SURVIVALISM UPDATES

news Libertarianism

Joan Kennedy Taylor: Pornography Versus Censorship

January 6, 2013

Joan Kennedy Taylor was a journalist, author, and political activist known for her advocacy of individualist feminism and her role in developing the modern American libertarian movement. She passed away in 2005. In this video from a Free Press Association conference in 1986, Taylor debates herself on pornography, obscenity, and censorship. She offers arguments for both sides and covers feminist interpretations of pornography, the protections afforded to free speech thanks to the First Amendment, and the history of the Supreme Court’s attempt to pin down the definition of “obscenity.”

news Libertarianism

What are Negative and Positive Liberty? And Why does it Matter?

January 6, 2013

A significant amount of debate between libertarian and non-libertarian political thinkers has to do with the distinction between negative and positive liberty. These two technical terms within political philosophy play a large role in determining the limits of permissible state action, as well as establishing just what the state exists to do in the first place. Which means libertarians and non-libertarians interested in political ideas—and keen to having meaningful conversations about them—will benefit from understanding these two sorts of liberty. If we want to start very simple, keeping our definitions to just two words each, negative liberty means “freedom from,” while positive liberty means “capacity to.” Another way of thinking about the difference—though again, it’s a rough …

news Libertarianism

Robert Poole on National Defense and Foreign Policy

January 6, 2013

Robert Poole is one of the founders of the Reason Foundation (which publishes Reason Magazine), and served as its president and CEO from 1978 to 2000. He is currently director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation and frequently writes about issues related to privatization. In this video from a Libertarian International conference in 1984, Poole speaks about the moral frameworks surrounding national defense and foreign policy. He also goes into the means of national defense, including a lengthy discussion on nuclear armaments and nuclear shield programs.

news Libertarianism

Thoughts on Libertarian Strategy for the New Year

January 6, 2013

The advent of a new year is a good time—or at least as good a time as any—for libertarians to ponder their successes and failures. Given the dismal political developments over the past year, I thought this would be an appropriate time to offer some thoughts about strategies to achieve a free society. The word “strategy,” which derives from the Greek word for “office of a general,” originally referred to the art of military command “as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations.” It is now used in a broader sense to mean the “art or skill of using stratagems in politics…

news Libertarianism

Asking the Hard Questions

January 6, 2013

I have always thought of myself as a philosopher first, and a libertarian second. In my more self-congratulatory moments, I tell myself that this is because my highest commitment is to the truth, wherever it may lead, regardless of political program. To be honest, though, I think it largely comes down to personality. The fact is, being in a room full of people who all agree with each other—especially about politics—makes me profoundly uncomfortable. And that discomfort makes me start to question things. Put me in a room full of socialists, and I will start arguing for the virtues of a free market. But transport me to a room full of…

news Libertarianism

The Success of America’s Public School System

January 6, 2013

George H. Smith was formerly Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Humane Studies, a lecturer on American History for Cato Summer Seminars, and Executive Editor of Knowledge Products. Smith’s fourth book, Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism, is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, and he is also a regular blogger and essayist at Libertarianism.org. In this video from a 1985 Libertarian Party of California conference Smith lectures on the success of the public school system. He claims that state schooling is successful insofar as it accomplishes it’s true goal: not to educate children per se but to turn them into civic-minded, obedient …

news Libertarianism

Slavery Contracts and Inalienable Rights: A Formulation

January 6, 2013

by Roderick Long https://c4ss.org/content/16025 Slavery Contracts and Inalienable Rights: A Formulation Slavery Contracts and Inalienable Rights: A Formulation was originally published in the Winter 1994-95 issue of Formulations by the Free Nation Foundation, written by Roderick T. Long. Liberty vs. Self-Ownership? Libertarianism stands for maximum individual liberty — and thus against any kind of slavery. Yet libertarianism also stands for self-ownership; and what I own, I have a right to sell. Apparently, then, libertarianism countenances the legitimacy of selling oneself into slavery, and enforcing the slavery contract against those who change their minds. Thus it seems that the ideals of self-ownership and sanctity of contract can come into conflict with the ideal of maximum liberty…

news Libertarianism

Briefly in Praise of Edward Gibbon

January 6, 2013

by Sean Gabb from 2000 It may have been observed that no issue of Free Life appeared between last October and January. The blame for this lapse is entirely mine, but the reason is Edward Gibbon. I opened the first volume of his Decline and Fall one Sunday afternoon in September, and closed the last volume early in December. During this time, almost every moment not reserved to earning a living or to the cares of married life was given up to reading Gibbon. I read him on railway trains and in the gaps between lectures. I read him in bed and once very furtively in the Church of St Mary le …

news Libertarianism

The New Joy of Gay Sex

January 6, 2013

From Free Life, Issue 19, November 1993 ISSN: 0260 5112 The New Joy of Gay Sex Dr Charles Silverstein and Edmund White The Gay Men’s Press, London, 1993, 220 pp., £16.95 (ISBN 0 85449 214 3) Reviewed by Sean Gabb I did think of turning this review into a plea for the toleration of sexual differences. But where homosexuals are concerned, I suspect I am about a decade too late. I will not claim that they have today no justified grievances. The criminal and civil law of this country embodies a mass of prejudice which ranges from the petty to the viciously destructive. Even so, the argument for removing that prejudice has been largely won …

news Libertarianism

Mars as it may once have been

January 6, 2013

Note: I dream of Mars several times a year. It’s always a bleak place, of dark shadows and a surface like the upper slopes of Mount Etna. Life, when present, is generally small and exo-skeletal. Otherwise, I often wander through vast cryogenic labyrinths underground, where the power has long since failed and the occupants have become shrivelled husks. I doubt these new pictures will find their way into my dream world – indeed, I like things the way they are – but they are interesting. SIG Filed under: Liberty

news Libertarianism

Is Capitalism Just Fraud?

January 6, 2013

By David J. Webb Located as I am in “rip-off Britain”, it is a worthy question indeed whether capitalism is, in the final analysis, just fraud. Businesses should try to sell their goods for the maximum price in the market—doesn’t that make it likely that the free market is just a conduit for deception? Libertarians are generally left with vague comments along the lines of caveat emptor that ignore the fact that good value and good service are hard to find in the market, whoever one buys from. So I think the question apposite and worth considering. Take the example of Chinese fake pharmaceuticals. I suppose you could say it is a case of caveat emptor—you should know that the drugs that you purchase…

news Libertarianism

Welcome to Russia: Putin Grants Citizenship to Depardieu

January 6, 2013

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree granting Russian citizenship to French film star and tax exile Gerard Depardieu, who is renouncing his French citizenship to search for an easier tax climate outside of his native country. Academy Award-nominated Depardieu is a regular in Moscow. The actor made headlines across the world when he announced in late December that “Putin has already sent me a passport!” The statement was a joke, but it soon became reality. The day after the announcement, Putin told a press conference that the French bon vivant was a welcome guest in Russia: “If Gerard Depardieu really wants to have Russian …

news Libertarianism