FSP’s Liberty Forum Day Three
Posted on January 6th, 2008 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, 16th Amendment, 5th Amendment, asset forfeiture, Barry Cooper, belief systems, Bernard von NotHaus, confiscation, Constitution, Dave Ridley, debate, Downsize DC, drugs, Free State Project, freedom, Gardner Goldsmith, Glen Jacobs, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Jim Babka, Jim Lark, John Sununu, libertarianism, liberty, Liberty Forum, Nashua, New Hampshire, New Hampshire US, Paul Wilson, photos, police, politics, privacy, property, Sam Dodson, Serf City, sovereign immunity, taxes, Texas District, USA- 9:00AM Peymon Mottahedeh’s Live Free off the IRS Lies and Abuse. Not a real lecture. It was really an advertisement for his scam. I’ve read plenty of the arguments from the tax protesters. I’ve read the IRS’s responses to many of them. It’s all bogus. The safest and quickest way to end the federal income tax is to assume it’s all legit and get rid of it by lowering spending, getting rid of the federal income tax and IRS and amending out the 16th Amendment. It disappoints me that those in charge of getting speakers for this Liberty Forum got this guy. I wanted presentations not adverts for possible scams.
- 10:30AM Jim Lark’s Knee-Jerk Libertarianism: A Cure for a Common Disease. It was a well spoken discussion on a common problem in the freedom movement and many other belief systems: poor messenger skills. He was very well spoken and very serious in getting freedom fighters to be better at getting libertarian ideas across. Try not to insult, be empathetic and try to not to convince people your right but give them the info to think about why you are right. Here is the audio from the speech: Jim Lark: Knee-jerk libertarianism
- 1:00PM Barry Cooper of Never Get Busted. He has a bit of that sleazy salesman feel but not like Peymon Mottahedeh. He’s not a full libertarian (though he’s running on the Libertarian ticket in Texas District 31) but he has some good practical instructions on how to deal with traffic cops as a user of marijuana and his new movie Never Get Raided goes further including concealing the growing of marijuana and catalogs police tactics. Sounds interesting but I’m not motivated enough to purchase either movie.
- 2:30PM Jim Babka from Downsize DC. Not sure why I attended this one. I already had met him in the elevator earlier that day. I’m subscribed to the Downsize Dispatch, I very regularly use their services to send messages to my representatives and I donate to them monthly. It was interesting none the less (he’s a good speaker so hearing things over again didn’t feel repetitive) and I got myself a bumper sticker. He presented The Onion’s Bullshit is Most Important Issue for 2008 Voters.
- Glen Jacobs was in attendance at Babka’s presentation. After it was over xyz and I got a photo with him. I briefly talked with him about his contributions to the movement. Acknowledging that given his situation I understood why he was unable to publicly participate in the movement but appreciated his work under his pseudonym and that someone in his position (not to say that professional wrestler is widely looked up to but surely more than I, and he’s got more connections) was very valuable. He seemed genuinely thankful. While I have a guess as to who in the community he is I’ll leave it to you to find out.
- 4:00PM F. Paul Wilson’s Awful Lonely at Times: Being a Libertarian from the 60’s On. Those who know me know I’m not much on reading fiction. I’ve never read any of his books nor did I know who he was till just a few months ago when I started listening to Gardner Goldsmith’s radio show. Gardner is a big fan and was ecstatic to be able to hear him speak and hang out. Mr. Wilson was very well spoken and unfortunately didn’t spend much time on his dealings with libertarianism in the 60’s and 70’s. Many there knew of his work and were fans so it’s understandable that he would also talk about his works and how he integrated libertarian ideas into them. Here is the audio of his speech: F. Paul Wilson
- The dinner was alright. I actually preferred the buffet. xyz and I sat with Mike and Sayh(sp?) from the Manhattan Ron Paul Meetup group and a young freelance writer, Sam, who was at the Liberty Forum to get information on private currencies. He originally just wanted to talk with Bernard von NotHaus but decided that if he was going to make the long trip up from Brooklin he may as well check out the whole Liberty Forum. He’s not a libertarian but was very interested in what he was hearing. If I run across him tomorrow I’ll have to give him a copy of the latest Serf City. The keynote speaker was New Hampshire US Senator John Sununu. A good number of people were not all that thrilled that the Saturday keynote was a federal Republican politician. He was booed when he said we need taxes to pay for needed government. He was called out for voting for the original PATRIOT Act He was heckled to do a Q&A when he finished. Which he didn’t… he grabbed his things and left immediately after his speech was over.
36 Responses to “FSP’s Liberty Forum Day Three”
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January 6th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Jim Lark and Barry Cooper sound interesting.
January 6th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Watching Barry talk to Fox News pains my brain. I think I’m going to get this guy’s DVDs.
January 6th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Don’t want to go OT, but will you be doing a NH debate post?
January 6th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
You gonna watch this beetlbumjl? I’m going to listen to the New Hampshire debates on youtube after I finish this episode of Doctor Who.
January 6th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I wasn’t able to watch the debate because of the Forum. Caught only the last few minutes of the R’s debate. When Paul was talking about oil toward the end. I was also unable to watch the townhall as xyz and myself were driving home at the time.
January 6th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I’ll be uploading the audio from the Jim Lark presentation shortly. Damn upload sucks. It will appear in the post. There is also a recording for F Paul Wilson and Gardner Goldsmith’s yesterday.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I watched 90% of the debates (I came into the Republican one a few minutes late), my synopsis:
Republicans - First, Fred Thompson. What is he doing here? He stated nothing original or interesting and demonstrated little enthusiasm.
The question relating to a ‘candidate of change’… McCain quipped, "I just wanted to say to Governor Romney, we disagree on a lot of issues, but I agree, you are the candidate of change." These two went back and forth throughout the debate and I’d have to say McCain won this. (In comparing his base to Obama’s) Ron Paul suggested that he and Obama appeal to young voters because of the candidates’ similarity in age. Probably could have drawn a line between this desired change and the party’s roots.
On a question about illegal immigration, Rudy and Mitt dickered over the definition of amnesty. Paul brought up a good point about the economics of this issue, but I believe his was the last word on the subject, so it didn’t get followed up on.
On a question about oil, Ron Paul had another interesting point from the Wall Street Journal:
Again, nobody bothered following up on this.
The best line of the debate was from Huckabee to Romney:
So it was a night of ganging up on Romney, but who doesn’t like watching him squirm?
Democrats - Not as interesting as the Republican debate, but still some moments.
John Edwards — We get it, you want to be Obama’s VP candidate. Every other word out of his mouth was, "I agree with Obama" or, "Obama is right".
Obama - Said the word "specific" about 12 times. I didn’t count the others, but let no one be confused that Obama isn’t "specific".
Hillary - Oh Hillary, even your attempt to be funny was trumped by Obama. The moderators mentioned that she doesn’t poll well as "likable" and she started joking about that. Obama, without looking up, deadpanned, "You’re likable enough, Hillary." He probably didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but he deserved points if he did.
Richardson - Adopted Hillary’s strategy of "I am experience and have actually enacted change" and talked about his foreign policy experience and his time as energy secretary. The moderator then deep sixed him with this question:
No good answer, just "we need an energy revolution" with no sound policy to get there.
Gravel - wasn’t actually there, but did a quick 30 second blurb at the WMUR studios. Interestingly enough, pushed the idea of a national ballot initiative over his own candidacy. Good idea, but I don’t think anybody was listening.
Final notes — they brought the Democrats on stage at the end of the Republican debate to shake hands. Cheesy moment, but made for good TV I guess. According to the NYTimes, Paul spoke briefly with Richardson because he liked some of his foreign policy and had never met him in person before. If the debate organizers had wanted to do something truly different, they could have actually had a cross-party debate.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Oh, another note on the immigration debate… Rudy and Mitt started talking about some kind of "fool-proof" ID for the immigrants and Paul chimed in about this possibly leading to the National ID card. Again, no follow up to that.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Gravel’s initiative is interesting. I recall seeing an interview he did where he told the interviewer that he wanted to legalize marijuana for recreational use. He then asked the interviewer if he "blew his [the interviewers] mind". The interviewer very dead pan replied, "No". I found it amusing. It might have been the dorm room interviews that kid was doing.
I really hate when debates go all one-liners and banterish. There needs to be much stronger punishments for talking over people or interjecting. In general in life people need to shut up and listen more, it’s a shame that people have behavior like that modeled by those running for the highest office in the land.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:28 am
It takes a strong moderator to herd all those cats on stage. In this case, Charlie Gibson isn’t that guy. He let the candidates drive this debate. In comparison, the local political guy from WMUR had some better, pointed questions. Another rule I wish the debate hosts would enact would be a stricter round-robin or time allotment. Each candidate should have roughly the same amount of time to speak.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
It just pisses me off that the average citizen views people as "tough" or worse yet "a good debater" when they interrupt others or refuse to stop talking. I think that debates should be stringently egalitarian. Unfortunately if "Crossfire" and any other of its politainment ilk are any indication, the consumers want to watch shouting matches. This is why consumers need to be more educated.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
The National Initiative is a horrible idea. It’s direct democracy. That’s completely contrary to our original form of government. It’s tyranny of the majority with no proxy. This topic was greatly debated at constitutional convention and they outright rejected it. Their are no concepts of protection in democracy. No balance. Our constitution was designed to protect freedom and ultimately let the individual control their lives… not the majority of people inside some set of imaginary lines.
I watched the debate. They don’t followup or debate the things Paul talks about because those are the real issues. Without sound money you can’t accurately tell what is going on. The best they can do is mock him like Thompson did on printing money. They are either ignorant of economics (which is very probable, Paul often mentions how his fellow congressmen have no idea how our monetary system works) or are trying to ignore the issue so the public won’t catch on. At best we have a group of ignorant fools… at worst a conspiracy by the players in the NWO or something like that.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
After looking at the proposed amendment, the first and last section stick out:
That would suggest that the peoples’ legislative power is immune from judicial review. If I read the Amendment correctly then bile, I think you are right. How would you feel if the initiative was, for all intents and purposes, analogous to any other law that Congress passes?
January 7th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
As in it would be just like a bill from congress but not from them? All other mechanisms the same? How would you deal with conflicts with the congress passed laws and people passed laws? We already have major issues with the judicial branch ignoring the Constitution… i’m not sure I want to have them be the ones watching over the national initiatives. I’m not fond of any government and democracy is dangerous for liberty. I’m not comfortable with this idea in any fashion. Nor do I think it’d be very practical.
January 7th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
You mean the constitution that has led to the largest, most powerful government the world has ever known right?
January 7th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I’d argue that there have been far larger governments. USSR and the Roman empire come to mind. The UK was up there.
You mean the Hamiltonians that redefined the words used in the constitution to pass illegitimate legislation which allowed for the growth of government? I fail to see how you can protect against that. If I took your mortgage and started redefining terms I could make it "led" to all kind of things too. I really don’t see your point.
January 7th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Laws to be written in BNF grammar with all definitions in the back? Time travelers that travel forward in time to protect the original intent?
January 7th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Are you referring to the "necessary and proper" clause?
January 7th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Necessary and Proper, Commerce, General Welfare. Now a days you have the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th Amendment, Takings Clause, incorporation, delegation issues. The whole thing is effectively ignored and bastardized.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
The first three are the big ones in my opinion. They leave room for a lot of other stuff. Then again the constitution weighs in at 7,000 words. Fairly minimalist compared to others, but still too large. Occam’s razor dictates that it’s bound to have a few problems. Also if it was truly a living document it should have changed to reflect modern interpretation of the parlance of the times, assuming that is what you attribute its vagueness to.
Basically I think through errors in it’s original conception and lack of routine maintenance it has relegated itself to political bunk. People pay it lip service, but it’s original meaning is long dead.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
If you spent some time reading Constitutional history or even consider language at the time those don’t leave room. Their context is limited. People have redefined them to be broad. Founding fathers commented at the time on many of these topics. James Madison said that if those clauses allowed for just about anything than why would there be a 9th and 10th amendment? Why would it list all the things they can do? I don’t get what you are saying about "living document." All that means is it can be changed. It’s not vague… it’s purposely misinterpreted. Hamilton had very different views as to what the government should do and when in power him and those who thought like him worked to create something more like monarchy in the USA. It doesn’t matter what it says or it’s original meaning if you simply don’t care to follow it.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:14 am
The founding fathers lacked forethought when they forged the form of the constitution and failed to furnish a framework for frequent future fixes. Sure we have the process of amendments, but a truly living document should be periodically up for review. The purpose being to make the original intent more clear. If you clarified the language every four years we wouldn’t be in this pickle. The constitution has been abused due to neglect and it has been neglected because it wasn’t designed to be enough of a dynamic document. Even if you think it was intentionally attacked to create a National Bank ultimately the document still wasn’t worded strongly enough to avoid attack.
Also, don’t confuse what I want with the term "living constitution". A term which many have used to allow vague interpretations of the text. I want the text to be changed, not reinterpreted. Look here for a Lew Rockwell post where the author mixes up the term living document and "living constitution" theory.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:11 am
The point of the amendment process was to not allow for frequent changes. It’s intent was simple and limited. If it was to be changed it would be because a whole lot of people thought it should be. If you could review it every four years it’d be torn apart. It’s a foundation. You don’t go changing a foundation unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’s not supposed to be dynamic. You are supposed to be dynamic and have the easy of change. As you move away from the individual and up the chain of government you must become more rigid or freedom becomes easier to infringe. The intent is clear. You aught to read more about the creation. Madison’s notes and the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers… and all the government documents created by the same men and their notes and letters. It was NOT abused due to neglect. It was abused from day 1 by people who didn’t like what it said. It doesn’t matter how strongly it’s worded if those in power don’t care to follow it. You act as if the Constitution is some entity which has power. You previously have made similar comments and they make no more sense now. How exactly would you create a fool proof method to keep people from reinterpreting at will? How would you create a system that allowed for updating language without also creating an opening for abuse?
I don’t see why you think the author mixes up the terms. A living document means it can be altered. Living constitution means it can be reinterpreted. He says:
Which is "living constitution" theory. It is obviously a living document. The thing is that "living" in general with regard to the US Constitution is commonly to mean "living constitution" theory "living" and not "living document" "living."
January 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I’m familiar with the amendment process but thanks for the refresher as to its intent.
The constitution is purposefully vague because it was created by politicians. Politicians who realize that what they write needs to be acceptable to many people in order to get through the system. Therefore it gets watered down and beaten up. It would be easy to state things plain and simple. The fact that after it was written the framers continued to argue over the meaning of the words just proves that they wrote an ambiguous document.
This lack of forthrightness has permeated politics. It’s time to end it. It’s time to make intentions clear. We look back on the creation of the constitution with rose-colored glasses. We paint the people involved in making it as patriots and heroes. We cling to the hope that if we follow the original intentions of a 200 year old document everything will go smoothly. It’s analogous to the desperate hope that if everyone followed the rules on a set of 3,000 year old stone tablets life would be fine.
The text of documents concerning governance should require little to no interpretation. Their meaning should be patently obvious.
Every system of self-modifying government has a propensity for abuse. The best way to administer government is though an educated populace. Once you have that you can determine your changes through the lupus ovis luncheon. The difficult part is the education.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I don’t agree. I did not get that feeling at all while reading the notes. They argued about concepts not wording. At least that was never discussed in the notes or other works that I can recall. I think it’s more likely that while the Federalists and anti-Federalists were compromising on how the government would work… the strong Federalists like Hamilton purposefully argued in favor of semi-vague constructs so as to manipulate it later. However, even though they argued of general welfare and the like… things we argue today was not under argument at the time and so my point still stands. Most people have ignored the intent and interpret what’s their as loosely as possible.
As far as I am concerned it is. We have hundreds of documents written by both sides of the debate about it’s meaning. You’re welcome to rewrite it in 1789 English in a more concise and obvious manner.
What do you mean by "educated?" That seems pretty vague to me.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Eduction is pretty vague, you are correct. The core of my belief stems from the fact that if people are given access to the same information they come to the same conclusions. It may be teacher speak, but more than 90% of education is facilitating a learning environment. You need to make as much information as possible to the students and they handle the actual "learning". Unfortunately many people in this country do not have access to the information or they choose not to think about it or they are being fed biased information and don’t care to look into it. Starting at an early age people need to be forced to analyze and critique. You can do this through environmental motivators or by making the material engaging.
So with those educational opportunities (and the term opportunities may be a stretch because I think it may have to be mandatory) democracy works. If everyone in a democracy recognizes the importance of individual rights you don’t have to worry about them being infringed on.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Do no agree. Perhaps 90% of the time, but what changes is the context and interpretation of data. Otherwise we would be robots.
I think newspapers, television, libraries and the internet, as biased as they are, have done a pretty good job of making information available to Joe American. While your take on education (that it is self-driven) is accurate, how do you force somebody to learn, or as you say, analyze and critique? A major failing of public school is that it is forced to try and teach those who simply don’t want to learn. How far are you willing to push compulsory education? In your opinion, if an educated populace cannot be guaranteed, what form of government would work?
January 9th, 2008 at 11:47 am
On a practical level don’t disregard the fact that many interpretations of knowledge can coexist without major problems. As far as people being robots, they are pretty predictable.
This is a tough one. You can’t hold a gun to their back. I think the community as a whole should refuse to deal with a person who refuses to educate themselves. Should you let the person starve to death? Possibly. I think life without social interactions is meaningless so shunning should be an adequate incentive. Lets apply this. 16 year old Little Johnny doesn’t want to go to any school or help the community in an appreciable way. He decides to spend his days sitting around doing nothing. The community stops providing him with food and shelter (this may require force to remove him from a community dwelling). Little Johnny is still entitled to enough land to exist so he gets booted from the community into the "wild" with everyone else who doesn’t want to pull their weight. Here’s the issue. Students like Little Johnny really don’t exist. If they do, it’s at most one in a thousand kids. Most kids are willing to learn if they think what they are learning is important. If you give them a little choice and demonstrate the importance of the subject to them, they will apply themselves.
Ugh. I don’t have an easy answer for you. This would require a rebuild of just about all of my political philosophies. It’s like asking a Capitalist what system would work best if people weren’t motivated by wealth, or heck even survival.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I think these many interpretations lead to interesting things like religion, politics and markets. Each person individually, or perhaps in a cultural or personality-type context, may be predictable, but I think it would be difficult to predict how any random person will act. (In any interesting scenario anyway, outside of universal truths or ideas.)
At least the capitalist is depending upon observed human behavior (maybe even as strong as instinct). I’ll skip past the possible conflict of interest the government would have requiring education for itself to function and suggest that you aren’t really interested in education itself as you are values or the conclusions reached from it. This would be consistent with your core belief. (The common conclusion would be to recognize the importance of individual rights.) Well, what happens when the next Karl Marx pops out of your public education program? I believe he was fairly well educated.
Edit: Maybe Marx isn’t the best example here since he was home schooled at first, but you catch my drift.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:44 am
My arguments are also formed through observation of human behavior. Everyone wants to learn. Everyone wants to be part of a group. People tend to be happy when those around them are happy.
If someone who doesn’t respect individual rights popped out of the public education system they would be welcome to debate their belief with those around them. My guess is they would be in the minority, but since I’m trying to achieve an unbiased education I’m not going to change the school because someone like them came out.
On a side note I would be quite happy to have a system that encouraged someone as influential and intelligent as Mr. Marx.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I think you should tack on a few more qualities to "influential and intelligent." Stalin was influential and intelligent. I’m not sure you want a guy like that around. They tend not to respect rights and will laugh as they bulldoze you down while you are asking for a debate.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Yeah, you’re right. Tack, "willing-to-discuss" onto that list too. As far as Stalin is concerned he did have some good qualities but they are easily dwarfed by the fact that he’s a mass-murderer.
January 10th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I seriously wonder about that sometimes.
January 10th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
If you want proof, you can do what I do. Go to a park and find a couple eating lunch. Beat one of them to death with a baseball bat. Note the reaction of the other. It’s violence for science so it’s OK.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
::scrolls up:: Wow, talk about thread hijacking.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Yeah, this thread got hard-core trashed, but it was around during a lull in activity on this blog. It was while bile was in NH a we were getting about one story a day. As usual I ended up attacking the constitution and pushing the conversation to a debate about human nature.