Introducing the Liberty Papers

General

Over the past few days I’ve been teasing folks with very brief posts about “The Liberty Papers”. Well, the teasing is over. We are here and live.

So, now it seems that it’s time to introduce the Liberty Papers.

We are a group of people who hold some very specific beliefs. We believe that the theories of individual, inherent rights and government of what is now known as classic liberal theory are the correct political theory. We believe that failing to understand the reality of market economics, individual motivation, and politics leads to tragedy as the world has seen so many times over in Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, Cuba, France and many other places around the world. The Declaration of Independence is not just the document that told the British Crown that its American colonies were an independent nation. It is a Declaration that henceforth men would no longer be subject to oppressive government that traded their individual liberties and rights for the paternalism of government. It is the best single expression and declaration of the rights and responsibilities of the individual, including the source of the powers of government. We believe that the United States Constitution is the best attempt by man to take these ideas and turn them into practical, political reality.

All of us are experienced bloggers, we’ve written, in the aggregate, literally hundreds of thousands of words on a wide variety of topics. Always, though, there has been a steady theme of classic liberal belief running through those words. Some people, today, might call that set of beliefs “libertarian”, but there are differences between libertarians and classic liberalism. We are not pacifists, we are not libertines who merely want our vices to be legal. Most, if not all, of us believe that the use of drugs, for example, is a very bad idea, and one that creates issues for the individual, the family, the society. But, we believe the oppression that comes with dictating morals and personal behavior, through collective action and the law, is far worse, and far more destructive to society, than the use of narcotics. We are not anarchists. There is a legitimate purpose for government. Government derives its just powers from the consent of those who will be governed by it. In order to promote the ability of individuals to consent, we must provide a means for them to consent. That can be by the act of participating, by voting, by becoming part of the government. It can also be by the ability to move from one location to another in order to select a government that better fits the desires of the individual. And thus a system such as our Founding Fathers proposed, where the Federal government has extremely limited powers, just those needed at the national level, such as money and coin, national defense, treaty making and the like, while the states and the individuals retain all other power. Then, if you don’t like the government of California, you can move to Nevada, if it is more to your liking. Voting with your feet is a powerful mechanism for consent. Unfortunately, with the states emasculated and most power vested in our Federal government, this is no longer possible today.

So, why this blog? Our goal is a place where we can write on Liberty. We aim to be the place you come to when you want to read political thought from a classic liberal perspective. There’s many other places on the web you can go for freedom and liberty writing. You can visit Catallarchy for anarcho-capitalist writing, or Q And O for neo-libertarian writing (a blend, really, of neo-conservative and libertarian perspectives). So, we aim to be the place you go for liberal thought from a classic perspective. Expect to see a wide variety of writing, as we have a wide variety of contributors. If you look to the left side bar, you’ll see a list of our contributors. Each of them is introducing themselves and the list gives you a link to their introduction. Stop by and visit them, and you’ll find some interesting folks, all of whom are great writers.

We expect to have a lot of good content every day. With this many contributors, if each of us writes 2 to 3 good pieces a week, you are going to see a lot of content coming out. Some of it long, some of it short. One thing you can expect to see, I hope, is some longer liberty writing. Our goal is for the Liberty Papers to be the pre-eminent location on the web for writing on life, liberty and property. And that means that sometimes we need to write more than 800 to 1000 words, which is about the extent of what a blog entry can contain and be effective. We’ll publish those longer pieces as “Liberty Papers”, possibly in a PDF format as well as an HTML format.

So, come one, come all and visit The Liberty Papers. Tell your friends, while you’re at it. Link us, vist us, write about us, disagree with us, engage us in comments and dialogue.

TANSTAAFL

Theory and Ideas

What the heck is that word, it looks like something a deranged Russian Commie who’s had too much vodka would say. Well, it’s actually an acronym and it stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”. In other words, everything has a cost. The key to living life is to understand that statement and act accordingly. If you choose to tell your wife that you don’t like her new haircut there will be a cost to that action. Deciding not to tell her carries a cost as well. Every decision you make, or don’t make, carries a cost. If we decide that every child in the nation needs health insurance coverage and the government will provide it when the parents can’t there is a cost. The money for that must come from somewhere. Either other programs have to be cut back or taxes have to be raised or money has to be borrowed. Each of those choices has an impact as well.

The bottom line, everything has a cost associated with it. The pretzels in your favorite bar are free because they are salty and you will drink your beer faster and buy more beer, or maybe the owner factors the “free pretzels” into his overhead, which is applied to the cost of the beer before he sells it to you. I think every citizen should have to do the cost proposal for a bid for new business. They should have to build up the cost of an employee, including salary, bonuses, raises, floor space costs, computers and software, email, unemployment and social security insurance, benefits package, vacation, sick days and holidays and see just what it costs per employee. Then figure out how many employees in a given category they need to do a given amount of work for the company or government agency that requires the work to be done. Then figure out all of your other expenses, electricity, water, municipal, state and federal taxes, community improvement, charity donations, servers and software applications to enable the business and so on.

Now do that for something like unemployment benefits. Not only must the money for each and every unemployment check come from somewhere, but the money necessary to do the work. Either the government agency does the work, or it contracts it out to be done. Either way the cost is still there. And that money has to come from somewhere. TANSTAAFL.

If you want to be free you have to be willing to pay the price to defend your freedom. TANSTAAFL.

If you want the joy of having children (an awesome experience that I wholeheartedly recommend) you have to be willing to pay the monetary cost and the heartbreak and frustration that goes with them. TANSTAAFL.

If you want a job that pays $100,000 per year and has great benefits then you have to be willing to do something that is worth that much money to the employer. You may have to work more than 40 hours per week, pay for your own training, work for years at much lower wages to gain experience, travel away from home, etc. TANSTAAFL.

Everytime we forget this most basic rule we set ourselves up for really bad consequences (like a $400 billion a year deficit because both Democrats and Republicans refuse to admit there’s no free lunch). Or hurt feelings when your wife discovers that you really don’t like her new hairstyle but didn’t want to say so because she might get upset. Or not getting a pay raise because you aren’t willing to do anything for your employer above the bare minimum needed to keep your job.

It seems so obvious, yet so many of us forget it each and every day. TANSTAAFL is the corrollary to my other perennial favorite, personal responsibility. With these two principles you are armed to deal with the real world, not wishful thinking. Too bad the politicians in Washington, D.C. have tossed them right out the window.

Originally posted at Grumbles Before The Grave.

A Bit About Kevin

The Contributors

I am a 21 year old university student attending Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. My majors are history and political science. My politics are roughly classical liberal, like everyone else here, and I normally self-identify as a libertarian though I have been described and self-identify sometimes as a conservative. I believe the only legitimate use for government is to protect the rights to life, liberty, and property against those who seek to violate those rights.

My political experience is mostly in the Republican Party. From September 2004 until March 2005, I was the Director of Communications for the SLU College Republicans. Then in March, I became Assistant Minister of Truth for Bureaucrash and in April, became Minister of Operations until I left in September after Hurricane Katrina.

I believe that our Founding Fathers were the continuation of much older and broader trend toward liberty that began in Classical Greece and Rome, developed further in Britain, and was exported throughout the Anglosphere and blossomed into our own revolution and successful (so far) Republic. I also believe that the way to preserve the libertarian-conservative alliance is for us to rediscover our Anglosphere perspective that yes calls for a strong civil society including families and other voluntary community and cultural institutions, but at the same time supports the free market, individual liberty, and keeping these institutions voluntary.

Other than writing, I enjoy listening to both new and classic rock, reading great writers like Clancy, Heinlein, Pournelle; playing strategy games on my computer, debating history and politics with my friends, shooting my Mosin-Nagant 91/30 and .22, and occassionally watching baseball and football.

My other blog is Louisiana Libertarian where I write about everything from foreign policy to heckling the idiots, lunatics, populists, and socialists who run Louisiana.

Carnival of Liberty XXI

Carnivals

Carnival of Liberty XXI is up at Left Brain Female’s blog this week. This is one of the best weeks ever. Some of the writing, from such folks as Warren Meyers, Eric Raymond, Brad Warbiany and many others, is absolutely fantastic thinking on individual rights and liberties, freedom of speech, intellectual property and more. I can’t pick out any one favorite, go check it all out.

Who is Kay?

The Contributors

Wife, Mother, Political “Junkie”, Teacher, Daughter, Sister, Friend, Photographer . . . Not necessarily in that order! As a home-schooling mom, I wear a lot of hats.

I’m Kay (known to some of you as Left Brain Female), a 40-something who loves her life, family, and freedom. In my work life before children, I was a secretary, sales representative, catering manager, reservations manager, typographer & editor. In my personal life before children, I was a student pilot, amateur actress, genealogist and bookworm. My widely varied background has translated fairly well to being a stay-at-home mom. I no longer fly (never did get my pilots license – I was young and it became cost prohibative – but I did solo a few times). I’m no longer involved in little theater (although that could change one day), I still love genealogy and have traced my family history back to the 1500’s in early America. I don’t read as much as I used to read, and I tend to be more familiar these days with children’s authors than others. I generally prefer great literature rather than bubble-gum non-nutritional junk food for the mind, and I’m trying to instill that preference in my daughters, who at 9 and 11 enjoy reading and learning about history.

My hubby, Tony (aka SurfinDaddy) is a 50-something who enjoys surfing (having grown up about two blocks from the beach) and rather than be a surf widow, when the waves are good, we go with him to play on the beach and I do some amateur surf photography. Tony is very laid-back and has patiently listened to me over the years as I’ve ranted over political issues that irritate me – and in the process has become a great sounding board as well. He often helps to congeal my thoughts into something a bit more cohesive – and encourages me to put them in writing. Funnily enough, he loves surfing, but cannot go shopping for his sportswear! So for his support, I help him find his Plus Size Wetsuits. Fortunately, I love internet surfing and can easily find a website (like Buy4Outdoors) that has the right size and material he needs.

I became a real computer geek after I quit my job when our youngest was born – I’ve built and maintained several computers and played around with a number of websites. I really got inspired after 9/11 and the Iraq War began to try to see if there were anything I could do to make a difference. Bloggers 4 Freedom was born of that thought, and while it hasn’t set the world on fire, it certainly helped with my mental attitude – just the act of “doing something” is cathartic for me.

While my family attends church regularly, and I am daughter of a minister, you won’t hear a lot from me on the subject of Christianity. For one thing, it was (and is) ingrained in me that talk is cheap – and actions speak louder than words. Words are powerful – but only if they’re directed at someone who is interested in hearing what you have to say – and as most people are not looking to be “converted” to anyone’s way of thinking, my personal credo is that in the public forum, God doesn’t need me to open my mouth to anyone – He just expects me to conduct my behavior in such a way that others will see and glorify Him. And believe you me, when I don’t, I suffer the pangs of my own transgressions. And, politically, there are a number of so-called Christian “hot-buttons” that I refuse to touch, because, frankly, I don’t believe they have any business in politics. So while I may personally hold strong feelings about the morality of those issues, don’t expect to see me asking the government to legislate on them.

So you see, I’m very much on the side of the Sovreign Individual be it Libertarian, Rational Anarchist, or whatever you choose to call it.

1 … 938 939 940 941