Daily Archives: March 25, 2021

Libertarianism, political philosophy that takes individual liberty to be the primary political value. It may be understood as a form of liberalism, the political philosophy associated with the English philosophers John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the Scottish economist Adam Smith, and the American statesman Thomas Jefferson. Liberalism seeks to define and justify the legitimate powers of government in terms of certain natural or God-given individual rights. These rights include the rights to life, liberty, private property, freedom of speech and association, freedom of worship, government by consent, equality under the law, and moral autonomy (the ability to pursue ones own conception of happiness, or the good life). The purpose of government, according to liberals, is to protect these and other individual rights, and in general liberals have contended that government power should be limited to that which is necessary to accomplish this task. Libertarians are classical liberals who strongly emphasize the individual right to liberty. They contend that the scope and powers of government should be constrained so as to allow each individual as much freedom of action as is consistent with a like freedom for everyone else. Thus, they believe that individuals should be free to behave and to dispose of their property as they see fit, provided that their actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others.

John Locke, oil on canvas by Herman Verelst, 1689; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

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A grade six classroom awaits students at Hunters Glen Junior Public School in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, September 14, 2020.(Nathan Denette/Reuters)

Charlie Cooke is a friend and a treasured colleague, but I am finding it a little difficult to launch the next volley in the conversation about education policy, because I dont think Charlie has really written a response to my piece.

Instead, Charlie has offered up some simple-minded applause lines (Thereis nothing wrong with the Department of Education that could not be solved with a tactical nuclear strike) that do not address the substance of my argument and that are based on an unmerited metaphysical certitude that the U.S. government simply cannot produce or implement useful education policy. The United States is not an especially well-governed country, and I do not expect it to achieve the level of bureaucratic competence that we might expect of a Denmark or a Switzerland, but it has from time to time shown itself able to develop and implement policy in a programmatic way. It isnt Norway, but it isnt Pakistan, either.

That the United States could address in a meaningful way the complex issue of education simply by shuttering a federal department and patting itself on the back for a job well done is precisely the kind of thinking that has made todays Republican Party the intellectual powerhouse we all know and admire so deeply. If I were in the market for that kind of thing . . . I think I have a number for Rick Perry around here somewhere.

The U.S. government has a rich and complex relationship with education, especially with institutions of higher education. That means it has to make decisions about what sorts of things it will fund, encourage, or, at certain extremes, even allow. There are better and worse ways to make those decisions. Pretending that these issues can simply be ignored out of existence is the worst kind of nave libertarianism.

For example, Chinas rising eminence as a funder of and collaborator in research around the world, including in partnership with such important U.S. allies as the United Kingdom, presents real questions and challenges for the U.S. government challenges that are not going to be resolved by saying, Let the free market take care of it. I am a big, big fan of letting the free market take care of economic questions, but there are non-economic questions in play, too.

Whether there exists something called the Department of Education or whether these endeavors are organized in some other way, the policymaking and implementation are not going to be carried out by Smurfs, wizards, or libertarian unicorns with rainbows for manes. You could make education policy in the Department of Defense (one of the few federal departments that conservatives broadly trust), or you could make it at Treasury or Commerce or hand it off to the Federal Reserve, in which case you simply will have created an education department in disguise. The basic issues and the need for positive engagement with them do not go away, for the same reason that you cant cause an earthquake by shaking a desktop globe.

Dissolving the DOE as it exists might be a useful or even necessary administrative measure, but it would hardly render the underlying issues resolved. And conservatives are going to need something more than nuke-the-DOE banalities to deal with those issues if conservativism is to be something more than a rhetoric and a countercultural posture something more than words about words.

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Education and Naive Libertarianism - National Review

Former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash will be keynote speaker for the NH Libertarian Partys annual convention. Courtesy Photo

CONCORD, NH The Libertarian Party of New Hampshires annual convention is taking place this weekend March 19 21 at the Holiday Inn, North Main St. in Concord. Party members will elect Executive Committee members for the coming year, as well as considering changes to the Bylaws and Platform.

Justin Amash will be the Keynote Speaker during the Banquet Saturday night. He will be speaking remotely from Michigan and his keynote will be followed by a Q&A session. Amash, former U.S. Representative from Michigans 3rd Congressional District was elected and served as a Republican for nine years before joining the Libertarian Party in 2020. Amash was the highest-seated Libertarian in the partys history. He was the founder and chair of the House Liberty Caucus, saying his votes reflect Limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty.

Tara DeSisto, Development Director of the National Libertarian National Committee, and Cara Shultz, Candidate Recruitment Specialist for the LNC, are slated to be featured speakers.

A social mixer is open to all Friday night and media is welcome to attend the business sessions of the convention Saturday & Sunday.

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March 19-21: Libertarian Party of NH convention with keynote from former US Rep. Justin Amash - Manchester Ink Link

YAL. Most of our campus knows this group has been very prevalent in recent conversations amongst students. President Conner has even spoken up on the issue. I would like to give an unbiased explanation of who the Young Americans for Liberty are and why their presence on campus has been debated by students so much recently.

Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) is a political organization with chapters in colleges across the country. Their ideologies align with libertarian views, and they strongly preach the importance of free speech within the college environment. The libertarian mindset emphasizes the importance of constitutional rights and independence (think Ron Swanson, a fictional but very by-the-books libertarian figure that you can use as a reference). I am by no means an expert on libertarianism, and I will not try to explain the party further due to my lack of sufficient knowledge.

In theory, a club that promotes freedom of speech on campus can accommodate those who feel silenced in their communities and would like an outlet to express their opinions without judgment. In reality, however, this creates a space where students express views that are ultimately harmful to marginalized students existence. The club was introduced following a controversy on campus last fall involving a white student mocking the eyes of an Asian student as part of a TikTok trend called the Fox-Eye trend. Some students took sides on whether or not this was acceptable, creating division on campus. Some were adamantly opposed to the backlash the student faced, calling it cancel culture over what they deemed an act of accidental racism. Some became directly affiliated with and even gained leadership positions in YAL following the incident. This affiliation was the initial cause for outrage in many campus communities, who felt the club was created to allow a safe space for students who aimed to incite more threatening incidents like this under the umbrella of free speech.

Those involved in YAL have posted on their Instagram page about accepting all students, only aiming to break the stigma that Skidmore is a partisan school. Clubs exist on campus for both Democrats and Republicans; however, there arent any that specifically talk about more specific political leanings; e.g., liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, centrism, socialism, etc. Students who dont specifically fall under those two labels but still want to be politically involved on campus typically resort to the one that better represents them. While this is not a perfect system, it allows safe spaces for students to find others with like-minded views on different issues happening in the United States.

I say we dont need more political clubs on campus because, despite the lack of specific political spaces to align with every students view, I fear that this will create more division. I think the goal should be to create different areas for expression outside of the political spectrum. Many students are overwhelmed with the number of political events occurring daily, and as we become adults, we must stay on top of current events. This can be very exhausting (except for political science majors, perhaps.) I think that clubs should be outlets for students to express their interests and find new passions and that we should shift our focus from trying to create political safe-spaces to just creating safe spaces!

Clubs are supposed to be inclusive and enjoyable, but many clubs on campus do not get much attention or attendance. We should promote clubs with little awareness and create clubs for students who genuinely do not have a safe campus space. For instance, neither physically nor mentally/learning disabled students have a club or organization on campus. This is not because Skidmore does not care about disabled students, but rather because there is not enough student involvement, whether it be lack of interest or lack of club promotion. These organizations on campus only exist as long as students continue to be a part of them. We as a student body need to be more vocal and take more initiative to create spaces for students who do not currently have access to supportive resources on campus. I am now part of a commission to start a club that promotes sobriety on campus for students who struggle with addiction. Alcoholics Anonymous or similar organizations are other examples of clubs that existed on campus but were discontinued, not because students werent struggling with addiction, but because of lack of student involvement.

Before we jump to creating clubs for students and aiming for all-around inclusion, we as a student body need to think about the nearly 130 clubs and 19 sports we have on campus and how we utilize them. Most of us have gone to club fairs, signed up for an email list, and never received an email. How can we change this? If youre not receiving emails from a club you thought was interesting, how can you take the initiative and make the club more active? If you dont see your clubs meeting times on SkidSync, how can you contribute to their presence on campus? Skidmore students first need to help boost the under-appreciated clubs and safe-spaces on campus collectively before we jump to start new ones. This way, students can involve themselves more in different campus circles and activities, and we can have more unity all around.

YAL was not approved by Skidmores student government (SGA) due to the national clubs foundation in discriminatory practices and prejudiced ideology. Although Skidmore College prides itself on students having a place to discuss politics surrounding politics freely, they also strive to protect marginalized populations voices on campus. Herein lies the central moral and ideological dilemma: should Skidmore College ban YAL to prevent creating a platform for possible hate-speech or allow a YAL chapter on campus to uphold the first amendment right to free speech?

The Student Government will be hosting their recurring open Senate meeting tomorrow, Tuesday March 23, at 8pm. At 8:45, SGA plans to reconvene on the approval of YALs trial period. You can tune into the meeting by joining the Zoom meeting using the meeting code 423 957 5121.

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Why We Don't Need Any More "Political" Clubs on Campus The Skidmore News - Skidmore News

History matters because it tells us that there will be another pandemic at some point and, due to certain features of the way we live now, this is more likely than it was a few decades ago. There are lessons to be learnt, and learnt fast, yet already we are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. We are fixating on an inquiry that will be extremely costly and achieve little rather than focusing on what the last 12 months tells us about our society, our governance, and the alarming degree to which fear trumps freedom.

During the pandemic the government has exercised coercive powers over its citizens on a scale never before seen in modern-day Britain. And it has done so without opposition, not least from the Opposition, which has done little more than blithely suggest measures should have been tougher or brought in sooner. But it is the publics response that has handed government the legitimacy it needed to pursue a path of state authoritarianism.

93% supported the first national lockdown. Three in ten English people wanted the government to go further with the second. 46% supported the roadmap when it was announced on 22nd February, with 25% thinking the timeline was too rapid. When presented with a binary choice between freedom and safety the British public chose option three: more repression. Disregarding personal liberty when the risk is uncertain, immediate and absolute is defensible. Allowing government to "wrap its arms" around us while trampling on our freedom when that threat has manifestly been downgraded is not.

Professor Neil Ferguson told The Times in December that, in the chaos of February and March 2020, SAGE never thought the UK government couldnt get away with imposing Chinas lockdown policy. Then Italy did it, and soon thereafter we were all prisoners in our own homes. Will policymakers be so hesitant in shutting down social interaction in response to the next crisis? I doubt it.

Further, over the course of this pandemic the government has been engaged in a liberty-crushing side-hustle. No modern-day vice hasnt come under the microscope, scapegoated for its possible role in transmission or the severity of our symptoms. Alcohol, obesity, smoking, vaping. At the end of this month, the governments gambling consultation will draw to a close, and you can bet further legislation will be on the cards. Councils are introducing nil-caps for entertainment venues. Its an exhaustive, one-way ratchet, coming at a time when politicians are already stampeding on the fundamental principles that underpin our democracy.

It will be incumbent on us all to ensure the nation is unlocked as soon as it is safe to do so and there is a strong case for bringing the roadmap forward. But it is equally important that we become a freer society than we were pre-pandemic, not a more paternalistic one. Doing so will require that we all rediscover our libertarian spirit starting with the Prime Minister.

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If we don't rediscover our libertarian spirit, the next pandemic will crush us - Telegraph.co.uk

Good for Tom Mountain for encouraging his fellow Republican men to get the COVID-19 vaccine (To my fellow Republican men: Get the COVID vaccine, Opinion March 18). But is he really surprised theyre so reticent for some inexplicable reason? This is a population that ate up every lie the former president fed them: COVID was a hoax; masks, a sign of weakness. They thought Joe Bidens free and fair election to the presidency was fraudulent. Many were so convinced, they stormed the Capitol.

I hope Mountains fellow Republican men will follow his lead and get the vaccine, for themselves and our country.

Max Roberts

Natick

Watch out who you call libertarian

It was nice to see Tom Mountains advocating for Republicans to get the vaccine, which for some reason many are against. Unfortunately, he makes an incorrect accusation: The libertarian mind-set is a barricade against the governments urging Americans to get the vaccine. Its anathema to libertarians rugged individualist persona. Where did he come up with this idea? While libertarians, of which I am one, do believe in personal liberty, peace, and limited government by following the Constitution, that does not mean that we would not follow the guidelines by wearing masks and getting a vaccine to keep the population of our country safe. As Mountain said, nearly one-half of his fellow Republicans are unwilling to get the vaccine. I got my vaccine last week, and the second comes next week.

MaybeMountain has forgotten that the Libertarian Party was formed when some Republicans bolted from their party in the 1970s, while Richard Nixon was president. They refused to go along with many of his policy issues and positions. Today, some Republicans have stated the need for a new party. One is not needed. The Libertarians are here and oppose much of what Donald Trump espoused.

John Madfis

Auburndale

She always thought shed get COVID-19

Tom Mountain: I never thought Id get COVID-19, of course. But I did.

Me: I always thought that I could get COVID-19, of course. But I didnt. I was responsible and careful. Go figure.

Rebecca Block

Newton, MA.

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Is it any surprise Republican men dont want the COVID vaccine? - The Boston Globe

PHOTO PROVIDEDJodie Wertz of Full Armor Wellness in Mill Hall is shown.

MILL HALL The need for food and clothing is a constant for many in our community. Now Full Armor Wellness in Mill Hall is participating in a Personal Care and Hygiene Drive throughout the month of March.

I am grateful to Full Armor Wellness for participating in this drive, said Liz Terwilliger. Lack of access to personal care items can prevent someone from finding work, it can impact self-esteem and lead to bullying for children and teens.

The drive, co-hosted by Liz Terwilliger for Congress and the Lycoming County Libertarian Committee was planned specifically for March, Womens History Month.

We have a government that has the audacity to tax feminine hygiene products as a luxury item, making it even more difficult for women to afford these essential products. The Lycoming County Libertarian Committee is doing our part to not only help those women who have trouble coming by their basic needs, but also to raise awareness for the need and end centuries of making the undeniable fact of the female period a social unmentionable, said Luke Moyer, chair of the Lycoming County Libertarian Committee.

Members of the community can stop at Full Armor Wellness to drop off items such as maxi-pads, tampons, shampoo, soap, ethnic hair products, razors, hairbrushes, combs and other personal care or hygiene products in the bin placed by the Lycoming County Libertarian Committee. Items collected during this drive will be delivered to the YWCA in Williamsport to be divided between the Hut of Hope and Liberty House.

Find out more at https://tinyurl.com/mr6jb24a

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Area business participates in hygiene drive | News, Sports, Jobs - The Express - Lock Haven Express

Homicides in the United States increased in 2020 by over 30 percent, on a year-over-year basis. Gun assaults and aggravated assaults also spiked, leading the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice to deem the crime surge of 2020 a large and troubling increase with no modern precedent. Tragically, the early available statistics for 2021 tell a similar tale. On the American domestic front, however, issues such as Covid, the economy, and illegal immigration still garner more headlines than the escalating rates of violent crime.

This blas attitude did not materialize overnight. Many in todays leadership class entered the public arena during a decades-long drop in crime that began during the Reagan presidency and continued well into this century. Following the widespread chaos of the 1960s and the harrowing urban crime sprees of the 1970s, tough on crime quickly became a popular bipartisan political stance. President Bill Clintons highly successfuland now oft-criticized1994 Crime Bill, which passed the House on a voice vote and the Senate by a 95-4 majority, exemplified this consensus. Confident that the new trend of plummeting crime would continue, many in the silent law-and-order-supporting majority gradually became complacent, implicitly abetting the political opportunism of emergent light-on-crime libertarians and progressives.

As the Tea Party-era Republican Party evolved into a more libertarian entity and the Democratic Party adopted an ever-more stringent identity politics, criminal-justice reformthe very inverse of the 1994 Crime Billbecame the new bipartisan fad. By the mid-2010s, George Soros had begun donating large sums of money to reshape the criminal-justice system, beginning at the district attorney level. Across many of Americas leading cities, light-on-crime district attorneys invoked prosecutorial discretion to justify non-prosecution of crimes like petty larcenyreversing the effective Broken Windows policing of the recent past.

The high watermark of the new criminal-justice reform movement was the First Step Act of 2018, an unparalleled federal jailbreak that passed the Senate by a staggering 88-12 margin. It was no big stretch to get from the First Step Act to last summers prolonged AntifaBlack Lives Matter urban anarchy.

Signs of a possible pushback have become evident. In Los Angeles, District Attorney George Gascnan archetype of what Andrew McCarthy calls the progressive prosecutor projectfaces a possible recall. And sizable majorities among all racial and ethnic demographics poll in strong opposition to the most extreme anti-law and order slogan: defund the police.

But the time is ripe for a more aggressive, sustained campaign against the de-carceral, de-civilizational agenda pushed by many libertarians and progressives alike. Citizens of all political stripes, especially conservatives, must recover and publicly advocate anew the time-tested and common-sense notion that a free and just society is impossible without a robust commitment to a strictly enforced rule of law.

Once upon a time, such an effort would hardly have been needed. Abraham Lincolns Lyceum Address, delivered 23 years before Fort Sumter, famously warned of the dangers of a mobocratic spirit taking hold among the citizenry. Almost a century later, President Calvin Coolidge observed, we are always confronted with the inescapable conclusion that unless we observe the law, we cannot be free. That a secure rule of law and a concomitant quashing of nascent anarchy is a necessary precondition for justice, human flourishing, and the common good ought to beand, not too long ago, wasas ubiquitous a belief as any in our politics.

But such a pro-rule-of-law national campaign is now necessary. Activists can start at the local level, getting involved in district attorney races to oppose anti-enforcement, de-carceral candidates. Voters should punish statewide attorneys general and federal legislators alike for throwing law enforcement under the bus and focusing their ire on the qualified immunity legal doctrine over substantive commitments to support law enforcement. Citizens should make themselves heard at city council meetings in support of more police officers on the beat, a proven and effective crime deterrent. Conservative commentators must grow comfortable calling out the excesses of light-on-crime libertarianism that come from their own side of the aisle. Republican politicians, cognizant of both the disturbing on-the-ground crime reality and the political truth that the small-government rhetorical emphasis of the Tea Party era is over, must recalibrate and shift back toward a traditional pro-law-and-order political platform. Such a platform would be both proper and popular.

We have reached the point where the pendulum has swung too far back toward decarceration, under-prosecution, and light-on-crime policies. The moral primacy of order and public safety must take precedence over fashionable peddling of pro-criminal bail reform and criminal-justice reform initiatives. We have been here before; we know what we have to do. Now its time to execute the game plan.

Josh Hammer is Newsweek opinion editor and a research fellow at the Edmund Burke Foundation. Twitter: @josh_hammer.

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Recover the Moral Imperative of Law and Order city-journal.org - City Journal