I’m Not The Only One

When I tell people that personal auto insurance is optional in New Hampshire, they look at me like I just told them that people in New Hampshire have horns.  They can’t comprehend how the New Hampshire government could allow such a thing to happen.  They might say something like,  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”  And given they are statists, I’d assume they’ve heard plenty of stupid things.

No, forcing people to buy insurance is stupid, and for a variety of reasons.

In almost every other state in the U.S., drivers are forced to buy insurance.  This of course is a sweetheart deal between the insurance industry and the state governments.  The insurance companies pretty much charge whatever premiums they want and offer whatever terms they want, because they know that ultimately the driver will have to buy an insurance policy from one of them or not drive their own car at all.

The biggest morons I’ve met imagine New Hampshire as this nightmarish landscape littered with broken bones and twisted metal as cars smash into people and property every five minutes, because after all, having no auto insurance makes one less responsible about their driving, right?

Wrong.

In New Hampshire, auto insurance companies understand they have to charge premiums and offer terms that are actually competitive, because they know the driver has the option to buy no insurance at all.   As a result, premiums are much lower, and most people in New Hampshire have auto insurance for the simple fact that it is affordable. (more…)

Yeah, I know I should’ve pounded this one out sooner, and I didn’t take this long to publish this entry because the questions were hard, because they weren’t.  The following are questions asked of Judge Andrew Napolitano by moderate comedian/fake news anchor Jon Stewart when the former appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Other libertarian sites and bloggers have attempted to answer these questions in their own way, and I thought it would be entertaining for me and informative for the reader if I attempted to answers these questions before peeking at the answers of others and actually watching the Daily Show episode.  Here goes.

1.  Is government the antithesis of liberty?

Yes and no.  Government by itself is not the antithesis of liberty.  It is the initiation of force and the implied threat of such initiation of force that is a threat of liberty.  The use of force and the implied threat of force, both lethal and non-lethal, is the only real power government has and is the sole purpose for its existence. (more…)

Anyone who has their finger on the pulse of viral videos has most likely seen by now the YouTube video of a Manchester, New Hampshire high school student being manhandled by a police officer in the school cafeteria.  The video was quickly picked up by Cop Block, an organization dedicated to increasing police accountability and educating people on their civil rights.  Cop Block interviewed Frank Harrington, the 17-year old who was slammed into a cafeteria table by Manchester PD Officer Darren Murphy.  Cop Block also interviewed Harrington’s friend who video recorded the incident and in another video attempted to interview Officer Murphy.

Why was Harrington handled so roughly by this officer assigned to West Manchester High?  This kid isn’t exactly a model student.  At 17, he’s still taking sophomore classes, and doesn’t spend to much time worrying about classwork, or homework for that matter.  He stole his sister’s purse (also a student in the high school) with the intention of returning the purse to her after lunch period. His teachers and principal asked him for the purse, and he refused.  Apparently since the school officials felt they didn’t have the right to use physical force on Harrington to retrieve his sister’s purse without any legal repercussions, they sent in someone who they believed did. (more…)

For those who have been paying attention, many disillusioned people have banded together in a demonstration called Occupy Wall Street.  The goal of this supposedly leaderless organization is to have 20,000 protestors flood the streets of lower Manhattan and occupy it for several months.  The goal is to restore democracy in America by mimicking the successes protestors made in Spain, Egypt, Greece and Iceland which Occupy Wall Street supporter claim was achieved by mass occupation of financial centers of those protestor respective countries.

So far the protest has received some media attention, with the mainstream media initially refusing to cover the protests but eventually have had to as independent media outlets and mountains of video footage of the event emerged on YouTube.  The first MSM outlet I’ve seen cover the OWS (other than a somewhat biased New York Times article) was a surprising editorial by MSNBC.  From the looks of these videos, it appears that almost every participant is equipped with some sort of video recording device.  The paramilitary organization known as the New York City Police Department has reacted to the protest with mass arrests, barricading protestors, assaulting them and dousing their eyes with pepper spray. (more…)

I recently met a New Hampshire native who was fairly familiar with the Free State Project and was also fairly critical of how successful it could be.  He was doubtful that people from other states would be successful in limiting the government in New Hampshire if they weren’t willing to do the same thing in their home states.

On the surface, this question has some merit, but when you dig deeper, the question sounds absolutely ridiculous.   The Free State Project was launched to attract liberty-minded people to come to a state where they had a far better chance of limiting government than wherever they came from.  The majority of people who emigrate to New Hampshire as part of the FSP come from states whose governments were far more intrusive, expansive and expensive than in New Hampshire.

Most NH natives have no real concept of what an extreme oppressive government is like, the phenomenon of being controlled by the state in many ways and paying extra taxes for the assumed privilege of being bullied around by said governments, so I can understand the ignorance from which this question comes.  Not to say that people from New Hampshire are ignorant; they are in fact some of the most fiscally and politically savvy people I’ve ever met. That said, their frame of reference of what role their local government plays in their lives is very, very different than what Americans from say, Los Angeles, New York City, New Jersey, North Carolina, Michigan and other parts of the country know.   (more…)

I’ve had a few people ask me why police oppression/brutality is so high in New Hampshire.  The Free State Project has the goal of getting 20,000 liberty-minded people to move to New Hampshire, but some of the content posted by Free Stater-owned media outlets like the Ridley Report, Free Keene, Talley.TV and Free Talk Live have made some people hesitant about moving to NH.  One click on any of the above websites and it is not hard to find some coverage about NH judges, state and local police abusing their authority.

One such incident occurred in June when some Free Staters decided to hold a protest outside the Manchester PD headquarters.  Some protestors scribbled slogans on the police station with chalk such as “Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights” and many held video cameras and cameraphones to document how the police would react.  Eight people were arrested and charged with misconduct and criminal mischief for committing such crimes as chalking on the sidewalk and walls of the station, not dispersing when told to do so, refusing to present state ID and “collecting evidence” with their electronic devices.  Some had their devices confiscated (stolen) from police officers and were arrested when they attempted to retrieve their possessions later.

I don’t know about New Hampshire being the freest, but it is freer than a lot of other places in the country. In my hometown of NYC, the protestors would’ve been arrested just for assembling in public without a permit. Forget no ID or chalking.  And in New York, a lot of those protestors would’ve needed medical attention, as the cops there are lot more hostile and brutal than in NH, even to those who don’t resist arrest. (more…)

The following piece has been revised due to a factual error.  My apologies.

I’ve known about the following for a while, and was hesitant to discuss it because some of the people involved in this effort are Free Staters.  But, what the hell.

This weekend marked the grand opening of Manchester’s first dog park.  Dog owners in Manchester have been wanting one of their own, pointing out that other areas of New Hampshire, namely Hookset, Concord and Derry have had their own dog parks for years.  Some dog lovers banded together to form the Manchester Dog Park Association, a nonprofit with the mission of creating spaces for dogs to run around off-leash and play and build social skills.  The group got the permits, raised the funds through private donations The Association keeps repeating how the construction and upkeep is financed by member donations, and not by tax dollars.  I’m all for dogs being able to run around and play.  The only problem is that the land on which the dog park sits is owned by the city of Manchester. (more…)

I’ve been recently dosing myself on all five seasons of one of my favorite sci-fi TV shows from the 90s, Sliders.  As good as the show was, I remember being in high school when the gorgeous Kari Wuhrer was added to the cast, making it even better.   I Wikipedia’d (yeah, I said it) Ms. Wuhrer and was surprised to learn she had had breast implants.  She later had them removed when one of them encapsulated but she definitely had them when she was in Sliders.  I’m sure while her natural talents propelled her acting career one could argue that her implants got her foot in the door of many Hollywood studios.  She has been quoted in multiple sources as saying her body was her best asset. (more…)

This entry may be reaching you a bit late, but Happy Independence Day, a day to remember the freedom this country won from the English and the freedoms the federal government is slowly taking away.

I never had an urge to use fireworks like most boys and young men do, but I always enjoyed watching them.  The explosions, the bright blazes in the night sky, it certainly is still a spectacle to watch live.  Fireworks have been banned in New York City for several years, unless used by certified professionals who have acquired the royal permission (a permit) to purchase and use them.  I certainly didn’t know this, because every fourth of July (and during Chinese New Year because I grew up in an Asian neighborhood) people in the neighborhood would set them off.  When the end of June would come around, the guy selling fireworks out of his trunk would suddenly appear, and sales would openly occur in the streets.  (more…)

New York City Councilmember Leroy Comrie recently proposed a ban on fast food toys in kids’ meals, mimicking an identical ban passed in San Francisco last fall.  Under the proposal fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King would not be allowed to include toys in kids’ meals that exceed 500 calories and do not include at least half a cup of fruit or vegetables or one serving of whole-grain products.

Councilmember Comrie, who is morbidly obese, has made quite the punchline of himself by proposing this legislation. He’s quickly become the fodder of late-night talk shows and stand=up comedian, though he willingly admits his own lifelong love for double cheeseburgers and fried chicken has led to his present-day girth. (more…)

It’s nice to see President Obama pretend to do something right for a change.  He recently petitioned Congress to end tax breaks for U.S. companies that hire workers overseas, in an effort to encourage businesses to hire workers domestically. As to whether this will result in more jobs for Americans is iffy at best.  After all, Obama is asking Congress not to create incentives for businesses to hire workers domestically, he’s simply asking Congress to take away the rewards Washington gives to U.S. companies who hire abroad. He certainly is not creating incentives for foreign corporations to set up shop in the U.S. and hire Americans. (more…)

California might actually be on its way to legalizing marijuana, at least up to an ounce.

Three Tuesdays from now, Californians will be going to the polls to decide on, among other things, Proposition 19, a.k.a. the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannibis Act of 2010.

For those unfamiliar with the proposal, Prop 19  mandates that people 21 and older can:

• possess up to one ounce of marijuana for personal consumption.
• use marijuana in a non-public place such as a residence or a public establishment licensed for on-site marijuana consumption.
• grow marijuana at a private residence in a space of up to 25 square feet for personal use. (more…)

In my last blog entry, I explained how the Free Market almost ended slavery, if it weren’t government keeping that gruesome institution alive and well until Lincoln was ready to slaughter scores of Southerners when the federal government was ready to stop supporting slavery.

Today, I’m going to explain how the Free Market  eliminated widespread discrimination in the private sector and would’ve done so even if the Civil Rights Act had never banned private sector discrimination. (more…)

If you’re not familiar with the term, Mexican hunting refers to a recent practice of white Americans (some blacks, too, although to a lesser extent) of looking for people who “look” Mexican and then beating them, sometimes to death.  Of course, for most white people, almost all Latinos can be visually mistaken for a Mexican.  Already, an Ecuadorian immigrant has been beaten to death and a Colombian immigrant was almost beaten to death.

It’s great to see that blacks and whites in America have transcended their rocky historical relations to come together to attack Latinos. I also find it interesting that this sort of violence is primarily taking place in states like California, New Jersey and New York and not places like Arkansas, Georgia or Arizona. (more…)