Mutual Aid Societies Before the Welfare State

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., the great libertarian historian and economist and host of the Tom Woods Show (which I highly recommend), interviews David Beito, author of From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, and they talk on how mutual societies existed, particularly among blacks, before the welfare state came about and changed the course of American welfare. Here is the link to that interview.

And please do subscribe to the Tom Woods Show on iTunes, or go to the website, where all the interviews are collected in an archive for downloading. I enjoy it, and it is very interesting, particularly this interview.

Some Theological Topics To Write About (UPDATED)

Dear readers of Letter of Liberty:

In my post "I'm Back!," I promised that I would deal with theological and spiritual issues alongside libertarianism and politics. But there are so many topics out there that I don't know what exactly to pick. So I decided to create a schedule for Theological Friday, the day where I write an article dealing with theological issues and spiritual topics and how they apply to society and to individuals.

So, my first article for that day would be about the meaning of Christmas, Scripture, and the proper Christian attitude towards it.

UPDATE: My intended article for today, "The Meaning of Christmas," is delayed, for I didn't finish it by today. So it will be up on either Monday or Tuesday.

Letter of Liberty News Edition (12-03-2013)

Here is the Tuesday edition of Letter of Liberty.

James E. Miller explains to the pope why laissez-faire capitalism is good and statism is not.

Jonathan Goodwin explains the folly of Larry Sommers's "populist" economics.

Karen De Coster smashes the "equal opportunity" militarism that female soldiers participate in.

Logan Albright explains the fallacy of "science."

Mark Thornton explains hemp.

Jeffrey Tucker exposes the catastrophic central planning of Obamacare.

Walter E. Williams writes on the relationship between blacks and our current president.

Kelly B. Vlahos explains how Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, is no ordinary puppet.

Ron Paul explains why the American government can negotiate with Iran.

Kate Randall explains how employers' canceling of healthcare plans will shift the costs to workers.

Radley Balko explains the police-industrial-entertainment complex.

Carl Bernstein writes an open letter to Alan Rusbridger, as Rusbridger prepares to appear before MPS over Snowden leaks.

Jacob Hornberger gives an important message.

Richard Ebeling explains the menace and immorality of welfare statism.

James Bovard shows how food stamps lead to obesity.

Wendy McElroy shows that "libertarian paternalism" is an oxymoron, despite what Cass Sunstein claims.

Frank Hollenbeck warns us of hyperinflation by showing us the problems that plagued revolutionary France.

Paul Rosenberg shows why Gary North is wrong about Bitcoin.

Robert Wenzel shows how Pope Francis is wrong about free markets (plus an interesting discussion in the comments section).

Glenn Reynolds explains why the TSA should be abolished.

Jacob Hornberger shows how racist the minimum wage laws and the war on drugs really are.

Oliver Stone talks on untold history (warning: some leftist content).

Gary North shows how Detroit can have resurrection through its bankruptcy.

Laurence M. Vance writes on what Erasmus had to say about just war.

Brian McWilliams comments on the IRS's targeting of Obamacare critics.

Dave Hodges shows the real truth about who wrote Obamacare.

Thomas Sowell writes on IQ and the welfare state.

Scott Lazarowitz shows how freedom can solve the problem of homelessness.

Scans show that male and female brains are wired differently.

Joseph Mercola shows that tree nuts are beneficial to one's health due to healthful fats loaded in them.

Gavin McInnes gives 12 tips for proper bar etiquette (N.B.: some foul language).

Dan Delzell shows how self-confidence and self-criticism are twins.

Paul Rosenberg makes the case that we should emulate the hippies in this one way.

The Tragedy of Riots (and Black Friday)

I just found two important videos with regards to riots and Black Friday. While I am all for commerce, capitalism, free markets, and making money (the right way, productively, not coercively), I am not for loving money, rioting (like most Black Fridays result in), and zombie-style consumption.

The first video is libertarian talk-show host, conspiracy theorist, and 9/11 truther Alex Jones's (whose websites are in my Links and Resources page) comments on Black Friday. He tells how America is no longer a free market country but rather a country of global cronyism, with the help of artificial elites and media.

The second video is a harrowing video showing riots occurring on Black Friday (warning: graphic violence).

There are more videos regarding the nightmare that is Black Friday. They are in Dave Hodges's article today on LewRockwell.com (which I read everyday). And Paul Joseph Watson, an editor at Infowars.com, has written several articles on this phenomenon (see here, here, here, and here).This is all part of a larger sign of economic collapse, government failure, and civil unrest. Share them with your friends and family, like them on Facebook and Twitter, share them through Google+ (my default social networking service), and through about any service one can think off. The truth needs to get out. We need the Lord Jesus Christ more than ever. But we also need truth like this too. 

Lew Rockwell Makes The Case for Anarcho-Capitalism

Lew Rockwell, the great libertarian entrepreneur, writer, economist, and scholar, makes the case for anarcho-capitalism, the branch of libertarianism that goes further than classical (limited-government) libertarianism and advocates for the complete abolition of the State in favor of the free market providing almost everything, including defense and security services.

In his recent article "Why I Am An Anarcho-Capitalist," Rockwell states:

A great many people – more than ever, probably – describe themselves as supporters of the free market today, in spite of the unrelenting propaganda against it. And that’s great. Those statements of support, however, are followed by the inevitable but: but we need government to provide physical security and dispute resolution, the most critical services of all.
Almost without a thought, people who otherwise support the market want to assign to government the production of the most important goods and services. Many favor a government or government-delegated monopoly on the production of money, and all support a government monopoly on the production of law and protection services.
This isn’t to say these folks are stupid or doltish. Nearly all of us passed through a limited-government – or “minarchist” – period, and it simply never occurred to us to examine our premises closely.
To begin with, a few basic economic principles ought to give us pause before we assume government activity is advisable:

• Monopolies (of which government itself is a prime example) lead to higher prices and poorer service over time.

• The free market’s price system is constantly directing resources into such a pattern that the desires of the consumers are served in a least-cost way in terms of opportunities foregone.

• Government, by contrast, cannot be “run like a business,” as Ludwig von Mises explained in Bureaucracy. Without the profit-and-loss test, by which society ratifies allocation decisions, a government agency has no idea what to produce, in what quantities, in what location, using what methods. Their every decision is arbitrary, in a way directly analogous to the problem facing the socialist planning board (as Mises also discussed, this time in his famous essay “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”).

In other words, when it comes to government provision of anything, we have good reason to expect poor quality, high prices, and arbitrary and wasteful resource allocation.
There are plenty of other reasons that the market, the arena of voluntary interactions between individuals, deserves the benefit of the doubt over the state, and why we ought not assume the state is indispensable without first seriously investigating to what degree human ingenuity and the economic harmonies of the market can get by without it. For instance: 

• The state acquires its revenue by aggressing against peaceful individuals.

• The state encourages the public to believe there are two sets of moral rules: one set that we learn as children, involving the abstention from violence and theft, and another set that applies only to government, which alone may aggress against peaceful individuals in all kinds of ways.

• The educational system, which governments invariably come to dominate, encourages the people to consider the state’s predation morally legitimate, and the world of voluntary exchange morally suspect.

• The government sector is dominated by concentrated interests that ( I don’t think “interests” would be taken as meaning people) lobby for special benefits at the expense of the general public, while success in the private sector comes only by pleasing the general public.

• The desire to please organized pressure groups nearly always outweighs the desire to please people who would like to see government spending reduced (and most of those people, it turns out, want it reduced only marginally anyway).

• In the United States, the government judiciary has been churning out preposterous decisions, with little to no connection to “original intent,” for more than two centuries.

• Governments teach their subjects to wave flags and sing songs in their honor, thereby contributing to the idea that resisting its expropriations and enormities is treason.

I am not an anarcho-capitalist yet, but still his article makes for good reading. One might object to them saying, "Without a state, we won't have order? Do we want society to collapse?" The anarcho-capitalist gives this interesting insight into libertarianism: there is a gulf between society and the state, between the productive forces exemplified by the free market and voluntary groups and institutions and the exploitative forces of the state and the political realm. He sees the state as being born out of conquest and not through some "social contract" (the only systems coming close to this were the constitutions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). Thus, he holds that the state is unnecessary and has a negative influence on society and proper governance (which they hold comes through voluntary action). Some prominent thinkers who held this view include Murray Rothbard, Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, and many others. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a prominent anarcho-capitalist theorist, has compiled a bibliography of resources that defend this theory.

As for me, while I sympathize with anarcho-capitalism, I still wrestle with questions here and there. But I do agree that the State is prone to corruption, as it never gives up its power voluntarily and lords its power over the citizens (Matthew 20:25). Thus, I do not love the State and adore it, much less worship it. And neither did most of the classical liberals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

I am still reading on this issue, and I am in the process of reading Murray Rothbard's For A New Liberty. I am looking at the literature of libertarianism, how it relates to Christianity, and other things. So I have yet to develop fully into an anarchist. I am not yet convinced, but some day I might become convinced fully that Christianity and anarcho-capitalist libertarianism are as fully linked to one another as classical libertarianism is to Christianity.

Letter of Liberty News Edition (11-29-2013)

Here is the Friday Edition of the news.

Doug Newman tells militarists to fight and then talk about PTSD (n.b.: he is not advocating joining the military, but rather he is arguing against neocon warmongers).

Justin Raimondo explores the steamy relationship between sex and the NSA.

Scott Lazarowitz gives some holiday weekend reading.

Sheldon Richman on why government is the problem.

Paul Rosenberg talks on Bitcoin and the "purity police."

Ron Paul writes on how salvation from interventionism for America might come from an unlikely place.

Matt McCaffrey and Carmen Dorobat writes on inflation, shortages, and social democracy in Venezuela.

Frank Keating, a Reagan Republican, makes the Republican case for immigration reform.

Felicity Arbuthnot on the secret history of America's chemical weapons

Dawood Ahmed shows how the drone apologists are as deadly as the drones themselves.

Edward Curtin reveals James W. Douglass's famous book JFK and the Unspeakable (which is loved very well in libertarian circles and which I will read in the future).

Brian Bender and Neil Swidey explore Robert F. Kennedy's perception of conspiracy in the JFK assassination.

Medea Benjamin analyzes the tragic and harrowing effects of the American government's drone policy.

Dan Delzell explains why the sin of unbelief (regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ) "robs you blind."

Famed Christian pastor Timothy Keller waxes poetic about the joys of sex in marriage.

Robert Wenzel refutes the anti-freedom nonsense parroted by Pope Francis (which is the result of confusing the free market with crony capitalism).

Robert P. Murphy argues that the critics of Black Friday, however noble their intentions, are blowing things out of proportion.

James Corbett argues that Jeremy Scahill's acclaimed documentary Dirty Wars might not be telling the whole story.

Paul Joseph Watson responds to Jeremy Scahill's accusation of Alex Jones as an idiot.

Doug French on how "ballot box charity" is hurtful

If you are a gun owner and want to improve your shooting skills (without firing a shot), here are some tips.

Daisy Luther gives her snow storm warning.

Mark Sisson gives his recipe for bacon pancakes.

Charles Hugh Smith on the lie of free lunch (and free debt)

Joseph Mercola gives his tips on combatting depression.

Thanksgiving Day Reading

Dear readers of Letter of Liberty:

It's Thanksgiving Day! This is the day where we get to thank the Lord God for his bountiful blessings through abundant food, songs, and other things.

So instead of writing original content, I will decide to give a few resources for Thanksgiving Day reading (and I will update them through the day if I have the time):

"The Great Thanksgiving Hoax" by Richard J. Maybury, Mises Daily, November 20, 1999
"Property and the First Thanksgiving" by Gary Galles, Mises Daily, November 25, 2004
"Thanksgiving Proclamation" by George Washington (October 3, 1789)
"Thanksgiving, Socialism, and the Free Market" by Jacob G. Hornberger, The Future of Freedom Foundation, November 22, 2012
"The Pilgrims' Real Thanksgiving Lesson"by Benjamin Powell, LVMIC Daily, November 28, 2013
"Nationalize Everything—Even Thanksgiving" by Tom DiLorenzo, LewRockwell.com, November 28, 2013
"What If Thanksgiving Exposes the Government?" by Andrew P. Napolitano, LewRockwell.com, November 28, 2013
"On Being Thankful for Our Collective Insanity" by Butler Shaffer, LewRockwell.com, November 28, 2013
"Our First Thanksgiving" by Sartell Prentice, Jr., The Freeman, November 01, 1959
"Of Thanks and Mercy" by James Carroll, Boston.com, November 25, 2003
"Thanksgiving Day: The True History" by Fred Foldovary, Foldovary.com, Date Unknown
"The True Meaning of Thanksgiving: The Birth of Private Enterprise in America" by Richard Ebeling, In Defense of Capitalism and Human Progress, November 23, 2009
Chuck Muth's News & Views - Thanksgiving 2003
"Thanksgiving Edition" by Phil Girardi, Antiwar.com, November 28, 2013