Real ID is a program that needs the careful attention of Americans concerned with their civil liberties. It basically creates a Soviet style internal passport that every American must show to get a job, do their work with the government, enter government buildings, etc. In some ways it is surprising to see that many states are adopting anti-Real ID legislation . I hope Delaware chooses to adopt anti-Real ID legislation in the same spirit because the idea of a national ID card in this way is a complete contradiction of what a free society is all about. Is that really somewhere we want to go? Yale University has an interesting take on the problems of National ID and how these are related to the genocide committed by Hitler , Pol Pot and others. If you examine the legislation closely , you see that it is the antithesis of being the "first state" because it removes all constitutional protections under the bill of rights . It is important to understand and remind our selves from ...

. . . that we've apparently been in a recession since 1975. According to Mid-Atlantic States Labor, The American quality of life has been going downhill since 1975 . Arguing that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not "is not an appropriate gauge of our national well-being" is not a particularly new proposition, although you should feel a slight tinge of warning at that "national well-being" term being thrown into the mix. Let's take a look at how the analysis goes: GDP measures the total market value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given period. But it includes only those goods and services traded for money. It also adds everything together, without discerning desirable, well-being-enhancing economic activity from undesirable, well-being-reducing activity. An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being. More crime, more sickness, more war, more pollution, more fires, s...

Over at Delaware Watch, Dana has an interesting post on The Spreading Totalitarianism of the Private Sector , which I recommend to you. I agree with many of his observations, if not necessarily his conclusions. After detailing the kind of enforced groupthink ceremonies at MBNA that George Orwell appeared to describe in 1984, he concludes [edited for brevity not to distort; go read the original]: I am not making a case for smoking or obesity. I'm arguing that in the US we locate the fear of authoritarian control over our lives in the wrong sphere of influence. We fear it's the public sector that primarily threatens our liberty when, in fact , it's the workplace in the private sector that is undermining our liberties.... Some mistakes are so elementary that one must resort to uttering truisms to make the point: Totalitarian control is totalitarian control whether it occurs in the public or private sector.... But we mustn't control the private sector democratically throug...

Mural By Violet Oakley, State Capital Harrrisburg, PA from http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0WTb_vkMtRHwWQB52ajzbkF/SIG=127t1au84/EXP=1205175396/**http%3A//americanrevolution.com/ppl_william_penn.html If you add the name Buddha, it pretty much sums up my encouragement for universal religious toleration. To the King of Poland. Great Prince! Actions of justice, mercy, and truth are worthy of all men; but in a most excellent manner, of the serious consideration of kings and princes. We,certain inhabitants of the city of Dantzic, have been long great sufferers, not for any wickedness committed against the royal law of God, or any breach of those civil laws of this city, that relate to the well-government of it in all natural and civil things; but purely and only for the cause of our tender consciences towards God. This severity being by us represented to the magistrates of this city, we could not as yet received from them any relief; some expressing, as if easing the burden of our oppressions sh...

One of the less enticing characteristics of the Delaware blogosphere is the vituperative tendency of posters (anonymous and otherwise) to attack those they disagree with by parodying their political positions. Sometimes it's funny in a biting, over-the-top way, but it rarely moves the argument forward. I'm a Libertarian, and I expect to have to make my arguments stand or fall on their own merits, not the flawed perceptions of a Libertarian point of view that other people have. So it's always annoying when somebody bases his or her argument on, "well, those fringe Libertarians who believe in letting people starve are at it again...." All of which brings me to Dana Garrett and social democracy. Dana pulls the trigger as fast as anybody, and he doesn't equivocate about his beliefs, your beliefs, or my beliefs. And, as a result, he gets portrayed as either a Marxist, a Collectivist, or a Socialist no matter how much he sputters that what he is closest to bein...

There is a length debate at First State Politics on Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf's bill to change Delaware's "opt-in" organ donation system to an "opt-out" system that presumes consent to organ donation unless there is clear evidence of non-consent. Two of the legislators signed on to this bill as co-sponsors are awaiting kidneys themselves. The idea is that "opt-out" organ donation increases the number of transplantable organs harvested, benefitting everyone in society; many supporters suggest that it is not logical (dead people have no rights) or moral (you are allowing people to die through inaction) to do otherwise. Some commenters, like me, see a slippery slope toward increasingly nightmarish State intrusions into our control over our bodies. This has not resonated with many of my liberal or progressive friends, who feel that it represents typically paranoid Libertarian thinking, laced with rhetorical fear-mongering questions and devoid of either...

If you pay attention to all the icons and widgets running down the sides of web pages, you'll notice that I just added the Electronic Frontier Foundation 's Blue Ribbon Campaign against online censorship. The EFF itself was a joint creation of former Sun Microsystems' designer John Gilmore, along with Mitch Kapor, John Perry Barlow, and Steve Wozniak. Gilmore himself is a Libertarian Purist, as you can tell by his website, which looks kooky until you read closely and check out his credentials. John himself looks a lot like what I expect most folks think the stereotypical Libertarian does (am I right, Shirley?), but like all seminal thinkers he keeps drawing you back in. By the way, the fire in the back is not from a burning cross, no matter what those who worry about Libertarians may tell you. Anyway, the campaign against online censorship is specifically targeted toward blogger's rights, and its initiatives read like a virtual Bloggers' Bill of Right s: You Have ...

So you want a border fence? I don't, but I won't demonize the people whose fear makes them advocate for one. Instead, I'll refer you to a post from A Secondhand Conjecture about the eminent domain horrors that the Feds are now visiting on local landowners. Perhaps the most telling part of the story is the CNN interview with Director of Homeland Security Michael Jerk-off, who is just enough of a fascist to tell landowners that it's their patriotic duty to sacrifice their property. All those Native Americans concerned about their burial grounds and other sacred lands? I believe the technical term for his attitude is, "Tough shit, redskin." Watch this one here . If you don't, you'll think I am exaggerating. I'm thinking of nominating him as the national poster child for the Libertarian movement.

While most of the Net is still inundated with the original announcement of Indian automobile manufacturer Tata's new ultra-cheap Nano (and I can't resist this "why it's so cheap" picture), there is a part of the story that ought to be of far more interest to Libertarians and other Americans. We tend to assume too many similarities to our own culture and customs in other countries. Tata obviously needs a factory at which to churn out the production models of this new mini-box, right? I pick up this story from an Indian blog, Through the Corridors of Uncertainty , which required a fairly strange search pattern to locate. I started looking for it after viewing this picture of farmers burning the Nano in effigy in protest against their land near Singur being sold for the Tata Nano plant. Here's the set-up, from a political insider's point of view: The Singur controversy has attracted a strange set of bedfellows-the Tatas and the Left Government on one side re...