McAfee gets star treatment at NY convention

Truth or fiction? John McAfee for the Libertarian party's presidential nominee | US news | The Guardian - Adam Gabbatt:

May 1, 2016 - "The New York state Libertarian party convention was held in New York City on Saturday. It started at 10am. It grew lively at noon, the hour John McAfee showed up.

"The anti-virus software mogul and one-time international fugitive had turned into a presidential hopeful, and he arrived at the convention dressed like an ageing rocker: blond streaks in his hair, aviator sunglasses hooked into the neck of his white T-shirt and a flamboyant paisley scarf draped around his neck.

"McAfee, who infamously went on the run from Belize police in 2012 after being named as a 'person of interest' in a murder case, would later tell the Guardian he never went out at night for fear that the government of Belize might try to 'whack' him.... That threat aside, the 70-year-old seemed to be enjoying himself as he overshadowed the rest of Libertarian party nominees at the convention in the East Village. He was in the city to debate his fellow hopefuls, including the party’s 2012 candidate, Gary Johnson.... But there was no doubting who was the star on Saturday.

"Rather than immediately enter the convention ... McAfee posted up outside, having his photograph taken with Libertarians and passersby, smoking cigarettes and acting up for the four-person film crew he had arrived with. He is being filmed for a series on Spy TV, and he seemed to be enjoying the attention. He chatted into the camera, he laughed into the camera, he came up close to the lens and stuck his tongue out at the camera....

"McAfee argued that he should be president because only he has the skills to address the problem of internet security.... 'I will win,' McAfee added. 'I would win the general election. Because I know who I am, I know my talents, and I know what my limits are. And I’ve been around long enough to know people’s minds.'

"McAfee began his debate performance with an unorthodox opening statement: 'I don’t have a statement prepared'.... He sat back down. He had used 30 seconds of his allotted two minutes....

"After the debate, Johnson and others hung around to chat and shake hands. But McAfee had had enough. He jumped up and marched out, his film crew scurrying behind him. He seemed to have lost some of his rock star pizzazz. 'I’m 70 years old, and I’ve been talking all day.'

"Asked what he thought of the debate, he said: 'It was boring, as all debates are, and utter nonsense.'"

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/01/john-mcafee-libertarian-party-presidential-candidate
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How Penn Jillette became a libertarian

Penn Jillette: How I Became a Libertarian - Newsweek:

April 30, 2016 - "The way the media tend to present libertarians is that we’re conservatives, or we’re people with money who want to smoke dope. And it’s really not true at all for me. I do not come to libertarianism because I’m a really successful businessperson, or a CEO, or because I have to fight regulations.

"I really come to it from a purely hippie point of view. I have always been a peacenik, and in the '80s I met a man named Tim Jenison. I was then just kind of your standard liberal, and Tim was libertarian.

"I started giving all the arguments for why the government had to be more powerful, and Tim said a really simple sentence to me. He said, 'Do you think it’s OK to punish people who’ve done nothing wrong?' And I said 'No' — even though I felt somewhere in my heart that it was a trick question. And then he said, 'Why is it OK to reward people who’ve done nothing right?'

"He said, 'Can’t you see that you can’t reward without punishing? They’re the same thing.' And that shut me up for a little while.

"Then Tim started saying, 'You know, you’re so against force. You’ve never hit anybody in your life. You’ve been beat up. You’ve been in carnival situations that have gone badly and people have hit you and you’ve not hit them back because you didn’t think it was life threatening. You are insanely peacenik in terms of the way you see war, what the country should do. Why do you think it’s so OK for the government to use force to get things done that you think are good ideas?'

"I started thinking that one really good definition of government is that government is supposed to have a monopoly on force. The government is the guys with the guns, and we are the people who tell the government what they can do. So in my morality, I shouldn’t be able to tell anyone to do something with a gun that I wouldn’t do myself.

"Now I want to add here that I am incompetent and I am a coward, so this is all theoretical, what I’m about to say — but if you asked me: Would I use a gun to stop a murder? Yeah! Would I use a gun to stop a rape? Yeah! Would I use the threat of a gun to stop a robbery? Yeah, I think you kind of have to. Would I use a gun to protect our country and our way of life? Yeah!

Would I use a gun to build a library? No!

"Do I think libraries are really important? Wicked important! Really important!.... So will I give my money to help someone build a library? Yeah! Will I ask other people to give their money to help build a library? Yeah! Will I beg other people to give money to build a library? Yeah! Will I lie to people to get them to give money to build a library? A little bit.

"Will I use a gun to get someone to build a library? No.

"And that is, in a nutshell, my entire view of politics: that I have to look over what people want the government to do and say 'If I were given all the power, would I use a gun to accomplish what they want to accomplish?'"

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/penn-jillette-how-became-libertarian-453565
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What is a 'cultural libertarian'?

In Search of the Elusive Cultural Libertarian - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Elizabeth Nolan Brown:

April 20, 2016 - 'What is a 'cultural libertarian?' While young conservatives claim the term originated in a 2015 Breitbart article, it's actually a term that's been thrown around by libertarians and conservatives in the media since at least 2001. But does the 'cultural libertarianism' debated in outlets such as Reason and the National Review back then share anything with the version espoused by the likes of Canadian activist Lauren Southern and Breitbart personality Milo Yiannopoulos these days? Yes and no.

"Today's 'cultural libertarians' claim to be concerned, first and foremost, with free speech and fending off the 'illiberal' or 'regressive left.' Where they succeed, from a libertarian-no-qualifier perspective, is in igniting the passions of young people toward the protection of civil liberties. Where they fail is by turning off more people in the process than they win over, delighting in the kinds of tactics and stunts that provoke but little else....

"Southern positions cultural libertarianism as a sub-branch of broader libertarian philosophy. 'Libertarians who are not Cultural Libertarians would argue that the only suppression of speech and expression that is unacceptable is suppression that is perpetrated by the state,' says Southern, making it sound like just another way of saying 'thick libertarian.' Thick libertarianism is a term used by liberty-movement types to describe libertarians who 'concern themselves with social commitments, practices, projects or movements that seek social outcomes beyond, or other than, the standard libertarian commitment to expanding the scope of freedom from government coercion'....

"Breitbart's Allum Bokhari defines cultural libertarians in opposition to cultural authoritarians.... cultural libertarians believe in open expression, viewing art as separate from its political overtones, and recognizing 'that efforts to police language and expression are not only counter-productive, but also fragile'.... Tellingly, Bokhari mentions the main goal of cultural libertarian to be 'needling their foes' on the Internet 'with waspish critiques and satire'.... When it comes down to it, the cultural libertarians of the Breitbart set just want to mock 'social justice warriors' while invoking natural rights.

"Yet at the very bottom of Bokhari's list, there is this: 'celebrating culture in all its forms' ... this idea is the closest that Cultural Libertarianism 2.0 comes to its 2001 counterpart. Let's look at that old debate for a moment. In a December 2001 National Review post, Jonah Goldberg decried the 'Chinese-menu culture' that 'basically says that whatever ideology, religion, cult, belief, creed, fad, hobby, or personal fantasy you like is just fine so long as you don’t impose it on anybody else, especially with the government'.... This attitude, embodied by the 'arrogant nihilism" of Nick Gillespie and former Reason editor Virginia Postrel, was 'rapidly replacing liberalism as the real threat to America, and the true opposition to conservatism,' warned Goldberg.

"According to cultural libertarianism ... we can pick from across the vast menu of human diversity — from all religions and cultures, real and imagined — until we find one that fits our own personal preferences. Virginia Postrel can write triumphantly that the market allows Americans to spend $8 billion on porn and $3 billion at Christian bookstores, because she isn’t willing to say that one is any better, or any worse, than the other."

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/20/the-elusive-cultural-libertarian
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Petersen sees 'generational liberty movement'

Austin Petersen Wants You To Vote Libertarian In 2016 « CBS Philly - Rich Zeoli:

April 28, 2016 - "Austin Petersen, ... Libertarian candidate for President, attempted to make the case as to why you should forego voting for one of the two major political party candidates and consider him instead.

"Petersen, while speaking with Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said libertarians believe in keeping the government out of your life as much as possible....

"He attempted to differentiate what his party stands for when comparing it to the Democrats or Republicans.

"'Libertarianism really just means you believe in maximum economic liberty. If you believe that you own your life, that you own your body and that you should be able to do as you please, provided that you harm no one else, then you might be a libertarian. The problem, of course, is that when you talk about conservatives vs liberalism, is that oftentimes conservatives tend to be a bit more hawkish. They tend to want to impose liberty on those overseas. Or they’re willing to sacrifice our liberty in our Fourth Amendment rights, with the issues of the NSA. Libertarians believe in privacy in those issues. Of course, Democrats will say you can have your personal privacy, but we want to have what’s in your wallet. The libertarian says you can have your personal liberty and your economic freedom. You can have both.'

"Petersen stated that casting your vote with him could go along way to giving the American people more options in choosing a President in the future.

"'If you care about the future of the country, voting for a Libertarian party candidate creates a generational liberty movement. Very briefly, here’s how. If you get a high enough percentage of the national vote to the Libertarian party, it solidifies, it cements the Libertarian party as a major national party, which does two things. One, it qualifies them for federal matching funds. Two, it provides them with ballot access.'"

Read more: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/04/28/the-libertarian-candidate-for-president-wants-voters-to-join-a-generational-movement/

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Republican Forum endorses Libertarian for Senate

El Paso County GOP group endorses a Libertarian for U.S. Senate | The Colorado Independent - Corey Hutchins:

April 28, 2016 - "A group of Colorado Springs Republicans Wednesday endorsed Lily Tang Williams, the Libertarian candidate running in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race.

"The nod from the El Paso County Republican Strategy Forum was the first time in its 13 years the group has endorsed a third-party candidate, says its chair Sheryl Glasgow.

"Williams spoke to the group Wednesday for more than an hour about her former life under Chairman Mao’s rule in Communist China, a place 'without any civil liberties, privacy, and economic freedom.' Her message resonated with the Republican group, which is neither affiliated with the El Paso County Republican Party nor the state GOP....

"Glasgow said her group has been disappointed with the large GOP field for U.S. Senate this year, especially after state Sen. Tim Neville was knocked out of the running at the Republican Party’s April 9 state convention.

"None of the other candidates for U.S. Senate have spoken to the group about their bids, she said.
'We all personally know Darryl Glenn, and I think he’s spoken to our group in the past'.... She declined to elaborate on Glenn, saying news that her group, which has the word 'Republican' in its name, endorsed a Libertarian would be 'explosive enough'.

"The only other Republican so far who has made the GOP ballot is former CSU athletic director Jack Graham, and the group is not fond of him, Glasgow said. The Libertarian Williams found herself on the group’s radar when one of its members heard her speaking elsewhere .... 'so he said, "Well, you guys ought to hear her," and we were all just in awe of her,' Glasgow said of Williams.

Williams, 51, hopes the recent endorsement will generate buzz around her third-party bid. 'I think some Republican officials aren’t going to be happy,' she told The Independent.

"She’s running for U.S. Senate because she opposes big government, the Common Core educational standards, corporate welfare, and the nation’s surveillance programs. Coming from China, she says she’ll have no problem calling out her Senate colleagues as communists if she has to. She’d limit herself to two terms."

Read more: http://www.coloradoindependent.com/159041/el-paso-county-gop-group-endorses-a-libertarian-for-u-s-senate
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Turkish constitution to be based on libertarian secularism, says PM

Turkeys new constitution to be based on libertarian rather than authoritarian secularism, PM says - Daily Sabah:

April 26, 2016 - "Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on Wednesday that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will start to draft a new constitution that includes secularism based on libertarian principles rather than authoritarian values.

"Speaking at the AK Party's Extended Provincial Chairmen meeting in Ankara, Davutoğlu said there have been comprehensive discussions with academics and opinion leaders within the party this month on a civil constitution that will also include a presidential system....

"He pledged that the AK Party's draft constitution would guarantee secularism and dismissed claims that it would not include secularism, saying it is out of the question to debate the nature of the Turkish state as anything other than a secular democracy with the rule of law.

"'We will propose a libertarian sense of secularism rather than an authoritarian one,' Davutoğlu said, and added that the party is aware that they are preparing Turkey's first civilian constitution and it emphasizes and respects human dignity.

"He said the draft constitution would guarantee religious freedoms while it would ensure that the state has equal distance from all religions and faiths....

"Senior AK Party officials voiced their support for secularism, arguing that the new draft constitution readied by the AK Party committee retained the principle of separation of state and religion to ensure Turkey enjoys the full benefits of a democratic system of government.

"The chairman of the AK Party's Constitution Commission in Parliament, AK Party Istanbul Deputy Mustafa Şentop, said Tuesday that the AK Party commission will maintain secularism in its draft constitution and excluding it is out of the question. AK Party Group Deputy Chairman Bülent Turan also said on Tuesday that the party's stance regarding secularism is 'quite clear'....

"Turkey is preparing to reform the current Constitution, which was drafted after the Sept. 12, 1980 coup and creates a variety of impediments to legislation."

Read more: http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2016/04/27/turkeys-new-constitution-to-be-based-on-libertarian-rather-than-authoritarian-secularism-pm-says
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Fatal ODs fell 25% where medical marijuana legal

Overdoses Fell with Medical Marijuana Legalization - NYTimes.com - Colleen Barry:

April 26, 2016 - "While opioid pain relievers offer critical benefits to certain patients, such as those with cancer-related pain, the rise of opioid prescriptions has had devastating public health consequences. The C.D.C. [Center for Disease control] recently urged physicians to be very cautious in prescribing these drugs.

"Meanwhile, access to medical marijuana has expanded rapidly — 24 states and D.C. have legalized its broad medical use — and chronic or severe pain is the most common condition reported among those using it. On it's face, this might seem to mirror the rise in prescription opioid use.

"But using state-level death certificate data from 1999 to 2010, my colleagues and I found that the annual rate of opioid overdose deaths decreased substantially — by 25 percent on average — following the passage of medical marijuana laws, compared to states that still had bans.

"Could medical marijuana be a safer alternative to opioids for chronic pain management? If so, it would potentially reduce harms from opioid medicines.

"Our study opened the door to that possibility, but it did not establish the causal mechanisms by which marijuana might influence overdose deaths and was conducted before the massive surge in heroin use and related overdose deaths....

"Similarly, we don't know whether the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes will have an impact — positive or negative — on nonmedical use of opioids and heroin. Again, evidence is lacking and will likely depend on how recreational marijuana is regulated."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/26/is-marijuana-a-gateway-drug/overdoses-fell-with-medical-marijuana-legalization
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