Corbyn wants choice on taxes funding military

Corbyn is secretly a libertarian anarchist. Who knew? - Telegraph - Lucy Denyer:

September 7, 2015 - "Imagine the scenario: January 31st is fast approaching, so you log on to HMRC’s website to complete your tax return. This year, there’s a new step to complete: the box you can tick to opt out of funding the Armed Forces. You check it. You’re a pacifist after all. Why should your hard-earned cash go towards funding war and bloodshed?

"It might sound a bit mental, but if Jeremy Corbyn has his way, it could soon be a reality. The Bearded One’s latest publicity wheeze is the announcement that, in his opinion, taxpayers should have the option to decline to fund the Armed Forces with their contributions.

"In theory, such a step sounds fairly reasonable. After all, lots of people don’t agree with war. So why should they have to fund the people that fight it?

"Except, our military does a lot more than just fight wars. Leaving aside our overseas commitments that don’t relate to combat: helping with crises such as Ebola in the developing world, fighting the international drugs trade, there are the domestic issues that, time and time again, our Armed Forces step in to help with....

 "Carry Corbyn’s 'stark staring bonkers' theory to its extreme, and things get even more ridiculous. If you don’t have children, for example, or don’t intend to have them, then why should you have to pay for state-funded education, or child tax credits? What about if you shun the NHS and use BUPA instead? Surely you should be mitigated from having to pay for the health service, if you don’t use it.

"The list is potentially endless: transport (don’t agree with cars; nasty polluting things, everybody should ride bicycles instead); prisons (locking people up doesn’t work); immigration and border control (we should let them all in; migrants are good for the economy)."

"In fact, once you start thinking it through, it could be argued that Corbyn’s statement is actually support for an entirely privatised system of society, with government services bought a la carte like phone contracts or TV bundles: a tax-lite avoidance setup worthy of the most bloated of payment-avoiding plutocrats. Corbyn, it turns out, is secretly a libertarian anarchist. Who knew?"

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11848784/Corbyn-is-secretly-a-libertarian-anarchist.-Who-knew.html 'via Blog this'

Can a Catholic be anything but a Libertarian?

What The Question Isn’t: Can A Catholic Be A Libertarian? - The Global Dispatch - John D. Pierce:

September 1, 2015 -  "Can someone be an unapologetic member of the Catholic Church and a proud member of the Libertarian Party at the same time?.... There are, after all, many who say these two philosophies are contradictory, that it is impossible to be both, that to do so borders on scandal. See, for example, the Washington Post column "Can you be Catholic and Libertarian?", as well as the National Catholic Report piece on "Catholicism and Libertarianism Clash Over Property and the Common Good" and "Catholics Divided on Libertarianism as ‘Heresy’" on the Blaze site.....

"The problem with many of these, though, is that they are answering a flawed question. The real question is not can you be a Catholic and a Libertarian, the real question is how can a Catholic be anything else?....

Regimes whose nature is contrary to the natural law, to the public order, and to the fundamental rights of persons cannot achieve the common good of the nations on which they have been imposed. Authority does not derive its moral legitimacy from itself. It must not behave in a despotic manner, but must act for the common good as a moral force based on freedom and a sense of responsibility.

A human law has the character of law to the extent that it accords with right reason, and thus derives from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason it is said to be an unjust law, and thus has not so much the nature of law as of a kind of violence.

Cathechism of the Catholic Church. Part 3, Sec. 1, Ch. 2, Art. 2.

"America is of course dominated politically by the two old parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, and those parties’ positions are simply an odd collection of policy statements—stances on issues that really have no rhyme or reason, that don’t match up to overarching philosophies, consistent principles, natural law, divine law or any other explicable standard....

"With just one step back the inconsistencies become all too obvious. How can all of this cognitive dissonance exist within our old political parties? It’s quite simple: Because the two old parties have no consistent principles. How can a Catholic, Protestant or Hindu try to align their deeply held religious beliefs to political parties that do not, and cannot, match them because they have no consistent principles of their own?

"Why would Libertarianism be an exception to this? Because it is a party of principle. It is consistently for liberty, for smaller government which makes for more freedom. On the social issues, it is for freedom. On the economic issues, it is for freedom. On any issue you can dream up, simply consider which side requires less government force against the individual, and there you will find the Libertarians. That leaves all the room in the world for your religious beliefs to be paramount in your life and in your political speech. You simply decide the moral issues for yourself and allow others the same privilege. While it is possible that this does not match the dictates of the Catechism word for word, it plainly matches it more clearly than the accumulated positions of the old parties."

Read more: http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/what-the-question-isnt-can-a-catholic-be-a-libertarian-84232/
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Libertarian legal ideas going mainsteam

The Rehabilitationists: The Libertarian Movement to Undo the New Deal | The New Republic - Brian Beutler:

August 30, 2015 - "In November 2013, a who’s who of America’s conservative legal establishment descended on the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., for an annual meeting of the Federalist Society, the most influential conservative legal organization in the country. Current presidential candidates Scott Walker and Ted Cruz each made appearances.... Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was a featured speaker.... One of the biggest stars of the conference, however, was neither a Senate-confirmed official nor an elected politician, but a libertarian law professor at Georgetown named Randy Barnett....

"'The younger people, the people in law school, they seem to be gravitating toward people like Randy,' said attendee Josh Blackman, an associate law professor at the South Texas College of Law and a close friend of Barnett’s. 'When he gets off the stage he’s mobbed. ... There’s a crowd of people five or six feet deep surrounding him'....

"Barnett and his compatriots represent the vanguard of a lasting shift toward greater libertarian influence over our law schools and, increasingly, throughout our legal system. They’re building networks for students and young lawyers and laying the foundation for a more free-market cast of federal judges in the next presidential administration. Their goal is to fundamentally reshape the courts in ways that will have profound effects on society....

"Barnett believes the Constitution exists to secure inalienable property and contract rights for individuals. This may sound like a bland and inconsequential opinion, but if widely adopted by our courts and political systems it would prohibit or call into question basic governmental protections—minimum wages, food-safety regulations, child-labor laws—that most of us take for granted. For nearly a century now, a legal counterculture has insisted that the whole New Deal project was a big, unconstitutional error, and Barnett is a big part of that movement today....

"All libertarians want to fight federal regulations in Congress and the executive branch. But Barnett and his allies think courts should be empowered to throw regulations out even if political majorities support them. These ... professors have established beachheads at law schools across the country. In 2002, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh founded a blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, as a hub for libertarian ideas, including Lochner revisionism. Today, it has become the most prominent academic legal blog in the country and now publishes under the auspices of The Washington Post. It boasts nearly two dozen contributing professors and mainlines detailed and informed libertarian legal arguments to thousands of the nation’s top lawyers, law students, clerks, judges, and opinion-makers every day.

"The contributors to The Volokh Conspiracy teach at the University of Minnesota, Northwestern, Emory, Duke, and elsewhere. Several hold positions at George Mason University’s law school, which is famous for its conservative faculty and, in 36 short years, has rocketed to prominence as one of the 50 best law schools in the country....

"In 1991, two former members of the Reagan administration, Chip Mellor and Clint Bolick, founded the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm now based in Arlington, Virginia, with $350,000 a year in seed money from the oil and gas magnate Charles Koch. They’ve challenged state licensing laws on behalf of hair braiders, florists, and other tradespeople across the country, but have also undertaken loftier crusades, including a doomed effort to overturn the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires that contractors pay their employees competitive wages on government-funded projects....

"With five offices around the country, a legal clinic training students at the University of Chicago Law School, and a staff of nearly 100, the Institute for Justice has become a proving ground for aspiring, ideologically committed lawyers. Every year, the group sends lawyers to law schools around the country to give presentations on public-interest law and recruit students into its ranks."

Read more: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122645/rehabilitationists-libertarian-movement-undo-new-deal
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LibertyFest NYC registers KanyeWest2020.com

Would President Kanye Be a Libertarian? - The Daily Beast - Olivia Nuzzi:

August 31, 2015 - "At the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, while accepting the Video Vanguard Award, West joked, 'and yes, as you probably could’ve guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president.'

"Internet vultures wasted no time capitalizing on West’s announcement.

"At 10:54 p.m., Ian Cioffi, a libertarian activist, took to Facebook, where he describes his political views as 'Not boxed in,' to announce that he is now the 'Proud owner of KanyeWest2020.com.'

"Follow the link to the site, and you’re redirected to lfnyc.com, the website for LibertyFest NYC, 'a yearly event that brings together speakers from many different political backgrounds. From Republicans, to Democrats, to Libertarians & even Anarchists.'

"This year’s speakers include former New Mexico governor, presidential candidate and marijuana evangelist Gary Johnson, and Jimmy McMillan, who ran for president in 2012 as the self-appointed leader of 'The Rent Is Too Damn High' party.

"'I knew it would be a traffic generator,' Cioffi told me via Facebook chat. His goal, he said, was to bring attention to Liberty Fest."

Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/is-kanye-a-libertarian.html
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Student groups form united Alumni for Liberty (video)

Student Libertarian Groups Join Forces to Form "Alumni for Liberty" - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Brian Doherty:

August 26, 2015 - "As someone whose college-age libertarian activism in a long-past century was supported by no organization larger than the Libertarian Party (and very mildly at that), it's been bracing and exciting watching the rise of two different big and active organizations dedicated to libertarian thought and activism for the college crowd, Young Americans for Liberty and Students for Liberty.

"Today the two officially announce they are partnering to form a group to keep the activism a-flowing for their associates who leave the Elysian fields of academe, Alumni for Liberty, dedicated to organizing continued support for student programs, as well as adult and professional networking and continuing education on matters of liberty.

"A video announcement from YAF and SFL chieftains Jeff Frazee and Alexander McCobin:"
http://reason.com/blog/2015/08/26/student-libertarian-groups-join-forces-t
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Marijuana lowers transplant rejection, USC study finds

Marijuana delays organ rejection in mice transplant recipients - Yahoo News UK - Hannah Osborne, International Business Times:

September 2, 2015 - "The active ingredient in marijuana has been found to delay organ rejection in mice. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) appears to have 'decreased early stage rejection' of organs and could one day be a useful anti-rejection therapy for transplant patients, scientists believe.

"Researchers from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine published their findings in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. Mitzi Nagarkatti said: 'We are excited to demonstrate for the first time that cannabinoid receptors play an important role in the prolongation of rejection of a foreign graft by suppressing immune response in the recipient. This opens up a new area of research that would lead to better approaches to prevent transplant rejection as well as to treat other inflammatory diseases.'

"The team used two groups of genetically different mice and transplanted skin from one group to the other – meaning all of the mice received incompatible skin so rejection was inevitable. One group was given a placebo while the other was given THC.

"They note that previous research has shown the activation of cannabinoid receptors on immune cells triggers potent immunosuppression – but the role of cannabinoids in transplantation to prevent rejection has not been investigated. 'In the current study, we tested the effect of THC on the suppression of HvGD (Graft-Versus-Host Disease) as well as rejection of skin allografts.'

"Findings showed THC treatment significantly reduced T-cell proliferation and decreased early stage rejection-indicator cytokines. It also increased the skin graft survival. 'Together, our research shows, for the first time to our knowledge, that targeting cannabinoid receptors may provide a novel treatment modality to attenuate HvGD and prevent allograft rejection.'"

Read more: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/marijuana-delays-organ-rejection-mice-130602793.html
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First Libertarian candidate in Northwest Territories

"I'm not a throwaway vote": NWT Libertarian candidate - Mike Gibbins, My Yellowknife Now:

August 31, 2015 - "[A] Yellowknife man wants to become the first Libertarian MP for the Northwest Territories.

"Bob Stewart, 31, says he wants residents to throw away any preconceived notions they may have of the party and cast a vote for him ahead of the October 19th federal election....

"Stewart told Moose FM Libertarians are primarily concerned with 'reducing the tax burden on citizens and reducing the size and reach of the federal government' to bring legislation closer to the people.'

"Born and raised in Yellowknife, Stewart says the territory has a real opportunity to send a strong voice to Ottawa.

"'It doesn’t matter who you’re going to send to Parliament if you’re sending someone that’s a small member in a big party because then you’re sending someone to wear a jersey and raise their hand when they’re told.

"'The Northwest Territories has a chance to send someone who can be that strong voice for big things like foreign policy and domestic policy when it comes to law enforcement and issues like that.

"'I’m the only person who’s basically got that free reign to be a strong voice and speak truth to power.

"'To me, every other vote is a throwaway vote. I don’t understand why someone would vote just to put another backbencher on the bench when you have someone out there who can speak truth to power.'

"Nationally, Stewart says the party would also work to repeal Bill C-51, which he says strips away inalienable constitutional rights.

"Stewart, who also owns the newly-opened Kilt and Castle on 49th Street, previously worked as a financial planner and budget analyst with the GNWT."

Read more: http://www.myyellowknifenow.com/7565/im-not-a-throwaway-vote-nwt-libertarian-candidate/
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