will soon have a flood of names and contact info for new people the campaign brought in. I know some criticize us running a national presidential ticket but looking at the data, most of our best activists, candidates, and leaders were first reached by a presidential campaign. The bus tour earned a ton of local press and the ads the campaign made were spectacular. Polling shows our messaging reached an audience in particular with young people, Latinos, women, and those in urban areas. · Local Libertarians won election and re-election. While we did fall short – and in some cases crushingly close – today has new Libertarian elected officials: Kalish Morrow, Wendy Hewitt, Trisha Butler, James Doyle, Bob Karwin – and Jessica Abbott, Jim Turney, and Cara Schulz won re-election. A big sign of progress is our first Libertarian elected as a state legislator in over 20 years: Marshall Burt in Wyoming, one of our Frontier Project candidates. Other races solidified us as America’s third party: Ricky Harrington getting 34% for U.S. Senate, Don Rainwater getting 13% for Governor, and many others that beat the spread between the old parties. Many other races secured ballot access goals (although others unfortunately fell short). Nearly all of these candidates achieved what they did with a fraction of the money their opponents had. · The drug war lost. Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota legalized marijuana. Mississippi legalized medical marijuana. DC decriminalized mushrooms. Oregon decriminalized hard drugs. I remember when ending the drug war and not viewing drug use as a criminal enforcement problem was a crazy Libertarian position in this country. Now it’s winning every time everywhere. · Talent. Out of choice or necessity, most of the L campaigns this year from Jo/Spike on down used homegrown Libertarian campaign staff talent rather than consultants or paid operatives. The pros and cons of that will be debated, but one outcome is many more Libertarians now have on-the-job training as campaign managers, field directors, fundraisers, GOTV managers, canvassers, and with crafting messaging. Every campaign wanted more of all of those things, and those who did can now teach and train others and build up a talent pool essential for winning in the future. Thank you to our candidates, to their families, to their volunteers. Win or lose, the commitment is an enormous one and can be draining in so many ways. Our impact and our ballot access depend on you, and your often unsung efforts are appreciated by so many of us. Thank you especially to Apollo Pazell and Cara Schulz, two of our elected officials who also help advise our candidates all over the map. Onward. We are going to take on the duopoly until they change or we get our people elected. Seeing a routine election treated as a do or die moment by so many Americans reminds me that we need to rethink the power we give to government, and only Libertarians can actually deliver on this. As long as you are willing to keep trying, I will be here. - Joe Bishop-Henchman sends 0 Comments “THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE” WITH DR FRANK 9/12/2020 0 Comments If you don't follow Dr Frank's open Facebook Group, you should. Check out Follow the Data with Dr Frank. He's the adult in the room which is refreshingly rare on social media. “The Precautionary Principle” Watch out for this one. It is irrational, and can be used to justify just about any decision or behavior. It goes something like this: “Since there is the possibility that something *could* happen, we should take precautions and do x.” This leads to all sorts of silly behaviors and decisions. A more rational approach is to ask what is *most likely* or *certain* to happen, and to plan mitigations for those things based upon the best evidence available. Not merely what is possible. Almost anything is possible. Follow the data. Which risks have the clearest evidence to justify our attention? For example, for decades I have been telling my students that “global warming” is not nearly as threatening to human life as a *global pandemic* would be... and we were due for one. (Boy, did I call this one.) So if we were going to spend vast resources on something that *might* happen with devastating consequences, we should be investing in things that are inevitable over things that might potentially be relatively mildly harmful. This is one way to distinguish which are the scientifically justified investments and which are merely political agendas. Because pandemics are inevitable. (Eh, hem...) And so are asteroid impacts. (I always show my students a picture of the back side of the moon at this point in the lecture.) And volcanoes, and earthquakes, and solar flares, and wars... And all these things are more likely to disrupt humanity and to claim myriad human lives. So don’t fall for it. Recent incarnations are: “We should close the schools because children might die.” “We should force otherwise perfectly healthy people to take an insufficiently tested vaccine, because it might save lives.” Instead, use the science and the math to set priorities. Don’t build a house of cards. Build a solid foundation, based upon the sturdiest facts at your disposal. Children are far more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid. Better never allow them to ride in cars... Certainly we will make mistakes, and some unlikely things are bound to occur. But the fact that there are infinite unlikely things that *could* happen makes it impossible to predict which ones of the myriad possible bad things we should protect against. Because we simply cannot protect against everything. So go with the science. Follow the data. And please... “drive safely.” MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL: View RSS feed 0 Comments TYRANTS IMPOSE LIMITS ON GATHERINGS AS VIRUS WANES 9/12/2020 0 Comments You may not be aware of what the bastards are doing in the UK. The UK has been in the clear on the virus for a long time. Here's a relevant chart: Well, now they're imposing more restrictions. With a few exceptions, no social gatherings of more than six people. That applies to indoors and outdoors. It applies to your house. If you have six or more people in your household you are allowed to gather in public or private (how generous!) but not with anyone else. These rules are expected to last through the spring. And all because of a modest rise in "cases," a stupid figure that should be savagely mocked. Forget about the original concerns regarding overwhelming the hospital system. Everybody knows the hospitals will be fine. Now it's just a ban on death itself -- as if the lockdowns themselves don't cause collateral deaths. (Not to mention: who can think this bizarre dystopia is a healthy place for children to grow up and develop in?) Israel, by the way, locked down hard, and required masks and curfews, and engaged in sophisticated methods for mapping contacts, and...now they're considering another lockdown because of a rise in "cases." If all that couldn't do the trick, what the hell are we doing? (I shouldn't say we. You and I have nothing to do with this.) Here, by the way, is a graphical reminder of the helpfulness of lockdowns. The UK, Lockdown Central, is in green. That other line is Sweden, the country we're all supposed to hate: I've said in numerous episodes of the Tom Woods Show that there are two parallel societies emerging, each living almost in its own reality. One lives in terror of the virus and almost refuses to acknowledge favorable trends. The other realizes that the virus is in fact manageable after all, and that we cannot continue to destroy people's lives -- lives of both young and old, I might add -- indefinitely, or even "until there's a vaccine." (Dr. Fauci is saying probably not until the end of 2021 can we maybe have our lives back -- an estimate that could well turn out to be about as accurate as "15 days to flatten the curve.") My Tom Woods Show Elite represents this second society, the one that understands the ubiquity of risk, and the foolishness of madly uprooting one kind of risk while at the same time increasing countless others (e.g., all the ways the lockdowns have caused collateral damage). You've been thinking about it. Today's the day. Join the reality-based community: http://www.SupportingListeners.com Also, if you missed the presentation on making a living that's unshutdownable, a topic that's a teensy-weensy bit relevant to the present day, here's the replay: http://www.tomwoods.com/protectyourself Tom Woods MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL: View RSS feed 0 Comments THE KYLE RITTENHOUSE CASE WILL MAKE OR BREAK THE SECOND AMENDMENT 9/8/2020 0 Comments Homeschool with the BEST! Click the banner for more information! Any positive mention of Kyle Rittenhouse is being censored on FB. You know why? Part of it is so that the officialista class can set the narrative that he was there to hunt protestors, is a murderer, a mass shooter, a racist, all in an effort to make this case as political as possible. The cracks are already starting to show with the Chicago Tribune releasing an article saying why he will “get off”. But thats all a means to an end, not the end itself. The truth is that this is the biggest case in the country right now. This is not about Kyle Rittenhouse and what happened in Kenosha that night. The meta case is going to come down to two extremely important things: 1. Are we allowed to defend ourselves from violent rioters, arsonists and looters or not? 2. Given the defense they are trotting out to combat the underage gun charge, are we allowed to form militias to do so? Whichever side wins this case will be emboldened. If he’s persecuted, the riots will likely get worse as the precedent between the case and the stand down of police will send the signal that there is absolutely no consequences for violent behavior. If Rittenhouse wins, people will be emboldened to take a stand. Its not going to take too many events like what happened in Kenosha that night for the message to be crystal clear; Wanton violence is dangerous and engaging in it may well cost you your life. Thats what this is about and thats why they are blacking out any defense of Rittenhouse when in reality when you observe the facts, look at the statutes in WI around these crimes and what is considered a valid self defense argument, everything is in Kyle’s favor. The future of the 2nd Amendment argument hangs in the balance of this case. -Michael Heise MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL: View RSS feed 0 Comments POLICE ABUSE: WHAT WOULD THE PENALTY BE IF PRIVATE POLICE DID THIS? 6/8/2020 0 Comments As you read this story, please keep the title question in mind. What would the penalty be if this was conducted by a private company? What accountability would you demand? Walter Ogrod was just set free after spending 3 decades on death row. The reason he was there in the first place underscores everything that is wrong with the justice system. In July of 1988, a 4 year old girl named Barbara Jean went missing in Philadelphia. Her body was found wrapped in a garbage bag inside of a TV box, about 1000 feet from her home. 4 years later, Philadelphia police arrested one of her neighbors, Walter, charged him with sexual assault and murder, and forced him to confess. While he was in jail awaiting trial, they enticed jailhouse informants to fabricate statements against him in exchange for immunity from charge for their upcoming cases. Let me repeat that: the police got people in jail to lie about an innocent man, in exchange for letting them free from things they were possibly guilty of doing. Walter's "confession" was riddled with errors that didn't line up with the facts of the case. For one thing, his "confession" was that he beat her to death, but she died from asphyxiation. During the trial, prosecutors withheld exonerating evidence from the defense, which at this point is something we've all become used to hearing, even though it's illegal. There was, of course, zero physical evidence. The prosecution's case was so terrible that Walter's first trial ended in a mistrial. Even still, they were able to successfully convict him in 1996, and he was sentenced to death. The Philadelphia DA and police were more concerned about pinning Barbara's death on someone, anyone, than they were about doing the harder work of actually finding the person who raped and murdered her. Let's recap: the people in charge of protecting the people of Philadelphia focused their efforts on framing an innocent man, and even setting other suspects free in exchange for lying about him, rather than trying to find a rapist and murderer who may still be walking the streets today. Thankfully, even though it took nearly 30 years, a Philadelphia judge finally set Walter free, and the DA's office is filing to refuse to retry him. Unfortunately, many other people have been executed despite similarly terrible cases against them, including Nathaniel Woods earlier this year (link to my post about Nate's case in the comments). Jo Jorgensen and I are staunchly opposed to the death penalty. We believe that when government is given power, they often use it in the most cynical, abusive and inequitable ways. The death penalty gives government the power to decide if any of us are allowed to live or die, and we see often what giving them that power leads to. Thankfully for Walter, after losing over half of his life on death row, he is home with his loved ones. Thanks for Spike Cohen for posting about this atrocity. The Libertarian Party of Texas opposes the Death Penalty as a form of punishment by the state, as well as any other unnecessary use of force by state agents in response to criminal action. MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL: View RSS feed 0 Comments LNC CHAIR ABANDONS CORE PRINCIPLES, ABUSES AUTHORITY 5/19/2020 0 Comments h/t Matthew Hicks I started writing this piece twice now and couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs. The whole thing felt wrong to me. I walked away from putting in any work and took a little time to think about what I was doing and why. It finally occurred to me that I was trying to write it in a professional manner, using a voice that you might expect from a professional journalist. The problem is that isn’t me. This version, the final version, will be completely in my own voice. I’m writing it the same way I speak. I ask you, friends and fellow Libertarians, to indulge the F-bombs and profanity laced screed from time to time. It’s what I do. I want, by way of this writing, to issue an apology to the members of the LNC upon whom I have recently shat in a few online posts and a video. I called out several of you by name and I want acknowledge you by name here. Mrs. Harlos, Ms. Adams, Mrs. Mattson, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Hewitt, I’m sorry. I retract everything I said and will remove the posts once this is live. For explanation of my motivation for writing this, I offer this: I was angry after watching the LNC meetings during which the LNC was debating and discussing convention options. As I watched the meetings, I couldn’t help but think, “What the actual fuck is going on with these people? It’s like they are all trying to achieve their own agenda and goals with no regard for the delegates or worse, they want to make sure that their fellow members of the LNC don’t get what they want, at all costs.” I made that assessment because I have avoided the den of venomous snakes and bullshittery that is internal party politics for the entire time I’ve been in the LP. After I made my posts on social media, people began coming out of the woodwork to fill in the blanks for me. My criticism of LNC member’s behaviors was based on incomplete knowledge. I didn’t know all the behind-the-scenes and cloakroom shenanigans that have been going on. Well, the toothpaste is out of the tube now and I would be negligent in my moral responsibility if I didn’t address it. You see, we Libertarians profess to be the party of principle. If I see some fuckery going on within the party that runs counter to that and I don’t call it out, not only am I assenting to that behavior by my silence, I’m also assenting to compromising our principles through my inaction. I won’t be that guy. Because I’m not. This is the part where half of you will quit reading: Our chair, Nick Sarwark, is in large part responsible for the dumpster fire in a diarrhea factory that our LNC meetings have become, as it pertains to the national convention. He has created an environment in which factionalism for the sake of agenda is the norm. He has nurtured personal agenda at the expense of the party. He has attempted to exercise strong-arm style dictatorial rule. Now a brief explanation of how I decided what went into this writing! Nothing that you will read here is second-hand information. Every single allegation comes directly from the primary source. I verified and, to the extent possible, fact-checked everything. There is no, “so-and-so told me that…” I pledged to give anonymity to everyone who agreed to talk to me, and I will honor that at all costs. Anything that is a direct quote is attributed to the source, with their permission. You can pester me and message/comment all you want, I’ll not go into any more detail than what I have done here. I won’t divulge a single source. This is what you get, take it or leave it. Those of you who continue to support Nick in his behavior and his agenda—whatever that may be—can no longer do it in a vacuum. You are now a willing participant in his misdeeds. To be fair, I used to be a supporter of his. I thought that the LNC was just a bunch of faction members fighting against each other to further their own ends. I believed that Nick was just trying to maintain some semblance of order and look out for the interests of the delegates and the party. Well, color me mad as a murder hornet when I learned what was actually going on. To quote John Phillips Jr, “I will no longer support Nick for any position at all in the Libertarian party, including as a candidate.” One of the first things that was brought to my attention from more than one LNC member is that Nick has a private agenda for the Libertarian party. Mises folks, Prags, and Radicals, listen closely to this. He has expressed to LNC members more than once that he wants to steer the party left as much as possible. On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this. A chair serves, in part, to guide an organization towards its goals. Someone, fucking anyone, please tell me when the LNC or delegates decided that our goal was to shift to the left. Last I checked, it never happened. On top of that, steering our party either left or right goes directly counter to our narrative that we are neither right nor left, but libertarian. Bad enough, but let’s just overlook that for a while. What we should never overlook are the methods by which he has attempted to bring about this and, presumably, other goals. Has anyone here ever whipped against Nick in any meaningful vote? Have any of you ran against him? What about rallied support in opposition to one of his preferred projects? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Well, I talked to some people who have. These people told me the results of their activities. Each of them said the same thing. Nick spoke with them, on the phone or in person, and explained to them that they are going to have to pay a price for going against him. They told me that he said their political career was over, that he would crush them, that their future in the party depended on them supporting him, and that there would be a price to pay for going against him. Good one, Nick. I especially like how you made sure that there was no email or other written record of you subtly threatening your political opponents—a theme that we will see repeat itself over and over again. I also appreciate the care you took in selecting your words. Consummate politician/car salesman/lawyer stuff there. You say these things in such a way that you can always claim that you meant it in a different way and then gaslight the shit out of those who call you out on it. You could always later say that you just meant political gamesmanship, rather than a smear campaign or something worse. Slick move! The threats aren’t limited to LNC members. I have spoken with several State affiliate chairs who told me the same thing. One of the sayings that Nick uses to issue threats is to tell people that they need to get on the train or in front of it. Wow, that’s clever! I mean, it implies that there’s a movement building behind you and your agenda (there isn’t) and that there is an air of inevitability to it (there isn’t). It also provides him the cover to later say that it wasn’t a threat. Everyone I talked to about this said that they took it as a threat because the tenor of it clearly indicated that it was. Nick, threatening people (politically or otherwise) is behavior horribly unbecoming of the leader of a political party. Except the bad ones. They seem to condone that sort of stuff. WE FUCKING DON’T. This shit right here is enough of a reason to demand your resignation. I didn’t think it would get much worse than this. Much to my chagrin, you proved me wrong, sir. Threats are one thing. Actively working to sabotage another member of the LNC doing work for the party is another ball of wax entirely. Sometime after being elected to the LNC, Joshua Smith was placed on the affiliate support committee. I’ll give you three guesses who put him on that committee! No? Ok, it was Nick. In a stunning and brave display of masterful leadership skills, Nick told several members of the LNC that he placed Joshua Smith on that committee because he wanted him to fail. Further, He expressed his anger at some of the LNC members who helped Mr. Smith so that the committee—the committee that is specifically responsible for helping our State affiliates—would be successful. What sort of leader places someone in a position with the expectation that they will fail? Worse, what sort of leader places someone in a position with the intent that they fail? I’ll try an even more specific one- what sort of leader places someone in a position with the intent that they fail and that failure will have significant negative downstream effects for their organization? Nick does. So, here’s where a disclaimer has to come into play. I’m not in the Mises caucus. I’m not in any serious caucus that actually does political work. I’m in the Waffle House caucus, the It’s Never Too Early For Scotch caucus, shit like that. I’m friendly enough with Joshua Smith but I wouldn’t call us friends. We’ve spoken maybe twice. I didn’t even talk to him about this piece because the second I did, some of you would throw the taint of some personal bias over this whole thing. I know that you “true believers” will never accept that as fact, but I can only present truth to you. What you do with it is your responsibility, not mine. Let’s talk about ethics for a bit, shall we? Sometimes, the field of ethics is a little fuzzy and there are grey areas in which those who aren’t eternally vigilant may find themselves. Other times, it’s pretty clear where the lines between right and wrong rest. There was once a lady named Lauren Daugherty who worked on LP staff as the director of development. According to all accounts, she was great at her job and was blasting out the fundraising like no one’s business. Lauren Daugherty decided, for whatever reason, to move on to something else in life and tendered her resignation to the chair, by way of the executive director. The chair sat on it for almost three weeks before telling the LNC. Let’s put that in perspective, shall we? An important team member, one whose work directly affects the financial health of our organization, decides to quit. The Chair decided to sit on this critically important information for half a month before telling the decision-making body of our organization. This caused a delay in even beginning the search for a new team member. When asked about it in an LNC meeting, the chair stated that he was making every effort he could to retain Lauren Daugherty during that delay. Woopsie! Mrs. Daugherty was in the meeting and called out that lie! She stated that there was never any contact with her from anyone trying to convince her to stay on. I’m pretty impressed at the gall of a board chair who openly lies to their board, especially one who has the sand in them to try it when the ONE PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE who could call them out on it is in the meeting. Bravo, sir. Bold move. There’s the first ethical no-no. Board members have an obligation to their colleagues to be honest with each other and work with each other in good faith. Nick failed that litmus test. It gets worse though. Nick, in the middle of this manufactured crisis, offered up his services as a fundraising consultant to the tune of seventy-five dollars an hour. That’s right, folks. Seventy-five dollars an hour. This money would, presumably, be to make the fundraising calls that Mrs. Daugherty had previously been making. Let that sink in. Our chair, a man who should be making these calls already as part of his chair duties, offered himself up in noble sacrifice to be highly compensated for actions he should be performing anyway. Stunning and brave! Hang on to your fucking petticoats, ladies and gentlemen, here’s where the ethical waters turn from murky to completely dark. When it was decision time for the LNC to vote on Nick’s generous offer, he voted. Ethics 101: one has an obligation to recuse oneself from any vote in which one has a financial stake. Let’s forget for a moment the exorbitant amount he wanted for his time, let’s focus on the fact that he broke this primary rule of ethical behavior. None of this required sourcing or interviews. If you give even a little bit of a shit about the truth, you can look through old meeting stuff. I did and it was terrible. I still did it. I just want to get this in before any asshats decide to question me or call me out on this part: Do YoUr ReSeArCh. Let’s get a little more contemporary, shall we? It’s time to talk about the upcoming convention, in all its glory. Before I get into it, I want to come out in support of fucking nothing. I don’t personally give a shit one way or the other how our convention goes down, whether online, in-person, or some combination of the two. I’m a delegate-elect and will be in attendance in any case. The problem with all the latest LNC meetings and the convention madness is that Nick told some members of the LNC that he intended to gavel in the convention over Memorial Day weekend, no matter what the LNC decided. Wrong answer, dude. You don’t get to do that. Our organization isn’t a monarchy over which you get to rule with an iron fist. The queen of England may be able to override parliament (I have no idea if she can or not, just sayin), but you do not have the authority to override the LNC. You claim that you’re operating in good faith and that your desire is to ensure ballot access for the early deadline States and protect the health of the delegates. Should we talk about the phone call, Nick? I think we should talk about the phone call. Let’s talk about the phone call. You got a phone call from someone, didn’t you? Someone named Poppy, right? I have it on good authority that Poppy had a conversation with you about Amash and the presidential nomination. That conversation went a little something like this: Nick- We’re going to have our presidential and vice-presidential nomination online over Memorial Day weekend. Poppy- And it will have to be ratified at a later, in- person, convention? Nick- That is correct. Poppy- That sounds like an online presidential preference poll. We don’t do those. We’re out if the process isn’t completed in one piece. Nick-… So here we are! Our chair is actively trying to recruit people who would be willing to amend the agenda and bang out the whole convention online so as to ensure that the process would be complete all at once, instead of bifurcated. This is despite the will of the LNC and an attempt to sway the will of the delegates. Nothing wrong with that, except you won’t tell us your motives behind it. I cannot support you in this because your past behavior indicates that you have a personal agenda that you haven’t disclosed. In light of recent events, specifically the withdrawal of Mr. Amash from the presidential race, it would seem prudent to bag the online idea because, as we’ve seen time and again, some of the delegates can and will sandbag the whole thing through motions, challenges, etc. Nick, on the other hand, seems to have doubled-down on the whole thing. Admitting you’re wrong is sometimes hard. I get it. That’s what this whole writing is about. It’s also extremely cathartic and useful. Try it, Nick. I don’t pretend to know why you think this was in the best interest of the party and why you tried so hard to ensure the playing field was the one which the Amash campaign demanded. I’m not in your head and the only person that can answer questions about it is you, sir. I believe you will not so it isn’t worth asking the questions. What I am convinced of is your actions performed in something close to secret. Folks, there are a hell of a lot more allegations floating around out there. I didn’t address those allegations because in many cases I could find no evidence to support them. In other cases, people asked me not to because they feared retribution. Shame on anyone who makes people feel that way for politics. Imagine being a part of a political organization in which speaking your mind could result in tangible negative consequences. Sure, freedom of association and dissociation blah blah blah. Being afraid to speak out because you fear retribution is a different thing entirely. To wrap this all up, our chair has a history of doing immoral and unethical things to get his way in the party. He has a history of trying to manipulate people through threats to sway decision making in his favor. His M.O. seems to be that, no matter what, the end justifies the means, even if it means compromising all our principles. I would like to close by quoting John Phillips Jr. again, only this time out of context, “Fuck right off.” P.S.—I would like to thank everyone who spoke with me about this, LNC members, State chairs, and other prominent figures in our party. I appreciate your courage in coming forward in the face of likely scorched earth style retribution. I especially want to thank John Phillips Jr., the man who blew the lid off this online. John, you didn’t scoop me. You only motivated me to finish working on this as fast as possible! 0 Comments HOW ARE THE GHOULS TAKING GOOD COVID NEWS? 5/13/2020 0 Comments Axios is reporting: "Some of the states that skeptics were most worried about, including Florida and Georgia, haven’t seen the rise in total cases that some experts feared. Florida’s new cases have actually declined by 14% compared to the previous week, and Georgia’s fell by 12%." "Some experts" have been predicting piles of corpses in Florida for weeks. Our governor didn't lock down soon enough, they said. These experts also predicted piles of corpses in Japan. Just wait two weeks, they said, and Japan will get what's coming to it. You'll see! Then...nothing. Then it was, "Oh, the Japanese wear masks and wash their hands," etc. Nice try, Bozo. You knew they did these things before you made the ghoulish predictions. What's so hard about admitting: we're not entirely sure what's going on here? And although the news about declining cases in Georgia and Florida is good, "cases" are not primarily what should concern us. The more we test, the more "cases" we find. The point is, most "cases" wind up amounting to precisely nothing. There were over 800 "cases" at that South Dakota meat packing plant, and so far over 800 recoveries. In March we got lurid reports of a doubling of "cases" in Hong Kong. We'd better wait two weeks! Piles of corpses! Eight weeks later, zero additional deaths. Now I'll be honest with you: I am afraid to see how these good numbers are being received by the Doomers. Some of them seemed to be practically licking their chops when describing the wave of deaths they were sure awaited jurisdictions that hadn't adopted their panoply of closures and restrictions. It was downright ghoulish. We shall see. Meanwhile: There is one place you can be sure will cheer good news, and which will keep you sane during the most Orwellian episode in American history. The Tom Woods Show Elite, of course. I look forward to welcoming you: http://www.SupportingListeners.com Tom Woods 0 Comments THE WORLDWIDE LOCKDOWN MAY BE THE GREATEST MISTAKE IN HISTORY 5/11/2020 0 Comments The forcible prevention of Americans from doing anything except what politicians deem “essential” has led to the worst economy in American history since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus, that created this catastrophe. And the consequences in much of the world will be more horrible than in America. The United Nations World Food Programme, or the WFP, states that by the end of the year, more than 260 million people will face starvation -- double last year's figures. According to WFP director David Beasley on April 21: "We could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries. ... There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself.” That would be enough to characterize the worldwide lockdown as a deathly error. But there is much more. If global GDP declines by 5%, another 147 million people could be plunged into extreme poverty, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Foreign Policy magazine reports that, according to the International Monetary Fund, the global economy will shrink by 3% in 2020, marking the biggest downturn since the Great Depression, and the U.S., the eurozone and Japan will contract by 5.9%, 7.5% and 5.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, across South Asia, as of a month ago, tens of millions were already "struggling to put food on the table." Again, all because of the lockdowns, NOT the virus. Read more at PJ Media Here. 0 Comments ABOLISH THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX 3/8/2020 0 Comments The adoption of the income tax in 1913 changed everything for Americans. By wielding the power to tax people’s income, the federal government became the master and the American people became the servants. To enforce the tax, the federal government brought into existence the Internal Revenue Service, one of the most tyrannical, destructive, and feared agencies in history. At the same time, the income tax is one of the major reasons why young people are today having such a difficult time getting started in life. The ideally free society is one in which people would be trusted and relied upon to voluntarily fund the legitimate functions of the federal government, which are few and inexpensive. Absent that, the second-best method is the indirect taxation methods chosen by our American ancestors. The most destructive method of taxation is the income tax. For more go read Jacob For Liberty: https://jacobforliberty.com/position/taxation/ 0 Comments <<Previous -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Search the libertyLOL Archives: × search Web Image Sort by: Relevance Relevance Date -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- libertylol - LibertyBlog * Why won't the CORPORATE Media show you these charts? Every day there are more charts that undermine the "we have to stay home and cancel everything" narrative, and I have a couple of those for you today, but first I want to show you something else.Someone I follow on Twitter just released a Tweet thread that sums up the inhuman COVID response so beautifully that I had to share it with you:The East Coast is home to a little under 130,000,000 people. And 130 million is the number of people in the world that our global overreaction to COVID has pushe [...] * Libertarians: The Morning After the Election Message I had high expectations for yesterday and they were not all met. To the extent you are disappointed by the results, I apologize to you. I would like to offer a bit of a pep talk.Everyone else seems to be in the soup with us. Democrats were anticipating a landslide and spent hundreds of millions to make it happen but it’s looking like the Republicans kept the Senate and gained seats in the House. Republicans expected President Trump to be re-elected and while the election was close, [...] * “The Precautionary Principle” with Dr Frank If you don't follow Dr Frank's open Facebook Group, you should. Check out Follow the Data with Dr Frank. He's the adult in the room which is refreshingly rare on social media.“The Precautionary Principle”Watch out for this one. It is irrational, and can be used to justify just about any decision or behavior. It goes something like this:“Since there is the possibility that something *could* happen, we should take precautions and do x.”This leads to all sorts of silly [...] * Tyrants Impose Limits on Gatherings as Virus Wanes You may not be aware of what the bastards are doing in the UK.The UK has been in the clear on the virus for a long time.Here's a relevant chart:Well, now they're imposing more restrictions.With a few exceptions, no social gatherings of more than six people.That applies to indoors and outdoors.It applies to your house.If you have six or more people in your household you are allowed to gather in public or private (how generous!) but not with anyone else.These rules are expected to last through the [...] * The Kyle Rittenhouse CASE Will make or break the Second Amendment Homeschool with the BEST! Click the banner for more information!Any positive mention of Kyle Rittenhouse is being censored on FB. You know why?Part of it is so that the officialista class can set the narrative that he was there to hunt protestors, is a murderer, a mass shooter, a racist, all in an effort to make this case as political as possible.The cracks are already starting to show with the Chicago Tribune releasing an article saying why he will “get off”.But thats all a means to an end, [...] * Police Abuse: What Would The Penalty Be If Private Police Did This? As you read this story, please keep the title question in mind. What would the penalty be if this was conducted by a private company? What accountability would you demand?Walter Ogrod was just set free after spending 3 decades on death row. The reason he was there in the first place underscores everything that is wrong with the justice system.In July of 1988, a 4 year old girl named Barbara Jean went missing in Philadelphia. Her body was found wrapped in a garbage bag inside of a TV [...] * LNC Chair Abandons Core Principles, Abuses Authority h/t Matthew HicksI started writing this piece twice now and couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs. The whole thing felt wrong to me. I walked away from putting in any work and took a little time to think about what I was doing and why. It finally occurred to me that I was trying to write it in a professional manner, using a voice that you might expect from a professional journalist. The problem is that isn’t me. This version, the final version, will be completely in my ow [...] * How are the ghouls taking good CoVid news? Axios is reporting:"Some of the states that skeptics were most worried about, including Florida and Georgia, haven’t seen the rise in total cases that some experts feared. Florida’s new cases have actually declined by 14% compared to the previous week, and Georgia’s fell by 12%.""Some experts" have been predicting piles of corpses in Florida for weeks. Our governor didn't lock down soon enough, they said.These experts also predicted piles of corpses in Japan. Just wait two weeks, they [...] * The Worldwide Lockdown May Be the Greatest Mistake in History The forcible prevention of Americans from doing anything except what politicians deem “essential” has led to the worst economy in American history since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus, that created this catastrophe. And the consequences in much of the world will be more horrible than in America.The United Nations World Food Programme, or the WFP, states that by the end of the year, more than 260 million people will face starvat [...] ARCHIVES December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 March 2019 August 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter your email address for Liberty Articles sent DIRECT to your inbox! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Search and Shop on Amazon.com! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOM WOOD'S LIBERTY CLASSROOM "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day...." 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