Category Archives: Libertarianism

After 13 short days of trial, Ross Ulbricht has been convicted of running the unprecedented, anonymous online black market known as the Silk Road. In terms of drama, those days included everything: a hidden drug empire, a secret journal, lofty ideals, friendship and betrayal, deception, threats of violence, and in the end, a highly coordinated law enforcement sting operation.

The jury in Ulbrichts case deliberated for only three and a half hours before convicting him on all counts, including conspiring to sell narcotics, hacking software and counterfeit documents, and a kingpin charge usually reserved for organized crime bosses. But despite that quick outcome, the case will be remembered for delving into issues as varied as bitcoins legal status as money, the FBIs right to warrantlessly hack into foreign servers used by Americans, and the power and limits of anonymity on the internet.

American law enforcement has used the case as a chance to make an example of the Silk Road for anyone seeking to replicate its anonymous marketplace. Ulbrichts arrest and convictionand our seizure of millions of dollars of Silk Road Bitcoinsshould send a clear message to anyone else attempting to operate an online criminal enterprise, wrote U.S. attorney Preet Bharara in a press release Wednesday. The supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution.

But the trials real lessons, for the burgeoning online drug trade that now dwarfs the Silk Road, will be how not to get caught. For a new generation of online drug lords inspired by Ulbrichts creation, the transcript of his trial will be required reading. For everyone else, its a fascinating tale of dark web intrigue.

Heres WIREDs gavel-to-gavel coverage, starting with the pre-trial hearings after Ulbrichts arrest:

November 21, 2013 Alleged Silk Road Owner Denied Bail; Prosecutors Say He Ordered 6 Murders Despite Ulbrichts family raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for bail, a judge cites his potential for violence to keep him in a Brooklyn jail.

July 9, 2014 Judge Shoots Down Bitcoin Isnt Money Argument in Silk Road Case Ulbrichts first defense was that he couldnt have been guilty of money laundering if bitcoin isnt money. The judge doesnt buy it.

August 2, 2014 Feds Silk Road Investigation Broke Privacy Laws, Defendant Tells Court Ulbrichts defense team attacks the murky surveillance techniques that tracked down the Silk Roads server in Iceland.

September 5, 2014 The FBI Finally Says How It Legally Pinpointed Silk Roads Server The prosecution responds to Ulbrichts defense with an explanation from the FBI: The Silk Roads security was unraveled by a leaky captcha.

September 8, 2014 FBIs Story of Finding Silk Roads Server Sounds a Lot Like Hacking Security experts weigh in, pointing out that the FBIs leaky captcha story doesnt hold water. Ulbricht defense will take the same argument to court.

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The Silk Road Trial: WIREDs Gavel-to-Gavel Coverage

TIME Ideas politics Libertarianism Is on the Verge of a Political Breakout Bill ClarkCQ-Roll Call,Inc./Getty Images Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks during the news conference to unveil the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR Act), legislation to "protect the rights of property owners and restore the Fifth Amendment's role in civil forfeiture proceedings" on Jan. 27, 2015.

David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of 'The Libertarian Mind.'

Rand Pauls leadership in the Senate on the budget, regulation, privacy, criminal justice, and foreign policy and his likely presidential campaign are generating new attention for libertarian ideas.

Libertarianism is hot, headlined the Washington Post in 2013. From an almost-forgotten part of American political culture, libertarianism has grown into a respected and much-discussed political faction and a compelling set of ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom. Tens of millions of Americans are fiscally conservative, socially tolerant, and skeptical of American military intervention.

The growth of the libertarian movement is a product of two factors: the spread of libertarian ideas and sentiments, and the expansion of government during the Bush and Obama administrations, particularly the civil liberties abuses after 9/11 and the bailouts and out-of-control spending after the financial crisis. As one journalist noted in 2009, The Obama administration brought with it ambitions of a resurgence of FDR and LBJs active-state liberalism. And with it, Obama has revived the enduring American challenge to the state.

That libertarian revival manifested itself in several ways. Sales of books like Atlas Shrugged and The Road to Serfdom soared. Tea party rallies against taxes, debt, bailouts, and Obamacare drew a million or more people to hundreds of protests. Crony capitalism became a target for people across the political spectrum. Marijuana legalization and marriage equality made rapid progress. More people than ever told Gallup in 2013 that the federal government has too much power.

In studies that David Kirby and I have published at the Cato Institute on the libertarian vote, we have found that only 2 to 4 percent of Americans say that theyre libertarian when asked. But 15 to 20 percent 30 to 40 million Americans hold libertarian views on a range of questions. The latest Gallup Governance Survey finds 24 percent of respondents falling into the libertarian quadrant, matching the number of conservatives and liberals and up from 17 percent in 2004 and 23 percent in 2008. And when asked in a Zogby poll if they would define themselves as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian, fully 44 percent of respondents 100 million Americans accept the label. Those voters are not locked into either party, and politicians trying to attract the elusive swing vote should take a look at those who lean libertarian.

In two presidential campaigns, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) attracted hundreds of thousands of followers to his combination of antiwar, anti-spending, and sound-money (End the Fed) ideas, and showed them that these views were libertarian. Two national student organizations Students for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty now take libertarian ideas to thousands of college campuses in the United States and well beyond.

Now his son, Rand Paul (R-KY), is generating headlines about the GOPs libertarian wing and questions about libertarian ideas.

MORE Shhhh, Rand Paul: A Guide for Politicians on How Not to Talk to Women

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Libertarianism Is on the Verge of a Political Breakout

By Editorial Board February 3

TWO POTENTIAL Republican presidential candidates, Sen.Rand Paul (Ky.) and New Jersey Gov.Chris Christie, have made irresponsible comments about vaccines at a time when measles has reappeared in the United States. Their remarks call into question their judgment and their fitness for higher office.

Mr.Paul, an ophthalmologist, said in a television interview, Ive heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines. He added that he vaccinated his own children: Im not arguing vaccines are a bad idea. I think theyre a good thing. But I think parents should have some input. Mr.Christie, visiting a medical research laboratory in Cambridge, England, said that he, too, had vaccinated his children, but I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So thats the balance that the government has to decide.

Both comments reflect a streak of libertarianism, a political philosophy that champions the individual and freedom to choose. In principle, this isnt irrational. The United States has often stood as a beacon of individual liberty over tyranny. But it becomes destructive when people resist government because of irrational fears and suspicions. To protect people from threats, government has a legitimate role. In the case of measles, the threat is a highly contagious virus that can bring serious consequences. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected. This is why states have passed laws mandating vaccination for children attending public schools (although 17 states, including California, scene of the outbreak at Disneyland, have waivers for personal beliefs, and 48 have waivers for religious beliefs).

Both the governor and senator seem to be suggesting that it is fine for parents to avoid vaccinations for their children. But is this really a matter of individual rights? Liberty does not confer the right to endanger others whether at a school or Disneyland or anywhere else.

More broadly, a president must make decisions every day about science, and it is not always easy; consider the struggle over climate change, the hard-fought debate over the impact of the Keystone XL pipeline, the promise of genetically modified foods, the intensifying threat of cyberattacks and the growing danger of antimicrobial resistance. Every one of these requires decision-makers to be rational and clear-eyed, the president most of all.

In the case of measles, proven science is well in hand. The vaccine has a half-century record of safety and effectiveness. The study linking it to autism has been discredited and retracted. Mr.Pauls reporting of anecdotes that he has heard is particularly insidious. Measles was eliminated in the United States by 2000 with widespread use of the vaccine. No presidential candidate should endorse parental choice that could reopen the door to an ugly and preventable disease.

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Editorial: Mr. Pauls and Mr. Christies irresponsible comments about measles vaccinations

Juniper Russo walks her dogs with her daughter Vivian (left). Courtesy of Juniper Russo hide caption

Juniper Russo walks her dogs with her daughter Vivian (left).

The ongoing measles outbreak linked to Disneyland has led to some harsh comments about parents who don't vaccinate their kids. But Juniper Russo, a writer in Chattanooga, Tenn., says she understands those parents because she used to be one of them.

"I know what it's like to be scared and just want to protect your children, and make the wrong decisions," Russo says.

Juniper Russo with her daughter Vivian. Courtesy of Juniper Russo hide caption

Juniper Russo with her daughter Vivian.

When her daughter Vivian was born, "I was really adamant that she not get vaccines," Russo says. "I thought that she was going to be safe without them and they would unnecessarily introduce chemicals into her body that could hurt her."

That's a view shared by many parents who choose not to vaccinate. And in Russo's case, it was reinforced by parents she met online.

"I had a lot of online acquaintances who claimed that their kids had become autistic because of vaccines," Russo says. "I got kind of swept up in that."

But fear of autism was only part of the reason Russo didn't want vaccines for her daughter. She says at that point in her life she identified strongly with what she calls "crunchy moms" who question mainstream medicine and things that aren't natural.

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Once A Vaccine Skeptic, This Mom Changed Her Mind

I do not recall, when I was growing up or as a young adult, ever thinking that the issue of vaccinations was a political issue. Now, thanks to the infusion of libertarian sensibilities into the body politic, and a culture in which choice is always the ace of trumps, vaccinations are a political football. It is to weep.

First, there was Gov. Chris Christie on a trip to the United Kingdom. He was trying to demonstrate his foreign policy bona fides I suppose, and certainly the issue of vaccines was not on the top of his list of things to be prepared to discuss while taking questions in the streets of London. But, the sudden outburst of measles stateside, which unlike Ebola is highly contagious, led to the question and, in his answer, Christie gave an unnecessary nod to parental choice. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his intellect, there was a default switch that clicked on: When discussing family issues, do not forget to mention parental choice. And so he did. And so he looked very foolish.

Gov. Christie is not a libertarian in any meaningful sense of the word. But, Sen. Rand Paul swims in those waters, indeed we could say he was baptized politically in those waters. As if on cue, and ignoring the fact that for vaccines to achieve their medical benefit, we all have to take them, Sen. Paul turned to his binary view of the world in which the state is Leviathan, eager to devour first your rights and then, apparently, your children. The state doesnt own your children, he said eagerly. Parents own the children. And it is an issue of freedom and public health. The choice of the verb own to describe the relationship between children and parents is a little frightening. And, he does not square freedom and public health, which may make separate conclusions, on this issue, just leaves them out there like exclamation marks in search of a sentence.

The episode shows everything that is deplorable about libertarianism. First, and I invite my conservative Catholic friends to take special note of this, in Sen. Pauls binary vision of the state versus individual freedom there is as little room for civil society, and the Church, as there is in your worst collectivist nightmare. If it is all one or the other, there is no role for mediating institutions or, at least, they will quickly be relegated to the sidelines of political and intellectual discourse. Before the god freedom, all libertarians bow and grovel.

Second, as was pointed out by E.J. Dionne on one of the talk shows last night, the episode highlights another problem with libertarianism. While it can provide a certain cast of mind with a neat, tidy intellectual framework for explaining the world, once libertarianism gets applied to reality, it tends not to bear up very well. The real world exhibits nuance and conflicting values that must be weighed, it has exceptions to be sure, but more than exceptions it has an uncanny knack for requiring similar ideals to be applied differently in different situations. As an ideological construct, I am not much of a fan of libertarianism, but even if you are, you need to recognize, as Sen. Paul never really does, that in the application of those ideas, libertarianism tends to become either too rigid or too brittle to work.

Check out the eBook collection of Pat Marrin's "Francis" cartoons. Learn more.

When Pope Francis says that reality is superior to ideas, he is telling us Catholics something very important about the very heart of our faith. Our incarnational faith certainly recognizes the importance and value of reason, but it tethers reason to both faith on the one hand and real-lived experience on the other. Pope Benedict XVI emphasized this as well, stating in the opening sentences of his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est: We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John's Gospel describes that event in these words: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should ... have eternal life (3:16). The historic vocation of the Catholic Church in civil society is to provide a bulwark against any ideology that denies the human persons transcendence. And, in our day, the principle method of denying such transcendence is choice and freedom understood as ideological constructs and political tools.

Let us be clear: This cuts against both the left and the right. It always makes me laugh when I watch MSNBC and they are discussing abortion and they warn against the dangers of having the government in the examining room and then you flip to Fox, and they are discussing the Affordable Care Act and they, too, frighten everyone with the prospect of the government in the examining room. Neither side seems to even recognize the irony because their fear of government intrusion is not principled in the least.

Libertarians, at least, get high marks for consistency. But, in a culture in which choice is the preeminent value, there are many, many things that culture cannot accomplish because they require everyone to buy in, if I may be permitted a commercial metaphor. Vaccines are ones such issue. They dont work if only half the population gets them. To work, the compliance rate has to be above 97%. Of course, in Europe, where medical care actually is socialized, very few countries require vaccinations but they have an almost 100% compliance rate nonetheless. Sen. Paul can put that sociological datum into his libertarian pipe and smoke it.

Which leads to one other aspect of libertarianism today: I do not know what they have been smoking, but they have a penchant for embracing some really bizarre ideas. In an interview yesterday, Sen. Paul did his best imitation of former Cong. Michelle Bachmann. She once said that she knew a woman whose child was vaccinated and the vaccine caused mental retardation. Yesterday, Sen. Paul noted there were many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines. Really? This is the medical equivalent of the Gold Standard, which many libertarians also embrace, or the idea that mammoth new trees can be genetically created to deal with climate change. Libertarianism seems almost uniquely to be the part of American politics where conspiracy theories and other idiocies find fertile soil.

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A lawyer friend of mine passed along this idea,

New cause of action: Tortious Non-Vaccination.

This is when a person who could be vaccinated but chooses not to (or his parents choose not to) becomes infected and then infects someone else who could not be vaccinated such as a someone with leukemia or some other immune deficiency or sensitivity to vaccinations. What victims of Tortious Non-Vaccination should do is file a complaint seeking to certify a defendant class action and bring a claim against all Tortious Non-Vaccinators [who had gotten the disease].

I think the kind of burden of proof shifting along the lines of Summers v. Tice would be appropriate. Thus, here, a member of the defendant class would have the opportunity to, say, prove that he could not have infected anyone.

[A]nd since its a negligence claim, you target the homeowners insurance policy. Anti-vaxers insurance rates will rise to internalize the cost of non-vaccination.

Summers v. Tice is a famous tort case in which plaintiff was allowed to recover from his two fellow hunters, when he was injured by one of them but it wasnt clear which one. Usually, a plaintiff has to show that theres a greater than 50% chance that the particular defendant he is suing caused his injury; but in this instance the court relaxed the requirement. (I include an edited version of Summers below.)

Im skeptical about my friends theory. Summers, I think, is a limited exception to the general tort law rule that the plaintiff must show that his injury was likely caused by the defendant. And I doubt that Summers would be extended to a situation such as communicable disease, given how unrelated and variegated the potential tortfeasors are, how many there are, and how unlikely each one is to have injured this particular plaintiff.

I agree that if you know that D has infected P, and D failed to take reasonable precautions to prevent this (e.g., getting vaccinated), this would be tortious under normal negligence principles. (This is often litigated in sexually transmitted disease cases, but historically that came out of other communicable disease cases, where the source of the infection was known; the principle dates back to the late 1800s and early 1900s.) But if a plaintiff is suing everyone who hasnt been vaccinated and has contracted the disease some of whom had more serious forms of the disease and some of whom had less serious forms, some of whom spent a lot of time during their illness around other people and some of whom spent less, and nearly of all whom are likely not to have caused plaintiffs illness, directly or indirectly I dont think the Summers theory would or should apply to defendants.

Indeed, this pretty closely tracks the way the law deals with pollution. In some situations, particular polluters can indeed be sued under general tort law principles for harm to particular plaintiffs. But in large part because of the difficulty proving causation, the tort route is often unavailable. The law has (generally) dealt with this not by relaxing the causation requirement, but by setting up a regulatory scheme requiring polluters to take various steps to diminish pollution.

And I think pollution in general is a good metaphor for non-vaccination. Factories sometimes emit chemical pollutants. Factory owners have a legal duty to take various reasonable steps to reduce the risk and magnitude of such emissions.

Read more from the original source:
Volokh Conspiracy: Not vaccinating = failure to reasonably avoid polluting

Interest in the bestselling novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand continues to grow, 33 years after her death and 70 years after she first hit the bestseller lists withThe Fountainhead. Rand was born February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

In the dark year of 1943, in the depths of World War II and the Holocaust, when the United States was allied with one totalitarian power to defeat another, three remarkable women published books that could be said to have given birth to the modern libertarian movement. Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who had writtenLittle House on the Prairieand other stories of American rugged individualism, published a passionate historical essay calledThe Discovery of Freedom.Isabel Paterson, a novelist and literary critic, producedThe God of the Machine,which defended individualism as the source of progress in the world.

The other great book of 1943 wasThe Fountainhead,a powerful novel about architecture and integrity by Ayn Rand. The books individualist theme did not fit the spirit of the age, and reviewers savaged it. But it found its intended readers. Its sales started slowly, then built and built. It was still on theNew York Times bestseller list two full years later. Hundreds of thousands of people read it in the 1940s, millions eventually, some of them because of the 1949 film starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, and many of them were inspired enough to seek more information about Ayn Rands ideas. Rand went on to write an even more successful novel,Atlas Shrugged,in 1957, and to found an association of people who shared her philosophy, which she called Objectivism. Although her political philosophy was libertarian, not all libertarians shared her views on metaphysics, ethics, and religion. Others were put off by the starkness of her presentation and by her cult following.

College students, professors, businessmen, Paul Ryan, the rock group Rush, and Hollywood stars have all proclaimed themselves fans of Ayn Rand.

Like Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek, Rand demonstrates the importance of immigration not just to America but to American libertarianism. Mises had fled his native Austria right before the Nazis confiscated his library, Rand fled the Communists who came to power in her native Russia. When a heckler asked her at a public speech, Why should we care what a foreigner thinks?, she replied with her usual fire, Ichoseto be an American. What did you ever do, except for having been born?

George Gilder calledAtlas Shruggedthe most important novel of ideas sinceWar and Peace. Writing in theWashington Post, he explained her impact on the world of ideas and especially the world of capitalist ideas: Rand flung her gigantic books into the teeth of an intelligentsia still intoxicated by state power, during an era when even Dwight Eisenhower maintained tax rates of 90 percent and confessed his inability to answer Nikita Khrushchevs assertion that capitalism was immoral because it was based on greed.

Rands books first appeared when no one seemed to support freedom and capitalism, and when even capitalisms greatest defenders seemed to emphasize its utility, not its morality. It was often said at the time that socialism is a good idea in theory, but human beings just arent good enough for socialism. It was Ayn Rand who said that socialism is not good enough for human beings.

Her books garnered millions of readers because they presented a passionate philosophical case for individual rights and capitalism, and did so through the medium of vivid, cant-put-it-down novels. The people who read Ayn Rand and got the point didnt just become aware of costs and benefits, incentives and trade-offs. They became passionate advocates of liberty.

Rand was an anomaly in the 1940s and 1950s, an advocate of reason and individualism in time of irrationality and conformity. But she was a shaper of the 1960s, the age of do your own thing and youth rebellion; the 1970s, pejoratively described as the Me Decade but perhaps better understood as an age of skepticism about institutions and a turn toward self-improvement and personal happiness; and the 1980s, the decade of tax cuts and entrepreneurship.

Throughout those decades her books continued to sell 30 million copies over the years, and they still move off the shelves. The financial crisis and Wall Street bailouts gaveAtlas Shruggeda huge push. A Facebook group titled Read the news today? Its like Atlas Shrugged is happening in real life was formed. More than 50 years after publication, the book had its best sales year ever. And sales have remained high more than a million copies of Rands books were sold in 2012.

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Ayn Rand at 110

Indy #39;s Insight #3 Libertarianism
the initiation of force is taught to our kids as wrong but as adults.... sorry for shit quality something went wrong hopefully can fix.

By: Iamindy33

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Indy's Insight #3 Libertarianism - Video

Libertarianism and Anti-Feminism with That Guy T and 6oodfella
Sargon of Akkad and DamagedBot couldn #39;t make it, but we #39;re not going to let that stop us.

By: Josh O #39;Brien

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Libertarianism and Anti-Feminism with That Guy T and 6oodfella - Video

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the top choice for Iowa GOP voters ahead of the 2016 caucuses in the state according to a new poll. But Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) is right behind.

Walker leads the field with 15 percent of voters, according to the poll from the Des Moines Register. His stock has been rising in conservative circles, especially in the Hawkeye State, after a strong showing at the Iowa Freedom Summit last week.

Paul is nipping at Walkers heels with 14 percent support. Iowa Republicans received the Paul family brand of libertarianism well in 2012, when Rand Pauls father, former Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), ran for president. The elder Paul initially came in third, and his campaign went on to secure the majority of the states delegates unbound by those results.

After that, support falls off. Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) come next at five and four percent respectively. And a mass of Republican contenders, including Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (Texas), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and real estate magnate Donald Trump round out the group, with the lowest amount of support measured.

The Iowa caucuses are vital because they are the first contest in the presidential nominating process. But theres still a year left to go, and anything can happen.

Just months before the 2012 Iowa caucuses, former Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) won among Republicans in the Ames straw poll, a popular pre-caucus poll. She won five percent of the popular vote and zero delegates in the actual caucuses, prompting her to drop out of the race.

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Iowa poll: Scott Walker leads GOP field