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I used to line up an article every month for Econlib, from 2008 to 2019. My favorite was one by Jeff Hummel in 2018. Its titled Benefits of the American Revolution: An Exploration of Positive Externalities.

Here are the opening two paragraphs:

It has become de rigueur, even among libertarians and classical liberals, to denigrate the benefits of the American Revolution. Thus, libertarian Bryan Caplan writes: Can anyone tell me why American independence was worth fighting for? [W]hen you ask aboutspecificlibertarian policy changes that came about because of the Revolution, its hard to get a decent answer. In fact, with 20/20 hindsight, independence had two massive anti-libertarian consequences: It removed the last real check onAmerican aggression against the Indians, and allowed American slavery to avoid earlierand peacefulabolition. One can also find such challenges reflected in recent mainstream writing, both popular and scholarly.

In fact, the American Revolution, despite all its obvious costs and excesses, brought about enormous net benefits not just for citizens of the newly independent United States but also, over the long run, for people across the globe. Speculations that, without the American Revolution, the treatment of the indigenous population would have been more just or that slavery would have been abolished earlier display extreme historical naivety. Indeed, a far stronger case can be made that without the American Revolution, the condition of Native Americans would have been no better, the emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies would have been significantly delayed, and the condition of European colonists throughout the British empire, not just those in what became the United States, would have been worse than otherwise.

Another excerpt:

[Historian Gordon] Wood concludes that Americans had become, almost overnight, the most liberal, the most democratic, the most commercially minded, and the most modern people in the world. The Revolution not only radically changed the personal and social relations of people but also destroyed aristocracy as it had been understood in the Western world for at least two millennia. The Revolution brought respectability and even dominance to ordinary people long held in contempt and gave dignity to their menial labor in a manner unprecedented in history and to a degree not equaled elsewhere in the world. The Revolution did not just eliminate monarchy and create republics; it actually reconstituted what Americans meant by public or state power.

Heres a comment Jeff made in 2018 in response to some commenters:

Even after military conflict broke out in April 1775, a majority of the Continental Congress did not favor independence until February 1776, and it was a slim majority. The first colony to actually instruct its delegates to vote for independence was North Carolina the following April. Thus we have nearly a year of hard fighting during which a majority of Patriots favored and expected to achieve reconciliationwithinthe British Empire. It was Thomas Paines Common Sense, published in January 1776, that ultimately tipped the scales in favor of secession.

Also the difference between the French and American Revolutions can be overdrawn. The American Revolution admittedly had no reign of terror, but the treatment of Loyalists could be quite appalling, with disturbing instances of brutality and killing. Given that many Loyalists fought for the British, some historians have started referring to the Revolution as a civil war, a term neither of you [the two people hes responding to] consider. At the end of the War for Independence, an estimated 50,000 Loyalists left the United States, out of total population of 2.5 million. The French Revolution generated as many as 130,000 migrs and deportees, out of a total population of 25 million. Thus the American Revolution produced refugees at almost four times the rate of the French Revolution. And while many migrs eventually returned to France, very few Loyalists returned to the U.S.

I still maintain that the American Revolution brought momentous benefits, but let us not overlook its costs and excesses.

The picture above is of me with my Betsy Ross flag in front our house. I will be carrying it in the July 4 parade in Monterey later today.

Happy, happy July 4.

Read the original here:
The Positive Externalities of the American Revolution - Econlib

By STU CLAMPITT

[emailprotected]

Several Democratic and Libertarian candidates attended part of the Indiana Democratic Partys 2022 Town Hall Series on Tuesday at the Fishers branch of the Hamilton East Public Library, 5 Municipal Drive. With over 150 people in attendance, it was a room packed with local citizens who wanted to hear and speak with candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, Indiana Secretary of State, and the state legislature.

Democrats who organized this event told The Reporter they extended the invitation to both Libertarians and Republicans, and said the GOP declined to attend.

Candidates in attendance included:

There was no set theme for the town hall. Indiana Democrats told The Reporter they wanted to address the kitchen-table issues important to voters, and from issues like inflation and law enforcement funding to education and broadband, candidates and elected officials answered as many questions as possible during the 90-minute conversation.

In order to truly represent Hoosiers and restore balance to every level of government in Indiana, its imperative for voters from all walks of life to hear from the leaders of our political parties about the important issues of the day and also ask questions directly to the people who seek to serve us. Its my hope that through this town hall series, some decency and understanding can be restored in our political conversations even when we disagree, Chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party Mike Schmuhl said. This is the seventh time the Indiana Democratic Party has embarked on a statewide tour, and with leaders like Tom McDermott and Destiny Wells headlining this effort, Democrats are eager to share our plans on how we will create a better future for Hoosier families in all 92 counties.

If you did not attend the Town Hall but would like to hear for yourself what was said, you can watch it at this link.

Tom McDermott

Democrat for U.S. Senate

U.S. Senate Candidate and Hammond, Ind. Mayor Tom McDermott said he was touring the state on Tuesday and was very pleased to cap off his day in Hamilton County.

When I walked into the library in Fishers with 150-plus people energized and excited it was a great day, McDermott said. I was excited to be there. It was a very good showing for Hamilton County and obviously Fishers is a beautiful city.

McDermott calls himself a frustrated American and a frustrated Hoosier who thinks the country could do better.

I think its become acceptable when we send people to Washington, D.C. for them to just represent a segment of the population, McDermott said. My goal as U.S. Senator is to represent all 6.6 million Hoosiers. I realize some of them feel differently about issues than I do, but I still want to represent them and do a good job for them.

He told The Reporter he believes the country is not doing well right now. One of his examples of that was the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion.

I have always been a supporter of the Supreme Court but seeing that half our population is losing their civil liberties right now with 50 years of precedent being tossed out with Roe v. Wade, is very sad, McDermott said.

Another issue McDermott said is important to him is gun control, especially in light of the rise of school shootings.

I have a lifetime permit to carry a gun in Indiana and I do carry my gun often, but that doesnt mean we cant pass laws to regulate the Second Amendment, McDermott said. If you look at the third word of the Second Amendment, A well regulated Militia, regulated means laws. The job of Congress is to pass laws and to deal with the Second Amendment. I dont want to take peoples guns. But I dont want bad guys with military-style assault weapons killing a bunch of kids either. Our politicians in Washington, D.C. are afraid to touch this issue.

McDermott said he is running because he believes Todd Young is not doing a good job representing his constituents.

Todd Young is talking about what a horrible president Joe Biden is because of inflation and the cost of gas. I take a different approach, McDermott said. Todd Young has been in Washington, D.C. for 12 years. Hes been a U.S. Senator for six years. What the heck as he done to make inflation lower? Whats he done to address the price of gas? Nothing. It has become acceptable for a U.S. Senator, one of the most powerful people in the United States, to point at a guy who just got to Washington, D.C. and say, its all your fault. Im not going to let him get away with it.

McDermott used his time as mayor of Hammond as an example of how he thinks leaders should address issues in their areas of influence.

You dont find me complaining about the city of Hammond because I have been in charge of the city of 18 years, McDermott said. If I complained about the crime rate in Hammond or the condition of the roads, Id be complaining about the job I did. But this guy is a U.S. Senator who has been there for 12 years and hes complaining about problems in Washington, D.C., like immigration and inflation. Thats his job and hes failed at it. Its time to fire Todd Young.

Photo provided

Jocelyn Vare

Democrat for Indiana Senate District 31

Jocelyn Vare, an at-large member of the Fishers City Council and candidate for Indiana Senate District 31, told The Reporter, The 100-plus Hamilton County residents in attendance were well-informed and very disappointed with how the current statehouse supermajority is running Indiana. They are loudly challenging the supermajoritys out-of-touch priorities. If after this event anyone still believes that Hamilton County and especially Fishers the host city for this Town Hall are wholly and contentedly red, they are simply not listening to what voters are saying.

Destiny Wells

Democrat for Indiana Secretary of State

Democratic candidate for Indiana Secretary of State Destiny Wells told The Reporter she thought the turnout in Fishers was impressive.

It was a great turnout, Wells said. Weve seen this enthusiasm in some of the more urban, metropolitan areas. Ive been telling people we are not a red state, we are a purple state with a turnout problem, and that message is landing. Its getting people excited and now everybody has these issues that feel very personal to them. Its nice to see people show up and advocate for those issues.

Wells said she believes being a lawyer and a former military intelligence officer makes her uniquely qualified for this job.

In 2016, I got to Afghanistan two weeks before the election, and during that presidency and being overseas and feeling the turmoil that was staring to bubble up, I decided when I got home, I wanted to extend my service beyond the uniform, Wells told The Reporter. That started a series of events moving forward like taking a job as a deputy AG, even though it was under Curtis Hill, and getting more involved in the party.

She said part of the reason she is running for Secretary of State is because the Jan. 6 incidents made her want to help protect voters rights and the election system.

When Jan. 6 happened last year, one of my law school classmates stormed the Capitol, Wells said. One of the attorneys who has been at the forefront of the lawsuits we have seen trying to overturn the election. All of that just percolated, and when the Secretary of State race came open in Indiana and was coming up, and all this national conversation of subverting elections, I thought, What an office for me to pursue to do the most I can. Thats why Im running for Secretary of State.

She told The Reporter she sees GOP Candidate Diego Morales as a threat to democracy.

I know this race it going to be a really big deal, Wells said. I have been trying to get peoples attention to the threat. I see Diego as a threat as I would as an intelligence officer. I identify this movement as a threat to democracy. Once we open the can of worms here in Indiana of possibly subverting elections or very intentionally suppressing the vote, thats hard to undo.

See the article here:
Fishers feels the purple rain Hamilton County Reporter - ReadTheReporter.com

Cast: Gottfrid SvartholmFredrik NeijPeter Sunde

Geners: Documentary

Director: Simon Klose

Release Date: Feb 08, 2013

TPB AFK is a documentary about three computer addicts who redefined the world of media distribution with their hobby homepage The Pirate Bay. How did Tiamo, a beer crazy hardware fanatic, Brokep a tree hugging eco activist and Anakata a paranoid hacker libertarian get the White House to threaten the Swedish government with trade sanctions? TPB AFK explores what Hollywoods most hated pirates go through on a personal level.

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard never made it to Netflix, unfortunately. Still, Netflix holds a variety of shows one can watch for subscription plans that costs $9.99 per month for the basic plan, $15.49 monthly for the standard plan, and $19.99 a month for the premium plan.

They're not on Hulu, either! But prices for this streaming service currently start at $6.99 per month, or $69.99 for the whole year. For the ad-free version, it's $12.99 per month, $64.99 per month for Hulu + Live TV, or $70.99 for the ad-free Hulu + Live TV.

Disney Plus is expanding, but their branding is still quite specific, and TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard is currently not available to stream there. With Disney+, you can have a wide range of shows from Marvel, Star Wars, Disney+, Pixar, ESPN, and National Geographic to choose from in the streaming platform for the price of $7.99 monthly or $79.99 annually.

Sorry, TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard is not available on HBO Max. There is a lot of content from HBO Max for $14.99 a month, such a subscription is ad-free and it allows you to access all the titles in the library of HBO Max. The streaming platform announced an ad-supported version that costs a lot less at the price of $9.99 per month.

Unfortunately, TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard is not available to stream for free on Amazon Prime Video. However, you can choose other shows and movies to watch from there as it has a wide variety of shows and movies that you can choose from for $14.99 a month.

Peacock is a relatively new platform with many exclusives and classics, but TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard isn't one of them as of the time of writing.

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard is not on Paramount Plus. Paramount Plus has two subscription options: the basic version ad-supported Paramount+ Essential service costs $4.99 per month, and an ad-free premium plan for $9.99 per month.

No dice. TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard isn't streaming on the Apple TV+ library at this time. You can watch plenty of other top-rated shows and movies like Mythic Quest, Tedd Lasso, and Wolfwalkers for a monthly cost of $4.99 from the Apple TV Plus library.

Unfortunately, TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard is not available on Sky Go. Although you can access a vast library of other shows and movies on their service.

More here:
Where to Watch and Stream TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard Free Online - EpicStream

Nick Offermans deadpan delivery as Ron Swanson, the head of the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department in NBC's comedy/drama Parks And Recreation, truly defined his acting career. Although he has enjoyed many memorable roles since, it was his performance as the eccentric Ron Swanson that would forever be his calling card.

Ron Swanson is quite the unique character in television sitcoms. In some ways he is our hero Leslie Knopes prime antagonist, as he hates working for the public and despises government rules and regulations. He is a staunch libertarian, openly enjoys wasting tax payers money and his own political beliefs make him entirely unsuited for the public office job he holds.

Still, Ron Swanson is still the man and its impossible not to be captivated by his presence on screen. But how much attention were you paying across the over 100 episodes he appeared in?

Do you know which colour shirt Ron regularly enjoys wearing after he's had sex or what name his first two wives shared?

Take our quiz below and remember you can find the answers at the very end.

Read more:
Parks And Recreation: The Progressively Harder Ron Swanson Quiz - WhatCulture

This is an opinion editorial by Joe Moffett, a contributor at Bitcoin Magazine.

The Democrat and Republican parties have been wielding social movements as weapons in a culture war. Is it time the Libertarian Party wields the Bitcoin hammer in the battle against the Federal Reserve?

In the cypherpunk mailing list, Satoshi Nakamoto had a back-and-forth exchange with an unknown cryptographer:

You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography. Unknown cryptographer

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own. Satoshi Nakamoto

Between Nakamotos emails, the Bitcoin white paper and the source code, there was probably nothing they said with a more aloof tone than this quote. I have to imagine they understood the economic ramifications that would come with developing such a system and this was likely why they remained anonymous. Then again, maybe they were blissfully unaware that there is no more dangerous enemy to the power of the state than economically free people.

Many early adopters of bitcoin were more likely software and tech gurus than they were economists or libertarians, but this comment by Nakamoto was profoundly libertarian. After all, if the government can wage war on poverty, drugs, crime and terror, why cant libertarians and Bitcoiners alike wage war on money printing? Its hard to overstate the phrasing here: [W]e can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom.

The Libertarian Party, under new management, recognizes just how important Bitcoin is in this battle. Angela McArdle, chair of the Libertarian National Committee, embraces the importance of bitcoins scarcity, self-sovereignty, and censorship resistance. On a phone interview, McArdle shared:

Inflation is being reported at 8.6%, but if you fill up the gas in your car, you know that it must be higher than that. No one knows the real rate of inflation, but what I do know is you cannot print more bitcoin. You can print dollars perpetually until its worthless like Venezuela, but you cant print more bitcoin.

Sure, the Libertarian Party is using the language, Declare your independence from the Fed, in a metaphorical way, but we can never forget that our country was founded on a very real Declaration of Independence that led to something very tangible.

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. The Libertarian Partys Statement of Principles

Today more than ever, the enforcement tool of the so-called omnipotent state and those in power is their monetary policy. The monopolization of fiat currency and the burden of taxes have become weapons of the state to empower Washington and disenfranchise the people. Libertarians and Austrian economists have been sounding the alarms for decades, but as Ron Paul has attributed to George Orwell, Truth is treason in the empire of lies.

At a certain point however, the truth comes out.

This inflation was either due to incompetence or deliberate debasing of the U.S. dollar, but Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, admitted that he doesnt understand basic economics. I would have preferred him to come out and admit he lied.

Our favorite Bitcoiner, Peter Gold Schiff, along with every Austrian economist, pointed out how inflation works when the money printer started in March 2020 (when Schiff comes to the same realization as Bitcoiners, we will welcome him with open arms),

So here we are, July Fourth is coming up and we, the people, are in a quandary. Our leaders lie, our media covers for them, our financial institutions are corrupt and consent of the governed sounds more like a brand slogan than the foundation of our government.

So what options do we have?

Fix the money, fix the world.

Bitcoin is the greatest peaceful revolution the world may ever know. Back to that seemingly innocuous Nakamoto quote, [W]e can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. The arms race they must be referring to is power political and economic of governments versus economic power in the hands of individuals. Maybe its time to turn Rosie the Riveter into Dolores the Diamond Hands.

Libertarians and Bitcoiners are allies in the fight for sound monetary policy. Speaking of a Bitcoiner and Libertarian alliance, McArdle said, Its important for us to build a parallel economy, so in the event the dollar collapses completely, or some kind of financial crash, we have something to shift over to laterally. The more people that have Bitcoin and understand it, the better.

Nakamoto had this revelation when they said, Its very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. Im better with code than with words though. Clearly, they werent wrong. Nakamotos creation spawned a movement without a speech or catchy slogan, just code and believers. Some of us libertarians may have been a bit late to bitcoin, myself included, but the troops are coming.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more King Henry in Henry V by William Shakespeare

The Libertarian Party is hosting a livestream event at 2:00PM EST on July 3, 2022. Join the call and declare your independence from the Fed.

Declare your independence from the Fed

Join the Libertarian Chair Angela McArdle and Vice Chair Joshua Smith July 3 at 2:00 PM EST with the Bitcoin experts Saifedean Ammous, Marty Bent, Stephan Livera, Jameson Lopp and Guy Swann.

Think about doing three things in preparation for Independence Day:

I want you to buy bitcoin.

This is a guest post by Joe Moffett. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

Read more:
We Need To Declare Our Independence From The Federal Reserve - Bitcoin Magazine