On Tuesday, March 21, nominations for College Republicans officer positions took place at ASU. The mood was shaken by the nomination of Students for Liberty Executive Board member Carlos Alfaro for president. Many had assumed that then-president Diego Moya would run unopposed. Nevertheless, a liberty ticket was introduced: Carlos Alfaro, Brian Speed, Jake Bobay, Charley Hernandez, David Schneider, and Corey Helsel.
The next Tuesday, March 28, the mood was frantic. Word got out that the opposition had called in non-regulars to make sure that Moya stayed in office. Young Americans for Liberty @ ASU and ASU Students for Liberty members showed up in force to support the liberty ticket. Once it was verified that all participants were dues-paying members, candidate speeches began.
Halfway through the speeches, Arizona Republican Party Executive Director Chad Heywood was called down by Moya to speak. Shouts of protest filled the room. Apparently, most of the officers hadn't been notified that there would be a guest, much less that he would take the floor in the middle of candidate speeches. Taken aback, Heywood (who last year made news by making an off-color joke about old ladies' undergarments while representing a congressional campaign), insinuated that some CR members were being immature.
Recently at CPAC, Rand Paul criticized the modern Republican Party and then said that, "the new GOP will need to embrace liberty in both the economic and the personal sphere. if we're going to have a Republican Party that can win, liberty needs to be the backbone of the GOP."
We've heard his father, former congressman Ron Paul, communicate similar sentiments but in different words. Rand Paul has found a way to communicate with and even lead the Republican Party — instead of being ostracized for his critiques like his father was, Rand Paul has been complimented by the likes of talkshow hosts Sena Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. These same people have previously had mostly negative words for his father.
What would a GOP party look like if they became the pro-liberty party that embraced all of the civil rights embodied in the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution without exceptions? What if the party boldly stood for all of the 10 amendments as boldly as they do for the 2nd Amendment? What If all of the GOP sternly took bold positions on due process, freedom of speech and of association, opposing warrantless wiretaps as well as search and seizures without consent or warrant? What if they left the issues of drugs up to the states in the manner that they do for alcohol?
I’m going to share a personal story and it’s an embarrassing one. So if you dig dramz (and, no matter how you fancy yourself, you totally know you do!), you’re in luck! For those "serious" types solely concerned with substance, keep reading, because this also relates to the whole libertarian thing. Specifically, it relates to the recent controversy over the lack of female representation in the movement.
Ron Paul libertarians are typically labeled “radicals.” I don't like this word because it carries a pejorative (rather than merely descriptive) connotation and thus is often used to glibly dismiss the views of people without bothering to thoughtfully engage them.
Radicals are often dismissed as impractical people who uncritically hew to abstract principles no matter the real-world consequences. But this criticism misses the broad social impact of radicalism.
By virtue of their existence, radicals help frame debates. Social science has shown that if a “radical” position (minarchist Ron Paul libertarianism, let’s say) is perceived to have a politically significant following, then the “mainstream” (or "median") in some respects moves to accommodate their views. By developing a politically significant (if still "radical") following, libertarians won’t be able to compel them to legalize all drugs, but they’ll make a difference in legalize marijuana; they won’t abolish the Military Industrial Complex, but they’ll cause the nation to consider more severe military budget cuts than it otherwise would have. They may not (yet?) be able to abolish the Federal Reserve, but they'll compel Congress to seriously consider a thorough audit of it. These are the pragmatic, real world consequences of radicalism.
One of the more persuasive criticisms of radicals is that they dogmatically adhere to abstract, a priori principles, and that this prevents them from engaging the real world. Yet there are two sides to this coin. For mainstreamers, by being so entangled in often trivial battles of "real world" politics, can lose sight of the moral principles that supposedly inspire his or her activism.
Sen. Rand Paul won the CPAC presidential preference poll on Saturday, narrowly defeating his fellow senator, Marco Rubio of Florida. Paul came into CPAC riding a wave of national fame after his thirteen-hour filibuster of the nomination of now-CIA Director John Brennan.
Twenty-five percent of the 2,930 attendants at the convention cast their vote for the junior Senator from Kentucky. Marco Rubio took a close second at 23 percent, far ahead of former Sen. Rick Santorum at 8 percent.
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) concludes each year with its ever-popular and influential straw poll. This year, the survey was co-sponsored by the Washington Times and was conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates.
Sen. Rand Paul is the son of Ron Paul, the three-time presidential candidate and retired Congressman. The elder Paul had previously won the CPAC poll in 2010 and 2011, before losing to Mitt Romney last year in the midst of their primary contest with Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich.
This video and unofficial transcript were provided by Sen. Paul's office. Follow YAL's live coverage of this historic filibuster on Facebook and Twitter.
Hour 1
I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court. That Americans could be killed in a cafe in San Francisco or in a restaurant in Houston or at their home in bowling green, Kentucky, is an abomination. It is something that should not and cannot be tolerated in our country. I don’t rise to oppose John Brennan’s nomination simply for the person. I rise today for the principle. The principle is one that as Americans we have fought long and hard for and to give up on that principle, to give up on the bill of rights, to give up on the Fifth Amendment protection that says that no person shall be held without due process, that no person shall be held for a capital offense without being indicted. This is a precious American tradition and something we should not give up on easily. They say Lewis Carroll is fiction. Alice never fell down a rabbit hole and the White Queen’s caustic judgments are not really a threat to your security. Or has America the beautiful become Alice’s wonderland? ‘No, no, said the queen. Sentence first; verdict afterwards. Stuff and nonsense, Alice said widely – loudly. The idea of having the sentence first? ‘Hold your tongue, said the queen, turning purple. I won’t, said Alice. Release the drones, said the Queen, as she shouted at the top of her voice.
Lewis Carroll is fiction, right? When I asked the President, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It’s an easy question. It should have been a resounding and unequivocal, “no.” The President’s response? He hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’re supposed to be comforted by that.
The President says, I haven’t killed anyone yet. He goes on to say, and I have no intention of killing Americans. But I might. Is that enough? Are we satisfied by that? Are we so complacent with our rights that we would allow a President to say he might kill Americans? But he will judge the circumstances, he will be the sole arbiter, he will be the sole decider, he will be the executioner in chief if he sees fit. Now, some would say he would never do this. Many people give the President the – you know, they give him consideration, they say he’s a good man. I’m not arguing he’s not. What I’m arguing is that the law is there and set in place for the day when angels don’t rule government. Madison said that the restraint on government was because government will not always be run by angels. This has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican. Were this a Republican President, I’d be here saying exactly the same thing. No one person, no one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country.
This isn’t even new to our country. There’s 800 years of English law that we found our tradition upon. We founded it upon the Magna Carta from 1215. We founded it upon Morgan from Glamorgan and 725 A.D. We founded upon the Greeks and Romans who had juries. It is not enough to charge someone to say that they are guilty.
Now, some might come to this floor and they might say, “Well, what if we’re being attacked on 9/11? What if there are planes flying at the Twin Towers?” Obviously, we repel them. We repel any attack on our country.
According to BBC, Facebook is being sued for its use of the "Like" button.
It seems that Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer—a quintessential Dutch name if there ever was one—patented a "Like" button for his primitive social networking site Surfbook in 1998.
Van Der Meer passed away in 2004, leaving his patents in the hands of Rembrandt Social Media.
Tom Melsheimer, an attorney for the patent holder, said the following:
We believe Rembrandt's patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence.
This case highlights the gross absurdities of the idea and system of intellectual "property," a topic that has come under increased scrutiny as of late, what with the SOPA and PIPA uproar and the infamous battle between Apple and Samsung, in which millions upon millions of dollars were spent on arguments over objects that looked alike.
I started "working" at a young age. I was ten years old when I first understood the value of a dollar. I knew that if I wanted something, I had to pay for it and for me to pay for it, I had to make money myself. Like any young entrepreneur, I started small.
My father — to his credit — is a pretty good mechanic. I was raised around cars. I remember a great deal of classic cars being parked out in the driveway: everything from old Chevelles and Monte Carlos to step-side Chevy pickups and Corvettes. My father raced them. My father would have me strip the interiors out of these cars so he could come in after me and weld in a roll cage, battery box, and fuel cell. In fact, I was 12 years old when I pulled my first engine. It was a 400 small-block Chevy out of a safety-orange 1969 Chevelle.
A lot of my time as a young lad was spent at dusty race tracks on hot summer days. My first entrepreneurial endeavor? Bottle picking. Parched spectators would come in droves to these race events, leaving their bottles and cans for me to come around and scoop up. Depending on the size and duration of the event, I could easily pick 15,000 cans! At ten cents a piece, this turned out to be big money for a ten year old!
My parents divorced around this time. This would further enforce my belief that if I wanted the 'finer things in life', I needed to work. My uncle also worked on cars and did mostly body work. I'd go to work for him doing odd jobs for the next five or so years, doing general labor work and auto body repair. This didn't financially satisfy me enough so I quickly picked up a paper route and started my first business with my good friend Marc.
My entrepreneurial spirit was born out of necessity. Do I regret it? Absolutely not! It instilled in me the values of an entrepreneur and the value of a dollar and most importantly, the work ethic that drives me to this day.
This was originally printed in the Daily Tarheel (Chapel Hill, NC) on Friday, February 8, 2013. You can view the original link here.
You might have noticed that folks around Chapel Hill are paying a lot more attention to the governorship nowadays.
While I’d like to think that people heeded my advice and decided to pay more attention to state and local politics, I’m afraid it’s only because there’s an “R” after Pat McCrory’s name and many have taken up the role of “loyal opposition.”
Don’t get me wrong — I’m glad the people and the press are remaining vigilant watchdogs over an elected official. And McCrory was, of course, wrong to presume that he can, as a government official, magically determine which academic disciplines are legitimate, what jobs are needed and which “butts” should fill them.
But here’s the problem: We should be vigilant of elected officials no matter what letter comes after their name. If we truly believe in the principles we claim to live by, we should hold politicians accountable regardless of if they’re in “our” party or not.
In a Justice Department white paper recently leaked, the Obama administration provides legal justification for the killing of suspected terrorists, even American citizens, in extremely vague language.
Any high-ranking official, not just the president, has the extra-constitutional power to authorize targeted killings of those who pose an “imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.” Upon further reading, we find out that what constitutes an “imminent threat” is the possibility that maybe one day, a long time from now, the person could potentially think about posing a threat.
This is scary stuff. But it really shouldn’t surprise anyone; this is part of a trend. I haven't heard few Obama supporters utter the words “Guantanamo” and “Bay” in about four years, although the prison remains open. Any honest progressive would tell you the PATRIOT Act is an egregious attack on the Fourth Amendment, and yet this policy has quietly continued. I haven’t even mentioned the National Defense Authorization Act, TSA, or drone programs.
If the automatic budget cuts set in motion back in 2011 — known as the “sequester” — go into effect soon, as will be the case without Congressional action, people will die.
Or at least that is if the level of rhetoric to which President Obama has now lowered himself to bears any actual resemblance to reality. (Let us leave out for now that politics seldom ever really bears any resemblance to reality to begin with.)
Speaking in front of cameras Tuesday — and flanked by uniformed first responders (otherwise known to political cynics as ‘prop people’ often used for emotional, rather than rationale, appeals) — Obama warned of the following:
Emergency responders … their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded… FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go… Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.
Who, according to Obama, will be to blame for these supposedly outrageous “meat-clever”-type cuts? The usual suspects: “Congress.” Or what he really means: Those evil, rich-loving Republicans who only cater to ‘special interests.’ Never mind the minor detail that the sequester was actually the Obama administration’s idea. In fact, Obama was at one point adamant against backtracking on it. In November of 2011, he warned, “I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts — domestic and defense spending.” He added, “There will be no easy off-ramps on this one.”
But don’t sweat the details, right? Political rhetoric is much more preferred in situations like this. And none is more preferred than the rhetoric that claims this sequester actually represents ‘cuts’ — and the “meat-cleaver” kind at that! Unfortunately, in Washington-speak, most references to ‘cuts’ are really just slow-downs in the rate of projected growth.
Translation: We’re still going to spend more, just not as much as we had originally planned. Similar to as if an employee were to get a slightly smaller raise instead of larger raise, only employers usually actually have that money to spare for the slightly smaller raise.
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