Is it hypocritical for a libertarian to accept money from government?

An often repeated line by many liberals and even some conservatives, is that it is hypocritical for a libertarian to accept money from the government in any form. So is this true? Not hardly.

The Burdens of Overtime Wage Laws

By: Stephen Carter

Sometimes I need to work more than forty hours a week, sometimes I want to work more than forty hours a week, either way it’s to get ahead and be a little more financially stable. Often though, I’m unable to do so.

A Right to Discriminate

Should it be illegal for a privately owned business to discriminate against people?

People discriminate every day. What instantly comes to mind with something like this is color of skin and gender. Discrimination can be any range of areas though, from looks, to speech, quality of clothes, pitch of voice, physical strength, etc. There are many things here that are discriminated against that people cannot control. Should we employ a bad singer over a good singer in order to avoid discrimination? Should we employ a weaker person over a very strong person to do a job that requires a lot of physical strength, just to avoid discrimination? How about the modeling business, isn’t that entire industry built on discrimination against ugly people? What of all female book clubs, doesn’t this discriminate against males? Scholarships that go to only black people?

A Not So ‘Just’ Government

By: Stephen Carter

It just doesn’t seem like you get much justice when it comes to dealing with the government, especially when you’re defending yourself from it.

Most have experienced this before, whether they realized it at the time or not, and it is remarkable that we have not conceived of something better, at the very least cried out against the injustice. When the government gets you in its sights, often the easiest thing to do at the time is comply and hope it goes away. What exactly are we talking about here you ask?

Higher One foists new restrictions on students

I’m a college student and I receive any school funds through the Higher One system. Today I got an email from them notifying me of a change in the way they are treating our accounts now. Their new amendment is as follows:

Your Account may consist of two sub-accounts. One sub-account is a demand deposit account (the “Checking Sub-Account”) and the other sub-account is a savings deposit account (the “Savings Sub-Account”). These accounts are treated as a single account for purposes of certain record keeping, fees, and paying items presented against your account. The periodic statement of activity on your Account and any record of your Account at any automated teller machine, will reflect this Account as a single account, and will not select the sub-accounts in any way. Neither sub-account pays interest on account balances. Although we have no intentions of exercising this right, federal regulations require us to reserve the right to require at least seven (7) days written notice prior to withdrawal or transfer of any funds in the savings sub-account. You may only access your savings sub-account through transactions on your checking sub-account.

At various times during each statement cycle, should your checking sub-account balance exceed a threshold amount, all funds in the checking sub-account in excess of that amount may be transferred into the savings sub-account. As funds in the savings sub-account are needed to pay items presented against your checking sub-account, they will be transferred back into the checking sub-account. Transfers into the checking sub-account will be made up to five times per statement cycle. If a sixth transfer is needed in any statement cycle, the entire balance of the savings sub-account will be transferred into the checking sub-account. The threshold balance is set by us and may be changed at any time at our discretion.

So I’m wondering, does this now mean that they can make loans against the money I have in my account and make interest off of those loans? If so, that means they’re using my money to make money for themselves, without paying me for the use of my money. I suppose this also means that if I want to use my money, I may have to obtain permission to do so seven days prior. Why should I have to obtain permission to use money that is mine?

I honestly believe us college students are getting the shaft. We have to jump through so many hoops to go to school, can only drop six classes during our entire time in college, we are paying insanely high tuition rates, we’re getting sub-par education, the federal government has fed us to private lenders, and now we’re being restricted in how we use our money, and on top of that, these people who we are forced to go through in order to obtain our money are charging substantial fees and making loans against our money so that they can make money.

I really hope college students make it a point to bring these issues to the political conversation this coming year, and that they don’t let up until positive change is made.

Simple Supply and Demand: What you should know about this easy concept and how it can make for a more prosperous society

Supply and demand is a simple economic function that works on very basic principles that everyone should learn and know.

A toddler dies, the only person to help is the least expected to do so, a perspective

A Chinese toddler ended up dieing after being hit by a car and no one stopped to see if she was alright. A homeless man ultimately found her and tried to help.

Electric Cab Company Battle A Success

Good news, we have an update on the Austin Electric Cab situation.

After the previous article covering the situation received around 90,0000 views, and elicited over 1,000 responses to the Austin City council, we have results!

The council has approved a pilot program for the electric cabs. Though the downside is that after over 300 tickets and 3 arrests, fines and other costs will not be recouped by the cab company, it seems that battle is over. It is with hope that future monopolies will be broken down by enterprising individuals who have the courage and will to slug it out with their governments in order to better improve the lives of the people around them.

Many thanks to those who also ran the story, those who shared the story with their friends, and those who took the time to contact the city council. Activism is alive and well!

Some advice the Libertarian Party, national, state, and local should consider

This is a mixed bag of advice covering various areas, all very pertinent to becoming a successful party.

The problem with history in public school

When looking at the actions of others in history, should we look at it based on the color of their skin, gender, or their sexual orientation?

Moneyball: One of the best baseball movies ever?

The new Brad Pitt movie Moneyball may just well be one of if not the best baseball movies ever.

Heathen Christians: A Danger to Society

I’m convinced more than ever that a lot of Christians are fakes. To put it real bluntly, full of shit.

Don’t fear the politics

Getting into politics can be a hard, nasty process. Having it as a hobby, something that you enjoy doing for whatever reason, can be even harder.

Mind the Gap

By: Paul Graham

When people care enough about something to do it well, those who do it best tend to be far better than everyone else. There’s a huge gap between Leonardo and second-rate contemporaries like Borgognone. You see the same gap between Raymond Chandler and the average writer of detective novels. A top-ranked professional chess player could play ten thousand games against an ordinary club player without losing once.

Like chess or painting or writing novels, making money is a very specialized skill. But for some reason we treat this skill differently. No one complains when a few people surpass all the rest at playing chess or writing novels, but when a few people make more money than the rest, we get editorials saying this is wrong.

Why? The pattern of variation seems no different than for any other skill. What causes people to react so strongly when the skill is making money?

Why we should let home prices fall

Home prices and property prices in general are too high.

The government has been working ferociously to prop up housing prices, and along with them, property prices ever since the bust hoping that things will rebound. The sad irony of this is that they are helping to prevent that rebound with this practice. For even more irony, while systematically trying to keep prices high, there are also programs to keep prices low for low-income people. The sad reality is that a lot of us are now low-income people and need these low prices that the federal government has prevented from coming about.

100 anti-war quotes

1. “As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral.” -U.S. WWII General Omar Bradley

2. “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” -James Madison

3. “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” -James Madison

4. “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. ” -James Madison

5. “Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.” -James Madison

Man stun guns people at Cowboys-Jets game over 9/11 tribute, critics call for ass-kicking

Apparently a man used a stun gun on three people at the Dallas Cowboys-NY Jets football game this past Sunday.

Conversation in Peril: Don’t be that person

I find that this is a reoccurring theme with a lot of people. Yesterday I got to experience a very pure form of it.

Say you’re having a conversation with someone and they make a claim with no evidence backing up that claim. You then offer a counter-claim and are subsequently dismissed by the other person through the use of some sarcasm or the more direct “whatever.” Instead of reacting wrongly to the situation by attacking the fact that they dismissed you, you opted to go a much better route by offering to demonstrate your claim to the other person. This is what any good debater would do when they make a claim, which is to offer evidence or demonstrate their position, even when the other person doesn’t make an attempt to do the same.

So you ask the other person to hear you demonstrate your claim and all of a sudden they are no longer interested in discussing the matter further, dismissing it as stupid or irrelevant. Being nice about it, you tell them that you can easily prove what you’re saying and it will only take a minute to do so, yet they proceed to cut you off and get away from the subject. Why did this happen? Why would a person make a claim with no evidence, receive a counter claim with an offer of evidence, and then all of a sudden decide that the subject in which they were originally talking about is now no longer interesting and is now stupid? It’s because they decided beforehand that they were right, the other person was wrong, and that is the only way it will be. This is the case even if they did offer evidence of their claim before cutting you off.

Citizen Ticketed for Directing Traffic

What should you do when the government fails to do its job? Nothing, which is the message this police department is sending out when they ticketed a man for directing traffic at a light that went out and police refused to help the situation.

When a major traffic light in South Pasadena, California went out Thursday morning, Alan Ehrlich took matters into his own hands, directing traffic at Fair Oaks and Huntington avenues.

Slow Down, You Might Miss Something

What happens when you don’t take the time to notice what’s happening around you.