On Thursday the House of Representatives is expected to begin debate on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), leading to a vote next week. This is yet another bill similar to SOPA which is designed to limit privacy and individual liberty on the internet. Now is the time to take action to let them know you don’t want the government accessing and sharing your email and personal data.

CISPA would massively reduce the privacy and security of your online communications and personal data. It would give government agencies and many private companies access to your personal communications and financial information and would allow government security agencies like the National Security Agency unprecedented power to access your data including medical records, private emails and financial information – all without a warrant, oversight by any court or due process of law.

This access to your records would require no misbehavior on your part, not even an accusation of terrorism or criminal activity and it would take place without your knowledge or any opportunity to protect your information or your privacy interests.  That information could then be passed on to private companies or other agencies or used against you with no real rules or restrictions on who could access it or what hands it would end up in.

The Republican Liberty Caucus  joined with other concerned groups like the Liberty Coalition and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to promote “Stop Cyber Spying Week” last week, but now the real push is on to break down support for CISPA and send it to the legislative shredder as we did with SOPA a few months ago.

We urge you to email your representative  in Congress and urge them to oppose CISPA and keep government agencies out of our private online data and communications.

I’m in the middle of serving as a member of my county Republican party’s Nominations Committee and have also performed a similar function on my county party’s Vacancy Committee.  I thought it might be helpful to share some of my experience and offer some simple advice for Republican Liberty Caucus members and other liberty activists who have to go before a committee in order to be selected as a delegate to their State Republican Convention.  The rules and procedures for this are not the same in every state, but the human dynamics and the general parameters of the experience are likely to be similar.  Ultimately it’s all about showing a level of commitment to the party and the process and you can do that by sticking by these five simple guidelines.

Rule #1 – Don’t be nervous or scared.

Some people find the interview process intimidating.  Just remember that you’re not being singled out. Everyone has to go through it and despite the perception that it may be a tool of the elite designed to expose you and weed you out, that’s not really what it’s all about. Although there may be some people on your committee whose goal is to keep Ron Paul supporters or Liberty Republicans in general off the list of state convention delegates, there are also likely to be people on the committee who are sympathetic or at least neutral.  For the most part they will be earnestly trying to do their job, which is not to keep people out, but to find people to qualify to go to the convention whether they agree with them or not.

Rule #2 – Be committed to the process.

The main qualification for being a delegate is your willingness to show up and participate in the process.  Many of the questions a Nominations Committee will ask are likely to be geared towards determining whether your commitment is solely to a particular candidate or to the process which your local and state conventions are part of .  They want to make sure that if you are made a delegate you will participate fully by showing up, participating in debate and voting.  What they really do not want to see is people who are likely to become discouraged and give up if their favorite candidate is not nominated or if they feel you have no interest in anything that will be going on at the convention except the nomination process.  When they ask you why you want to be a delegate tell them that you want to have a voice in the party and don’t just talk about one aspect or issue or candidate.

Rule #3 – Be prepared and qualified.

Another thing the committee will be looking for is your level of political awareness or involvement.  They don’t want to send clueless political neophytes higher in the system than they are qualified to go and this is a reasonable concern on their part.  State delegate positions are positions of responsibility and they are in some demand and committee members are perfectly correct in believing that people with no political experience and no depth of involvement shouldn’t be given those positions.  If you’ve just joined the Republican Party and the only candidate you know by name is Ron Paul, don’t even go in front of the committee, or at least educate yourself before you do.  If you go there unprepared you will irritate them and make them more hostile to the next guy to come along.  Inform yourself about other major races in your area.  Know the names of other candidates for lower offices you might vote for in the election.  Know a couple of mainstream issues you can say something about.  At the very least be prepared to object to Obamacare or say something nasty about Eric Holder and be able to name the Republicans running in your Congressional District or for Senate in your state. An hour spent on Google News can make you look relatively well informed.

Rule #4 – Be involved.

This isn’t something you can do on short notice, but if you are in this for the long haul (as you should be) then having a history of involvement with the party is one sure way to get to be a delegate.  Join a local Republican club.  Donate to your county party.  Work for a local candidate or two making phonecalls or block walking.  There are good candidates running in every state.  Find one and get involved.  You can also be an activist on local or national political issues. If you can talk about this kind of involvement they’ll definitely warm up to you.  If you have a family history of being involved with the party bring that up.  It can’t hurt.  Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn.

Rule #5 – Don’t lie. People can tell when you’re lying.

If you have met committee members before and they know something about your positions, don’t come into the committee and suddenly express completely different beliefs.  If you’re a known Paul supporter then don’t hide that fact. Instead make a good argument for why you’d be a good delegate anyway.  Rather than misrepresenting yourself, focus on your other good qualities.  And if you don’t like the establishment candidate, just say so.  Don’t hem and haw and try to conceal your true beliefs.  Ultimately do say that you’ll at least reluctantly support whoever the nominee is. And if you can’t do that honestly then you actually are not qualified to be a delegate.  You don’t have to like him or be loyal to him or even actively campaign for him, but you do have to express support for the process and its results.  You’d want them to support your candidate if he’s nominated and you should be honest enough to do the same if someone else is nominated.

Good and Bad Ron Paul Supporters

There seems to be a trend that establishment Republicans have identified a divide between “good” Ron Paul supporters and “bad” Ron Paul supporters. It also tends to be true that those who are identified as “good” also have the qualities which are likely to make them members of the Republican Liberty Caucus.  In most cases a Nominations Committee will be comfortable sending the “good” Ron Paul supporters on as delegates, but be deathly afraid of their more radical comrades.

The key defining characteristic of the “bad” Ron Paul supporter is that it is obvious that their interests are extremely narrow.  All they care about is getting Ron Paul elected and perhaps the specific issues for which he is most known and most intensely supported.  To the average Republican they are perceived as outsiders trying to subvert the party and the process.   As a Liberty Republican who is involved in the delegate selection process I cringe when certain candidates for nomination come to be interviewed, because they are so utterly clueless.  They come in with this air of arrogance thinking that their high level of commitment to Ron Paul is all the qualification they should need, when that’s really not at all what the party is looking for.  To you it may all be about Ron Paul, but to those who make the decisions it is about being a useful and involved participant in the party.  If your only interest in the party or the process or even politics is to advance Ron Paul then you are not going to be nominated as a delegate and probably shouldn’t be.

The “good” Ron Paul supporter is identified easily as well, because they will have some higher level of political involvement.  Most typically when they come to the committee they can explain what they are concerned about why they aren’t satisfied with current political conditions or leadership, including their objections to the GOP establishment, and they can make clear that they support Ron Paul because they think that he is the best answer to the problems while making it clear that it is reform and better government they are after even if it turns out that they have to achieve it by some other means maybe not involving Ron Paul.  Commitment to a broader cause which is compatible with Republican principles will be respected even if it comes with support for Ron Paul as part of the package.

Some Obvious Dos and Don’ts

You can never go wrong attacking Obama and his administration.  Even if you also have problems with the political insiders of the GOP, you can find common ground with any Republican if you remind them that you can’t stand Obama or his policies or the Democratic Party in general.  Unions, Eric Holder, Nancy Pelosi and the leftist media are good targets too.  If you don’t revile Obama and the Democratic leadership at least a little bit more than even the worst corrupt Republican elitists then you’re not paying attention and you’re probably not qualified to be a delegate.  Remember that everything Bush did wrong, Obama has done at a higher cost and on a larger scale.  If you spend a lot of time talking about shared enemies there’s less time for them to ask you more difficult questions.

One of the obvious things they may ask you is whether you will “support the Republican nominee regardless of who it is.” This is an inevitable question and you ought to be prepared for it.  There is a good answer and if you cannot make it honestly, then don’t bother to show up.  The answer is “while I’m not happy with the most likely nominee, I still think he’s better than Obama and if those are my two choices I’ll vote for the Republican nominee.”  If you can’t truthfully say that then you should not be a delegate.  And remember, it cuts both ways.  If they expect you to support their nominee then you have an equal right to expect them to support your nominee if he wins.

Try to avoid desecrating the sacred cows.  If you are strongly anti-war, just try to stay away from the subject.  While many establishment Republicans are coming around on issues of national defense, it’s an area which is too contentious and too complex to argue out in a committee meeting.  Don’t lie about it, but consider ducking out with a statement like “I’m more concerned with domestic policy right now when our country is going to hell in a handbasket.”  If you are pro-choice, don’t bring it up.  Before the rise of Ron Paul, abortion was the litmus test question in these interviews.  It’s a difficult issue to deflect on, so do everything you can to avoid it.  Also try to avoid the topic of Israel.  They don’t understand Ron Paul’s stand on it and they won’t understand yours.  l shouldn’t have to say it, but don’t mention 9/11 truth or any other popular conspiracy theories.  No matter what you believe or how strongly you believe it, that’s an argument you don’t want to raise at all and which will only brand you as a nut.

Remember that even Republicans who are not committed to liberty the way that we are do usually have some level of belief in the same broad principles of limited government and individual rights.  They may not always act rationally on those beliefs and they may back the wrong leaders a lot of the time, but they will still usually respect your commitment to the principles the party was founded on if you remind them that they are Republican ideas with a long history in the party and not just the views of radicals and Ron Paul supporters.  Look for common ground and common concerns and focus on them. Your interview with the Nominations Committee is sort of like a small-scale political campaign and you need to sell yourself as someone who will represent the interests of all Republican voters and of the party if you are selected as a delegate.

The commitment to liberty is a lifelong commitment.  It’s not about one election or one candidate.  It’s a movement which may take years to succeed.  If you are committed to the movement and to that process of changing the Republican Party and our political system, then you ought to be prepared for the similar commitment necessary to be an effective delegate, representing not just the party but the Liberty Movement at your state and eventually at the national convention.  As a delegate you are serving the party and its members first and your own interests second.  At the same time, never forget that the best service you can do the party is to help it live up to the high principles on which it was founded.  This is what it means to be a Liberty Republican.

There seems to be a determined chorus coming from Republican party leaders and insiders pushing the idea that it’s time for Rick Santorum to get out of the primary race and arguing the inevitability of a Romney victory. The strategy now seems to be to just discourage Republican voters, telling them Romney is going to win so there’s no point in even looking for alternatives. It’s a desperate kind of strategy which might lead to many Republicans staying home in November..

The lead cheerleader for throwing in the towel and giving it all to Romney seems to be Karl Rove who is likely to be acting as a flak for the establishment, describing Santorum as a desperate, fading candidate.

Rove may be right about the hopelessness of Santorum’s campaign. The latest poll shows him losing his own home state of Pennsylvania to Romney, and prospects are not good for him in many of the major remaining states. But the inevitability of a Santorum defeat is not the inevitability of a Romney win, no matter how much the insiders climbing on his bandwagon want it to be.

The problem is that despite the hopeful claims Rove is making, the delegate math just doesn’t support his theory of inevitability, and the ongoing chorus of big name endorsements doesn’t seem to be helping Romney much either, since the same concerns which have alienated much of the party from Romney also make them unresponsive to establishment leaders.

Take a look at the numbers. There are 1089 delegates to be assigned in the remaining primaries. To reach the magic number of 1144 Romney needs 588 more delegates. That’s 53.9% of the remaining delegates. That seems achievable. By the accepted estimates Romney has averaged 60% of the delegates so far. In theory, if that trend continues, he will eventually end up with 653 more delegates for a total of 1231, 42 more than he needs.

The problem with this theory is that it assumes that delegate estimates largely based on the initial popular vote in past primaries are accurate. Yet in most of those states there is only a very rough relationship between the popular vote and how delegates are assigned. Delegates are actually chosen through arcane hierarchies of caucuses and conventions which give an advantage to candidates with strong grassroots support, which is Romney’s weak point.

While most media estimates put Ron Paul’s delegate count at around 30-50 delegates, there are reliable reports from a number of states that Paul has far more delegates than most estimates give him – by as many as 70 or more at this point. Despite shameful attempts to manipulate the system it appears that states whose delegates were credited to Romney are actually going in part or total to Paul. Not enough to win Paul the nomination, but enough to deny Romney the inevitability of his victory.

In fact, the actual delegate totals from most of the states where the elections ended months ago, won’t actually be final until later this summer, and in the meantime only Paul has people on the ground working in every state to advance his interests and increase his delegate count. They are chipping away at the other candidates and when real, final delegate numbers are revealed it seems quite likely that Romney will be much shorter of the mark than anyone realizes.

To a large extent the goal of all of the players except for Romney is to avoid a first-ballot win. If they can get to the convention with no clear winner, then deals can be made and votes can be changed on later ballots and there will be concessions to be won by someone. Romney may indeed end up being the nominee, but no one wants him to get there too easily. And in the end it’s quite likely that the big payoff will be to Ron Paul, because if he has enough delegates to get Romney to 1144, then a deal with him would be much more attractive and require fewer hard to swallow concessions than a deal with one of the other candidates.

The purpose of the “inevitability strategy” is to avoid the outcome of a convention where deals have to be made. Deals benefit the grassroots. They mean safeguards and accountability and concessions to groups which don’t like the party establishment much at all. It’s a strategy which might give Obama the win in November, but those who are pushing it would rather keep control of a losing minority party than make concessions and give up some of their control to what they see as barbarians pounding at the gate, though others may see them as a hopeful future for an aging and increasingly irrelevant party.

This article appeared in somewhat different form in Blogcritics Magazine.

As early as Tuesday afternoon, the House of Representatives is likely to vote on H.R. 1433 (PDF), the Private Property Rights Protection Act. This important act is designed to discourage the abuse of eminent domain power by municipalities by withholding federal funds if they exceed their reasonable authority and seize property for reasons other than genuine civic need.

This is an important protection for private property rights which have been weakened in this area by the growing practice of seizing land for the use of businesses and other interests who have political influence with local government. This bill to some degree counters the misapplication of the law in the notorious Kelo vs. New London decision in New Hampshire.

It is vitally important that you act today to email or call your Representative now and stay in touch for when the bill moves on to the Senate in the near future. An earlier version passed the House in 2005 but was blocked in the Senate.

For more information on this legislation read this article in the Washington Times.

There are legitimate uses for eminent domain, like building roads and schools, but taking property from citizens with no legal recourse and giving it to businesses for commercial development is an unacceptable abuse of the power and far too often the product of cronyism within local government. Please take action now to support H.R. 1433 and stop eminent domain abuse.

Use the form below to send an email.  It’s always a good idea to modify or replace the standard text with your own words, especially specific references to problems in your local area.

With his surge in the polls I’ve been trying to get a handle on the philosophy of Newt Gingrich, and after finally seeing signs which should have been obvious all along and confirming them with a bit of research, I realized what I should have caught on to long ago, that Newt Gingrich is a Robert Heinlein Republican.

Like many in my generation I grew up reading Robert Heinlein’s Science Fiction novels almost religiously. Heinlein’s dystopian vision of the future and his romantic obsession with man as superman was enormously appealing to a teenager growing up in the space age. The Heinlein man could perfect himself and conquer the universe singlehanded by sheer determination and willpower. Heinlein’s theme was the triumph of the individual over time in Methuselah’s Children, over space in The Man Who Sold the Moon, over conventional morality in Stranger in a Strange Land and over the governments of lesser men in Farnham’s Freehold. Heinlein’s political philosophy of Rational Anarchism is summed up by the Professor Bernardo de la Paz in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

“In terms of morals there is no such thing as a ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free, because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything that I do.”

Heinlein’s muscular, militaristic individualism carried with it a deliberate intention from the very first to influence politics. After World War II Heinlein experimented with direct involvement in politics, served in elective party office in California and ultimately campaigned for Goldwater in 1964 and may have ghostwritten ads and speeches for his presidential campaign. In this period Heinlein had a friendship and rivalry with fellow writer L. Ron Hubbard. They supposedly had a long standing bet to see who could start a religion which would change society. Hubbard’s answer to this challenge was the creation of Scientology. Heinlein’s answer came through his writing and the ideas expressed in some of his bestselling novels of the late 1960s and its ultimate product seems to be Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich has admitted to being a Heinlein fan and his own fiction has a clear Heinlein influence. Gingrich is also friends with and has collaborated with Science Fiction author and former Reagan era technology adviser Jerry Pournelle, who sees himself as the heir to Heinlein’s ideas and literary tradition. Pournelle was a protege of influential neolibertarian thinker Russell Kirk, and has written extensively on politics from a neolibertarian perspective. Neolibertarianism is a branch of libertarianism which fits the Heinlein model quite closely. It at least partially deemphasizes the principle of non-coercion and places a strong emphasis on individual liberty, disdaining bureaucratic government and elevating the military to a near iconic status. The world envisioned in Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is very much the world of the neolibertarian movement.

Gingrich has clearly taken the Heinlein ideology to heart on many levels. His serial infidelity and request that his wife engage in an open relationship are pure Heinlein. Heinlein was an avowed libertine who practiced open marriage and advocated total sexual liberation and rejection of conventional morality as a recurrent theme in much of his writing. Gingrich’s obsession with colonizing the moon is also straight out of Heinlein’s work. Some of Heinlein’s most influential writing centers around the colonization and development of the moon in books like The Man Who Sold the Moon and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  Gingrich’s hostility towards bureaucracy, flaunting of the conventional political process and love of innovation for its own sake are pure Heinlein.  His egotism and obsessive character are also straight out of Heinlein.  Gingrich himself has much in common with megalomaniacal developer Delos D. Harriman in <i>The Man Who Sold the Moon</i>, though Gingrich seems not to understand that the self-destructive Harriman was intended more as an anti-hero than a role model.

Many observers of the libertarian end of the political spectrum see Heinlein’s vision and the ideas of the neolibertarians as the “ugly” side of libertarianism.  Disconnected from social morality and focused on the responsibility of the individual to himself and not to society, it can lead to views which verge on being an oxymoronic kind of libertarian fascism.  Ironically, this aggressive subset of the generally much more innocuous libertarian movement seems to have much greater political marketability.

To a generation of middle-aged voters who grew up on Heinlein and the writers he influenced, the Gingrich message and the Gingrich style have a real resonance.  You can see this in how Gingrich has successfully positioned himself as the defiant individualist in his challenging of the media establishment and how easily voters have been convinced to dismiss his unconventional personal life.  The fully realized individual is above conventional morality and is not accountable to anyone but himself.  The more Gingrich defies those who would judge him the more he proves that he is the kind of individualistic superman which Heinlein’s writing has convinced us that we all ought to be.  We identify with Gingrich and live vicariously through him, more like a literary character than a real human being.

In embracing the Heinleinian model of an anti-statesman Gingrich seems to have actually struck a thread with a public which is very unhappy with the conventional political establishment.  Even though he himself was part of that establishment for many years, he has thrown himself into the role of the outcast returning in triumph to exact vengeance on his detractors, a mythic archetype which is widespread in legend and literature and manifests in Heinlein’s work repeatedly.  Gingrich is the hero returned from exile.  He is Valentine Michael Smith and Thorby Baslim and Lazarus Long rolled into one unlikely package.  The unanswered question is whether Gingrich has the shortcomings of a mortal man or the inevitable victorious destiny of a literary character.

This article appeared in slightly different form on Blogcritics Magazine

As you all know, I’ve come out pretty strongly against these from the get go.  I have always been against “anti-file sharing” legislation. I blasted Kimba Wood for shutting down Limewire. And I’ve been warning about SOPA for months and PIPA for weeks. Now, the American people are finally waking up. And all it took was 24 hours without Wikipedia. First, let’s discuss exactly what this bill is. Corporatist [quasi-socialist] Hollywood executives, the California Teamsters Union, and greedy entertainers got together with their lobbyist friends and said “hey, get congress to write a bill that lets us make money every time someone so much as looks at us or listens to us, we deserve it!”. Intellectual property laws in this country predate the world wide web by decades, and the lobbyists knew it would be easy to manipulate them for maximum control.

Government also liked the idea. Those in congress that wrote and supported the bill up to this point saw it as an opportunity for unprecedented government power over an area–both an economy and a society in and of itself–that has remained extremely free: the internet. These statists had the ultimate opportunity now to monitor us, influence us, control us, and further consolidate their power as time goes on. That is what awaits us if these bills pass. Unprecedented power for the political class. All it takes is a few greedy people to abuse their power. Let’s go back to the entertainment industry and how they’ve abused IP laws over the years to make a dime every which way they can:

You can clearly tell the effect of Big Hollyweird lobbyists on the net worth of entertainers. Elvis was once at the top of the world. At his death, his net worth was $7 million (1977 dollars) which is anywhere from 18-25 million in 2010 dollars. (see inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/)

Now compare that to Katy Perry. She’s a top artist of today, but she’s not as popular today as Elvis was in his time. Her current net worth after about 5 years being mainstream (and the entire time during a recession) is $55 million.

Someone like Snoop Dogg with 20 years of fame may be a better comparison. His net worth is $150 million.

I’m not trying to single out Snoop as greedy or anything, he’s had a lot of time to invest. And of course there are exogenous factors like a more globalized economy. Powerful emerging economies of like Russia, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan wouldn’t have been able to access American entertainment with such ease and in such high quotas prior to the fall of the Soviet empire and the advent of internet music. But that can’t possibly be the only cause of so much more wealth among musicians (not to mention actors, directors, crew, writers, etc) today. I’m trying to point out that Hollywood corporatism has amassed what is a disproportionate and most-likely unfair amount of money for entertainers. Why do you think they have lobbied so hard for SOPA and PIPA? They are trying to milk us for every dime they can.

In a true free market, they wouldn’t make half the money they do. File sharing like Limewire would still exist without limits on their content. Youtube would stream content. Nobody could do anything about it unless the person sharing or streaming was making money off of the “stolen” content (like those bootleg DVDs from China). You wouldn’t be put in prison for playing a pop music song in a home movie uploaded to Youtube…a song that pretty much everyone has heard because we live in the internet age. File sharing of songs obviously occurred because the market did not demand the music enough to pay large amounts of money for it. iTunes came along with a la carte music purchasing and over time, people would switch to one of the two as opposed to buying CDs. Did this really make entertainers poorer? NO! They got richer! And so did the film industry! In 2010, in a weak economy, Hollywood execs raked in more money than they did in 2007 when the economy was strong; right before the recession began its onslaught on our jobs and investments.

It’s also been very interesting to watch America’s unity against SOPA. This is going hard! Liberals, conservatives, moderates, libertarians; all coming out against Big Hollyweird. I love it! Al Gore and Ron Paul agreeing on something? I don’t think America has ever been more united on something in my lifetime other than killing Osama bin Laden. (Now, try to imagine the blowback of a hypothetical Santorum Administration shutting down the porn industry )

As for Nancy Pelosi and even some of my fellow Republicans that have come out against this in recent hours….I mean days….it’s clearly to save their own skin. Let’s take a good hard look at the people who wrote the bill and pushed it for so long. Make sure to be unforgiving at the polls (Lamar Smith, look out!)

I do want to say one more thing. It’s amazing what 24 hours without Wikipedia can do. They and the folks at Reddit shut down to get people’s attention. It WORKED! This is an example of what will happen if we continue this move toward socialism and continue to raise taxes and regulations on the entrepreneurial class. One day, they will say “enough!” and quit investing and creating jobs. When that happens, this recession we recently had will look like a boom by comparison. Wikipedia can just go back online tomorrow. Economies….not so much. I am confident that the House will strike down SOPA. Call your senators, and make sure that their equivalent–the Protect IP Act–is killed as well!

In Liberty,

Aaron Alghawi ’12

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Aaron Alghawi is a senior economics major at Texas A&M University, as well as an alternate board member and Director of Student Outreach for the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Despite claims that they have been “improved” and rumors that opposition from the Obama administration may make them harder to pass, we expect the Senate to move forward with a vote on the Protect IP Act (S.968), its version of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R.3261), on Tuesday and a vote on SOPA in the House may follow a few days later.

Despite prominent protests from major websites like Wikipedia and Google, which are staging “blackout” events, shutting their systems down to draw attention to the issue, influential media lobbyists have bought enough support in Congress that they may be able to ram these bills through  Congress with leverage from powerful Congressmen like SOPA author and Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX).

While some concern over online piracy is justified, SOPA and PIPA do not really target the major offshore data havens which are the real source of the problem and grant indiscriminate and unaccountable enforcement power to government agencies which will be used to intimidate content providers, shut down entire networks based on nothing more than an accusation, and even blacklist  businesses and remove them from the internet entirely. The existence of this sort of draconian enforcement system will have a chilling effect on this increasingly important sector of the economy and lead to wholesale violations of the privacy rights of individuals and businesses. It’s another bad idea from a government which has become too big and too eager to interfere in every aspect of our lives.

SOPA and PIPA would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block public access to websites on their networks based on nothing but an unsubstantiated accusation of facilitating copyright infringement.  Nothing more than a complaint  could be used to preemptively shut down web-based businesses. They would be treated as guilty until they could prove their innocence, a complete contradiction of American legal tradition. The bills also open up the potential for prior censorship out of fear of accusations and bankrupting small businesses which cannot afford the legal costs of a fight to defend their rights. The potential for lawsuit abuse and intimidation from media giants with deep pockets and their own legal teams is enormous.

Opponents have compared this legislation to China’s online censorship. Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation described SOPA as “the worst piece of intellectual property legislation we’ve seen in the last decade.” Protests from consumer groups, civil liberties advocates and online businesses are widespread, but despite opposition, Senator Harry Reid has scheduled a vote on PIPA for Monday in the Senate. He already has 40 sponsors from both parties, including big-government Republican traitors like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Orin Hatch and even Marco Rubio.

Our best hope right now is to win over as many Senators as we can and promote a Senate filibuster, but this is just the beginning of the fight. Please email your Senators now and be prepared for the next steps in the fight to keep the internet free and open for all Americans. We’ll keep you updated as the fight goes on to the House.

When sending your email, please do what you can to customize the text of the message.

This letter was sent over the weekend by New Hampshire State Representative (and state RLC Secretary) Andrew Manuse to his representatives in Congress. It sums up very effectively what many in the Republican party feel about the failure of our elected leaders on the issue of indefinite military detention in the National Defense Authorization Act. We can hope that even if they don’t listen to the thousands of grassroots Republicans who are calling and writing them they might listen to our compatriots like Rep. Manuse, Rep. Justin Amash and many others who hold elective office.

Dear Sens. Ayotte and Shaheen and Rep. Guinta:

I understand how form e-mails to representatives and senators are not taken seriously, because they indicate a lack of effort on the part of a constituent to even read into an issue and think about it on his or her own. I typically give such e-mails less attention when I receive them, so I wanted to make sure to type an original message to you before the form letter text, which is below my first signature. This letter is being sent to Sens. Ayotte and Shaheen as well as Rep. Guinta, as a grievance against the federal government and the Congress, as written by a state representative for his constituents.

I’m sure you know by now that I am disappointed with the direction of our Congress, particularly the House (I expect the wrong direction from a Senate controlled by Sen. Reid). To be clear, I am opposed to what all three of you are doing in Washington for the most part, with a few minor exceptions. I am also certain that the American people and the people of New Hampshire share my views. We expected more from you. I understand your job is to use your own judgment and not bend to the whim of a handful of constituents, like me; however, I would hope that you would at least take my grievance against you into deep consideration.

Specifically, I would expect each of you as my representative and senators from New Hampshire, a state that treasures the Live Free or Die attitude of our founders, to make a lot more noise against the usurpation of authority in the several bills that have come before you this session, particularly sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. Your leadership has been quite unsatisfactory, to say the least, on this matter.

Besides the Patriot Act reauthorization bill, no bill would be more damaging to our way of life and liberties as Americans than sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act as adopted in the Senate. If this bill passes and the federal government acts to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen without allowing that citizen to face his or her accusers and without allowing that citizen to be judged by a jury of his or her peers–inalienable rights under our Constitution–this government will be in breech of contract and I fear it will no longer have the consent of the governed, if it hasn’t lost that consent already. I do not want to think about what might come next, but I can tell you definitively that I very much want to avoid it. I have a wife and children, currently, and we just want to live at peace, without the government interfering in our lives. I know many of my constituents share this view.

To avoid the end to the path we’re currently on, I am pleading with you to fight against these two provisions, sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act as adopted in the Senate, with every ounce of energy that you have. This may just be the last shot we have at restoring a sense of honor to the Congress and our federal government.

The U.S. government was created to protect the life, liberty and property of all citizens, equally under the law. Yet, with laws like the Patriot Act and the provisions within the National Defense Authorization Act, we now have a government that is making war with the very citizens it was formed to protect. We have a government that is making it impossible for citizens to be lawful, and thus, they will become increasingly lawless and I fear even greater conflict between the government and the citizens, who are the rulers of themselves, will result. Such anarchy was what our government was created to prevent. But when the government passes laws that are unconscionable, let alone unenforceable under the Constitution, it leaves the citizens with no other avenue than anarchy. This would be an anarchy created by the government, and it is an anarchy that I do not want to live under, let alone subject my family to live under. What else would be the result than a government crackdown against its own citizens, even more horrific than the one perpetrated in these provisions. What kind of nation would we be?

I am asking you, no pleading with you, to heed my words and please, respect the rule of law and the constitution. Please do everything within your power to remove sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act (Senate version) during the reconciliation process. Our Republic is standing on such tenuous ground right now. We cannot afford anything else like these provisions that will weaken the Republic further, and put the very spirit of lawlessness, within our law.

Sincerely,
Rep. Andrew J. Manuse, R-Derry

Students for Liberty is hosting a whole series of conferences at colleges around the country this fall. Local RLC chapters will be attending many of them and doing outreach to friendly libertarian student groups like SFL and Young Americans for Liberty. If you’re a student who believes in small government and individual liberty, these events are a great opportunity to hear interesting speakers and find out about groups like the RLC.

In fact, as I write this, I’m at the Students for Liberty conference in Austin with local RLC student member Aaron Alghawi and RLC National Secretary Corie Whalen. I’m listening to former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Mary Ruwart who is talking about the Institute for Justice. I’m also making use of the lovely new RLC pop-up banner (shown to the right) and debuting some new outreach materials which will be available in PDF format for download here on the site in the next few days.

The focus of this SFL conference is entrepreneurship and I’m talking later on about marketing ideas – political and commercial – through the internet, hitting on the “Three Cs” – Content, Community and Controversy. It’s a good topic which combines my business experience as an internet entrepreneur with my experience in online activism. It’s all about selling something, whether it’s a product or an idea.

For more information on the schedule of SFL conferences and to find one in your area, go here. Visit one near you this fall.

As another election approaches the issue of marriage equality and where various Republican candidates stand on the Defense of Marriage Act or a possible Constitutional amendment defining marriage is already starting to come up as special interest groups and the media try to force the debate towards divisive social issues.

In this debate, no one seems to be asking the fundamental question which underlies the entire gay marriage issue. Marriage is first and foremost a religious institution. It is a fundamental sacrament in most churches. Why does the government think it should be in the marriage business in the first place. What right do they have to dictate a matter of faith or to decide who can or can’t get married in the first place?

In all this talk about a Defense of Marriage Amendment our legislators seem to have missed the fact that we already have an amendment which defends marriage, the First Amendment. It clearly defends marriage as a sacrement of the church and declares it to be free from government interference when it says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

If my religion recognizes marriage as a sacrament and allows me to marry someone of the same gender, doesn’t the First Amendment clearly say that Congress has no right to prohibit that exercise of religion and that I am free to practice that sacrament? To tell my church what it can and cannot define as a marriage seems like a total violation of this separation of church and state. Marriage isn’t defined in the Constitution any more than Baptism or Confirmation is. The state doesn’t try to interfere in those rituals. Why should it interfere in marriage?

What we need here is not another amendment, but a clear decision from the Supreme Court declaring that the government has no jurisdiction over a religious institution like marriage. Then, if Congress wants to pass a law – it doesn’t even have to be a Constitutional Amendment – which defines what kind of living relationships people can have, they should go to it. Of course any such law would need to pass muster under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which would certainly rule out prohibiting same-sex relationships or polygamy or any other arrangement involving consenting adults.

Once you take marriage out of the arena of law and give it back to the church where it belongs, then any relationship between two people for the purposes of creating a household, combining assets and other activities like raising a family becomes a purely contractual relationship and falls under common law and the partnership laws of the individual states, all of which recognize the right of individuals to enter into binding contracts for extended periods of time and assign rights and legal status to those partnerships under the law, and anything can be written into a partnership contract, including shared control of assets and by extension presumably of children as well. Boilerplate partnership contracts could easily be developed which covered material possessions, powers of attorney, guardianship of children and every other concern and the local courthouse could have different versions available for different needs, so you wouldn’t have to pay for a lawyer.

Couples or members of a plural marriage or any other type of partnership could then file their contract at their local courthouse and that would be that. Or if they wanted, they could go to a church which sanctioned their particular form of marriage and have it recognized as a marriage under the laws of that church with a ceremony and everything. And make no mistake, there are plenty of churches willing to marry just about anyone to anyone else, and if there aren’t someone will certainly start one to fill the need.

This seems like a simple, clean solution to this divisive problem. It doesn’t violate the sacred institution of marriage – in fact it ends years of government violation of religious rights. It doesn’t add more useless junk to the Constitution or waste more time and money on pointless unconstitutional legislation. Finally, it allows consenting adults to live however they want so long as it harms no one else. Marriage protected and equal rights for all. What more could either side of this debate ask for? And if they aren’t satisfied with a solution like this, then let them tell us honestly what greater political agenda and moral values they’re really trying to force down our throats?