Betas: 'Pinochet ONLY Killed 3,000 People!'

"Communism killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. Agosto Pinochet only killed 3,000 people!"  That's the excuse the alt-right and other fascist sympathizers cower behind.  For starters, it's a weak argument.  Let's not forget that between Italy's invasion of Africa as well as Japan's invasion of Manchuria and the end of World War II that fascism killed in 15 years almost as many victims as Communism killed in 75 years!

But alas, closeted white supremacists scream about the red menace while ignoring the others. They're like people who worry about swine flu, bird flu, West Nile virus, etc. while ignoring things like the common flu which kills way more people.  Worse yet, many Libertarians are too spineless to call these fascists what they really are (i.e. socialists hiding behind the colors of nationalism, or the kind of people which Ludwig von Mises trashed decades ago in his writings). 

Let's come up with a hypothetical character... a fictional revolutionary conservative we'll call Victus Romano.  If Victus hooks up with a transsexual prostitute in Orlando before physically removing him/her out of a helicopter, and he finds that he only has 1 wart on his dick whereas the hooker's last client has 100 warts on his dick, it doesn't matter that the other guy's herpes outbreak is way worse than Victus'.

VICTUS STILL HAS HERPES.

At this point, we're ONLY arguing about the number of sores, not the fact that he has a DISEASE.

Government is a disease. All this weak argument of "only 3,000" does is 1) distract from the main issue by making it about quantity versus quality, also distracting from the simple truth that tyranny is tyranny and democide is fucking democide; 2) It encourage confused libertarians to go full retard. Never go full retard!

The problem is these people were largely killed based on hearsay and without a trial. Even if 99% of them were communists, Pinochet still violated the individual rights of the innocent people wrongly killed. Libertarianism is about protecting individuals, not killing communists.

Unfortunately, the Pepe the Frog cult doesn't care about rights. Their idea of free speech includes every private event accommodating Richard Spencer's right to speak, but in their world, free speech doesn't exist for communists.  Communists only exist to be murdered... to somehow protect freedom.

No, the alt-right doesn't care about rights.  They only care about growing their state to protect their private property from the threat of left-wing... statists.  The government must be grown and a little bit of private property seized in order to protect us all from the boogeymen who want to... grow the government and take private property. They're Republicans who discovered the anarchy symbol, much like every 12 year old punk rock kid in the suburbs who discovers Ozzy Osbourne and Iron Maiden.

I'm willing to bet a whole bunch of liberals probably just made your average Kek cyber worshiper feel bad for being white. I'll be here waiting when those people get tired of conforming to the pure raw ANGER radiating from the alt-right.

Also, Victus, Mexico is still not paying for your god-emperor's Wall.

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Pinochet image courtesy of Know Your Meme.  Good Night Left Side and Anti-Antifa insignia courtesy of sexually humiliated angry men.  Full permission is granted to reprint the text of this article as long as the author is credited and a link is provided back to this page.

The Armed Libertarian Revolution in Mexico (Part 4)

Part 4: One of the finest libertarian moments of the Revolution

Revolutionary generals Zapata (center-left) and Villa (center-right) occupy Mexico City

One of the most libertarian moments of the Mexican Revolution came when Zapata and Villa occupied Mexico City.  For the first time ever, the residents of the Federal District saw genuine people’s armies.  Pancho Villa’s troops all wore distinct uniforms, had northern accents, and were known for partying and looting.  The Zapatistas were a bona fide peasant army and shocked the nation with their self-discipline and good manners.  They wore large straw hats, the clothing in which they worked the fields, sandals on their calloused feet, and carried whatever hunting rifles, muskets, or enemy weapons they could scrounge.  The Zapatists were remarkably respectful of private property, noted for knocking on doors and asking if the residents could spare a tortilla or a cup of water.

During the brief occupation of Mexico City, Villa and Zapata sat in the Presidential Palace.  Both revolutionary generals agreed that neither one of them should be President of Mexico.  As Villa said, “This ranch is too big for us.”  While Villa arguably craved some degree of power and prestige, he was happiest among his troops in the North and had no national political ambitions.  Zapata had no desire whatsoever to rule over Mexico.  Both generals and their armies left the capital and went home.  George Washington is praised for setting the precedent of stepping down from the presidency, but Villa and Zapata literally had it under their seats and chose to walk away.

Scholars and veterans of the Mexican Revolution agree that the Revolution was hijacked and corrupted.  Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution promised significant land reform to the peasants, but the Constitutionalist regime had no intention of expropriating the land from their wealthy backers.  The national revolutionary labor union, the CROM, mirrored the large unions in the U.S. and transformed from a platform for improving wages and working conditions into a cattle pen for delivering workers to state-backed enterprises.  The extreme anti-clerical measures against the Catholic Church went beyond justice against a politicized religious organization, and went so far as to outlaw the practice of Catholicism.  The vast and overwhelming majority of the population is devoutly Catholic, so it’s hardly a surprise that persecuted Catholics would rebel against the Plutarco Elias Calles regime in the 1920s.  Today, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) dominates most of the government, although both Revolutionary (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN) candidates and elected officials are often bought and threatened by drug lords.

Today, there are three fronts for advancing liberty in Mexico.  One is formed by the guerrillas, including the Zapatista National Libertion Army (EZLN) in Chiapas, who continue to resist eminent domain and illegal forced evictions. Another is formed by libertarian organizations like the Libertarian Party of Mexico (PLM), which openly advocates for limited governments and free markets, and organizes networks of people sympathetic to libertarian ideas.  These people are usually those with grievances against the government or against government-backed cronies in the private sector.  Finally, the third front for liberty in Mexico is formed by the various Community Police and self-defense militias operating throughout Michoacan, Guerrero, parts of Chihuahua, and in other Mexican states.  The most effective civilian militias with the greatest success in fighting the violence and predation of the drug cartels have been those who have not cooperated with the government.

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For further reading:

"The Uprising in Baja California"

Frank McLynn, Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution

Friedrick Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution

The Storm That Swept Mexico (documentary film available on YouTube)

The Last Zapatistas: Forgotten Heroes (documentary film available on YouTube)

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (HBO biopic available on YouTube)

Zach Foster, "Civil War in Mexico: Re-Examining Armed Conflict and Criminal Insurgency"

U.S. Libertarian Party Condemns Cuba's Incarceration of Libertarians

Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea have lit some huge brush fires of liberty in the short time since their arrest by State Security and incarceration in the Cuban Gulag.  After 10 Libertarian state parties in the United States, as well as the Libertarian parties of Spain and Russia, condemned the action and called for the release of Herrera and Velazquez, the U.S. (national) Libertarian Party published the following:

The Libertarian National Committee of the United States condemns the arrest and detention of political dissidents Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez, who have been detained by the Cuban government since their arrest on February 2.

Both men were targeted for peacefully promoting small government, civil liberties, and free markets, for which they occasionally distributed flyers and put up posters.

Hernandez and Velazquez are members of Mises Cuba, an independent think tank which is based on the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Auburn, Alabama.

Mises Cuba has confirmed the activists’ ongoing detention.

“Hernandez and Velazquez are political prisoners whose actions have harmed no one and damaged no property,” said Nicholas Sarwark, Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. “We stand in solidarity with our fellow freedom fighters in Cuba.”

The Libertarian National Committee passed a resolution asserting that the activists’ arrest and detention “illustrate the threats to freedom we all face around the world.”

It further states:
“The Libertarian Party calls on the Cuban government to immediately release details of the above-mentioned arrests and detentions, including the specific charges being levied against the individuals in question. In the absence of such information, we call for the release of these prisoners.

“Libertarian activism worldwide must not be deterred by the attempts of authoritarian leaders, totalitarian governments, and dictatorial regimes to silence the voice of freedom. We condemn any acts of official oppression, and uphold the promotion of limited government and free markets in any country. Furthermore, we call on the U.S. Department of State to publicly denounce violations of the right to free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to due process abroad.”

For more information about this story:

Report: Arrested Mises Cuba Member Charged with “Distributing Enemy Propaganda”

Cuban libertarian activists sent to the gulag

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The Libertarian Party of Nevada extends a sincere THANK YOU to the LNC members who votes Yes on this resolution, on behalf of the libertarians of Mises Cuba and the Ben Franklin Library, and on behalf of the families of the now 6 imprisoned libertarians: Ubaldo Herrera Hernández, Manuel Velázquez Visea, René Ronco Machín, Rolando Guerra, Roser Ayala García, and Rafael Averof Rodríguez.  Repression against the ideas of liberty carries on in Cuba and elsewhere.  Days ago, Rodrigo Quintana of Paraguay's Authentic Radical Liberal Party was shot dead by police.  Less than 2 weeks ago, Javier Oteca was murdered in Colombia.  Oteca was a libertarian activist who'd been occupying and reclaiming lands stolen from indigenous peoples through eminent domain or forced evictions by paramilitary forces and given to crony corporations. Early in February, a libertarian and Community Police (anti-cartel self-defense militia) veteran named David (last name withheld) was murdered in Mexico City.  Last summer, libertarian activist Salvador Olmos Garcia was killed by crooked police in Oaxaca.  Sadly, the international libertarian movement has its martyrs, but it now also has international attention.

Also, Guatemalan libertarian author, activist, and talk radio star Gloria Alvarez recently dedicated an episode of the politics and current events talk show Libertopolis to the heroism of libertarians in Cuba.  Havana-based activists Nelson Rodriguez and Caridad Ramirez talked about the arrest and incarceration of Ubaldo Herrera and Manuel Velazquez, about the activism of Mises Cuba and the Benjamin Franklin Libertarian Library, and about the government's increased repression against libertarians and all other perceived opposition on the island.  Spanish speakers can enjoy the interview here.  LP Nevada extends a sincere thank you to Ms. Alvarez and to the independent Chilean libertarians who plan on protesting the incarceration in front of the Cuban embassy in Santiago in the near future.

Cuba's libertarians have officially asked the international libertarian community for help.  You can write to several human rights watch groups with the names of the libertarian prisoners. We recommend Amnesty International, The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, Human Rights Cuba, and the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation.  You can also directly contact Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations on Facebook and call for the immediate release of the libertarian political prisoners (@CubaMINREX on Twitter).  Finally, you can visit MisesCuba.org or email misescubacontacto@gmail.com to find out how to donate Bitcoins to Mises Cuba and the Benjamin Franklin Libertarian Library.

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Image courtesy of Haaretz.  This article was first published by the Libertarian Party of Nevada.  Full permission to reprint or republish this article on the condition that the author and first publisher are credited, and the reproduction links back to this page.

The Armed Libertarian Revolution in Mexico (Part 3)

Part 3: Villa, Zapata, and the citizen-soldiers

Francisco "Pancho" Villa (center), Commander, Northern Division

From 1910 to 1919, Emiliano Zapata led the Liberation Army of the South and is responsible for Morelos’ period of autonomy until his murder under a false flag of truce.  Like Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys, and also like the irregulars at Concord and Boston, the Zapatistas fought a prolonged guerrilla war with the popular support of the public throughout Morelos and in parts of Puebla and Mexico State.  Like the Green Mountain Boys in the New Hampshire land grants, like the American Sagebrush Rebellion, like the militants at the Bundy Ranch standoff and the Oregon wildlife refuge standoff, and like the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas today, the government called the original Zapatistas criminals and terrorists when they took up arms to resist eminent domain. 

Pancho Villa is a controversial figure in the Mexican Revolution.  People from Northern Mexico still revere him as a man of the people, while the descendants of his enemies still revile him as a gangster.  The truth is that he was somewhere in between the two.  Testimonies of Villista veterans and civilians testifies that the Northern Division really did often provide food and badly needed public services to the civilian population.  In this sense, the exploited population were less exploited under the revolutionaries than they were by the federal and loyalist state governments.  However, Villa did have the ability to be brutal and have people executed at the drop of a hat.  Part of the brutality known among Villa and his lieutenants comes from having been gangsters. 

Villa never particularly wanted to be a gangster, but it came out of necessity.  His career as an outlaw began in his teenage years when he had to flee his native Durango after killing the local boss.  The feudal lord was in the process of sexually assaulting Villa’s sister when the boy intervened and killed the man.  Modern courts would recognize this as a justifiable homicide, and the rape of a maiden was certainly a crime in a conservative Catholic country.  Unfortunately, in those days, peasants had no rights in court.  Doroteo Arango, his underground name Francisco Villa, became a criminal when he decided not to let his sister be raped.

Villa was by no means a libertarian--his violent streak and willingness to "liberate" property attests to that.  Zapata was the libertarian, not Villa, but Villa and the Villistas had a series of magnificent libertarian moments and a long list of libertarian grievances.  Despite his record as an outlaw and later as a warlord, Villa was an underdog and a victim of circumstance like millions of other working men and women.  Villa reorganized his cattle rustling gang into a guerrilla army and, through victory and innovation, this militia quickly transformed into a professional army.  Villa’s army represents a true people’s army, recruited from a population hostile to the federal government and loyal to their local underdog whom songs and newspapers were describing as a Robin Hood figure.  The career of Pancho Villa is significant to so many Mexicans because Villa symbolizes victims finally getting back at their oppressors after suffering so long.

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Continued tomorrow in Part 4

Villistas image courtesy of Pinterest.  Full permission to reprint or republish this article is granted, provided the author is credited and this page is linked back to.

Colorado, Chile, and Guatemala Libertarians Condemn Cuban Government for Arrests

International support keeps growing for the now-famous Cuban libertarian prisoners, Ubaldo Herrera and Manuel Velazquez.  In recent demonstrations of support for the prisoners and opposition to the regime that sent them to Melena del Sur, the Cuban Gulag, libertarians in Colorado, Guatemala, and Chile took a public stand against the Castro regime's oppression of libertarians associated with Mises Cuba and the Benjamin Franklin Libertarian Library in Havana.  The parties involved are the Libertarian Party of Colorado, a libertarian talk radio celebrity in Guatemala City, and independent libertarians in Santiago, Chile.

In a recent press release, the Libertarian Party of Colorado said the following:

In early February, two libertarian activists, Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velasquez Visea, were arrested in Cuba and convicted of attempted assault and the highly disturbing “distributing enemy propaganda” in short order. There is no evidence of any violence by these activists, and the subversive literature is in fact the type of items that Libertarians routinely read and distribute here in the United States. This conviction is a violation of the human right to peacefully declare one’s political convictions, and further, it is reported that the conditions of the prison where Ubaldo and Manuel are currently housed is the equivalent of the “gulag.” The Libertarian Party of Colorado joins the state Libertarian parties of Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Indiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Florida in calling for the Cuban government to free these activists by passing the following Resolution:

The Libertarian Party of Colorado condemns the unjust detention of libertarian activists Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velasquez by agents of the Castro regime in Cuba on February 2, and demands the immediate safe release of these political prisoners who were targeted for their peaceful activism promoting limited government and free markets. We further ask the U.S. government's State Department to place diplomatic pressure on the Castro regime for their release, and encourage Libertarian Party members and supporters to contact their elected officials toward that end.

Recently, Guatemalan libertarian author, activist, and talk radio star Gloria Alvarez dedicated an episode of the politics and current events talk show Libertopolis to the heroism of libertarians in Cuba.  Havana-based activists Nelson Rodriguez and Caridad Ramirez talked about the arrest and incarceration of Ubaldo Herrera and Manuel Velazquez, about the activism of Mises Cuba and the Benjamin Franklin Libertarian Library, and about the government's increased repression against libertarians and all other perceived opposition on the island.  Spanish speakers can enjoy the interview here.

Libertarians in Chile also took a public stand.  Libertarianism is still in its seedling stages across Latin America, where CIA-sponsored terror has made socialism the default 'good-guy' philosophy for 60 years.  Despite their small numbers, independent Chilean libertarians took to the streets of Santiago to protest the incarceration directly in front of the Cuban embassy.  LP Nevada heartily extends a high-five to the handful of Chilean libertarians who did more for liberty with their one action of defiance than most of the armchair activists reading this article.  

In recent weeks, the incarceration was also denounced by the Libertarian parties of Spain and Russia.  This movement is growing.  Far from weakening political opposition, the Castro regime has only made libertarianism stronger. LP Nevada's sources in Havana say that Ubaldo Herrera and Manuel Velazquez are converting and new libertarians in the labor prison.  Even in their cell, the hunger strikers are growing the liberty movement in Cuba. Moreover, the Castro regime's repression has strengthened solidarity among libertarians across the world, but especially in the Americas.

Libertarians keep arguing against government intervention in favor of civil society voluntarily solving problems. Now is the time for libertarians to follow through on that standard with action. No one else is going to help our libertarian brothers languishing in the Cuban Gulag. Cuba's libertarians are officially asking the international libertarian community for help.

You can write to several human rights watch groups with the names of the libertarian prisoners. We recommend Amnesty International, The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, Human Rights Cuba, and the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation.  You can also directly contact Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations on Facebook and call for the immediate release of the libertarian political prisoners (@CubaMINREX on Twitter).  Finally, you can visit MisesCuba.org or email misescubacontacto@gmail.com to find out how to donate Bitcoins to Mises Cuba snd the Benjamin Franklin Libertarian Library.

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** Note: I was recently contacted by one of the Chilean libertarians.  Regrettably, they report that the protest at the embassy was postponed at the last minute in order to protest another, more local injustice, and a person's first priority is to clean up his own house.  Nonetheless, the Chilean libertarians insist they fully intend to follow through with the postponed Cuba protest in the near future.

Image courtesy of Region Coquimbo and has been cropped from its original version.  This article was first published by the Libertarian Party of Nevada.  Full permission is granted to reprint or republish this article, provided the author and first publisher are credited and the reproduction links back to this page.

The Armed Libertarian Revolution in Mexico (Part 2)

Part 2: Private Property and the Libertion Army of the South

Apart from the separatist anarchist Magonistas, two nations were fighting to preserve their autonomy.  One was the Maya people of Southern Mexico, who fought a long guerrilla war against Mexico until 1933 in the Yucatan region.  The Yaqui people in the North joined almost every revolutionary faction in their well-based hatred of the Diaz regime, but they served Alvaro Obregon’s Constitutionalist Army with distinction, with the understanding their service would earn their autonomy and right to resettle along the Yaqui River.  When the revolutionary state ignored its promises to the Yaquis, they revolted in 1920 and fought on until 1927.  They had a legitimate grievance in 1910, and they had kept up their end of their contract with the Constitutionalists. They had an entirely new and entirely legitimate grievance in 1920.

Emiliano Zapata, Commander, Liberation Army of the South

One state where Rothbard’s bandit analogy is taken very seriously is Morelos, the home state of Emiliano Zapata.  Emiliano Zapata was the beloved gentleman soldier of Morelos as Robert E. Lee was to Virginia.  Zapata was a property owner and a business man from Anenecuilco, but he was also a man of the people and one of the greatest libertarians who ever lived.  Though the communitarian culture of rural Morelos made him sympathetic to socialist ideas, his words and actions drip with key libertarian principles.  “It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”  He had a profound respect for the land as the source from which he and most of his home state earned their income and put food on the table.  He was kind and respectful to the peasants and the Indians and had a reputation for arguing peasant grievances to the government, for which he was widely popular.  One year before the Revolution of 1910 broke out, Zapata was elected chief of the Defense Committee by village leaders, in the tradition of the early American militias electing their officers.

The agrarian demands of Morelos reflect a very libertarian grievance of eminent domain and slavery.  The villages had titles to the land dating back to the colonial era.  The peasants were the rightful property owners and legally equal shareholders in the local agronomy.  In many cases, the land had been stolen from the villages by the government through eminent domain and given to a well-connected private enterprise.  In many other cases, the land was stolen through extrajudicial forced evictions which the authorities conveniently ignored.  The hacienda system featured court-sanctioned debt-servitude which allowed the haciendas to turn the working class into slaves working on the plantations.  In one or two generations the government had turned property shareholders into tenants and debt slaves.  The collusion between the Mexican state and select corporations turned the planters into feudal lords with total power over their de facto serfs, and the plantations operated as feudal states like medieval Europe.

The grievances and tactics of the Zapatista army are almost identical to those of the Green Mountain Boys in the Vermont Revolution, led by Ethan Allen.  A decade before the British fired the first shots at Lexington, the Green Mountain Boys fought a low-level guerrilla war against the Royal New York government in the New Hampshire Land Grants.  The New Hampshire colonial government had made land grants to settlers leaving New Hampshire to settle west of the Connecticut River.  These settlers worked the land for nearly a generation, earning a living and creating a functional and self-sufficient economy out of the wilderness.  When the New York government claimed the Land Grants for well-connected cronies and attempted evictions, the revolutionaries fought back, showing a remarkable degree of restraint to avoid collateral damage (See Rothbard's Conceived in Liberty, Volume 4).  As Ethan Allen was a man of the people and a charismatic leader largely responsible for his success in defending the property rights of the working class, so was Zapata to the peasants and Indians of Morelos who had never before been able to organize effective resistance.

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Continued tomorrow in Part 3.

This article was originally published in one piece by the Libertarian Party of Nevada.

The Armed Libertarian Revolution in Mexico (Part 1)

Part 1: A revolution of libertarian and anarchist grievances

The Mexican Revolution is likely the most important chain of events in the history of Mexico, perhaps more so than Mexico’s war of independence.  Its crowning achievement is the 1917 Constitution, still in effect today.  One of the leading attributes of the Mexican Revolution is the rise of citizen armies, what U.S. legal tradition recognizes as the ‘unorganized militia’ of able-bodied armed men organizing into military units.  Though the grievances, politics, motives, and goals of the different revolutionary factions and leaders differed, there’s much about the Revolution to be seen from a libertarian point of view.

One of the central themes of libertarian political theory is that government is at best inefficient and incapable of adequately governing and providing for the people, and at worst a predatory criminal organization.  This is why the minarchist libertarians believe in a very limited ‘night watchman’ government under a strict interpretation of the Constitution that favors the liberty of the people, and why anarchist libertarians prefer no government at all and all power to the individual.  The minarchist grievance against the thirty-five-year Porfirio Diaz regime is the lack of free elections, repression of dissident press, and crony capitalist policies favoring well-connected big businesses over independent honest businesses. 

The anarchist libertarian scholar Murray Rothbard breaks down the state to its most basic components in Anatomy of the State.  The example he gives is the bandit gang that occasionally robs an unarmed village population, which then decides they would profit more if they lived among the conquered people as rulers and collected regular payments.  The bandit chief declares himself king, his bandit leaders are the lawful nobility of the realm, and a new state is born.  This is what Columbus was to the Arawak people, what Cortez was to the Mexican Indians, and what the Mexican state was to the peasants and the Indians.

While Americans debate over the issue of women in combat, the Mexican Revolution sorted out that issue over a century ago with the ‘soldaderas’, the women soldiers of the revolutionary armies.  The soldaderas served as rear-guard militia, nurses, couriers, spies, sentries, regimental cooks, and frontline light infantry.  Without the participation of women in logistical and combat roles, the revolutionary armies wouldn’t have been able to mount prolonged resistance against the federal government and later, against the corrupt revolutionary state.  The prevalence of revolutionary wives and sweethearts, especially Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s Northern Division, is likely the reason why desertion was so low in revolutionary armies.  Women’s participation made them equal stakeholders in the Revolution, and evidence that gun rights and the natural right to self-defense aren’t restricted to one country, gender, or one special class of people.

The anarchist grievances of the Mexican Revolution include the rampant state using eminent domain to steal land from its rightful owners, federal military conscription as kidnapping, taxes as institutionalized theft, and the constant imprisonment and murder of dissidents.  One faction of outright anarchists rose up in 1911.  The Magonistas were a battalion-sized volunteer army of anarchist Mexicans and Anglo-Americans who conquered several cities and towns independently of the Maderista’s war against the Diaz regime.  Although they were anarcho-communist, their attempts to establish a micro-state in northern Baja California represent the libertarian ideals of secession and political decentralization.  Moreover, the wary and apolitical general population were likely to receive better representation and public services under the Magonistas' micro-state than under the Mexican government.

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Continued tomorrow in Part 2. 

This article was originally published in one piece by the Libertarian Party of Nevada.

'From the Dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz to the Revolution' painting by David Alfaro Siquieros

'Las Soldaderas' (1938) painting by Antonio Gomez.

[Mini-podcast] TrumpCareis Proof the GOP is Socialist

Repeal TrumpCare! This ObamaCare Lite bill is all the evidence conservatives should need that the GOP is socialist and the GOP's leaders and elected officials are betraying America AGAIN. Also, libertarians who support the Trump administration in its growing government faster than marijuana grows in Humboldt need to seriously rethink their worldview.

#RepealTrumpCare

Stream or download at Soundcloud

[Mini-podcast] National Capitalism (Nazism 2.0) is Carp on a Stick

The Nat-Cs are coming to physically remove you in the night! The same people who identify with "national capitalism" are usually the same people who say "It's the Roman salute, not the Nazi salute!" The Helicopter Libertarians strike again, and they want to trick you into growing the Trump state.

National Capitalism is simply Nazism 2.0--and this National Capitalism fairy tale is either the domain of racists and fascists with slightly better economics than the NSDAP, or racists and fascists too spineless to be true to themselves and admit they're Nazi sympathizers.

Stream or download at Soundcloud

What You Need to Know About Las Vegas and Marijuana

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas... unless there's a police record! Here's what you need to know about 420 in Sin City.

Many leading successful entrepreneurs--the multi-millionaires whose books and seminars people pay a ton of money for--all say you should get paid to do what you enjoy so your money works for you instead of you working for money.  In this spirit, I work a great side gig as a nightclub party host on the Las Vegas Strip.  

I have guests asking me random drug questions all the time.  I also see the occasional stoner on the Strip get taken away in handcuffs.  To avoid a ruined vacation and a string of legal problems, here's what you need to know about marijuana laws in Las Vegas and the State of Nevada. I answer the following questions: 

Is marijuana legal in Las Vegas?

Can people smoke weed on the Strip?

Where can people buy weed in Las Vegas?

Can I reek of weed in the club?

Find the answers to these questions at Potent.media

So You Want To Do Physical Removal...

The alt-right and sellout-anarchists are either naive or intentionally lying about their creed.

British police at Croydon Airport send Jewish refugees back to occupied Poland

The alt-right and their bosom buddies, the Cantwellian Helicopter Libertarians, want to throw people out of helicopters like Pinochet's regime did to dissidents. Those that aren’t excited to commit mass murder in the name of 'liberty' or capitalism still favor a more sterilized, softer form of “physical removal” in the form of deportations or imprisonment.

I say to them: Fine. Physically remove people. But those calling for physical removal better be man enough to do it themselves! History is filled with mass murders that were tolerated by people who chose to remain silent and not get their hands dirty. In 1945, vanquished Germans cried "We didn't know!" to the Allies.  No more of that. If people want physical removal, they need to lead by example and actually start ripping people from their families, not do what the socialist Republicans do and blissfully outsource that violence to the State.

The alt-right conservatives and their expendable auxiliaries, the Helicopter Libertarians, would argue that the federal and state governments exist whether libertarian anarchists want it or not. Therefore, they say, the best chance that ‘freedom’ has in America is for libertarians to use these entities to remove people who are threats to liberty.  That's cute.

What the alt-right ignores is...  (Read more at the Swamp)

Forbes and Celebrity Talk Show Host cover Libertarians in Cuban Gulag

Manuel Velazquez (left) and Ubaldo Herrera (right) before their arrest

The campaign to raise awareness of two Cuban libertarian activists thrown in the Gulag just took a turn for the better.  The world is hearing the cries of the victims' families!  Mises Cuba and the incarcerated Cuban libertarian activists were mentioned recently in a Forbes article.  The issue was also explored in greater detail by celebrity talk show host and libertarian activist Gloria Alvarez.  This follows multiple U.S. Libertarian state parties being joined by the Libertarian Party of Spain and the Libertarian Party of Russia in condemning the incarceration of Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea, and calling for their immediate release.

Two days ago, Alejandro Chafuen wrote a Forbes article about free market think tanks and political entrepreneurs.  He mentions 25 independent Mises Institutes in the world that he's aware of, each modeled after the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn.  Chafuen writes, "To my knowledge, the last Mises Institute to pop up was Mises Cuba. Early in February, two of their members were detained and later sent to the Melena II jail, a maximum security prison for political dissidents."  (Read this for more details on their arrest and incarceration.)

Mises Cuba's Community Organizer also personally informed me that Mises Cuba founding member and lawyer Nelson Rodriguez Chartrand was just interviewed by celebrity activist and talk show host Gloria Alvarez.  Alvarez is a talk show host of Libertopolis (102.1 FM), a Guatemalan news and political station that broadcasts on the air and online.  Gloria Alvarez is also the author of the Spanish-language books 'El engaño populista' (The Populist Deception) and 'La Rebelión de los Mansos' (Rebellion of the Meek).  Alvarez and Libertopolis have a combined audience of millions, and Alvarez alone has half a million social media subscribers.  The interview of Nelson Rodriguez Chartrand about Herrera and Velazquez's incarceration in the Gulag, and the Cuban government's repression of Mises Cuba, is scheduled to air on March 31 at 6 PM Guatemalan local time.

Another bit of good news is that the Libertarian Party of Colorado's Executive Committee voted to join the cause.  LP Colorado condemns the incarceration of Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea and calls for their immediate release.  LP Colorado has yet to publish anything on the vote or proclamation, but the resolution's unanimous passage was confirmed by Communications Director Caryn Ann Harlos.  The U.S. Libertarian National Committee votes on a similar resolution tomorrow.  If passed, the whole U.S. Libertarian Party will condemn the incarceration and call for the release of Herrera and Velazquez. So far, the Libertarian state parties who have taken initiative are Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Indiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, plus LP Chicago.  This movement is joined by the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn and the fully independent Mises Institutes of multiple Latin American countries.

LP Nevada warmly thanks Gloria Alvarez and Alejandro Chafuen for significantly raising awareness of this issue.  As is the case of international celebrity whistle blower Edward Snowden, who's still a refugee abroad, there is little we can actually do to physically remove Herrera and Velazquez from the labor prison Melena II.  However, we can still make sure the whole world knows what happened to Ubaldo Herrea Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea.  We can make sure the whole world knows what Raul Castro's regime continues to do to peaceful dissidents who live by the non-aggression principle.  The greater the awareness each caring person helps spread, the greater the embarrassment to the quasi-Stalinist regime in Cuba, and the greater the chance the Interior Ministry will let them go. 

#TodosSomosMisesCuba

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Originally published March 18 by the Libertarian Party of Nevada.

Is the Left Really More Evil Than the Right?

The question needs asking: is the Left really more evil than the Right?

Anyone who's slightly right-of-center has likely watched black-clad anarchists with hammer and sickle flags smashing up store fronts, starting bonfires in the streets, and brawling with the cops.  It's probably sent a chill down their spines.  I see an increasing ideological problem arising in libertarian circles: conservatives and libertarians are buying into the us-versus-them mentality to vilify the left, at the expense of giving conservatives a free pass on violent hypocrisy.  

People on the Right are rightfully concerned about violent neo-Communists, but they're ignoring the neo-Nazis.  Revolutionary and institutional fascism alike are equally willing to end lives and expropriate private property for the sake of the state, and always has, no matter how vehemently conservatives, the alt-right, and the far-right libertarian wannabes (anyone who does the "Roman" salute).  Soviet Socialism was certainly a plague on humanity, especially in the developing world, but so were the CIA and DEA. Remember, when Mises and Hayek fled Europe, it wasn't Communism they were fleeing for their lives.  So concern over militant leftism but not militant rightism is willful blindness.

Besides, the Right will always be the real evil, in my honest opinion. Liberals are all about high taxes and abortion. The radical leftists will take to the streets and break things when they don't get their way.  It was the same in Berkeley in 1968, and it was the same in Petrograd in 1917 and 1905. What else is new?  Republicans seem to have amnesia over the excessive force that was applied to Ron Paul supporters in 2012.

The police colluded with the GOP to assault and arrest Ron Paul supporters after they won the majority of delegates at the Louisiana GOP Convention.  Fingers were broken.

The police were in cahoots with the GOP to arrest Ron Paul supporters at the Missouri GOP Caucus.  When Ron Paul was winning the delegate race, the Missouri GOP revoked their credentials and had them physically removed.

Republicans in Orlando stomped on the feet of a Ron Paul supporter wearing flip flops for the high crime of holding a Ron Paul sign outside the National Convention.  

Ron Paul delegates in Orlando had their credentials stripped in mass.  I also met and spoke with a delegate who was kidnapped on Orlando's infamous Bus to Nowhere that unfortunately didn't arrive at the Convention Center in time for the Paul delegates to vote.  In addition, I've met others who claim marijuana was planted in their hotel rooms--this was back in 2012 when possession in the South was more than a slap on the wrist.

So while the Left breaks windows and blocks on-ramps, and every once in a while beats up a Donald Trump supporter, Republicans and a few libertarians with GOP Stockholm Syndrome play into the partisan game.  Libertarians and Republicans seem to find some common ground in denigrating the Left together, but all the libertarians in this situation do is buy into the statists' us-versus-them game.  

In their growing hatred of the Left, the embers of resentment fanned by hatemongers like Chris "I say cuck way too damn much" Cantwell and wackos like Alex "Cocaine tantrums" Jones.  There is no outcry from these people over the vandalized mosques and synagogues, the statistical increase in attacks against immigrants and minorities in this country,

But conservatives are the ones who were supposed to lower taxes, reign in federal spending, protect unborn life, maintain a humble foreign policy, preserve the rights of states from federal overreach according to the Bill of Rights. And what have we gotten? Boots on the ground in Syria, TrumpCare with the individual mandate intact, an Attorney General who has said on more than one occasion that he plans to prosecute legal recreational marijuana (because, according to Spicer and Sessions, when the Trump campaign said 'states rights', they only meant medical marijuana), and abortion still happens on the daily in Trump's America.

The leaders of the Right betrayed America, and most ordinary conservatives supported them the whole way.  Republicans are still making excuses to support Donald Trump, even though he's doing variations of the same crap the Obama Administration did.  This goes to show that a majority of Trump's supporters aren't really as married to their principles as they think they are.  They're not really as dedicated to the practice of conservative values as they think they are, or else they'd already have tarred and feathered 90% of the Republicans in Washington D.C. (both in the Legislative and Executive Branches).

We know the Left is "bad."  They're too wishy-washy on civil liberties and plain awful on property rights, and that leaves room for huge problems down the road. That's always been obvious.  But the Right are the snakes in the grass, who will talk in your face about 'principles over party' while they raise your taxes, fund abortion clinics, and drop more bombs on brown people (because WWJD don't matter to the "Christian" Right anymore).

So yes. The Right is evil. Perhaps the true evil, more so than the Left.  The Left is at least honest about their big government SJW utopian drivel. I can easily point to 3 books: Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, and Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States, and feel comfortable saying these 3 books pretty accurately summarize the Left.  We know exactly what the different Left factions believe and what they want to accomplish.

But the Right... we get volumes of propaganda from the Right about their moral superiority to liberals, even though conservatives are at this very moment giving America more of the same that we already had under Obama.they are the snakes.  The Right is the greater evil.  They're still lying to America.  Mexico's going to pay for that wall, not the American taxpayer, right?!

Yeah yeah yeah, the Left is "bad."  The Right is "worse."  Let's just break the Left-Right paradigm and focus on minimum versus maximum state presence, and maximum versus minimum individual liberty.

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Images courtesy of Old American Century.

[Mini-podcast] American Stalin: Joe Steele in the Age of Obama and Trump

From 'My LPeeps! Libertarian Mini-podcast'

Conservatives compared Obama to Stalin and now liberals compare Trump to Hitler. What if there was a little but of truth to both? What if the American Presidency just has too much power? What would happen in America if the President was a lot MORE like Stalin? Harry Turtledove gives us a glimpse of that America and helps us ask questions about the power of the leviathan state.

Listen on Soundcloud

[Mini-podcast] GOP and Pot: What Happened to States' Rights?!

From 'My LPeeps! Libertarian Mini-podcast'

Sean Spicer warned that the Feds are coming after recreational marijuana and the DOJ threatened the Moapa Paiute Nation over the 2017 High Times Cannabis Cup, even though the Moapa Paiutes are a sovereign nation AND marijuana is legal in Nevada... Republicans, WHAT happened to states' rights?!

So far:

1. Mexico is NOT paying for the wall, but maybe will someday through... tariffs?
2. The GOP's ObamaCare Lite still has an individual mandate
3. The meaning of states' rights has suddenly changed to what's convenient for Jeff Sessions

With Republican policies like these, who needs Democrats?!

Listen on Soundcloud

[Mini-podcast] What was the 'Free Libertarian Party'?

From 'My LPeeps! Libertarian Mini-podcast'

What was the Free Libertarian Party of 1972, and what made it different from the Libertarian Party that was founded in 1971? 

"In 1974, two years after the founding of the Free Libertarian Party, Mr. Tuccille ran for governor of New York. He hoped to win the 50,000 votes that would give the party a permanent place on the ballot, a first step toward becoming the third major political party in the United States..."

It turns out New York has some interesting political history that overlaps and even predates the Libertarian Party!  Learning about the Free Libertarian Party was a warm welcome for a Libertarian nerd like me.

Listen on Soundcloud

[Mini-podcast] Cuban libertarian activists sent to the Gulag!

From 'My LPeeps! Libertarian Mini-podcast'

Two Cuban libertarian activists were arrested by the Cuban secret police, detained for weeks, and are now imprisoned in the Gulag! Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea must be freed from the Melena II labor prison. Herrera was targeted for his "dissident activities" of getting people together in a room to discuss limited government, civil liberties, and free markets. Velazquez had the misfortune of being with Herrera when both men were arrested by the secret police. 'We are subjected to a twelve-hour work day in the sun, melting and raising blocks or working in the field,' said a labor convict at the Melena II prison's collective farm... 

Listen at Soundcloud

[Mini-podcast] Trump Supporters are the Sheep from 'Animal Farm'

From 'My LPeeps! Libertarian Mini-podcast'

Yes, you read that right! Pro-Trump libertarians like how Donald Trump called out the media for being biased. Cool, I can appreciate that too. But what do they call Fox News, Breitbart, and Info Wars?  The Republicans and libertarians who support Trump are the sheep from Manor Farm.  Zach explains what makes Donald Trump's election and first 100 days so similar to an episode from the George Orwell novel. 

Listen at Soundcloud

[Mini-podcast] What the Libertarian Party Won in the 2016 Election

From 'My LPeeps! Libertarian Mini-podcast'

Many Libertarians feel demoralized after the general election.  One of the two authoritarian demagogues was going to win no matter what.  The most painful part is that our national ticket couldn’t clinch that 5% (and even people on the Gary Johnson campaign are unhappy with Governor Bill Weld).  Regardless of the disappointment, LP Nevada still applauds Governor Gary Johnson for bringing the Libertarian Party up to new milestones and for carrying forward the message of our platform.  Here are some of the victories the Libertarian Party won this election.

Listen on Soundcloud!

Libertarian Party of Russia joins international movement to free libertarians in Cuba's Gulag

The Libertarian Party of Russia has joined the international movement of dedicated libertarians calling for the freedom of jailed activists.  Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea were arrested February 2, 2017 by State Security.  The Cuban libertarians are interned at the prison Melena II, part of Cuba's Gulag-style labor prison system.  The Libertarian Party of Russia published the following statement:

It has come to our attention that human rights situation in Cuba has just made a turn for the worse. Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez, a human rights activist in Cuba and a member of the Mises Institute Cuba, and Manuel Velazquez Visea, a Cuban libertarian activist, who were arrested by the regime on February 2nd, are incarcerated in Cuba's most infamous Melena II prison. Various human rights groups compare conditions in this prison to Soviet Gulag. Activists are charged with "attempted assault" although there is little doubt they are being targeted for dissident activities and promoting ideas of liberty.

Libertarian Party of Russia strongly condemns political repression and demands release of political prisoners. We urge Cuban authorities to set Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea free immediately!

The Libertarian Party of Russia has joined an international movement to free these two political prisoners.  LP Russia now stands with the Libertarian Party of Spain (P-LIB), the independent Mises Institutes in Cuba, Venezuela, and Colombia, and the American Libertarian state parties of Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Indiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Florida.  The state parties in North Carolina and Florida are the latest American affiliates to get on board.  They're joined by the Libertarian Party of Chicago, whose leaders are leading the way on this just cause inside the Illinois LP.

LP Nevada is honored and humbled that the Libertarian Party of Russia, of Spain, and of multiple states would stand with us in fighting on behalf of our oppressed libertarian brothers.  Libertarians aren't trying to send the Marines to Havana, but simply to call international attention to an abuse that's hurtful and wrong in countless ways.

There is something YOU as an individual can do to help!  You can directly contact Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations on Facebook and Twitter and demand the release of Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea.  You can also lobby your regional representative on the LNC (actually, ALL members of the LNC) to vote YES on the U.S. LP's resolution calling on Cuba's government for their release.  Finally, you can share this news with as many people as you know, especially those on the Right who love to hate Communism; this is their chance to back up talk with action and do something, and from the safety of their own homes!

Never give in to evil, but proceed ever boldly against it.  This is the time for everyone who loves liberty to proceed boldly.

#TodosSomosMisesCuba

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This article was first published by the Libertarian Party of Nevada

Libertarian parties of Florida and North Carolina call on Cuba to act!

Two Cuban libertarian activists, Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea were arrested on February 2, 2017 by Cuba's political police.  The two activists were convicted of attempted assault and facing new charges for distribution of "enemy propaganda."  This "enemy propaganda" was in fact the writings of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and other laissez-faire economists and philosophers--all of which threatens the Castro regime and Communist Party's grip on the island nation.  Herrera and Velazquez are both imprisoned in the Melena II labor prison, Cuba's equivalent of the Soviet Union's Gulag.  

The Libertarian Party of Nevada issued a press release on February 9 condemning the Cuban government and the Communist Party of Cuba, and demanding the immediate release of Herrera and Velazquez.  Shortly after, this became a movement.  The Libertarian state parties of New Hampshire and Oklahoma jumped on board, also calling for the release of Herrera and Velazquez.  We were then joined by LP Indiana, LP New Mexico, and the Libertarian Party of Spain.  In the last week LP Florida and LP North Carolina have joined the international movement to free these libertarian political prisoners.

James Hines, at-large Executive Committee member of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina, said

“As libertarians, we condemn our own government's interference in Cuba's domestic affairs.  Cubans had a right to revolt against the dictator Fulgencio Batista, who overthrew a democratic government in 1952 coup d’etat.

“Even more, we mourn for the Cuban people because Fidel Castro, the man they trusted to lead the resistance against Batista, and his brother Raul, have proven far more brutal tyrants than the dictator they replaced.”

“Today, the members of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina lament that Cubans live under a government which will arrest, or threatens to arrest them, by characterizing any expression of dissent in economic or political matters as an attack upon itself.

“We pray for the safety, happiness, and freedom of Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velasquez Visea as we pray for all of the people of Cuba and as we wish all of these things for ourselves.”

In the Libertarian Party of Florida's condemnation of the Cuban government, LPF Chairman Char-Lez Braden said today,

“The Libertarian Party of Florida, and all free people, find the existence of political prisoners abhorrent and call upon Cuba and all nations with such prisoners to free these folks and stop this practice. The LPF strongly encourages the Cuban government to release Hernandez and Velasquez immediately and apologize for their arrest. In addition, the LPF strongly urges the Cuban government to rid itself of all laws which limit Cuban citizens from expressing their opinions in public."

The Libertarian Party of Florida also dutifully points out that this is not a practice found only in Communist republics. "Just this year, there have been several Americans arrested for doing nothing more than exercising their right of free speech. Earlier this year two students were arrested in Michigan for simply handing out free pocket-sized U.S. Constitutions."

LP Florida and LP North Carolina are joined by the Libertarian Party of Chicago.  Rather than wait for the Illinois party's Executive Committee to act, LP Chicago is leading the way in Illinois!  The Libertarian Party of Russia and the Libertarian Party of Spain join 7 American LP state affiliates in a growing movement to free these innocent men.  Whether governments are persecuting nonviolent dissidents in Michigan or in Cuba, We the People will call out oppression and stand for freedom and common decency.

There is something YOU as an individual can do to help!  You can directly contact Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations on Facebook and Twitter and demand the release of Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea.  You can also lobby your regional representative on the LNC (actually, ALL members of the LNC) to vote YES on the U.S. LP's resolution calling on Cuba's government for their release.

#TodosSomosMisesCuba

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This article was first published by the Libertarian Party of Nevada

Women, the Anti-Trump March, and Gun Rights

If more women owned guns, perhaps they'd fear the government less.

** As an instructor trained by the NRA and licensed by the BSA, I professionally teach children how to shoot, and what their responsibilities with guns are. I've turned teenage girls into sharpshooters. Feel free to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

Many angry people on the Right severely criticized the national women’s protest march against Donald Trump. But the march was a Rorschach test - it's whatever people want it to be. The Right seems to want it to be a man-hating event. We're talking about over 3 million people around the country, though. I absolutely love and respect the marchers, including the majority that come from the Left, but I have to speak up about this notion of dreaming that someday "women might have the same rights as guns".

Though this is not the intention of the protesters, the original idea scrawled on the pickets logically translates into a desire to be owned by men, to have to register with the local government, to be locked up indoors until men are ready to USE you, and to be banned from going to school or even most public spaces. In California, it would also include background checks and a 10 day waiting period just for having sex. That's how deep runs the spread of misinformation on guns and gun rights.

Read more at The Swamp

Star Wars and the Austrian School I: A Brief Overview

EPISODE I: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

Star Wars is unquestionably a brilliant saga that touches the hearts of many through its incorporation of timeless literary archetypes and humanist themes.  Adventure, love, loss, spirituality, good vs. evil, and the triumph of the human (and humanoid) spirit…

Yet there are other characteristics standing out that demand attention and respect, such as the saga’s inclusion of patterns of history (great wars and economic or political disasters) and of the interactions and exchanges of societies and individuals.  One could practically point to passages from Mises’ Human Action or Theory and History while watching any given Star Wars episode!

Everyone knows the basic story line that spans seven (now eight) episodes, 2 spinoff movies (The Clone Wars theatrical pilot and Rogue One), and numerous television and novel tie-ins.  A once prosperous and peaceful republic decays over time from corruption and then war.  Victory over secessionists in a great galactic war only serves to undermine the Republic’s ideals of liberty and hastens its demise and overt reorganization into the Galactic Empire.

Following two decades of imperial rule and repression, a guerrilla army dedicated to reestablishing the Republic and maintaining its founding principles of liberty fights a lengthy campaign, pursuing only the help of willing parties, eventually destroying the Empire and restoring republican democracy to the galaxy.  (We just won’t talk about the Holiday Special or the Ewok movies, but everyone SHOULD check out Episode I.I: The Phantom Edit.)

Read more

Cuban libertarian activists sent to the Gulag!

The civil rights and human rights case regarding the two jailed Cuban libertarian activists just took a dark turn.  As of this afternoon, Mises Cuba reports that Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea are incarcerated in Cuba's infamous Melena II prison.  Various human rights groups have documented conditions at Melena II, and it's Cuba's equivalent of the Gulag in Soviet Russia and the labor camps in North Korea.  

Five Libertarian state parties (Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Indiana, and New Mexico) and the Libertarian Party of Spain (P-LIB) have already published denunciations of the Cuban government and the Communist Party of Cuba, and these parties are calling for the immediate and safe release of the political prisoners.

Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea were originally arrested by State Security (the secret police) and the National Police on the night of February 2 and were being detained at a jail facility in Mayabeque Province.  Less than 2 hours ago Mises Institute Cuba (an independent Cuban organization based on the American Mises Institute) reported that Herrera and Velazquez are believed to have been convicted of attempted assault.  In truth, Herrera was targeted for his "dissident activities" of getting people together in a room to discuss limited government, civil liberties, and free markets. Velazquez had the misfortune of being with Herrera when both men were challenged by a plainclothes undercover State Security agent who demanded to see their ID.

Mises Cuba staff members Nelson Rodriguez Chartrand and Heriberto Pons Ruiz both testify that Herrera and Velazquez have been transferred to Melena II, a labor prison outside of Melena del Sur, near Havana.  Thanks to refugees like Esteban Marcial Mosqueda, whose testimony was published by retired U.S. immigration judge Susan Yarbrough, we know exactly what conditions the two jailed libertarian activists are facing.

"There were no beds and no sheets so I slept on the floor with the other men.  The toilet was a hole in the floor, and it overflowed everyday.  At night the rats and roaches came through it, and sometimes a snake.  Our food was beans once a day, and it was always filled with insects and worms.  We got a pail of water every other day; it was for drinking, but it was so dirty it made us sick...  Many months and many guards went by.  Most of them would call me negro azul [blue-black, because of his dark skin]...  I was very thin by then, and it was very easy for them to pull down my pants."

In 2011 the Committee to Protect Journalists confirmed the existence of Melena II, and the labor prison's appalling conditions.  The Spanish-language Cuban-American news venue Let's Talk Press reported appalling conditions and human rights abuses in the Melena II prison as recently as 2015.  The Spanish-language Cuba news venue Café Fuerte reports on the forced labor conditions.   "'We are subjected to a twelve-hour work day in the sun, melting and raising blocks or working in the field,' said a labor convict at the Melena II prison's collective farm...  The Melena II prison houses more than 600 convicts, mostly young black men. They work by making cement blocks."

Now that the Cuban libertarian activists Herrera and Velazquez are in the Gulag, it's now more important than ever for supporters of human rights across America and around the world to take action.  Libertarians from around the world are already taking the fight back to the Cuban government. In one example, a French supporter demanded their release on the Ministry of Foreign Relations' French-language Facebook page.

All concerned citizens in all countries can help by doing these things:

1. Publicly condemn the Cuban government and the Communist Party of Cuba, and demand the safe release of the libertarian prisoners,
2. Ask the US State Department to place diplomatic pressure on Cuba for their release,
3. Call Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and State Legislators to make their own statements of support for these political prisoners and to ask the State Department to diplomatically pressure the Cuban government. Find your Congressman here and contact his or her office, and tweet at your governor.
4. Directly contact Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Relations and demand the safe release of Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velazquez Visea. Send them a message on Facebook and tweet directly at them.

The Libertarian Party of Nevada isn't advocating for sending the Marines to Havana; we're simply rallying free people around the world to call out a human rights abuse against one of our own flock.  We the People must never give in to evil, but fight boldly against it. #TodosSomosMisesCuba

For further inquiries contact Zach Foster at zach.foster@lpnevada.org 

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Melena II prison photo courtesy of CIH Press.  This article was first published by the Libertarian Party of Nevada.