NJ Libertarian Blog
Imported from NJ Libertarian News from the published feed
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- Written by: William F Sihr
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the “Declaration of Independence” wrote that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This core philosophy, that would be used as both a rallying cry for our struggle against the British monarchy, as well as the inspiration for our Constitution literally says that “all men are created equal.” This beautiful and inspiring statement is not what the Founding Fathers meant. Women were not universally granted voting rights in the United States until 1920, and people of color, whether or not legally freed from their servitude, were not seen as equals. Even ‘whiteness’ is an oversimplification, as the Founders did not see all Europeans as equally ‘white’. A harsh truth that immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy and Ireland had to contend with when they came to our shores.
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- Written by: William F Sihr
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a name that lives in infamy within libertarian circles. With a Presidency spanning 3 terms, a World War and the record for the greatest number of Executive Orders ever issued, there is perhaps no other President that embodies such an antithesis to what we hold dear. Some go so far as to call him the President who brought us socialism, and you wouldn’t necessarily be mistaken. With his New Deal FDR instituted many socialist policies and greatly expanded the role of the State. However, if you ask a socialist about FDR, especially those around in the 30s and 40s they often spoke very ill of him. They argued that he cherry-picked the key positives in their plan in order to bolster his own new-liberal agenda (and yes, there is a difference between neo-liberal and socialism) without making the necessary systemic changes to actually “better” America. Or, in other words, he implemented surface level policies just enough to empower himself and his fellows, without actually changing how things really worked in America. From Social Security, the WPA and ending the Gold Standard FDR was able to secure the loyalty of disenfranchised Americans who were desperate for change and the wealthy financial elites who were looking for protection, all the while pulling the rug out from under American socialist efforts. Even today, our nation’s ideology and institutions seem almost stitched together with FRD’s New Deal, despite them being at odds and causing many issues, be they budgetary, ideologically or legally. Yet they remain in effect because they were reimagined as the “American Ideal”. En masse, most Americans experience no cognitive dissonance when they say “socialism is bad” while standing in line for a check from Uncle Sam.
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- Written by: Lana Leguia
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
New Jersey Libertarian Party members,
I am excited at the prospects for our candidates this year. Reflecting on my performance in 2024, I can confidently say that I did the best I could with the limited resources I had and the internal and external barriers I had to break through. I can also confidently say that given everything I have learned, the connections I have made and the experience I gained - there is plenty I could have done better. I am far from perfect. It is no secret that my priorities as a board member have always been what is best for the New Jersey Libertarian Party’s integrity and what is best for our candidates. Everything I have done up to this point and everything I plan to do in the future will be to elevate the NJLP and its candidates.
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- Written by: Steve Friedlander
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
The Libertarian Party needs to broaden its appeal in order to attract a wider spectrum of voters. It can do this by embracing classical liberal principles that are an integral part of America’s tradition. Its messaging should convey the idea that voting Libertarian is a vote for these time-honored principles. Even though most people may not be familiar with the term, classical liberal principles are quintessentially American and should appeal to a broad segment of the population.
- Classical liberalism is a tradition that grew out of the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries and was articulated by thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith among others. Their ideas of individual freedom, limited government, free trade, and democracy were embraced by America’s founding fathers and embodied in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Modern day libertarians should be “squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy.”[1]
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- Written by: Joseph Dunsay
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
July is mad pride month. This has personal meaning to me, because I am a mad person, a person who has been through the mental health system. Mad people in New Jersey face systematic discrimination from the state that can deprive them of their freedom without due process. They can be incarcerated and forcibly injected with drugs without ever being charged with a crime. In my experience, psychiatric wards are more comfortable than prisons and have better food, but they still have locked doors that prevent psychiatric patients from seeing loved ones or going about their daily lives. The drugs given to mad people involuntarily also have unpleasant side effects. Some of them can be quite dangerous. We should fight for the rights of mad people to live free of this coercive psychiatric system.
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- Written by: Christopher G. Russomanno
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
At the time of the founding of the United States of America, and at various times thereafter, there was much heated debate over whether the new nation should have a central or national bank. The founders had seen what havoc was wrought by the Bank of England, a central bank, and the detrimental effects it had on that nation and its empire by a devaluation of its currency which enabled the never-ending stream of wars in which it was involved. The founders also had a vivid memory of what happened when the government run colonial bank created rampant inflation by printing an infinite amount of paper money. Inflation is a hidden tax which robs people of the value of their money by devaluing the currency. This is used to pay for the government’s debts. Accordingly, there is no provision in the constitution for the creation of a central/national bank. Therefore, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) system of banking in the United States of America is unconstitutional because of its ability to print unlimited amounts of fiat currency, or paper money, thereby robbing people of the value of their dollar.
In determining the constitutionality of a central bank, with the ability to create unlimited amounts of paper currency, we can look to the constitution, our founding document, itself: “Article I Section 8 says that, The Congress shall have the power ... To coin money, regulate the value thereof ... and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures…To borrow Money on the credit of the United States.”1 In Pieces of Eight, Edwin Vieira explains in detail why the founders used such explicit language when writing this part of the constitution:
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- Written by: Mr. Christopher Fox
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
This past Sunday, February 19th of 2023, I took my son to the Rage Against the War Machine Rally. This is a follow up to a previous essay explaining why I was psyched about the idea that people from different political philosophies can coalesce to fight for one cause and the opportunity to hear many speakers I admire present their cases for peace. I was not disappointed.
But I did not go there for entertainment. I did not bring my son to Washington DC to see the sights or gain a better sense of the greatness of America. No. To the contrary, we came to Washington DC to protest.
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- Written by: Daniel Krause
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
With somber hearts, knowing that no verdict or punishment can bring back life that was taken, we are glad to see justice prevail in this case. George Floyd did not need to die. May his family and friends find peace.
Many who have lost a loved one to unnecessary police violence never get to see justice for the life that was cut too short. While the vast majority of law enforcement officers seek to do their jobs with respect and empathy, those who lose sight of the humanity in the people they are meant to serve and protect damage the relationship that civilians have with officers.
The Libertarian Party continues to support ending qualified immunity, which protects police officers when they abuse the authority they are given. Those who are given authority over others ought to be held to an even higher standard than what is expected of the general public. The Libertarian Party further recognizes that many of the tragic incidents involving police officers would not have happened had unnecessary laws not created a crime out of a peaceful act. For this reason, we strongly support abolishing victimless crimes such as drug possession, sex work, gambling and working without documentation or government licensing.
Let us not waste this moment, but act with intention now so that a more peaceful future can be possible.
Joe Bishop-Henchman
Chair, Libertarian National Committee
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- Written by: Alex Nowrasteh
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Alex Nowrasteh is the immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. |
The alleged murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by illegal immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez has reignited the debate over the link between immigration and crime. Such debates often call for change in policy regarding the deportation or apprehension of illegal immigrants. However, if policies should change, it should not be in reaction to a single tragic murder. It should be in response to careful research on whether immigrants actually boost the U.S. crime rates.
With few exceptions, immigrants are less crime prone than natives or have no effect on crime rates. As described below, the research is fairly one-sided.
There are two broad types of studies that investigate immigrant criminality. The first type uses Census and American Community Survey (ACS) data from the institutionalized population and broadly concludes that immigrants are less crime prone than the native-born population. It is important to note that immigrants convicted of crimes serve their sentences before being deported with few exceptions. However, there are some potential problems with Census-based studies that could lead to inaccurate results. That’s where the second type of study comes in. The second type is a macro level analysis to judge the impact of immigration on crime rates, generally finding that increased immigration does not increase crime and sometimes even causes crime rates to fall.
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- Written by: Alex Pugliese
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
There have been many men and women that have held prestigious positions in government. Some have served with honor and dignity, while others have by their actions disgraced the offices that they held. Some have remained humble and forthright, while others have abused the power their offices gave them. Some have upheld the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution, while others trampled upon them. And, some used their offices for their own self interests, while others remained faithful to the Oaths that were given to them. Eric Himpton Holder, Jr., you are an abomination to the Office of U.S. Attorney General.
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- Written by: Joe Siano
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
Gun control advocates of use the “well regulated” phrase in the Second Amendment as a pretext to assert that the government reserves the right to dictate what if any arms its citizens may own and under what conditions they are permitted to acquire, use and dispose of them
By employing textual criticism, this argument can be easily debunked.
Textual criticism involves understanding the words of antique documents in the sense that they were used in the era that the document was authored.
For instance if writer of century ago were to refer to the decade of the 1890s as the “gay ‘90s” or the capital of France as “gay Paris”, we understand that this has nothing to do with same sex relationships. Gay in this sense conveys the notion that this decade and this city were exuberant, happy and high spirited.
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- Written by: Joe Siano
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
The following are comments delivered by Joe Siano at the MLK Day Restoring Freedom's rally in Trenton on 1-21-13.
I have been asked to provide a libertarian perspective on this great man, Dr. King. I say “a” and not “the” because if you ask ten libertarians you will get ten different answers. Thus I am not empowered to speak on anyone’s behalf but my own.
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King stands alongside of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln as one of the few of American icons that the left, right and center lay claim to. As such, I am unashamed to also claim his legacy on behalf of those who hold liberty, personal responsibility and self governance to be the crown jewels of our American experiment.
Dr. King was first and foremost an advocate of nonviolence. Throughout h is struggles for civil rights and racial equality, he never believed that the end justified the means. He always insisted on a nonviolent path to the ends that he sought.
This approach harmonizes perfectly with the oath that we libertarians affirm upon joining the LP. That is:
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- Written by: Joe Siano
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Joe Siano is an NJLP Board Member. This article originally appeared at Today's News NJ. |
Critics of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies complain that they are fundamentally unfair. When the Fed creates new money, the first people to get their hands on it are the big fat cat bankers and their rich friends. Those fortunate few are then able to spend the new dollars first. However, by time this new money reaches Joe and Jane Six-pack, the flood of new currency will have inflated the money supply and raised prices. Thus Joe and Jane wind up paying more for the same stuff than the fat cats bought for cheap.
The obvious solution is to get the new greenbacks directly to the average guy and gal on the street. And the way to do that is with Currency.com an innovative new Treasury Department program modeled after the popular stamps.com which enables Postal customers to print stamps right at home, from their own computer, currency.com will allow average Americans to print legal tender in the comfort of their homes or offices.
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- Written by: Webmaster
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
Just for fun take the Authentic Libertarian Certification Exam. Be sure to read the directions first. Once done, if you are proud of your results post them in our forum. No cheating by doing research during the exam.
The exam is part of the Frederic Bastiat Interversity's Libertarian Certification Program developed by Michael Everling and Sam Wells.