Gary Johnson Interviewed on Your World with Neil Cavuto

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was interviewed about his presidential campaign and abolishing the IRS on 'Your World with Neil Cavuto.'

Militarized Police in Anaheim

One of the many bad results of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, is the police in the United States being equipped with more and more military equipment. The latest use of this equipment can be seen in Anaheim.

From RT:

Amber Lyon, award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker, joins Thom Hartmann. Something is happening in Anaheim, California - despite a complete blackout from the mainstream media. Take a look at some of these pictures by award-winning investigative journalist Amber Lyons from Anaheim over the weekend. When we hear terms like militarized police - this is what comes to mind. Officers decked out in full military gear as though they're about to be deployed to Afghanistan. So what's behind this? Why are militarized police on patrol in Anaheim? Well - Sunday marked the ninth straight day that local citizens took to the streets to protest police brutality. Nine days after police shot an unarmed man - 25-year-old Manuel Diaz - in the back of the head killing him. Since that shooting...the streets of Anaheim have been the scene of mostly peaceful protests that have at times turned violent in response to heavy handed police crackdowns. Last week - this was the scene in Anaheim - as police in riot gear fired less lethal projectiles like bean bags and pepper balls indiscriminately into crowds of people. 24 people were arrested that night - storefront windows were smashed, and fires were started. And last night - as hundreds poured into the streets for a peaceful march and ceremony for Manuel Diaz - they were once again met with Anaheim police equipped with full military gear. Nine people were arrested on Sunday.

President Obama or a President Romney Will Bring Four More Years of the Same

The difference between a President Obama or a President Romney are minuscule and unimportant. It is time to get America back on track as a free and prosperous country.

From Gary Johnson:

Gary Johnson, two-term governor and Libertarian Presidential candidate, knows that a President Obama or a President Romney will only bring four more years of the same. Only Governor Johnson will do what presidents SHOULD do: promote the peace, increase the freedom, and put America first once more.

Be Libertarian with Governor Johnson just one time, and together we will make an America that's four years better brighter and more optimistic.

Let's End the National Nightmare

From Gary Johnson:

Two-term Governor, Gary Johnson, will end the national nightmare of the IRS. America once prospered without it. It can do so again if we vote sanity into office in 2012. Gary is now our best hope for less government and more liberty. It's time to put our differences and our parties aside and come together as a nation. We The People are ready to LIVE FREE.

The Goal of Every Government: To Disarm Its People

Lionel speaks up for the gun owners.

Harry Reid Was For Auditing The Federal Reserve Before He Was Against It

Speaking of lying politicians, here is Harry Reid going on and on about how he wants to audit the Federal Reserve in 1995. Now that the House has passed a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, Harry Reid says that he will not put it to a vote in the Senate.

Here is Harry in 1995:

Obama's Failure: The War on Drugs

Just like any typical politician, Obama lied when he campaigned in 2008. Obama said he wouldn't waste federal Justice Department resources trying to circumvent State medical marijuana laws. What did he do when he became President? He outdid the George W. Bush in raiding medical marijuana dispensaries.



Gary Johnson for President.

The Failure of "Public" Education

Whether it is health care or education, government involvement leads to high costs and poor results:

Laissez-Faire Learning

by David Greenwald

As a teacher in a public high school, I am daily confronted with the lamentable realities of state-monopoly education. Student apathy, methodological stagnation, bureaucratic inefficiency, textbook-publishing cartels, obsessive preoccupation with grades, coercive relationships, and rigid, sanitized curricula are just a few of the more obvious problems, attended by the cold-shower disillusionment and gradual burnout among teachers to which they almost invariably lead.

While outcomes such as these are certainly tragic, the process that produces them is not exactly the stuff of Greek theater. There is no climactic battle, no cathartic denouement, no salvific moral lesson to be taken home when the curtain falls, and seldom are there any readily identifiable heroes or villains. It is not a single, epic calamity but a thousand trivial defeats a day, each too mundane and too quickly obscured by its successor to be considered noteworthy. Like a bad movie, public education somehow manages to be both tragic and boring. It is only its cumulative result that would have impressed Sophocles.

Oddly enough, although there is overwhelming public support for compulsory, tax-funded schooling, enthusiasm for what actually goes on in public schools is noticeably lacking. Not only are they generally acknowledged to be falling short in their efforts to produce an enlightened citizenry, but it is even conceded that they have failed in what is ostensibly their most exalted mission: the provision of equal opportunity for all via a standardized system of mass instruction in which all students receive the same basic set of knowledge and skills. Nor has this indictment originated solely from among the ranks of those opposed to egalitarianism on principle. To the contrary, it is largely the refrain of embittered progressives for whom "free" universal education has long been the desideratum of social justice, and who cannot understand how the behemoth they so vigorously midwifed into existence and then wet-nursed for a century could have so thoroughly betrayed their loftiest and most cherished ideal.

Yet ironically, it is the unassailable faith in the achievability of precisely this ideal of universal equality that immunizes public education against every reasonable argument advanced in opposition to it. Notwithstanding its manifest shortcomings, none of which has found a remedy despite decades of legislative reform, hardly anyone is prepared to see this system replaced by anything resembling a real market in education due to the deeply held conviction that that those of lesser material means either would not be able to afford market-based schooling or, in the very best case, would receive only substandard services inadequate to the task of ensuring equality of economic opportunity later in life. It is a further irony, though hardly surprising, that neither the economic knowledge nor the analytic discernment necessary for an examination of these claims has ever been or will ever be taught in a public school. No emperor willingly trains his own subjects to recognize nakedness when they see it.


Given this state of affairs, it devolves on individuals, both within and outside of the school system, to educate others about education. In what follows I will attempt to address what I see as the three primary objections raised against the idea of market-based education:

that educational services on the market would be at a premium, with prices high enough to exclude at least the lowest-income strata of society;

that even if the less affluent could afford some market-based education, it would be of a substantially inferior quality to that received by wealthier consumers of educational services; and

that the lack of a universal curriculum and standardized criteria of achievement would render the market incapable of providing the equality of opportunity that public education, however unsatisfactorily, at least aims in principle to ensure.

We will examine each of these arguments in turn. As will be shown, the first two rest on a misunderstanding of markets, while the third stems from a grossly distorted concept of education from which, if they took the time to examine it closely, probably even most progressives would recoil in horror.

Argument 1: Affordability

In order to understand why educational services on a free market would as a rule be priced well within the reach of the vast majority of income earners, we must first ask why the market produces anything at all for such persons. Since it is obvious that the wealthiest few have far more purchasing power per capita than those in the middle- and lower-income strata, why does the market not produce only for the former group and leave the latter two homeless and starving? Why is sugar, once a luxury of the rich, today a household item so widely and cheaply available that the US government feels called on to impose tariffs on imports and buy up domestic surpluses to keep the price artificially high? Why is the same kilobyte of computer memory that cost around $45 twenty years ago today priced at a fraction of a cent?

The simple answer is this: competition. When a good first appears on the market, the supply of it is strictly limited. To the extent that consumers value it highly, they will bid against each other for the minimal stock available, causing the price to rise until all but the wealthiest consumers drop out of the market. As long as there is no expansion of supply, and assuming the consumers do not change their valuations, the good will remain a luxury of the rich.

However, it is precisely this condition that provides producers with the incentive to increase production of the product. The high price yields supernormal profits that draw venture capitalists and entrepreneurs into that line of production, thereby increasing the supply, lowering the price, and most importantly, bringing exponentially greater numbers of consumers into the market. This process continues until that portion of profits that exceeds the general rate prevailing in other industries disappears, bringing the expansion to a halt. But by that time, the good has long since ceased to be a toy for the rich. To paraphrase Mises, yesterday's luxury has become today's necessity.


Of course, while this process works in essentially the same way for all goods, some goods – diamonds, for example – tend to remain luxury items indefinitely due to the high cost of producing them. It is, after all, the consumers who, in the aggregate, must ultimately pay for any lasting expansion of industry. If the capital expenditures necessary for the production of a good exceed the willingness or ability of the consumers to offset them, no sustained increase in the supply of that good will be possible.

So how would this dynamic work on a market for education? Assuming that educational services as such would be given high priority on the value scales of most consumers, would the cost of producing them keep them priced beyond the means of the typical wage-earner? Here we must be particularly careful not to engage in what psychologists call static thinking. We must ask ourselves, not how much it would cost for private entrepreneurs to produce curricula and instruction as these are presently constituted, but rather to what extent and in what ways schooling in its current form squanders resources, and how it might be streamlined and otherwise improved in the crucible of free competition.

One point is clear: the greater and more numerous the inefficiencies of the current system, the more radical its transformation by the market would be. And just how inefficient is the present system? Well, who runs it? On what principles does it operate? Does it allow students the freedom, for example, to take courses in what they are most interested in and eschew subjects they do not wish to study? Or does it rather saddle them with a bloated, one-size-fits-all curriculum prodigiously crammed full of skills and information they neither need nor want, thereby creating artificial demand for teachers and administrative staff, stimulating construction of needlessly large (or simply needless) facilities, boosting energy consumption and capital maintenance costs, and so forth? To get an idea of the sorts of "practical competencies" students in today's public and state-regulated high schools are expected to (pretend to) master and retain for use in later life,[1] here is a randomly-selected excerpt from the scintillating epistle "Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Mathematics," issued by the Texas Education Agency:

§111.35. Precalculus (One-Half to One Credit).

Knowledge and skills.
The student defines functions, describes characteristics of functions, and translates among verbal, numerical, graphical, and symbolic representations of functions, including polynomial, rational, power (including radical), exponential, logarithmic, trigonometric, and piecewise-defined functions. The student is expected to:
describe parent functions symbolically and graphically, including f(x) = xn, f(x) = 1n x, f(x) = loga x, f(x) = 1/x, f(x) = ex, f(x) = |x|, f(x) = ax, f(x) = sin x, f(x) = arcsin x, etc.;
determine the domain and range of functions using graphs, tables, and symbols;
describe symmetry of graphs of even and odd functions;
recognize and use connections among significant values of a function (zeros, maximum values, minimum values, etc.), points on the graph of a function, and the symbolic representation of a function; and
investigate the concepts of continuity, end behavior, asymptotes, and limits and connect these characteristics to functions represented graphically and numerically.
Got all that?


Of course, administrative costs and restrictions on entry and labor-market flexibility also impact cost-efficiency. How do public schools hold up in these areas? Are their operational rules and procedures clear, concise, and easy to follow? Or does it take, say, 670 pages and whole cadres of lawyers, consultants, and administrative support staff just to implement a single program? Regarding entry, how easy is it to qualify as a member of the academy? Is anyone who demonstrates a potential aptitude for meeting the educational demands of students given the opportunity to try to do so? Or is club membership restricted by legal quotas and licensure requirements necessitating lengthy and expensive formal training?

And how flexible is the labor market? Can an underperforming or incompetent employee be readily replaced? Or does even a mere suspension require a hearing before a three-member commission?[2]

We do not have space here to speculate on all the optimizing innovations creative entrepreneurs might come up with, and to do so would be presumptuous in any case. As John Hasnas has pointed out, if we could forecast the future market accurately, our very ability to do this would be the greatest possible justification for central planning.[3] Suffice it to say that today's public and government-regulated private schools dissipate resources with a profligacy that would have made Ludwig II blush. We can hardly claim, then, that these institutions – whose costs are externalized onto the whole society – are paragons of affordability. Yet education is not a capital-intensive industry, and market competition would surely eliminate most of this waste in short order, allowing educational entrepreneurs to reduce their costs, lower their prices, and take advantage of economies of scale. As for those few who might still be unable to pay, lower prices would mean that private scholarships, grants, and student loans would be available in greater abundance than they are today, and the latter would no longer require ten years of indentured servitude to pay off.

Just as with sugar, automobiles, civil aviation, and cell phones,[4] so too in education high initial profits would draw competition, increase supply, reduce cost, and multiply innovation. There is no reason for market-driven educational services tailored specifically to the desires of those who consume them to be prohibitively expensive.[5]

Argument 2: Quality

A second argument against leaving education to the market is that to do so would result in grave disparities in quality of service. The rich, it is said, would get steak, while the poor got rump roast. Of course, there is a kernel of truth in this. The more you are prepared to offer for something, the more quality you are in a position to demand. The market is indeed a place where the principle embodied in the cliché "You get what you pay for" prevails.

But what exactly do you pay for? The answer to this question is not necessarily obvious. To illustrate, I offer a personal example.

Many years ago, I worked at a tavern-style restaurant that was part of a nationwide chain. With its eclectic menu, modest prices, and dollar-a-mug draft beers, it was a place where families could go on a budget, and weekend drinkers could go on a binge. Not exactly Alain Ducasse, but we did offer a steak (T-bone, as I recall) for around $10. What is interesting about this is that right next door was a more upscale steakhouse that also served T-bone; only this one went for something like $22. Nothing unusual about that, but here's the catch: both restaurants were owned by the same company and both served exactly the same T-bone steak.


At first blush, this seems absurd. Why would any company compete with itself? And why, for that matter, would anyone in his right mind pay $22 for a steak he could get for less than half that just by walking across the parking lot? Situations like this have led to calls for governments to step in and "protect" consumers from their own "irrationality." But there is nothing irrational going on here. The two restaurants were not in competition, because they served different clientele, and patrons had definite reasons for the choices they made about which restaurant to patronize. Ours wanted to cut the frills, sit at the bar, and save money; theirs were willing to pay more than double the price for the plush seats, subdued ambience, and tuxedoed waiters. The essential thing, however, is that both were eating the same steak.

The relationship between price and quality is therefore not as straightforward as we might imagine. It is certainly true that you get what you pay for, but it is equally true that you pay for what you get. To be sure, on the education market, those with the wherewithal could attend schools equipped with indoor swimming pools, tennis courts, amphitheaters, and state-of-the-art IT. But this does not mean that everyone else could not make do with less extravagance and still get the same basic service.

Of course, all this in no way suggests that quality of educational services would be identical. Such a conclusion would be absurd. What we have demonstrated is simply the fallacious reasoning behind the common assumption that where price is low, product must be unsatisfactory. What does not satisfy is not profitable. Products and services that do not meet the needs of consumers – rich and poor – will soon have, not a low price, but no price.

Argument 3: Opportunity

We now turn to a final argument for public education that goes beyond economics, though even here there is a parallel. Deeply rooted in the belief that justice means equality and equality means identical circumstances, this view holds that educational standards and curricula must be essentially uniform for everyone if all students are to be given the same opportunity to succeed in life. Here, the anticipated failure of the market lies, not in its high prices or disparate quality, but in its presumably excessive flexibility and diversity. In essence, this argument is really nothing more than a special case of the more general socialist contempt for the division of labor. But what is the "division of labor" in education? What is its meaning, and why should we fear its emergence?

We are accustomed to conceiving of education, not as an abstraction, but as a "real thing" existing in the world outside; a commodity possessed by some people whom we call "teachers" and transferred, more or less mechanically, to other people called "students." This habit of thought is reflected in our language: it is far more common to talk about getting an education than about becoming educated. Yet the greatest thinkers in this area have repeatedly emphasized that education is, in fact, a process of becoming. This is what Maria Montessori meant when she said that if our definition of education proceeds

along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind?

Montessori urged an approach to pedagogy that would "help toward the complete unfolding of life," and "rigorously ... avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks."


John Dewey expressed similar views. In his seminal work Democracy and Education, Dewey places the onus of responsibility for education squarely on the shoulders of the individual student:

One is mentally an individual only as he has his own purpose and problem, and does his own thinking. The phrase "think for oneself" is a pleonasm. Unless one does it for oneself, it isn't thinking. Only by a pupil's own observations, reflections, framing and testing of suggestions can what he already knows be amplified and rectified. Thinking is as much an individual matter as is the digestion of food. [Moreover], there are variations of point of view, of appeal of objects, and of mode of attack, from person to person. When these variations are suppressed in the alleged interests of uniformity, and an attempt is made to have a single mold of method of study and recitation, mental confusion and artificiality inevitably result. Originality is gradually destroyed, confidence in one's own quality of mental operation is undermined, and a docile subjection to the opinion of others is inculcated, or else ideas run wild. (p. 311–12)

For both Dewey and Montessori, education starts from the inside and moves outward.[6] Its purpose is to stimulate discovery and development of the personal resources latent within the self by allowing the student to experience the myriad possibilities for bringing them to bear creatively on the external world.

This means that becoming educated is not a matter of passively acquiring what is given, but of actively discovering what one has to give. It means that education does not create opportunity; opportunity creates education.

Regimentation and uniformity must therefore be jettisoned entirely; the individual must reign supreme within the sphere of his own development. The function of the school is to provide a stable environment rich in stimuli across a broad spectrum of disciplines, while the role of the teacher becomes primarily that of the observer who watches as closely – and intervenes as sparingly – as possible.

From this it follows that no two individuals would or could possibly educate themselves in exactly the same way. The self-directed intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual explorations of millions of people simultaneously thus result in an unfathomable diversification of interests and activities that amounts to an educational "division of labor" – one that supports and enhances the division of labor of the market economy, and is in fact its logical precursor.

It must surely be obvious that such a philosophy is in every way wholly incompatible with systems of compulsory or universalized schooling aimed at "equalizing opportunity," and moreover, that even to use the word opportunity in connection with compulsion or regimentation is to abuse language, otherwise we might just as well reinstate slavery in the name of providing equal "employment opportunity."

Education, if it is to be worthy of the name, demands a method opposite to that of bureaucratic management and entirely irreconcilable with it. It requires flexibility, parsimony, innovation, and above all, a means of daily subjecting the producers of educational services to the competition of their peers and the approval or disapproval of their clients.

It requires, in other words, the free market.

Conclusion
In Slovenia where I teach, the verb "to learn" literally translates "to teach oneself." If the truth behind this linguistic convention were widely recognized, it would discredit the very premise on which all systems of public education are founded. But, as the great economist Frédéric Bastiat warned more than a century and a half ago, there is a pronounced tendency when confronted with important questions to consider only what is seen and ignore that which is not seen. And this just as true in education as it is in economics. We see students go to school day after day for 12 years, do as they're told, get their diplomas, and finally go on to do something with their lives. Perhaps from our vantage point it does not look so bad. But what we do not see is what they might have become had they been allowed to be the architects of their own fate from the beginning.

Notes
[1] Note that on the market, service providers do not "expect" anything from their customers except payment. It is rather the consumer who expects satisfactory performance from the provider.

[2] Block, Walter and Young, A. 1999. "Enterprising education: Doing away with the public school system." International Journal of Value-Based Management, vol. 12, pp. 195–207.

[3] Hasnas, J. 1995. "The Myth of the Rule of Law." In Stringham, E.P. (Ed.), Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice, pp. 163–192. Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute.

[4] According to Ask.com, the first cell phones sold for around $4,000.

[5] Those still in doubt should visit the Mises Academy, which has put all of its summer courses on sale for tuition fees ranging from $59 to $79 per class. Ever heard of an accredited – that is, state-cartelized – university having a sale? Neither have I.

[6] One of the most salient insights of both Montessori and Dewey is the theory of concentrated attention, according to which the one indispensable prerequisite of education is that children be allowed to focus on an activity for as long as they are absorbed in it. Both philosophers agree that what we call education can only occur as a result of this absorption, and so, just as it is the first duty of the physician to do no harm, so it is the first task of the teacher not to interrupt. Of course, the modern school is set up to be nothing but an endless series of interruptions. Like the thought-disruption device planted in the ear of the protagonist in Kurt Vonnegut's story "Harrison Bergeron," the school day is broken up into a hodgepodge of unrelated subjects and types of activity, disrupted every 45 minutes by the Pavlovian ringing of a bell. Under these conditions, nothing resembling what Montessori and Dewey would call education can take place. For more on this, see Kirkpatrick, J. 2008. Montessori, Dewey, and Capitalism: Educational Theory for a Free Market in Education. Claremont, CA: TLJ Books.




July 23, 2012

David Greenwald received his BA in German from Hendrix College and his master's in counseling studies from Capella University. He currently teaches high school English in Slovenia, where he conducts extracurricular projects on entry-level Austrian economics, banking and the business cycle, and the sociology of violence. He is also a lecturer at the Cato Institute's Liberty Seminars. See David Greenwald's article archives at Mises.org.

Copyright © 2012 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided full credit is given.

Bad Science and Bad Legislation Leads to Obesity

From ReasonTV:

"The government can come along and, with all the best intentions, cause enormous problems" says Gary Taubes, a science writer and author most recently of Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It .

Reason.tv's Zach Weissmueller talked with Taubes about his controversial work in the world of nutrition and epidemiology, including Taubes' hypothesis that carbohydrates, not dietary fat, overeating, or lack of physcial activity, are the primary factor causing obesity. Other topics include the inability of governments and large informational institutions such as the American Heart Association to adapt to new information, the mess of bad legislation and bad science that Taubes believes led to America's obesity problem, and why many libertarians seem to love the Paleo Diet .

Taubes' work has unsurprisingly invited criticism from scientists, government officials and journalists, even in the pages of Reason Magazine, where he went back and forth with Reason contributor Michael Fumento. Read below and decide for yourself who, if anyone, is right:

Fumento on Taubes - http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake

Taubes' response - http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/an-exercise-in-vitriol-rather

Fumento's rebuttal - http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/gary-taubes-tries-to-overwhelm

Judge Napolitano Endorses Gary Johnson

From Gary Johnson 2012:

Judge Andrew Napolitano talks about Gov. Johnson at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, calling him a "lover of liberty."

Gun Owner, 63, Stops Armed Robbery

From My Fox Orlando:

Two men who deputies say tried to rob a Marion County Internet café were both shot by one of the patrons. 

It happened just before 10:00 p.m. Friday at the Palms Internet Café located at 8444 SW State Road 200.  

When Marion County deputies arrived they found patrons outside the business who told them that two men in masks - one armed with a baseball bat and the other with a handgun - barged into the business. The robbers told the approximately 30 patrons to get on the floor, and they demanded money.  

Investigators say Samuel Williams, one of the customers, pulled out his own handgun and shot the robbers. Both robbers began running toward the front door, and the patron fired several more shots as they fled. 

The two men got into a car parked nearby and fled.

Not long afterward, deputies got a call about two men at a Marion Oaks residence who were telling people there that they had been shot while at Scott Carrigan Baseball Park on Southeast 17th Street in Ocala. Police officers went to the field but found no evidence of a shooting there.

The two men, later identified as Davis G. Dawkins, 19, and Duwayne Henderson, 19, were transported - one by helicopter - to Shands at the University of Florida in Gainesville.  

Dawkins had a superficial wound in his left arm, but Henderson was shot in two places: his left buttock and his right hip.

Neither of the men have a criminal record, authorities said

Both men were arrested for attempted robbery with a firearm.

Read more: http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/19035444/customer-shoots-suspects-during-internet-cafe-robbery#ixzz21HrZfRSW

Portugal Legalized All Drugs Ten Years Ago

From AlterNet:

Back in 2001, Portugal had the highest rate of HIV among injecting drug users in the European Union—an incredible 2,000 new cases a year, in a country with a population of just 10 million. Despite the predictable controversy the move stirred up at home and abroad, the Portuguese government felt there was no other way they could effectively quell this ballooning problem. While here in the U.S. calls for full drug decriminalization are still dismissed as something of a fringe concern, the Portuguese decided to do it, and have been quietly getting on with it now for a decade. Surprisingly, most credible reports appear to show that decriminalization has been a staggering success.

...as Glenn Greenwald, the author of the Cato study, concludes: "By freeing its citizens from the fear of prosecution and imprisonment for drug usage, Portugal has dramatically improved its ability to encourage drug addicts to avail themselves of treatment. The resources that were previously devoted to prosecuting and imprisoning drug addicts are now available to provide treatment programs to addicts." Under the perfect system, treatment would also be voluntary, but as an alternative to jail, mandatory treatment save money. But for now, "the majority of EU states have rates that are double and triple the rate for post-decriminalization Portugal," Greenwald says

Are Workers Exploited Under Capitalism?

From LearnLiberty:

The idea that capitalism exploits workers stems from Karl Marx's work in the late 1800s. Although the definition of "exploitation" has changed since then, many still believe capitalist systems take advantage of vulnerable workers. Prof. Matt Zwolinski explains why capitalism actually tends to protect workers' interests. And Zwolinski contends that even if it were exploitative, increasing political regulation and control would actually make the problem worse. Increases in government make citizens more vulnerable to the state. Political officials are tempted to exploit this vulnerability for the benefit of the politically well connected. Unlike free market transactions, which are mutually beneficial, when politics is involved one party's gain usually comes at someone else's expense.

We Need to Get Back to Basics

This Gary Johnson video is back from August of 2011.

From Gary Johnson:

Our economy is tangled up right now. People are worried about their jobs and their futures. So how do we start to fix the problems? Given that we have a long race in front of us, we need to get back to basics. We need to do the hard work that makes us stronger and we need to have clear goals and plans to keep us on track. It all gets back to common sense government. We need a government that sets the rules and creates a level playing field for all competitors. We need government that lives within its means.

Right now, Washington is borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar it's spending. We have to stop the spending and start thinking about providing the best service at the lowest price. When I was governor of New Mexico I saw how running the government is a lot like preparing for a triathlon. When we make good decisions, they build on themselves. Every lap in the pool, every spin on the bike, and every run prepares us for competition. Then there comes a time in every race where we have to dig deep and to push through and the results are worth it.

Do you want to keep America the strongest country in the world? Do you want to do the hard work it's going to take to restore fiscal discipline? It all starts with you and me. This is about America. LIVE FREE.

Win the War on Drugs by Ending It!

There is only one way to win the War on Drugs, end it! There is only one presidential candidate who will end this wasteful and counterproductive war, Gary Johnson.

From Gary Johnson's YouTube channel:

Two-term Governor, Gary Johnson, will win our nation's futile war on drugs by ending it. America once faced a similar dilemma with alcohol and mustered the public will to make a wise decision in ending Prohibition. Today America is safer and organized crime is out of the alcohol business. It's time to take the Capone out of cannabis, too. We The People are ready to LIVE FREE.

Capitalists or Cronies? Free Market or Politics?

Politics is force, fre markets are voluntary.

From LearnLiberty

One common claim is that capitalism exploits the masses for the benefit of the few. Many people who think capitalism exploits workers advocate increasing government power over the economy. Professor Matt Zwolinski suggests, however, that government power may be more exploitative than free-market capitalism. After all, in the marketplace, individuals have power over how they spend their money. The government, however, possesses the power to coerce citizens to pay for policies or programs they may not support, like bank bailouts. Zwolinski argues that bigger government makes citizens more vulnerable to exploitation.

Roger Williams: America's First Rebel

Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, understood that mixing church and government not only corrupts the government, but corrupts the church also.

From ReasonTV:

 "Williams was really America's first individualist, the first contradictor of authority, the first rebel," explains John M. Barry, author of Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty. While best known as the founder of Rhode Island and for being a leading proponent of a "wall of separation" between church and state, Barry argues that Williams' imprint on America is deeper than most recognize. "When I started writing the book I quickly realized that I was not simply writing about the emergence of the idea of religious liberty, but liberty itself."

Barry sat down with ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie to discuss the book, the enduring lessons of Roger Williams' life, and why he is not yet a household name.

Who Wants to Kill the Internet?

The internet genie is out of the bottle and governments want to kill it, before it kills them.

Cops Say Drug War Creates Crime

From Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:

Peter Christ, a retired police captain, says that while war on drugs is intended to increase public safety and decrease crime, in reality it has had the opposite effect. He and a growing number of other police officers are now saying it is time to legalize and regulate drugs. Peter is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which anyone can join for free at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com

Ron Paul or Gary Johnson?

From ReasonTV way back in 2011:

On June 15, 2011 Gillespie and Welch used short, rapid-fire videos to answer dozens of reader questions submitted via email, Twitter, Facebook, and Reason.com. In this episode, they answer the question:

"Gary Johnson or Ron Paul?"
and
"Among the 2012 field of Republican candidates, not counting Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, who is the least bad candidate -- declared or possible?"

Take on the U.S. Constitution: Conservative vs. Libertarian

From 92ndStreetY:

As we inch closer to September's 225th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, Reason Magazine's Senior Editor, Damon Root, describes the modern day battle developing around our nation's law of the land: between conservatives and libertarians. Root explains the important differences between how these two groups look at the constitution, which he says all Americans should care about as "it's providing real limits on government power that spells out what the government can and can not do."

Extensive Government Regulation Benefits Large Corporations

A good consise explanation why regulations favor big business and harm small business.

From LearnLiberty:

It is clear big businesses wield great control over the federal government. How do we stop this so-called crony capitalism, or collusion? Professor Jason Brennan argues that while it may seem paradoxical the best solution is to limit government power. He provides two reasons for this. First, the power to "regulate the economy" is really the same thing as the power to distribute favors, which corporations will inevitably seek. Second, regulations actually benefit big businesses at the expensive of small businesses. Less government power means corporations have less power to compete for, fewer privileges to seek, fewer subsidies to enjoy, and no agencies to capture.

America's Boldest Governor Gary Johnson Discusses Drug Policy

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, now the Libertarian candidate for President discusses drug policy at the Cato Institute on November 1, 2010.



From Cato:

As governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson succeeded in eliminating New Mexico's budget deficit, cutting the rate of growth in state government in half, and privatizing half of the state prisons. During Johnson's term, New Mexico experienced the longest period without a tax increase in the state's history. He vetoed 750 bills in eight years, more than all other governors combined. The Economist dubbed him "America's boldest governor" -- and that was before he took on drug prohibition.

Special Interest Written Law

Most of the laws written by Congress are not designed for the people, rather they are written for various special interests.

From ReasonTV:

"Obamacare is not, as one judge says, a national solution to a problem," argues James V. DeLong. "It's 2,000 pages...of special-interest-written law."

As such, it exemplifies what DeLong, a long-time Washington insider who has worked for many think tanks and government agencies, denounces as "Big SIS" or the "special-interest state." In his scathing - and utterly convincing - new book, Ending Big SIS and Renewing the American Republic, Reason Contributing Editor DeLong traces how "the political system creates economic advantages for special interests and then demands that part of the profits be fed back into the political system, where they are used to enhance the power of the political incumbents."

Whether the topic is defense spending, agricultural subsidies, health care, or the financial sector, DeLong documents the pervasive rot at the core of Washington's way of doing business - and provides ideas for cutting Big SIS down to size.

For more information on the book and DeLong, go to http://www.specialintereststate.org/index.shtml. For his Reason archive, go to http://reason.com/people/james-v-delong/all

Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson With MSNBC's Alex Witt

Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson discusses receiving an additional $130,000 in new federal matching funds, health care, taxes and the economy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Health Insurance Makes Healthcare More Expensive

I posted this video almost three years ago, but it is still timely in light of the Supreme Court's Obamacare ruling. John Stossel shows why health insurance actually increases the cost of health care.

Bill O'Reilly, Constitutional Scholar? That's Absurd!

Tom Woods states that Bill O'Reilly is no Constitutional scholar. O'Reilly had responded to a viewer's statement on health care by saying that government health care is permitted thanks to the preamble to the Constitution. Woods explains why that is absurd.

The Emperor Has No Clothes - Time For Smaller Government

Harry Browne was the Libertarian Party nominee for President in 1996 and 2000. Here is Harry speaking on smaller government at the Cato Institute in 1996. Unfortunately Harry passed away on March 1, 2006 from ALS.

City of Milwaukee Policy: We Write The Tickets, It's Up to You To Prove You're Innocent

The City of Milwaukee's parking ticket philosophy is to write any and all possible tickets and force the individual to challenge it. Thereby raising revenue from those who don't want to devote the time to challenge the ticket.

Thomas Sanders, head of Milwaukee Parking Enforcement, says the City's policy is to write the ticket and then straighten it out later. Another example of the government working for you!

A Significant Loss for the American People

Nick Gillespie, editor in chief for Reason.com, says that the Supreme Court's Obamacare is a significant loss for the American People. He points out that Medicare is the main driver of health care cost increases and that 50% of healthcare is paid for through the government before Obamacare.

How Free Are We On This Fourth of July? - Excellent Editorial In The Las Vegas Review Journal

Excellent editorial in the Las Vegas Review Journal that comments on all the ways we have lost our freedom.

How free are we on this Fourth of July? - Opinion - ReviewJournal.com

Why is Health Care Expensive?

Amanda BillyRock explains how health care stated to become unaffordable. Not surprisingly it was during the "progressive era" when many horrendous things occurred, such as the income tax, drug prohibition and the establishment of the Federal Reserve.

Molesting in Orange County

Julie Borowski tells her story of being molested by the TSA in Orange County.

A Lasting Order Cannot Be Established By Bayonets

War leads to more war. World War War I lead to World War II which lead to the Korean War. World War I lead to the wars in the Middle East. War is a loss. War is about death and destruction. The United States should stay out of wars, not start them.

Stop the War on Dying Patients

Who owns you? You or the government? Should the government be able to stop you from using a substance that you think might save your life? Should you have to die while waiting for the government to approve a drug?

Mary J. Ruwart, PhD, biochemist and author of Healing Our World, wants to stop the war on dying patients. What war do YOU want to stop? Why not stop ALL war? http://www.millionvotemarch.com/

Liberty Oriented Solutions

Gary Johnson, Libertarian nominee for President, discusses the problems facing this country and liberty oriented solutions to these problems.

Don't Abandon Freedom, Protect Your Natural Rights

Here is a commentary I wrote that was published in the Rochester Post Bulletin on June 29, 2007. I have posted it on my blog a few times in the years since, but I think it is worth repeating (I do update the number of years each year):

This Fourth of July as we go about our activities with family and friends, we all should take some time to reflect upon the true significance of the holiday. Yes, it is a celebration of our country's Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, but it is much more than that. It is a celebration of an idea that was revolutionary then and unfortunately is still considered revolutionary by many today.

The Declaration of Independence boldly states: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ..."

This revolutionary declaration is the foundation of American political thought and has inspired millions around the world in the 236 years since Thomas Jefferson wrote it. The common view at the time was that rights were granted by the government to the people. Instead, Jefferson declared there is a higher law, "unalienable Rights," that every human has by their mere existence. Government only has those powers granted to it by the people, to protect these natural rights.

Unfortunately today it seems that many have rejected Jefferson's declaration and have returned to the antiquated idea of government supremacy. They define patriotism as supporting the government. Most disheartening of all are the discussions about the Constitution.

Political commentators, major party politicians and Supreme Court nominees talk about our "constitutional rights," as if the government were granting us our rights through the Constitution.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the Constitution, the founders again make it abundantly clear that all power comes from the people. The Constitution is a document where the people have granted the government certain limited powers: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Further, the Ninth Amendment declares: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Because so many Americans have forgotten the fundamental idea behind the founding of this Country, today we have people willing to abandon our basic liberties, giving the government the power to do anything it wants.

They falsely assume that invasions of liberty and privacy will not affect them, though history has shown otherwise. Too many today are willing to abandon freedom for the illusion of security.

Benjamin Franklin said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

This Fourth of July please take time out from the celebrations to reflect on the founders' vision for America.

Want Government the Hell Out of Healthcare?

Gary Johnson's video on government healthcare.

Two-term Governor, Gary Johnson, says we can't count on Mitt Romney, the author of government healthcare, to repeal it. Gary is our best hope for less government and more liberty. It's time to put our differences and our parties aside and come together as a nation. We The People are ready to LIVE FREE.

Secret message at 52 seconds: NOBAMNEY 2012

A Republic, Not a Democracy

I cringe every time some politician or media talking head spouts off about the US being a democracy. It irritates Lionel also:

George Will is Wrong, There is No Silver Lining to Obamacare Decision

This a great short and sweet video on the important  things to know about the Supreme Court's Affordable Care Act  decision. I don't see any silver lining in this horrible decision and those who think Willard M. Romney, the father of RomneyCare, is the one to rally around to get rid of Obamacare are delusional at best.

From ReasonTV:

Here are the three most important things you need to know in the wake of the Supeme Court's decision on The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare:

1. Government is still unlimited.
2. Mitt Romney is still lame.
3. Health care costs will still soar.

For more details, go to http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/29/3-essential-takeaways-from-the-obamacare