I've tried in the past to formulate a consistent approach to describing to people what true liberty is, but I think quite often that message resorts to telling people that they are doing something wrong and/or immoral. While I might be correct, focusing on someone else's faults is often not very constructive. Instead, why not focus on how I choose to live my life and my justification for doing so?

This Bill of Responsibilities is essentially a contract with myself. These are things that I believe are central to my being a good and productive person. However, if I fail to do these things, I not only fail myself but also the rest of mankind. My hope is that by living up to my own expectations, I can provide a framework for others to emulate and improve upon.

So here goes, my own personal Bill of Responsibilities:

Preamble

I have the ultimate responsibility for my own survival. The division of labor that has evolved within mutual societies is wondrously beneficial to the progress of mankind and it should be taken advantage of in order to increase one's quality of life. However, the existence of such developed societies does not relieve my own personal responsibility to provide for my own needs and desires. In addition, every action I take in life will have some impact upon others. A free and prosperous society requires that I take responsibility to never use unjustified force or fraud against my fellow man.

Responsibilities

1. I have the responsibility to take care of myself. I cannot rely on anyone else to provide for my shelter, sustenance, education, livelihood, security, health care, entertainment, retirement, or any other thing.

2. I have the responsibility, as a civil member of a society, to only engage others in a voluntary and mutually-agreeable fashion. I have the responsibility to never force an individual to do what they do not want to do, unless that force is a justifiable reaction to their own aggression.

3. I have the responsibility to keep my word in my dealings with others. If I fail to honor my agreements, I have the responsibility to make full restitution in as timely a fashion as possible. To do otherwise is fraudulent and manipulative.

4. I have the responsibility for my mistakes. If my actions unjustifiably harm or endanger another person, I am responsible for making full restitution in as timely a fashion as possible. To do otherwise is reckless and violent.

5. I have the responsibility to defend myself and my family from those that would hurt us. I cannot rely on any other individual to risk their own life or livelihood to protect me.

6. I have the responsibility to educate myself. Schooling is insufficient, and in many cases, destructive of the cognitive abilities of the mind. Information, derived from any source, must be processed by an engaged, observant, and critical mind.

7. I have the responsibility to resist cooperating with people that choose to conduct themselves in violent ways. To cooperate with such evil, would immediately endanger myself and my family. To be idle and complicit in any crime against myself, strengthens the aggressor and provides the potential of harming my fellow man.

8. I have the responsibility to question authority. Does an authority conduct themselves in a responsible manner? Do their claims of authority stem from actual property rights, or do they stem from fraud or force to acquire your compliance for their own gain? To leave these questions unanswered, or worse, unquestioned, is to allow one's mind to degenerate into a state of Stockholm syndrome.

9. I have the responsibility to speak out against injustice and to support others that do as well. In order to live in a free and prosperous society, justice must be served.

10. I have the responsibility to continuously exercise my liberties, for they are precariously positioned to be lost if I am not practiced in defending them. I have the responsibility to continuously work to assert my retention of lost liberties, for the longer I wait and do nothing, the more unrecoverable they become.

Two friends of mine have recently been thrown in jail. Neither of them have harmed, had any intention of harming, nor even inconvenienced, anyone. Their "crimes" are for having "contempt" for the state-funded thugs that wish to bully them into compliance with their procedures. Their only "crime" is that they had some questions, questions that the state did not want to hear.

Lauren Canario, who was invited to the federal court building to retrieve her camera (that the feds stole from her), walked through a metal detector checkpoint at a time when the guards weren't looking. She was ordered to go back through the checkpoint and was subsequently arrested when she asked why she was required to do so. She'll be in federal prison for 30 days.

Ian Freeman, of Free Talk Live, today was arrested over a couch. You can read the backstory of his case where his tenants have an old couch in his yard that the city of Keene wants removed. Ian is very willing to remove the couch, but simply wants to talk to the person who made the original complaint. Instead of hiding behind the force of government, the original complainant should speak to Ian in a friendly, neighborly way just as civilized communities ought to behave.

Instead, Ian was compelled to go to court today. He went there having every intention of complying with the request to remove the couch. He has also made this very clear to the court on previous occasions. He simply wanted to demand that he be confronted by his accuser, as is his constitutional right. However, within 45 seconds of entering the court room, he was railroaded into being found in contempt of court and was immediately arrested. The court removed the public observers from the room and only allowed them to view Ian on camera (without audio) to monitor the proceedings. The judge found him guilty, despite not being shown his accuser, and he has been sentenced to three days in prison for the matter of the couch and 90 days for being in contempt of the court's proceedings.

The Keene city court has today shown that it is a court that does not recognize the right to be confronted with one's accusers, a court that does not recognize the right to have a public trial, and a court which has gone way beyond simply upholding the "rule of law". What country is this exactly?!? The Keene city court has decided that it has a personal vendetta against all local liberty activists. Accordingly, the prospect of me going to prison is a virtual forgone conclusion. I will refuse to back down from asserting my rights when the time comes. My line in the sand was crossed quite some time ago.

The state thinks it can quell liberty simply by flexing its muscles. On the contrary, an equal, and very much opposite reaction is about to occur.

Frequent visitors to this site will know that I have talked a lot about politics over the years. I've mentioned names of politicians that I've supported: Michael Badnarik, and Ron Paul. I've even dropped names of politicians I don't support: Mitt Romney. Recently I dropped out of the Libertarian party, but I remained sure that I could find a new political home, one that would respect my desires to have a principled approach to living in this democratic-republic of "ours".

Specifically, I wanted that new political home to be the Free State of New Hampshire.

New Hampshire has the most active group of liberty activists on the planet. There are a multitude of freedom oriented media, powerful voting blocs, as well as free market activists.

When I got here I wanted to get involved with everything. One problem the Free State has ... is that you can't do that. You HAVE to choose what you're going to do, simply because there is so much activism going on here that you cannot be in two places at the same time. The first thing I got involved with was the NH Liberty Alliance delivering literature on the most freedom friendly candidates running in NH. Being very disgruntled with the state of national politics, I sincerely wanted to get involved with NH local politics, believing that I could do two things:

• Keep my principles of the non-initiation of force
• Actually get people, that actually represent my desires, elected

This was a prospect that gave me immense hope. I wanted to come to NH and change things. Instead, NH changed me.

I began helping one of the NHLA endorsed candidates, Jason Bedrick, in his campaign for the state legislature. I asked him, will you sign the small government pledge? I thought this was a very reasonable thing for him to do, I had heard that NH was one of the freest states in the country and has the largest legislature in the country (meaning a low citizen to representative ratio) and that the NHLA was endorsing the best liberty-friendly candidates they could find, to top that off Jason Bedrick was the NHLA top pick with a rating of A++ on their scorecard. Certainly, I had to have been dealing with the most liberty friendly candidate in the country.

He would not sign the pledge. Instead he would continue to vote for increased taxes, albeit minimally, and that he would pledge to limit "the budget increase to inflation plus population growth." In other words, he could not find one single government program that he could cut in order to decrease the states budget. Later, I would find that Jason endorsed Mike Huckabee for president. Is this seriously the best that the NHLA could find?!? Helping Jason was the last political action I've taken in NH.

Instead, I have been involved with alternative forms of activism. I have been to the federal court in support of the peaceful civil disobedience of Kat Kanning and Lauren Canario who were both jailed for peacefully and silently protesting tax funded torture in an IRS office. I have engaged in civil disobedience of breaking curfew laws in Manchester city park. I have participated in open-carry litter pickups. I have sold hot dogs in violation of police orders to vacate a plot of land. I have supported a friend in peaceful protest and burning of the US Flag. Granted, none of this may seem like much, but I feel that I have been able to demonstrate my spirit of liberty with more people than I ever could by shoving junk mail in someones door or by voting.

But why am I not voting? Certainly it wouldn't take much of my time to go mark a check by someones name that could possibly make our society ever-so-slightly more free? Right?

I have been frustrated recently because I cannot find a candidate that I can support, but I didn't understand until very recently why it so hard for me to find such a candidate -- my principle that it is wrong to initiate force against another is antithetical to the very idea of voting. When I vote, I cannot vote for the lesser of evils; a lesser evil is still evil. Even from a purely defensive argument, I cannot vote for the person that will do less harm to me because that vote is seen as a mandate. It is an endorsement from me to the candidate that he should follow his preestablished platform, one that I vehemently oppose, but one that I ultimately voted for. It is a vicious cycle of buck passing. It's also not good enough that I vote for a candidate that actually will increase liberty. Sure, he may promise to decrease government, and he may actually accomplish it. But what about all that he fails to do? There may be a candidate that will abolish 15 different government agencies, but there is no candidate out there that will ever abolish them all. Even if there was, he surely would be unwilling to do it all at once. By voting, I am supporting, and ultimately condemning, everyone in this country to serve the state in the meantime. And here's the rub, while I want liberty, especially from government, I have no right to take what I consider oppression away from someone that actually wants that oppression.

What I have discovered is that it is actually impossible for someone to represent me. Therefore, it is my responsibility to assert my own liberty in my own life. I cannot rely on anyone else to fight for my liberty, nor even if I could, no democratically elected politician could ever do so without violating another persons rights. I pledge to pursue a life full of voluntary interactions with my fellow human beings, never forcing my view point on them, unless they agress against me first.

Ron Paul, you're an admirable man. I sent you hundreds of dollars in hopes that you would inspire this country towards the ideals of liberty. You did not fail me. However, I cannot vote for you ... and I won't.

Voting is the method for obtaining legal power to coerce others. --Robert LeFevre

Today I called in about Intellectual Property.

Check out my Free Talk Live log

I need to step up the frequency of both blog posts and calls to talk shows. Both are great fun and make me feel like I've accomplished something.

What has our world come to? A man gets put in jail because his daughter hasn't gotten some dumb, meaningless certificate? A man is losing his job, by dictate of the state, because his daughter, even though she's actively going to school, can't pass her math test?

Oh, but judge David Niehaus says that "if she passes the test, her father could get out of jail before his six-months sentence is up." Thank you David Niehaus for your generous and fair --- ZZZZTTT GOVERNMENT COMPLIANCE CIRCUITS FAILING --- Nowwaitjustagoddamnminute, how is this guy supposed to help his daughter pass the test if he's in jail??

ZZZTTTT ... This blog post is now interrupted by this Big Booming Governmental Voice:

"Be careful children, because Nanny Government is watching you! If you break any of our arbitrary rules you too may find your parents taken away because obviously they are very bad people and you deserve to be taken care of by the magnificent and omnipresent State. We'll make sure you get the indoctrination .. ahem .. education you need that your parents are unworthy and furthermore incapable of providing, despite their meaningless, pitifull attempts. Do not resist. You will bend to our desires. Don't worry, out of all of this, you will become a more productive and obedient citizen of our slave-driven society, we promise!"

ZZZZTTT -- Think for yourselves People!

The courts are subverted. They will never serve us. They serve the desires of big government and we're only going to see more and more of this leviathan usurp our rights and lay waste to our economy and our liberties.

Oh, and fuck you DIS-honorable David Niehaus.

Power corrupts. This is even true when it comes to so-called libertarians when they feel that they can champion the cause of liberty from within the political juggernaut. Instead, they let the power consume them and they forget the very reason they fight at all. Case in point: last Friday the Libertarian party issued a press release "calling for increased coordination and communication between federal and state law enforcement agencies in order to help to apprehend and convict child predators and those who engage in child pornography."

It's not the going after child predators part that bothers me. It's the complete reversal of the party's principal of individual voluntaryism in favor of authoritarian statism that bothers me. It used to be that the LP wanted to get RID OF the FBI and the CIA etc (completely! It was actually listed in the party platform.) Now they want to expand the relationship between federal and state agencies. Tell me, how exactly does giving the federal government control over yet another area of our lives constitute anything but an "initiation of force"? Not only has the LP platform been utterly compromised by this act; what they are suggesting is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

Article 1, section 8 and Article 3 section 3 of the US constitution clearly lays out three crimes that are under the jurisdiction of the federal government:

• Piracy in international waters.
• Counterfeiting US coins
• Treason against the US

(Source: Harry Browne)

All other crimes are within the jurisdiction of the states by virtue of the 9th and 10th amendments. (And the states are more than well equipped to handle the cases at hand.)

I cannot, in good conscience, give one more dime to an organization that claims to want to reduce the size and scope of government and then does the exact opposite whenever it suits them.

What's worse is that this seems all to just be a power play to get rid of Mary Ruwart as a candidate for president. Shameful! Mary Ruwart is about as libertarian as they get when it comes to people directly involved with the LP. She alone has brought more people to the ideas of liberty (through her numerous books and essays) than all the officers of the LP combined. I would vote for Mary Ruwart with a clear conscience. I would never, ever, vote for what has become of the status quo LP candidates today -- The likes of Bob Barr, George Phillies, Mike Gravel (!!?!?). They are all phonies. They are infiltrators. They care nothing at all for the principals of freedom and the the ideals of non initiation of force. If they ever had any desire at all to advance liberty, they must have grown tired of being all alone with their "unpopular" ideas and are willing to pervert their principles so as to gain acceptance by the mediocre majority. For all purposes, the LP is dead.

I'm afraid the days of the Ron Pauls, the Harry Browns, and even the Michael Badnariks leading the LP are long gone. To take their place : unprincipled, power hungry, cronyistic, hypocritical fakes. I'm outta here.

The value of oil hasn't changed at all -- instead, the value of our dollar has tanked. The value of oil, relative to gold, has sat unchanged since 2000 (and even well before that). This means that if you got your paycheck in gold instead of dollars you'd still be paying the same price for gas as you were a decade ago.

The gas prices are not the fault of greedy capitalists. No gas company is "gouging" you. On the contrary, seemingly high gas prices are not due to any free market force at all, but rather due to the fascist cooperation of a complacent, apathetic, congress and the Federal Reserve. Our government has an insatiable appetite to print money out of thin air to support a massive military industrial complex as well as a socialist, redistributionist, welfare state. This monstrously inflates the money supply -- robbing the value of your dollar.

I decided to prove this for myself, that the golden price of oil is relatively stable. I downloaded historical gold spot prices, as well as historical crude oil prices. Using a bit of Python and matplotlib, I produced the following graph:

I'm not an economist, so I was fairly pleased when I saw that what I came up with correlated fairly well with the graph that the Wall Street Journal published. This graph shows that oil costs 3.5 times as many dollars as it did in 2000, and yet the oil price in gold has barely changed at all in the past eight years.

Everyone should be putting their money into an account with interest of some kind, and not just letting their money sit around uninvested. But at the rate that the dollar is losing its value, even "high" interest investments aren't paying out faster than the current rate of inflation (and as the above graph shows, that inflation is a lot more than the 3% the government would tell you). If we simply legalized alternative, market based currencies (as opposed to raiding and plundering them), we could have much larger gains on our investments as well as not losing any value on any money left uninvested.

This issue has been the core of Dr. Paul's career since the 1960's. It has taken the American people a very long time to wake up to this issue, and so it is an immense credit to his character that he has shown an undying vigilance, these many years, to the pursuit of liberty. I too, have hope for America.

(If anyone is interested, here is the python code (as well as the data files) used for the graph. )

Who owns your body?

Here's the simple (and complete) answer: I own my body!

I disagree with a great number of people on a great number of things, and yet I still get along with them. We can reach a modus vivendi -- we can agree to disagree. The interesting thing about the question at hand is that it is more powerful than most other political questions; it even makes others look mundane in comparison. If I were to meet someone who believed that they did not own their body I can honestly say that I would never be able to relate with this person, nor truly understand anything that they personally believed.

In fact, I cannot think of any possible way any rational person could disagree with the statement that you own your own body. And yet, the relatively mundane political disagreements I have with other people are antithetical to the concept that we (supposedly) both agree with: I own my own body.

1. I cannot rightfully be enslaved.
2. I can eat, drink, smoke, inject, or osmose anything I want into my own body.
3. I own the products that I produce with my own hands. No one can rightfully steal them from me.
4. I can freely contract with other people (who also own their own bodies) and agree to exchange my products for theirs.
5. I can kill myself or contract with someone to do it for me.

Consequently, if you live in a world where these rights are not respected, and you allow them to be disrespected, you are not free, and you do not own your own body. Here is an example of such a world:

1. A constitution is drafted on the principle that the government would protect the sovereign rights of individuals. And yet there is disagreement. . . and compromises. The final draft of this constitution disregards its founding principles and implicitly supports slavery. It would take another 80 years for this constitution to reverse this indiscretion.
2. Even though such a promise to never enslave was made, the practice would continue through the enforced conscription of men to fight in foreign wars.
3. Laws of taxation are modified to allow the government to steal from the wealth of individuals, as much as they cared to, for whatever reason.
4. Money is created by this government, "out of thin air". Laws are enacted to compel businesses to accept it. Numerous law enforcement agencies ensure that no one uses any competing (or more valuable) form of money.
5. Certain beverages are disallowed through legal means.
6. Certain herbs are disallowed through less than legal means.
7. The writ of habeas corpus, the law that literally protects the right to protest the detention of your own body, though protected by 327 years of precedence, is utterly abolished and left only to the ruler's discretion as to who receives this "privilege".

Does this world sound familiar? I hope so. The trend of these united States is to not respect your body. If you believe that you own your body, you should never allow your government, let alone anyone else, to take away the rights of your body.

Think about this, not only when you vote, but every single day, in everything that you do. Do you have the self respect to assert your rights? Do you have the respect to assert MY rights? If you do, I sincerely hope that you will approach any political decision through this concept: I own my own body. You own your body. I have no right to take away your rights, nor you to me.

The time to choose how this country will behave on a federal level is fast approaching. Once you come to the realization -- that you own your own body -- you will realize that there is only one person running for president who believes that very same thing: Ron Paul.

But... Mitt makes it so damn easy for me to pick on him: the official Romney contribution page now offers you a tiered selection of Christmas gifts bribes in exchange for your donation:

Obviously Romney doesn't need the money; he has plenty of his own to do with as he pleases. Ever wonder why he has so many supporters at all the rallies he goes to? Because they are the same supporters at every rally. He buses them from place to place at his own cost.

To win though, Romney needs more than just his own money. He needs individual contributions so he doesn't get slaughtered by you know who when it comes time to report real donations to the FEC.

Instead of getting random SWAG for my donation, I'd rather give my money to Ron Paul and get a much greater gift: a president who will restore the constitutional boundaries of this great, but fallen country.

But does Romney actually believe that the federal government should generally be held accountable to these restrictions, or only when it's convenient for him?

Here are five examples that I was able to quickly find that show that he definitely will not protect the limitations that we have imposed on our federal government:

He supports ALL of Mass. gun laws

Sure, Massachusetts is not held accountable to the second amendment, but they have some of the most oppressive gun laws around. Romney also says that he supports all of these laws personally. Does Romney think critically enough to not support these same laws on the federal level? It's a scary prospect, at best.

He doesn't believe in a States' authority to enact drug laws

Nowhere in the constitution do We the People grant the federal government the privilege to regulate "drugs". The states have implicit authority in this regard by virtue of the 10th amendment. Now listen carefully to this guy's question:

He didn't ask Mitt for his opinion on marijuana. He didn't ask Mitt whether or not marijuana should be illegal. He asked Mitt what he would do if a state were to exert its sovereignty and to democratically decide that marijuana will not be illegal in said state. Romney clearly shows in his response that he would disregard the state's clear right to do just that. He believes that marijuana should be made illegal in every state of this country. Period.

He would put someone in jail for prescribed medical marijuana use

No, he doesn't say so. Instead, he decides to run away like a kid that just got punched in the face... by a guy in a wheelchair... with muscular dystrophy. By default, this says to me that Romney would indeed put someone in jail for using medical marijuana. If he would not, then why is he not sure enough of himself to say so?

Ron Paul is sure of himself. He tells the same guy that he will never use federal power to put ANYONE in jail for marijuana use. Ron Paul understands his strict constitutional duties as president and is not afraid to declare them:

He wants to federally require VChips in all new computers

There are literally hundreds of existing methods to block pornography on computers. These are cheap and highly available to parents. There is simply no need for the federal government to step in and save the day. Even if this were not the case, there is no federal authority to control private companies in this way.

And yet Romney feels he can legislate his own morals on everyone else:

He supports legally defining Marriage.

You want a definition of marriage? I have one. Marriage is a voluntary contract between people defining whatever relationship responsibilities and privileges they desire. The government is neither a party to this contract, nor do they get to dictate or "define" any of its terms. Romney says that he believes that 1-Man, 1-Woman and one (silent) government together form a marriage and that this definition should be reflected in our laws. Sorry, but We the People have not explicitly given you that authority.

He thinks Obama is Osama

This is #6 of 5. #6 because this one doesn't have to do with the constitution at all, but really shows how blatantly stupid Romney can be.

I mean come on, you can here him say "Osa.." right before he corrects himself and says "Barack Obama" instead .... twice. It's almost as if Romney is concentrating so hard on reciting something rather than actually critically thinking about his statements.

By all means, vote for Romney if you sincerely like him, but have no delusions that he supports your own or your fellow humans' sovereign rights.