Carnival of The Libertarians #2

Welcome to the January 20, 2008 edition of Carnival of the Libertarians. We have submissions from England, Australia, Canada, and The U.S.

I wasn't able to post every submission this time. Some were too off-topic, and I ran out of room for others. Judy at "Consent of The Governed" will be next month's host. (Hint: She's partial to posts about the rights of Home Schoolers.)
Here we go ! All comments in italics are mine.

Michael Bass presents Do we have Private Property in the USA? posted at Debt Prison, saying, "What is private property and what rights come with it? I find it interesting that this subject is never discussed by politicians. From Democrats to Republicans, the issue of private property and the rights of ownership are seldom mentioned. However, the interpretation of private property is probably the single most important judgment a society administers in determining its destiny. All Laws revolve around a society’s perception of the rights to private property." - Plus, our freedom to selfishly "own" things like land and businesses is the primary difference between the U.S. and Mexico. Mexican Immigrants "Voting With Their Feet" is proof positive of the superiority of an ownership society.

Jon Swift presents When Steroids Are Banned, Only Cheaters Will Have Steroids posted at Jon Swift, saying, "The real heroes in this story are the baseball players who were not afraid to take steroids because of some old-fashioned notion of fair play." - Jon makes a compelling argument in this Modest Proposal. But just because I occasionally write about sports doesn't mean the baseball players beat me up in high school, Jon. (See his post for details....)

GrrlScientist presents ScienceDebate2008: In Search of a Science-literate Leader posted at Living the Scientific Life, saying, "While our elected officials have been distracted with petty bickering over non-issues such as the Terri Schiavo fiasco and the teaching of evolution in public schools, they have been waving their hands helplessly in the face of Hurricane Katrina, and the suffering of many Americans has been needlessly prolonged and ignored. In short, we need a science-literate president." - GrrlScientist doesn't understand that this is a LIBERTARIAN Blog Carnival. Does she think that Libertarians want to increase government funding for research????? No. We want it done more efficiently in the private sector. However, GrrlScientist is a very good writer, and we need more GrrlScientists. And my daughter wants to be a GrrlScientist. And it would be nice to have a President who didn't really believe, in the words of Sarah Jean Cartledge (my 5th grade science teacher), that God made man out of mud pies.

GrrlScientist presents ScienceDebate2008: What Is It? posted at Living the Scientific Life, saying, - According to her site, "GrrlScientist is a female evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, aviculturist and writer. She is a native of the Pacific Northwest who relocated from Seattle to NYC with her parrots after earning her PhD. She was awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship researching the molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the South Pacific islands. She now is a struggling writer."

Once again, her post has absolutely nothing to do with Libertarianism, but I'm intrigued with the idea of relocating from Seattle to New York City with a lot of parrots. How would you accomplish that? On a plane? In a car? Or could you mail their cages to New York, and just tell the parrots to fly home?

Howard Ditkoff presents Instant Runoff Voting Excluded: An Unreasonable Omission from An Unreasonable Man posted at SystemsThinker.com Blog, saying, "An Unreasonable Man is a great movie about Ralph Nader. But I was deeply disappointed by the fact that it focused deeply on how Ralph’s “spoiler” role in the 2000 election tarnished his legacy, while failing to mention the flaws in our election system that unnecessarily allow for “spoilers” to exist. Instant Runoff Voting, which I helped pass in Ferndale, Michigan in 2004, is a pivotal measure that can open up a fair playing field to more voices in our political system by eliminating the “spoiler” problem.....This issue should be of interest to Libertarians as well as any who support third parties." - Howard believes that Instant Runoff Voting would help us avoid hypothetical situations like Clinton, Bush, and Perot running for office, Bush and Perot splitting the majority conservative vote, and Clinton winning with the minority remainder (less than 50%).

I also included another link from Howard's site here that gives more details on what he did in Michigan.

blewsdawg presents Atlas Smiled (Is Ron Paul a Top Tier Candidate Yet?) posted at Infrequently Asked Questions, saying, "The Lame Stream Media may never understand that the current polling methods fail to capture the opinions of a large section of voters. That's okay, though. I'd like to see them caught by surprise." - I like to see it happen also, Dawg. See my post about Hillary flying under the radar. I'm also frustrated by questions, surveys, polls, etc. that only give a Republican/Democrat, Liberal/Conservate option. There's another continuum out here ! It's called Big State/Little State, or Libertarian/Populist.

Blewsdawg will be hosting Carnival of The Libertarians in March.

Sholom Anarchy presents Stumping for Ron Paul again posted at Anarcho-Judaism, saying, "The economics come after the video interlude." - but he says a LOT more in the post. Sholom Anarchy presents himself as the "Anarchist Rabbi", and he's worth reading. Give yourself plenty of time. I wish this guy had a synagogue.

Logan Flatt, CFA presents PowerWealth.com's 2007 Person of the Year: U.S. Congressman Ron Paul of Texas posted at PowerWealth.com, saying, "PowerWealth.com's 2007 Person of the Year is U.S. Congressman (and Medical Doctor) Ron Paul from Texas, who is actively running the most revolutionary campaign for President in modern U.S. history. Here's why Dr. Paul deserves the honor." - Instead of Vladimir Putin??? (See Time magazine) or Al Gore??? (See Time magazine for info on Putin's runner-up.) This is a great post. I'd already found it via Stumbleupon, but was glad Logan submitted it here.

Doug Ragan presents A Simple Fix For The US Economy posted at I'm A Pundit Too, saying, "We have had too many short term fixes from our government. It is time to look long term in respect to interest rates and taxes." - Doug has some great suggestions, none of which will ever see the light of day. Taking the long view, or doing nothing at all, would be highly effective, but doesn't work well with politicians who need to deliver chest-thumping rhetoric every two years.

Free Markets

billspaced presents Top Ten Mitt Romney Lies posted at Rants 'n Reviews: Observations from a real conservative OR Rubbing slightly more salt into the wound. - Bill's post predates Romney's promise to throw a jazillionbamillionzillion dollars at the auto industry in Michigan. So let's make it Eleven....

NotYourDaddy presents A Free Market Approach To Illegal Immigration, posted at Government is not your Daddy.. - Either the link was broken on the post that NYD submitted, or NYD has repented of whatever he wrote. So I selected another post from his site. This is Good Stuff about the Illegal Immigrant issue - the root cause, the current problem, and a good solution.

T Ellis presents Abolish the Welfare State posted at evanescent, saying, "A critique of socialism and the welfare state, in favour of individual freedom, capitalism, and laissez-faire politics." - Evanescent is one of those brilliant British Politics/Capitalism/Religion sites. I'm also providing a link to something he wrote about proposed Salary Caps. How is it that England has all these great Libertarian sites?

Carole G. McKay presents The ABC's of 2008 posted at McKay Today, saying, "It's so much more than the economy" - and here's my favorite paragraph from Carole's post: "Yesterday I was listening to a special report on National Public Radio. It was an interview with a man in Massachusetts who sells typewriters. Yes, that's right. Typewriters. Not computers. What he said was that there is a certain percentage of his business that is the 16-24 year olds who want a typewriter. What he is hearing from these young people is that while they enjoy the slowed pace, the sound of the keys striking the page and even the bell at the end of each line...it's the absence of temptation when at the keyboard to access the internet that allows them more focused attention and less stress."

I might need a typewriter.

Limited Government

Chris presents I am a Homegrown Terrorist posted at Gratuitous Common Sense, saying, "I mean every word of it. I will use force to resist a government that intrudes upon my freedom, as noted in the Constitution." - I'm not going to say much about Chris. He obviously has guns and is not afraid to use them.

DWSUWF presents Curing libertarian political impotence - a prescription for Electile Dysfunction posted at Divided We Stand United We Fall, saying, "If the libertarian "divided government vote" is shown to swing the 2008 presidential election as it did the Congressional outcome in 2006, then libertarians will no longer be inchoate, their message no longer diffused, and their political clout no longer flaccid. As long as the bulk of the electorate remain polarized and balanced, even a small percentage libertarian swing vote organized around divided government will be enough for libertarians to display the biggest swinging political "hammer" in town." - DWSUWF stands for "Divided We Stand, United We Fall" (You have to think about it for a minute....) I look forward to reading every word this man has ever typed. This site is what God and Al Gore had in mind when they invented the internet.

NotYourDaddy presents Back to Basics « Government is not your Daddy. posted at Government is not your Daddy.. - This is the second submission from Not Your Daddy. Here he simply provides a well-written statement of the obvious: that there are things the private sector can do better than government. Things that are obvious to everyone but Democrats, most Republicans, all Populists, the majority of voters, etc....

Shaun Connell presents UK Gun Ban posted at The Rebirth of Freedom Foundation, saying, "The UK banned guns in 1996. The end result was radical increases in crime." - Check out the little picture on the bottom right side bar, Shaun. Usually a picture is worth a thousand words, but your post is better than my picture.

Phil B. presents Illegal Immigration « Phil for Humanity posted at Phil for Humanity, saying, "With all the politicians talking about illegal immigration, I thought it would be a good idea to review the advantages and disadvantages of illegal immigrants." - Good post. The only unanswered question is whether illegal immigration would be a problem if we didn't have our current entitlements system. Wouldn't Open Borders be nice?

Sholom Anarchy presents 21st Century's most treasonous American shits on Constitution again posted at Anarcho-Judaism, saying, "Rights are not given, they are fought for and exercised!" - More from The Anarchist Rabbi. I really, really like this guy, and have pre-ordered a copy of his memoirs from Amazon. See his Blogspot Profile link for details.

DWSUWF presents Ronny - We hardly knew ye. posted at Divided We Stand United We Fall, saying, "Ron Paul is a fatally flawed candidate. Don't get me wrong, I am a Paul supporter, I sent him some money, I may send him some more, and I am certainly going to vote for him in the California primary. I'd like to see Paul stick it out through super Tuesday - if only to see whether his constituency can be organized into something that can be politically effective in the post-Ron Paul era (which started after the New Hampshire primary)." - Yep. After the racism charges, and the non-performance in New Hampshire, he's toast.

Samuel Bryson presents Free Market Economy/Classical Liberalism Vs. The Welfare State – Which is the better ideal? posted at Total Wellbeing. - Ok, we're starting to look like the U.N. around here....Mr. Bryson is from Australia. Here he offers us an attack on Sweden's Welfare State - the Sainted Welfare state that is always mentioned by fans of Big Government. "Total Wellbeing" is another site that I'm going to totally devour as soon as I get all of this stuff posted. This guy is sharp.

Personal Freedom

NotYourDaddy presents There Ought to be a Law! -- Or Ought There? posted at Government is not your Daddy.. - Here's a 3rd Not Your Daddy post. It's not right to post it, because other submissions from other bloggers have been deleted for space reasons. It's also not right that we're subsidizing the Prison, Social Worker, and Corrections Industries by locking up people for victimless crimes, as Not Your Daddy says.

John Crenshaw presents Mindless Zombies Attack Will Smith, And I’m Not Talking About His New Movie posted at Dominate Your Life, saying, "You may or may not have heard of the recent comments Will Smith made about Adolf Hitler in an interview with The Daily Record in the U.K., in which he said, “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today. I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.”" - Yep. Sometimes the greatest harm is done by those who will swear that they're doing The Lord's Work. Check out the "Gott Mit Uns" on the Wehrmacht belt buckles

Carole G. McKay presents Iowa and Us posted at McKay Today, saying, "What our leaders can tell us about ourselves and how "conscious" our choices really are." - here's a line from Carole that jumped out at me...." Earlier today I heard someone say in referring to two other people, "They are ruining my life." Well, no one has that power. Only we have the power to create from, or destroy through disregard, the life we have been gifted."

ChrisJ presents A Fairer FairTax posted at 8 Short Years, saying, "I would also be interested in hosting a carnival on my blog." - Ok, Chris, as long as you understand that putting all this together takes some effort. Here's my post on Tax Reform. Not as concise as yours, and it probably makes less sense.

Chris has an excellent post about Gridlock, and its benefits. (The Force is Strong In This One, Fellow Jedi....) He also has better eyes than we 46-year olds, and needs to go into his HTML code and switch to a bigger typeface.

Holly Ord presents Mike Gravel, the Only Candidate I Can Support posted at Menstrual Poetry. - In which Holly offers up a prayer to Saint Jude, The Patron Saint of Lost Causes....


Tym Machine presents Mes vues sur la politique...My views on politics...: Résultats de recherche pour freedom of speech posted at Mes vues sur la politique...My views on politics..., saying, "In this blog I share my personal views tainted with my own personal reality, my country Canada, my province of origin, Quebec. Best regards to everyone, hope you will enjoy it." - Now we're hearing from Canada. He has good things to say about Freedom of Speech in Canada, especially in light of what's going on with the Human Rights Commissions up there.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of the libertarians using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. The next host will be Judy at "Consent Of The Governed".

Technorati tags: carnival of the libertarians, blog carnival.