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Wherever you find yourself on the libertarian spectrum, youre probably running into the same issue as me: a problem with imagination. The vast majority of people just cant envision a social structure where government does not provide the services it offers now (or more!). This can be as radical as national defense and border security, moderate like roads, highways and public housing or as non-controversial (for us) as healthcare and waste management. When it comes to the liberty movement, Ludwig von Mises said we are fighting the intellectual battle and this academic fight serves as the primary battle front. Respect and gratitude goes to the great scholars consistently advancing the doctrine of liberty. Without this foundation, a future of liberty is not possible. From this academic foundation springs the secondary front, the political battle, with leaders like Rand Paul, who continue to further freedom through changes and limits to state power.

In addition to these two, there is also a third front that has yet to be fully developed: the market battle.

This is the real world expression of the intellectual and political fight putting services and products on the market to compete with the existing framework of state services. We know that free markets provide higher quality goods and services at a lower cost than governments. Market genius is demonstrated every day through drones, tablets, WiFi, Uber, the list goes on and on. As libertarians, we see these as irrefutable results of free activity.

But there is a disconnect, because as we esteem these brilliant entrepreneurs, they point back to the state, exult its behavior and call for more taxes and regulation. This is where libertarians are at a steep and distinct disadvantage. Even industry leaders who are self-described libertarians concede the need for more government services and social safety nets. What the liberty movement needs is a growing body of bold entrepreneurs that profess the supremacy of freedom. These are venture capitalists and business people that give industrial backing to the notion that free markets outperform state services. Supporting market competition is both purist and pragmatic, so whether youre a libertarian constitutionalist, minarchist or anarchist, you can coalesce around this idea.

A great example of the third front is homeschooling. Libertarians have entered the education market and are providing a vastly higher quality education than public schools. This great quality is offered at a fraction of the yearly cost ($600-900 per child), as the cost per child of government school surpasses $10,000. Free marketeers can see the benefit in allowing the homeschool industry to thrive, as it highlights both the distinct failure of governments to provide education and the genius market solution of homeschooling.

Take waste management. This municipal service is a truly ancient relic, sending 1.3 billion tons of food waste to landfills globally. There is so much research being done on insects like the wax worm that converts plastic into anti-freeze or the black soldier fly, that converts food waste into a protein. This shows that waste is really just an economic calculation: one mans trash is another mans treasure and that plastic and food garbage can actually be used by entrepreneurs as raw materials instead of relegated as waste.

Recycle Revolution is a Christian and libertarian start-up that is crowdfunding to use the black soldier fly for this express purpose.

Leftovers from restaurants are fed to black soldier flies and converted into animal feed on an industrial scale. It is breaking open the third front in waste management, a fierce competition to the state service. Rather than restricting and regulating, Recycle Revolution is all about creation and giving the free market its due.

Like homeschooling, this project seeks to provide a clear-cut example of market ingenuity. By taking food waste as raw materials and processing it into protein-rich animal feed, libertarians have an industrial example of where government was failing and the market stepped in with a ground breaking solution. At the same time, its founders understand that entrepreneurial initiative, not government, drives social and environmental change. This project greatly outperforms the municipal service by collecting food leftovers at no cost, reducing methane gas emissions, diverting food waste from landfills, and simply yet effectively producing a low-cost, high-protein food source for animals.

Fighting the market battle is so important because it tackles peoples imagination. Those who lack a true understanding of free markets need clear examples of market and state activity stacked against each other. This is the truest expression of the intellectual and political battles, that creative and solution oriented people take to the market and solve problems. We can say that health care, roads or even national defense can be provided at lower cost and higher quality on the market, but until we actively demonstrate this to be true, with programs like homeschooling and Recycle Revolution, we will continue to be at a disadvantage.

* Justin Nguyen is founder and director of Nguyen Solutions, a Christian and libertarian start-up currently crowdfunding the Recycle Revolution campaign to recycle food using the black soldier fly. Their mission is to drive social change in direction of liberty using creativity, industry and free markets. Check it out at https://igg.me/at/nguyensolutions.

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The Third Front: The Next Step in the Battle for Freedom - Being Libertarian

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (News release) - After receiving the required number of signatures, the Libertarian Party of Arkansas (LPAR) has received the green light to appear on the 2018 ballot in Arkansas.

Monday, Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin declared the Libertarian Party a New Political Party for the fourth consecutive time.

Now that the LPAR is officially on the ballot for 2018, candidate recruitment will be the partys next major task.

The Party had submitted 15,108 signatures to the Elections Division of the Secretary of States office on June 12. After spending almost three weeks verifying the submitted signatures, the Secretary of State notified the party that its new political party petition was sufficient. Leslie Bellamy, the Director of Elections, informed the party that 12,749 of the signatures were valid.

In accordance with Arkansas Code, new political parties are required to file a petition with the Secretary of State. The party has 90 days to collect signatures from at least 10,000 registered Arkansas voters. To retain ballot access, the partys candidate for Governor will have to receive 3% of the votes cast for Governor.

According to Stephen Wait, the partys Treasurer, Petitioning to become a new political party again cost over $25,000 and a lot of volunteer hours. Despite the obstacles the old parties put in our way, we are happy to provide freedom loving Arkansans the opportunity to vote for candidates who will represent their views.

The Libertarian Party of Arkansas is currently seeking liberty minded individuals who are interested in running for office. The LPARs elections committee has already been contacted by numerous people interested in seeking the partys nomination for various positions.

Vice-chairman, Chris Olson, said It's an important election with all constitutional officers up for election. We are committed to providing the people of Arkansas with a strong set of pro-liberty candidates. We will not shirk from our commitment to providing a consistent voice for limited responsible government. He urged those who are interested in running for office as a Libertarian to contact elections@lpar.org for more information.

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Libertarian Party of Arkansas Set to Appear on 2018 Ballot - KARK

Policy leaders are pressing the government to ensure workers have paid time off. Whether government has any businesses dictating what benefits must be included in the employment packages of Americans is rarely considered. The libertarian perspective is all but entirely absent in the discussion. That needs to change.

Our federal government has limited responsibilities, and micromanaging leave practices isn't one of them. Even the best-intentioned policies have unintended consequences that backfire on those they are supposed to help. We need to call out policymakers who use the excuse of a safety net to justify any new rules and regulations that needlessly restrict options for all Americans.

That's the predictable tactic employed by the Left, which is pushing extensive paid leave programs with increasing success. San Francisco's city council created a city-wide paid leave mandate on top of California's state paid leave program. Washington, DC just created an even more generous program.

Liberal women's groups and progressive activists regularly promote social media memes charging the United States is alone in the world in failing to guarantee paid time off for workers. They imply this deficiency is latent sexism or a lack of compassion for workers, women, and children.

But some on the Right are also embracing this logic. The American Enterprise Instituteconsidered a free-market organizationjust released a joint report with the more liberal Brookings Institution, entitled "Paid Family and Medical Leave: An Issue Whose Time Has Come." The authors noted they'd disagreed about the particulars of the best policy solution, but "unanimously agreed that some form of paid parental leave should be offered to help workers at the time of birth, adoption, or fostering of a child."

They outline a "compromise plan" to provide eligible workers with 70 percent of their wages for eight weeks of gender-neutral paid parental leave. This new federal entitlement program would be funded by a dedicated payroll tax and cuts to other spending.

AEI's report came just after the release of the President's budget outline, which included funding to expand the state-based Unemployment Insurance system with the goal of providing workers with a similar benefit.

There is pushback against sweeping new government entitlements. The Independent Women's Forum (where I work) argues that policymakers should instead seek policy reforms that help workers while minimizing economic disruption. Allowing workers to save tax-free for when they need time off for work is one such idea.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) could also serve as a model to provide a financial boost to lower-income workers who lack paid leave benefits. The IWF argues that any government intervention ought to be need-based, rather than a mandated entitlement program that would effectively do to our compensation system what ObamaCare did to health insurance.

The public likes the idea of government doing something to make sure new parents have a benefit that lets them spend more time at home with their children. But often overlooked is that the money has to come from somewhere. Businesses forced to pay more for benefits have less for increased wages.

Mandates that make employees more expensive offer less incentive for businesses to hire more and more highly skilled employees (that's bad news for lower-wage workers). Employers may avoid hiring those most likely to use benefits, particularly women. A government one-size-fits-all paid leave program would also discourage voluntary alternative work arrangements like job-sharing and telecommuting that benefit employers and employees.

Allowing the government to dictate what must be in our employment contracts is another chip off the block of basic liberty and self-determination. It becomes illegal for an employer to offer a job that doesn't fit the government rule. As an employee, you can't choose to take a greater share of your compensation as take-home pay; you can't decide to save on your own for time away from work in the future; government has decided how this must be handled.

There is also the matter of fairness. A paid leave mandate creates winners and losers. People with families and children will receive the benefits, while those who cannot or choose not to have children will pay for benefits they are far less likely to use.

That doesn't mean that companies shouldn't offer leave benefits. Rather we should allow employers to create a variety of work relationships that appeal to their employees' unique needs. Some workers will gravitate to businesses offering more robust benefits. Others may prefer companies that compensate with higher pay. Enabling people to act on their preferences is what the marketplace is all about.

The United States is a Constitutional Republic with a federal government that is supposed to have limited powers used for very specific purposes. Micromanaging employment contracts or taxing some citizens to give money to others shouldn't be among those powers.

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Libertarians' Lost Voice in the Paid Leave Debate - Reason

PHOENIX -- A federal judge has rebuffed a bid by the Libertarian Party to kill an Arizona law even its sponsors concede was designed to make it harder for minor party candidates to get on the general election ballot.

Judge David Campbell acknowledged Monday the 2015 law sharply increases the number of signatures that Libertarian candidates need to qualify for ballot status. In some cases, the difference is more than 20 times the old requirement.

The result was that only one Libertarian candidate qualified for the ballot in 2016, and none made it to the general election. By contrast, there were 25 in 2004, 19 in 2008 and 18 in 2012.

But Campbell said the new hurdle is not unconstitutionally burdensome. And the judge accepted the arguments that the higher signature requirements ensure that candidates who reach the November ballot have some threshold of support.

But Libertarian Party Chairman Michael Kielsky said the judge ignored not just the higher burden but the games that the Republican-controlled legislature played in making 2015 the change for their own political purposes.

The Republicans set out to get the Libertarians off the ballot and the Republicans succeeded, Kielsky said. And now, Judge Campbell has said, Thats OK.

Kielsky is not just spouting party rhetoric.

In pushing for the change, GOP lawmakers made no secret they do not want Libertarian Party candidates in the race, contending that a vote for a Libertarian is a vote that would otherwise go to a Republican. As proof, some cited the 2012 congressional race.

Republican Jonathan Paton lost the CD 1 race to Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick by 9,180 votes. But Libertarian Kim Allen picked up 15,227 votes -- votes that Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, argued during floor debate likely would have gone to Paton.

And in CD 9, Democrats Kyrsten Sinema defeated Republican Vernon Parker by 10,251 votes, with Libertarian Powell Gammill tallying 16,620.

And if the point was lost, Mesnard made the issue more personal for colleagues, warning them that they, too, could find themselves aced out of a seat if they dont change the signature requirements.

I cant believe we wouldnt see the benefit of this, he said during a floor speech.

The way the legislature accomplished this was to change the rules.

Prior to 2015, would-be candidates qualified for the ballot by getting the signatures of one-half of one percent of all party members within a given area. So for a Republican seeking statewide office, that translated out to 5,660 signatures.

The new formula changed that to one-quarter of a percent -- but for all people who could sign a candidates petition. That adds political independents, who outnumber Democrats and are running neck-in-neck with Republicans, to the equation.

Under the new formula, a Republican statewide candidate in 2016 needed 5,790 signatures.

But the effect on minor parties is more profound,

Using that pre-2016 formula, a Libertarian could run for statewide office with petitions bearing just 134 names, one-half percent of all those registered with the party. But the new formula, which takes into account all the independents, required a Libertarian trying to get on a statewide ballot to get 3,023 signatures.

To put that in perspective that is closed to 12 percent of all registered Libertarians. By contrast, the statewide burden for a GOP candidate, based on the number of registered Republicans, remains close to that one-half of one percent of all adherents.

Its B.S., Kielsky said. Its completely perverse.

But Campbell said there is nothing unconstitutional about the higher requirement to limit the field to bona fide candidates who had some chance of actually winning.

If a candidate was not required to show any threshold of support through votes or petition signatures, she could win her primary and reach the general ballot with no significant modicum of support at all, Campbell continued. And in the case of Libertarians, who often run unopposed in their partys primary, a candidate could win a spot on the general election ballot with only one vote in such a primary.

Anyway, the judge said, Libertarian candidates can now seek out support to get on the ballot from independents, a pool totaling more than one million voters in Arizona.

Kielsky said that misses the point.

That means we have to appeal to things that the independents care about -- but not necessarily the Libertarians care about -- to be a Libertarian candidate, he said. The distinction of being a Libertarian is diluted, if not lost.

And Kielsky called the requirement for a modicum of support a red herring. He said if Libertarians were not picking up significant votes, the GOP-controlled legislature would not have changed the law to keep them off the ballot.

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Judge upholds law stifling Libertarian ballot presence | The Verde ... - Verde Independent

There is so very little about the devastating moments after learning about our daughters murder that I remember clearly. Our brains have this amazing capacity for protecting us by limiting the amount of information that we can take in at one time. For nearly six months after the shooting, I asked myself and those around me daily, Did this really happen?

Thats what I thought about on Monday when I learned that Roger Stone, a political strategist, was attacking the parents of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer whose murder has attracted the interest of conspiracy theorists. Does anyone else thinks it's odd that Seth Rich's parents have no interest in finding out who killed their son ? #payoff? he asked on Twitter. I thought of their grief, and remembered my own.

Our 6-year-old daughter Ana Grace was murdered in the nations worst elementary school mass shooting on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut. Our son survived. Yet despite hearing from first responders, planning a funeral, and lowering a tiny white coffin into the ground, the idea that we would have to spend the rest of our lives without her was too difficult to accept. I heard her, saw her, and felt her for weeks afterward. I stood in a check-out line at a Target girls section with an arm full of clothing for a boy and a girl the following spring.

A Mother's Fear Post-Sandy Hook

There was just no way I could fathom the amount of pain, the amount of missing, the amount of grief that flooded our world (and continues to) since Anas loss. As the five-year mark of the tragedy approaches, we still struggle. We have done amazing things. We have started a foundation. We have made the world more beautiful and more safe. We have raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity. We have raised awareness and provide funding for programs that reduce social isolation and promote community and connection to reduce violence. Our focus is schools. Our focus is raising our surviving son. Our focus is staying married and healthy and beating dismal odds. And yet for our family, the shock that this is your life for the rest of your life? It never fully goes away.

This level of shock/denial isn't uncommon or even remotely something we should pathologize. In the familiar Kbler-Ross grief stages, denial is the beginning of the journey and acceptance is the final destination. But grief is not linear, nor can it be neatly packaged or compartmentalized into logical phases. Grief is a loopy road full of U-turns and nosedives. Grief is messy and unpredictable. I have often said, Somewhere on the continuum between overwhelmed and overcomingthat is where a griever lives at all times.

I am finally willing to accept that Ana was brutally taken from us. I am willing to accept that my husband and I have joined a large but mostly marginalized tribe called bereaved parents. But I am not willing to accept that we live in an America that normalizes the abuse of bereaved parents who lose their loved ones to tragedy.

Culturally, we have much to understand about grief and providing support to victims. But we are now asking survivors of high-profile tragedy to withstand not only their loss, but flagrant and intentional harm after it.

This harm comes in the form of attacks on parents by conspiracy theorists. My own experience with them has taught me that they come in a few varieties:

Conspiracy theorists have been around for a long time. They shouldn't be confused with those who simply engage in healthy questioning of government, of people, or of ideas. Questioning is necessary and good. The sting of cruelty of those in the second category fades over time. You learn to pick them out and perhaps even feel sorry for them. It is wrong and awful but you come to realize that they are even more miserable than you are. And our local police have been amazing in their response to all of this.

But the third category is where you come in, Roger Stone. You intentionally use your platform to espouse theories debunked by law enforcement and that a bereaved family has expressly asked you to stop promoting.

Your actions have real consequences for those of us grieving. Your continued exploitation of these types of events result in targeted attacks by other hoaxers. Your continued attacks make it nearly impossible for us to heal. It is our job to handle the business of surviving child lossforging a path on a planet with an incomplete family. It should not be our job to deal with the likes of the bullshit you put out.

You identify as a libertarian, conservative, rabble rouser and I counter that you are none of what you describe. There is nothing libertarian about attacking bereaved parents. There is nothing conservative about suggesting that Seth Richs family was paid off. There is no amount of money in the world that would be enough to take part in anything like this.

Be careful when you mess with the bereaved. We are starting to speak out and stand up for each other. Hear the rally cry of a small but fearless group of hurting people reminding you that this isn't funny. This is real.

You are not a rabble rouser. You are irresponsible. You are cruel. You are a bully. You are careless in word and deed. And I will not normalize this. We will not normalize this. None of us should.

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'There Is Nothing Libertarian About Attacking Bereaved Parents' - The Atlantic