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Are They Disarming You For Your Own Good Or Just To Save Their Own Skins From Fed Up Citizens?

Published on in Activism/Free Market/Media/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
Disarming you for your own good or saving their own skins from disillusioned citizens?

What was the explicit reason that our liberty-leaning founders declared as the purpose for the second amendment right to bear arms? Isn’t the silence deafening on the part of our esteemed leaders in response to this question? Didn’t our founding forefathers explicitly state that first imperative for the right to bear arms is to protect ourselves from tyrannical governments?

What are the top ten commandments of tyrannical institutional authoritarian governments?

What is the first thing that tyrannical governments do? Violate the second amendment by disarming us?

What is the second thing that tyrannical governments do? Tax the hell out of us to fund their monopoly over the use of force?

What is the third thing that tyrannical governments do? Tell us that they are disarming and taxing us for our own good and the good of the economy, while conveniently avoiding the fact that disarming us is really for their own good to save their own skins from disillusioned citizens?

Now that government has partially succeeded in disarming us and selectively impoverished us through taxes, what is the fourth thing that tyrannical governments do? Do they stifle our first amendment right to free speech threatening us with force using their monopoly over arms and subjecting us to legal, tax, and regulatory harassment? Exclude us from selective preferences offered only to those who go along with their rights violations and use free-lunch entitlements as bait? Jail us at a world-leading incarceration rate based on invented or victim-less ‘crimes’? Use asset forfeiture, when they can get away with it, to expand their power and feather their own nests?

What is the fifth thing that tyrannical governments do? Jump at every opportunity to get involved in long-winded foreign entanglements? Tax the hell out of us to fund their wars and that require lucrative incentives for military slavery, but with the real underlying intent to gloss over their economic and leadership failures?

What is the sixth thing that tyrannical governments do? Impose protectionist regulations, subsidies, and tariffs that favor their cronies and strangle our economy while they ‘fiddle while Rome burns’ and maximize their own personal wealth with no thought to the future and damage to our economy, society, and way of life?

What is the seventh thing that tyrannical governments do? Use xenophobic nationalism to fuel populist support for blatantly protectionist violations of individual rights?

What is the eighth thing that tyrannical governments do? Leave our society vulnerable to fascist and socialist inroads and the associated threat of dictatorship by promoting class warfare, xenophobia, racial divisiveness, insular protectionist economics, and pitting all of us against each other in the food fight for crony preferences pandered in exchange for political support and votes?

What is the ninth thing that tyrannical governments do? Implement pervasive paranoid privacy invasions enabled by disarming us at every turn with the unspoken motive of protecting their own skins from disgruntled fed-up citizens?

What is the tenth thing that tyrannical governments do? Have the audacity and effrontery to tell us that the above nine commandments are necessary for our own good and represent a pure-hearted altruistic expression of their self-sacrifice for the good of all? Yikes?

Friends, do you buy into the above ten tyrannical government commandments? Is there anything that governments can do for us that we can’t do better for ourselves voluntarily in the private sector or commercially in the free market? Have you too come to the illuminating conclusion that governments have ALWAYS existed for the benefit of those who govern?

If you do not buy into the ten commandments of institutional authoritarian tyrannical government, is now the time for you to personally make a New Decade’s Resolution?

In 2020, are you ready to take the bull by the horns and reject all the evil facets of tyrannical government, starting with the defeat or repeal of all gun laws that disarm innocent victims?

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, January 1, 2020

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December 29, 2019 Texas Church Shooting: How Can Gun Law Advocates Ignore Life Saving Benefits of Concealed Carry?

Published on in Activism/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
Who Benefits From Disarming Innocent Victims?

Click the following link to view a dramatic video of the December 29, 2019 church shooting that starkly illustrates the benefits of concealed-carry armed citizens that probably saved the lives of countless potential parishioner victims, as opposed to the naked threat posed by gun-law advocates in their misguided at best attempts to disarm innocent victims in gun-free zones. Note that my “misguided at best” characterization intentionally infers the possibility of misrepresented motives aimed at taking away our freedoms to feather their own nests.

https://imgflip.com/i/37mex7…A gunman who opened fire and killed two people at a Texas church on Sunday was shot and killed by an armed member of the church.About this websiteABCNEWS.GO.COMVideo: Texas church shooting caught on livestreamA gunman who opened fire and killed two people at a Texas church on Sunday was shot and killed by an armed member of the church.

After viewing the video linked above, you will understand my motivation for the following postscript to my August 9, 2019 Facebook post below.

All eight questions in my earlier August 9th post are directly or indirectly relevant to the church shooting that occurred yesterday (December 29,019) in Texas.

Miraculously, only three people died, including the shooter. Do you wonder why the explanation for the reduced body count has been conveniently downplayed or ignored by most of the traditional press who are in the pockets of today’s ‘politics as usual’ public officials? What will the socialist-leaning Teachers’ Union have to say, if anything, about the moral of this story that flies in the face of gun-law advocates?

Here is my postscript written today, following the December 29th Texas church shooting yesterday. This postscript continues with questions 9 through 15, building on where I left off in questions numbered 1 through 8 posed in my August 9th post copied following this postscript:

9. How can we ignore the fact that only three died in yesterday’s Texas church shooting, thanks to a host of concealed-carry volunteer security guards and parishioners who promptly silenced the shooter in less than six seconds and saved the lives of 242 more potential victims.

10. How can we ignore the fact that the traditional media has given short shrift to this clear example of how armed citizens can drastically reduce the large numbers of mass shooting fatalities that occur in government-mandated gun-free zones?

11. How can we ignore the fact that traditional media is more concerned about the newsworthiness of high body counts in gun-free zones rather than reduced body counts due to intervention by armed citizens intent on protecting their friends, loved ones, and many other potential innocent victims?

12. How can we ignore the fact that soft-headed progressive liberals and their traditional media mouthpieces are actually contributing to increased mass shooting body counts as a result of their emotional foggy-brained gun-control nonsense that is really a smokescreen to get votes for their socialist-leaning candidates?

13. How can we ignore the fact that protection of strong-arm government officials and law-enforcement killers of innocents from retaliatory measures by disillusioned citizens is the real motive for gun-law advocates who hide behind the skirts of misdiagnosed and/or deliberately misrepresented mass shooting causes and solutions?

14. How can we ignore the fact that the moral of this dramatically reduced church shooting tragedy yesterday in Texas is the fact that the solution to mass shootings and other violent crimes is to recognize our second amendment rights that are intended to protect us from tyrannical government?

15. How can we ignore the fact that citizens can readily take the bull by the horns instead of relying on over-burdened and often out-of-control law enforcement, arm themselves, and protect their loved ones far better than so-called government ‘defenders of the peace’, and their enforcers, whose ulterior motive is gaining more power and feathering their own nests?

Reiterating with annotations for emphasis:

Shame on [politicians, progressive liberals, traditional media, and gun-control advocates] for trying to pull the wool over our eyes [just to get more votes and power over us].

Shame on us for being so gullible.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 30, 2019

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August 9, 2019 Facebook post:

The politically motivated hysterical rush to take guns away from citizens and disarm innocent victims deserves an objective examination. Here are some questions that strike me as obvious no-brainers ignored by both the media and those that make political hay and seek more personal power by jumping on the bandwagon of disarming not just criminals but also the rest of us that might threaten their political power ambitions:

1. How can we ignore the fact that gun violence continues to steadily decline?

2. How can we ignore the fact that most mass shootings take place in gun-free zones?

3. How can we ignore the fact that it is impossible to disarm bad actors without resources and manpower required for an oppressive police state that would be a far worse threat to our freedoms than the shooters that the power seekers purportedly want to protect us from?

4. How can we ignore the fact that providing adequate official protection in gun-free zones would require a police state that we cannot afford either financially or politically not to mention the inevitable and far worse threat to our freedoms?

5. How can we ignore the fact that disarming innocent victims will only create more victims?

6. How can we ignore the fact that the only practical means to protect innocent victims are concealed-carry and arming ourselves?

7. How can we ignore the fact that gun laws are not intended to protect us and are merely a smoke screen for self-aggrandizement by power-seeking authorities?

8. How can we ignore the fact that protecting us from ourselves is the standard excuse used by power seekers, dictator wannabees, and all forms of collectivism around the world?

Shame on them for trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Shame on us for being gullible.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 30, 2019

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Will Armchair Libertarians Become Proactive Followers And Leaders By Example?

Published on in Activism/Free Market/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack

Calling all armchair Libertarians to embrace a challenging new role as a Libertarian leader or follower by example.

Tired of being just another armchair Libertarian? Are you ready to be a Libertarian leader by example? If you are an upwardly mobile armchair Libertarian, are you willing to proactively explore with an open mind the many exciting options available to Libertarian leaders by example?

If you don’t like politics, will you support the private sector? Better yet, will you join the growing list of entrepreneur and innovator heroes that will lead the way for the next generation of Libertarian leaders by example.

If politics is your thing, show up, get involved, and make a difference. Don’t seek authority over others for authority’s sake or merely getting elected for the same reason. Inspire with leadership by example. Make and keep commitments. Take the bull by the horns. Collaborate with other like-minded folks to magnify your individual human resource assets. Get stuff done.

If you don’t like how others pursue freedom, march to your own drummer. It will take all kinds. Create your own innovative solutions. Take responsibility for being the motor of the world. Earth, or wherever you choose to hang out, will be a better place for your proactive creativity and follow-through.

Is leadership not for you today but rather a role you are building toward in the future? How about learning the ropes today in a role of follower by example, the preliminary stage for many if not all leaders by example?

Most of us are both leader and follower depending on the situation at hand and the skills we bring to the table. Without the individual flexibility between leader and follower, our society would not function nearly as well as it does, especially in light of the ever growing magnitude of government impediments.

Regardless of whether your path to freedom is the free market, movement participation, running for office, or independent activism, freedom for all of us will come sooner if you get involved and get stuff done. Another benefit of taking the bull by the horns is that your complaints will be taken more seriously when you contribute to solutions.

Freedom for you and all of us depends on those who show up. Let’s put the pedal to the metal as we journey down the roads to freedom, nothing more, nothing less, for all people. Leaders and followers by example will light the torch of freedom and show us the way.

You too can be a Libertarian for the ages, a heroic Libertarian leader by example that inspires much-needed followers by example.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 24, 2019

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Announcing Freedom Magazine’s First Amendment Free Speech Candidate Forum

Published on in Activism/Candidate/Opinion/Politics

Have you wondered about Freedom Magazine’s editorial position on first amendment free speech rights? Read on.

In the spirit of transparency, the staff of Freedom Magazine has a decidedly radical Libertarian flavor. However, Freedom Magazine was conceived as a voice for free speech within the limits of common decency and collegiality.

We are opening our doors to candidate submissions not only from the Libertarian Party but from all political parties. Censorship is not our nature. We join our readers in the desire to learn from opposing views.

The purpose of the forum is to be a megaphone for the voices of a wide range of candidates limited only by a few common sense constraints detailed in the following paragraphs.

We will, however, out of logistical necessity, filter articles based on standards that take into account the level of originality, innovation, and outside-the-box thinking. We will be looking for thoughtful advances to policy, philosophy, economics, and governance, regardless of whether we agree with the candidate’s positions.

We emphatically welcome diverse points of view presented sincerely. Ad hominem attacks on other candidates will be rejected. Xenophobia and blatant ‘ends justifies means’ propaganda will be discouraged. Due diligence support of arguments will be encouraged.

Submissions should focus on your voice and what you, the candidate, have to offer. Transparency and willingness to look at other points of view will be embraced with open arms.

Again, welcome to the Freedom Magazine candidate forum. We challenge you to enlighten our readers. Submissions can be sent to david.demarest@r2ff.org until a candidate forum email address is announced.

Yours truly may be part of the review process but will forward your submissions to other members of our remote staff for their review. Realistically, most of the review process will focus on format suggestions to pass on to the candidate before publication.

Submission length is somewhat flexible, roughly between 250 and 1000 words. Although yours truly is not noted for missive brevity, concise articles will be appreciated and may increase readership of your submissions.

Associated memes are not required but are strongly encouraged given our online format. Your text is most important but a picture is worth a thousand words and will increase the impact of your submission. Our editorial staff can help with meme generator suggestions.

To repeat, please submit your candidate articles via email to david.demarest@r2ff.org.

Submissions will be prioritized first come first serve subject to relative evaluation rankings based on innovative and thoughtful content. All things being equal, first come first serve will be given first consideration, particularly on articles with commensurate rankings.

Evaluation rankings will not be biased based on political affiliation. The editorial staff may respond to specific points with an op-ed dedicated to a specific topic, but that is not the purpose of the candidate forum.

The candidate forum is designed explicitly to be a first amendment voice for candidates, not the editorial staff who have other forums and columns available to them to voice their ideas and opinions. We will welcome and learn from the diversity of your candidate submissions.

Non-candidate articles on a variety of topics to supplement our resident staff columns will also be welcomed with open arms within the common sense constraints delineated above. More to come as we expand our authoring options.

Freedom Magazine is the first amendment free speech voice for your definition of liberty!

Thoughts?

David Pratt Demarest, December 22, 2019



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When Do Politicians Get Rich? Vote Instead With Your Wallet in the Free Market?

Published on in Activism/Free Market/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
When did the politician get rich? Before elected or while in office?

Next November, who will you vote for?



1. A billionaire turned politician?

2. A politician who got rich while in office?

The way I look at it, a billionaire turned politician can be good or bad. Most politicians are bad, but a politician who gets rich while in office raises a huge red flag.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer to leave the politicians to their own devices and out-compete the authoritarian bastards and their government social service monopolies by building better competitive social services in the free market where we don’t have to elect corruptible power-seeking representatives.

Free markets are the only true direct democracies where we vote with our wallets and win-win mutually-beneficial agreements in trillions of transactions every day. Ever wonder why free markets have never failed over the entire history of mankind while even the best governments typically fail in less than 200 years? Hmmm.

The U.S. is approaching its 250th birthday. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to read between the lines and see that we are accelerating toward bankruptcy, mud-hut socialist conformity, and misery punctuated by endless wars and violence.

I support political candidates, especially if they are independently wealthy, as long as they are champions of freedom and free markets. However, except for one third party, champions of freedom are harder to find than a needle in a haystack. Billionaires enriched by being in bed with government are thicker than fleas and easy to find under every crony blanket.

Politics brings out the worst in us, especially in our elected officials and their appointed cronies. Nevertheless, we have a golden opportunity to set the stage for a freedom political solution by first putting government social service monopolies out of business.

The door is wide open as government monopolies fall all over themselves to price their coercive social services out of business. Following the repeal of the individual mandate, Obamacare has rapidly become an economic eyesore and is being out-competed by higher-quality cash-basis healthcare at a fraction of the cost.

Obamacare promised to cutt premiums in half. Guess what, premiums doubled. Yikes! The good news is that the painful failures of government social services have opened the door to better competitive private-sector solutions.

Other government social service monopolies are persistently following suit on the economic failure of Obamacare. the failing monopolies include the public education cartel, social entitlements, the military, drug-war and immigration law enforcement, courts of law, NASA, and regulatory agencies, just to name a few.

Fellow freedom lovers and entrepreneurs, the window of opportunity is wide open to achieve personal success and build a robust free-market economy that will benefit everyone, including corrupt officials as we either help them clean up their acts or boot their butts back into the private sector where they will have to work for a living.

How about you? Will you be dragged kicking and screaming into freedom? Or do you have the courage to take the bull by the horns, dip your toes in, and test the entrepreneur waters?

Regardless, come on in. Leave today’s power-corrupted politicians and their cronies behind. The freedom and free-market waters are just fine.

You too can be a hero by setting an example in the free market. That, in turn, will set the stage for the ascendance of future political champions of liberty and an enduring destiny of freedom, nothing more, nothing less, for all people.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 21, 2019

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Refreshing Libertarian Message? Which Party Do You Trust?

Published on in Activism/Business/Free Market/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans? It’s not rocket science. Don’t we know that the Donkeys and Elephants stand for disgusting politics as usual capped off by a two-ring impeachment circus magnified by the corrupt cronyism-riddled traditional media in the pocket of political hacks?

So, who would you trust, a used car salesman or an impeachment-armed political hack? I know, we all make fun of used car salesmen. But can we be honest with each other? Wouldn’t you trust almost anyone, including a used car salesman, more than a political hack playing impeachment games? Doesn’t their political nonsense and impeachment charade remind you of the evil authorities in the ‘Hunger Games’?

Well, let’s see? What butters your bread, puts food on the table, and rewards you with the pride of achievement and the ability to take responsibility for your own welfare? More politics as usual with an impeachment circus as icing on the cake?

What if I were to tell you that the Libertarian Party stands for what means the most to the average citizen beleaguered by Democratic and Republican party hacks who spend our money on political boondoggles like impeachments?

What if I were to tell you that the Libertarian Party’s real strength is not politics as usual but support for the private sector, entrepreneurs, and free markets where folks can earn an honest living and take care of themselves?

Do you agree that the Donkeys and Elephants make it more difficult for you to succeed in the private sector? So who ya gonna call? How about the Libertarian Party gov-buster champions of the free market?

Have political hacks and impeachment circuses ever put food on your table? Wouldn’t you agree that only private-sector free markets offer you the ethical opportunity to rise above wage stagnation and poverty imposed on the rest of us by the political elite? Has it occurred to you that the Libertarian Party is the only party that supports your means of making a living, the private-sector free market?

Will an impeachment a day keep the doctor and political vultures away? No? Who ya gonna call next November? Politics as usual Donkeys and Elephants with their politics as usual and impeachment spectacles, or the Libertarian Party champions of private-sector free markets?

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 19, 2019

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Support Your Local Libertarian Media?

Published on in Activism/Free Market/Media/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
Support Your Local Libertarian Media Outlet

The underlying issue challenging Libertarian media is the question of what drives politics as usual, the insatiable drive to get elected using political correctness, corruption, cronyism, and every dirty trick in the book just to get in and stay in power. The answer is power. Once out of office, politicians’ power is gone along with the respect accorded to them by the rest of us. Are all Libertarians immune from power lust that is outrageously illustrated by the duopoly?

To me, the constant infighting within the LP raises a red flag, whether it be jockeying for public office nominations or resorting to political correctness to attain internal party positions. Is it just differences over ideology? In my opinion, the infighting, often draped with political correctness, suggests that some Libertarians are more interested in establishing and being part of a Libertarian power structure than they are about putting power politicians out of business.

That conundrum tells me that some serious soul-searching by the LP about their strategy and message is in order and long overdue, just from the perspective of winning elections not to mention furthering freedom.

The traditional media has totally discredited itself in the eyes of jaded, disillusioned, and apathetic voters and those that understandably abstain from voting out of disgust. Kudos to the existing heroes in the liberty-leaning media.

What are you doing to support your local Libertarian media outlet? We need to give the Libertarian media some help with a fresh new message counter to the duopoly politics as usual if we seriously intend to win elections and accelerate the pursuit of freedom. Just establishing another power structure of elected officials with a skin-deep Libertarian veneer will not cut the mustard in terms of achieving freedom.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 15, 2019

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Nation of Sheep or Free Market Heroes?

Published on in Activism/Business/Free Market/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
Nation of Sheep or Free Market Heroes and Heroines?

The following is a continuation of a stimulating dialog with Emily Goldberg, LSLA Secretary, with several edits and additions for clarity:


Emily, I have a higher opinion of mankind. Government and the political process has a way of creating a nation of sheep. A properly tuned LP message focused on the strength of our turf, the private sector and benefits of the free market, will free our nation of sheep.

True, some market leaders gain their nefarious stature through government preferences, bailouts, and so on. We all know who they are. Warren ‘More Bailouts’ Buffet, the ‘Oracle of Omaha’, for one. What a shame that a former astute stock market analyst hero of mine from my home town succumbed to the free lunch temptations of the dark side of progressive economics and politics.

For the sake of transparency, Bill Redpath (long-time LNC At Large and former LNC Chair), my wife Re, and I recently had a group picture taken at Buttet’s Gorats Restaurant in Omaha in front of a life-size image of Warren, a credit to Buffet’s earlier financial accomplishments of hero proportions. I sincerely hope that the significant good side of Warren will see the light.

Unfortunately, as evidenced by Buffet’s Berkshire-Hathaway firm, a large segment of the corporate world is in bed with government. Kudos to corporate leaders who resist that temptation, not to mention all our small business and entrepreneur heroes and heroines who reflect the best of our Libertarian principles.

Emily, expanding on our earlier conversation about heroes, have you thought about the differentiating factor between dubious political heroes and private-sector champions? Could it be the nature of their diverse accomplishments? We all know and admire the achievements of free-market heroes that benefit mankind and raise our standard of living. Politicians, on the other hand, are sadly respected for their aggrandizement in acquiring power over others (the rest of us). From my perspective, power-seekers and power over others is what we Libertarians are supposed to be fighting against.

But political power exists only as long as politicians are in office. Once out of office, their power ceases and the glamour of their power over others rapidly evaporates. Maintaining voter respect for their political power over others is what drives politicians to do whatever is necessary to get reelected, including but not limited to the evils of political correctness, corruption, and cronyism. Politics invariably brings out the worst in us.

Many if not most politicians could care less about the future impact of their corruption and cronyism actions as long as they get reelected in the here and now to maintain their illusory hero status. In economic terms, their focus on short-term power status, available only if they get reelected, represents a high time preference rate. See time preference rate comments in tomes by Hans Hermann Hoppe, including ‘A Short History of Man, Progress and Decline’ and ‘Democracy – the God that Failed’. To summarize, the high time preference rate of politicians is epitomized by their behavior, living for the moment with little interest in saving and investing for the future. After all, it is not their money they are spending at the expense of our freedoms, it is our hard-earned money they so thoughtlessly throw around just to garner votes.

We know that the success of free markets is due to just the opposite, the low time preference rate of saving and investing for the future to maximize not only long-term profits but more important, the benefits to customers and all of mankind that is the overriding motivation for most entrepreneurs and business start-up heroes.

To make a long story short, my abhorrence for power-seeking politics and the cronyism and political correctness required to get elected is why I bypass the political process food fight for power over others and the temporary illusion of hero worship derived from power over others available only while in office. I look to the private sector for the real heroes, the non-politician producers and leaders by example, the motor of the world, who are directly responsible for our well-being and standard of living.

May our Libertarian candidates and political efforts be a reflection of the awesome motivations and achievements of our private-sector free-market heroes. Do you think such a message just might win more elections by differentiating us from duopoly politicians, and, more important, accelerate our quest for freedom, nothing more, nothing less, for all people?

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 14, 2019

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Serious Libertarian Candidates?

Published on in Activism/Free Market/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
Are you serious about getting elected?

Libertarian candidates, are you really serious about getting elected?
Are you prepared for the challenges, temptations, opportunities, and consequences?

Are you aware of alternative opportunities that may be even more important as requisite precursors to your political success as a serious Libertarian candidate?

Are you ready to swim with the sharks?

If you are up to the challenge, read on:

Serious Libertarian candidates eschew gaining power over others as they seek to inspire, lead by example, and accomplish real incremental governance reforms that reinforce our freedoms.

Serious Libertarian candidates also understand that getting elected and succeeding in their inspiration and freedom-reform endeavors depends on being a reflection of equally serious Libertarians. motor-of-the-world entrepreneurs, and other earned-lunchers who eschew the free-lunch temptations of gaining power over others in the political arena where our liberty is food for voracious saber-tooth authoritarians, fodder for their cannons, and prey for the ‘Jaws’ of power-hungry politicians.

These equally serious Libertarians choose instead to build our foundation of freedom by working their butts off and competing enthusiastically but fairly in the free market.

Whether free-market competitors or political candidates, serious Libertarians celebrate the fact that successful campaigns and freedom-based political solutions are built on the shoulders of free-market successes, not the other way around.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, December 12, 2019



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Election Farce: Donkey Shit or Elephant Shit?

Published on in Activism/Free Market/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
DONKEY SHIT OR ELEPHANT SHIT

Are you appalled by the political choice between donkey shit and elephant shit? Are you willing to take an honest look at alternatives?

Does our two-party ‘tyranny of the majority’ election system make things better in the long run? Or is it running our free society and economy into the ground? Why is our hope of freedom being drowned in in a tsunami of electioneering cronyism?

Would you agree that a majority of our citizens are confused, disillusioned, and apathetic? Should those in the liberty movement know better? But what to do? Should we take a step back to see what is actually working despite our dysfunctional election system?

Haven’t economic free markets without elected leaders been a remarkable success over the entire history of mankind? Do free market social relationships dominate most of our personal lives and work just fine, thank you, without destructive interference by elected authorities?

What do most elected leaders do for us in exchange for votes? Tempt us with preferential entitlements? Saddle us with onerous strangling preferential regulations? Steal our money in taxes to fund a parasitic shadow administrative state swarming with legions of highly-paid, inefficient, non-productive bureaucrats who create mountains of oppressive regulations with little or no oversight and are almost impossible to terminate? Use asset forfeiture to feather their own nests? Trumpet xenophobic nationalism that reduces our economic potential by disrupting the free flow of human resources? Tell us we owe our lives to those who refuse to work and that collectives are more important than individuals? Attempt to sell us on prohibition schemes when we know that victim-less behavior prohibitions always fail?

But, some say, what would we do without elected officials to guide us? Really? Can’t we be honest with ourselves? Do elected authorities produce anything beneficial? Or do they just smother our opportunities for freedom, prosperity, and happiness by promulgating wars, economic inefficiency, and social instability with the net result of just making things worse? If you agree, what is the alternative?

Don’t we know intuitively that the enduring success of social and economic relationship free markets has nothing to do with and succeeds in spite of elected authorities? On the other hand, what kind of leaders actually do contribute to the success of free markets? Good heavens, could it be unelected leaders by example who inspire us by using their brains to their fullest productivity capacity and making and keeping commitments?

Hmmm? Maybe the two buttons in this meme should be:

– ELECTED AUTHORITIES versus LEADERS BY EXAMPLE?

– Or, better yet, AUTHORITYSHIP versus EXAMPLESHIP?

Who will have the courage to stand up for and inspire us with EXAMPLESHIP?

What do you think?

D. Pratt Tseramed, November 30, 2019

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