Liberty // Current

Guns welcome: Packing heat at Starbucks for all the world to see

The 2nd amendment rules , coffee ,tea and a 9 mm. Read more:... more

notyourbabiesdaddy
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2 days ago
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55 comments

RFL

time for liberty

gooma2
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9 months ago
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0 comments

11/14/2009 Libertarian Mike Shanklin Attends Neocon Rally Raleigh, NC

11/14/2009 Mike Shanklin Reports From The Anti-Healthcare, Freedomworks Rally in... more

shanklinmike
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4 days ago
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5 comments

10 Yr Old Wants Rights For Gays & Lesbians or He Won't Pledge Alliegance to the Flag

Is it me or are kids a lot more well spoken these day?

Jenime
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5 days ago
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55 comments

Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People!

You have the right as an individual to own a gun and defend yourself. Prohibition... more

critic
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7 days ago
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146 comments

Sexual Hook Ups Damned By Chastity Groups, Hailed By New Feminists

"Today's first base is kissing ... plus fondling this and that. Second base is oral sex. Third base is going all the way. Home plate is learning each other's names."

So wrote Tom Wolfe in his 2000 book "Hooking Up" -- a term that describes a wide range of coupling from making out to intercourse.

For more than a decade, the "hookup" has been an integral part of the American college experience -- a result of the increased permissiveness that came with the sexual revolution of the 1970s.

Just recently at Harvard University -- sometimes pegged as "godless and liberal" -- the hookup culture came under fire, mostly from a small but growing abstinence group called True Love Revolution.

They argue that women who invoke a new kind of feminism -- the right to have sex whenever and with whomever they choose -- is demeaning to women.

"A popular thing to say among this intellectual crowd, in the ivies and in feminism in general, is to say that sex is empowering and a real woman uses her sexuality in any way she pleases," said Rachel Wagley, a 20-year-old sociology student who is TLR's co-president. "It's blatantly false and a lie that this culture tells to girls for their own benefit." Silpa Kovvali, a 21-year-old computer science concentrator, argued in a Harvard Crimson editorial that there is nothing "inherently degrading" about engaging in casual sex -- in fact, she said, it can be "empowering."

But chastity groups seem to be on to something -- a growing unease that although hooking up can be liberating, it can also be annoying and sometimes destructive.

"It's a huge part of life here," said Maariya Bajwa, a senior at the University of Florida. "When I used to take the bus I'd hear random people having conversations about random hook ups they had. I was like, 'Uh guys, we're on a bus. I don't need to hear about your one-night stands.'"

By the end of senior year, the average college student has had 6.9 hookups, mostly after a "good bit of drinking," according to a survey of 4,000 students at five universities by Stanford University sociology professor Paula England.

Her work revealed that while 24 percent of the respondents had reported never having hooked up, 28 percent had more than 10 such casual sexual encounters.

England, who set out to explore the dating habits of college students, found they were kissing, having oral sex and sometimes intercourse with "no expectation that either party has an interest in moving toward a relationship."

"There's a lot of degrading treatment of some women and it is empoweringly free for other women," she told ABCNews.com."Today's first base is kissing ... plus fondling this and that. Second base is oral... more

hpseaton
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10 days ago
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8 comments

Fifth grader refuses to pledge allegiance in name of GLBT rights

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy name Will Phillips has decided that he cannot in good conscience pledge allegiance to the flag as long as the country for which it stands refuses legal equality to its GLBT citizens.

The West Fork School District fifth grader clashed with a substitute teacher for his refusal to stand for the pledge, prompting a call to Will’s mother, Laura Phillips. When the principal acknowledged that Will has the right to refuse to say the pledge, Ms. Phillips asked that her son receive an apology--a request that the principal declined to honor.

...

Fairness in this case is more than a mere abstraction, since the family has a number of openly gay friends and has participated in GLBT equality events such as Pride parades. Will, who told the newspaper that he would like to pursue a career in law when he’s older, could not square the tenets of the pledge with the political realities faced by his family’s GLBT friends, whose family and individual rights are under constant challenge.

"I really don’t feel that there’s currently liberty and justice for all," said Will.

...

Moreover, Will’s stand for equal rights for gays has led those who disagree to attack him personally with anti-gay epithets: "In the lunchroom and in the hallway, they’ve been making comments and doing pranks, and calling me gay," Will said. "It’s always the same people, walking up and calling me a gaywad."

That hasn’t been easy for Will, who skipped fourth grade but seems older than his age, especially in contrast to some of his peers. Said Laura Phillips, "It’s really frustrating to him that people are being so immature."

The interviewer from The Arkansas Times asked Will what it means to be an American. The answer: "Freedom of speech. The freedom to disagree. That’s what I think pretty much being an American represents."

Read more: http://www.edgesanfrancisco.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=&sc3=&id=98884

See interview with Will: http://current.com/items/91467735_10-yr-old-wants-rights-for-gays-lesbians-or-he-wont-pledge-alliegance-to-the-flag.htmA 10-year-old Arkansas boy name Will Phillips has decided that he cannot in good... more

cccocanicola
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9 days ago
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176 comments

Is Marijuana Prohibition America’s ‘Berlin Wall’?

[Editor's Note: This essay was originally published on March 1st, 2009. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's deconstruction and the fall of Communism being recognized around the world this week, and with the ever-falling support for cannabis prohibition in America, this essay from NORML board member George Rohrbacher seems even more apropos today than last March.]

It is said that almost everyone in the marijuana law reform movement has a seminal moment they can point to when their public activism started. My moment was in the fall, six years ago.

I’m a past president of our local Kiwanis Club. I’ve been a member for years; we meet for breakfast at 6:30am, every Wednesday morning. My fateful “activism moment” was meeting face-to-face with one morning’s Kiwanis Club program, our town’s newly acquired dope dog. Some rock-ribbed citizen had left money in his will for the city to buy a dope dog for our town of 3,000, in a county of 18,000 people. The dog’s handler and the police chief were up at the speaker’s table. I had to fight back the urge to turn around and run.

As I sat down at my usual spot, ordered breakfast and clipped on my Kiwanis Club nametag, my heart was just racing! Thank God, my neck pain had not been severe enough that morning that it had required some marijuana medication, because, I imagined, triggered by the smell of freshly consumed ganja, that huge German Shepard would have leaped from the podium to pin me down to the floor, the dog’s sharp white teeth snarling and snapping at my throat.

As we went through club business about our kid’s reading program, ate breakfast and conducted the normal chit-chat that makes Kiwanis Club so enjoyable, I slowly calmed myself. I had not been found out as a marijuana user, yet. There was no need for me to panic, because the likelihood that I would be found out now by this agent of the state, was growing smaller and smaller by the moment. But, as the primal fear drained away, it started to piss me off; this dope dog was invading my space.

The dog handler got up and spoke glowingly about his charge, the alpha male of his litter. This dog had been born of a long and impressive pedigree in Baden-something, formerly East Germany. Looking at me from across the room was the pride of the jack-booted police state, the purebred German Shepard—smart, vicious, relentless.

The dog handler went chirping on, to mostly nodding heads, about what a fantastic dog he had and how many pot busts he had already made with it. Suddenly, all I could think was: This dog was born in East Germany, it’s father could have pulled someone down off the Berlin Wall…this dog’s great-grandfather would have marched the Jews or Gypsies to the ovens at Buchenwald or Auschwitz… And now, my own little town had a new resident from the same police dog gene pool that serviced the two most brutal totalitarian regimes in the history of the mankind!

Scenes from my childhood of when German Shepards attacked the Civil Rights marchers at Selma floated before my eyes… This well-groomed dog was a tool of the modern police state in all its scariest manifestations. The more I thought about it, the madder and madder I got.

I paid my breakfast bill and left in the first wave. I drove back out to the ranch and fed our cows their daily ration of hay, all the while mulling over my close brush with the dope dog. By the time I got done with my chores and back to the house, I absolutely had to do something! I picked up my telephone and called NORML, and I volunteered for the fight that very day…our fight for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”

Marijuana prohibition is a corrupt and evil social institution, just like the Berlin Wall was. For generations both have been symbols of the ruthless and relentless oppression of the state.., by the sheer weight of internal political http://blog.norml.org/2009/11/11/is-marijuana-prohibition-america%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98berlin-wall%e2%80%99/[Editor's Note: This essay was originally published on March 1st, 2009. In celebration... more

copperdragon
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10 days ago
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20 comments

Badass of The Day; Dojo of the Four Winds

"In the absence of the warrior-protector, the only way that a government can protect a... more

remanns
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11 days ago
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3 comments

Honoring The Constitution

Many are fighting for our country. A great way for you to help.... more

lynfreedom
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11 days ago
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0 comments

Ron Paul 11/9/2009 Healthcare ‘Reform’ Will Make a Flawed System Immeasurably Worse

11/9/2009 Ron Paul’s Weekly Update on Healthcare, Congress, Government, and the... more

shanklinmike
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11 days ago
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3 comments

The End of America, in the Middle of the Night

While normal everyday oblivious Americans were preparing their beds to sleep Saturday night their elected officials quietly passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Indeed, the passage of this act deals one of the final death blows to the Constitution and with it our liberties.

As I ponder upon this momentously horrid occurrence it is as if I have just woken up from a nightmare and been thrown directly into the plot of George Orwell’s 1984, with no hope of escape. As this thought grabs hold I am lead to ponder more and more about America and I ask myself a few questions.

Since when did the Constitution provide for a health care guarantee? Since when did the Constitution grant the Congress the power to force Americans into a health care dystopia? What good is a Constitution if we choose to ignore it? What good is a Constitution if the Congress simply chooses to create a new one in their own graven socialist image?

Truly, these questions are meaningless now. The Constitution is hanging by the tiniest of threads. Who will save it? Who will come to its rescue?

It is the everyday middle class American that will suffer the consequences of this travesty. Indeed, while the economy is reeling and unemployment pushes depression-era levels the arrogant Congress has decided to pass the biggest expansion of government in the history of the United States. It will create a new tax that will primarily be felt by the middle class, the ones most likely affected by the current depression. This is because as Americans are forced to purchase health insurance, the wealthy will have no problem paying for escalating costs. Nor will the poor feel the burden as they will receive government health insurance subsidies. Yet, the forgotten man will be the middle class working American who now already struggling against the burden of economic ruin will be forced to pay fines or even face possible jail time for not complying with our government’s take over of his/her health care. As this tax sinks in, the middle class will be forced downward into the ranks of the working poor and therefore into the ranks of government rationed medical care. Inevitably, government healthcare will swallow the whole of the medical insurance world and there will be no escape.

This dystopian vision will consist of patients waiting in long lines and when they are finally permitted to see their doctor there will be much fruitless begging and pleading for the treatment that they desperately need. But no mercy will be given because the doctor will have become nothing more than a desk-clerk, simply following the government treatment protocols.

“What, you have shoulder pain?” Your doctor asks. “Well, the treatment protocol for this condition provided by our majestic government says you have to wait two years to get a MRI or to see an Orthopedist. I am sorry. Here are a few pain pills. There is nothing more that I can do. Have a nice day.”

Such will be the conservation heard in doctor’s offices throughout America. Don’t believe me? I have personally lived in the socialist countries that we are now trying to emulate. This is the reality in these countries and the people there simply accept it and learn not to complain. We, in America, will also come to learn and accept over time what our benevolent government has chosen to grant us.While normal everyday oblivious Americans were preparing their beds to sleep Saturday... more

TheEmpireGuy
added this
12 days ago
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2 comments

Senate Candidate Dr Mike Beitler Speaks On Liberty Principles At Campbell U. 11/3/2009

11/3/2009 North Carolina Libertarian Senate Candidate Dr Mike Beitler spoke to... more

shanklinmike
added this
16 days ago
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1 comment

Remember, Remember The Fifth of November!

V's Speech from V for Vendetta www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/

lordsbassman
added this
17 days ago
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9 comments

Einstein: A Socialist?

A clear, concise and comprehensive case for socialism, written by Albert Einstein in 1949. He discusses our nature as both solitary and social beings, simultaneously conditioned by biological and cultural constitutions, and what this means for the individual's role in society. He then asks "how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible." The final passages prove particularly poignant in presaging the greatest atrocities committed by Soviet tyranny. The challenge: How is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Part of the answer may reside in bypassing the power of large bureaucracies through a decentralized system of democratic planning directed by workers' and consumers' councils. Moreover, with today's information communication technology, the capacity for mass collaboration and self-government/self-management has never been more viable and effective. Your thoughts?

An Excerpt:

"The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals...

(The) crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."A clear, concise and comprehensive case for socialism, written by Albert Einstein in... more