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The US Libertarian Party sharply criticizedthe sentencing of a bitcoin trader on an unlawful money transmission charge this week.

In a statement, Nicholas Sarwark, who serves as chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, blasted the government's case against Randall Lord, who, along with his son Michael, was sentenced to a prison term late last month following an investigation into their alleged exchange activities.

As CoinDesk reported on 30th May, Randall and Michael Lord were sentenced to prison terms of 46 and 106 months, respectively. Both were charged with running an unlawful money transmission, while Michael Lord was also charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics.

Sawark said the Libertarian Party "vigorously condemns" the case against Randall Lord, who previously ran as a Libertarian for a House of Representatives seat in Louisiana during elections in 2012 and 2014.

He argued:

"Trading bitcoins is perfectly legal. Major retailers such as Microsoft, Expedia, Dell, Overstock, and Whole Foods accept bitcoins. Prosecutors targeted Lord for not being registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Treasury, and for not being licensed to operate as a money service business in his home state of Louisiana."

Sawark, in his statement, later took aim at the broader political system.

"The problem is overspending by federal politicians, their manipulation and regulation of currencies, and grandstanding prosecutors who get rewarded for convicting people rather than for achieving justice," he said.

He called for the sentencing to be overturned, asking supporters to add your voice to ours in demanding freedom for Randall Lord.

Lord's sentencing was a recent example of a trend of cases against bitcoin traders in the US. Similar cases have been pursued against traders in Michigan, New York and Arizona, among other states.

Image via Shutterstock

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Libertarian Party Blasts Government Case Against Bitcoin Trader - CoinDesk

For the fourth consecutive election cycle, theLibertarian Party of Arkansasplans to deliver petitions to the Arkansas Secretary of States office on Monday to become a new political party for the 2018 election.

Because the party failed to win 3% of the electoral vote in the 2016 presidential race that swept Republican nominee Donald Trump into the White House, Arkansas law requires a new political party to collect 10,000 valid voter signatures during a 90-day period.

Party chairman Michael Pakko, an economist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rocks Institute for Economic Advancement, said the party finds itself in the position again of having to register as a new party when it has participated in the last four presidential elections. Pakko said the performance of the candidate at the top of the ticket should not be the only measuring stick for ballot access. Despite being considered a new party under the law, Libertarians fielded a candidate in all four congressional races, while the Democrats only contested the 2nd District. The party was also the only competition in eight of the 34 contested state House races.

Our performance was definitely improved, Pakko said. We are giving voters a choice and voters are making that choice and voting Libertarian.

According to Pakko, party officials collected more than 15,000 signatures for the 2018 ballot after former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson fell short in the 2016 presidential race with only with 2.63% of the Arkansas vote. Thats an improvement from 2012, when Johnson won 1.52% of the vote. His vote total rose from 16,276 that year to 29,611 this year. If the partys gubernatorial candidate wins 3% in 2018, it wont have to collect signatures in 2020.

By not winning 3% of the vote, the party will again have to qualify for the ballot in 2018, a process Pakko has said required six months of work as well as about $33,000 in costs in the 2016 cycle. Because the primary was moved up to March 1, a state law required the party to select its candidates at the end of 2015. Pakko said the party will try to change the states law defining a political party in the 2017 legislative session while working toward the 2018 election.

During the recent legislative session, the party did not get enough support to change the states law defining a political party ahead of the 2018 election.

And as the nation is riveted with former FBI Director James Comeys testimony before Congress and an obstruction of justice investigation of President Donald Trump by independent counsel Robert Mueller, Pakko said there is a high level of mistrust between American voters and Republican and Democratic parties.

There remains a low-level of trust in government and the two-party system, Pakko said. We see the constant bickering between the two major parties and I think one thing that Libertarians would like voters to know is there is another choice and another option out there.

Pakko said Arkansas voters should take a closer look at the Libertarian Party in 2018 at all levels.

We have a specific set of principles that we believe and we put emphasis on the rights of individuals, and that individuals should be free to live their lives as they see fit without as little interference from the government as possible, said the Libertarian leader and economic forecaster. Keep the government out of peoples lives and out of their pocketbooks.

After party leaders deliver petitions to the Secretary of States office next week and the signatures are validated within 30 days, Pakko said the party will immediately begin to recruit new candidates for the next major election that is now less than two years away.

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Libertarian Party To File Petitions As 'New Political Party' For Fourth Time - KUAR

In general, when one goes to the polls, they are given a list of items to vote yay or nay on. More funding for project X? Yes or no. Slight tax increase for reason Y? Yes or no.

Nick or Kevin for position A1-Z1000? (Because apparently the whole government needs to be voted on even though its so huge and no one really knows who is who anyway.)

Many of these items are a decision of who you want to represent you in a given branch of government. Who do you want to run the state executive branch? Who do you want to represent you in the state legislative branch? But the ones that worry me the most are the measures that require funding. I recently read an article about rejecting utopianism that brought up a good point.

Sometimes the market doesnt do what we like. This got me thinking. Voting day always tries to do something we dont like, and if more than 50% of the votes are yes, I have to pay for it. Wouldnt it be great if voting was done the same way the market works, to vote with your dollar?

Lets say that instead of a single yes or no vote, you get a dollar amount vote. You can vote yes as many times as you like, as long as you have the money. That way, if you really want it, you can hedge your bet. Want more funding for public schools? How much, 50 bucks? Okay, write a check to the state on your way out, etc. Want that new public road connecting I-10 to the I-5? How much do you want it?

Voting day could happen several times per year, and it wouldnt have to be verified so you could do it online. If some foreign entity wants to fund our roads and schools, awesome!

As it stands, every vote you make for a special project, tax increase, or government subsidy, is in and of itself worth hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars of someone elses money. Its easy to get someone to spend someone elses money irresponsibly. You dont even have to read about the project your funding. The project doesnt have to convince you it will do any good, the title just has to sound good. For all you know, the project is being completed by the mayors nephews new business that just started last week before the polls opened.

If you change the funding to a voluntary money-based voting system, taxes would decrease, projects would have to prove themselves to voters, and probably have to show progress to continue getting funding, waste would decrease, and taxation wouldnt be theft.

This money-based voting system wouldnt work for everything, but I think it would eliminate the vast majority of the spending bills that always come out every 4 years when all the naive millennials get around to the polls and dont have time to do research before wasting more of our tax dollars on nice sounding titles of pet projects that are worthless.

* Micheal Tarr Jath is an avid outdoorsman and lover of freedom. He is a conservative libertarian who believes that libertarianism is the bridge that can reconcile the differences in the ideologies of Americanism. You can find him at Libertarian Mastermind on Facebook.

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The Libertarian Voting Process - Being Libertarian (satire)

Jacob Story, Treasurer, Mohave County Libertarian Party

A few weeks back, the Mohave County Libertarian Party was meeting on a Thursday night at the Black Bridge Brewery, and we were talking about the array of misconceptions about the Libertarian Party.

We decided that theres a lot of misinformation out there, so I took it upon myself as the Treasurer of the Mohave County Libertarian Party to write this for the Kingman Daily Miner to get a few things straight.

I am reminded of a time when I was having a conversation with a friend who is a member of the GOP. I love this friend like a brother, and in jest he called me a libtard, which is a term I have heard before to describe a liberal or Democrat (it should also be noted that this word is offensive to people who are developmentally disabled).

This exchange, once again, made me believe that theres a lot of misinformation. It has also been suggested that we Libertarians are in the same realm as the resistance, also known as the indivisible group. Two groups that, from my understanding, decided the Democratic National Committee was too conservative, and theyre a fringe sect to the left of conventional DNC thinking.

Often people see the word libertarian and think liberal the word libertarian actually derives from the word liberty; not so coincidentally, one of the symbols often used by the Libertarian Party is the Statue of Liberty.

Generally the Libertarian party has a platform of the following: Small or almost nonexistent government; limited, if no taxes whatsoever; unfettered individual rights; people taking individual responsibility; noninterference with foreign nations issues; and open and free markets. This is to name a few of the basic principles of the Libertarian Party. It can be boiled down even further to the following notion: We leave you alone, you leave us alone. The Libertarian Party has also been described as socially liberal, fiscally conservative, which I suppose is fair.

Our party is relatively new, formed in 1971, but were growing. The 2016 election saw many new registered Libertarians and although we didnt have any federal wins our win was the fact that we received 4.5 million votes, or in other terms, 3.2 million more votes than our last go during the 2012 general election. That speaks volumes 3.2 million fed-up voters.

We are not naive, we KNOW this is an uphill battle. It is going to be a long hard fight. But were willing to fight for what we believe in.

We are not all crazy, aluminum-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorists (some are). You will find were the people demanding government accountability, trying to stop the corruption and entitlements.

We simply want this great Republic to once again be for the PEOPLE not the select few elected to office.

If you want to hear more about what were all about, please come join us for a beer at 6 p.m. on the second Thursday of every month at Black Bridge Brewery.

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Letter: Libertarian Party misconceptions get cleared up - Kdminer

Why Statists State: Facts dont matter to the left or the right.

Ah yes, the ultimate question of libertarians to our statist friends: why do you argue for the state? Do you not believe in freedom and liberty?

The fact is, that the far left and the far right do not believe in freedom and liberty. They claim to, but they (unfortunately) dont grasp the actual concepts of the words freedom and liberty. Both of them pervert these terms into what their own ideologies are. That is the core of our problems in this country.

I hated numerous things about Barack Obama and some of the decision he made while in office. To me, he seemed to be a far left, government hand out to everyone, raise the national debt as high as humanly possible in two terms, freedom sucking douche bag.

So what did I do when it came down to Trump or Clinton? I voted for Trump, the one person who wasnt a career politician, who I hoped would bring balance to the force so to speak, and get us back on the right track.

Im slowly but surely proving to be wrong in my initial assumptions about him and his presidency. And yes, Im having some buyers remorse.

The thing is, at least Im recognizing it. Im having the personal judgement to look at things from a critical thinking standpoint despite what my initial personal beliefs were.

The far right seems to have some carnal infatuation with their dearly beloved emperor that no matter what he does, or how completely he reverts on his campaign promises, they will support him blindly. I swear to God, even if he drove us into 40 trillion dollars in debt, raised our taxes to 50%, and trashed the 4th amendment completely to make the job of cops easier to search and seize each of us, the far right would make excuse after excuse for him simply because they voted for him.

Cognitive dissonance people! Look it up! We are Americans, not peasants to worship one man. One man does not equal America. I dont care whos President.

The same can also be said for some of Trumps pics.

Look at Jeff Sessions, for example, as the Attorney General. This guy wants to push the war on drugs to full force, despite how any and all evidence points to how the contrary would benefit us as a nation; the war would only continue to make things worse.

Hes just like every far right wing friend I have. Show them the proof all day long, and just because they dont like it, and it isnt in line with their political ideology, and their political picks (through Trump), they file it faster than you can blink.

The hypocrisy of this is that conservatives (me being one of them), during the Obama administration, used to love facts.

We would throw them in far left Liberals faces all the time over their nonsense arguments.

But now, facts dont mean a thing to so called conservatives when they dont like it. They are now acting just like the left when it comes to facts! Its the same thing, just a different side of the political spectrum.

Of course, the far left are no different. Try to teach them economics, and how theres no such thing as free college, or no benefit to raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, and youll be scorned to hell and back for pointing out mathematical facts. There is no escape from math since is a completely non biased universal language that you cant argue your way around.

As Libertarians, this is the nonsense we see from both sides: What about muh roads? No problem right wingers, if its that important, private individuals and corporations will offer to pay for it.

What about muh birth control? Get a job and pay for it yourself leftists! What about muh government protection? You right wingers have argued for years that you need the rights to carry a gun anywhere you want because cops cant get there on time, so whats your problem now?

But, muh abortions, what about em leftists? Im not paying for that with my tax dollars, no one should have to. But, the gay marriages what about em rightist?? Get over it.

It has nothing to do with you personally, or your religion, and getting government involved to force your personal ideologies on those who dont align with your personal and religious beliefs is none of your business. I dont see you arguing that Satanists should not be allowed to get married; I could go on and on.

We have got to break through this barrier of right and left and just get back to what is in the best interest of the American people as a whole. Whats in the best interests of the individual, and what the Constitution actually says (and no, that document is not fluid).

The only way to do that, is get government out of the decision making process for our everyday activities. No one, whether you are on the left or the right, knows how to run your personal life better than you and you alone; without the government being involved.

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Why Statists State - Being Libertarian