Free Talk Live

Ron Paul: One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.

Travis Irvine creates a comical "interview" of the Occupiers on Wall Street. Towards the end of his 5 minute clip he runs into a Government agent, acting as a typical government agent would. A good laugh and with a bit of a scary ending.

On Monday state police in Kentucky, one of the 19 states that have banned salvia, arrested Jo Ann Warner, owner of Dusty's Adult World in Mortons Gap, and charged her with 23 counts of "prohibited practices concerning substances that simulate controlled substances," a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail for each count. Here the government takes a law that should not exist and kicks it up another nonsensical notch, criminalizing not only consensual drug transactions but actions that resemble them.

There is an axiom libertarians use to talk about government spending; that which is economically unsustainable cannot endure. This applies to liberty projects too. I’m concerned that if our liberty projects are sustained by irrational exuberance, and not by actual economic incentives, these projects, maybe the movement itself, is unsustainable without the zeal of converts, because eventually the enthusiasm bubble pops. So, I contacted the activists behind some of the liberty projects that I support to hear their thoughts on the subject.

Free 60 minute documentary by the BBC "If drugs were legal". Real interviews, mixed with a fictional tale in a hypothetical world where drugs are deregulated (aside from Smack & Nose Candy). Great points are brought up throughout the movie. Unfortunately even with so many indisputable facts, the debate at the end proved that people will always believe government is required in order to keep people safe.

The Wall Street Journal today published an in-depth review of a new, relatively unknown program run by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Although we have been warning about the dangers of the program for months, and I testified before Congress about the issue in July, the Journal’s story conveys how controversial the program was even inside the government. It also describes the broad scope of new authority the government is granting itself.

Most radio stations in Somalia have stopped playing music, on the orders of Islamist Hizbul-Islam militia, who say that songs are un-Islamic.

Some people like to claim that Somalia is an example of libertarian ideals at work in the real world. They have no government, supposedly, but this sounds a helluva lot like government to me.

The biggest worry is likely to be this: That this program sets out to accomplish the same aims as the National ID scheme. Difference is, rather than trying to get the states to do the heavy lifting, Washington is going to try and compel private companies to do it.
So a campaign has already started to convince Americans to trust the government on this. (insert canned laughter here)

The recession and financial crisis have resulted in a significant change in the way many Americans feel about spending and saving. Six in 10 Americans (62%) now say they more enjoy saving than spending -- while 35% say the reverse.