There’s a lot to be unhappy about this week if you believe in individual liberty and free markets.
Sonia Sotomayor becomes the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. She was confirmed and it wasn’t even close, as expected. Souter is out and Sotomayor is in. It seems like a wash to me. The next Supreme Court appointee will be the more interesting one.
The Cash For Clunkers program gets added funds. The Senate approved 2 billion more dollars we don’t have to destroy cars that get poor gas mileage and subsidize the purchase of cars that get better gas mileage. For those that don’t “feel” like understanding economics, John Stossel demonstrates why this program is yet another wasteful boondoggle. Did you know that you can buy a brand new Hummer with your neighbor’s money?
An amendment to the additional money for the Cash for Clunkers program by Senator Coburn would have permitted dealers to donate the traded clunkers to charities and the poor. I say would have because the amendment was defeated by the Democrats. I was under the impression the Democrats cared about the poor? It appears they care about appeasing the environmental lobbyists more.
In response to the massive opposition to Obama’s health care plan the White House has taken another page out of Woodrow Wilson’s playbook. In a modernized version of Wilson’s American Protective League the White House would like you to report “fishy” media content that disagrees with Obama’s health care plan. Feel free to report this article. The email address is flag@whitehouse.gov.
This week I’m wondering, once again, why believing in and following the Constitution is considered by many to be radical extremist behavior? America’s founding document should be more than some piece of old paper that tourists come to gawk at while visiting our nation’s capital. It’s like America has become an atheist nation and the Constitution is the Bible.
The power culture in DC ignores the Constitution because it is in their best interest to do so. Perhaps our founders were stupid for expecting a unit of law-making force and power (the government) to remain restrained by a document (the Constitution) that those (the citizenry) who are bound by the laws are supposed to enforce. No, it’s not perfect, but it has worked, more or less, for over 200+ years. The big question of the current generation seems to be how do we keep it from slipping away completely? Will America be America in 10 years? The writing on the wall says ‘no’, but it is our duty to do everything in our power to change that writing to say ‘yes’.
Michael Maresco has done more than most in this effort. Last week he completed his most recent journey across America via bicycle in an effort to raise awareness about America’s road from freedom to fascism. To me and many others he is the ultimate liberty hero. People like Michael give me hope. Please check out the site dedicated to his ride. Read through his travel log, look at the pictures, and be inspired by what you witness. He shows us all what is still great about America through the people he met and the places he’s seen. See LibertyRider.com.
Now a quick note on the name of this web site. I want to make it clear that I never intended to be dubbed THE Liberty Maven. I’ve been called that and I get uncomfortable every time it happens. The truth is that the domain name was available when we (Mike Miller and I) were trying to come up with a name for the site and it sounded good, so we got it. The intent of the name is to let everyone know that it is they who need to become liberty mavens. Having a country of liberty mavens is the goal. That goal may not be attainable, kind of like the “pursuit of happiness”, but always reaching for it is the important thing. I also want to thank you for continuing to read Liberty Maven. We don’t thank our readers enough. It is because of you that the site still exists and remains a passion for me and our other contributors. Thank you.
Ron Paul continued his media assault today with another appearance on Fox Business News again discussing HR1207 and auditing the Federal Reserve.
During the segment Ron Paul says, “What are they afraid of? I mean they are getting tenacious now. So the harder they fight us, the more it stirs up what are they hiding?”
The problem is “that the world has followed Keynes instead of Mises.”
Paul even declares that “Keynesianism is dead.” (not sure I agree with Dr. Paul on that point.)
I’m a believer in freedom because of Harry Browne. Well, perhaps it was just convenience and timing, but I became a lover of liberty in the mid 90’s as a college student. Harry Browne was the Libertarian Party nominee for President in 1996 and 2000. He was a tall glass of freedom-loving ice water in the hot and dry politics-as-usual desert. He quenched my libertarian soul.
While everyone else is celebrating the “4th of July” I’m celebrating Independence Day. On this Independence Day I’m celebrating by remembering the man that spoke with my voice before I knew what my voice was. Browne wrote an article on July 4th, 2003 (3 years before he died) called, “Uncelebrating the 4th of July“.
The article sums up perfectly how I feel about Independence Day right now. As was so often the case, Harry Browne was years ahead of his time.
I remember around that same year (2003) I was one of those libertarians that supported the Iraq war. I was a libertarian-in-progress or maybe some today would have called me a “Wayne Allyn Root” libertarian. I wrote an email to Harry Browne giving him my opinion about the war and asking him what he thought of my reasoning. He didn’t think much of it.
I must confess. This Ron Paul supporter suffered from a temporary bout of neo-conservatism after viewing that completely horrifying video of the young woman lying in the street bleeding to death in Iran over the weekend. I will not link to it because I don’t want to infect anyone else. My long lost compassionate conservatism gene made a return as I was filled with hatred and sadness. I thought, “Something must be done!. America needs to intervene!” A few hours and a reality check later I found myself back on firm Founding Father-style non-interventionist footing once again.
Some claim taking a non-interventionist approach on the Iran election aftermath is the height of hypocrisy from someone who claims to believe in liberty. Ron Paul is being criticized for his lone “Nay” vote on condemning the Iranian government’s heinous actions on it’s own people. On the surface it appears Obama is taking a similar non-interventionist approach for now, although there are some arguing the opposite may be true. Hopefully, Obama stands his ground (this time) against the interventionist opposition.
Those clamoring for intervention need to answer a few questions, but there is one question that trumps them all.
This 3 hour discussion consists of some of the best arguments for supporting free markets and limited government. Robert Higgs is truly a modern founding father. If you have any desire to learn the reasons why the free market is the best path out of our current economic crisis then this lengthy and lovely discussion is for you.
A few choice quotes from Higgs are below.
“Don’t just stand there, undo something!”
“The FDA is probably better than any other government agency as an example of fraud.”
“Government purports to help the little guy… but government is not beholden to the little guy. Government is beholden to all those interest groups organized for supporting politicians for office and keeping them there.”
“Government is organized coercion…. It’s like a loaded gun sitting there waiting for someone to pick up and use for their own purposes.”
On systemic risk (Too big to fail): “Systemic risk is a very very small risk, almost negligible risk. But it’s a very fine political lever..”
“I’m going to try to stay afloat in this world. I don’t like the shape it’s been put in, but I didn’t put it in this shape.”
“The corporations only have as much power as they wield through government.”
I could quote Higgs on and on, but you get the idea. I must say that I haven’t enjoyed listening to someone speak free market language this much since Ron Paul’s presidential campaign of 2007 and 2008. Higgs is a breath of fresh air as we lovers of liberty navigate through the socio-fascist flatulence cloud emanating from the Obama administration. Please find time to watch this. You’ll be glad you did.
On Monday a few of us here at Liberty Maven took the opportunity to attend a speech given by Bruce Fein at George Mason University as part of The Economic Liberty Lecture Series sponsored by The Future Of Freedom Foundation. I must admit I was surprised at how animated and passionate Fein was during his speech. I was expecting a more subdued speech after watching him testify on Capitol Hill and seeing him deliver the speech he gave at Ron Paul’s “Rally for the Republic” last year.
He spoke without notes and hammered home the ideas of foreign policy non-interventionism. The Q and A period following his talk was in some ways better and more passionate than the speech itself. Luckily the FFF recorded the entire event and has put it online for viewing.
It’s hosted at Vimeo which sometimes presents connection problems for me, but your patience with it loading will pay off in the end when you get to watch this foreign policy expert rip apart any notion of supporting the idea of American empire.
This is not your usual Ron Paul video. He seems a bit uncomfortable being the one expected to initiate the questions, but as the discussion moves along he becomes more comfortable (or maybe it’s me that feels uncomfortable with Ron Paul in this role).
There were some fascinating moments. The discussion regarding Thomas Jefferson and how his presidency did not quite match his rhetoric was one of these moments. The discussion of Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson are others. During the discussion we also find out which U.S. President Ron Paul thinks was the worst in history.
The full interview is embedded below. It is almost 60 minutes long. If you have problems with the video below you can watch it directly on youtube. There are some audio/video sync problems in part 5 (FYI).
I often wondered if I’d see a documentary film materialize out of the Ron Paul Presidential campaign, sometimes called the Ron Paul Revolution. It appears that a documentary is on the way. It is being produced by at least one of the patriots responsible for the amazing “High Tide Ad” for Ron Paul released in early 2008.
The documentary has been in the making for almost a year. The movie’s web site, ForLibertyMovie.com, has a synopsis:
As the 2007-08 presidential campaign cycle offered up the usual slate of Washington insiders, Ron Paul, an obscure Congressman from Texas brought an alternative voice that challenged the political establishment.
Advocating a philosophy of sound money, a non-interventionist foreign policy, strict Constitutionalism, and individual liberty, Dr. Paul inspired a unique grassroots movement unmatched in American history – the repercussions of which continue to reverberate today and into the future of the American psyche.
For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty follows this historic campaign from the perspective of grassroots activists, and showcases the unique, often bizarre, yet groundbreaking projects they undertook as they brushed aside traditional campaign methodology.
For Liberty is currently in production and scheduled for a Summer 2009 release on 16:9 widescreen DVD.
The first full length trailer for the upcoming film is now available, embedded below. Watching the trailer brought me back to that feeling I had in the spring and summer of 2007. It was a feeling of pure hope. That feeling rolling around in my head, “What if Ron Paul actually wins the nomination?”. I often wrote about the odds of that happening as very small, but I didn’t care. I held on to hope and blind optimism until the New Hampshire primary when it became evident that America wasn’t quite ready for Ron Paul.
This movie attempts to capture that feeling. It is already successful in doing so for me. Imagine how I’ll feel when I watch the entire movie if the trailer alone caused that old hope to resurrect itself inside of me.
This is the story of Ron Paul 2008 and the spontaneous, almost magical, grassroots support he received. As we move onward from that campaign and look to the future let us continue fighting for liberty everywhere we tread.
Liberty Maven
“. They discussed the book and the general topic of Presidential (Executive Branch) power.
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