The Libertarian Angle: Ukraine and Venezuela

The Libertarian Angle: Ukraine and VenezuelaBÓNUS - The Libertarian Angle: Ukraine

Rant Liberal do Dia

Correcçãozinha - não foi "Portugal" que foi financiar-se a uma taxa implícita simpática. Foi o Estado português. Agora de volta ao trabalho, camponeses, há impostos a serem pagos, e se este ano vocês não produzirem o suficiente para cumprir as metas, para o ano há mais, só para aprenderem. E lembrem-se sempre, se não querem mais umas chicotadas: "o Estado somos todos nós".

Secessão "ilegal"

Secession and the Law por Butler Shaffer:

While I do not recognize a “social contract” as the origins of the state, I am quite willing to use the statists’ fabrication of such a transaction against them. By their nature, contracts are agreements voluntarily entered into by two or more persons to exchange claims to the ownership of property interests. Courts often refer to this voluntary nature as “mutual assent.” When one is forced, through threat of violence, to part with some property interest – as occurs when a street-mugger takes money from another at gun-point – a crime, not a contract, has taken place.

When we attach ourselves so strongly to an abstraction that our minds have created, that we identify our very being with it; it becomes difficult for us to examine how such an attachment might contribute to the problems ensuing from our actions. To what extent, in other words, does our thinking contribute to the difficulties we experience in our institutionalized world?

Whether we are considering questions in the realm of religion, science, law, or other subjects, we encounter a truth that few people are willing to consider: no system of thought can be self-validating.

It is on the basis of such thinking that politicians, judges, and other statists assert that “secession” is “illegal.” If the Constitution does not specifically provide for this remedy, it does not exist; it is unlawful to pursue it. That such a proposition negates not only the Declaration of Independence, but the “social contract” theory upon which the state depends for bamboozling the public, is conveniently ignored by the statists. Many even go so far as to argue that the Civil War proved the illegality of secession, a conclusion that disregards the American colonials seceding from their then-present British government in a Revolutionary War aided by the ideas and spirit in the Declaration of Independence.

“Secession” .. is, in other words, a philosophical question; one that requires recourse to deeply-held principled beliefs. Just as those nineteenth century libertarians who sought to abolish slavery had to rest their arguments on metasystems of thought that transcended constitutional, statutory, and other formal legal standards; the secession question cannot be answered by the political authorities who control, for their benefit, the coercive machinery that continues to grind down, loot, and destroy those who seek to liberate themselves from its inhumane practices.

Whether mankind is to survive, or bring about its own extinction, will depend largely on the premises that underlie our social organizations. Will they exist as voluntary, cooperative systems through which individuals can mutually achieve their respective interests; or will they continue to function as herd-oriented collectives that allow the few to benefit at the expense of the many? ..

Who Needs Capitalism

Apesar do fail monstruoso aos 1:09:00....


Capitalism: Who Needs It- Yaron Brook

Do You Hate the State?

Do You Hate the State? por Murray N. Rothbard:

I have been ruminating recently on what are the crucial questions that divide libertarians. Some that have received a lot of attention in the last few years are: anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government, abolitionism vs. gradualism, natural rights vs. utilitarianism, and war vs. peace. But I have concluded that as important as these questions are, they don’t really cut to the nub of the issue, of the crucial dividing line between us.

Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is “radical.” Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul.

.. The abolitionist is a “button pusher” who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist, and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary – while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it.

His button-pushing position stems from the abolitionist’s deep and abiding hatred of the State and its vast engine of crime and oppression. With such an integrated world-view, the radical libertarian could never dream of confronting either a magic button or any real-life problem with some arid cost-benefit calculation. He knows that the State must be diminished as fast and as completely as possible. Period.

.. the radical regards the State as our mortal enemy, which must be hacked away at wherever and whenever we can. To the radical libertarian, we must take any and every opportunity to chop away at the State, whether it’s to reduce or abolish a tax, a budget appropriation, or a regulatory power. And the radical libertarian is insatiable in this appetite until the State has been abolished, or – for minarchists – dwindled down to a tiny, laissez-faire role.

Libertarianism vs. the Empire

John Glaser and Scott Horton - Libertarianism vs. the Empire

Upside-Down Narrative

Global Warming’s Upside-Down Narrative por Bjørn Lomborg:

Climate change has been portrayed as a huge catastrophe costing as much as 20% of world GDP, though brave politicians could counter it at a cost of just 1% of GDP. The reality is just the opposite: We now know that the damage cost will be perhaps 2% of world GDP, whereas climate policies can end up costing more than 11% of GDP.

We live in a world where one in six deaths are caused by easily curable infectious diseases; one in eight deaths stem from air pollution, mostly from cooking indoors with dung and twigs; and billions of people live in abject poverty, with no electricity and little food. We ought never to have entertained the notion that the world’s greatest challenge could be to reduce temperature rises in our generation by a fraction of a degree.

The solution is to stop applauding politicians who warn of catastrophe and promote poor policies. Instead of subsidizing inefficient solar and wind power with little benefit, we need to invest in long-term green innovation. And we need to give more attention to all of the other problems. This is perhaps less entertaining, but it will do much more good.

The Economics of Ghostbusters

EconPop - The Economics of Ghostbusters

Klaus + Ukraine

The Václav Klaus Institute's public statement on the situation in the Ukraine
The Václav Klaus Institute Public Statement on the Situation in the Ukraine no. 2: Let’s Not Trivialize the Situation by One-Sided Interpretations

The Carefully Organized Separation of Czechoslovakia as an Example How to Peacefully Solve a Nation State Problem:

The Slovaks wanted to be alone. They wanted to have a sovereign state, not to be just part of Czechoslovakia, and the Czechs accepted that they did not have the right to block such an ambition. This was absolutely crucial. We both understood that the split had to be done quickly, friendly and generously, that there had to be simple macro-rules for dividing all kinds of common assets and liabilities, and that we had to do it ourselves, without letting foreigners to quasi-help us, which means to intervene .. what we carried out in Czechoslovakia two decades ago was a voluntary and organized separation.

Let's start a real Ukrainian debate:

After twenty years of independence, Ukraine is a divided country on the threshold of economic bankruptcy. It is home to two nations with different and probably antagonistic visions of the future, two nations growing apart every day. Both these nations look up to the world outside with unrealistic expectations – one to the West, the other to Russia.

Propaganda Nacional-Socialista e Internacional-Socialista

La propaganda de nazis y comunistas era idéntica

No Room for Statism in the Libertarian Tent

No Room for Statism in the Libertarian Tent por Scott Lazarowitz:

.. libertarianism doesn’t involve social activism and doesn’t specifically address racism, sexism, etc., because libertarianism is really just the promotion of liberty, the non-aggression principle and the self-ownership of the individual ..

And in my view, the advocacy of liberty and non-aggression naturally goes with the philosophy of individualism. Individualism goes hand-in-hand with the concept of self-ownership. The individual owns one’s own life, including one’s person, one’s labor and one’s justly-acquired property. This is in contrast to collectivism in which the group or the community shares in ownership rights of the individual, and is a way of life which has been very thoroughly enmeshed with the State.

Those who really want governments and their police forces or militaries to intervene, or for government bureaucrats to impose their will onto the private matters of others, are not libertarians. They are statists, pure and simple.

There is no compromise, no middle ground between statism and libertarianism. “Limited government” is not libertarian and isn’t even possible. In my view, libertarianism has no role for the State, as the State is a territorial monopoly ruler over people who did not consent to its rule. The relationship between the rulers and the ruled is contract-less and not voluntary. In a libertarian society, all relationships, associations and contracts would be voluntary. No coercion. The essence of the State is that its relationship with the people is involuntary. The State is nothing but an apparatus of coercion and aggression.

In contrast to the State, the libertarian society is a civilized society. But what we have now is an incredibly uncivilized society because institutionalized aggression and slavery of the people is exactly what the State is.

And in our current statist society, the institution of the State employs those who are allowed to be above the law which all others, the ruled, must obey. In a libertarian society, however, everyone is equal under the law, and no one may initiate aggression against anyone else, no exceptions.

So, please pardon my stern exclusiveness on this important matter. While there is room in the libertarian “big tent” for “humanitarians” and “brutalists,” there is no room in libertarianism for statism. Those who believe that the above demonstrations of libertarianism are “extreme” and that there still needs to be some form of compulsory State monopoly apparatus ruling over the people, then in my view those advocates should not be referred to as “libertarians” when in actuality they are statists.

Jury Nullification

Jury Service & Jury Nullification

Rant Liberal do Dia

Um erro e uma vergonha:

Instrução estalinista -- um sistema gerido e zelado por políticos, engenheiros sociais, e convivas sentados de cátedra à mesa dos dinheiros "públicos" só pode fabricar descompensadamente vastas brigadas de clones -- funcionários, burocratas, apparatchiks, teóricos sociais, especialistas encartados de pastoreiro da "sociedade", a qual, apesar dos seus iluminados esforços (ou por causa deles) não lhes liga nenhuma, apesar de pagar penosamente a sua existência e perpetuação.