Archive | June, 2016
Libertarian calendar for June 2016
28 JunJune 28
New York, NY
New York, NY
Liberty Happy Hour
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7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
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When: 4th Tuesday of every month. 7-10pmWhere: Fitzpatrick Hotel Bar (687 Lexington Avenue btwn 56th/57th – Manhattan, NY)DescriptionCome share a drink (pub-grub, too) with like-minded Libertarians . . . Monthly, the 4th Tuesday at 7pm, we gather at the Fitzpatrick Hotel bar, 687 Lexington Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets
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June 28
Washington, DC
DC Blockchain Users Group (Bitcoin & Beyond)
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June 29
Washington, DC
Pride Social
7 pm
Libertarian candidates Bruce Majors and MArtin Moulton will attend
Come celebrate the end of LGBT Pride Month here in the nation’s capital with the local Log Cabin Republicans in the Chastleton Ballroom!
The Ballroom will have some snacks, an open bar, and a wonderful opportunity to catch up with old friends or make new ones. No matter how dark the night or how wicked our enemies, we will keep fighting, living, and loving.
All are welcome!
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June 22
Gary Johnson CNN Townhall
Debate watching parties around the country including:
Montgomery, AL
7 pm
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Buzzards Bay, MA
8 pm
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Little Rock, AR
7:45 pm
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Arlington, Virginia
9 pm
Hard Times Cafe
Clarendon Metro
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Dallas, TX
7:45 pm
9405 Ruidosa Trl, Irving, TX 75063-4644, United States
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Omaha. NE
7:45 pm
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Las Vegas, NV
5:30 pm
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June 29
Washington, DC
Reforming the USPS
Cato Institute
Rayburn House office building B-369
Noon
The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than $50 billion since 2007 as mail volume has plummeted. House and Senate committees are working on legislation to stem the losses, and a stamp price hike is in the mix. Meanwhile, many European nations have reinvigorated their postal systems by privatizing them and opening them to competition.
What challenges does the USPS face, and what changes are being considered by Congress? Should the USPS be moved to the private sector, and should entrepreneurs be allowed to compete?
Join our distinguished panel of experts—James Gattuso, Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation; Kevin Kosar, Senior Fellow, R Street Institute; and Chris Edwards, Editor, DownsizingGovernment.org, Cato Institute; and Peter Russo, Director of Congressional Affairs, Cato Institute—to hear about the postal deficit crisis and ideas for major reforms.
REGISTER: http://www.cato.org/events/reforming-us-postal-service
If you can’t make it to the event, you can watch it live online atwww.cato.org/live and join the conversation on Twitter using #CatoEvents. Follow @CatoEvents on Twitter to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.
Libertarian calendar for July 2016
28 Jun
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The Nation phones home
28 Jun
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Brexit Victory, new reason editor Katherine Mangu-Ward, and a communication problem for libertarians
28 JunSome libertarians, like Katherine Mangu-Ward, the new editor in chief at reason (speaking last week on the Kennedy show) favored “remaining” in the EU, as a form of maximizing free trade.
In a way it’s a curious position for Ms. Mangu-Ward, a non-electoral libertarian who believes “voting only encourages them,” yet thinks international governmental organizations and agreements are a good path to free trade. It may be a minority position too – not only conservatives but libertarians like Ron Paul as well as those in England and elsewhere favor Brexit.
It also highlights a problem area for libertarians, who often appear on C-Span, in the form of lawyers and scholars affiliated with CATO etc, arguing for free trade to an audience, if judged by the callers, who don’t get the economic arguments about gains of trade and then view the libertarians as a subspecies of the pointy headed technocratic elite that populates the government and wants to tell them how to live their lives.
In on line discussions among members of the British Libertarian Alliance, opinion was something like this:
“…The death of the UK to be replaced by being a sub-state of the EU is a libertarian nightmare. By rejecting the EU we have taken a major step in the direction of libertarianism.
This was not the intention of most Leave campaigners but it means that the UK is now more… vulnerable, one might say, to libertarian campaigning. The EU is no longer there to impose its own laws from outside. Now all that we, as libertarians, have to contend with is the infrastructure and bureaucracy of British government. This is by no means an easy job but it’s a lot easier than having to cope with the EU too!
Our job of bringing about libertarian change has just because a little bit easier.
All of a sudden, there is a lot less state for us to deal with.”
I fear libertarians have a communication problem they don’t know how to deal with here. I saw one clicktivist in a group of gay Trump supporters recently damn all libertarians for looking down on people and thinking they are smarter than everyone else. One of Gary Johnson’s main media people, as well as a Republican delegate to the GOP nominating convention who wants to campaign for Johnson, have both expressed to me their exasperation with me when I ask if Libertarian candidates should not find a way to appeal to the concerns of Trump voters.
I’m picking on Ms. Mangu-Ward a little, as she dislikes me. She’s also a smart woman and might have some ideas about this communications problem.
Brexit Wins: Why That’s Great News for Europe, Too
British voters have elected to leave the European Union in a national referendum. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage declared Friday Britain’s “independence day.” That is quite a statement given British history. A little over two and a quarter centuries ago, America had its own first Independence Day, and the British Empire was the super-state from which Americans declared independence.
Independence is not isolation.
History has come full circle; in a sense, today we are seeing the American Revolution in reverse. In many ways, the European Union is a lever of US global hegemony. By seceding from the EU in spite of threats from Washington, Britain is declaring partial independence from America.
It must be noted that independence is not isolation. This is the key distinction that is intentionally blurred by the “Better Together” rhetoric of the “Remain” camp. When they scaremonger about “leaving Europe,” it conjures images of Britain abandoning Western civilization. But “the West,” as in the US-led alliance of neo-colonial powers, is not the same thing as Western civilization. And the European Union is not the same thing as Europe. Exiting a mega-state in defiance of an imperium is not withdrawing from civilization. In fact, such an exit is propitious for civilization.
Small Is Beautiful
Political independence fosters economic interdependence.
Advocates of international unions and super-states claim that centralization promotes trade and peace: that customs unions break down trade barriers and international government prevents war. In reality, super-states encourage both protectionism and warfare. The bigger the trade bloc, the more it can cope with the economic isolation that comes with trade warfare. And the bigger the military bloc, the easier it is for bellicose countries to externalize the costs of their belligerence by dragging the rest of the bloc into its fights.
A small political unit cannot afford economic isolationism; it simply doesn’t have the domestic resources necessary. So for all of UKIP’s isolationist rhetoric, the practical result of UK independence from the European economic policy bloc would likely be freer trade and cross-border labor mobility (immigration). Political independence fosters economic interdependence. And economic interdependence increases the opportunity costs of war and the benefits of peace.
The Power of Exit
Super-states also facilitate international policy “harmonization.” What this means is that, within the super-state, the citizen has no escape from onerous laws, like the regulations that unceasingly pour out of the EU bureaucracy. But with political decentralization, subjects can “vote with their feet” for less burdensome regimes. Under this threat of “exit,” governments are incentivized to liberalize in order to compete for taxpayer feet. Today’s referendum was a victory both for Brexit and the power of exit. That’s good news for European liberty.
During its Industrial Revolution, Britain was a beacon of domestic liberty and economic progress that stimulated liberal reform on the European continent. An independent Britain in the 21st century can play that role again. In doing so, Britain would help Europe outside the EU far more than it ever could on the inside. Brexit may be a death knell for the European Union, yet ultimately a saving grace for the European people.
Dan Sanchez
Dan Sanchez is the Digital Content Manager at FEE, developing educational and inspiring content for FEE.org, including articles and courses. His articles are collected at DanSanchez.me.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
Your Vote for a Third Party Candidate Won’t Be a Waste in 2016
27 JunYour Vote for a Third Party Candidate Won’t Be a Waste in 2016: Most voters will categorically reject minor party candidates, dismissing a vote for anyone other than Clinton or Trump as a wasted ballot. Such thinking is deeply flawed and very dangerous for America’s future.
Gary Johnson’s campaign to date – The CNN Townhall
25 JunLibertarians seem unhappy with Gary Johnson’s Town Hall performance.
(I have to confess I fell asleep in front of a TV from a day of overwork, planning on attending a debate watch party, and awoke with only 15 minutes of it left. What I saw did not make me prioritize watching the rest.)
Two trends in libertarian commentaries, like those by readers at reason, where editor at large Matt Welch summed up Gary’s performance as “nice guys finish third,” are that Gary was a bit of a choke artist – perhaps Romney is thinking of endorsing Gov. Johnson because they share the same debate coach – and that the ticket should be reversed, with Weld for President and Johnson for Vice president.
Of course, libertarians would not be happy with that either. Johnson is probably more libertarian on issues than is Weld. And they have been running very much as a team anyway, as one might expect given that they are both two term Governors, but Weld from a larger state.
Dr. Ross Levatter, a long time libertarian activist who worked on the 1980 Clark campaign summed up Johnson’s refusal to go negative thus: “I get that Gary Johnson wants to be positive, but if he felt compelled to say Hillary Clinton was good at something, I wish instead of ‘public servant’ he had gone with ‘commodity trader’.”
Another Clark campaign activist sent her former colleagues a long rant on Johnson:
(I have to confess I fell asleep in front of a TV from a day of overwork, planning on attending a debate watch party, and awoke with only 15 minutes of it left. What I saw did not make me prioritize watching the rest.)
Two trends in libertarian commentaries, like those by readers at reason, where editor at large Matt Welch summed up Gary’s performance as “nice guys finish third,” are that Gary was a bit of a choke artist – perhaps Romney is thinking of endorsing Gov. Johnson because they share the same debate coach – and that the ticket should be reversed, with Weld for President and Johnson for Vice president.
Of course, libertarians would not be happy with that either. Johnson is probably more libertarian on issues than is Weld. And they have been running very much as a team anyway, as one might expect given that they are both two term Governors, but Weld from a larger state.
Dr. Ross Levatter, a long time libertarian activist who worked on the 1980 Clark campaign summed up Johnson’s refusal to go negative thus: “I get that Gary Johnson wants to be positive, but if he felt compelled to say Hillary Clinton was good at something, I wish instead of ‘public servant’ he had gone with ‘commodity trader’.”
Another Clark campaign activist sent her former colleagues a long rant on Johnson:
I suppose you all watched the town hall last night. Johnson needs help. He needs a coach – a team of coaches. He’s not good on his feet. Is anybody working with him on how to be a strong clear minded confident articulate candidate who knows how to field the questions and be clear about his program and the libertarian solutions to the problems? It would appear not.
Weld should have been the presidential nominee. Johnson vice President.
It was clear in the convention debates that Johnson was not the best of the candidates at articulating his approach, but the fact that he is a former elected governor made him the best choice. Hopefully he’s teachable.
Besides a coach, the campaign needs money, and I’m sure volunteers, and experts in marketing, media, public relations, etc.
Who is working with the campaign to set these things up? Does anybody know? The campaign headquarters doesn’t even have a voicemail.
What can we be doing to make this happen? Are any of you involved? Would you please let us know?
I hope to hear back with some good feedback. Or, is it s lost cause?
The reason readers have a third commentary trend: many mentions that even though they found Gary’s performance cringe worthy, their non-libertarian spouses all thought he sounded like a reasonable person for whom they could vote.
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The Insomniac Libertarian 