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9. State Capacity Libertarians are more likely to have positive views of infrastructure, science subsidies, nuclear power (requires state support!), and space programs than are mainstream libertarians or modern Democrats. Modern Democrats often claim to favor those items, and sincerely in my view, but de facto they are very willing to sacrifice them for redistribution, egalitarian and fairness concerns, mood affiliation, and serving traditional Democratic interest groups. For instance, modern Democrats have run New York for some time now, and theyve done a terrible job building and fixing things. Nor are Democrats doing much to boost nuclear power as a partial solution to climate change, if anything the contrary.

10. State Capacity Libertarianism has no problem endorsing higher quality government and governance, whereas traditional libertarianism is more likely to embrace or at least be wishy-washy toward small, corrupt regimes, due to some of the residual liberties they leave behind.

11. State Capacity Libertarianism is not non-interventionist in foreign policy, as it believes in strong alliances with other relatively free nations, when feasible. That said, the usual libertarian problems of intervention because government makes a lot of mistakes bar still should be applied to specific military actions. But the alliances can be hugely beneficial, as illustrated by much of 20th century foreign policy and today much of Asia which still relies on Pax Americana.

marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/01/what-libertarianism-has-become-and-will-become-state-capacity-libertarianism.html

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What libertarianism has become and will become State Capacity Libertarianism - Hot Air

How could we create a digital equivalent to cash, somethingthat could be created but not forged, exchanged but not copied, and whichreveals nothing about itsusers?

Why would we need this digital currency?

Dr. Finn Brunton, Associate Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU, discussed his new book Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency on November 19th, 2019 with CITPs Technology and Society Reading Group. Footage aired on C-SPANs Book TV.

Through a series of how and why questions, Finn constructed a fascinating and critical narrative around the history of digital currencies and the emergence of modern cryptocurrency. How much currency should be produced? How do we know if currency is real? Why gold, relative to digital gold currencies (DGCs)?

Beginning with the $20 bill, as analog beautiful objects of government technology made possible in a digital era by the rose engine lathe, and ending with the first ever tweet about Bitcoin (Running bitcoin), posted by Hal Finney (@halfin), Finn described the unexpected sociotechnical origins of Bitcoin and blockchain. His talk, and the book on which it was based, identify seminal articles (e.g. The Computers of Tomorrow by Martin Greenberger) and discussion communities (e.g. Extropy), key figures from David Chaum and Paul Armer to Tim May and Phil Salin, and digital currencies, from EFTs to hashcash, that served as stepping stones toward contemporary cryptocurrencies. Yet, Finn also importantly acknowledged that while names and dates are memorable and compelling in constructing a timeline and pulling continuous threads through this history, there are n+1 ideas about and versions of digital currency.

In this sense, Finn provides, more so than an attempt at acomprehensive chronology, a sense of the recurring objectives that motivatedthe evolution of cryptocurrency: trust in value, exchangeability, multiplicity,reproducibility, decentralization, abundance, scalability, sovereignty,verification, authenticity, fungibility, and transparency. In addition to thesemany, often fundamentally conflicting, values and objectives, very realconcerns about privacy, surveillance, coercion, power asymmetries, and libertarianfears of crises and the coming emergencies led individuals and communities todevelop their own digital currencies. Finn also identified some of theproblematic narratives around digital currencies, such as the assertion that cryptocurrencyis as real as math, and real challenges that have stymied and limited variousexperimental currencies.

Many of these challenges were highly apparent as Finndescribed the rise and fall of DGCs. The strange union between futuristicdigital currency and precious metals, particularly gold in its magnificent,stupid honesty, emerged in many parallel libertarian communities in the US andaround the world, as digital and analog receipts of ownership in preciousmetals were distributed to document remote stored value in a decentralizedsystem. Finn explained how these DGCs (e.g. eLiberty Dollars or The SecondAmendment Dollar) challenged the power and authority of state currencies andmodern banking and how the abrupt seizure of precious metal stockpiles, asevidence, by Federal Marshals foreshadowed some of the inaccessibility problemsof cryptocurrency, as well as the relationships between illicit activities anddigital currencies which now exist on the Silk Road.

Finn ended the discussion answering audience questions,including about power dynamics and the libertarian origins of cryptocurrency.His assertion that money and crisis are linked, not only in the economy ofemergency preparedness, but also in key points of progress toward the futureof money is compelling in identifying how digital currencies fit into thishistorical pattern in a larger monetary history.

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The Unknown History of Digital Cash - Freedom to Tinker

Founding Father and principle architect of the U.S. Constitution James Madison stated unequivocally: Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.

Libertarians strongly agree with Madison and we believe that people in need are best served by grassroots private volunteer organizations, rather than by government-run, taxpayer-at-large funded operations, which tend to be heavy on bureaucracy and regulation rather than on actually delivering results and aid to those in need.

In the spirit of James Madison, the Gila County Libertarian Party has made a financial contribution to the Payson Homeless Initiative, and we encourage other political groups in the area as well as non-political civic and charitable groups to get behind the Payson Homeless Initiative and make donations or provide volunteers to help this truly grassroots private sector effort.

Americans are the most generous and charitable people on the planet, and we would do even more if we retained more of the fruits of our labor. Less taxes = more money in private hands = more contributions to productive, private voluntary charitable programs. With less of a tax burden, caring members of society will be even more charitable, and society will be strengthened.

LBJs War on Poverty has been an epic failure. 55 years later, homelessness is rampant, especially in California. Tens of thousands of people gather in homeless camps with diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis posing great risk to the public at large. There is a better way, and private voluntary organizations such as the Payson Homeless Initiative are a prime example.

The Gila County Libertarian Party extends a well-deserved thank you to all the individuals and organizations that are already volunteering and contributing to the Payson Homeless Initiative. Keep up the great work!

Larry Hoffenberg, secretary/treasurer, Gila County Libertarian Party

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Kudos to the Payson Homeless Initiative | Letters To Editor - Payson Roundup

Conservative: Thanks for the Judges, Harry!

With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells help, President Trump has appointed federal judges at about twice the rate of his three predecessors, notes The Washington Examiners editorial board. But Trump should be thanking McConnells predecessor, former Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada. In 2013, with President Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling the Senate, Reid made the fateful and short-sighted decision to change Senate rules so that a bare majority was enough to confirm a judge, instead of 60 votes, as before. During his campaign, Trump regularly and energetically promised to appoint well-credentialed conservatives with excellent character and scholarship to judgeships a promise he has kept, much to his credit.

Culture critic: From Woodstock to Populism

Middle class in Britain was once defined by a safe, lifelong career, allegiance to the Conservative Party and defending tradition but now, Jonathan Rutherford sighs at The New Statesman, it has lost its role and the authority invested in it and has been overtaken by a new middle class fraction forged in the cultural revolution and university expansion of the 1960s. The Woodstock generation went into politics, eschewing traditionally left-wing populist economic democracy in favor of a libertarian identity politics of gender, race and sexuality. Left-wing parties became parties of the new liberal middle class, increasingly contemptuous of lives and experience of mainstream working-class voters. Yet working-class voters pushed back and voted for Brexit and their historic class enemy: the Tories. Back in 1969, no one could have believed it would turn out like this, but liberal elites have only themselves to blame.

Foreign desk: Hurrah for the US-UK Marriage

Among elite opinion-makers, Brexit is destined to turn Britain into an isolated backwater. Not so, says Brandon J. Weichert at American Greatness. The island nation had extraordinary power on its own, and subordinating British national sovereignty to the supranational government in Brussels was always a mistake. Now that its almost out, Britain should forge a stronger relationship with the United States, an Anglo-American marriage that would ensure that Brexit is meaningful and real and not at all damaging to Britain. The good news is that President Trump has already promised a new free-trade agreement with London which will allow Britain to shake off the sclerotic superstate that is the European Union.

Libertarian: A Year of Peak Entitlement

If you listen to many politicians and pundits, you would think the United States is doing terribly while the government isnt spending a dime yet the truth is the exact opposite, argues Reasons Veronique de Rugy. Among other things, the economy is entering its 11th year of expansion, while poverty is at an all-time low, and the unemployment rate hasnt been so low since 1969. Meanwhile, the government is racking up gargantuan budget deficits, largely because both political parties are spending on a whim and condemning our free-market economy the very system that has produced the wealth that everyone takes for granted. The problem, she insists, isnt that free markets dont work, but that we may have reached peak entitlement mentality.

Urban beat: Calis Homelessness Hopelessness

Despite Californias homelessness crisis, Sacramento and city halls across the Golden State are mired in the we-need-more-money mindset a mindset, sighs Issues and Insights editorial board, that has never worked. In fact, despite all the spending, and the pleas and plans for additional money, homelessness has spiked 30% since 2017 in San Francisco, 16% in Los Angeles and a whopping 43% in San Jose. As a result, nearly half of the nations homeless who sleep on the streets today do so in California. Instead of feeding government bureaucracies with taxpayers money, government officials should follow the example of San Diego, where the city took a tough-love approach that rejected widespread street camping and watched its homeless population fall. The shift in thinking and in acting is paying off.

Compiled by Karl Salzmann

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Thanks for the judges, Harry Reid, and other commentary - New York Post

Colorados red flag law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2020 -- its the one that allows a judge to temporarily remove somebodys firearms if theyre a danger to themselves or others.

The law has raised a lot of questions for Coloradans about how itll be implemented, who will enforce it and how its different from other states with similar laws.

CPR News spoke with two experts on gun rights and gun laws to address some concerns. Dave Kopel teaches law at the University of Denver and is with the Independence Institute, a Libertarian think tank. Shannon Frattaroli works in the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins School For Public Health, where researchers are looking at ways to reduce gun violence.

These are some of the points of the law and its implementation that theyre watching.

Colorado is just one of 17 states and the District of Columbia who have some version of a red flag law. Frattaroli said Colorados law is similar to other states, for the most part.

What has been different about Colorado is the response amongst some within the state and the level of concern about due process in Colorado is certainly something that we haven't seen in other places around the country, she said.

Kopel said that from his perspective, Colorados law is better than other states in one way but worse in a number of other ways.

The way it's better is Colorado has a provision that says if somebody is accused under this law when they finally get into court, which is only later in the process, that if they want an attorney to be provided by the government, the government will provide that, he said.

Kopel said it will ultimately be up to courts to decide whether or not its unconstitutional. But he thinks it does violate due process in a common-sense way.

When a firearm is removed from somebody, only the accusers side of information is presented in court, Kopel said. There is also no opportunity for the accuser to be cross-examined and questioned.

That's a fundamental thing in any fair system is when somebody makes an accusation, the accused person, if they want, can have a lawyer cross-examine the accuser and may bring out inconsistencies of the story and give the court the opportunity to observe the accuser in person and make a determination about the accusers credibility, Kopel said.

Frattaroli said there are other protections put in place that shield those being accused.

The judge listens to the case, listens to the perspective of the petitioner and considers that case and the risks to the public, the risks to the person, she said. Then there's this secondary line of due process where the person has an opportunity that's built into the system to be heard in court.

She compared those protections to the same ones used in restraining orders for domestic violence cases.

The law says only law enforcement and family or household members can ask a judge to remove somebodys firearms. Lesley Hollywood, founder of the gun-rights group Rally For Our Rights, strongly opposes the law and said the definition of who counts as a family member is broad.

There's a lot of concern that people will be falsely reported by ex-husbands former roommates, dating partners, people they've had an affair with, she said. One of the things I worry about as a woman is that stalkers and abusers can actually use it to have their victims disarmed.

Frattaroli said a family or household member would not include a dating partner unless they're living with them. Only a domestic partner who has lived with the respondent within the last six months can file a petition, according to the law. If somebody has a child with a respondent, they can file a petition at any time.

A domestic partner can also file a petition but its not clear if theres a statute of limitations. Kopel argued somebody who dated a person 15 years ago, for example, could file a petition.

In order for an extreme risk protection order to be considered by the court, a petitioner would have to fill out paperwork, go to court to submit it and then appear in front of a judge to have the case heard, Frattaroli said.

That isn't an easy thing to do, she said. It's not something that I think people enjoy doing.

She said from talking with law enforcement around the country who deal with extreme risk protection orders and see how theyre actually used, false reports havent come through.

Kopel said the law is structured in a way that promotes false accusations. An earlier version of the bill had a protection against false accusations. He said the likelihood of somebody being prosecuted for perjury is not high.

Kopel said it would depend on the case and evidence presented.

Frattaroli said the law isnt designed to target specific groups of people and whether or not someone has PTSD is irrelevant.

It doesn't have anything to do with if someone is depressed or if someone is sort of unpopular, she said. It's all about what are people doing? What are people saying and are those actions, are those words, do they constitute a real actionable threat to their own safety or to the safety of others?

Kopel compared law enforcement refusing to comply with other sanctuary issues.

You can argue about it all you want, but it's pretty hard to make government officials do something they don't want to do, especially when there's a lot of support within their jurisdiction for them not wanting to enforce a law that they and a lot of the public see is abusive and unfair.

Frattaroli said she hasnt seen as much pushback elsewhere from law enforcement about a red flag law as she has in Colorado. She said law enforcement and the community will ultimately decide if and how theyll use the extreme risk protection order as a tool for when somebody is in crisis or threatening harm.

Frattaroli said its hard to look back and say definitively if it would have made a difference but cases like Parishs are examples of the driving force behind extreme risk laws.

Kopel cited Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock, who thinks it would have.

He knows more about the facts of that particular case then than I do so I wouldn't disagree with him, he said. And that's why I'm in favor of the (red flag) laws if they're well structured, which this one is not.

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Colorado's Red Flag Law Goes Into Effect Jan. 1. This Is What People Are Watching For - Colorado Public Radio