Five Libertarian Ideas #4

iPhone cookie prank

Not gonna lie, the iPhone cookie gag is hilarious, but only for a moment. This is already a top-ranking post on the Daily Paul. Seriously??? What will playing funny tricks on the police do to advance LIBERTY? Now the cops will be taking EXTRA good, long looks into your moving car to decipher whether you're on your phone or just another asshole with a cookie. —12/16

The Mexican Drug War

BLOWBACK BLUES: Just like Prohibition created organized crime in America, the war on drugs created organized crime in Latin America. It turns out lots of those anti-communist soldiers and guerrillas the U.S. government trained ended up becoming drug traffickers. They're trading with the Mexican cartels and training Mexican narco-guerrillas in military tactics. Oh, the sweet irony... —12/17

Confederate Army generals

The U.S. Army War College is pondering removing the portraits of Confederate generals from its walls, notably Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, in order to "tell a particular Army story"... Shouldn't we instead be asking what the U.S. government DID that some of the greatest generals in American history fought as rebels??? We NEED to maintain a spirit of national reconciliation. We NEED to keep alive the history of America's most painful war, so that history doesn't repeat itself. —12/18

Christianity and libertarianism

It's a shame how so many fellow Christians are so hostile to libertarian ideas. Christianity and libertarianism go hand in hand. The Bible makes it clear that we're born with free will and that believing in the Christ is a CHOICE. Many of my libertarian friends choose to be atheist, but I love them no less for it; I love them all the more for respecting my choices and my moral compass, unlike liberal or conservative Christians who would rather dictate to me the terms of my life on Earth. —12/19

Identity theft, Traget red card, and the Fed

The major security breach with the Target 'red card' credit cards just goes to show what can happen with easy credit. Virtually anyone can get a red card because this system of banking and easy credit is predatory and new interest rate victims are always needed. Easy credit points to high risk loans and expansion of the money supply, which in turn point to the Federal Reserve banking cartel. It was a fluke that these card holders were looted by identity thieves before the predatory creditors got to them. —12/20 

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iPhone cookie photo courtesy of the Daily Paul. Jesus stain-glass art by Alfred Handel; photo released under CC BY-SA 3.0 license by Toby Hudson, and obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

Five Libertarian Ideas #3

World War I

World War I be damned! The Fed inflated currency for an Allied victory. WWI gave us the Armenian genocide. It gave us the rise of the Bolsheviks and a charming country called the Soviet Union. The lines in Africa and the Middle East were re-drawn with no regard for ethnic/religious rivalries. Worst of all, WWI and the lopsided Versailles Treaty gave us the Nazi Party and eventually World War II. Mr. Wilson, the war DID NOT make the world safe for democracy! —12/09

Private drones

I'm not a fan of Amazon.com having its private fleet of drones. Private drones can violate our right to privacy just as easily as government models. Better yet, any developments Amazon funds in drone technology can easily be taken over by the government in a time of war. —12/10

Rand Paul 2016

I highly respect the Libertarian Party. Hell, I even voted for Gary Johnson in November 2012. Still, I must say this: let's not split up the liberty vote in the 2016 presidential election. If Rand Paul is good enough for Ron Paul, then he's good enough for me. Rand's presidency will be a big step up for liberty if he's able to do even half of what he's been lobbying for in the Senate. —12/11

Balancing the right to life

A woman in Michigan nearly died because the Catholic hospital she was a patient at refused to perform an emergency abortion of a stillborn baby. This is disturbing! Private institutions have every right to not perform certain procedures per freedom of religion, but it's their responsibility to provide timely options for treatments at other hospitals so their patents' lives aren't jeopardized. If institutions don't regulate themselves, the American people will regulate them through big government liberalism. —12/12

GOP/Libertarian Party partnerships

Talking with many liberty activists, I see an EXCELLENT tactic on the rise. In Republican-controlled and swing districts, we run libertarians for Congress and state legislatures on the Republican ticket while the Libertarian Party runs candidates for city council and school board. In leftist districts where the GOP has no chance, the LP runs candidates for major office as dialogue changers while the LP and GOP partner on local races. The liberty movement will eventually dominate American politics as long as we continue putting principles before party. —12/13

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Drone image courtesy of AGX Technologia via CC BY-SA 3.0 license.  LP UK image courtesy of T.D. Fleming via CC BY-SA 3.0 license.  Both images obtained via Wikimedia Commons.

10 Things That Piss Off Amputees

I often get a lot of questions from people who ask me about my disability.  Many folks in the liberty movement have seen my face all over the Internet, but not the rest of my body.  Needless to say, finding out I have one arm can be a little shocking for some folks.  After many interesting and colorful questions, here are a few things I’d like to share with everyone.  Keep in mind this is all from my own perspective.  So here are 10 things that piss off amputees:

1.      Being called an ‘amputee.’  I suppose it doesn’t matter for actual amputees, but it does for folks like me.  I’m not actually an amputee—I’m congenitally limb-deficient, meaning I was born without an arm.  There was no amputation and nothing was removed.

2.      Asking about parental drug use.  “Did your mom do drugs when she was pregnant with you?”   Now let me ask YOU something: Did your mom used to pull trains back in college during the era of sexual liberation?  Not exactly the most pleasant thing to picture, is it?  Neither is the idea of my MOM doing hard drugs.  To answer the question, no.  My mom was a patrol officer in the LAPD when I was born.  She was quite healthy and in tip-top shape.  Some things just happen and you need to get used to that.  For those whose disabilities really are from parental drug use, let them tell you, because that’s private and potentially embarrassing information.

3.      Staring.  If people were checking out my hard-earned physique, I wouldn’t particularly mind.  But I know 9 out of 10 times they’re either staring at my prosthetic arm, or on relaxed days, at my empty sleeve.  As your eyes tell you, there’s nothing there.  Neither another arm nor Waldo are hiding there, so you won’t find them by staring a little harder.

It's funny when we do it...

4.      Amputee humor.  Don’t try making jokes about “giving me a hand” or “getting a kick” out of something.  It’s funny when we do it, not when you do it.  You ever walked right up to a man and made racist jokes about his ethnic group?  Same train of thought here.  And for heaven’s sake, I’m a Jedi knight, not Robocop!

5.      Trying to help carry things.  It’s very polite to offer help to someone struggling with carrying heavy or awkward items.  If they take you up on your offer, great.  If not, don’t keep insisting.  If I need help, I’ll ask.  If you think I or any other amputee will fail, let us fail and get it over with, because we may prove you wrong after all.  Seriously, I work out for a reason.  I can carry more than your average Joe.

6.      Telling us stories.  It’s common practice for people to try to relate to an amputee by telling some old, tired story I don’t give a rat’s ass about.  Yeah yeah yeah, your father’s mother’s uncle’s brother’s second cousin’s former roommate (twice removed) lost his leg in a motorcycle accident back in 1985.  Yeah yeah yeah, I’m sure he inspires everybody.  The story would’ve been nice when I was 5 years old and doubting myself, but now that I’m pushing 25, I think I can make it through the day without feeling sorry for myself.  Now can I have my life back, please?  I have to go to class.

7.      Pity.  Don’t feel sorry for me.  Don’t lament over a tragedy that never occurred.  I can never miss what I never had, and those who do miss what they once had are a minority among amputees.  Pitying us only reinforces the idea that we’re victims instead of the empowered people we strive to be.  You should offer your sympathies to Lorena Bobbit’s husband long before offering them to us.

8.      Online dating.  I had to learn the hard way to make it absolutely clear in writing that I’m missing my right forearm.  It’s less than a footnote to me because I’ve conquered the disability, but it’s a giant shock to some people who’ve never been around a disability.  While I have met some high-quality women who don’t mind it, I have met others who read my profile and think I could be the father of their children… until they find out that some assembly is still required.  Then they run in the other direction.  At least it makes for fun stories at happy hour.

9.      Lack of honesty.  Because we’re real people with emotions and stuff, we have relationships, even romantic ones!  And many of them come to an end. Such is life.  There is nothing more annoying than people walking on egg shells to spare our feelings.  Ladies, don’t say “It’s not you, it’s me.”  It’s the oldest line in the book.  Be honest—it is me.  Maybe I wasn’t romantic enough, maybe I didn’t pay enough attention to you, maybe it’s my random humor, or maybe I’m just an asshole.  So just be honest so that I can learn from it and improve myself.

10.  Lazy non-amputees.  People who illegally park in handicapped spaces or take the elevator for only one floor seriously need to be thoroughly beaten with an old World War II veteran’s prosthetic leg.  Lazy bastards!

So I hope these things made the picture a little more clear for some of you.  These are problems unique to an often overlooked sector of society.  By no means do we want all kinds of special attention—God knows special attention to amputees is often of the circus variety.  But remember that we’re human beings, with our strength and faults just like you.

Frankly, my disability was a blessing in disguise.  Without it, I never would have had the drive to swim across lakes, climb mountains, become an Eagle Scout, join the military, and become a serious liberty activist… all of the above-mentioned just to prove to myself that I could.

My day job is to help train combat medics. I LOVE what I do!

Bonus - Things that piss veterans off: When I’m sitting around with a bunch of my veteran buddies, all of whom were in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, but strangers come up to the group and they think I’m the war veteran.  I always tell the truth, but not gonna lie, it’s kinda hilarious.

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Online dating graphic courtesy of SheKnows.com

Five Libertarian Ideas #2

Prostitution

Prostitution, as voluntary exchange between consenting adults, could be a victimless "crime," but government bans make it a punishable crime and drive it into the criminal underground. Sex's high demand and low supply creates a need for prostitutes, so criminal pimps will kidnap and coerce modern slaves. This is how women and young girls get caught in human trafficking. Every client a prostitute serves is an act of aggression against her body and soul, inflicted on her by her pimp who is her "State" in the criminal underground. Does government intervention REALLY help??? –12/2

Anarchism vs. Minarchism

Anarchist and minarchist libertarians need to bury the hatchet already. Don't be elitist because you do or don't believe in eliminating the state right away. A revolution won't magically happen. We need to CONSOLIDATE the strength of our #libertarian organizations and work to elect Libertarians and libertarian Republicans who will vote and fight to End the Fed, end the TSA, fight the IRS, end the warrant-less wiretapping, bring back a gold or competing minerals standard, protect the 2nd Amendment, end the war on drugs, and bring our troops home.  –12/3

Anarchists and elections

Libertarian hatchet-burying Part II: Anarchist and minarchist libertarians often work together in the Libertarian Party and even the Republican Party's libertarian faction. The an-caps who participate in the electoral process agree on the following:

--Yes, the state is "violence", and so participating in elections would constitute in participating in "violence"

--Since the state has already committed "violence" by taxing/robbing us and stripping away our liberties, for libertarians to participate in elections is SELF-DEFENSE, which does not violate the NAP.

--By building our movement and winning libertarian victories at the polls, they can use their self-defensive actions to LOWER and eventually END the violence of the state.

Our movement will NEVER succeed if we can't pair THEORY with REALITY. –12/3

Attacking people with truth

Judd Weiss said it best: we need to DISCUSS our ideas with people, NOT argue or troll. Telling people "YOU'RE WRONG" is like beating them in the face with the truth, so then people have to DEFEND against the truth assault. They shut themselves off to our libertarian message in mental self-defense because our approach was that of a bully. There are more positive ways to counter their ideas, like "You have a good point but I see a better solution" or "Actually, I've seen LOTS of evidence to the contrary." Then they RECEIVE the truth because you're treating them like a peer, not like the enemy. –12/4

Nelson Mandela’s lessons

Dear liberty movement: talking shit about Nelson Mandela for allegedly being a socialist/communist is NO way to win the liberty movement any supporters. He's far too well beloved, and I guarantee you any smack talk will burn bridges with potential libertarians coming from the left. It's much better to use Mandela's life to respectfully promote libertarian ideas, especially libertarian solutions to approaching and improving race relations. –12/5

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Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton image is by the U.S. Government and in the public domain.  The image was obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

Five Libertarian Ideas #1

Electing libertarians

The liberty movement's best inter-party electoral strategy is to run Libertarian candidates for local offices and libertarian Republicans for state and federal offices. (11/22)

Facebook activism

Tagging a boat-load of people in politically charged photos is no way to grow the liberty movement. A much better (and less annoying) alternative for reaching those less politically inclined is benignly commenting on current events and the unfortunate people being hurt by the event or policy. (11/25)

Violence against women

The amount of domestic and sexual violence committed against women is unacceptable. That's why I support women who practice their 2nd Amendment right. A person's liberty is no less at stake when attacked by an individual instead of the state. (11/27)

Thanksgiving

Let's count our blessings that human ingenuity, the market economy, and voluntary cooperation have raised our overall standard of living and our ability to survive in what was once untamed wilderness. Now we have Internet, heating, running water, and the closest thing to Indian fighting these days is the day we all pig out and pretend there was no Indian fighting. (11/28)

JFK

I've really enjoyed seeing all the libertarian tributes to JFK on the Internet recently. He had his faults, but using his more liberty-friendly quotes to promote our libertarian views is a GREAT way to reach out to the left. (11/29)

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Adapted Gadsden flag image is in the public domain and was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.