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Race, Climate, Islam, and WWIII – Libertarian Institute Roundtable

Race, Climate, Islam, and WWIII – Libertarian Institute Roundtable

…[W]e now have the first complete data set of all suicide terrorist attacks around the world from 1980 to 2009,…research on who becomes a suicide terrorist showed that virtually none could be diagnosed as mentally ill, while many were religious and, most striking, nearly all emerged from communities resisting foreign military occupation….

From 1980 to 2003, there were 345 completed suicide terrorist attacks by 524 suicide terrorists who actually killed themselves on a mission to kill others, half of whom are secular. The world leader was the Tamil Tigers (a secular, Hindu group) who carried out more attacks than Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) during this period. Further, at least a third of the suicide attacks in predominantly Muslim countries were carried out by secular terrorist groups, such as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey. Instead of religion, what over 95% of all suicide terrorist attacks before 2004 had in common was a strategic goal: to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces that are threatening territory that the terrorists’ prize. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to the West Bank to Chechnya, the central goal of every suicide terrorist campaign has been to resist military occupation by a democracy….

It was the Hindu, avowedly antireligious Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, whose 157 suicide terrorists totaled more than Hamas and all other Palestinian suicide groups combined. Of the Palestinian suicide terrorists, more than a third were from secular groups, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Of the suicide terrorists associated with Hezbollah in Lebanon during the 1980s, only 21% were Islamic fundamentalists while 71% were communists and socialists; 8% were Christians. In Turkey, 100% of the PKK’s suicide attackers were secular. Overall, Islamic fundamentalism cannot account for over half of the known affiliations of the 524 total suicide terrorists from 1980 to 2003—184 were from Islamic fundamentalist groups (35% comprising 73 Al Qaeda, 5 Lebanese, 5 Kashmiri Rebels, 69 Hamas, 34 Palestinian Islamic Jihad) and 236 from secular groups (45% comprising 157 Tamil Tigers, 42 Al-Aqsa, 22 Lebanese, 15 PKK), while 12 (21%) had unknown ideological affiliations….

Further, notice that there are no suicide attackers from Iran—one of the largest Islamic fundamentalist populations in the world, with a population greater than Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Syria combined.

– Robert Pape and James K. Feldman, Cutting the Fuse

My Body My Choice: Abolish the FDA

My Body My Choice: Abolish the FDA

 

If you visit FDA.gov you will find a section titled “products we regulate”. Such products include: food, drugs, medical devices, tobacco, cosmetics, and vaccines.

The word “regulate” in this case translates to “we have a legal monopoly on what consenting adults can sell and put in their bodies. If someone does not obey our arbitrary standards they will be arrested by the police, separated from their families, and shot if they resist the police.”

I have nothing against voluntarily funded stamp of approval agencies such as Underwriters Laboratory since people can choose to opt out of associating with them if they don’t think they are credible. The FDA brags about having standards, but the second someone says “the FDA doesn’t meet my standards I’m going around them”, the FDA cries foul. There are hundreds of these voluntary professional certification organizations each competing for consumers with their reputations.

Either competent adults own themselves or someone else, the state, owns their bodies.

Anyone who advocates the principle of “my body my choice” must consistently reject the existence of the Food and Drug Administration.

They cry of every imperialist is “I forcibly control you for your own good!”. If it was really for our own good, they would respect our right to trade and consume without their permission.

Marco Rubio is Dumber Than I Thought

Marco Rubio is Dumber Than I Thought

After spending six years complaining about “BigTech Monopolies” Marco Rubio now want’s to ban BigTech competitors.

It doesn’t matter that tens of millions of Americans voluntarily choose to use TikTok, or that thousands make a living using this product.

Marco Rubio believes he owns your body, your time, and the property you worked to acquire.

The American Declaration of Independence answer to TikTok: If people don’t want the app, they have the right not to use it. If people want to use it, they can.

My phone my choice, my time my choice, my body my choice, & my money Slavery Lover Rubio.

I look forward to Rubio banning all companies in bed with the Biden Regime & the NSA!

Could TikTok get BANNED in America?! Marco Rubio EXPOSES the CPP’s true plot of viral spyware app

pic.twitter.com/CMpHbc1vIR

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 15, 2022

The Secret to Seeing Through “News” Propaganda!

The Secret to Seeing Through “News” Propaganda!

Excerpt from Knowledge, Reality, and Value: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy by Michael Huemer, Ph.D.

Credulity
Humans are born credulous – we instinctively believe what people tell us, even with no corroboration. We are especially credulous about statistics or other information that sounds like objective facts. Unfortunately, we are not so scrupulous when it comes to accurately and non-misleadingly reporting facts. There is an enormous amount of disinformation in the world, particularly about politics and other matters of public interest. If the public is interested in it, there is bullshit about it.
I have noticed that this bullshit tends to fall into three main categories.

First, ideological propaganda. If you “learn” about an issue from a partisan source – for instance, you read about gun control on a gun control advocacy website, or you hear the day’s news from a conservative radio show – you will get pretty much 100% propaganda. Facts will be exaggerated, cherry picked, deceptively phrased, or otherwise misleading. Normally, you will have no way of guessing the specific way in which the information is deceptive, making the information essentially worthless for drawing inferences.

Second, sensationalism. Mainstream news sources make money by getting as many people as possible to watch their shows, read their articles, and so on. To do that, they try to make everything sound as scary, exciting, outrageous, or otherwise dramatic as possible.

Third, laziness. Most people who write for public consumption are lazy and lack expertise about the things they write about. If a story has some technical aspect (e.g., science news), journalists probably won’t understand it, and they may get basic facts backwards. Also, they often just talk to one or a few sources and print whatever those sources say, even if the sources have obvious biases.

 

Putting Massive Unnecessary Obligations on Strangers Does Not Make You a Good Person

Putting Massive Unnecessary Obligations on Strangers Does Not Make You a Good Person

The true humanitarian rejoices when the people he helps feel ready to assert their independence and to strike out on their own; for isn’t this independence essential to being truly human?

– Dr. Murray N. Rothbard, Left and Right, pp. 307–08

 

Government is the very negation of charity, for charity is uniquely an unbought gift , a freely fl owing uncoerced act by the giver.

– Dr. Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1228

 

… it is hardly “charity” to take wealth by force and hand it over to someone else. Indeed, this is the direct opposite of charity, which
can only be an unbought, voluntary act of grace. Compulsory confiscation can only deaden charitable desires completely, as the wealthier grumble that there is no point in giving to charity when the State has already taken on the task.

– Dr. Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1319

Walter Grinder, 1938-2022

I note with great sadness the passing of my friend and former colleague Walter Grinder on Dec. 4. He was 84. Walter may be the most important libertarian that most libertarians have never heard of.

Although he made important contributions to the literature of liberty (such as his work with John Hagel on the far-reaching destructive effects of state intervention in money and banking and his introduction to Albert Jay Nock’s classic, Our Enemy the State), he devoted his professional activities primarily to keeping libertarian scholars and writers informed about a wide range of literature relevant to understanding liberty. His interests covered the broadest range of disciplines, including history, political philosophy, and economics. He also helped to advance the intellectual careers of many libertarian students by putting them in contact with established academics who had similar research interests. Thus he helped the students navigate the treacherous graduate-school waters in which advocates of individualism and free markets can be at a disadvantage. In the process, he himself mentored countless students who have gone on to become accomplished professors and public intellectuals.

Over many years he did this largely unseen work at the Institute for Humane Studies, where I worked in the late 1980s. For me, one of the great joys of that job was being able to talk with Walter regularly. He was so well-read and was always so reasonable that I wouldn’t have thought to undertake a writing project without talking to him first. Like his friend and colleague Leonard Liggio, he was a walking multidisciplinary bibliography. I met Walter more than a decade earlier at one of the first conferences of the old Center for Libertarian Studies. Then in 1978 I attended a Cato Institute summer seminar at which he lectured on central banking and other topics. Those lucid, erudite, and passionate lectures helped inspire my decision to leave newspaper reporting and become a full-time libertarian writer.

Unfortunately, Walter had long been plagued by bad health, but when he finally retired from IHS, he kept up his breakneck pace of looking out for and assimilating new and old important works relevant to liberty and making them known to his large email list of scholars, authors, and other liberty enthusiasts. He helped each of those individuals (me included) immensely. Despite his physical impediments, Walter’s optimism and determination never seemed to diminish, I often wondered how he possibly kept at it.

Walter will be missed by the many, many people he helped and inspired. He will be missed not only because of what and whom he knew but also because of who he was: a thoroughly decent, kind, and good-natured family man. He profoundly affected all who knew him at that level. He was a pleasure to be around.

My heartfelt condolences to the Grinder family, which includes grandchildren.

For more on Walter Grinder, see Alberto Mingardi’s appreciation. For Walter’s perspective on subjectivism in economics, I recommend his introduction to the collection he edited of Ludwig Lachmann’s writings, Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process.

 

Kyle Kulinski Doesn’t Understand Slavery

Kyle Kulinski Doesn’t Understand Slavery

UBI = Slavery.

Social Security = Slavery.

Universal Healthcare = Slavery.

Wage Slavery = FREEDOM.

– Kyle Kulinski (@seculartalk)

If “wage slavery” is in fact slavery, Kulinski and the like must advocate abolishing College since it requires thousands of hours of work for $0.00 an hr.

My “wage slave owners” voluntarily offer me money, products, and services. My body my choice pal.

Kulinski and other taxation advocates believe you and I should be caged and separated from our families by the police if we don’t chip in for wars based on lies, schools which after 12 years turn people into morons, and welfare schemes which do not alleviate poverty.

Who is my enemy here?

If, for example, someone has a “right” to housing, and housing comes only from the knowledge, skills and efforts of other people, it means that one person has the right to force another person to build him a house.

– Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition (p. 117)

When libertarians say “UBI, Social Security, and state monopolized medicine” are slavery, we mean one group (the state) is literally claiming ownership over the bodies of other peaceful human beings. 

If the state catches you voluntarily trading without a license or working without an “occupational” license they will put you in a cage and shoot you if you resist. This is some people, literally claiming ownership over the bodies of others.

Needing 100 licenses to follow your dreams = Helping the poor!

Needing a drives license to vote = Evil, racist, classist, sexist, voter suppression!

Also, how can Kulinski use the term “universal healthcare” with a straight face? The state controls education, does that mean everyone is smart? The state controls the courts, does this yield “universal” justice? The state control the police, does this bring about “universal” security? The state controls the military, does this give us “universal” protection?

Sectors with the most government subsidization and regulation yield less competition thus higher prices. He hurts the very people he thinks he’s helping.

That said I am grateful that Mr. Kulinski is an avid anti-war voice. He has an open invitation onto the Libertarian Institute podcast.

Free association… the only true form of society.

– Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

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