Volume 14, No. 16
October 9, 2009
The
Liberator Online
for everyone who loves liberty
published by the Advocates for Self-Government
|
"The World's Smallest Political Quiz is
one of the freedom movement's most
recognized and effective outreach
tools."
Ron
Paul, Congressional Record, April 15,
2008
|
|
| |
| |
|
To be counted,
click on the
"Become a Fan"
button at the top
of our Facebook page.
_____________________
_____________________
LIBERATOR
Buy
DAVID BERGLAND'S
great book
Libertarianism
in One Lesson
now and get a wonderful CD
absolutely FREE!
Find out more
_____________________
|
Help
build a dynamic
movement for liberty!
Learn more about the great
things the Advocates is
accomplishing -- and how YOU can
make it happen!
________________
|
Books, DVDs, CDs, Quiz cards, OPH
kits, T-shirts...
Find great libertarian products
by shopping at
The Advocates
Liberty Store!
________________
________________
They're Back!
Great T-Shirts
Perfect for
OPH booths,
Townhall
meetings,
county fairs, etc.
Get yours today!
________________
|
|
-- advertisement --
Fabulous
ads
against
nationalized
health care!
Looking for
free-market solutions
to today's most important social and
economic
problems?
The Heartland Institute has the
information
and arguments you need on education,
taxation, health care, privatization
of public services, market-based
approaches to environmental
protection,
and much more.
Milton Friedman called the
Heartland Institute "a highly
effective libertarian
institute."
See why!
Visit
HEARTLAND INSTITUTE
today!
_________________
|
|
Not only is
Michael Cloud
an expert
on persuasion --
he wrote the book
on it!
|
Dr. Mary Ruwart
shows how libertarian
ideas can solve the world's most
pressing problems -- including
poverty, pollution and war.
"Great message!"
-- bestselling author Wayne Dyer.
Find out more and order your copy
today!
__________________
|
Are
YOU
on
So are we!
See how you can use our
acclaimed World's Smallest Political
Quiz
Facebook app to spread the
ideas of liberty throughout the
Facebook community!
____________________
|
|
|
WELCOME to the Liberator Online!
In This Issue
PRESIDENT'S CORNER
* We're on Twitter -- sign up for our
tweets! (And get a chance to win a great
Ron Paul book!)
GOOD
NEWS, BAD NEWS, UNBELIEVABLE NEWS
* Ron Paul Rocks TIME Magazine
* Fox News "Red Eye" Host Is A
Libertarian
* Obama's Civil Liberties Betrayal
* Post Office Pays Thousands To Do
Nothing
QUICK
SHOTS: Two kinds of people in
this world.... Obama Versus Grover
Cleveland.... Transparency you can't see
through....
PERSUASION POWER POINT #276
* "Ordinary American": An Insult Hidden
In Plain Sight
by Michael Cloud
ASK DR.
RUWART
* What is the libertarian approach to
developing alternative energy sources?
ONE-MINUTE LIBERTY TIP
* Flipping the Question
by Sharon Harris
WHAT'S
HAPPENING WITH THE ADVOCATES
* Advocates President to speak at
Illinois LP Convention
* OPH featured in Libertarian Party News
* Join the Advocates Facebook Fan Club!
|
|
 President's
Corner
by
Sharon Harris
The Advocates is on Twitter! Join us --
and you could win a Ron Paul book!
Exciting news: The Advocates is on
Twitter. And we want you to join us
there!
Twitter isn't just for college students
and tech geeks anymore. Every day
hundreds of thousands of libertarians
like you and me use this revolutionary
real-time, short messaging service.
While some "tweets" (messages sent on
Twitter) are boring and useless ("Hey,
I'm eating pizza for breakfast..."),
others are forming a genuine
conversation about the ideals we hold
dear.
Now the Advocates has joined that
conversation -- and I want YOU there
with us, too.
 Twitter
is the first place to learn about
breaking Advocates and liberty movement
news, expert communications tips, and
exclusive Advocates discounts and
specials. (We won't bombard you with
tweets. We're keeping it fun, fast, and
useful.) Plus, Twitter is one of the
easiest lines of communication between
you and me.
Right now the Advocates is going through
an incredible growth phase. I value your
input and ideas. Twitter is one of the
ways I can find out what is important to
you. So join us on Twitter!
Joining the conversation is easy. If you
don't already have a Twitter account, it
only takes a few moments to sign up for
one at Twitter,
here.
Then go to
the Advocates Twitter account (www.Twitter.com/theAdvocates)
and click the "follow" button below our
picture.
That's all it takes! You'll then get our
tweets -- and we can get yours.
SPECIAL
TWITTER OFFER -- WIN A RON PAUL BOOK!
To kick off our new conversation, I want
to give you the chance to get a free
copy of one of Ron Paul's great books on
freedom. To be one of the 11 randomly
selected winners, all you have to do is
tweet this message:
"I want
a free Ron Paul book from @theAdvocates.
RT for your chance to win!"
Thank you!
* * * * * * * *
Welcome
to 629 new Liberator Online
subscribers this issue!
The
purpose of the Liberator Online
is to build a stronger movement for
liberty. We do this by providing
information about the libertarian
movement, news analysis from a
libertarian perspective, and, most
importantly, information and resources
on how to best communicate the ideas of
liberty. Thank you for being a part of
this!
Learn more about the Advocates and
our work for liberty.
Learn
more about libertarianism -- the
philosophy of liberty.
-- Sharon Harris, President
Email: sharon@TheAdvocates.org
|
Good News,
Bad News,
Unbelievable News
by James W. Harris
Ron
Paul Rocks TIME Magazine
Here's yet more proof the Ron Paul
rEVOLution
 is
still going full blast. TIME
magazine -- the world's largest news
weekly, with a global audience of 24
million -- featured a short,
hard-hitting interview with Ron Paul
in their September 28 issue.
Editor Michael Scherer hit Paul with
one hot-button question after
another, and Congressman Paul, in
his responses, once again showed why
so many consider him the greatest
Congressman of the century.
You can read TIME's edited version
of the interview
here.
TIME also put a video from the
interview on
YouTube.
Here are some excerpts, slightly
edited for space and clarity, from
the video interview.
TIME: Why do you oppose the
income tax?
Ron
Paul: Because I have a right
to my life, I have
 the
right to the fruits of my labor, and
government does not. If you concede
the principle of the income tax, you
concede the principle that the
government owns all your income and
permits you to keep a certain
percentage of it.
And I believe in natural rights, God
given rights to our life and our
liberty. It doesn't come from
government.
Equivalent to that idea is the idea
of the government owning your life
when you become 18. You have to sign
up for the potential draft in case
they need you to go over and die for
some worthless cause.
So it's always there, [this idea
that] the government owns you.
TIME: Why do you support the
decriminalization of marijuana?
Ron
Paul: Why support the
criminalization of marijuana
is the better question. I mean, this
is a substance that grows in a
natural way and some people use it
for different reasons. In a free
country you ought to have the right
to do that.
And another good reason is that the
War on Drugs is a total failure. It
has created a monster of a problem
for us, and we spend hundreds of
billions of dollars. Prohibition is
absurd.
TIME: What do you make of
President Obama's approach to Iraq
and Afghanistan now that he's in
office?
Ron
Paul: Every bit as bad as the
last administration, maybe even
worse. Because he's not getting out
of Iraq, that's a pretense. And he's
expanding rapidly what's happening
in Afghanistan...
He has neutralized the anti-war
left. The antiwar left has just --
left. ... There is a very weak
anti-war movement in this country
now. And that obviously is something
I hope to participate in reviving.
And it has to be coming from the Old
Right as well as true progressives
who believe that all this
warmongering and killing makes no
sense whatsoever.
Fox
TV "Red Eye" Host Is A Libertarian
"Insomniacs who channel surf to Fox
News at 3 a.m. may think
 they
have drifted off into a dirty,
hilarious febrile dream. Instead of
perky anchors and partisan shouters
working over the headlines of the
day, a pug-faced ne'er-do-well named
Greg Gutfeld leads a motley crew of
comics, C-list celebrities, and
occasional Reason [magazine] editors
through a running news-of-the-weird
joke fest covering (in no particular
order) free markets, unicorns, drug
legalization, very attractive women,
and very gay sex."
That's how Katherine Mangu-Ward of
Reason magazine
describes Fox's dead-of-night
show "Red Eye," a most unusual TV
experience that began airing
February 2007 -- and is hosted by
outspoken libertarian Greg Gutfeld.
Gutfeld's roller-coaster ride of a
journalism career has taken him from
the conservative American Spectator
magazine to Prevention, Men's
Health, Stuff, and Maxim. A
natural-born contrarian and
controversialist, Gutfeld left most
of those positions over some
brouhaha or other.
Along the way he's also written for
top women's magazines, authored a
notorious blog for the liberal
Huffington Post, and knocked out a
book: Scratchings: A Miserable Yank
Discovers the Secret of Happiness in
Britain (Simon & Schuster).
As a teenager, Gutfeld was a
liberal. He moved to conservatism,
and finally libertarianism.
"From the right, you've got free
markets. From the left, you have
free minds. To me, [libertarianism
is] the only sensible direction."
One issue especially important to
Gutfeld is the War on Drugs, which
he described to Reason as "a waste
of human life and a waste of money.
We've been through this with
Prohibition. I don't know why we
can't see that this thing is just
killing our country. No pothead
should be in jail. They're the
nicest people on the planet. The
worst thing they do is they eat all
your food."
Obama's Civil Liberties Betrayal
Glenn Greenwald writes a
consistently excellent
 (and
frequently controversial) civil
liberties blog at Salon.com. He's
also a former constitutional law and
civil rights litigator and a New
York Times bestselling author.
Recently Greenwald, a liberal,
summarized the frustration of
many principled civil libertarians
on the left about the Obama
administration's dismal record on
civil liberties:
"[W]hen it comes to uprooting
('changing') the Bush/Cheney
approach to terrorism and civil
liberties -- the issue which
generated as much opposition to the
last presidency as anything else --
the Obama administration has proven
rather conclusively that tiny and
cosmetic adjustments are the most it
is willing to do.
"They love announcing new policies
that cast the appearance of change
but which have no effect whatsoever
on presidential powers.
"With great fanfare, they announced
the closing of CIA black sites -- at
a time when none was operating.
"They trumpeted the President's
order that no interrogation tactics
outside of the Army Field Manual
could be used -- at a time when
approval for such tactics had been
withdrawn.
"They repudiated the most extreme
elements of the Bush/Addington/Yoo
'inherent power' theories -- while
maintaining alternative
justifications to enable the same
exact policies to proceed exactly as
is.
"They flamboyantly touted the
closing of Guantanamo -- while
aggressively defending the right to
abduct people from around the world
and then imprison them with no due
process at Bagram.
"Their 'changes' exist solely in
theory -- which isn't to say that
they are all irrelevant, but it is
to say that they change nothing in
practice: i.e., in reality."
Several days later, Greenwald made
this additional
observation:
"Isn't it so interesting how the
phrase 'Patriot Act' was the symbol
of everything Democrats claimed to
find so heinous during the Bush
years, but now that there's a
Democratic President, Senate and
Congress, it's absolutely certain
that the Patriot Act will continue,
and civil libertarians are reduced
to hoping that there may be some
tiny modifications to it, and even
that's highly unlikely?"
Post Office Pays Thousands of
Workers To Do Nothing
At any given time, over 11,000
postal workers sit idle, in empty
rooms, doing... nothing. While
collecting over a million dollars
per week in paychecks from
taxpayers.
So
reports FederalTimes.com, the
Web site of a weekly newspaper aimed
at federal employees.
According to the article:
"The U.S. Postal Service, struggling
with
 a
massive deficit caused by plummeting
mail volume, spends more than a
million dollars each week to pay
thousands of employees to sit in
empty rooms and do nothing.
"It's a practice called 'standby
time,' and it has existed for years
-- but postal employees say it was
rarely used until this year.
"Now, postal officials say, the
agency is averaging about 45,000
hours of standby time every week --
the equivalent of having 1,125
full-time employees sitting idle, at
a cost of more than $50 million per
year.
"Mail volume is down 12.6 percent
compared with last year, and many
postal supervisors simply don't have
enough work to keep all employees
busy. But a thicket of union rules
prevents managers from laying off
excess employees; a recent agreement
with the unions, in fact,
temporarily prevents the Postal
Service from even reassigning them
to other facilities that could use
them.
"So they sit -- some for a few
hours, others for entire shifts. ...
They spend their days holed up in
rooms -- conference rooms, break
rooms, occasionally
12-foot-by-8-foot storage closets --
that the Postal Service dubs
'resource rooms.'
"'It's just a small, empty room. ...
It's awful,' said one mail
processing clerk who has spent four
weeks on standby time this summer.
'Most of us bring books, word
puzzles. Sometimes we just sleep.'"
(Thanks to
Carpe Diem blog and Paul
Ringstrom.)
---------------------------------------------
Quick Shots...
TWO
KINDS OF PEOPLE: "There are
two kinds of people, those who want
to be left alone and those who won't
leave them alone."
-- Agricultural expert
Doreen Hannes, quoted in the
Tulsa Beacon, Thursday, September
10.
OBAMA VERSUS GROVER CLEVELAND:
"When the modern Olympics were
established at the end of the
 19th
century, President Grover Cleveland
insisted on spending not one cent of
taxpayer funds on the project. The
event was a private affair,
requiring private funding alone.
Barack Obama should have followed
that sensible lead." -- columnist
Paul Jacob, "Going for the
Gold."
TRANSPARENCY YOU CAN'T SEE THROUGH:
"Anybody who thinks that is going to
be transparent to the American
people is really not telling it like
it is."
--
U.S. Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.),
as quoted in the Wall Street
Journal, arguing against letting
 the
public see the Democrat's health
care bill for three days before it
is voted on. Senator Conrad further
argued that putting it online for
public review wouldn't matter
anyway, because only 5 percent of
Americans would be able to
understand the dense legal language
in which the bill is being written.
* * * * * * * *
"Good News, Bad News, Unbelievable
News" is written by Liberator Online
editor James W. Harris. His articles
have appeard in numerous magazines
and newspapers, and he has been a
Finalist for the Mencken Awards,
given by the Free Press Association
for "Outstanding Journalism in
Support of Liberty."
|
 PERSUASION
POWER
POINT # 276
"Ordinary American": An Insult
Hidden In Plain Sight
by
Michael Cloud
"Ordinary Americans made this
happen," said a politician.
"This is what ordinary Americans
want," said a pundit.
"This will hurt ordinary Americans,"
said another.
What do most public figures,
politicians, and pundits mean when
they use the phrase "ordinary
Americans"?
All too often, these speakers and
writers use "ordinary Americans" as
code words to divide Americans into
two groups:
1) Their kind of people: the best
and the brightest, the upper class,
the elite, extraordinary, classy,
well-educated, intelligent,
exceptional, and remarkable. An
intellectual aristocracy.
2) Ordinary Americans, common
people, the Masses, average Joes and
Janes, undistinguished,
run-of-the-mill, typical,
conventional, mediocre, plain, and
dull.
Code words are words or phrases
designed to convey one meaning, one
message to one group of listeners
while sounding inoffensive to
others.
"Ordinary Americans" is a code
phrase to let speakers look down and
talk down to those who are not part
of the speakers' group. Who do not
share their values or agenda.
Many of the elitist speakers and
writers hold that "ordinary
Americans" are uneducated, ignorant,
too dumb to know what's in their
best interests, and must be
manipulated, legislated, and
regulated for their own good.
When you hear someone say "ordinary
American," listen to the tone and
connotation. Look who it is aimed at
and applied to. And look who is
excluded. At the people who are NOT
"ordinary Americans."
I have met hundreds of thousands of
Americans, and I've never met one
who was ordinary, common, or
average. I've heard and seen people
with many similarities, but hundreds
of times more differences. Human
beings are individuals. Each of us
has different strengths and
weaknesses, different interests and
desires, different hopes and dreams.
Different limitations and
possibilities. Each of us is unique.
We are un-averagable.
No self-appointed elite can know
what is best for any one American.
Much less know what is best for all
of us -- collectively.
No self-appointed clique has the
right to
 command
or rule any of us or all of us. The
American Revolution was launched and
fought for each individual's
inalienable right to life, liberty,
property, and the pursuit of
happiness. No one has more rights
than another. No one has less.
No self-appointed group of
individuals has legitimate grounds
to look down or talk down to
Americans who ignore or reject them
and their political agenda.
You are NOT an ordinary American.
You are NOT a common man or woman.
You are NOT an average Joe or Jane.
You are NOT one of the masses.
No one is. There is no such person.
Each of us is an individual.
And those who try to call you one
are NOT on your side. They are NOT
on the side of individual liberty,
personal responsibility, private
property, and small government.
* * * * * * * *
Michael Cloud is author of the
acclaimed book
Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion,
available exclusively from the
Advocates.
In 2000, Michael was honored with
the Thomas Paine Award as the Most
Persuasive Libertarian Communicator
in America.
|
 Ask
Dr.
Ruwart
Dr.
Mary Ruwart is a leading expert in
libertarian communication. In this
column she offers short answers to real
questions about libertarianism. To
submit questions to Dr. Ruwart, see end
of column.
What is the libertarian approach to
developing alternative energy sources?
QUESTION: What is the libertarian
approach to developing alternative
energy sources?
MY
SHORT ANSWER: Alternative energy
sources have been stifled by government
regulations and by subsidies to
traditional energy sources. For example,
early in the twentieth century,
virtually all municipal power plants
were made government monopolies;
competition was outlawed. People were
prohibited from forming companies to
compete with the government-approved
local energy monopolies. Though some of
this has changed in recent years,
competition in the production,
distribution and sale of energy is still
severely restricted.
Utility subsidies make some forms of
energy artificially less expensive than
they otherwise
would be, thus discouraging
entrepreneurs from exploring or
marketing solar or other alternative
power sources. Ironically, consumers are
made to pay more in taxes to limit their
energy choices! [EDITOR'S NOTE: For
example, the government heavily
subsidizes nuclear power with the
Price-Anderson Act, which severely
limits the liability of nuclear plants
in case of disaster -- even in cases of
gross negligence and willful
misconduct.]
A libertarian society wouldn't have
these and other policies that favor
established energy sources over
alternative ones. Letting market
competition set the prices of different
energy sources would enable consumers to
make rational choices about which to
support. Competition would bring
innovation, choice and lower prices.
Consumers would quickly beat a path to
any alternative energy source that
proved to be the "better mousetrap."
Finally, a libertarian society would be
a richer society. People would be able
to keep the money they earn; they
wouldn't be forced to hand it over to
the government for dubious and wasteful
programs. As a result, far more money
would be available for consumers to
purchase energy, and for companies to
explore and develop innovative new ways
to meet our energy needs.
LEARN
MORE: "Economists agree that as
long as energy prices are accurate (that
is, as long as prices reflect total
costs), the 'right' (optimal) amount of
investment in alternative energy will
occur because capitalists like profits.
If alternative energy makes economic
sense, market actors will quickly figure
that out from the price signals they
receive and invest accordingly." So
begins a short and informative Cato
Institute
article, "The Case against
Government Support for Alternative
Energy," by Peter Van Doren and Jerry
Taylor.
Also from the Cato Institute, some
valuable background information on the
Price-Anderson Act is in this 1984
article: "The Price-Anderson Act: Is
It Consistent with a Sound Energy
Policy?" by Barry P. Brownstein.
* * * * * * * *
Got
questions? Dr. Ruwart has
answers! If you'd like answers to YOUR
"tough questions" on libertarian issues,
email Dr. Ruwart at: ruwart@theAdvocates.org
Due to volume, Dr. Ruwart can't
personally acknowledge all emails. But
we'll run the best questions and answers
in upcoming issues.
Dr. Ruwart's previous Liberator Online
answers are
archived in searchable form.
Dr. Ruwart's outstanding books
Healing Our World and
Short Answers to the Tough Questions
are available from the Advocates.
|
One-Minute
Liberty Tip
Flipping the Question
by Sharon Harris
In this issue, we have excerpts from
a new TIME magazine interview with
Ron Paul.
One of the questions TIME asked Paul
was this:
"Why do you support the
decriminalization of marijuana?"
Now that sounds like a perfectly
normal, fair and innocent question.
And, in fact, it is.
But think about the wording. The
question creates a "frame" in a
listener's mind. Asked in this way,
the question implies, and assumes,
and implicitly announces, that the
position being questioned is
unusual, out-of-mainstream, radical,
weird, or even dangerous.
The result: No matter how you answer
it, that initial impression remains.
And you sound out-of-mainstream, on
the fringe, or worse.
Please note: I'm not saying that
someone who asks a question worded
like that is trying to paint you in
a negative manner. They may, in
fact, agree 100% with you. But the
wording of the question puts you at
a major communication disadvantage,
and undercuts your answer no matter
how brilliant and logical it might
be.
But you can reverse that, and turn
it to your advantage -- by using a
technique I call
 "Flipping
The Question," or, for short, the
Flip.
The Flip restates and reverses the
question. When that happens, YOUR
point becomes the reasonable,
moderate, normal, safe view. Just
like that! And the Flip is so subtle
and effective that your questioner
is likely to agree with you.
Ron Paul's response to that TIME
question is the perfect Flip.
He answered: "Why support the
criminalization of marijuana
is the better question."
He then went on to give a strong,
short argument for legalization of
marijuana.
See what he did? He simply restated
the question. Supporting marijuana
prohibition was presented as the odd
position. His position was presented
as the normal, moderate,
responsible, commonsense one.
It happened instantly.
You can use the Flip to great
advantage in many libertarian
conversations. Examples:
QUESTION: Why do you want to end
government schools?
FLIP: A better question would be,
"After so many decades of failure,
why does anyone still think the
government is competent to educate
our children?"
QUESTION: Why do you defend gun
ownership so strongly?
FLIP: A better question might be,
"Why would anyone want to deprive
people of the ability to defend
themselves and their loved ones from
vicious criminals?"
When you Flip the Question, you, in
essence, become the questioner. The
original questioner (or the implicit
assumption in the question) is
suddenly put on the defensive.
Note, too, that the Flip isn't
necessarily a rebuttal or an
argument. Many questions worded this
way aren't coming from people
hostile to your views. You will find
that the Flip persuades many of
these people to agree with you.
Flipping the Question is not
something that comes naturally. You
have to memorize the response,
practice it, get comfortable and
fluid with it. And of course you
must have good answers about the
subject being discussed.
But it is worth the effort. Because
the Flip can turn your answer into a
victory for your ideas.
* * * * * *
Sharon Harris is president of the
Advocates for Self-Government. See
more One Minute Liberty tips.
|
What's Happening
with the Advocates
*
ADVOCATES PRESIDENT AT ILLINOIS LP
CONVENTION: Sharon Harris will
deliver the keynote address at the
Libertarian Party of Illinois annual
convention, October 23-25 in
Collinsville, near St. Louis. For more
information,
contact the Libertarian Party of
Illinois.
* OPH
IN LP NEWS: The September issue
of LP News, the official newspaper of
the Libertarian Party, featured an
article and photo on a highly successful
OPH outreach booth by California LP
members. The OPH crew "had a great time
spreading the word about
libertarianism," according to the
article. Thanks, LP News, and
congratulations, California LP! Visit
here to learn how YOU can use OPH
(Operation Politically Homeless) for
highly successful libertarian outreach.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
About Us
THE LIBERATOR ONLINE, created by James W. Harris
and Paul Schmidt, is the official newsletter of
the
Advocates for Self-Government.
Mail: 1010 North Tennessee Street, Suite 215,
Cartersville, GA 30120
Phone: 770-386-8372. For orders: 1-800-932-1776
Fax: 770-386-8373
Email: info@TheAdvocates.org
WWW: http://www.theadvocates.org
Read
previous issues.
The Advocates for Self-Government is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit educational organization.
Contributions to the Advocates are
tax-deductible in the U.S.
"May it be to
the world... to assume the blessings and
security of self-government."
-- Thomas
Jefferson, June 24, 1826.
|
|
| |
|
