Daily Archives: February 11, 2017

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I have had to undergo a great deal of rethinking on all of this this year [now] I want to shut down low-skill immigration for a while, Charles Murray told a D.C. event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies.

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The thing that has gotten to me over this year has been the very simple idea that the citizens of a nation owe something to each other that is over and above our general obligation to other human beings outside the United States, Murray said Sept. 26.

A temporary end to low-skill immigration will allow a national test of various proposals to help the many Americans at the bottom end of the economic scale, Murray said. For example, amid high immigration, several million Americans prime age employable men are not even trying to work, at great long-term cost to themselves and society.

Once low-skilled immigration is ended, society may react in favorable directions to help lower-end Americans workers, he said. For example, the girlfriends of young men will be better able to prod their boyfriends into taking low-skill, low-paid jobs if their employers cant hire illegals, Murray said.

But Murray says he only wants a temporary moratorium on low-skill immigration in case the new policy proves counterproductive. I want to shut if down for a while because it may not work [currently] we will have no good way of knowing how employers will respond until the spigot is cut off, he said.

Murray is one of the most influential libertarian and conservative intellectuals in Washington D.C. His work helped create momentum for welfare reform in the 1990s, and hes now focusing attention on the widening gap between poor and wealthy Americans His 2012 book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, has publicized the declining situation of low-skilled white workers.

American has been exceptional because Americans dont want to see their society divided by social and economic classes, Murray said Monday. The term American Exceptionalism came from Europeans visiting in 1800s [who saw that Americans] all wanting to see themselves as part of the same class, he said.

We need to reconstruct an American society in which people are part of one brotherhood, sisterhood, he said. In the recent past, the U.S. did have a sense of egalitarian equality, he said. It was never perfect, but but God, we did get a lot closer than any other society, he said, adding I want in to live in [that] America.

Murrays call for a halt to low-skill immigration comes as a prestigious think-tank in D.C. admitted that each low-skill migrant costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Immigrants alsoshift roughly $500 billion wages from white-collar and blue-collar Americans to employers and investors, according to the Sept. 22 report issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Each year, four million Americans turn 18 and begin looking for jobs. But the federal government also imports roughly 2 million foreign workers, including legal and illegal immigrants, refugees, temporary guest-workers and asylum seekers. More than 50 percent of the annual inflow of workers are lower-skilled.

Restrictions on low-skill immigration is an idea whose time has come, and will be recognized by ambitious Democratic and Republican politicians, he said. There is a sea-change in the [nations] mood, he said.

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Libertarian Author Charles Murray Calls for Pause in Low ...

The only difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, according to a local political activist, is that each promotes a different brand of diet soda.

Some of us want to drink ice water, said Bryan Jack Holder of Council Bluffs.

Thats why he joined the Iowa Libertarian Party, which is expected to earn political party status in the state in a few weeks.

Ive been following politics most of my adult life, and there are many like myself that dont fit in with either of the major political parties, said Holder, who ran for the U.S. House last year as a Libertarian. Some of us dont like to be put in a box.

More and more people seem to be in agreement as membership in the party has skyrocketed in just five years, according to Council Bluffs resident Jake Porter, the partys newly named executive director.

Currently, the number of Libertarian registered voters in Iowa is approaching 10,000, compared to less than 2,000 in 2012, Porter said. According to the Iowa Secretary of States office, 9,035 active voters are registered as Libertarians.

These people are seeking maximum freedom, which is what the party stands for, Porter said.

Its the ability to live your life as you choose as long as you are not harming anyone else, he said. We support fewer taxes, fewer regulations on smaller businesses and more personal freedom. The nature of government is to take away freedom. The Libertarian Party is trying to get some of those freedoms back.

Holder, who said hes not surprised by the partys growth, had similar views.

I dont think government should be in our bedrooms, bank accounts, our gun safes or in our communications, he said.

Last year, more Libertarians ran for political office than ever before, according to Porter.

One of those who ran was Gary Johnson, the partys presidential candidate. Johnson received 3.8 percent of the total presidential vote in Iowa, slightly more than the 3.3 percent he received nationally.

Because of this performance, the Libertarian Party earned political party status, which occurs when a partys presidential candidate receives more than 2 percent of the vote in Iowa. The necessary paperwork to obtain this status has been filed with the Iowa Secretary of States office and should become official around March 1, Porter said.

I dont see any issues with it, he said of the paperwork.

Political party status is a legal definition established by Iowa Code that allows the party certain privileges, including the ability to participate in primary elections. With party status, Iowa Libertarians will be able to vote for Libertarian candidates in the 2018 primaries.

Holding primary elections has its advantages, said Keith Laube, chairman of the Iowa Libertarian Party.

Having our candidates be part of the primary election will allow voters to become familiar with our candidates earlier in the election season, Laube said through his office. Our candidates will know they are on the November ballot in early June rather than late August.

This will help organize stronger campaigns and provide voters more opportunity to understand Libertarian views. Having more candidates share their ideas by being involved in the entire election cycle is good for Iowa.

Holder said he plans to run again for Congress next year. Porter also didnt rule out party candidates running in this years Council Bluffs City Council election, which is a nonpartisan race.

Having political party status also adds more credibility when these candidates seek a place in political debates, Porter said, adding there should be no shortage of party candidates in the 2018 election.

We think we will have at least 50 candidates for county, the state Legislature, the governors race and for Congress, he said.

Group plans for expanded candidate slate in 2018 after seeing growth in registration numbers

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Libertarians set to become official political party in Iowa - The Daily Nonpareil

By Zach Foster

A libertarian brother from the Mises Cuba Institute notified me shortly after two Cuban libertarian activists were arrested by State Security officersthe political secret police. Mises Cuba, Mises USA, and the PanAm Post all confirmed that Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velasquez Visea were both arrested in the last week. Other members of Mises Cuba were also threatened with arrest by the political police.

The two men were arrested together. Reportedly, they were approached by several plain-clothes undercover secret policemen. The secret policemen harassed the two men and arrested the activists when they refused to show ID to non-uniformed officers. Herrera and Velasques are still detained.

The American Mises Institute commented: At a time when interest in the works of Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School is growing in developing nations, this arrest is a solemn reminder of the incredible courage of those spreading ideas in countries where governments routinely crack down on political opposition.

Responding to a request for comment,Libertarian Party of Nevada Chairman Jason Smith and Vice Chairman David Colborne both expressed shock at the arrest and they condemn the Cuban government for this abuse against civil liberties and basic human rights. This morning, LP Nevada released a press release in English and in Spanishofficially protesting the arrest and indefinite detention of Herrera and Velasquez and demanding their immediate safe release.

Since the War on Terror heated up, libertarians have been fighting and campaigning against indefinite detention. The liberty movement in 2012 vehemently opposed the National Defense Authorization Act specifically for the indefinite detention clause. This same fate is exactly what the Cuban libertarian activists are facing now.

Libertarians everywhere should join in denouncing the unjust actions of the Cuban regime and demand that the two political prisoners be released immediately. Cuban goods should be boycotted. People from around the world need to be putting pressure on their own governments to put political pressure on Cuba, while themselves putting economic pressure on Cuba.

This is a time when we libertarians need to stand in solidarity with Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velasquez Visea. What happened to these men in Cuba can still happen in the United States, especially with a presidential cabinet stacked with authoritarians like Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions. Rounding out the authoritarian curve is President Trump and his love for executive orders.

We the People need to keep protesting and pressuring our own government to respect our civil liberties, but that doesnt mean we cant scream and shout when it happens in places like Cuba. After all, while Americans fear their government arbitrarily jailing political opponents, it actually happens in Cuba. Driving it closer to home, these men are libertarian activists. They were thrown in jail for exactly the type of nonviolent education and discussion that people reading this have done countless times without even a second thought.

The jailed Cuban libertarian activists are political prisoners and State Security is holding themwithout a trial. This is antithetical to freedom. It would be the same whether the Cuban regime jailed Cuban libertarian activists or whether a right-wing regime jailed socialist labor union organizers. There are some things a human being just doesnt have the right to do to another human being.

There can be no justice in Cuba until the two Cuban libertarian activists are released safe and sound. We can only hope State Security hasnt brutalized them the way theyve brutalized countless of the nameless Cuban peasants unlucky enough to be suspected of crimes against the state. Whats worse is how authoritarian governments like the Cuban regime usually accuse political dissidents not of crimes against the state, but against the people.

CommunismCubaHuman rightsMises Institute

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Cuban Libertarian Activists Arrested By State Police - The Libertarian Republic