Category Archives: Freedom

Comment of the Day

The following “Comment of the Day” from Rebecca was in response other comments responding to Brad’s satirical* post entitled: ‘Wendy’ Condemns Chick-fil-A President Remarks On Gay Marriage.

1. Attn: Bible-thumpers: If you haven’t read your Holy Book in the original un-pointed Hebrew and Aramaic, you have no idea what the Bible actually says. Also, if you haven’t read the Talmudic commentaries, or those of other respected Biblical scholars, you’re missing a lot of data that you kind of *need* to speak about what the Bible means with any authority.

2. “Traditional Marriage” is in the eye of the beholder, given that there are huge numbers of *freaky* “marriages” in the Bible, and given that historically marriage was a property, inheritance, procreative, or political arrangement for hundreds or even thousands of years before anyone came up with the notion of “romantic love” having anything to do with it. Moreover, traditionally, it was arranged for the children by the parents. Choosing your own spouse is an extremely modern twist on marriage.

3. Real and measuarable harm is done to LGBT individuals whose partnerships are not recognized by the state. No harm is done to your church if they marry, or if my church chooses to marry them. No harm befalls your family if theirs is united before God, or a judge. No one is going to make gay marriage mandatory.

4. Living your values is Freedom. Forcing others to live your values is Tyranny.

Comment by Rebecca — August 4, 2012 @ 10:25 am

Though I agree on all of Rebecca’s points, I believe that point 4 is the most important in terms of living in a free society.

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Doug Stanhope – Liberty (Re) Defined

Brad has posted a version of this comedy routine by Doug Stanhope before. This version has been edited to include images and video by Fr33 Agent Beau Davis with a more honest than the traditional “pledge of allegiance” at the close.

I thought that since today happens to be Flag Day, this video would be an important reminder about the true meaning of liberty albeit with an (at times) crude, comedic delivery. True liberty has nothing to do with a flag*, much less worship for the government for which it stands.

WARNING: some of the material in the video will be offensive as hell to some of you. Enjoy!

Related: The Un-American Pledge of Allegiance

*Of course the flag can mean different things to different people. I think it’s one thing to show appreciation for the flag with its original intended meaning by the founders and quite another to “pledge allegiance” to its government regardless of how hostile to freedom the government becomes. I seriously doubt that Thomas Jefferson (who advocated separating political bonds with any government that becomes hostile to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence BTW) or other founders would have ever pledged allegiance to the flag of the federal government.

Protecting and Serving Whom?

Today, I had the joy of observing an officer of the Newton Police force take a bad situation and make it worse.  The incident showed much that is wrong in the relationship between the common citizen and the government that is there to protect him or her. An elderly person had fallen and a police officer detained her, kept her on a brick side-walk so that EMT’s from an unwanted ambulance could check her out, an operation that blocked traffic and slowed it to a crawl on a major thoroughfare. » Read more

I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.

Tomasky: Kill personal freedom for government and crony capitalist well-being

Michael Tomasky penned a sickeningly ignorant and immoral piece in the Daily Beast… even more sickening than he considers sodas and 1/2 pound hamburgers. The most stomach-turning part:

We have this “liberty” business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the public good, God bless him, I say.

Got that? Individual freedom has to be balanced with the public good.

But, wait, you say, ain’t we the public? Not in Tomasky’s view:

The costs to the health-care system are enormous, so the public interest here is ridiculously obvious. Obesity is a killer. Are we to do nothing, in the name of the “liberty” that entitles millions of people to kill themselves however they please, whatever their diabetes treatments costs their insurers?

The health-care system is a hybrid crony capitalist/government enterprise. Health coverage in its current form exists because of myriad laws and regulations. Hospitals and clinics are highly regulated. Doctors and nurses must pass through regulated courses of education. In every way that matters, government has been driving for decades.

Washington has created a system where certain private, individual behaviors create a drag on the system. Therefore, it’s now in the “public interest” to limit commerce to discourage individual behaviors that cost the system money. Unlike with communicable diseases like tuberculosis, obesity inherently affects only the individual. The “public interest” here is entirely a construct of government.

Now, let’s restate Tomasky in a more truthful fashion:

We have this “liberty” business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the well-being of the government and crony capitalists, God bless him, I say.

I’d say those who are opposing this have ‘this “liberty” business’ quite right.

Reason.com has more on this.

Mao Yushi: An Inspiration for All Who Yearn to be Free

Last Friday, the Cato Institute honored dissident Chinese economist Mao Yushi with the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. Just a week prior, Mao, a consistent critic of Chinese government policies and advocate of both individual and economic liberty faced the possibility of being detained rather than being permitted to fly to Washington D.C. to receive the award in person and deliver his acceptance speech. By Tuesday, Cato confirmed in a press release that the Chinese government kept its word and allowed Mao to leave the country.

The first video tells Mao’s inspiring story:

The second video, the 2012 Milton Friedman Prize winner himself Mao Yushi delivers his acceptance speech.

Congratulations to Mao Yushi for earning this most prestigious prize for your life’s work in the advancement of human freedom. You sir, are an inspiration to us all.

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