Category Archives: Libertarian

Uber, Lyft, Juno and other ridesharing services have grown extremely popular in recent years. At this point in time, you or someone else you know regularly relies on these services to obtain a ride to a specific destination. Ridesharing services are very convenient and inexpensive, which makes them so hugely popular. Unfortunately, due to the large number of ridesharing drivers now taking to the roads to transport passengers from point A to point B on a daily basis, there are even more vehicles on the road than ever. As a result, many more car accidents are bound to happen. Its important to understand the situation based on your particular circumstances with a ridesharing vehicle and how you can recover the compensation you are due if you are injured in such an accident.

Basic Steps to Take After a Car Accident

First and foremost, if you are involved in an accident involving an Uber, Lyft or other ridesharing vehicle or in any car accident, in general, there are certain basic steps you must take. They include the following:

Make sure everyone is okay after the crash. If there are any injuries, it might be possible to administer basic first aid. However, if anyone is seriously injured, its important that they get immediate medical attention and get checked out by a doctor and other healthcare professionals at the hospital. At the same time, even if you or anyone else feel completely unharmed, adrenaline is running high after such a harrowing experience, which means you may not even realize that you are injured. The symptoms, including aches and pains, may not show up until hours or even days later. Additionally, there may be internal injuries that require immediate medical attention. Call 911 to summon police officers to the scene of the accident. The police should come to assess the situation and make a police accident report. If you later decide you want to file a personal injury claim, you can also use a copy of the police report in your case. A Lyft accident attorney can use it as part of the evidence to back up your claim for damages. Snap plenty of photos of the scene of the accident. Snap as many as possible and get shots of the vehicles, the damage they have sustained, the road, skid marks, road conditions and weather conditions. You can use a digital camera or your smartphones built-in camera. Gather up the names and contact information of everyone involved in the accident. Specifically, you should focus on information belonging to the other drivers, including their names, phone numbers, drivers license and license plate numbers. Talk to people around the scene who were witnesses to the accident. Ask them to make a statement of what they saw and get their names and phone numbers. You may want to ask them to write down what they recall or record their statements. Contact your insurance company and inform someone that you were injured in an accident. Keep a journal and write down anything and everything you can think of pertaining to the accident. This can be helpful when you decide to speak with a uber accident lawyer about starting your own injury claim. Always stay calm. Panicking can only make the situation worse.

What Happens When a Ridesharing Vehicle Gets Into an Accident?

These days, ridesharing services are a big part of regular everyday life for many people. Lyft, Uber, Juno and other ridesharing services are so popular because its easy to request a ride. All you have to do is download the app of the ridesharing service of your choice to your smartphone, open the app and request a ride. You only have to wait for the vehicle to show up and dont have to fight for a car to take you to your desired destination. This plus the cheaper price is what makes ridesharing services so much more convenient than traditional taxi cabs, which require you to stand on the street and gesture for a ride.

In a nutshell, ridesharing services have essentially been a game-changer in the transportation industry as a whole. As of the summer of 2018, there were more than 75 million users relying on ridesharing services. This means there are now millions of vehicles on the road providing the service. Considering this fact, its only natural that there would be so many more accidents involving ridesharing vehicles.

Situations Involving Ridesharing Accidents and Claims

If you use Lyft, Uber, Juno or any other ridesharing service, you are unfortunately at risk of being involved in an accident with one of those vehicle. Furthermore, even if you are merely a bystander a pedestrian you can become injured if you are the unfortunate victim of an accident involving a ridesharing vehicle. Its important to know what your rights are and how you can claim compensation for your medical expenses and other damages. The various situations include the following:

You are a passenger in the ridesharing vehicle: If you are a passenger in a ridesharing vehicle that suddenly gets into a crash, you can rely on the ridesharing companys $1 million insurance policy, which covers injuries to passengers. Its wise to take advantage of this coverage, but you should definitely speak with a lawyer to ensure that your rights are protected. You are a bystander and the driver didnt have the app on: If you were injured in an accident with a ridesharing vehicle but the driver did not have the app on, you would have to rely on the drivers personal auto insurance policy to cover your medical expenses and other damages. Unfortunately, the ridesharing companys policy would not apply. If the drivers policy is insufficient in effectively compensating you, you would have to use your own underinsured or uninsured policy as well. You are a bystander and the driver has the app on while waiting for a ride request: If the driver is riding around with the app on while waiting for a request for a ride and hits you, the ridesharing companys insurance policy applies. Coverage includes $50,000 up to $100,000 max per person per injury and $25,000 per property damage. You are a bystander and the driver is traveling to pick up a passenger: If you are a bystander who is injured in an accident with a ridesharing driver who is on the way to pick up a passenger, the ridesharing companys $1 million insurance policy applies. Its easy to prove that the ridesharing company is liable for your medical expenses, lost wages and other damages due to the drivers GPS. Regardless, its smart to speak with an attorney so your rights can be protected. You are a bystander and the driver is transporting a passenger to a destination: If you were injured in an accident as a bystander after a ridesharing vehicle crash and the driver was transporting a passenger, the $1 million insurance policy again kicks in. However, you should still retain an experienced lawyer to ensure you get the compensation you deserve.

Unfortunately, accidents involving ridesharing vehicles are not going away anytime soon. If you have suffered an injury using one of these vehicles or as a pedestrian, its important to speak with a Lyft accident attorney at West Coast Trial Lawyers. When you contact West Coast Trial Lawyers, you can discuss your case with a skilled ridesharing accident attorney and can learn about your options.

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What to Know About Ridesharing Accidents - The Libertarian Republic

Senator Mitt Romney wrote Donald Trump a letter to stop his plan to reduce capital gain taxes. This is an important signal that a part of the Republican Party is becoming socially conservative but economically heterodox.

One of the more shocking political trends of the last year has been a sharp turn in political economy thinking by Republicans. Its not just Donald Trump and trade policy, its an increasing belief among thinkers within the GOP that the party strategy of pursuing unfettered rights for capital no longer delivers for the American economy, and increasingly opens up our communities to attacks from both an authoritarian China and domestic Big Tech progressives (what they sometimes call woke capital).

This debate remained largely hidden, with the important exception of Tucker Carlsons populist turn on Fox News, but it is becoming explicit as Republican elected leaders start making the case. Senator Marco Rubio, for instance, has written reports on financialization and China, Senator Josh Hawley is taking on Big Tech and increasingly Wall Street, and Congressman Doug Collins and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are investigating Google for antitrust violations. We can now add another Republican to the anti-libertarian and pro-business trend, and this ones as important as they come.

Last week, Utah Senator and former Presidential nominee Mitt Romney wrote a letter to Donald Trump, a letter in which Romney argued against Trump pursuing a capital gains tax cut.

There is a debate within the administration, with Wall Street-friendly advisors like Larry Kudlow and Steve Mnuchin encouraging Trump to try and loosen tax obligations for investors who want to sell assets with a capital gain. They sought to have Trump go around Congress and issue a controversial executive order to index capital gains taxes to inflation, which would effectively reduce capital gains taxes. Trump has so far refused.

It was surprising enough to have a prominent Republican arguing against a capital gains tax cut. But the argument itself was far more important than the politics. Romney made several points in his letter, but this was the driving rationale:

Investors are not starved for capital, but rather productive investments are increasingly difficult to find. This retroactive tax cut creates a windfall for those who have already invested in capital assets based on past decisions, rather than encouraging future capital formation.

Essentially, Romney is saying that such a cut would be bad for businessbecause the current finance-friendly model of capital deployment isnt helping capital formation anymore. Romney is correct on this point.

Ive discussed what excessive financialization does to companies like Boeing, destroying engineering integrity and ultimately the corporation itself. Romneys making a broader argument, that such a tax cut no longer helps put capital together in productive ways. His point on capital formation is shocking not only because hes a Republican, but because hes a former private equity baron, one of the early pioneers of the industry.

To understand why this is such a big deal, you have to understand the context of the entire move towards finance-friendly politics in America. Private equitys rationale for existence was the idea that there was a capital shortage hindering American business. In my piece from late July on the origin of private equity in the late 1970s, I noted that private equity was a financial model largely created by a conservative Republican Nixon official and financier named William Simon in response to inflation and a lack of incentives for financiers to put capital to work. In 1978, a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President accepted Simons arguments and cut capital gains taxes.

These tax cuts were in the context of a society in which politicians perceived there wasnt a lot of capital to invest because of the high-inflation environment. But that was forty years ago. Romneys arguing that not only is there no more capital shortage, but that there is a capital glut. We dont lack capital, we lack productive areas in which to place that capital. To paraphrase, Romney is saying that this aint the 1970s anymore.

Romney is also making the case that such a tax cut would be bad for workers:

I also welcome President Trumps focus on the welfare of American workers, and share his notice that the proposed change would accrue primarily to high-income Americans. In 2018, 91.4% of Americans reported no long-term positive gains, while the top 1% of income earners paid 72.0% of all capital gains tax. The average tax paid on gains for taxpayers in the middle quintile is $280 far less than the top 1% that pays $157,890 on average. Furthermore, all contributions and earnings taxpayers withdraw from traditional retirement accounts, such as a 401(k) or an IRA, are taxable as ordinary income and do not stand to directly benefit from indexing capital gains.

My jaw is honestly on the floor at a Republican Senator who helped create the private equity industry making the (accurate) case that increasing financial power in our political economy is good for wealthy rentiers and bad for entrepreneurs and workers. Private equity was driven by an idea, and Romney is saying that this idea, while it used to make sense, has gone too far. The implication is that our real economic need at this point is to focus on production and innovation rather than just financing.

Theres pushback, of course. Kudlow, Mnunchin, 20 Republican Senators led by Ted Cruz, and the US Chamber of Commerce supported the proposed capital gains cut. And Romneys argument has been criticized by libertarian anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who wrote a letter in response that accused Romney of using regrettable left-wing rhetoric. But Norquist made no real policy arguments. Other conservative movement operators made the argument that Romney might technically be correct on substance, but its politically inconvenient for Republicans to be as honest as Romney is in his letter to Trump.

Ive always thought of Norquist as a savvy political strategist with a long-term goal of reshaping society. But what is fascinating is to see how petty Norquist looks, shorn of any intellectual rationale for what hes doing. He seems silly and out of touch advocating for capital gains tax cuts in todays world, like the liberals in the 1970s seemed arguing from the premise America was endlessly affluent as stagflation was hitting. Theres a real lack of ideas within the libertarian right, and it shows.

Romneys argument, by contrast, reflects a refreshed idea about what is driving our economy. He is contributing to a new and different intellectual framework for the GOP, and one that is fascinating to watch emerge. Republicans are beginning a shift towards a party that is socially conservative but economically heterodox. Its still a tentative series of steps, but the party seems to be evolving its political economy thinking in the wake of the financial crisis. And it is driven by ideas. Rubios work on financialization is oriented around analyzing deep-seated economic trends. And Senator Hawley, for instance, who is another important leader in the GOP, wrote a very impressive book on 19th-century intellectual history and the political creation of corporate America.

At this point, theres something of a race between the Democrats and the GOP over who has something to say about the multiple combinations of crises we as a society are facing. My best proxy is the quiet collapse at Boeing, which combines a corrupt defense and political establishment, monopolization, financialization, Chinese power, all leading to crashed civilian airplanes. So far, neither party has grabbed this problem directly, because neither has a totally coherent way to understand the breakdown of productive integrity. But Romneys observation about the role of excess financial power is getting close to the core of the problem.

It may seem trite, it may seem naive, but what Ive seen from over 15 years in politics is that ideas really do matter.

Editors note:This article is an excerpt from the latest edition of BIG, Matt Stollers newsletter on the politics of monopoly. You can subscribehere.Matt Stoller is the author of the upcoming book Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy and a fellow at the Open Markets Institute.

The ProMarket blog is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Blog Policy.

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The Surprising Twist in GOP Economic Thinking: Tax Cuts Might Be Bad for Business - - ProMarket

The Arizona Green Party in danger of losing its spot on the ballot.(Photo: Patrick Breen/The Republic)

Greens in Arizona are scrambling to keep their status as a recognized political party in 2020 after state lawmakers moved up the deadline for them to submit tens of thousands of signatures.

The Greens and any other party aiming for recognized status must now file at least 31,686 signatures by Nov. 28, instead of the previous deadline that was in February 70 days later.

The new deadline is one of the earliest of its kind in the country, according to Richard Winger, editor of the San Francisco-based newsletter Ballot Access News.

Losing 70 days to gather signatures has been a hardship, said Liana West, secretary of the Arizona Green Party.

"It makes us feel like we are being targeted," West said.

And because the number of required signatures is tied to election turnout, the relatively high level of voters in 2018 means the Greens and any new political party have to collect more signatures than they typically have had to.

The Secretary of State's Office has until Dec. 1 to announce which political parties continue to qualify for recognized status.

But the Green Party has struggled to keep that title under Arizona's ballot access laws.

To keep its status as a recognized political party, .6% of all voters in the state would need to be registered as Greenor its candidate for governor would need to have won at least 5% of the vote in last year's election.

While the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties are all on track for official recognition, the Green Party has fallen short on both counts.

Only 6,420 Arizona voters were registered as Greens as of July, or .17%, according to the Secretary of State's Office. And the party's candidate for governor, Angel Torres, got about 2% of the vote last year.

Still, Greens have been successful year after year in petitioning for party status.

So, the party began collecting signatures in January, West said.

If they don't have a recognized political party, Green candidates would face a higher bar to get on the ballot in individual races.

"If we don't have ballot access, it would be nearly impossible for individuals to run as Green Party members," West said.

But many Democrats have been wary of the Green Party's place on the ballot, viewing it as winning votes that would have otherwise gone to Democratic candidates.

In 2018, for example, the state Republican Party sent mailers to some Democrats tying the Green candidate for U.S. Senate to Sen. Bernie Sanders. Some Democrats argued Republicans were trying to trick Democrats on the party's left wing to vote for the Green candidate instead of the more moderate Kyrsten Sinema.

Republicans have been accused of attempting to squeeze out third parties, too, like the Libertarian Party, such as with a 2015 law to require more petition signatures for a spot on the ballot.

The latest change was part of a bigger piece of legislation sponsored by Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, that also moves up the date of the state's primary election from the last Tuesday in August to the first Tuesday in August.

SB 1154 passed the Senate by a vote of 24-2 and the House 39-21.

The change in deadline for new political parties went largely unnoticed amid a slew of other provisions in the bill.

Such deadlines have been contentious in the past.

In 2015, the Green Party challenged the February deadline in court, arguing it was unconstitutional and provided too little time for it to gather the signatures necessary for official status.

A federal district court dismissed the case and an appeals court upheld that decision, finding that then-Secretary of State Michele Reagan demonstrated the deadline served a purpose when considering the other dates and deadlines leading up to the election.

Contact Andrew Oxford at andrew.oxford@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter at @andrewboxford.

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/09/20/arizona-election-2020-green-party-may-lose-ballot-recognition/2355187001/

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Arizona Green Party in danger of losing its status as a recognized political party - AZCentral

Glossary in the entrance area of the exhibition The Alt-Right Complex On Right-Wing Populism in the Net at HMKV in Dortmunder U (photo by Hannes Woidich; image courtesy HMKV in Dortmunder U)

DORTMUND, Germany The lexicon of tyranny has a long history, but perhaps an even more complicated present.An exhibition, The Alt-Right Complex: On Right-Wing Populism Online, at the Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) in Dortmund, attempts to shine light on the verbiage of alt-right movements, including 12 projects by 16 contemporary artists that unravel the ethos, ideology, terminology and aesthetics of contemporary right-wing extremism. Crucially, the exhibition also contains a glossary of 37 entries that offer a window into the alt-rights cryptic language, including words, symbols and phrases that members of this nebulous group use to promote an intersection of xenophobic, racist, libertarian, and ethno-nationalist ideas online.

The curator of both the exhibition and glossary, Inke Arns, admits that defining the alt-right can problematic. The term Alt-Right itself is controversial because it seeks to mask precisely these political beliefs; namely, Islamophobia, antisemitism, racist nationalism and contempt for the constitution, Arns writes in the edited text and glossary accompany the exhibition (available for free online).

Entering the exhibition, one is confronted with the glossary of terms and symbols printed on the walls of a transparent, illuminated tunnel. Words like transhumanism, cuckservative, and accelerationism describe the vocabulary the alt-right uses to promote ideas closely linked to their extremist political beliefs.

The word cuck, for example, from the old French word for cuckoo (cucu), has become a go-to insult that captures toxic masculine behaviours and incel anxieties that define the alt-right today. In online porn, a cuck is short for cuckold, a word from the same root referring to a man who allows his female partner to have sex with someone else (often Black). The term has evolved to encapsulate a political meaning, one that now equates mainstream conservatives with effeminate values, with the term cuckservative used to denote someone who willfully absorbs conservative values with a liberal/centrist bent.

The symbiosis of words, symbols, and visual culture at the heart of alt-right discourse is sometimes difficult to discern one case in point being the numerology of 168:1. The number is code for the Oklahoma City bombing in which 168 people died, identified in the glossary of the exhibition. When used on message boards like 4chan and 8chan, image message boards frequented by right-wing trolls, 168:1 gives fodder to would-be extremists who support mass murder, the same macabre glorification of neo-Nazi ideology promoted by the Oklahoma City bombings perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh. (The numerical code also appears on some of the poster motifs for the exhibition, embroidered on the collar of a black jacket wearing mouthpiece.)

The exhibition prefaces how the alt-right became an internet subculture dripping with irony by making use of techniques like trolling, meme-making and pranking. Using a combination of strategic words, symbols and memes, the alt-right disseminates extreme right-wing ideology first through forums like 4chan and 8chan, then through broader platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook, which sometimes then make it onto more mainstream conservative blogs, websites, and even newsrooms like Fox Newss. The trolls discovered that the best way to get lulz was to employ politically incorrect rhetoric and/or subject such a position and so raid existing online communities, Arns writes in her exhibition text.

Entering the exhibition, walking through the illuminated glossary, 12 projects and art works look into the rise of the alt-right not only in the US, but also in Germany and Europe more broadly. One project by the artist duo DISNOVATION.ORG, by Maria Roszkowska and Nicolas Maigre, presents a large scale cartography of alt-right memes in the form of a political compass, wallpaper, and poster. The graphic interface presents about 100 symbols and figures on a four-quadrant, horizontal and vertical axis divided between authoritarian and libertarian, economic-right and economic-left. Entitled Online Culture Wars (2018-1019), the work graphically interprets how brands, celebrities, and symbols become linked along an ideological spectrum.

Alongside the political compass, a hacked version of the immensely popular board game, Life, by the artist Simon Denny, offers a speculative post-national future in which colonies at sea and in space vie for supremacy on a planet in which the welfare state has collapsed. The goals of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, Peter Thiel, which the exhibition leans on heavily, include the idea that transhumanism mixed with temporary libertarian autonomous zones can facilitate a future society in which the individual reigns supreme. In Dennys apocryphal board game, Game of Life: Collective vs Individual Rules (2017), the end-game of Theil and others like him are inscribed into the rules itself, offering a speculative scenario in which players are tasked with disposing of nation states via Cloud Lords who utilize tools like deregulation, optimism and R&D (research and development) to fight against unadaptable monsters like legal systems beyond the expiry date, transparency, democracy and fair elections.

In a work by the Canadian video artist Dominic Gagnon, a montage of censored amateur videos from YouTube is interspersed with footage of conspiracy theorists known as preppers, people who live in perpetual fear of an eventual doomsday scenario. Like Peter Thiel, preppers project a fundamental mistrust of the current political and social system. Informed by an intense wave of paranoia, rage, and suppressed anxieties, preppers tend to espouse views deeply critical of migrants and a fundamental distrust in mainstream narratives, using these ideas to give fodder to post-apocalyptic near future scenarios in which only the rich will survive.

In a dual-channel video work by the Hungarian artist Szabolcs KissPl, From Fake Mountains to Faith (Hungarian Trilogy) (2016), the focus shifts beyond preppers to understand how grand narratives and national symbols of authoritarianism intersect. Looking into his native Hungary, KissPl posits how quickly democratic societies can devolve into illiberal democracies, often under strong-man leaders, such as Hungarys current Prime Minister Viktor Orbn. The docu-fiction brings to light an imagined scenario involving a museum that seeks to counter the ideological foundation of race and nation. It deconstructs how forms of ethno-nationalism manifest in supposedly neutral institutions, but also how this becomes a romantic myth that supports political references in support of the nation state, and with it forms of political belonging and social communities therein.

Not far from these ideas, a project by Vanja Smiljani examines how religion and nationalism are used to reinforce one another based on a comparative investigation into the internet-based movement of the Cosmic People and the Flag Nation Society, a Christian community that bases its ideology around allegiance to an ominous flag. Taking up the mantle of a Minister of the Cosmic People for the countries of ex-Yugoslavia, Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies, the lecture performance and documentation offers a buoyant and timely criticism responding to dangers of worship, albeit here in a dystopian, cyber-ruled world.

In Jonas Staals 10-channel video installation Steve Bannon: A Propaganda Retrospective (visual ecology) (2018), the artist presents a visual encyclopedia of visual tropes taken from Banons work as a Hollywood filmmaker. The work consists of 10 separate screens Staal filmed and edited between 2014-2018. In them, we see how the cacophony of right-wing ideology is filtered from fringe groups and message boards all the way up to the mainstream media. It narrows in on Steve Bannon, the veritable architect and propagainst-in-chief of US President Donald Trumps successful campaign in 2016, who prior to that served as executive chairman of Breitbart News. Staals work offers a timely and potent examination of Bannons ideology through the prism of film and cinematic editing and references, it is very Eisenstein or Michael Moore-esque, with the end result being scenes that employ visual references to themes and mythologies long since debunked. One of these themes involves the false and often cited narrative of the triumph and former golden age of Western white civilization. Here, we encounter how Trumps problematic narrative feeds into alt-right groups who often attempt to prolongate a false ancient mythology in order to reinforce ethno-nationalist and xenophobic world views today. (The pseudo-historiography of white erasure and Western civilization has been debunked numerous times, including in the annals of Hyperallergic by the Classicist scholar Dr. Sarah Bond, whose recent article The Origins of White Supremacists Fear of Replacement argues that the fear of being replaced can be traced to the French far right, but racist fears regarding supposed White genocide, and invasion by varied ethnic groups, go back centuries). In Staals work, we encounter how Bannons scripted ideological narrative continues to obfuscate the truth, with the purpose of furthering a highly divisive political ideology.

Leaving the exhibition, I was reminded of the unnerving parallels between the alt-right online and in real life. 8chan, the image and message board modelled after 4chan, has recently been in the news after the revelation that the El Paso shooter used the forum to post his far-right manifesto moments before his killing spree, which marks the third time a right-wing mass shooter has posted plans and/or manifesto on the site. Hence, the title of the exhibition, The Alt-Right Complex, is an exhibition that draws nuanced parallels between hateful ideology and imagery online, bearing in mind the psychological minefield that transcends the internet and enters into mainstream consciousness and into real life political events.

The Alt-Right Complex: On Right-Wing Populism Online continues at HMKV Dortmund until September 22, 2019.

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Entering the Echo Chamber of the Alt-Right - Hyperallergic

Campus of Columbia University in New York City(Mike Segar/Reuters)There is much that is in need of reform on campus. But there also is much that is wonderful, inspiring, and enriching.

One of these days, I will make a list of all the people who have been right when they have told me: You should know better. There will be a couple of priests, several editors, and at least one police officer on that list, but I am afraid our friend George Leef must be excluded, at least for the moment.

Leef, who does excellent work excoriating the failures and excesses of American university life at the Martin Center, wrote yesterday on the Corner: Lots of people who should know better claim that our higher education system is the envy of the world, but it isnt the best by a long shot. Whats needed, he writes, is ... libertarianism. If we would only implement that, Leef writes, then we would get the optimal system. I do not know if he had me in mind when he wrote that, but given that I have used exactly those words to describe our universities on many occasions, Ill deputize myself to respond, if only because the words optimal system always give me the willies.

I am a libertarian myself, and a few years ago I wrote a book about how many things (including education and health care) might be radically improved by taking a more market-oriented, spontaneous-order approach to them. The title of that book, The End Is Near and Its Going to Be Awesome, refers to the decline of the dominance (often monopoly dominance) of government-based and politically managed programs at the most sensitive pressure points of American life: education, health care, retirement, etc. The book also contains a critique of lazy libertarianism of the sort Leef offers above, treating some variation of the free market will take care of it or private philanthropy will take care of it like the ultimate abracadabra. The free market will take care of health care for the poor? Okay what does that actually look like? It is not that I do not think that we could and should radically improve health care for everyone (providing an especial benefit to the poor in the process) but I want something a good deal less vague than Let markets work.

Some libertarians are conservatives and some are not. Some libertarians are utopians or quasi-utopians, who offer the same answer to every question laissez faire! as though such a thing possibly could be dispositive. What Leef offers is really a kind of variation of the familiar progressive approach. He begins with a study says indictment (A new study by AEI scholars Jason Delisle and Preston Cooper looks at 35 nations higher ed systems and concludes that no nation is the best, he writes) and then follows up with an ideologically satisfying promise: If we (or any other country) would take government out of higher education and allow the spontaneous order of a free society to work, we would get the optimal system.

For the ideologue, take government out is a self-recommending policy. The conservative might take a different view, as I do. There is a lot that is silly, meretricious, distasteful, and genuinely destructive going on in American universities, especially at the second-rate institutions and in second-rate programs. (The thing about second-rate schools is, theyre second-rate.) But there also is much that is splendid, productive, admirable and, indeed, the envy of the world.

And if you do not believe that American universities are the envy of the world, ask the world. The number of students from abroad who travel to the United States to study dwarfs that of any other country: The United Kingdom, whose top universities have for centuries attracted the best and brightest, doesnt have half the foreign students the United States does. France has about a third the number; Germany, a quarter.

And top academics from around the world flock to American campuses, too for good reason. If you are among the worlds best in any significant intellectual field, chances are excellent that an American university is the place you want to be. For a rough indicator, consider which universities have the most Nobel laureates associated with them. What do you imagine that list looks like? The top ten includes the two British universities youd guess (Oxford and Cambridge) and eight U.S. universities: Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, and Princeton. You wont find a continental European university on the list until No. 13 (Humboldt) and only four more in the top 20 (University of Paris, Gttingen, Munich, Copenhagen). You wont find a single Asian, African, South American, or Middle Eastern university on the list.

Envy of the world? No question.

Libertarianism in action? No, not really. But we ought not to let our ideological commitments blind us to the fact that these splendid universities do a great many wonderful things that enrich our lives and our national life in important ways. There is much to criticize about my alma mater, the University of Texas. But whatever it lavishes on Jim Allisons work is money well spent.

Germany would love to have an MIT, a Berkeley, a Stanford, or a Cal Tech of its own; having all four would be beyond its dreams. (Yes, Berkeley comes with some hippies life is full of tradeoffs, and thats a good one.) American educational excellence has consequences far beyond the college campus: Quick, whats the hot new technology startup in Germany? (Dont worry, Ill wait.) Whats the big innovative Internet company in France? In Italy? More than half of the worlds most valuable firms are domiciled in the United States, according to PwC. China has twelve, the United Kingdom five, Germany four, France four, Switzerland three. Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark each have one. And Europes big companies are big, old-fashioned conglomerates such as Unilever and Nestl, while the United States has enjoyed the growth and innovation of Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, and Microsoft.

Thats nothing to harrumph at.

Conservatism is, at its foundation, a creed of love a love of real things and people as they actually exist, defects and all, rather than a longing after more-perfect glories promised by this or that theory. To love is not to love blindly, but the conservative can only take the world very much as he finds it.

Fallen as he is and imperfect as his works must be, we love man for who and what he is, and so we abhor the inevitably inhumane schemes to produce New Soviet Man, or whatever this years model of progressive perfection is, because such programs of transformation are based on reducing and mutilating man, suffocating his endless inventiveness, forcing conformity and homogeneity upon him, and stamping out the infinite variety of his communities.

This is not to be confused with a creed of sentimentality. Conservatives, as Russell Kirk put it, feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. (Harvard, founded 1636, is about as long-established a social institution as this country has.) At the same time, Kirk writes, conservatives understand that to seek for utopia is to end in disaster. ... The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the 20th-century world into a terrestrial hell.

Libertarians can be utopians and ideologues, too. Theirs may be a less destructive and bloody kind of utopianism than that of the nationalists and socialists and national socialists, but it can cause them to undervalue wonderful and productive institutions right here in the real world, right here under our noses, while they dream of theoretical optima.

The United States is the worlds financial capital (sorry, London), the worlds technology capital, and the worlds cultural capital, but conservatives detest Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, along with the Ivy League and other elite universities, Broadway, publishing, the media industry, the fashion industry, the architecture and design industry, New York City, Los Angeles... Apparently, Americas dominant military position and its world-beating oil-and-gas industry are the only commanding heights to which conservatives believe it to be worth aspiring. There is something wrong with that. Make America Great Again, But Burn It All Down If Mark Zuckerberg and the Chairman of the Princeton English Department Dont Share My Politics! is a funny kind of way to look at the world.

There is much that is in need of reform on campus and in the church, in the state, and everywhere else in American life. But there also is much that is wonderful, inspiring, and enriching. For that, we should be grateful. A conservatism without gratitude and grace is not one worth having.

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American Universities Are the Envy of the World - National Review

Education, transportation and drainage are among the issues of thecandidates running to fill the open seat in House District 70.

The five contenders three Republicans, one Democrat, and one Libertarian are vying to succeed longtime GOP Rep. Franklin Foil, who is in his third four-year term and is now running for the state Senate in District 16.

District 70 extends from the edges of LSUs campus down to south Baton Rouge. Sixty-nine percent of its nearly 30,000 registered voters are white and 24 percent are black. Early voting will last from Sept. 28 to Oct. 5, except Sunday, Sept. 29. Election Day is Oct. 12.

An inordinate number of current and former state lawmakers are squaring off for seats in the Louisiana Senate in the Oct. 12 primary, putting

Democrats are hoping for a potential pickup of this district. Of the 22 contested House districts currently held by Republicans, District 70 is where President Donald Trump under-performed the most relative to Mitt Romney four years earlier, according to an analysis by Mike Henderson, an assistant professor who directs the Public Policy Research Lab at the LSU School of Mass Communication.

Three of the candidates in the District 70 race have separated themselves from the pack in fundraising upwards of $45,000: Barbara Freiberg, Michael DiResto and Belinda Davis. The two other candidates, Mallory Mayeux and Ricky Sheldon, have each reported raising less than $1,000.

Freiberg, 70, a Republican, has represented District 12 on the Metro Council since 2016. The retired educator pointed to her 30 years as a public school teacher and experience on the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board.

Neither of the two other major candidates has held elected office, though they both highlighted their extensive work in the public sector.

It may sound counterintuitive, said DiResto, but as a first-time candidate, Im running on my experience.

DiResto, 48, a Republican, spent nearly two decades in the public sector, first as press secretary for Congressman Richard Baker and later as assistant commissioner at the state Division of Administration. DiResto is now the executive vice president at the Baton Rouge Area Chamber.

The Advocates records show that DiResto was arrested twice for driving while intoxicated, first in 2008 and later in 2013. In an emailed statement, DiResto said he had made mistakes in his past and he took full responsibility for his actions.

In the years since then, I have been all the more focused on strengthening my faith and working hard to make a positive difference in our community, he wrote.

The sole Democrat in the race, Davis, 48, is an LSU political science professor whose research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of public policy.

DiResto and Davis said part of what motivated them to run is the desire to make Baton Rouge a better place for their children. DiResto said hed work to make the state friendlier to businesses, while Davis said shed focus on increasing state investment in education.

A portion of District 70 extends into the boundaries proposed for the city of St. George which, if approved, would convert a large part of southeastern East Baton Rouge into the parish's fifth municipality, with a population of more than 86,000. DiResto and Davis both said they were personally opposed to the incorporation. Freiberg would not offer an opinion for or against the measure.

Education topped the agenda for these three candidates. Freiberg said she would work to expand industry based certification programs and college-credit programs in high schools. DiResto, who helped champion the BASIS Baton Rouge charter school while at BRAC, said hed work to make sure that state government has sustainable funding for higher education.

Davis, who heads up the One Community, One School District public education advocacy group, said she would work to reduce reliance on standardized testing and increase state education investment.

She emphasized her commitment to the issue by pointing to testimony she gave at the legislature for teacher pay raises. Im doing that as a mom in my free time. Think of what could be accomplished if I was in the legislature, Davis said.

The three major candidates also all said transportation is a top priority, citing Baton Rouges infamously bad congestion. Freiberg and DiResto both said they would work to identify funding for a new bridge over the Mississippi River. Davis said she would focus on policies that lower insurance rates and invest in infrastructure.

DiResto highlighted his role in establishing CRISIS the Capital Region Industry for Sustainable Infrastructure Solutions a business-led coalition that has advocated for congestion-relief projects.

Both Freiberg and DiResto also said they want to focus on reforms that allow greater flexibility in how the states budget is allocated.

The race also features two less prominent first-time candidates. Mallory Mayeux, 34, a Libertarian, said shes running to give a voice to the third party. The HR manager said shed focus on lowering taxes, which she said are too high and unfair for what we get.

Ricky Sheldon, 28, who describes himself as a progressive Republican, said he decided to run because hes dissatisfied with the partys national leadership in President Trump. The LSU graduate student said hes mainly interested in improving the states healthcare policies.

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Five candidates vie for open seat in House District 70 in East Baton Rouge - The Advocate

Legislation & Lobbying

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 20, 2019, 4:55 pm CDT

Two Southern states passed occupational licensing reforms during the 2019 legislative session with procedural protections that make it more difficult to deny licenses based on criminal history.

The laws passed in North Carolina and Mississippi have several similarities, according to the Collateral Consequences Resource Center.

Both laws:

Eliminate vague good moral character criteria for obtaining a license.

Bar denial of licenses for crimes unless they are directly related to the license.

Require written reasons when a license is denied.

Provide for a preliminary determination on whether an applicant will be favorably considered.

Both laws are influenced by a model law developed by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that has filed suits challenging occupational licensing requirements.

Eight other states also enacted new restrictions on the licensing process in 2019.

See also:

ABA Journal: Movement to let the formerly incarcerated cut hair and drive taxis is gaining ground

Originally posted here:

New laws in 2 Southern states make it more difficult to deny occupational licenses for past crimes - ABA Journal

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming continued their verbal war on Sunday over the direction of Republican foreign policy. Dont expect this ongoing debate between the libertarian senator and the hawkish congresswoman to end anytime soon because they didnt start it.

Back when George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he believed the United States should be humble on the world stage, warned against nation-building, and even said, Im not so sure its the role of the United States to go around saying this is the way its gotta be.

Yes, this is the same George W. Bush who later launched the Iraq War.

But in 2000, after almost eight years of President Bill Clinton and his adventures in Somalia and Yugoslavia, many Republicans had soured on U.S. intervention abroad. Four years earlier, Pat Buchanan had enthralled the conservative base in the 1996 GOP primaries running explicitly as an anti-war Republican. Buchanan even won the New Hampshire primary, before frenzied GOP elites worked overtime to secure the nomination for Bob Dole. Still, given the climate of his party, Bush had good reason at the time to make himself out as the anti-war candidate.

It wasnt to last, unfortunately.

A year after his election, President Bush would kickoff Americas longest war in Afghanistan, followed by arguably the worst mistake in U.S. foreign policy history: the invasion of Iraq. The tragedy of 9/11 gave the hawks that lined Bushs cabinet a justified reason for routing the Taliban in Afghanistan, but playing on Americans fear, they also dishonestly finagled the country into Iraq, a long-time goal of the neoconservative movement.

Bush might have been president, but the premiere hawk of that era was Vice President Dick Cheney. Support for his War on Terror defined the Republican Party for most of the Bush era. During that time, the national debt more than doubled and the federal government exploded. But nobody cared it was all about war.

So much so that the conservative establishment tried to push the small band of anti-war libertarians and paleoconservatives such as Buchanan out of the movement. Bush speechwriter David Frum even denounced them as Unpatriotic Conservatives in the pages of National Review. Frums goal was to use war fever to establish neoconservatism as conservatism proper. Frump wrote, War is a great clarifier. It forces people to take sides.

The paleoconservatives have chosen and the rest of us must choose too, Frum declared. In a time of danger, they have turned their backs on their country. Now we turn our backs on them.

Frums message was clear: Being a conservative meant being pro-war, period. If you disagreed, hawks like Frum wanted you out of the movement. And back then, unfortunately, few Republicans disagreed with their assessment.

This rigid orthodoxy wasnt challenged in any significant way within the party until former Rep. Ron Pauls Republican primary presidential campaign caught fire in 2008. Like Buchanan before him, the libertarian-leaning Paul was a strident anti-war candidate who took on Republican hawks in no uncertain terms.

When Paul tussled with hawkish candidate Rudy Giuliani over 9/11 during a debate, it was the beginning of Giulianis campaigns implosion, and helped Paul attract fans by the thousands. Giuliani dropped out after the Florida primary and received less than 600,000 votes. Meanwhile, Paul got over one million votes, and even millions more in dollars donated.

That night, however, Paul was roundly booed and Giuliani was cheered. Possibly for his foreign policy heresy, Paul was even excluded from the next debate. As Barack Obamas popularity grew as the anti-war Democrat, the GOP doubled down on its war identity, a brand the partys selection of a perpetually hawkish presidential nominee that year, the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona, only reinforced.

When McCain lost in 2008, the Obama era was also the beginning of the Tea Party movement, where the conservative grassroots began turning its focus away from war and toward runaway spending. A 2010 poll found Tea Party members split between Ron Paul as their leader, while many others admired McCains former running mate, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who was not uniformly hawkish.

2010 was also the same year Ron Pauls son, Rand Paul, was elected to the Senate, but not before two high-profile Republican hawks injected themselves into the Kentucky GOP primary in an attempt to stop him Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. Meanwhile, Palin broke ranks and endorsed Paul.

Despite hawks efforts, Paul trounced his hawk-backed primary opponent 59% to 35%. In response, Frum lamented, How is it that the GOP has lost its antibodies against a candidate like Rand Paul? The old, Bush-Cheney pro-war GOP was beginning to stumble. In 2016, conservatives would abandon them completely, and eventually turn their full attention to Donald Trump.

Trump is as popular today with his base as Bush was in 2003, however, Trump has not only denounced the Iraq War, but once even called Bush and Cheney liars for starting the conflict. Trump has openly mocked the hawks in his midst, and has said he wants to end the war in Afghanistan.

Trumps foreign policy impulses are clearly closer to Rand Pauls, even if his policy has been a mixed bag. This bothers Cheney so much that he needled Vice President Mike Pence in March for the Trump administrations apparently insufficient hawkishness.

Its ironic, then, that the son of Ron Paul and daughter of Dick Cheney are now battling it out over foreign policy, much of it hinging on who truly stands with President Trump. Various pundits have mocked them for going out of their way to prove whos Trumpier or who loves Trump more.

But Paul and Cheney do this for a reason: It matters to Republican voters.

When David Frum sought to excommunicate anti-war conservatives from the movement 16 years ago, he did so through the narrative of standing with George W. Bush. Similarly, neoconservatives have long tried to appropriate Ronald Reagan for their own agenda because of his enduring cache with the GOP base, despite the fact that hawks in Reagans day came to loathe him for reaching out to the Soviet Union.

Frum employed this method because it works standing with the president of their own party matters to most Republicans. But now, what they stand for has changed.

Today, it is the neoconservatives and camp Cheney who are on the outs with the current commander-in-chief. A Rand Paul might not have been elected in the Bush era, and he certainly wouldnt have the clout the senator has with Trump today if we had a President Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, or any of the other hawkish candidates that ran in 2016.

The Cheneys are used to being in the drivers seat when it comes to Republican foreign policy. Pauls are accustomed to being on the outside looking in.

This has reversed, a shift that was always going to lead to conflict.

"If theres a better metaphor for the GOPs current foreign policy transformation and crossroads, its tough to do better than a Paul scion feuding with a Cheney scion, observed the Washington Posts Aaron Blake, adding, (I)ts clearly the Paul-ite, noninterventionist approach that is ascendant in the Trump administration."

The decades-old debate between anti-war conservatives and ideological hawks endures as arguably the greatest divide on the Right. Fighting over the GOPs future is Rand Paul and Liz Cheney, who both claim to stand with Trump on foreign policy.

Yet only one of them is actually in line with the president, and this time, it isnt a Cheney.

Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.

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The Rand Paul-Liz Cheney foreign policy feud is the latest battle in a decades-old GOP civil war - Washington Examiner

Debt consolidation is a commonly used term in the world of finance that refers to combining multiple debts into a single payment. Individuals with high debt are often overwhelmed and confused because of their financial turmoil. Debt consolidation is one of the many options they may consider to get out of their present condition. However, before accepting a debt consolidation offer, there are several factors they must consider.

Like any other financial decision, an individual may or may not pursue debt consolidation based on his her financial context. However, there are certain common factors to look into while considering debt consolidation.

Better Interest Rates: Oftentimes, people go for debt consolidation because it allows them to make a single monthly payment for all their debts. However, this is not the core objective of debt consolidation. The primary objective is to reduce the amount they pay as interest in their debts. If fact, the interest rate should be the foremost deciding factor while choosing your debt consolidation loan provider. Many of you would be surprised to know that it is possible to find out debt consolidation options with interest rates as low as 5%. On the other hand, some others may come with hefty interest rates of above 30%. However, most of them fall between these two extremes.

Problems with Multiple Payments: If you have a number of debts to different lenders, it can be extremely difficult and stressful to keep up with numerous minimum monthly payments. The consequence of failing to keep so many amounts and dates straight on a monthly basis can be quite devastating. Debt consolidation can be a good option for individuals suffering from this problem. With just a single monthly payment, there is no need to worry about many different payment dates and amounts.

The Last Alternative: Before taking a debt consolidation loan, please be completely sure that you have already tried out everything that you could have done to get rid of the debt. If you havent done anything of that sort, before thinking of debt consolidation, make a sincere attempt to pay off all the debts you have.

The first step towards paying off your debts is to make a budget. Allocate a part of the leftover money at the end of the month for this purpose. Your next step is to create a strategy for debt repayment. The debt avalanche and debt snowball are two excellent strategies focused on the faster payment of specific debts. According to the snowball, your extra fundsshould be spent on the debt that has the lowest total balance. On the other hand, the avalanche strategy focuses on the highest interest debt first.

If you try these techniques, but fail to make any headway, or dont have adequate earning to pay off the debt strategically, then you may seriously start exploring debt consolidation options.

Understanding Your Debt: Before taking a debt consolidation loan, it is important that the borrower clearly understands why and how he or she ended up in a debt. .This awareness is extremely important because debt consolidationis only helpful to borrowers that are prepared to lead a financially responsible lifestyle without relying on credit. Unfortunately, individuals that cant hold themselves back from excessive spending end up in even worse debtafter seeking debt consolidation.

Finally, if you really feel that debt consolidation is the solution to your financial troubles; make sure to conduct detailed research to find out a legitimate vendor. Instead of relying on just any provider, it makes sense to put your trust in renowned companies such as National Debt Relief or any other provider of similar stature.

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Points to Consider before Opting for Debt Consolidation - The Libertarian Republic

Indianapolis residents were able to express concerns about their neighborhoods Thursday night and ask candidates for mayor how they would address them over the next four years.

Democratic incumbent Joe Hogsett, Republican state Sen. Jim Merritt and Libertarian Doug McNaughton participated in a mayoral forum organized by Historic Urban Neighborhoods of Indianapolis and Indiana Landmarks and answered questions from the audience for about an hour after each giving opening statements.

Mayoral candidates (from left to right), Republican Jim Merritt, Libertarian Doug McNaughton and Democratic incumbent Joe Hogsett participate in a public forum Sept. 19.

Several residents asked how the citys neighborhoods can be safe, clean and grow in a way that benefits all residents. Several people specifically wondered why some citizens werent experiencing the prosperity that others are enjoying.

And, of course, there was a question about fixing potholes and a question about the scooters.

Some of the attendees directly asked about vacant properties, litter piling up and food deserts, while others were more general, broadly addressing economic development.

Merritt said he wanted to keep neighborhoods safe as a way to help areas grow, but acknowledged that every area has its own challenges. He said he would personally spend time in low-income and minority neighborhoods to get to know residents and give them a voice.

We need to understand each and every different neighborhood, Merritt said.

On economic development, Hogsett repeatedly mentioned his administrations inclusive economic growth strategy, which includes requiring companies to offer jobs that pay at least $18 per hour in order to receive city incentives.

Hogsett also talked about how his administration has been trying to rid neighborhoods of blighted homes, but admitted hed like to do more.

Weve seen some success but often times the process is slow, Hogsett said.

McNaughton said he believes the citys zoning laws need to be streamlined in a way that makes it easier for businesses to open in neighborhoods, especially those that are low-income or minority.

Im all for putting all the resources the city has in those neighborhoods, McNaughton said.

On a question specifically about how the candidates would make sure renters could afford to stay in their neighborhoods as new developments are built and prices go up, Merritt said that issue is probably the hardest part of running the city.

He said he didnt have a solution yet, but he would bring people together to collaborate.

Ill tell you what Ill roll my sleeves up and find that solution, Merritt said.

Hogsett said he wants residents to be able to stay in their neighborhoods and thats why the city tries to work with developers to set aside a certain percentage of the housing units at below-market rates.

He also said among the various needs in the city, affordable housing ranks near the top.

One attendee specifically asked Merritt about his recently announced plan to fight violent crime that included a proposal to stop everyone in a neighborhood where a violent crime occurred.

Merritt said all he meant by that was there would be an all hands on deck strategy to finding the person who committed the crime.

The candidates kept the conversation civil throughout the forum. Merritt occasionally made comments about how the city had been doing better under Hogsetts predecessor, Republican Greg Ballard, but also on multiple occasions said he agreed with Hogsett.

One more debate is scheduled before Election Day, which is Nov. 5. The candidates will meet on Oct. 28 in Wayne Township for a debate sponsored by the West Side Chamber of Commerce and WXIN-TV Channel 59.

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Mayoral candidates talk about neighborhood issues at public forum - Indianapolis Business Journal