A TLS New Year’s Resolutions List

The Basics
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Most of us probably will admit that we keep resolutions only slightly better than politicians keep campaign promises. Even President Obama couldn’t keep a promise not to raise taxes on all but the wealthiest Americans, as the current “fiscal cliff” deal does not extend the 2% payroll tax cut, which impacts every person earning a paycheck.

So don’t look to Washington to keep any resolutions in the new year. Instead, we’ve come up with a list of suggestions for our readers to continue stoking the flames of liberty, or at least keep them flickering a little while longer. (Editorial resolution for TLS: drop the tired metaphors for liberty already.)

1. Play with guns (and invite a non-gun owner to come with you)

Guns, and more to the point gun control, promise to figure prominently in the media and in Congress this year, as the country still grapples with its most horrific school shooting yet. But the public debate is largely fueled by hysteria, misinformation, and outright lies. For the vast majority of gun owners, they are simply tools for self-defense, hunting, and having fun. And what better way to demonstrate the latter than an outing to a shooting range? For a lot of people, that’s the only legal place to try their hand at firing some types of guns. Actually handling an AR-15, the so-called assault rifle that is the focus of both media pundits and gun policy wonks, may help demystify them and return some sanity to the average non-gun owner’s perspective on these useful and important tools.

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Official TLS Live Election Blog 2012

Vulgar Politics
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Welcome to our live blog for the 2012 election.  We’ll keep this updated through the evening with results and reactions.

The polls have already closed in some states and are about to close in others, but we’ll make the bold move of calling the election…for the Federal Reserve.  Thanks for joining us!  (Just kidding.)

As I’m in Colorado, I have a special interest in some local races, particularly the vote on Amendment 64, which would legalize the cultivation, sale, and use of marijuana for adults 21 and older.  Similar measures exist on the ballots in Washington state and Oregon.  Any one of them passing would be a significant repudiation by voters of the horrific, wasteful, tyrannical war on drugs.

Currently CNN is calling Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky for Mitt Romney, while President Barack Obama appears to have Vermont locked up.  Ohio, Virginia, and North Carolina are too close to call.  Aren’t you excited?  I’m excited, and I haven’t even started drinking yet!  Stay tuned.  (All times MST.)

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Reality-Checking Che

Pop Culture, Totalitarianism
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I have never understood the popular infatuation with Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary who instigated socialist revolts in three countries, or why people would want to wear clothing emblazoned with his face.  The man was a mass murderer, after all, and the architect (along with Fidel Castro) of the communist police state that rules Cuba to this day.  Unless one believes murder, wealth seizure and destruction, and the abrogation of civil liberties are justified means to political ends, why would anyone want to celebrate a person who engaged in all of these atrocities?

Thor Halvorssen, founder of the Human Rights Foundation, doesn’t understand it either, and in an open letter to Urban Outfitters published on Huffington Post this week, he questions the company’s reasons for offering Che-themed merchandise:

Although Guevara’s image has appeared on countless items for consumption over the last few decades as a symbol of change for the better, Guevara’s actual record is that of a brutal tyrant who suppressed individual freedom in Cuba and murdered those who challenged his worldview.

Guevara undoubtedly played a key role in the overthrow of the dictatorial Batista regime in January of 1959. However, despite promises of a new democratic government, within a few months he and Fidel Castro had designed and installed a full-blown police state that deprived the overwhelming majority of Cuban citizens of democracy and human rights.

From 1959 to 1960, the new government carried out summary executions of at least 1,118 people by firing squad. Guevara himself presided over the notorious La Cabaña prison, where hundreds of the executions took place. For comparison’s sake, the Batista regime was responsible for 747 noncombatant deaths between 1952 and 1959. The Cuban revolution under the direction of Guevara also saw the rise of forced labor camps which gave way a few years later to full-scale concentration camps. These were filled with dissidents, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Afro-Cuban priests, and anyone else who had committed “crimes” against the new moral revolution.

Note: it appears that Urban Outfitters no longer carries the poster that prompted Halvorssen’s letter.

It’s not just Urban Outfitters, of course; many companies over the decades have offered Che’s mug on everything from key chains to jackets to backpacks, snapped up primarily by college kids who dig the rebellious motif, or by hipsters who appreciate the irony of a leftist revolutionary icon being used to enrich filthy capitalist pigs.  Either way, Halvorssen’s letter is a welcome reality check.

Just so long as they don’t start selling Obama T-shirts.

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Moving license no longer needed in Missouri

Business, Protectionism
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Any blow struck for economic liberty is worth celebrating, even if the person wielding the hammer is not, shall we say, a fan of Rothbardian libertarianism.  But there is encouraging news from Tim Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which pressured the Missouri legislature to repeal its licensing laws regarding moving companies:

Under the old law, a person applying for permission to operate a moving company was required to submit to a licensing scheme under which existing moving companies were given the privilege of basically vetoing the application. We challenged that law on behalf of St. Louis entrepreneur Michael Munie, and argued the case in federal district court in April. But in the meantime, state lawmakers passed legislation repealing the law, and this afternoon, Governor Nixon signed that bill, thus opening the road for economic opportunity in the Show Me State.

Baby steps, to be sure — Missouri and most other states have licensing laws for dozens of occupations, some imposing absurd educational requirements (in Texas, for example, “shampoo specialists” at hair salons must have 150 hours of training before they can even test for their license) and exorbitant costs for both training and the licensing process itself.  None of these laws actually do anything to ensure quality service for consumers; they exist solely to protect incumbents from competition.  These laws can’t disappear quickly enough, and kudos to the PLF and other organizations, such as the Institute for Justice, for continuing to challenge them.

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Obama: more for thee, but not for me

Taxation, Vulgar Politics
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President Obama pays a lower tax rate than his secretary – the very sort of disparity which, according to his own staff, illustrates why the so-called “Buffett Rule” needs to be implemented so that the wealthy pay more.

But Obama won’t consider the idea of simply donating more to the Treasury to address the gap – oh no! “That’s not the way we operate our tax system, okay?” his campaign strategist says. “We don’t run bake sales. It’s not about volunteerism. We all kick in according to the system.”

He’s right. It’s not about “volunteerism.” It’s about violence. Pay your “fair share,” or the government will take it from you by force. They won’t even entertain the novel idea that if people wanted to give the government more money, they could – the Treasury Department will gladly accept their check! But that’s somehow less legitimate than pointing a gun at them and taking whatever the law decrees is “fair.”

And yes, I am reminded of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the peasant observes “now we see the violence inherent in the system!” If only we had a government which derived its authority from a mandate from the masses…

Bonus reading: Matt Welch on the five new ways the IRS is screwing Americans.  Happy Tax Day!

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