From Chapter 6, On Paternal Power, page 32, of John Locke’s 1689 work, Second Treatise of Government: 

“The end of the law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be where there is no law: and is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists. (For who could be free when every other man’s humour might domineer over him?) But a liberty to dispose, and order freely as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be the subject of the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.”

Libertarianism is the clunky neologism used to denote the philosophy given expression in the above passage from Locke’s 329-year old book. I’ve never really been comfortable with the term, it seems so second-rate next to the word originally used to indicate support for the spontaneous forces of society, which is liberalism. Some advocates for liberty even believe the term ‘liberalism’ should be recovered from the supporters of a massive welfare state, something I don’t really see as possible now. Deirdre McCloskey’s idea hits closer to the mark than the others with her phrase of “market-tested innovationism”.  I actually prefer ‘voluntarism’ as a fairly clear and simple term to signify support for a free society. After all, we supporters of liberty advocate for the extension of voluntary interaction into every possible social sphere. We advocate for the removal of all restrictions on any voluntary interaction between consenting adults.   We advocate for the rule of law as Locke envisions it, law that protects us not only from other citizens but also from government interference.

Tulsa World: Recreational marijuana may not reach a ballot until 2020. This is why. Ed: If the volunteers gathered the required number of signatures before the deadline, then there is no legitimate reason we cannot vote for recreational marijuana in November.

National Review: 3D-printed guns: Separating fact from fiction

EFF: Eight AT&T buildings and ten years of litigation: Shining a light on NSA surveillance

Common Dreams: ACLU to demand TSA hand over documents on surveillance of U.S. travelers

Techdirt: Court catches ICE in a lie as it tries to vanish a Mexican journalist and immigration policy critic

Detroit News: Police drones pit safety vs. privacy concerns in Michigan

FPIF: It’s time for NATO to go the way of the Warsaw Pact

Haaretz: The Apartheid Prime Minister

KFOR: Signature goal reached to put recreational marijuana on November ballot, group says Ed: This is such an exciting moment for liberty in this state.

Tulsa World: Amid questions on legal enforcement of medical marijuana law, top state lawmaker advises to ‘follow the expressed instruction of the voters’

CBS: Previously-undisclosed TSA surveillance program criticized for tracking American citizens

The Intercept: A new broadband network is pitching surveillance enhancements to cops across the country

TAC: Yemen is the most important and most ignored story in the world

GRACY OLMSTEAD: Congress, not Trump’s trade war, is the root of farmers’ woes

Reason: Gun control groups fail to stop distribution of gun-making computer files Ed: The rise of 3D-printed guns and the intransigent defense of our right to print them by Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson has been a glorious drama in the annals of the fight for liberty. To print a gun, the American citizen flexes not only his Second Amendment, but also First Amendment rights. A gun in code is speech, and speech must remain unrestricted if liberty is to thrive.

CNN: Julian Assange’s fate rests on death penalty assurances, Ecuador’s president says

SHELDON RICHMAN: Depopulating Palestine, dehumanizing the Palestinians

Libertarian Institute: Libertarianism in one easy lesson

From Chapter 9, Coercion and the State, of Hayek’s crucial Constitution of Liberty:

“The recognition of private or several property is thus an essential condition for the prevention of coercion, though by no means the only one. We are rarely in a position to carry out a coherent plan of action unless we are certain of our exclusive control of some material objects; and where we do not control them, it is necessary that we know who does if we are to collaborate with others. The recognition of property is clearly the first step in the delimitation of the private sphere which protects us against coercion; and it has long been recognized that “a people averse to the institution of private property is without the first element of freedom” and that “nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” Modern anthropology confirms the fact that “private property appears very definitely on primitive levels” and that “the roots of property as a legal principle which determines the physical relationship between man and his environmental setting, natural or artificial, are the very prerequisite of any ordered action in the cultural sense.” “

The essence of the philosophy of liberty is just as much about what we cannot own as what we can own. I own my paycheck, I do not have a right to own any part of yours.  I own the results of my voluntary transactions with others, I have no right to the results of voluntary transactions of which I had no part. Liberty is the defense of voluntary transactions, and the subsequent defense of the property that has resulted from those voluntary acts.

Jordan Setayesh’s article, The minimum wage doesn’t do what you think it does, over at the Mises Wire, reminded me of how utterly misplaced society’s adoration of the minimum wage truly is. Not only does the minimum wage not help those that actually need help, it does the complete opposite: it ensures that the most vulnerable among us, whether it’s minorities, the disabled, those with a criminal record, etc., are denied an opportunity to find employment. The minimum wage has this effect because it grants a much larger amount of power to employers to discriminate. An opportunity to earn a higher wage creates a larger pool of unemployed labor, which creates a greater ability to discriminate as to who gets hired. A higher wage will attract more applicants who aren’t minority, disabled, or ex-felons.  The employer will then hire those and reject the applicants who most desperately need a job.

That’s the theory in a nutshell, yet the minimum wage is trumpeted to the heavens as the beau ideal of the goals of public policy.

And what always must be remembered is that the real minimum wage is zero. Artificially setting a floor on the price paid to workers condemns those most in need of some type of employment from finding it. The minimum wage creates a permanent underclass of the criminally poor and should be thoroughly discredited as a policy worthy of a free society and tossed into the same stinking heap as the drug war is slowly being consigned to.

Horrific.

“O.R.* was a one-year-old healthy baby girl who was already walking and climbing.  On February 13, 2013, she received vaccinations for Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR), Hepatitis A, Haemophilus Influenzae type B (Hib), Prevnar (pneumonia), and Varicella (chickenpox).  That evening, the mother noticed baby O.R. was irritable and feverish. After a call to the pediatrician, the doctor advised Mom to give her Tylenol and Benadryl. The fever continued for several days and on the evening before the baby’s scheduled pediatrician visit, O.R. began having severe seizures. She was rushed to the emergency room.  Baby O.R. went into cardiac and respiratory arrest and doctors placed her on a ventilator.

The seizures and cardiac arrest left O.R. with a severe brain injury, encephalopathy, cortical vision impairment, truncal hypotonia (low muscle tone), and kidney failure. After months of treatment at the hospital, baby O.R. finally went home, but her disabilities require specialized medical care and supervision around the clock for the rest of her life.”

KOCO: New draft of medical marijuana rules restores smokable products, removes pharmacist requirement

KFOR: Gubernatorial candidates weigh in on medical marijuana debate Ed: The article mentions only Cornett and Stitt, both of whom are against recreational marijuana, but, more importantly, both of whom are the type of people who can’t give a straight answer. There will be another candidate on the ballot, Chris Powell of the Libertarian Party, who will not only give you a non-waffling straight answer, but is currently spending the majority of his free time driving around the state and knocking on doors himself. Could you imagine Cornett doing anything close to that?

Gizmodo: Amazon accidentally makes rock-solid case for not giving its facial recognition tech to the police

Mises: 40 years of pummeling the Postal Service

Techdirt: Court rejects evidence from warrantless search of phone six years after gov’t seized it

Reason: Off-duty Florida cop arrested for kicking pregnant woman so hard she went into labor

Also Reason: Liberty makes us unfree, argues ACLU

Truthdig: Opioid distribution data can’t be made public, judge rules

Antiwar.com: Reporters struggle to get Pentagon to answer questions about war

DANIEL HARSANYI: Sorry if you’re offended, but socialism leads to misery and destitution

Motherboard: 23andMe sold access to your DNA library to Big Pharma

High Times: NYPD watch group says 93% of weed arrests in 2018 were people of color

The Nation: How Israeli tech firms act as global agents of repression

Tricycle: Psychedelics’ Buddhist revival

News6: Oklahoma’s medical marijuana law goes into effect today

Marijuana Herald: Oklahoma Hempfest expected to be second-largest in U.S., to feature over 100 vendors

ACLU: Amazon’s facial recognition falsely matched 28 members of Congress with mugshots

TIME: 23andMe’s GlaxoSmithKline partnership raises privacy concerns

Zero Hedge: Boston Dynamics to produce 1,000 robot dogs per year by 2019

BILL KAUFMANN: How NATO became the most sacred cow in the barn

JAMES BOVARD: The government: Liability for thee, but not for me

GEORGE WILL: Today’s trade warriors don’t care about the evidence

DANIEL LARISON: The aftermath of a Saudi coalition wedding massacre in Yemen

The Intercept: U.S. secret wars in Africa rage on, despite talks of downsizing

Astronomy: Secrets of the strange stars that circle our supermassive black hole

Denis Villeneuve is remaking Dune, and that’s a good thing

KFOR: Oklahoma State Board of Pharmacy fires director amid bribery investigation

Tulsa World: The only draft of full legislation for medical marijuana removes THC limits, allows smokables. What else would it do?

High Times: Poll: Americans view marijuana as less harmful than tobacco

In New Jersey, 1 in 35 children are diagnosed with autism. That’s a 200% increase since the year 2000. Ed: A few months old, but relevant nonetheless. Something in our environment is causing this, something man-made.

Reason: Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s murder-for-hire charges dropped by U.S. attorney

USA Today: “My husband committed suicide when doctors restricted his pain medication”

BoingBoing: Watchdog: UK spies engaged in illegal surveillance from 2001-2012

Buzzfeed: Allegations of sexual abuse and harassment have tripled in jails and prisons across the US Ed: Almost half are committed by prison staff.

The Intercept: Bernie Sanders introduces bill to end cash bail

WSWS: Trump admin deported up to 463 immigrant parents without their children

DAVID FRENCH: The Ninth Circuit shows us how to protect gun rights

Consortium News: The case for stripping former officials of their security clearances

From Chapter 10 of the second volume of his priceless Law, Legislation, and Liberty: 

“For a proper understanding of the character of this order it is essential that we free ourselves of the misleading associations suggested by its usual description as an ‘economy’. An economy, in the strict sense of the word in which a household, a farm, or an enterprise can be called economies, consists of a complex of activities by which a given set of means is allocated in accordance with a unitary plan among the competing ends according to their relative importance. The market order serves no such single order of ends. What is commonly called a social or national economy is in this sense not a single economy but a network of many interlaced economies.1 Its order shares, as we shall see, with the order of an economy proper some formal characteristics but not the most important one: its activities are not governed by a single scale or hierarchy of ends. The belief that the economic activities of the individual members of society are or ought to be part of one economy in the strict sense of this term, and that what is commonly described as the economy of a country or a society ought to be ordered and judged by the same criteria as an economy proper, is a chief source of error in this field. But, whenever we speak of the economy of a country, or of the world, we are employing a term which suggests that these systems ought to be run on socialist lines and directed according to a single plan so as to serve a unitary system of ends.”