Liberty Maven

My libertarian soul was hooked immediately. Yours will be as well. From the very first pages of  The Immune, a libertarian-infused, science fiction thriller from Doc Lucky Meisenheimer you will crave something. Something that all authors wish their readers would crave–to see what is on the next page, and the one after, and the one after that, and so on.

The Immune reads like a movie that keeps you guessing until the very end. It could easily be a huge blockbuster big screen thriller someday. Of course, that is if those in Hollywood are able to overlook the anti-government and decidedly libertarian message of the story. The great thing about Doc Lucky’s story is that it remains true to the liberty message without being overly preachy. In other words, this is not an Ayn Rand novel. I do love reading Ayn Rand, but this is much more mainstream and accessible. In fact it could be used as a gentle introduction to the libertarian ideology for those just starting down that path.

The book explores privacy, gun rights, civil liberties, foreign policy, government health care, global governance, and more. There’s even an evil character that I can only guess was patterned after Nancy Pelosi.

The story follows physician John Long in the not so-distant future when bio-genetically manufactured organisms that resemble flying “man-o-wars” (called airwars) begin emerging all over the world and killing humans randomly. Long is an ordinary physician who is lucky enough to be immune to the stings of the airwars. This makes him supremely useful to the propaganda machine of an international governing body that uses the airwar crisis as an excuse to continually strip individual freedoms from the world’s citizens. Hmm… doesn’t that sound all-too-familiar? And that’s not all they try to strip away as you’ll find out when you read the book.

This is truly a wonderful first novel for Doc Lucky Meisenheimer. The Immune succeeds on several levels. It is both heavy and light. It works equally as a “beach book” page-turner, and as an intellectual pursuit of individual liberty. Perhaps some of those that utilize it as the former will morph into using it as the latter by the time the last page is read.

If you are going to pursue liberty you might as well have fun doing it. That’s what reading The Immune is all about. I can’t recommend it enough. Add it to your reading list now. You’ll thank me later.

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The Immune by Doc Lucky Meisenheimer goes on sale May 13th, 2011. To order and find out more, see http://www.theimmune.com/

Quote of the Day: “The problem isn’t the abuse of power, it’s the power to abuse.” — Michael Cloud

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is urging people to call the White House TODAY, and urge President Obama to veto any Patriot Act renewal that doesn’t contain civil liberties protections.

We agree. This is a good opportunity to remind the President that he promised to reform the Patriot Act when he was a candidate.

You can learn more at the EFF website, and we borrow some language from here in our letter below.

But we need to maintain our pressure on Congress too . . .

* Tell Congress you want them to REPEAL the Patriot Act outright
* Any renewal must contain the strongest possible civil liberties provisions

Please tell Congress what you want.

The hardwired message says, “Repeal the Patriot Act. Do NOT renew any of its provisions.”

You may borrow from or copy these additional comments . . . Read More »

by Michael Pento, Senior Economist at Euro Pacific Capital (www.europac.net)

For years the Federal Reserve has told us that in order to detect inflation in the economy it is important to separate “signal from noise” by focusing on “core” inflation statistics, which exclude changes in food and energy prices. Because food and energy figure so prominently into consumer spending, this maneuver is not without controversy. But the Fed counters the criticism by pointing to the apparent volatility of the broader “headline” inflation figure, which includes food and energy. The Fed tells us that the danger lies in making a monetary policy mistake based on unreliable statistics.  Being more stable (they tell us), the core is their preferred guide. Sounds reasonable…but it isn’t.

If it were truly just a question of volatility the Fed may have a point. But for headline inflation to be considered truly volatile, it must be evenly volatile both above and below the core rate of inflation over time. If such were the case, throwing out the high and the low could be a good idea. However, we have found that for more than a decade headline inflation has been consistently higher than core inflation. Once you understand this, it becomes much more plausible to argue that the Fed excludes food and energy not because those prices are volatile, but because they are high.

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Marriage is and has long been a cultural, social and wedge issue in American politics. One of the more dramatic turns of defining marriage came in the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia in which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. Some forty years later, interracial marriage inspires little debate and has mostly been seen as an acceptable definition of marriage. However, as the twenty-first century dawned and developed, the issue of marriage definition has again come into American politics.

In 1996, President Clinton signed the federal Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA into law. DOMA, which President Obama has recently (and unconstitutionally) declared unconstitutional, said that the United States federal Government recognized marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman. It also said that no state would have to recognize the gay marriage of another state. Thus, an Alabama gay couple could not be married in Massachusetts and return home as newlyweds.

In 2008, Californians passed Proposition Eight, a measure barring gays from marrying in the Golden State. The proposition had passed narrowly in the general election and was later struck down by federal judge Vaughn Walker. A similar measure had previously been declared unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court.

Still, all the talk about how government defines marriage begs another question: should the government define marriage?

In several interviews, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has expressed the idea that “love is bigger than government” and argues that government should recognize civil unions between any two consenting adults and that the term “marriage” should be saved for churches and the private sector.

This is an idea that Libertarians should embrace. Americans have become hung up on the term “marriage”. Still, public opinion poll has showed time and time again that the vast majority of Americans support basic rights for gay and lesbian individuals including legal and sometimes financial benefits. Granting every adult, consenting couple a civil union would allow all citizens the rights they deserve as far as their partners are concerned. Additionally, it would continue the support of separation between church and state.

For too long, the American People have allowed their government to define what is and what is not marriage. A couple who love each other shouldn’t need the State’s permission to bind themselves legally and equivalently together. Civil Unions would grant equality to law abiding citizens and would promote freedom for all individuals regardless of their political, professional or marital positions.

by Neeraj Chaudhary, Investment Consultant at Euro Pacific Capital

Recently, the Obama Administration seemed to flash a rare sign of laissez-faire thinking when it issued a report calling for the “winding down” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two taxpayer-guaranteed institutions now responsible for backing at least 90% of the US mortgage market. In its press release, the Administration acknowledged that the private sector should be the “primary source of mortgage credit,” and that their goal is to “bring private capital back to the mortgage market.”

While such a pro-market stance is welcome, astute observers should recognize the intentions as empty rhetoric. Unfortunately, government domination of the housing sector is already a fait accompli, and any serious attempt to remove artificial support will result in the kind of political pitfalls no politician wants to face.

After decades of federal life support, the US housing market has become an invalid that is unable to fend for itself. When the absurd housing bubble finally popped in 2006, prices logically began to plummet back to earth. After national price declines of some 30%, a wave of “stimulus” dollars stopped the free-fall in mid-2009. But after less than one year of “recovery,” it looks like prices are headed south again.

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by Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals and author of the hit economic parable How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.

While gold and silver coins are nice to look at, and there’s a certain sense of independence one gets from owning them, most purchasers buy physical precious metals with the goal of eventually spending them.