www.UNRforLiberty.com

It's way prettier.

As a response to the presidential election between Obama and McCain, we as a club illustrated the stark similarities between the two candidates. As a result, the club distributed one of our best Liberty Reports – “McCain = Obama”. Within that issue along with many other items, we discovered that Obama is just as much as a war promoter as his counterpart. As the media and the rest of America are becoming increasingly occupied by homeland issues, a new war in Pakistan appears to be brewing. America is using military action to bomb probable targets which are believed to be Taliban militants. Unfortunately, reports are coming in claiming that many innocent civilians are also being destroyed. Is there a quicker way to create an organized resistance against the United States in Pakistan than by invigorating more recruits to avenge the deaths of lost innocent loved ones? Possibly, but it is saddening to see an elected official who ran under the principles of peace to be pursuing more aggressive military action.

How is this making us safer again? How are we paying for this again? What in the Constitution permits us to send foreign aid and troops to countries such as this again? And most importantly, in the spirit of our last meeting, what justifies the killing of innocent people again?

Globally, the United States has degraded al Qaeda's ability to pull off another 9/11 by employing operations that look a lot like police detective work. Most of the greatest successes scored against al Qaeda, such as the snatch-and-grab operations that netted Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi bin al Shibh, have not relied on large numbers of U.S. troops. Intelligence sharing and close cooperation with foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies have done more to round up suspected terrorists than blunt military force.
- Obama's Wise Approach toward Afghanistan

I have, for the past couple of days, held before my mind a constant conundrum that I cannot adequately answer for myself. I pose it here to see if anyone can elucidate the issue more than I can.


If one is the voluntary citizen of a country (or a club or whatever) they agree to follow the rules of that country (or club or whatever). That is, they are responsible for abiding by the laws and in a sense agree to be punished should they "break the law." But an implicit assumption is this agreement is that it is possible to know and follow all laws. If a body of law is unknowable--if one person is simply not capable of learning every law--is the citizen still responsible if he breaks that law?

The two solutions that I've thought of is:

1) Yes, of course he is responsible. Simply failing to learn a law cannot be held as an excuse for failing to follow it anymore than not taking driving classes excuses one from running into other cars. In this tact I believe we see law as not words written on a piece of paper but as a visceralization of "nature rights." We already know that murder and rape and stealing are bad...they are violations of property rights that (the vast majority of) people inherently acknowledge.

2) No, get with the real world. The amount of laws on the books are entirely too much for anyone, let alone the average citizen, to come to know and comprehend. Admiralty, agricultural, aviation, banking, bankruptcy, civil rights, constitutional, consumer, corporate, criminal, education, elder law, employment, entertainment, environmental, estate, family, general practice, immigration, intellectual property, labor, liability (of all sorts), malpractice (of all sorts), media (of all sorts), military, municipal, personal injury, real estate, securities, taxation, trusts, wills...not mention all the ones I cannot think of and all the subspecialties (FDA, EPA, IEEE, etc..) that many people simply cannot think of. And these are just the laws on the books, these are the vast pieces of legislation that get passed everyday throughout the country: federal, state, county, city, district, neighborhood. There is just simply too many laws for any one person to know, thus, you cannot "fairly" be said to be responsible for every single one.

1's Response) That's just tough shit. Just because something's hard doesn't mean you get a free pass. If you don't like it, leave.

2's Response) Once again, get back in the real world: there's no place for me to go. Should everything just be "tough shit" simply because a bunch of people have conspired to screw my life over?

I do not know which side I should come down on. Thus is life.

Thoughts?

Periodically I check out what the VisLupiEstGrex kids are up to and periodically I am disappointed. Recently they blogged about some rule being violated (sound familiar?) and how this is...important? or meaningful? or...something.



What they were complaining about this time is that the personal information of a few College of Liberal Art potential-fillers-of-the-empty-seat students had been blacked out. They called it redacted because it sounded scarier. What information, what crucial, vital, essential pieces of information needed to be shared with the world and whose being blacked out was a violation of LAW and which was done with NO PRECENDENCE!? The students' addresses, student numbers, telephone numbers, email addresses, and cumulative GPAs.

You know, the stuff one doesn't generally doesn't want to see floating around on blogs run by anonymous people who use the word "redacted".

When a commenter responded to the post by saying, "I dont think you are being fair. Censoring home addresses and phone numbers is perfectly understandable before they are confirmed. Let's try not to be unreasonable guys" one of the VisLupiEstGrex people retorted:

"This is isn't about fairness. This is about the plain meaning of the law. The Senate has never before, to our knowledge, redacted such information [...] I do not believe it is unreasonable to make a reasoned argument backed by legal authority. It may be unfair that this is public material, but it is not declared by law to be private." (emphasis added)

But this couldn't be more completely wrong. Laws have no authority in and of themselves. Laws derive their only power, their only sway insofar as people are willing to uphold those laws. There are laws against jay walking and speeding, but how many times have you broken these laws even within the past week? Would all the VisLupiEstGrex people be willing to say they never drank underage, never drove over the speed limit, have, in fact, stopped at every "Stop" sign 100% everytime they've seen one?

Of course they shouldn't have to say they've done all those things: those things are pointlessly stupid laws in many instances. Dumb laws should be ignored. Bad laws shouldn't be followed simply because they're laws. They are first and foremost "bad" which makes whatever it is they advocate lose any sense of "necessity." Don't ever be fooled into thinking there is such a thing as a "necessary evil." There isn't. Such a ploy is only held up by those too weak to carry meaningful ethical principles.

or quite simply in graphical terms:

Classic...

Join us for the last meeting of the year as we discuss the principles and importance of critical thinking. Many times good arguments go awry due to a lack of critical thought, and it is the goal of this meeting to arm you with the skills necessary to identify problems with argument structures and resolve them accordingly. We will also be discussing ideas for next semester as well - don't miss out!

Thursday, April 30 - 7PM - JCSU 423

For those of you attending the University of Nevada, Reno.

If you haven't already heard, the president of the ASUN,* Eli Reilly, has proposed a "stimulus package" for UNR. The idea is for $200,000 to be spent over two years that "will create 50 new student jobs on campus." If this isn't the definition of blindingly moronic, then I don't know what is.

In fact, if this is considered a "good idea" or is actually thought, by anybody, at any time, for any reason to be an effective way to "stimulate" UNR in a positive way, then I am afraid that everything I've ever known, loved, or cared for in humanity is circling the drain.

In the face of "budget cuts" and a "recession" someone's fearless leader (not mine), Eli Reilly, has seen fit to inflate the budget 10% what it was last year. When START said that cutting the budget of certain programs was going to be necessary and that if elected they would be scrupulous about it, they were screamed out of whatever room they were in. Laughed at, picked on, and called ridiculous, for proposing such a ridiculous idea. And yet with Reilly's cuts of $12,500 from Flipside, $3,000 from homecoming, $4,000 from Insight, and $50,000 from club support, this course of action is applauded and indeed deemed responsible.

Wait, what? you might ask. Didn't I just say the budget is 10% greater, and yet there are all these cuts? What's up? Well you'll be glad to know that among the increases were: senate wages (go figure...), executive wages (go figure...), professional salaries (seeing a trend?), professional and classified salaries (seriously?), ASUN advertising, Campus Escort, the Leadership Program, and Diversity inititives.

That's right. Stuff that doesn't actually help the majority of students in any conceivable way. No money for tutoring, no help centers, no counseling, nothing.

Complaints of slash and burn cutting (with a heavy dose of favoritism) aside, what about this "stimulus package." Well, 50 lucky students are going to get jobs working for the ASUN or some other department on campus. Fifty make work jobs paid for by people with actual jobs, actually working their way through college. These jobs that Reilly hopes to create don't exist now because it doesn't pay for them to exist now. Put another way, the reason there aren't the 50 jobs he hopes to create out of thin air already existing now is because it is not worth it by the people who would employ them to allow them to work for them. As an example, say there are 20 of you working at the Panda Express (mmm...) on campus. Why aren't there 25? Because the people paying you will lose money.

The solution, at least in the eyes of someone's economically ignorant leader? Have student fees pay for those 5 extra workers! According to the "package" the department will only pay for 25% of the student's salary while the University picks up the 75% slack. Now, Panda Express only needs to value those 5 new employees at 1/4 of what they value their other employees. But, the 1/4 valuable workers will still be paid the same amount! (or close to it) Who exactly is this fair to?

Not the workers who get paid what they're effectively worth (and not 4 times as much).
Not the majority of students whom this money is being taken away from (~$16.50 per person).
Not the people excluded from the jobs (since there is no way to effectively measure marginal costs for employment in this case).
Not even to the students who get these jobs! Preferential treatment is still unfair even if we like it.

Why do it then? Why not just give every student $16.50 in Advantage Cash or only for the Bookstore and stimulate the University that way? Who gets the jobs? Which jobs are they? Why those jobs? Why not other jobs? Why? Why?

Why?

Because we have a student government. Like all governments it does not, cannot, know the best way to achieve ends. The person in charge* ($8,800) is a History major, the speaker of the Senate ($7,000) is an "International Affairs" major, and of the two newly elected College of Business senators ($870 each) only one is an actual Economics major, though (so far as I know), he had nothing to do with the budget or this "package": these people do not know what they are doing with money. Even if they were all Ecomonics geniuses, they still wouldn't know how to properly spend other people's money better than they do. You can't know how to do that. And this is one of the major failings of government (next to it being illegitimate and ever-more-tyrannical).

So give it back. Give us back our money. It's not yours and it's not yours to give to 50 other people in some misguided attempt to "stimulate" the University. Isn't it enough that the four people mentioned above have already taken $17,540 from us by themselves? Must they take even more in the name of others? There is nothing worse than a benevolent thief, he knows of no crime greater than that of honest ownership.

And let us, as a final note, never forget that lesson near and dear to us all:

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Hey guys, I hope you all got your tax returns filled today, if not here is some motivation to get them in promptly from Reason.tv.



Also check out "W-2 WTF?!?!: Tax Facts to Make Your Head Explode!"

As many of you know, Barry Belmont (the current president of UNR SFL) has been recently advocating libertarian ideology in the published campus newspaper: The Nevada Sagebrush. After giving his most recent lecture on anarcho-capitalism at a meeting, the group and Barry himself have been receiving staunch and ignorant opposition from another Sagebrush writer, Lee Hampton. From Lee's original article, to Barry's response, Lee Hampton has once again released an article attempting to "disprove" the ideas of Austrian Economics. His blatant disregard of sound economics in his poorly constructed rebuttal has inspired a man by the name Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio in Toronto to post a 25 minute long youtube response to Lee. I encourage you to watch this video for it is quite hilarious and so good.

After one of our more rip-roaring meetings about Left wing politics (in which we went into great length about abortion), I started thinking about all of the points presented. There were many great arguments for both “pro-life” and "pro-choice.” Personally, I tried to defend the idea of “evictionism” wherein a lady is allowed to evict a baby from her womb, so long as she tries her best not to kill it. I am still unsure of how plausible this solution is and I will continue to think it through. But...I stumbled upon something for which I haven’t thought of a satisfactory answer to and I hope one of you might be able to help me.

I offer this thought experiment for your consideration.

A lady has been pregnant for four months. She planned to get pregnant with her loving husband who he has been nothing but supportive. However, recently she has become depressed. She has thought long and hard about it and she has decided that she would like to kill herself. She knows if she kills herself the baby will not survive. Is she allowed to go through with it?

I believe this thought experiment highlights a dilemma for us libertarians. We believe the idea that the “right to life” is congruent with the “right to death.” That is, if one is allowed to do with their life what they wish, then ending it is as justifiable a measure as any other. (Now, there is some debate as to whether this is entirely true, but, for most of us, we would say that a person has a right to kill themself.)

So, is the mother allowed to take her life knowing that she will take the life of another (we are, for the sake of argument, holding that life begins at the very moment sperm touches egg)? One obvious answer is no, she hasn’t that right. It would be comparable to saying a suicide bomber is justified in detonating in a marketplace. Suicide is ok, murder is not.

The rebuttal, however, is: well, what right do any of us have to force the mother to live? Can we say, justifiably, that we may violate the right to life of one person in order to uphold the right to life of another? I do not believe we can in this case. We cannot agree to this because what it requires is that a third party (who is not in danger of someone violating their right to life and who the two parties concerned have not agreed to let arbitrate the dispute) deciding whose life is more important. Clearly allowing this third party to decide is a violation of both the mother’s and the fetus’s right to life.

What if the mother “evicts” the fetus before she kills herself. She tells her husband to take her to the hospital where the doctors will do everything in their power to save the life of the unborn child. Being only four months old, however, the child has little chance of surviving without the mother’s womb. Is this justified? May she now kill herself?

I think she may. If she does everything in her power to let the child live and yet (due to the inabilities of modern medical techniques or what have you) the child dies, I do not think she could be held culpable for murder any more than a poor mother would for letting her child die by not being able to afford vaccinations. Thus, simply by “evicting” the fetus, the mother is not responsible for murder, even if she knows the child may die.

And I believe this stems from the fact that the “right to life” is simply a form of the “right to property.” Consider a life without a body, without any material property at all: to what extent could this be called a life? If you are religious you may believe that there exists a soul and perhaps that soul has no material property and that may exist, yes—I can grant you that. But, then, in what sense can one “kill” a soul? Without delving into theological complexities, I think we can agree that life as it exists on earth for us right now is, at base, at least tied intractably with physical material—that is, property.

Therefore, the right to life is a facet of property rights. Well, if this is the case, then isn’t the developing fetus responsible for a greater violation of rights than the mother? Even conceding that both the mother and the fetus are violating each other’s right to life in equal proportion (once again, who’s to decide it would be unequal?), isn’t the fetus also violating the property rights of the mother? Surely the womb of a woman is hers. The mother isn’t violating the property rights of the fetus. The fetus has no “right” to live in a womb any more than I do. The fetus has a right to life, yes, but it has no right to usurp property.

If we are just chalking up who has violated the least amount of rights, it can clearly be seen that it is the mother who has done the least amount of rights violations and has had her rights violated the most. We must hold then that it is the mother who we must support in her decision as the more justified. If a pregnant lady wants to kill herself, I think she must be allowed. And if a pregnant lady is allowed to kill herself, I do not see why she cannot simply evict someone from her womb without having to resort to suicide and homicide to do it.

Or am I completely wrong?

About two weeks ago the local paper The Nevada Sagebrush had an article criticizing my Anarcho-Capitalism lecture entitled "Libertarianism: Rearing its Ugly Head with Faith in 'Free Market.'" Figuring this deserved a response, I wrote one and it was published in the Sagebrush.

It can be read at the above link as well as below. But on the Sagebrush site there have been numerous back-and-forths with those that (for some reason) didn't like the article. You can have your two cents there or here. Please do enjoy.


A Libertarian Conversation
By Barry Belmont

To be justified in believing in any philosophy means to follow its premises to their logical conclusion. For libertarians there are, at base, two undeniable tenets: 1) the right of self-ownership and 2) all interactions between people (self-owners) must be voluntary.

In short, the entirety of libertarianism can be summed up as “you can do whatever you want, just keep your mitts to yourself.”

In a recent article, Nevada Sagebrush writer Lee Hampton attacked libertarian ideas, claiming they hinge “upon a blind, fanatical and theological faith in ‘free markets’” and that libertarians are somehow bad for doing this.

While the words “blind” and “fanatical” are inflammatory and used for offhand dismissals rather than legitimate criticisms, it can rightly be said that we libertarians do have faith in the free market. Free markets are nothing short of the sum total of all free and voluntary human interactions.

If you can’t have faith in this, then what hope is there of ever improving the human condition?

Some might say that the hope lies in governments and that governments must step in to change individual human behavior for the better. But to believe the government is something different from the same individuals who compose markets is absurd. Who are these angels so full of benevolence? The government is composed of the exact same people as those who make up free markets with one important difference: They have no incentive to do anything well because they can use force.

On free markets, how much a service benefits society correlates to the amount of money gained. This is why Apple and Google do so well and why Paint-a-Pet stores generally go out of business. Where Apple and Google make their money by directly serving customers, governments get the same amount of money no matter how poorly they do their job.

In fact, the converse can be seen: The more poorly a government does its job (that is, by allowing crime rates to rise, causing economic strife, etc.) the more money it gets in the name of “solving” the problem.

In essence, advocating for free markets is advocating for personal responsibility, triumphing personal liberty and holding that though there are some greedy, mean and bad people, the vast majority of people are good. Sure, there might be an Enron or an AIG fiasco on the free and open market, but these singular bad instances are overwhelmed by billions of everyday cooperative interactions.

Think of how much cooperation went in to making what you are reading: I wrote this article, an editor edited it, someone placed it in the newspaper, the paper in your hand was made from trees which were transported vast distances by trucks and planes, the ink had to be manufactured, printers had to place it on the page and so on. Thus, faith in free markets is simply a faith in free individuals.

This is what the University of Nevada, Reno Students for Liberty believe and support.

To learn more, or to read the full version of my lecture “Anarcho-Capitalism II: Justice & Defense,” visit www.UNRforLiberty.com.

As we all file our income taxes, I thought this would be much needed motivation.

Us.

In case you didn't hear already (Mike's yell when this was first announced, in fact, woke many of the dead in local cemeteries) the UNR Students for Liberty was announced by the ASUN as THE CLUB OF THE YEAR.

Somehow the club so full of misanthropes, the club that ran the Nobody 08 campaign, started START, hosted "Surviving a Police Encounter," and in general were the bane of many people's existence was named THE CLUB OF THE YEAR by the very institution that despises it (and which, to a certain extent, we despise in return).

Another post will follow listing some of the reasons why we are best, why we are so great, so awesome, so totally smug and (now) justified...so stayed tuned for that. But I just really wanted to let you all know as soon as possible that we are:

THE CLUB OF THE YEAR

Many times throughout the course of political discussion, arguments and debates quickly digress into intense and emotionally filled combative yelling contests generally between two or three different viewpoints upon any given subject. We feel that this is due to a lack of deeper understanding of opposing viewpoints. Instead of rationally attempting to understand where the other is coming from, it is often times seen as a personal attack on family/friend/hero derived values. We hope to dive beneath the current political issues and instead arrive at a deeper, more philosophical understanding as to why people differ in their political values.

This is why, for the next two meetings, the UNR Students for Liberty will be hosting a two part series where we will be having open meetings to discuss different political philosophies. This Thursday, we will begin by cordially inviting organizations typically seen as “Left Wing” or “Liberal” in nature to understand their philosophy and try to mutually determine each other’s stance. Following this, we will invite “Right Wing” or “Conservative” organizations to the discussion. Through this, we hope it will not only increase understanding between “us” and “them”, but also create open lines of communication with on-campus political groups (since it is nearly non-existent as of now). This will be a discussion mostly of personal political beliefs and to compare and contrast the views of other political viewpoints. This will not be a debate, but merely a time to find mutual understanding.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to come learn more about these two camps. So if you consider yourself a “conservative”, we welcome you to come to the “Left Wing” meeting and vice versa. We hope to unite understanding between all campus organizations.
Knowing is half the battle. See you there!

The Left – Thursday, April 9 at 7:00PM in JCSU 317  RSVP
The Right – Thursday, April 23 at 7:00PM in JCSU 423 RSVP

There are some very intersting modern movements for liberty currently brewing in America such as The Free State Project or the The Campaign for Liberty.  However, none of these are quite as compelling or daring as what The Seasteading Institute has planned.  Based upon the ideas of Wayne Gramlich and modernized by Patri Friedman, their mission is "to create permanent dwellings on the ocean - homesteading the high seas."  Their need relies upon the fact that "the world needs a new frontier, a place where those who are dissatisfied with our current civilization can go to build a different (and hopefully better) one."  To do this, they hope to achieve miniature sovereign nations by building modified, attachable oil derreks in international waters to obfuscate international law and empower individuals to break free from national governments and start their own societies.  They are motivated by the disatisfaction of the current political climate, and are seeking "people who, whatever our ideals, want to stop arguing about [politics], stop proselytizing them, and start living them."

This Tuesday, the Cato Institute will be holding a policy forum feautring Patri Friedman the executive director of the Seasteading Institute, Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; and Arnold Kling Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute.  They will answerse to such questions as:

Can seasteading succeed where past plans have not? Are people willing to brave the high seas for liberty? Economist Arnold Kling will address the viability of the project in light of similar efforts in the past. Doug Bandow will address whether existing governments will tolerate seasteads, and specifically how the international Law of the Sea Treaty might complicate matters. Please join us for an in-depth discussion of the prospects of this exciting new effort.

As you all may know, Friday night television recently went away. Numb3rs has it's season finale, and Battlestar Galactica has finished (and it was epic!). This has left me with some time to try and come up with a new idea for the theme of blog.

To the side is a thumbnail you can click on which will take you to a larger view (or you can click here). Please let me know what you guys think! I really, really, really want to hear some feedback so I can make this theme attractive to everyone.

Also, there is an alternative which is very similar but has some changes in the header which I couldn't decide if I liked better or not, so I will throw that out to you as well. Just Click Here to view the alternate design. Pay close attention to the top of the page as it is a bit larger and has a different typeface.

Nick Dranias of the Goldwater Institute describes how to increase liberty at the local level. Using examples of people who have suffered under the iron fist of local bureaucracy due lack of accountability and incentive, he makes a powerful claim for government to implement better jurisprudence and uphold the rights of the individual.

Be sure to click on the HD button in the bottom right corner of the player so you can read the slides. This button will appear after you press play (or just go to youtube here)

If only it were a joke. Senator Ed Kennedy and Senator Kay Hutchison can be seen in the New York Times discussing how to best coercively force health care benefits down the throats of every single breathing subject in America. Through legislation, Democrats have come to the conclusion that everyone will be carrying insurance and that employers will help with this transition. The case for mandated individual health insurance has arrived - and it is terrifying.

Whatever side of the fence one may be on, the most frightening thing that I hope to agree upon is that it is 'mandated'. First, if the government found out a way to figure out who didn't have insurance, what would the penalty be? Let's take automobile insurance for example. 47 states have laws forcing drivers to purchase automobile liability insurance. However, even though most of these states impose jail time and large fines, 14.5% of the drivers in those states are not insured. Such states such as Texas and California have percentages much higher than the average.

Secondly, what exactly would an individual need to have in order to pass the minimum requirements of the mandate? How much coverage does a human being deserve? Regardless of what minimum health requirements are on the list, one thing is certain: special interest lobby groups will be biting at the bit to join the gravy train. When Clinton proposed minimum benefit packages as part of his health care reform act in 1993, special interest lobbying groups spent millions of dollars in advertising to include a specific provider group or coverage of a specific condition.

The fundamental issue with government mandated health care is that it will shift the focus away from the individual 's needs. It will no longer be about what is best for the health of a person, but rather, what kind of health care will an individual receive based upon the current political environment. The focus will shift from the personal realm to the political realm. Doctor-patient confidentiallity will become doctor-government-statistic-policy-tv debate-special interest lobby-vote-law-enforcement-tax-patient political asylum.

Once Americans accept the fact that it is the government's responsibility to make sure we all have health insurance, we will certainly need to accept the fact it will be the government's responsibility to decide how much health care we all deserve. As the government increasingly begins to get more and more involved within the personal lives of the individual, more and more judgement calls will have to be made by the bureaucrats. What kind of person does it take to dictate the well-being of his fellow man? What kind of person is capable of legislating such judgement calls and penalties? What kind of person wants to have that kind of power over another?

We are happy to welcome the director for the Center for Consitutional Government at the Goldwater Insitute - Nick Dranias - to come speak about the top 10 ways of increasing liberty at the local government level.  Prior to joining the Goldwater Institute, Dranias was an attorney with the Institute for Justice.  In law school, Dranias served on the Loyola University Chicago Law Review, competed on Loyola’s National Labor Law Moot Court Team, and received various academic awards.  He graduated cum laude from Boston University with a B.A. in Economics and Philosophy.

Dranias has authored numerous articles, including Past the Pall of Orthodoxy, which challenges bar admission restrictions limiting the practice of law to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools.  He is also the author of The Land Of 10,000 Lakes Drowns Entrepreneurs In Regulations, a study that shows how regulations block the path to the American Dream, and how those barriers can be removed.  His next work, Consideration as Contract, was published in the Spring 2008 edition of the Texas Review of Law and Politics.

This will be very interested for anyone who may be interested in liberty!  He is flying down from Phoenix to speak to us.  Don't miss it!
Thursday, April 2nd in the William Raggio Building Room 2009 at 5PMRSVP

Although delayed due to complications from procuring funds, the UNR Students for Liberty successfully navigated the funding policies from ASUN and had a great day flexing our gun rights. We would like to thank Eric who was able to grace us with his arsenal of handguns, Matt who brought his AR-15, Mike who brought his SR-25, and Travis who brought some .22's. We would also like to thank the Washoe County Regional Shooting Facility for providing a great service, and the wonderful people at ASUN.

Shame!!!

Mary

John

Barry

Barry Belmont, the 2008-2009 president of the UNR Students for Liberty has made another case for an anarcho-capitalist society. In this lecture, he will address the free-rider problem, public choice theory, and a brief history of States with diverse examples from evolutionary biology, philosophy, economics, and what you already think!
Put simply, this lecture will attempt to convince you that anarcho-capitalism is a viable theory that should be put into practice.

Be sure to click on the HD button in the bottom right corner of the player so you can read the slides. This button will appear after you press play (or just go to youtube here).



Or for those of you who would rather read it for yourselves:

Anarcho-Capitalism II: Justice - Get more Business Documents

A bibliography will be contained in the forth-coming PowerPoint for those of you interested in the original sources for anarcho-capitalism. Or...if you should just want to know a list of great libertarian/anarcho-capitalism books and articles and simply cannot wait for the PowerPoint feel free to contact Barry.

I believe in the last two days the world has been turned into something quite unlike itself. Sweden (that's right Socialist, pinko Sweden) has refused to buy Saab, trade barriers are being tightened during these "hard" economic times, Paul Krugman said something with which I actually agree (that is, "cash for trash" is a terrible idea), it has been suggested that 90%! tax be levied against the AIG bonuses, and a girl who was unconstitutionally and unethically strip searched when she was 13 years old is now finally having her day in court nearly 6 years after the fact, while this same court apparently had plenty of time to review "Hillary: The Movie."

It was said most eloquently by Samuel Beckett, "The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere another stops. The same is true of the laugh." I am sure someone, somewhere is laughing it up, while the rest of us are weeping our eyes out: this is not the world we signed up for.

These facts become all the more crippling when we realize how little there is we can do about them. It is sad to say that the most hopeful thing I have heard all week is when Mike, our treasurer, ask "So when's our bomb making meeting again?" Many people even think its gotten as bad as that, even Chuck Norris believes a full scale revolution is right around the corner.

Yea, this definitely isn't the world I fell asleep in last night. What happened?

Six months after his initial presentation, our very own Barry Belmont will once again make another case for an anarcho-capitalist society. Many people are willing to agree with 90% of his theory, right up until the idea of defense, justice, and laws are brought into the picture. He will attempt to solve these issues by addressing the free-rider problem, public choice theory, and a brief history of States with diverse examples from evolutionary biology, philosophy, economics, and what you already think!

Put simply, he will attempt to convince you that anarcho-capitalism is a viable theory that should be put into practice. Do not miss this!

Date: Thursday, March 26, 2009
Time: 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Location: JCSU 423

A report came out last month from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) to help law enforcement identify dangerous militias seeking to violently attack the government. So far so good, but just who exactly do they find to be the dangerous parties tearing down the government? Well let me summarize a couple of the common identifiers:

Maybe some of the engineering/math/philosophy majors in the group can figure out what my neighborhood registered Libertarian is trying to convey in these randomly placed documents around the desert.  I will try and dig up some other ones as I find them:

In order for one to pass a required Sociology class, one must tap their inner irrationalities and spew them as fact. Do not dare challenge the flawed conclusions or invented definitions. Do not dare question the all-knowing professor with such things as "Isn't society simply a group of individuals", "What is the definition of exploitation", or "Isn't a wage, by definition, how much one contributes to society?".  Such questions have no place in this realm.  However, most importantly, do not dare put anything but what was spoken as truth in class onto your essay questions. One must enter the mind of a liberal, and become one with it.  One must dig deep and suppress logic to answer the following questions in a manner befitting an A+ sociology student:

For all the locals:

Assemblyman Harry Mortenson (D-42) has introduced the long anticipated "Castle Doctrine" self-defense measure in Nevada. Assembly Bill 288 would allow a person to use deadly force against an aggressor so long as the person using deadly force "(a) is not the aggressor; (b) has a right to be present at the location where deadly force is used; and (c) is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the deadly force is used."

Chalk one up for the good guys.

If this bill is passed, it will allow citizens to defend their property with deadly force if "the circumstances [are] sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable person and that the party killing really acted under the influence of those fears and not in the a spirit of revenge." If this bill is passed, it will allow the self-sufficiency of the citizenry and no longer require that someone first try to run for help from the state before trying to kill his killer. If this bill is passed, it will allow for a strong defense in the protection of private property, which is, simply, a defense of people. If this bill is passed, it will be one crucial win for everybody and one crucial loss for criminals.

This bill effectively allows people to defend themselves without fear of retribution from the government, it is an outstanding heralding of property rights, and gives people the strength to stand on their own two feet. The law should always be in favor of the law-abiding citizens. It is unfortunate that so many people have made careers out of the semantical issues involved in the tricky word play of the legislature. But for all the gloomy rulings and poor laws handed down everyday from the government, it is exalting to feel that one ray of hope and behold that one moment of clarity when something so simple and pure and true is upheld.

A bill (H.R. 857) has been introduced that would make it basically illegal to grow your own food on your own land without the government's permission. When I first heard about this I was taken aback and I thought all the blogs and the writer's and the critics were merely engaging in a bit of hyperbole, certainly the government is not stepping toward the realm of nationalizing food. As it turns out, it is as bad as most everyone is saying it is. In fact, one part even reads "to refuse to permit entry to or inspection of a food establishment" (food establishment being so broad a term that it could very well mean your backyard).

Not only that but you must tell the government exactly what you are growing and when you are growing it. It's not a big step to force farmers to tell the government what they're growing (I mean, what do they have to hide?) and say it's in the name of public health. That is why this bill is so dangerous...it's coming in under the radar.

The bill leans heavily towards destroying a blossoming organic market (though it never explicitly says so) in favor of more industrial methods. Namely, the only people that can really afford to cooperate with this bill are the larger farms that have the time and money to implement all these changes.

Linn Cohen-Cole over at OpEdNews puts it very succinctly:

The bill is monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international "industrial" standards to independent farms - the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means.

This minor step towards nationalizing farming (the government knowing everything about all farms everywhere) is just another one down that road to serfdom. Literally the government is tying people to their land. I do not know what else to call it. And as the footsteps fade away, and we walk down that road, we can do nothing but weep for our lost freedoms.

What is this I see?!

ASUN Elections - 03/11/09

The Students for Liberty have heard some mighty big (and some mighty small) talk during this election cycle for the ASUN. Slurs, criticisms, lies, mottoes...every election is the same players in the same play telling the same story. The Students for Liberty have even suggested not voting in this (or really any) election. The principle is simple: most people will not vote (a staggering majority in this case), yet a minority will claim that it has the right to take from others because this minority claims to "know better".

Must a democracy be tyrannical by its nature? Does a student senate have any standing to exist? Should a handful of students be allowed to decide they will not abide by senate and start their own form of "student government"? What is the best way to show the errors of senate, level-headed debate, out-and-out exploitation, joining up and changing it from the inside? Who are these START people and why did they start all this trouble? Who even gives a damn about student government?

Well to the losers, the winners, the liars, the deceived, the cynicists, the pessimists, to those who don't believe in nothing:

We invite you to find out at our meeting on Thursday, March 12 inJCSU 423 at 7 PM and discuss what this election cycle has meant toward the students and how we might progress from here.

It is nearly impossible to escape all the calls to action one hears throughout the course of a day like “taking one for the team” by doing their part to “better society as a whole”. The ones who claim that we must all sacrifice our time, our money, and our way of doing things by abandoning our selfish pursuits to take a cause for something that will benefit the “common good” say our world would be a much better place. Such idealistic “common goals” may require the individual to take the bus or bicycle to work, flush one’s toilet between multiple uses, buy inferior energy “smart” products, and volunteering our time to benefit the whole.

The problem with the majority of people who think like this is that they neglect a fundamental fact of human nature: all humans on this planet act out of self-interest. Granted, lots of people act and do things that may appear to be out of self-interest, but the reasons they are doing it are always self-interested in nature. Even the people who create such action groups are self-interested in the fact they believe their views are superior to yours and wish to acquire power over the individual and force them to do something.

I would like to take my stellar astronomy lecture class to illustrate this point. With over 200 students and scheduled take-home examinations, there are grand opportunities for people to work together as a whole. The instructor encourages students to work together on these tests, and even announced Facebook and WebCT groups in class to encourage collaboration of answers for all to enjoy. In this micro examination of self-interest, let’s assume that “society as a whole” represents the 200+ students in the class. The “common good” is what society is trying to accomplish in working together to complete the exam. The “individual” is each and every student in the class.

I was pretty excited when he announced these groups, not because I thought people would actually participate and complete the test together, but because it is a great example of self-interest. To facilitate the experiment, I thought I would post the first 5/100 answers of the test to see if anyone else would post the next five. The reasons why I posted these was not because I felt compelled to “better society as a whole”, but because in theory I was seeking free answers and, of course, to see the outcome of the experiment. Hence, I was self-interested. Over the course of nearly 2 weeks of posting my answers, how many questions were answered?

Facebook


WebCT

The fruits of our labor during the Nobody '08 unregisteration drive have finally come to fruition. As many of you already know, in response to the disinformation and irrationalities of the cult of the vote, the UNR Students for Liberty launched the Nobody '08 campaign where we set up a table right next to the Obamabot table and unregistered people who were willing.

As of this week, the grinding gears of bureaucracy in the Nevada Registrar of Voters have finally produced the letter with what we were seeking: a confirmation of unregistration. My roommate participated in the drive, and as of last week, received this letter:

Full Name (First, Middle, Last)

Voter Registered Address

County

Current Political Affiliation

Date

Signature

In 1926, somewhere in the Bronx, Murray Newton Rothbard was born today, March 2. His life's work has made thousands and thousands of other people's life work seem possible and important. His philosophy, economics, determination, and thought have profoundly influenced me as well as millions of other people (indeed the entirity of modern libertarianism!)

In rememberance, we present a portion from his book "For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto" (one of the best books written about anything by anybody ever). It is about the strategy towards liberty and how libertarian thought can eventual triumph.

Thank you, Mr. Rothbard, for all you've ever done, and what your work has continued to do.



Education: Theory and Movement

And so we have it: a body of truth, sound in theory and capable of application to our political problems — the new libertarianism. But now that we have the truth, how can we achieve victory? We face the great strategic problem of all "radical" creeds throughout history: How can we get from here to there, from our current State-ridden and imperfect world to the great goal of liberty?

There is no magic formula for strategy; any strategy for social change, resting as it does on persuasion and conversion, can only be an art rather than an exact science. But having said this, we are still not bereft of wisdom in the pursuit of our goals. There can be a fruitful theory, or at the very least, theoretical discussion, of the proper strategy for change.

On one point there can scarcely be disagreement: a prime and necessary condition for libertarian victory (or, indeed, for victory for any social movement, from Buddhism to vegetarianism) is education: the persuasion and conversion of large numbers of people to the cause. Education, in turn, has two vital aspects: calling people's attention to the existence of such a system, and converting people to the libertarian system. If our movement consisted only of slogans, publicity, and other attention-getting devices, then we might be heard by many people, but [p. 298] it would soon be discovered that we had nothing to say — and so the hearing would be fitful and ephemeral. Libertarians must, therefore, engage in hard thinking and scholarship, put forth theoretical and systematic books, articles, and journals, and engage in conferences and seminars. On the other hand, a mere elaboration of the theory will get nowhere if no one has ever heard of the books and articles; hence the need for publicity, slogans, student activism, lectures, radio and TV spots, etc. True education cannot proceed without theory and activism, without an ideology and people to carry that ideology forward.

Thus, just as the theory needs to be carried to the attention of the public, so does the theory need people to hold the banner, discuss, agitate, and carry the message forward and outward to the public. Once again, both theory and movement become futile and sterile without each other; the theory will die on the vine without a self-conscious movement which dedicates itself to advancing the theory and the goal. The movement will become mere pointless motion if it loses sight of the ideology and the goal in view. Some libertarian theorists feel that there is something impure or disreputable about a living movement with acting individuals; but how can liberty be achieved without libertarians to advance the cause? On the other hand, some militant activists, in their haste for action — any action — scorn what seems to be parlor discussions of theory; yet their action becomes futile and wasted energy if they have only a dim idea of what they are being active about.

Furthermore, one often hears libertarians (as well as members of other social movements) bewail that they are "only talking to themselves" with their books and journals and conferences; that few people of the "outside world" are listening. But this frequent charge gravely misconceives the many-sided purpose of "education" in the broadest sense. It is not only necessary to educate others; continual self-education is also (and equally) necessary. The corps of libertarians must always try to recruit others to their ranks, to be sure; but they must also keep their own ranks vibrant and healthy. Education of "ourselves" accomplishes two vital goals. One is the refining and advancing of the libertarian "theory" — the goal and purpose of our whole enterprise. Libertarianism, while vital and true, cannot be merely graven in stone tablets; it must be a living theory, advancing through writing and discussion, and through refuting and combatting errors as they arise. The libertarian movement has dozens of small newsletters and magazines, ranging from mimeographed sheets to slick publications, constantly emerging and dying. This is a sign of a healthy, growing movement, a movement that consists of countless individuals thinking, arguing, and contributing.

But there is another critical reason for "talking to ourselves," even if that were all the talking that was going on. And that is reinforcement — the psychologically necessary knowledge that there are other people of like mind to talk to, argue with, and generally communicate and interact with. At present, the libertarian creed is still that of a relatively small minority, and, furthermore, it proposes radical changes in the status quo. Hence, it is bound to be a lonely creed, and the reinforcement of having a movement, of "talking to ourselves," can combat and overcome that isolation. The contemporary movement is now old enough to have had a host of defectors; analysis of these defections shows that, in almost every case, the libertarian has been isolated, cut off from fellowship and interaction with his colleagues. A flourishing movement with a sense of community and esprit de corps is the best antidote for giving up liberty as a hopeless or "impractical" cause.

For some reason the Andy Griffith Show has a pretty good handle on privacy... 

The UNR Students for Liberty want to sincerely thank Dr. Charles Baird for giving a great lecture on the confusion of language in American politics! For those who missed it, be sure to check out the recorded lecture below.

The UNR Students for Liberty are proud to release the 3rd issue of the Liberty Report! You can pick up copies in the business building, the education building, the library, and the student union! Also, you can always pick up a copy of it right here.

This Thursday, Febraury 19 at 5PM in the William Raggio Building 2009, we are going to be having economist Dr. Charles Baird speak about "The Confusion of Language in American Politics".  Afterward, there will be a question and answer period.  It is going to be a great presentation, and I sincerely hope everyone can make it!