Imagine if you had to fight in a court of law in order to be permitted to move in with friends, go to work, and make basic decisions about your daily life. Jenny Hatch doesn’t have to imagine, because she just fought and won that battle for her basic liberties. Hatch has volunteered for political…

Lately, it hasn’t been clear what exactly the First Amendment protects. Between whistleblowers PFC Manning and Edward Snowden, one awaits a sentencing of potentially 90 years in prison, and the other finds himself trapped in a country where he doesn’t speak the language. Perhaps it’s time to find a better way to protect free speech….

Everywhere you look in the right-wing commentariat, you see the recurring theme of the “underclass” as parasites. Its most recent appearance was the meme of the productive, tax-paying 53% vs. the tax-consuming 47%. And of course there’s the perennial favorite mythical quote attributed to Alexander Tytler, trotted out by many who should know better, about…

A decade after Califormia’s disastrous experience with Enron-style electrical utility “deregulation” — rolling blackouts and price spikes — caused Arizona to abandon a similar project, the Arizona Corporation Commission is once again considering it. The real problem with “deregulation,” as promoted by the libertarian establishment — the think tanks and lobbyists who pressure the state…

If there’s one thing the libertarian establishment — that is, mainstream libertarian organizations whose main activity is lobbying the state for “free market reform” — loves, it’s so-called “privatization.” An article by Paul Buchheit at Truth-out.com (“Eight Ways Privatization has Failed America,” Aug. 5) treats the failure of privatization as a reflection on the limits…

C4SS Fellows Jason Lee Byas and Trevor Hultner discuss war, the anti-war movement, the civil war and left libertarianism with Smash Walls Radio.

One of the quickest and simplest ways to gloss what “Left-Libertarian,” or the “Libertarian Left” part of ALL, means, is just to say that we are for left-wing social ends through libertarian means. This inevitably involves a certain amount of oversimplification — does “through libertarian means” just mean “by getting rid of government controls and letting social outcomes emerge spontaneously,” or does it mean something…

O poder não é para ser conquistado, é para ser destruído. Ele é, por natureza, tirânico, seja exercido por rei, ditador ou presidente eleito. A única diferença da ‘democracia’ parlamentarista é o escravo moderno ter a ilusão de escolher o senhor a quem obedecerá. O voto torna-o cúmplice da tirania que o oprime. Ele não…

Major Ashlend Fein, US Army prosecutor in Bradley Manning’s court martial, caught my attention when he referred to Manning as an “anarchist” in closing arguments. As an anarchist, I’d be proud to share that label with Manning. But I’ve never heard from any reliable source that he considers himself one. Manning — if indeed guilty…

Dear President Obama, I possess neither Emile Zola’s writing talent nor his penchant for presidential flattery, but I think I may perhaps lay rightful claim to some semblance of his well-developed sense of moral outrage. I address you as “president” only as a concession to popular convention. In truth, your claimed authority is a fraud,…

In California, prisoners are fighting back against appalling human rights violations. Their hunger strike is into its third week, with nearly 1,000 inmates still participating. When the strike began, 30,000 prisoners refused meals. The prisoners are striking against long term solitary confinement, a punishment recognized as a form of torture by sources as diverse as…

Two quotations, juxtaposed, summarize the errors into which modern American defenses of ‘free markets’ and capitalism have entered. In the process these errors led to abandoning any real meaning for liberty or human well-being.  Right wing libertarians in particular sincerely believe they are seeking to preserve these values, but they are sincerely wrong. But before…

Everything was going well for the al-Assad regime as it basked in 40 years of rule — until what started as a peaceful demonstration against the Baathist dictatorship violently escalated into full-blown civil war. Another war in the Middle East? Uncle Sam wants you! US president Barack Obama can now green-light his administration’s plan to…

Peak Oil analysis site The Oil Drum recently announced it’s shutting down operations. Due to a dearth of new content, the management decided to stop publishing new material after July 31, leaving the existing content as a permanent archive. Naturally this evoked chortles of mirth from the Wall Street Journal. Those dumb old gloom-n-doomers at…

Power is not to be conquered, it is to be destroyed. It is tyrannical by nature, whether exercised by a king, a dictator or an elected president. The only difference with the parliamentarian ‘democracy’ is that the modern slave has the illusion of choosing the master he will obey. The vote has made him an…

Ever since George Zimmerman’s fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin hit the national headlines last year, calls for an “honest conversation about race” have been heard throughout America. (Up until then, apparently, we’ve had only conversations about having a conversation about race.) However, one need not believe that the Zimmerman shooting and verdict were about race…

I’m shocked — shocked! — that Colonel Denise Lind, the military judge who ruled in February that Bradley Manning could be tried on various charges even after being held prior to arraignment for more than five times the absolute longest time specified in the US Armed Forces’ “speedy trial” rules, has now also ruled that…

The Internet industries of America may just have inadvertently had their hats handed to them by the military industrial complex. Now it’s up to Europe to provide an alternative to the surveillance state. Almost all of the major Internet industry giants are based in the United States. The reasons for this are historical and economical. The tradition of strong…

Esperado e oficial – o estado de escuta global. O vazamento de Edward Snowden para The Guardian mostrou à escâncara o quanto os Estados Unidos foram longe em nome da “segurança nacional”. O que os vazamentos revelaram foi um governo fora dos limites de sua constituição, dedicado à coleta secreta de informações, e incrivelmente intrometido. Nos recintos do poder…

Recently, I spoke at the “Syria: Not Our War” anti-war rally in Oklahoma City. My topic was something like “there are no humanitarian interventions.” One correction is that when I say “any worse” toward the end, I meant to say “any better.” http://youtu.be/GFDKqJlTzYQ Thanks to Alan Brown from Liberty Minded for getting video!