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The Poles have the historical appearance to have been oppressed by both the Nazis and the Commies/Marxists. Countries in Eastern Europe who went through being occupied by Nazis and Marxists often speak out loudly about their dangers. Yet, out here in the West, it seems our people are willing to only hear half of it, as the Marxists are spreading like wildfire.

Socialism, National Socialism (Nazism for those who somehow dont know this), Communism and any other variation of Marixsm, as well as any racial supremacist groups, including the KKK, have no place in the United States. You have the right to your beliefs but you do not have the right to enforce those beliefs on the people via policy and/or law, and this has to be the libertarian position. These political beliefs violate the non-aggression principle, and the overall rights of the individual. If we were to allow any socialist policies to go forth, including such things as universal healthcare or free college/university we would be failing (I hate to sound like a collectivist) the people of the United States. Through these types of policies, we, the people, would essentially be financially responsible for the lifestyles and educational choices of the rest of the country through taxation, which brings me to my next point.

The general libertarian view on taxation is that it is coercion. The state is essentially stealing our money through threat of force; this means that the state itself is in violation of the NAP. Would we, in turn, suggest that the state itself be dissolved? Many say yes, yet this enters the realm of anarchism, and less of libertarianism. Libertarianism, as I know it, isnt for the complete dissolution of government but for the reduction of government. But how can a government exist without money? Weve already answered this in thousands upon thousands of conversations: through donation and charity.

The government works today as a middle man: it takes our money and funnels it into things such as infrastructure and welfare. It does so via coercion through threat of force and while we know that these services can be provided solely through the market, we must think of those who arent capable of a self-sustainable life: seniors, the mentally and physically disabled, and in some cases, children whose parents are unable to provide resources needed to live.

What we need is tax reform and we already know the solution (in fact, we rant about it all the time): volunteerism. Make it so that taxation is a voluntary system and that we, the people, get to decide where our money gets to go to. If you want to donate $2,000 to the welfare of the mentally ill than thats where the money will go. If you want to donate $10 to fill a pot hole, have at it. In short, the government is supposed to work for the people, but through threatening us in order to provide us services, it is doing more harm than good. Without the threat of jail time or even a forced quota system, government could be, at its essence, a charitable organization. Isnt that what the government is supposed to be anyways, for the people and by the people?

This being such a radical idea, and already with so many holes in it for a large country to implement suddenly, I would suggest if we want to make any progress towards a truly free and liberty focused society we find a way to test a system such as this. It could be proposed and put up for a vote in a small town somewhere and tried out for a set period of time. Probably the best two things about this theory is that it is doesnt violate the NAP in any way and that it is a volunteer based system.

In a time of radicals on every side of the aisle and high tensions, I cant think of a better time to try to actually test out this theory and bring the country back to sanity. Benjamin Franklin supposedly said, Im an extreme moderate. I believe anybody not in favor of moderation and compromise ought to be castrated. It is best that the only radicals in society be those who promote individualism and liberty instead of those who promote collectivism and obedience.

* Jarod Goodwin is an archaeology student in his mid-twenties. Hes worked in the grassroots movement for the election of Jim Webb in 2016, and in informing foreigners and locals alike to the different political sides of things like Brexit, the Dutch election, French election, Canadian, Swedish, and Brazilian politics.

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Marxism, Nazism and a Potentially Radical Theory for Libertarianism - Being Libertarian

Every so often, on social media sites, someone posts a mathematical problem similar to this:

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A Libertarian Perspective - Courier-Times (subscription)

Last week in TAC, Zoltan Istvan wrote about The Growing World of Libertarian Transhumanism linking the transhumanist movement with all of its featureslike cyborgs, human robots and designer babiesto the ideas of liberty. To say Mr. Istvan is mistaken in his assessment is an understatement. Transhumanism should be rejected by libertarians as an abomination of human evolution.

We begin with Mr. Istvans definition of transhumanism:

transhumanism is the international movement of using science and technology to radically change the human being and experience. Its primary goal is to deliver and embrace a utopian techno-optimistic worlda world that consists of biohackers, cyborgists, roboticists, life extension advocates, cryonicists, Singularitarians, and other science-devoted people.

The ultimate task, however, is nothing less than overcoming biological human death and to solve all humanitys problems. Throughout much of Mr. Istvans work on this issue, he seems to think these ideas are perfectly compatible with libertarianismself-evident evenso he doesnt care to elaborate for his befuddled readers.

While most advocates of liberty could be considered, as Matt Ridley coined it, rational optimistsmeaning that generally we are optimistic, but not dogmatic, about progressit is easy to get into a state in which everything that is produced by the market is good per se and every new technology is hailed as the next step on the path of progress. In this sense, these libertarians become what Rod Dreher has called Technological Men. For them, choice matters more than what is chosen. [The Technological Man] is not concerned with what he should desire; rather, he is preoccupied with how he can acquire or accomplish what he desires.

Transhumanists including Mr. Istvan are a case in point. In his TAC article he not only endorses such things as the defeat of death, but even robotic hearts, virtual reality sex, and telepathy via mind-reading headsets. Need more of his grand ideas? How about brain implants ectogenesis, artificial intelligence, exoskeleton suits, designer babies, gene editing tech? At no point he wonders if we should even strive for these technologies.

When he does acknowledge potential problems he has quick (and crazy) solutions at hand: For example, what would happen if people never die, while new ones are coming into the world in abundance? His solution to the fear of overpopulation: eugenics. It is here where we see how libertarian Mr. Istvan truly is. When his political philosophythe supposedly libertarian onecomes into conflict with his idea of transhumanism, he suddenly drops the former and argues in favor of state-controlled breeding (or, as he says, controlled breeding by non-profit organizations such as the WHO, which is, by the way, state financed). I cautiously endorse the idea of licensing parents, a process that would be little different than getting a drivers licence. Parents who pass a series of basic tests qualify and get the green light to get pregnant and raise children.

The most frustrating thing is how similar he sounds to communists and socialists in his arguments. In most articles you read by transhumanists, you can see the dream of human perfection. Mr. Istvan says so himself: Transhumanists want more guarantees than just death, consumerism, and offspring. Much More. They want to be better, smarter, strongerperhaps even perfect and immortal if science can make them that way.

Surely it is the goal of transhumanists that, in their world, the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. You can just edit the genes of the embryo in the way that they are as intelligent as Aristotle, as poetic as Goethe, and as musically talented as Mozart. There are two problems, though: First, the world would become extremely boring, consisting only of perfect human beings who are masters at everything (which perhaps would make human cooperation superfluous). Second, that quote was famously uttered by the socialist Leon Trotsky.

As Ludwig von Mises wrote sarcastically, the socialist paradise will be the kingdom of perfection, populated by completely happy supermen. This has always been the mantra of socialists, starting with utopian thinkers like Charles Fourier, but also being embraced by the scientific ones like Marx, who derived his notion of history in which communism is the final stage of humanity from Hegel. Hegel himself believed in the man-godnot in the way that God became man through Jesus, but that man could become God one day. Intentionally or not, transhumanists sound dangerously similar to that. What they would actually create would be the New Soviet Man through bio-engineering and total environmental control as the highest social goal. In other words, you get inhuman ideological tyranny taken to a whole new level.

It should be noted that sometimes transhumanists recognize this themselvesbut if they do, their solutions only make things worse (much worse). Take Adam Zaretsky as example, who says that these new human beings shouldnt be perfect: Its important to make versions of transgenic human anatomy that are not based on idealism. But his solution is frightening: The idea is that you take a gene, say for pig noses, or ostrich anuses, or aardvark tongue, and you paste that into a human sperm, a human egg, a human zygote. A baby starts to form. And: We could let it flow into our anatomy, and these peoplewho yes, are humansshould be appreciated for who and what they are, after they are forced to be born in a really radically strange way. Its no surprise that Rod Dreher calls Mr. Zaretsky a sick monster, because he truly seems to be one when it comes to his transhumanist vision. He wants to create handicapped human beings on purpose.

If this were what libertarians think should happen, it would be sad (thankfully its mostly not). As Jeff Deist notes, it is important to remember that liberty is natural and organic and comports with human action. It doesnt require a new man. Transhumanists may say that the introduction of their idea is inevitable (in Istvans words, Whether people like it or not, transhumanism has arrived) but that is not true. And in this sense, it is time for libertarians to argue against the notion of extreme transhumanism. Yes, the market has brought it about and yes, the state shouldnt prohibit it (though giving your baby a pig nose could certainly be a violation of rights), but still, one shouldnt be relativist or even nihilist about such frightening developments. It would be a shame if the libertarian maxim of Everyone should be able to do whatever one wants to (as long as no one is hurt by it) becomes Everyone should do whatever one can do just because it is possible.

Finally, it comes as no surprise that transhumanists are largely, if not all, atheists (or as Mr. Istvan says: Im an atheist, therefore Im a transhumanist. This just proves what the classical liberal historian Lord Acton talked about when he said, Progress, the religion of those who have none. In the end, transhumanism is the final step to get God out of the way. It would be the continuation of what Richard Weaver wrote about in Ideas Have Consequences: Instead of seeing nature, the world and life overall as a means to get to know God, humans in the last centuries have become accustomed to seeing the world as something that is only there for humans to take and use for their own pleasures. Transhumanism would be the final step of this process: the conquest of death.

You dont have to be religious to find this abhorrent. As we have seen, it would be the end to all religion, to human cooperation overall, in all likelihood to liberty itself, and even the good-bye to humanity. It would be the starting point of the ultimate dystopia.

Kai Weiss is an International Relations student and works for the Austrian Economics Center and Hayek Institute, two libertarianthink tanks based in Vienna, Austria.

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Transhumanism Is Not Libertarian, It's an Abomination | The ... - The American Conservative

It seems to me that whenever North Korea launches one of their missiles or decides they are going test another nuclear device, the rest of the world loses their collective mind, and needlessly so. North Korea is no threat to the United States, or anyone, but itself.

Let me explain. On one hand people seem to have the impression that North Korea is some grave threat to the West that needs to be stopped; on the other, people have this view of them as some unintelligent, cartoonish throwback to the Cold War, undermining its own credibility when it misidentifies target cities on propaganda maps. While their military is large, and they indeed could cause some damage, nuclear weapons or not, their hardware is mostly forty years out of date and they have no real way to project power outside their immediate surroundings, even if they develop a working ICBM. And as for the perception of North Korea run by stupid, crazy people, I completely reject that. They came out of the Cold War largely unscathed (and remain so) culturally and ideologically, while most other communist regimes collapsed or evolved towards capitalism. They are a nuclear power, a title only a handful of nations can claim, and they have a propaganda machine so good the regime essentially brainwashed 25 million people into believing their dear leader is a god.

All of this is to say the idea that North Korea is run by crazy people that will nuke either the States or their southern neighbor the very instant they have the capability is absurd. Rather than reckless belligerence, they have shown themselves to be calculating and precise, knowing just what buttons to press, and how hard to press them, without causing a metaphorical detonation. The bombardment of Yeonpyeong and the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan show pretty good examples of this. Causing casualties on your enemies without incurring any of your own shows a pretty remarkable amount of intelligence in my book, and wantonly nuking your enemies is the exact opposite way to go about that. I absolutely guarantee the regime running North Korea is smart enough to know they will lose a war they start with either the United States and/or South Korea, and they most certainly know that if they use a nuclear weapon in an offensive fashion, South Korea would become an island soon after.

For all the decades of posturing and chest beating, the Korean War hasnt resumed. Much the same way the USSR and the US had the means and never exercised them, the same way India and Pakistan have the capability but remain fallout free, so too will the Korean Peninsula remain intact, as long as the participating parties continue to use some restraint.

So, what can we do? Im all for sanctions as a moral action, but practically, North Korea has shown they will carry on regardless; attacking them would only cause an unneeded and bloody war. I really think the best thing we can do is ignore them. Their whole shtick is based on aggression by the West, and we feed that every time the news cycle starts interviewing generals about the best course of action to deal with the regimes latest aggression. I am sure that North Korea would continue to pump out their anti-west rhetoric regardless of whether we give it fuel or not, but at that point we could at least claim the moral high ground, and they would at least have to go through the effort of making up stories on their own.

I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that I think the biggest threat to the regime of North Korea is itself. The libertarian community believes that communism doesnt work. It hasnt yet, and if we truly believe that, we must believe that an oppressive regime like that of the DPRK will eventually collapse and undo itself. As the rest of the world continues to progress around their island of stagnation and misery, and ever more sharply juxtaposes the situations of the North and South, the more the people of the North will see what the South has and start demanding it for themselves. We should certainly be there to help pick up the pieces, but the people of the North need to want change before we can do any good.

Image: Getty

* ColoradoYeah runs the libertarian leaning coloradoyeah.com.

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The North Korea Problem - Being Libertarian

RALEIGH The N.C. Libertarian Party has picked three Triad residents for leadership roles.

Clement Erhardt of Greensboro is the party's treasurer and the slate of at-large members includesAngela Anderson of Winston-Salem andJ.J. Summerell of Greensboro.

Susan Hogarth of Raleigh has been named the Libertarian Party of North Carolina's new chairwoman.

N.C. Libertarian officials elected a new state party chair and a slate of officers during the party's annual convention held in Lake Lure, according to a release.

Nathan Phillips of Asheville was named vice chair, Brent DeRidder of Hampstead will serve as secretary, and the remaing at-large members are Matt Clements of Carrboro, Chris Dooley of Charlotte, James Hines of Asheville, Amy Lamont of Oxford, Ryan Teeter of Hampstead, Andreas Steude of Cary, and Alec Willson of Asheville.

Summerell was the Libertarian candidate for North Carolina's 1st Congressional District in 2016. Incumbent U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a Wilson Democrat, won re-election with 68.6 percent of the vote, defeating Republican candidate and Stantonsburg town councilman Powell Dew (28.9 percent) and Summerell, who picked up 2.4 percent of the vote.

The Libertarian Party, formed in 1971, is the third-largest political party in the U.S. and North Carolina, as well as the only ballot-recognized alternative party in the state.

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Triad residents among those tapped for posts in NC Libertarian Party - Winston-Salem Journal