Interesting Quotes

"In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

Joe Biden on culturalism

Limited Government

"No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights."

Edmund A. Opitz

Sons of Liberty - Profiles of Great Americans

Isaac Sears
(b. July 1?, 1730, West Brewster, Massachusetts [U.S.]—d. October 28, 1786, Canton, China), patriot leader in New York City before the American Revolution, who earned the nickname “King Sears” by virtue of his prominent role in inciting and commanding anti-British demonstrations.


A merchant whose shipping activities included privateering, Sears first exhibited his patriot leanings when the Stamp Act crisis erupted in 1765. He became a mob leader during the anti-British riots in New York City, and he belonged to the newly formed patriot organization the Sons of Liberty.

Sears led the boycott of British goods during colonial protests of the Townshend Acts. Repeal of the Townshend Acts produced a period of calm in the colonies from 1770 to 1773, but imposition of the Tea Act in 1773 gave new life to the Sons of Liberty. In 1774 Sears led a New York version of the Boston Tea Party, and he signed the call for a meeting of representatives from the colonies.

Sears was arrested in April 1775 for his activities, but his admirers rescued him at the jailhouse door. Later that month—after the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord—he and his followers drove the loyalist officials out of New York City and seized control of the municipal government. His subsequent attacks on loyalist businessmen elicited official disapproval from patriot committees, but they earned Sears the backing of the New York citizenry.

The capture of New York City by the British compelled Sears to move to Boston from 1777 to 1783, during which time Sears spent time at sea as a privateer. In 1784 and again in 1786 he was elected to the New York state legislature. He was in China on a trading venture when he died there in 1786.

Citations

"Isaac Sears." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 27 Nov. 2010.

How To Lose Freedom

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too."

Somerset Maugham

Education

"The more subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as "free education" is the least free of all, for it is a state-owned institution; it is socialized education - just like socialized medicine or the socialized post office - and cannot possibly be separated from political control."


Frank Chodorov, writer, publisher (1887-1966): Why Free Schools Are Not Free

Muir Boda announces candidacy for Salisbury City Council

The City of Salisbury stands at a crossroads in her rich and storied history. There are tough choices that lie ahead and they need to be made now. Continually putting off issues has brought us to this point, where gangs are controlling our streets, businesses refuse to come to Salisbury and personality issues hang over us like a dark cloud.


On one hand we can continue down the path we have been steadily going for years. Economic stagnation, rising crime rates, gang problems and an assault on property rights which is fueled by name calling, personal vendettas and an outright refusal of elected officials willing to address the issues that this city faces. We have alienated the business community, neighborhoods and our law enforcement community. Leadership and responsibility have been sucked up into the black hole of gridlock, making our government ineffective on major issues.

On the other hand we have a choice of electing leaders who are willing to put aside personal differences and egos to help move our city forward. We need leaders to reach out to our disenfranchised neighborhoods, embrace our business community and encourage everyone to join together and resist the gang violence and crime that is destroying our city.

I believe a three pronged approach to reducing crime is needed from a City standpoint. Strengthening economic opportunity, providing law enforcement with the tools they need to succeed and challenging our faith based community to step up and support our civic organizations in reaching out to those who need and are crying for help. All of these are intertwined and cannot fully succeed without the other.

The economic situation we face is dire and we need to make changes now. We need to create an environment that is conducive to business and it begins with a welcoming attitude. We need to approach our business community with an attitude of – what can we do for you? One way I believe we can help businesses, is by creating a streamlined process into one office for purposes of doing business in the city. This will reduce confusion and set clear expectations and fix a process that currently drives business away.

There are many more issues that we face and I believe they should be approached with common sense, integrity and a servant’s heart. Public servants are just that, servants. Not Lords or masters, they are here to serve the citizens, taxpayers and all who enter into our boundaries for peaceful purposes.

We have much work to do and I believe it is our duty to pass on this great city better than we received her. We are obligated to make her stronger, safer and more beautiful for the generations to come after us. Leaving her deep in debt, rundown from violence and with less opportunity is not only wrong but I believe immoral.

Join me as we work to restore dignity and pride in Salisbury. We must return civility to our debates and respect to the council chamber. That is where we must begin, that is where I intend to begin.



Muir Boda
Candidate for Salisbury City Council
http://www.boda4salisbury.com/
(410)603-3347
boda4council@gmail.com

Are we Serfs?

"According to the Tax Foundation, taxes now consume more than 38% of the average family's budget. That is more than is spent on food, clothing, housing, and transportation combined. Compare this to the plight of medieval serfs. They only had to give the lord of the manor one-third of their output -- and they were considered slaves. So what does that make us?"

Daniel Mitchell, The Washington Times, 3/9/99

The Sons of Liberty

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

Samuel Adams

What's Wrong With the Jobs Market?

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.



Lew Rockwell

 The terrible job market has vexed an entire generation. It shows no hope of improving anytime soon. Young people are shut out. College students are taking refuge in matriculation without end. Thirty-somethings are zoning out in their parents' basements and attics. Despair for the future has become a theme of American public life.

The question we must ask is: why is unemployment stuck at 10% in the narrowest measure and as high as 30% for some demographics?

The usual answer is that the broad economy is not recovering. That's true but superficial; it explains nothing. We have a problem of a specific kind with the jobs market. To see it as just a symptom of slow growth is an excuse for politicians and central banks to resort to reckless policies in the name of fixing the big problem without addressing the reality on the ground.

Some new data reported by the Wall Street Journal helps get to the core of the problem in greater detail. In the current environment, which the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) laughably calls a recovery, business start-ups of job-creating companies have not kept up with closings.

Censorship

"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen."

~Tommy Smothers

Interesting Quotes

"I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required."

 Sheryl Crow on Environmentalism

Tyranny

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." 

 C. S. Lewis

Are Air Travelers Criminal Suspects?

by Ron Paul

Congressman Ron Paul (R)

The growing revolt against invasive TSA practices is encouraging to Americans who are fed up with federal government encroachment in their lives. In the case of air travelers, this encroachment is quite literally physical. But a deep-seated libertarian impulse still exists within the American people, and opposition to the new TSA full body scanner and groping searches is gathering momentum.

I introduced legislation last week that is based on a very simple principle: federal agents should be subject to the same laws as ordinary citizens. If you would face criminal prosecution or a lawsuit for groping someone, exposing them to unwelcome radiation, causing them emotional distress, or violating indecency laws, then TSA agents should similarly face sanctions for their actions.

This principle goes beyond TSA agents, however. As commentator Lew Rockwell recently noted, the bill “enshrines the key lesson of the freedom philosophy: the government is not above the moral law. If it is wrong for you and me, it is wrong for people in government suits… That is true of TSA crimes too.” The revolt against TSA also serves as a refreshing reminder that we should not give in to government alarmism or be afraid to question government policies.

Centralized Power

Thomas Jefferson

"When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

Censorship

"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books."

Sigmund Freud, 1933

Education

"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery."

Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister (1804-1881):

Thoughts from Washington

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."

George Washington

'I Am a Socialist' that is Lawrence O’Donnell

by Scott Lazarowitz



Lawrence O’Donnell MSNBC Commentator

 Recently, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell announced that he is a "socialist." O’Donnell referred to Milton Friedman’s quote, "We’re all Keynesians now," and President Richard Nixon’s quote, "I am now a Keynesian," in the context of Keynesian economics being very similar to socialism. O’Donnell went on to assert his pride in being a socialist, and even suggested that Glenn Beck, Rand Paul and others are also socialists in one form or another.

So here is an elaboration of someone, whoever that might be, explaining why he is a socialist:

"First and foremost, I am a socialist because I disagree with the Founding Fathers’ ideas on morality and the Rule of Law. It is important that we have a centralized government that redistributes all the wealth. The State needs to have the power to take some of the wealth away from those the State decides have too much of it. Obviously, no one has a ‘right’ to one’s own wealth or property. And I don’t believe that ‘all men are created equal’ because, if there is a law against theft, then obviously because we need to allow agents of the State to take wealth away, then therefore laws against ‘theft’ must exempt agents of the State. That means that some people should be above the law.


"And I am a socialist in medical care because I think that the centralized government should control everyone’s medical care – it’s as simple as that. It is important that government bureaucrats and their government doctors and medical services have a monopoly in the medical industry so they don’t have to deal with competitive interests, as opposed to a free market in medical care in which the consumers determine which doctors and medical plans would stay in business and which ones would fail. Some people assert that that gives ‘power to the people,’ but we socialists don’t want the people to have that kind of power – it takes control away from government bureaucrats and that’s why I don’t like that. It’s important that government officials control the ultimate decisions in what affects American medical patients (and because the Blue State grandmas are more likely to vote for the "good guys" than the Red State grandmas, if you know what I mean).

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."

Samuel Adams

Airplane II Security Clip

The Pilgrims and Property Rights: How our ancestors got fat & happy

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

Patrick Henry

The Original Radical

"Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.--Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.

From this short review it will be easy to distinguish between that class of natural rights which man retains after entering into society, and those which he throws into common stock as a member of society.

The natural rights which he retains, are all those in which the power to execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among this class, as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind; consequently, religion is one of those rights. The natural rights which are not retained, are all those in which, though the right is perfect in the individual, the power to execute them is defective. They answer not his purposes. A man by natural right has a right to judge in his own cause; and so far as the right of the mind is concerned, he never surrenders it; but what availeth it him to judge, if he has not power to redress it? He therefore deposits this right in the common stock of society, and takes the arm of society, of which he is a part, in preference and in addition to his own. Society grants him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in society, and draws on the capital as a matter of right."


Thomas Paine

Will Republicans Get Serious on Spending?

Don't count on it.

by Steve Chapman

Barely a week has passed since the thumping Republican victory in congressional elections, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is enjoying the chance to reveal how the GOP will use its new power.


Speaking to a crowd at the annual convention of the Federalist Society, an influential organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers, McConnell is among friends. They are happy to hear him declare, "Americans want less government, less spending and less debt."

Then the senator tells them what his party is going to do to bring the runaway federal budget under control. "We will vote to freeze and cut discretionary spending," he vows.


What is important is not so much what is said but what is omitted. The four biggest items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense. And those programs escape any mention from McConnell.

They make up about 60 percent of the federal budget. Domestic discretionary outlays, by contrast, account for only about 16 percent. If Republicans focus entirely on those, they will be sending a clear and quite believable message: We're not serious. 

 Read the rest at Reason.com

Coming soon.....

Don't Touch My Junk

by Mike Calpino

Mike Calpino

 The controversy over new airport screening procedures has continued to grow. No doubt it will explode over the long holiday weekend, particularly is planned protests involve even a fraction of the flying public. The TSA and Homeland Security have dug in their heels and defended the new procedures as necessary to ensure our safety. If a majority of Americans begin to strenuously object or even refuse, there is the possibility of a real confrontation over these methods. Even more importantly, it is getting people to talk about government intrusion in a way they have not considered before. It is the various levels in which these procedures have struck a nerve that need to be explored.

At some airports, there are two choices given. There are the new electronic screening machines which display your naked body to some minimum wage security guard, some of whom have been getting pretty excited about their job. If you choose not to display yourself in ways only your spouse should be privy to, don’t want to be radiated in ways the government assures you are safe (we believe everything they say) or the TSA decides you need to be further investigated, then you will receive an "aggressive" patdown. This involves touching and squeezing in areas that, again, only our spouse should touch and squeeze. It is applied to the very young, the very old, the infirm, everyone.

So why does this bother us so much? After all, we don’t want another terrorist with a bomb in his shoe, underwear or anywhere else to get on an airplane, do we? Of course not. However, the way we are going about it is insulting on a variety of levels. On the surface, we know it is a waste of time and resources to treat four year olds, nuns and cancer survivors with prosthetic devices or urine bags as potential terrorists. Yet we have Janet Nepalitano refusing to answer the question as to whether or not they would use such techniques on a Muslim woman in a burka. That offends our basic sense of fairness. We also know that any terrorist who chose to do so could walk across our southern border. If we applied a fraction of the effort on our border we do in the airport, we would catch a lot more terrorists and criminals. So far the TSA has caught.....zero.

A new TSA PSA

Rand's Persecuted Minority

By Roger Donway

Atlas Shrugged is an extended cry against the oppression of creators, most particularly businessmen: the Atlases who bear this world on their shoulders. Uniquely, Rand’s work portrays the exploited entrepreneurs of the mixed economy as the true successors of Socrates, Galileo, and the countless other truth-seekers who, over the centuries, have been silenced, punished, crushed, and killed—not for their vices but for their virtues.

In the scene that gives the book its title, one of the novel’s greatest Atlases, the steelmaker Hank Rearden, is asked: “When you strain your energy to its utmost in order to produce the best, do you expect to be rewarded for it or punished?” The questioner’s point is that Rearden knows he should be rewarded for his productive efforts, yet he allows himself to be punished—and by helpless parasites at that. Why? Why not free himself of his tormentors? Why not shrug them off?

Rand’s novel, thirteen years in the writing, was finally published in October 1957, but she did not stop asking “Why?” Why were businessmen persecuted? Why did moralists not condemn the injustice? Why did businessmen themselves do nothing? Within a few years, she had taken to the college lecture circuit to denounce this continuing oppression, and her talk could not have been more provocatively titled: “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Businessmen.” Nor could it have been better timed. The Sixties were just beginning, and the students at elite Northeastern universities were preening themselves for their moral superiority, in part because they opposed Southern segregation and in part because they disparaged capitalists (like their fathers) as “hidden persuaders” and perpetrators of “planned obsolescence.” Into this environment came Ayn Rand, to declare that America’s truly oppressed minority comprised just those businessmen the students scorned.

Read the Rest

Toward a Conservative Foreign Policy of Non-Interventionism

Mark Grannis

During the presidency of George W. Bush, those of us who criticized U.S. foreign policy as overly hawkish tended to be considered “liberal,” a tendency neoconservatives had little reason to resist. I personally found this very frustrating, for reasons that probably mystify some readers. Does it really matter whether any given position is suitably “conservative”? It does to a conservative, because conservatives are supposed to obsess about continuity with the past. Conservatives are, by definition, strongly committed to the proposition that our received political traditions represent centuries of political wisdom which, at least in the ordinary case, should trump all but the most extraordinarily well-founded private judgments. This gives self-identified conservatives who part ways with their old cohort an unusually strong stake in substantiating the claim that “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me.”


In my own family, the question has arisen from time to time whether my larger-than-life grandfather — a Taft man in the early 50s, a Goldwater delegate at the 1964 Republican Convention, and a committed Republican all his life — would have supported the Bush (43) foreign policy. My mom says yes, and I suppose I have to accept that strictly on her authority. My skepticism, however, has been renewed by a couple of recent issues of The American Conservative.

Read the Rest at Reasonable Minds

Banking

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."

Napoleon Bonaparte

Libertarians mourn death of David F. Nolan

WASHINGTON - David F. Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party (LP), died unexpectedly on November 21 in Tucson, Arizona at the age of 66.

Mr. Nolan was also a member of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC). He is survived by his wife Elizabeth.

Mr. Nolan founded the Libertarian Party with a group of colleagues in his home in Denver, Colorado on December 11, 1971.

Mark Hinkle, Chairman of the LP, said, "I am saddened by the news of David Nolan's death. He not only helped found the Libertarian Party, but remained active and helped to guide our party for the last forty years. We are now the third-largest political party in America, and one of the most persistent and successful third parties in American history, thanks in large part to David Nolan. We will feel this loss."

Mr. Nolan ran this year as a Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senator in Arizona, against incumbent John McCain. In 2006, Mr. Nolan ran for U.S. Representative in Arizona's 8th District, against incumbent Gabrielle Giffords.

Mr. Nolan was also well known for his invention of the "Nolan chart," a two-dimensional chart of political opinion that was designed to get past the more familiar but deficient liberal-conservative paradigm. Marshall Fritz, founder of the Advocates for Self-Government, refined the Nolan chart into the popular World's Smallest Political Quiz with its diamond-shaped chart.

The Advocates for Self-Government provides more information about David Nolan's contributions here:
Visit site.

Comments from friends and colleagues:

Sharon Harris, President of the Advocates for Self-Government: "I am so shocked and saddened by Dave's death -- what a loss for the cause of liberty!"

Wes Benedict, Executive Director of the LP: "While I've admired David Nolan for years, this year I finally had the pleasure of working directly with him. He was an enthusiastic and principled activist doing the hard work right alongside newer members."

Jack Dean, longtime friend and political associate: "David was the conscience of the Libertarian Party. He was always there to remind us what the party was about."

Mr. Nolan had submitted a resolution for consideration at the November 20-21 LNC meeting in New Orleans. Unaware of Mr. Nolan's death, the LNC adopted the resolution, which reads as follows:

"WHEREAS the Libertarian Party can grow only by attracting new members and supporters, and

"WHEREAS libertarianism is a unique political philosophy, distinct from both contemporary liberalism and contemporary conservatism, and

"WHEREAS we need the support of both former liberals and former conservatives who have come to realize that libertarianism and the Libertarian Party offer a better path to achieving a just, humane and prosperous society,

"The Libertarian National Committee hereby reaffirms that the Libertarian Party welcomes individuals from across the political spectrum who now accept the libertarian principles of self-ownership and non-aggression."

View a biographical article about Mr. Nolan here.
==========

Sincerely,

Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee

Libertarian Party founder, David Nolan dies

Former Mission Viejo resident David F. Nolan, who helped found the Libertarian Party in his Denver living room on Dec. 11, 1971, died Sunday, two days before his 67th birthday.

Nolan opposed government intrusion in daily life, and believed in personal freedom, according to an obituary in Sentinel of Tucson, where he lived most recently. He opposed the war in Iraq, called for an end to personal income taxes, and wanted to legalize drugs. He supported a guest-worker program over building a border wall, wanted to close the Federal Reserve System, and end the Patriot Act.

"He was sort of a guiding light," Fullerton's Jack Dean, past chairman of the California Libertarian Party, told the Arizona Daily Star. "He was kind of our conscience. Dave was a presence at every national convention; everyone respected him. He kept reminding everybody what the goal was.

"He was a low-key and extremely reasonable radical. "And he could make Libertarian positions sound reasonable and logical to anyone."

Nolan also developed the "Nolan Chart," which plots a participant's answers to a questionnaire on a political grid which an axis for social issues and one for fiscal issues, and shows the relationship between the political parties. The Libertarian Party is now the third largest political party in the country.
In 2002, while living in Mission Viejo, Nolan unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives against incumbent Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach. He moved to Arizona in 2005.

In 2006, Nolan unsuccessfully ran against Gabrielle Giffords for a seat in Arizona's 8th Congressional District.

This year, he challenged John McCain for his Senate seat and racked up 63,000 votes – in a state with only 24,000 registered Libertarians, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

Nolan's cause of death was unclear late Sunday, and no information was immediately available on memorial services, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth.

Posted on the Orange County Register

Barney Frank continuing his public service

Debt Delenda Est

By Bill Bonner

The subject is debt; it needs to go away.

Debt was the market’s bête noire, this week and last. In Europe, it snatched up the Irish and carried them off. Then it attacked the Portuguese. Everyone knew the periphery states were going broke. Their cost of borrowing soared. Then, when the search parties reached them, the Irish turned them away. Debt has it usefulness, the Irish figured. They held out until Wednesday, apparently negotiating terms of their own rescue.

In America, municipal debt collapsed by nearly 10% over the last two weeks. It became more and more obvious that state and local governments were headed for default too. California might get a bailout…but California, like Ireland, is a sovereign state. It could refuse. Borrowers worried that Californians and the Irish might prefer to default like honest incompetents rather than submit to the rescuers’ demands.

Debt is underrated. For one thing, it is more reliable than asset values. The crisis of ’07–’09 wiped out about a third of the world’s equity and property wealth. And it disappeared 7 million jobs in America alone. But debt survived intact. In terms of the cash flow needed to support it, debt actually grew larger.

Central planners can make a recession appear to go away. With enough hot money, they might warm up asset prices or soothe the swelling unemployment rate. But debt doesn’t cooperate. Neither monetary policy nor fiscal policy will make it go away. Debt demands honesty. The debtor has to fess up, admitting that he is a fool or a knave. Either he owns up to his mistake and defaults…or he cheats.

“With all due respect, US policy is clueless,” said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble. “It’s not that the Americans haven’t pumped enough liquidity into the market. Now to say let’s pump more into the market is not going to solve their problem.”

Read the rest at Lew Rockwell

What can Rand Paul do

The Tea Party libertarian will likely prove a more effective figurehead than senator.

For all the furor the Tea Party movement generated this year, when it came to the mightiest deliberative body in human history, the U.S. Senate, the Tea Party won only one real prize: Rand Paul's election as Kentucky’s junior senator. On the surface he's a Republican, but Paul frames himself as a representative of a supposedly trans-partisan Tea Party, burning with an urge to cut spending and curb debt that he admits his GOP comrades have not shown.

In terms of passing laws or shifting the Senate in his direction, Paul is not going to get much done by trying to operate as a one-man Tea Party in a minority party. Though he may become a filibuster machine, which given his outlier status means the Senate will have lots of cloture votes to shut him up. (He is not likely to succeed in using the filibuster to cap the debt limit and thereby destroy the entire world economy, as has been wildly speculated in some quarters.)

While those frightened by Paul see in him the power and will to wreck the planet, his fans are unduly thrilled just to hear a senator-elect talking about raising the retirement age and means testing for Social Security; cutting federal employment and pay; plotting a two-year path to a balanced budget; pushing term limits and a balanced budget constitutional amendment; insisting that bills should point to their constitutional justification and that senators should have read them before signing on; and even, to the surprise of some who found him avoiding his father’s non-interventionism on the campaign trail, talking up military cuts and questioning the value of our Afghanistan mission.

Read more at Reason

The Attack on Human Dignity

by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy




The human being is made in the image and likeness of God. He or she has the Spark of the Divine "within" him or her. He or she is the primal and primary Temple of God on earth. Each person therefore deserves from the other and gives to the other not just respect, but reverence. The destruction of a fellow human — whether it be in mind, soul, body or spirit — is therefore the desecration of the Great Temple on earth, the place in time and space where the Living God chose foremost to reside.

The sublimity, dignity and transcendental value of each human being make it a grave violation of the Presence of God and of God-given human dignity to treat a person as a thing, a widget in some one's grand illusion, a means to be used, manipulated, abused, lied to, and/or crushed to serve another's agenda. Violate is derived from the same Latin word as violence, violare. To violate a reality is to do violence to that reality. To violate a reality is to treat it in a way that is not in accordance with its nature, e.g., to treat a sentient human being as if he or she were a non-sentient rock violates the reality of the human being. To treat a human being who is the living Temple of God on earth and who is infinitely loved and valued by this same God, as a tool, as a thing, as a person of no real significance beyond my utilitarian need for him or her in some grandiose plan I have concocted, rather than with the reverence, love and value that he or she intrinsically and forever possesses, as a son or daughter of my God and his or her God, of my Father and his or her Father, of the One God, is to violate him or her, to do violence to them. And, a violation of a person's intrinsic, God bestowed human dignity and transcendent value is evil regardless of how normalized it has become, how culturally acceptable it has become, how "holy" it has become or how legal it has become.

Read the rest at Lew Rockwell

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us."

Benjamin Rush

WWJD

Going broke by fractions of a percent

Ben Bernanke should stop paying interest on reserves

By Tim Cavanaugh




Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s rollout of $600 billion in quantitative easing was a public relations disaster that deserves to be studied in college communications classes. And he could have avoided it by giving up a shiny monetary tool he got in 2008—one that may be at the root of the extended recession.

The Federal Reserve Bank’s shopping spree of distressed debt will, Bernanke claims, create 700,000 jobs over the next two years. But if one of its immediate goals was to inspire market confidence, Quantitative Easing II (QE2) could hardly have gone worse.

In the three months since Bernanke floated the idea of a second round of large-scale asset purchases, the U.S. dollar index has declined by about 5 percent. With household net worth at $54.6 trillion, according to the Fed’s most recent Flow of Funds data, this means about $2.73 trillion of domestic wealth may have vanished in three months.

While much of that fall took place during the period between Bernanke’s QE2 trial balloon in late August and the rollout of the actual program two weeks ago, events since QE2 actually hit the streets have not been encouraging. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called the move “clueless,” and China’s Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. downgraded long-term U.S. debt. The Anglophone financial press tends to dismiss such criticisms as nationalist trash talk, but QE2 cast a glare over President Barack Obama’s Asia junket and made what would ordinarily be considered an average performance—the president failed to close a trade agreement with South Korea and came home with few solid results—into a demonstration of U.S. powerlessness.

Read more Reason

Zombie Keynesianism

by Michael S. Rozeff




The Keynesians are having a highly public quarrel on a deep and divisive issue – a fundamental issue. They are wrangling over exchange rates.

Obama and Bernanke and the U.S. Congress want the Chinese to raise the value of the Chinese currency. The Chinese don’t want to.

Both sides to this quarrel are Keynesians. Both states use the powers of the state to manage their economies through fiscal and monetary policies. This happens throughout most of the world.

Keynesianism has brought the world to grief. State-controlled economies fail, as in the Soviet Union and Red China before 1978. The higher the degree of state control, the higher the degree of failure. The U.S. is experiencing the results of state control now. Its central bank has controlled the nation’s money for years. The government has controlled the mortgage and housing markets for decades. Lately, it has run huge deficits in a futile attempt to end the recession created by its earlier mismanagement.

The Keynesian quarrels actually show that the Keynesians don’t know what they are talking about. Their politics and economics are both hopeless. Keynesianism is hopelessly flawed, wrong, inadequate, and unsuited to what is needed so that the planet’s people can progress. Freedom and free markets are the prescription. The Red Chinese seem somehow to have found this out while the so-called bastion of so-called free enterprise remains mired down in Keynesianism.

National Opt-Out Day

Travelling this Holiday Season?  Join the resistance on National Opt-Out Day.

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

Patrick Henry

Groping for Answers

by Mike Calpino



Mike Calpino

 The news of the week are the new procedures implemented at airports around the country in the name of security. Once again we are closing the barn door after the horses are gone and refusing to consider the fact that it is a broken latch that keeps letting them out. First there was 9/11 so the list of prohibited objects in an airport grew immensely. Then there was the shoe bomber so we all have to take off our shoes. Then there was the underwear bomber so now we have to endure the hands of TSA employees in places only our wives or husbands should see. There have already been terrorists who placed explosives in various body cavities, and drug smugglers have been doing that for years. Are we going to have to endure full body cavity searches next?

Our security procedures are a strange mix of political correctness and a total disregard for our rights to be secure in our persons. Political correctness because we are afraid of offending the terrorists who want to kill us, the overwhelming majority of whom are young, middle eastern men from specific countries. They are not toddlers, senior citizens or nuns. Disregard for our rights because no one should be subject to such intimate and invasive procedures just because they want to travel. 99.99% of airline travellers are not terrorists and those 99.99% should not be treated as potential terrorists or criminals just because they want to fly to see grandma over the holidays. Certainly we have the choice as to whether or not we want to fly but it should be our free choice to enter into a private contract with an airline to provide us a service and the government should not require we check our rights or our dignity at the door when we enter into that contract.

Thoughts from Washington

"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."

George Washington

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"There, I guess King George will be able to read that."

John Hancock remarking on his signature on the Declaration of Independence.

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."

Samuel Adams

Andy Harris and the sense of entitlement

Representative Elect Andy Harris had an embarrassing moment at Freshman orientation when, according to a Politico.com report which quoted and an unnamed staffer "He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care."

Harris, according to the unnamed staffer, asked if government healthcare could be purchased in the interim.

Now Harris portrayed himself as knowledgeable of Health Care during the campaign, would he not know he could continue COBRA coverage from his previous employer?

Bill Clinton's New Job

I saw this on Julie Brewington's site. Certainly we are all upset and concerned about the new body scanners and getting a pat down that goes above and beyond the call of duty. We have qualified individuals stepping up to help ensure the process goes smoothly.

A General's View on Banking

“I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for.One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.War for any other reason is simply a racket."

Quote by: Major General Smedley Darlington Butler(1881-1940) Major General USMC, "Old Gimlet Eye'' and "Hell Devil Darling", most highly decorated military man from the pre-World War II era.
Source: from a speech in 1933

Banking

"The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful
crime against civilization. Why? Because they "create" the money made out of
nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their "Federal Reserve Notes" and
stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc."

H.L. Birum, sr.

Barry Said it before Ron Paul

"Most Americans have no real understandingof the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside of the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States."


Quote by: Barry Goldwater(1909-1998) US Senator (R-Arizona)

Are You Ready for Hyperinfaltion?

by Mike Calpino

The day after the election the Federal Reserve announced it was going to engage in "Quantitative easing" to the tune of $600 billion dollars over the next eight months. Commodities have already reacted to this, with gold, oil and other raw materials rising rapidly. We are to expect inflation after supposedly going through an extended period without it. If we go though a time of even double digit inflation, we should consider ourselves very fortunate. If it were a different time in our history, perhaps that is what we could expect. We have, however, put ourselves into a very precarious position with our debt and liabilities. What I would like to give you is a short history lesson because nations have gone through this before and the causes are easy to determine.

Our more recent example is Chile which went through a hyperinflationary period in the early seventies. In 1970 Salvador Allende was elected. Allende was a hard core socialist and brought together other socialists, communists and hard leftists to begin implementing changes (transforming) Chile into a socialist workers paradise. Even though we have apparently rejected President Obama’s socialist/communist agenda, he and his leftist czars will still wield a lot of power and it is unlikely any of the damage he has done will be repealed.
Allende took the land from "the rich" and gave it to the workers. We have been redistributing wealth for years but President Obama and the Democrat congress doubled down on this, constantly demonizing the "rich". Allende nationalized companies and mines. While we certainly protest against the nationalization of the industries that have taken place, in America nationalization isn’t really necessary. Industries and companies can be controlled just as easily through regulation and tax policy, both of which are moving out of the hands of elected officials and into the bureaucracy, a bureaucracy controlled by the executive branch which is run by leftists, socialists and in some cases, admitted communists.

The beginning of the end.....

by Mike Calpino

Last week’s elections were historic, there is no question about that. Voters were fed up with our lurch into socialism and with the rise of the TEA party movement, questions of government spending, control and intrusion were finally being discussed openly and honestly. Many people became involved in politics for the first time, recognizing that politics affects everything in our daily lives and if we ever want to regain some control over our lives (i.e. our liberty) politics can no longer be ignored or left up to the "political class." All this represents a good trend.

TEA partiers and conservatives who pinned their hopes on Republicans are likely to be very disappointed, however. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the new TEA party/conservative Republicans represent a small minority of the total number of Republicans in office, at all levels of government. Because of this, it will be very difficult for them to resist the pressure the establishment has on "public servants". The "system" has been in place for a long time and the beneficiaries of that system are not about to let these upstarts disassemble it. Even if they have the character to resist the pressure to conform, the radical steps necessary to save us from catastrophe will never move beyond their sparse numbers and may be beyond the imaginations of most of them.

What am I talking about? Here are some necessary steps for starters. Ending the Federal Reserve and pegging the dollar to gold. Ending all entitlement programs, a particularly difficult pill to swallow for Republicans who have been demonized for phantom proposals to do so in the past. Remove all the tax and regulatory impediments to businesses so we can return manufacturing to the United States. Eliminate public sector unions and approximately eighty percent of government jobs. Bring the military home from the vast number of places it is around the world and slim it down to a size that will ensure a devastating defense, not a costly and ineffective offense, or even less unsuccessful nation building. Can you see even one of those things happening in the next two years, or even four years with a Republican president and congress? I certainly do not.

John Adams on Banking

"Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility,
prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will
do good."

John Adams

The Wisdom of Milton Friedman

"The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.''


Quote by: Milton Friedman(1912-2006) Nobel Prize-winning economist, economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan, "ultimate guru of the free-market system"

If Leaders had the Stones of Jackson

"The bold effort the present bank had made to control the government... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American peopleshould they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or theestablishment of another like it."


Quote by: Andrew Jackson(1767-1845) 7th US President
Source: To Congress in 1836, Jackson closed the second Federal Bank (est. 1816) with these comments

The Wisdom of Maxwell Anderson

"When a government takes over a people’s economic life it becomesabsolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts,the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs."


Quote by: Maxwell Anderson(1888-1959)
Source: The Guaranteed Life

Interesting thought from Alan Greenspan

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protectsavings from confiscation through inflation. ... This is the shabbysecret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spendingis simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in theway of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of propertyrights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding thestatists' antagonism toward the gold standard."


Quote by: Alan Greenspan(1926- ) Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (1987-2006)
Source: from page 101 of the book "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand with additional articles by Alan Greenspan - 1966

*********** Liberty Notes******
If Greenspan was channeling Ayn Rand and he espoused this thought process, why did he not act upon this as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He had years to fix it and did nothing.

Scary Quotes from the 9th Circuit

"... we conclude that the [Federal] Reserve Banks are not federal ... but
are independent privately owned and locally controlled corporations... without day to day direction from the federal government."

Quote by: 9th Circuit Court
Source: Lewis vs United States, June 24, 1982

If Leaders had the Stones of Jackson

"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves."


Quote by: Andrew Jackson(1767-1845) 7th US
PresidentSource: In 1836, Jackson forced the closing of the Second Bank of the U.S. by revoking its charter

The Wisdom of Milton Friedman

"I am myself persuaded, on the basis of extensive study of the historical evidence, that... the severity of each of the contractions - 1920-21, 1929-33, and 1937-38 - is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities and would not have occurred under earlier monetary and banking arrangements."


Quote by: Milton Friedman(1912-2006) Nobel Prize-winning economist, economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan, "ultimate guru of the free-market system"
Source: 'Capitalism and Freedom'

A General's View on Banking

“I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight.The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percentover here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent.Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag."

Quote by: Major General Smedley Darlington Butler(1881-1940) Major General USMC, "Old Gimlet Eye'' and "Hell Devil Darling", most highly decorated military man from the pre-World War II era.
Source: from a speech in 1933

MdLP Press Release on mailing with Davis and Harris in it

Hurlock, MD: The Libertarian Party of Maryland on behalf of it's Congressional Candidate for Congress in the First District, Dr. Richard Davis, wants to assure voters that he is not accepting or expending any monies from donations or large in-kind contributions.

Recently, a targeted mailing was sent out with a comparison between Dr. Davis and one of his opponents, Dr. Andy Harris the Republican Candidate for Congress in the First District. The flyer does not endorse or call for one to vote either way, it just states the positions of the two candidates on a few issues.

However, neither the Maryland Libertarian Party nor Dr. Davis' campaign had any involvement or prior knowledge of this mailing and both entities do not support, encourage or endorse this type of activity.

The only items that Dr. Davis has incurred for his campaign have come out of his own "pocket" for gas and a few brochures. He has accepted two in-kind contributions, one for the purchase of the domain for his website, www.davis4congress.com and another for video production for the internet on some key issues, both from Muir Boda.

The only expenditure that The Libertarian Party of Maryland has put towards his campaign is that of a radio ad that has included all 7 Libertarian Congressional Candidates in Maryland. This was paid out our FEC account, approved by the Executive Board and the Central Committee of the Maryland Libertarian Party and has the proper authority line in the message.

The Maryland Libertarian Party is proud of the campaign that Dr. Davis has run in this election and we will not stand idly by when his integrity is questioned.

For more information on this issue, or to arrange an interview with the Maryland Libertarian Party, please call Communications Director Muir Boda at (410) 603-3347, or email at mdlpboda@gmail.com.

The Libertarian Party is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties. You can find more information on the Maryland Libertarian Party at www.md.lp.org, their blog at www.mdlibertarian.com, and the Libertarian Party by visiting LP.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.

Tea Party's Other Half

by David Kirby and Emily Ekins
This article appears on Politico.com on October 28, 2010.

There is no shortage of hypotheses about what the tea party movement is. Some embrace it as a revival of traditional conservatism. Many insist it is ginned up by billionaire funders as a means to fight regulations. Others view it as arch-social conservative Republicans, motivated by divisive issues like abortion, gay rights or even racial angst.

But all these explanations are missing much of the story. Liberterian attitudes are fueling roughly half the tea party activists, according to our new Cato Institute survey. These libertarian tea partiers believe "the less government the better" and don't see a role for government in promoting "traditional values." This is a big reason why the movement has largely focused on economic matters, resisting attempts to add social issues to its agenda.

President Barack Obama and the Democrats may well have over-interpreted the 2008 election as a mandate for liberalism. Now Republicans could be in similar danger if they over-interpret potential midterm gains in the House and Senate as a mandate for social as well as fiscal conservatism. Republicans should focus on a unifying economic agenda, according to our data, to avoid antagonizing the libertarian half of the Tea Party.

Just under half, or 48 percent, of tea partiers at the recent Virginia Tea Party Convention held views that are more accurately described as libertarian — fiscally conservative, to be sure, but moderate to liberal on social and cultural issues.

Read the rest @ Cato

Great Quotes from Maryland Libertarians

"While I do not sup­port drug use, I sup­port hypocrisy even less. When decid­ing whether to legalize a drug, we must com­pare it sci­en­tif­i­cally to cur­rently legal drugs. Mak­ing a less dan­ger­ous drug ille­gal, while mak­ing a more dan­ger­ous drug legal, is unsci­en­tific, hyp­o­crit­i­cal, and illogical."

Arvin Vohra

Candidate for Maryland House of Delegates, District 15

Great Quotes from Maryland Libertarians

"All government spending comes at the expense of everyone. This spending distorts our economy and destroys opportunity. Private enterprise can do better and cheaper everything that the government does. Governments have never created a job and will never create a job. Political allocation of resources only destroys jobs and wealth."

Bryan Walker

Candidate, Maryland House of Delegates, District 21

Great Quotes from Maryland Libertarians

"I believe it is the right of the people to own guns without government interference. As criminals, especially violent ones, don't show much regard for the law, government mandated gun control only prevents law abiding citizens from owning guns. I oppose any attempts by the government to take away the rights granted by the Constitution."

Josh Crandall

Candidate Maryland House of Delegates District 31

Great Quotes from Maryland Libertarians

"I fully oppose universal healthcare, and believe that any attempt to do so on a state level would be disastrous. Involving an already overburdened government bureaucracy in patient management would slow down the process and add hidden “administrative costs” to an already expensive system. The first step in improving health care in this state is through eliminating fraud and abuse, not increasing the size and scope of it. "

Jusitn Kinsey

Candidate for Maryland House of Delegates, District 5B

Liberty's Companions

"It is good for one to be free, and we would cherish Liberty even if she traveled alone, but she does not. Because Prosperity and Peace are both the companions of Liberty."

—Charles Goyette

Great Quotes from Maryland Libertarians

"Wow can you beleive that business owners were informed they would have to pay over $1,300.00 per employee they hire for unemployment insurance. They were told this is an attemp to create jobs. Isn't that like saying if you chop down a cherry tree it will grow more fruit."

Shawn Quinn

Candidate Maryland House of Delegates, District 29C

Baltimore Sun: Democrats Promoting Libertarian to undermine Harris

In what appears to be a national pattern, the Democratic Party is highlighting a longshot third-party candidate in an effort to undermine a Republican nominee--in this case, Andy Harris, the GOP challenger in Maryland's tightest House race.

The tactic is either a desperation move, or a sign of how close the contest is, or both. It has special resonance in Maryland's First District, where the Libertarian candidate's two percent of the vote arguably tipped the historically Republican seat to Democrat Frank Kratovil in '08.

The Democratic mailer, first reported by Eastern Shore blogger Michael Swartz, masquerades as an attack on Richard Davis, the third man in the race, running again this year on the Libertarian line, with no realistic chance of winning.Paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the flier describes Davis, twice, as an outsider and Tea Party type.

Davis "plans to cut government spending, will drastically reduce the size of government across the board, is a complete outsider . . . Davis and the Tea Party think government is part of the problem, and want to make it as small as possible."

"Richard Davis: Is he too conservative?" asks the mail piece.

Read the rest of the article at the Baltimore Sun

Your View: Libertarian agenda is to give you back control

Can we afford it? I suspect you’re way ahead of me here. I won’t try to discuss the national debt, beyond that it’s rising faster than I can write about it, much less get this into print. We are running this country as if we hold it on an interest-only mortgage, and we’ve been seeing how well those generally work out.

On any given issue, even if we can do it and we should do it, that doesn’t mean we can afford it right now. The idea that we can simply borrow or print more money won’t carry us forever. Better we end those practices while we still have hope of being in control of the situation rather than waiting for disaster to dictate to us.

This will be my last letter before the election, so let me urge you all to vote. If you want government to take care of you (and run your life, which ultimately must follow), either the Republicans or the Democrats are happy to accommodate — it just depends on whose format you prefer.

If you want to run your own life — and correspondingly, take care of yourself and your loved ones — then right now, the Libertarian Party is the only one seeking to give you the greatest possible opportunity. I won’t claim it will be quick or easy, but if you can imagine a future where the federal government doesn’t even try to control everything — vote Libertarian.

Dr. Richard J. Davis, Hurlock
Davis is a Libertarian candidate for Maryland’s 1st Congressional District. — Editor

Wicomcio County Libertarian Endorsed by the Daily Times

District 2
District 2 is geographically the county's largest district, located south and west of District 1 from the West Side of Salisbury to the Nanticoke River and western end of the county. It has been represented for the past 12 years by Stevie Prettyman, who as an incumbent is facing her first opponent for the seat. A Republican, she supports low taxes, efficient use of taxpayer dollars and the county's 2 percent property tax revenue cap as long as county residents wish to keep it in place. She supports the efforts of law enforcement and is engaged in the process of writing a new Comprehensive Plan for the county; she opposes "downzoning," which was designed to preserve farmland in the county but opposed by farmers who wished to retain the right to subdivide and develop their land if they so desired.

Her opponent, Mike Calpino, is not a Democrat; he is running as a Libertarian but describes himself as a tea party candidate. He advocates minimal government intrusion into the lives of individual citizens, but recognizes the need for some functions. He is a resident of Nanticoke who is engaged in his rural community and is personally familiar with the issues that concern residents of the far western portion of the county --the Westside Community Center and the Cove Point Beach parking controversy, for example. On his website, he quotes Ayn Rand and the founding fathers when describing his political philosophy. He also has lengthy sections devoted specifically to Wicomico County issues --budget, business climate, revenue cap, school board and public sector compensation among them. It is clear he has spent a great deal of time researching, considering and coming up with specific ideas about how county government should operate, within the framework of his minimalist concept of government.

Prettyman has had 12 years on the County Council and during that time, provided adequate -- if not visionary -- representation. Calpino, while advocating some radically unorthodox proposals, would also inject some truly fresh ideas for the rest of the council to consider. Those new considerations could have a positive influence on the way our county does business, even if not adopted as presented. We urge District 2 voters to give Calpino an opportunity to test his ideas by electing him to serve on the council.

Daily Times County Council Endorsements

Great Quotes from Maryland Libertarians

"It is not the government’s place to restrict gaming. Slot machines, casinos and private gambling should be decriminalized. Casino tax revenue would provide assistance in eroding the state’s budget deficit."

Brandon Brooks

Candidate for Maryland House of Delegates, District 11

Great Quotes from Maryland Libertarians

"This is an issue on which many Libertarians differ, because the very first question we need to resolve is whether there is one life at stake or two. Because I believe there are two lives involved, I believe each life deserves to be protected from any physical harm caused by the other. I recognize, of course, that many good people disagree, and in some states they may be in the majority. But the federal Constitution simply does not settle this issue, and we should restore the states' autonomy over abortion regulation."

Mark Grannis

Candidate for Congress, 8th District