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If Canada, like much of Europe, often foretells the future of the United States, then conservatives ought to be watching Ottawa's response to the ongoing trucker protest. This populist revolt against pandemic restrictions, among other things, has already scrambled debates over civil disobedience and demonstrations that impact innocent third parties.

But what conservatives ought to be thinking about is what the Canadian government is doing to crack down on the "Freedom Convoy" as the right discusses anew the proper limits to political authority. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is essentially using anti-terrorism powers to attempt to curtail private funding of these protests. This means going after crowdfunding websites and payment processors as surely as any obscure right-wing political outfit.

The type of libertarian-leaning conservative who has played a large role in the movement dating back at least to Barry Goldwater, if not the anti-New Deal Old Right, would understand this is the predictable result of giving the government too much power and flexibility to define enemies who can be spied on, sanctioned, or have their bank accounts frozen.

Newer populist conservatives may have a different takeaway: the at least partially voluntary participation and cooperation of private financial institutions, who would never similarly intervene on behalf of the government to defund, say, Black Lives Matter protests, no matter how shady the money behind the organizations involved.

Conservatives, they would argue, are being selectively denied access to commerce. And if large companies are too woke to do anything about it, the right's politicians are going to have to. It is certainly true that something more powerful than ideological abstractions is necessary to check the state power wielded by their opponents.

At the same time, the Canadian Emergencies Act, like our own Patriot Act, is being used in ways that ought to remind the populists of a cliche favored by old school conservatives: a government powerful enough to give you everything you want also possesses the power to take everything you have. Cryptocurrencies and balky crowdfunding platformsmight offer something approximating a free-market solution.

One thing righties of all stripes might be able to come together on: None of them should feel confident they won't be viewed as the real conservative crazies at some point.

Link:
The lessons of the Freedom Convoy crackdown - The Week Magazine

When the CATO Institute put out their 2021 rankings for Economic and Social Freedom in the 50 States, there was one winner in both categories overallNew Hampshire.

The self-proclaimed Free State took both categories after being overtaken by Florida in 2020. But how did it get there? What led New Hampshire, a state surrounded by Blue States and metropolitan progressives, to become the most free according to a libertarian institute. The answer is very simple: the Free State Project.

Put simply, the Free State Project is a migration movement founded in 2001 by Jason Sorens with the goal of moving 20,000 libertarians into the state of New Hampshire to change the political climate. To date, the project has brought in more than 2,000 self-identified libertarians, and it has already led to great successes in the state. Although comprising only a small number of the legislators (forty or fifty of the 424 total legislators), Free Staters exist in all parties and control enough seats to act as the swing vote. Both parties need to cater to the libertarians and liberty lovers in order to get bills passed. As a result, the project has already had incredible success at implementing libertarian policies.

To give some examples, Free Staters have helped with the passage of constitutional carry, the expansion of school choice, and the decriminalization of recreational Marijuana use. New Hampshire also has widespread cryptocurrency use, no seatbelt laws for individuals over the age of 18, no mandatory car insurance (and subsequently low insurance costs), and a low overall tax burden, having abolished the state income tax, state sales tax, inheritance tax, and capital gains tax. The culture has also changed to heavily favor homeschooling and an accessible political scene. The state has even entertained a constitutional amendment for secession from the United States.

All these factors and more have led New Hampshire to be an example of what a libertarian state could look like. The Republican Party of New Hampshire has adopted many libertarian policies, and their motto has even become the famous message Taxation is Theft.

Governor Chris Sununu has been a controversial governor in the state for his initial lockdowns, but has redeemed himself at times in his work with Free Staters. Whats more, the Granite State has passed a law that will limit the governors authority in future public health emergencies.

While the rest of the country still fights against an Administration bent on implementing vaccine mandates and other public health measures, New Hampshire has safely left the controversy of COVID-19 behind and pushed for further freedom. Out of every state in the country, New Hampshire was the only state to not accept federal funding related to COVID-19 vaccination efforts. The Granite State has even passed bills that prohibit Governmental vaccine mandates and passports, a win for the bodily autonomy of its citizens.

The Free Staters are not without their opponents, of course. A group known as Granite State Progress has gone so far as to host seminars on the issue of the Free State Project. A Democratic Representative, Cynthia Chase, has stated Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. Endorsements from major libertarians have outnumbered the few Democrats in opposition, however. Former presidential candidate and Representative from Texas Ron Paul has endorsed the project. Additionally, 2012 & 2016 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has thrown his weight behind the movement. Lew Rockwell, the Chair of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, has also called the state the northern capital of libertarianism.

Enthusiasm has erupted around the Free State Project, which was recently discussed on Tim Pools popular show TimcastIRL. Every year, more libertarians are moving to the state, as the need for freedom and liberty in the era of COVID has become apparent. Liberty is winning in New Hampshire.

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New Hampshire Is the Freest State in America. Here's Why - Foundation for Economic Education

Chris Jones, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Ricky Harrington Jr. are currently the front-runners for their respective parties. There are eight candidates in total.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Were just a few months away from the primary elections that will set the stage for the upcoming race for Arkansas governor.

Current Governor Asa Hutchinson can't run for re-election due to term limits, but theres a field of candidates working to take the job.

Right now, five Democrats, two Republicans, and one Libertarian are all vying to become the next governor of the Natural State.

We want to give you a chance to meet these candidates by the issues they'll govern on.

That's a lot of names to keep track of, so we looked at recent funding which shows Chris Jones, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Ricky Harrington Jr. as the front-runners in their respective parties.

The other republican candidate is Doc Washburn. The other Democratic candidates are James Russell, Supha Xayprasith-Mays, Anthony Bland, and Jay Martin.

Over the next few weeks, we'll break down how each party's highest funded candidate says they'll run their office.

Tonight, we're getting to know the candidates and their priorities when it comes to Arkansas's economy and industry.

In a crowded race for the Democratic nomination, Chris Jones is currently the highest funded candidate.

The Pine Bluff native is looking to bring his experience as a scientist into the political arena staying close to the center.

"If you really want to, like, stick a label on me, you can stick pragmatic on there. Pragmatic Democrat," Jones said.

Jones is working to refocus how issues like state spending and employment impact the individual Arkansan.

"Really I care about, as I mentioned, P, B, and J preschool, broadband, and jobs which is really education, infrastructure, and economic development," he added.

Jones said overall, he's aiming to take a closer look at how each dollar is spent to try and avoid further taxes.

When asked if there was anything Jones would mind cutting right now or anything hes taking a closer look at, he responded, It's hard to imagine the need for cutting budgets in the educational space."

Jones also said he still wants to see better support for pandemic resources, but with a more direct path to healthcare, something he's heard from frontline workers themselves.

"At the end of the day, what they said works is really providing the financial resources that they need, particularly in the areas that lack staff, that lack the support, but have the need," he explained.

On the Libertarian ticket, Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. is the sole candidate vying for the job.

You may remember his name from the 2020 US Senate race where he received more than 33% of the vote against Tom Cotton.

He's also running on a more practical platform, but he's less focused on change and more focused on maintaining the status quo.

"I'm a very pragmatic person. If it's not broke, don't fix it," Harrington said.

But he said he is looking to fix, or change, how the economy runs in Arkansas.

So, how would Harrington continue to push for growth in an industry with a worker shortage?

We need to start taking a look at circular economies. And these are economies where our waste becomes the product and attracting companies," he explained.

His focus is on securing basic needs before the state's potential for growth. He's aiming to be an option for Arkansans who feel torn at the polls.

"I'm not beholden to any party. I'm beholden to them, the people of Arkansas, regardless of their party," Harrington said. "My path forward is to meet the people where they are."

And finally, the front-running Republican candidate in this race Sarah Huckabee-Sanders.

We gave her campaign four months to do a sit-down interview, but they declined to talk to us, saying they did not have time to share her platform with viewers or have anything to contribute right now.

So we looked to the past events she's held to bring some insight on her plans if she gets the governor's job.

Huckabee-Sanders is the daughter and former staffer of past Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and, more recently, served as White House Press Secretary to former President Donald Trump.

As she exclusively told us at her campaign kickoff event this summer, she wants to focus on developing the outdoor economy.

"I think our outdoor economy is a huge advantage for Arkansas. We call ourselves the Natural State for a reason, we need to go out and own that," she said.

She also hopes to create more skill-based education opportunities.

"I think we have to change the way we look at education... We need to focus on making sure that we're actually putting them on the path to prosperity, she said.

So that when they either graduate from high school, whether it's graduating from a two-year program, a trade school, or a four-year university, they're ready to go out into the workforce."

This only scratches the surface as this series doesn't include the other candidates on the ballot.

In the coming weeks, we'll continue to explain the candidates beliefs on social issues like abortion rights, as well as healthcare concerns like vaccination mandates.

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Arkansas governor's race: What we know about the 3 front-runners - THV11.com KTHV

At its best, futurist thinking represents a flourishing of the human imagination. Emboldened by the invention of new technologies, artists at the turn of the twentieth century envisioned a world largely free of everyday toil, in which the work of machines would allow ordinary people to live fuller and happier lives without the grinding poverty and tedium associated with industrialization. This vision may have reflected a kind of misplaced techno-utopianism, but it was also a genuine expression of progressive thinking in a world of growing class consciousnesses and democratic militancy.

Today, what passes for futurist optimism is often more a sign of civilizational paralysis and economic stagnation the increasingly absurd billionaire space race offering us a counterfeit vision of utopian promise in the form of climate-destroying vanity flights and dystopian fanfiction about Martian colonies. Unlike earlier iterations of futurism, this plutocrat-manufactured version substitutes the transcendence of earthly inequalities for their extension into the solar system, imagining a century of space exploration planned and carried out by a tiny handful of the worlds wealthiest people. This makes sense insofar as it reflects both the prevailing logic of a top-heavy and decadent global economy and a political order incapable of accommodating real alternatives to the status quo. When a system looks exhausted but reforming it also seems impossible, the only option left is to scale up and hope it yields a better result.

Something like this is at least the implicit premise of a new report from the neoliberal Adam Smith Institute entitled Space Invaders: Property Rights on the Moon, which mounts a Lockean case for the ownership of land off-world. To researcher Rebecca Lowes credit, the argument is intellectually quite rigorous and represents a philosophically consistent application of classical liberal thinking. Noting that earlier, more universalist frameworks for the exploration of space feel less viable today than they did in the 1950s or 60s, Lowe proceeds to consider an approach that is neither nationally or globally based and would instead see individuals to attain morally-justified property rights in space.

Shes certainly correct that anything resembling the egalitarian vision of space once represented in the popular imagination by something like Star Trek looks decidedly more distant in a world of transnational competition and disempowered nation states. Shes also right to recognize that the codification of rules and regulations surrounding interstellar colonization are bound to be complex and also that debates about them will inevitably reflect unresolved disputes about the design of existing human societies.

In true libertarian fashion, the case for property rights is asserted as axiomatic and advanced as fundamentally egalitarian in spirit. Moral property rights, Lowe writes, are rights that simply reflect truths about morality, and which do not depend on positive law. While democratic nations, she argues, may be in a position to share fairly amongst their citizens the opportunities of the national appropriation of space, the existence of authoritarian societies means some will be unable to reap the off-world bounty:

Under such [national] approaches, for instance, if democratic Country A was newly allowed to appropriate a certain amount of space land, then separable parts of this amount could, for instance, be made up for grabs amongst competing citizens, on fair terms. But the same could not be expected from authoritarian regimes. There is an egalitarian argument, therefore, that the arbitrary oppression of opportunity that some individuals already face simply by being born in, or otherwise inhabiting, particular countries should not be further entrenched by a nation-focused approach to the governance of space opportunities.

Ethically speaking, its not a bad argument. Having basic egalitarian commitments, after all, implies not wanting people to be disadvantaged by the circumstances of their birth or subject to what Lowe calls arbitrary oppression of opportunity or otherwise. The irony is that market societies have such oppression built-in by design, and that modern apologists for inequality regularly invoke property rights as the preeminent justification for not eliminating it. According to this line of thinking, properly functioning markets offer everyone the same opportunities to own and to compete.

The problem, of course, is that they do nothing of the kind. Market societies are, by definition, also class societies in which a comparatively small few own and a much larger group must earn subsistence through wage labor. The latter group produces, while the former extracts rents and skims the surplus value. In lieu of radical measures like the complete abolition of inherited wealth from one generation to the next, equality of opportunity is a total mirage and markets inevitably yield social relations defined by entrenched domination.

This obviously has profound implications on its own. But its also relevant if were considering hypothetical frameworks for the future use of space. What is presently called private space exploration, after all, is in practice the domain of a few exorbitantly wealthy billionaires, and theres no particular reason to think that would change with the extension of property rights onto the Moon.

Putting aside the question of whether lunar colonization will ever be viable or commercially profitable to begin with, the inherent asymmetries in global capitalism mean that any realistic version of it will simply project structural inequality into the heavens: a small few among those who are already rich will own and profit, while others will work and attempt to subsist. (One clue in this regard was offered by none other than Elon Musk when he was asked about the high costs of transport to Mars. His answer? That those unable to afford the price of a trip could take out loans and pay them off by toiling in Martian sweatshops upon arrival.) Equality of opportunity under a system of lunar property rights is thus every bit as mythical as its earthly equivalent.

Rigorous and systematic as it is, Lowes proposal therefore suffers from a broader problem inflecting much of what passes for futurist thinking today: namely, that it remains bound up in the logics of the very status quo it promises to transcend. While virtually every era struggles to see beyond its own horizons, what the late Mark Fisher called capitalist realism arguably makes ours unique in this respect. From billionaire-led space exploration to cryptocurrency to the so-called Metaverse, the various technologies and schemes currently claiming the futurist mantle are so inexorably constrained by their allegiance to capital that they are ultimately strained of emancipatory potential.

Plutocracy is bad enough on earth. If humanity ever does expand into the heavens, lets hope its in a future that has left billionaires and class hierarchies far behind.

Read the rest here:
Keep Capitalists Off the Moon - Jacobin magazine

Oklahomans who want to change party affiliation, must submit their change no later than March 31, Pottawatomie County Election Board Secretary, Patricia Carter said. Voters may change their party affiliation online using the OK Voter Portal at oklahoma.gov/elections/ovp or by completing a new Voter Registration Application.

Carter reminds voters that no party changes are allowed between April 1 and August 31 during an even-numbered year.

If we receive your request after March 31, we are required by law to hold that request and process it in September, Carter said.

Oklahoma has three recognized parties: Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian.

In Oklahoma, voters must be a registered member of a party in order to vote in that partys primary election. Independents are permitted to participate in a primary election, only if a party officially requests its elections be opened to Independent voters. Currently, only the Democratic Party allows Independents to vote in its primary elections.

All registered voters, regardless of political affiliation, can vote for any candidate during a General Election.

Voter Registration Applications can be downloaded from the State Election Board website at oklahoma.gov/elections. Applications are also available at the Pottawatomie County Election Board located at 330 North Broadway, Shawnee. Office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays.

For questions, contact the County Election Board at (405) 273-8376 or pottawatomiecounty@elections.ok.gov.

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Deadline to change party affiliation for elections is March 31 - Shawnee News Star