Libertarian International Organization

Philosophy through EZ listening..?

A life philosophy of rationality, realism, rights, a romantic sense of life? We would like to call attention to 2 ongoing projects below to disseminate the 2 basic works on Objectivism, the Brandens' 'Introduction to Objectivism' and 'Principles of Efficient Thinking'  which seek to alert, motivate, and assist the public with better tools for that philosophy...These're excellent surveys of the Aristotelian critique and proposals developed by Ayn Rand with additional material and integrated by the Brandens. Care is taken to avoid some of Rand's personal philosophy/opinions for an approach suitable to all, and she re-assured us that with her 'For the New Intellectual' these are the best starts.

• They introduce philosophy as the key tool in life with a structured historical survey and overview of key matters, provocative critiques of common misconceptions, key elements of being objective, and methods to better use of one's reason. Many find the study of philosophy much more comprehensible afterwards.
• You'll have a better idea of both the drama and the rise of Philosophy and Science, and relevance of Objectivist approaches-- and be motivated to study and use the tools of philosophy more.
• They're excellent for college students and others looking to improve mental skills and have an overview of philosophy and where it can help in daily life. Many report life transformations from understanding the need to practice better the fundamental ethical virtues of reason, productivity, and ethical pride; and the correlated social/moral virtues of respect for rights and focus on justice.

The links below are easily shared to interest one's e-circle and post on social media. Some parts are free and the sponsors hope to have them all free in time. Meanwhile, the CD's and/or tapes are periodically available at Amazon, with a book version of the Introduction as well. Finally, Nathaniel Branden continued with pioneering and influential work in psychology and self-therapy from a biocentric approach that many find very useful.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mfw7kqVU-U&list=PLyGcWIcRaC8cMUV6BfIHBAqcDvNcxH5xr  (with link to a growing interactive book transcript of Branden's intro)...

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3RRM-cqPdU   (with link to purchase added tapes).

---MG

By MG.

Takeway: In the LIO Libertarian future, the poor will be the millionaires. Critics will say Libertarians failed.

Dialogue Sheet.

(Note: This began as a series of talks with LIO Fellows Gene Roddenberry, Robert Heinlein, R.Swanson, Murray Bookchin, Murray Rothbard, and David Nolan in 1974, plus valuable comments by Barbara Branden and Toni Nathan plus my promise to Padre A. The late Swanson developed an original draft. This as always is the curator’s advice for dialogue and as promising tools, and different LIO fans may have different takes.)

The social sciences and most legislative proposals are fatally flawed for 3 reasons: They tacitly assume people are not conscious and hence are mere pawns of wider forces. They ignore that Libertarians are reshaping all societies by providing tools that improve personal awareness and control. They ignore the rise of more user-defined societies and economies with tools as a long-term vision of the SMILE economy, and interest in building blocks as eco-homes and co-op ventures as Mondragon (founded by Libertarian international activists). for example, neither capitalism nor communism gave us the internet--LIO Libertarians did, using voluntary capitalist and communist approaches to change the paradigm. Some 5 key tools that render most predictions obsolete from the start:

1. SMILE. LIO Fellow and Libertarian Gene Roddenberry sought to demonstrate a libertarian-structured and receptive future federation of intelligent, science-aware, and tolerant people--the Star Trek universe--so people could get inspired and in many cases back-engineer the many improvements ( e.g. e-tablets/Ipads originally seen in Star Trek; the portrayal of minorities and women as capable and equal)--but also traditional cultures were respected and left undisturbed except for the prospect of choice. Imagine now that public policymakers are often proposing rules to prevent such a world of choice from happening. Will they win in the long term, depending on unconscious general reactions and a spread of nihilism? LIO fans/libertarians have left behind the old smear that free-exchange is short-sighted, working locally and nationally for a moratorium eventually anchored on property law on air/sea pollution and for more eco-homes, free to low-cost machine servants for all, consumers informed by free exchange of data instead of secrecy-driven regulations, life-extension and user-defined community. In contrast, officials and economists call for contradictory imposed environmental policies that benefit wealth donors or totalitarian movement or use eminent domain to take away family farms and small homes and prohibit urban mini-farms; propose web charges, pro-censorship regulations, taxes; presume consumer choices are stupid and ill-informed creating an anti-rational culture; call for health plans to not treat the elderly--defined by some as over 71--but let them die while seizing private pensions and ignoring or suppressing life extension efforts and calls by LIO fans/libertarians for a retirement age of 50 by better social insurance management and personalized programs; calling for international taxation when the trend is towards libertarian-inspired localist autonomy. Any paper in social/science economics that ignores the growing SMILE direction as aware and insistent is wrong.

2. Eco-Homes and Co-ops; more proactive and user-defined pricing to Null-cost. An economy with eco-homes to local eco-villages as self-sustaining building blocks, and Libertarian-inspired entrepreneurs and co-operatives that see their job as driving costs down do products can be offered at nominal (null) price or free make a mockery of most official policies and economic predictions that stupidly assume 'the market' is driven by senseless anti-rights greed. the truth is many policies forbid free or low-cost services and are being targeted by libertarian/LIO fans: New rules against informal babysitting co-ops, Mondragon-like co-operatives and associations; collecting rainwater to create self-sustaining food ecologies, for coerced regulations creating higher prices and costs, penalizing helping the homeless or draconically taxing the poor who are trying to start a small firm, delegalizing taking films of police and public and private-for-public use officials at work (or too often, at play). Officials hiding corruption and anti-rights measures behind calls to selflessness, not self-empowering choices, are the problem.

3. The coming Libertarian leisure economies by IQ class. As more people are freed to produce intellectually and by providing free/low-cost inventions, financial compensation will-and is already shifting—from lifetime wages to burst of wage activity anchored by investment (or value from discount purchases) returns and co-op goods (such as belonging to an eco-farm, or well-organized extended families) from investments and self-fulfillment activity, and a return to self-sustaining farmlets with city homes able to weather any economic downturn personal or general. Officials are being driven to distraction by the growth of a vast libertarian-imitative informal economy where people trade goods to great benefit. They’re attempting to limit them by banning direct sales or trades of farm products as raw milk, or limiting barter societies and ‘yard sale’/swap meets—or trying to tax all internet sales, informal domestic help or live-ins, or even ban personally taking in homeless people. It's more productive to think of world economies, especially user-defined markets that may set various goals. LIO fans have liberated the Einstein-level plus IQ--the 1 per millions or better--by removing many blocking statutes and taxes so they the super-intelligent act, creating a vast rise in billionaires who earned--not stole via legislation--their money ( along with a bursting of NGO and e-network non-profits for the less financially inclined). At the same time, voluntary-based programs and growing legalization of communal/co-housing living ease a base income and equality experiments. Focus is on removing statutes that block egalitarian business co-ops such as Mondragon. The current 1% vs. 40% debate misses the point--of course the top 1% IQ of doctors, academics, inventors do very well while the slow-normal to highly deficient to insane lower IQ--the 40%--historically suited as domestics have only modest assets ( especially as such studies distort the inequalities, ignoring the vast libertarian/progressive driven public wealth of each citizen, plus where the low-income keep their wealth such as homes and retirement pensions). Many LIO fans are thinking we'll see more inequality writ large and that's a good thing--it means that the hyper-IQ are producing benefits for all--but also on the local level to be fair one must look at local goals that will be more conscious as we see better endowed social programs, and co-operative living arrangements. Old economic dialogues divert attention from how to use voluntary tools to, in each locality, create leisure eco-economies of guaranteed basic sustenance (home, food allotment, income, insurances) and modest 10-hour workweeks with robot servants for all. Many LIO fans are 'Going Galt' by using personal endowments, fanatic cost-cutting, and the web to lower needed workweek to a few hours while increasing their community volunteering and personal activities--yet ready to put in long work when opportunities arise. Nothing shows this more than recent smears on 'selfish Libertarians' during hurricane s sandy while praising FEMA as absolutely required--and arresting those who had accumulated prepper reserves or were going around regulations to bring gas and cheap supplies to their communities. Now, lawsuits are revealing that the whole time the anti-Libertarian/pro-government campaign by the extreme left and right hid that FEMA officials wanted to maximize damage to bring blind trust in the government then defraud homeowners of insurances ( and according to allegations, then buy up the artificially cheap damaged homes) and even threatening them arrest when they got they retrieved their own home-damage reports (so revealing government and crony corporation misdeeds) using their libertarian right to free information. FEMA is being foiled by local libertarian-informed groups, the libertarian-driven freedom of information act and class action suits, and growing interest in libertarian prepping. LIO fans and L/libertarians recognize that these are not exceptions but what anti-rights and anti-choice systems do. With growing public conversancy in libertarian /SMILE tools, a different economy/user-driven economies based on voluntary approaches that actually can work --or are at least not designed to defraud--is intended. The shift of attitude underway is:

• From focusing without context on income differences over a few years looking at the whole nation or world irrelevant to one’s personal action (e.g. scandalized worries comparing the low-income in a distant US state with a billionaire in Canada who now purportedly ‘controls most of society’s resources’ )

• To instead conscious bottom-up planning of multi-generational co-households –plans of 2-10 of the Higher/Middle IQ with allied lower-IQ homes for reaching satisfactory personal and common-use wealth goals over several generations—and supplemented by, not being driven by, now voluntary larger common public programs/social insurances as optional conveniences. (Point of information: a typical group of 100 homes will have 1% over 145 IQ and 2 % over genius 130; ~30% 110+ IQ college and technologist level, 20% average union/clerk-supervisor level, and ~40% at/under 95 IQ low-average to very low IQ domestic/simple labor/need living assistance. In practice, a college-educated and libertarian/SMILE conversant family can help and benefit by ‘adopting’ or establishing mutual help ties with 1 middle and 1 lower-IQ home, and serve as informed advocates of their actual needs against e.g. over-complex programs and aiding them in long-term investment and removing or handling any impairments, and steer people away from offenses-violent behavior and addictions.

Many LIO fan libertarian homes say they’re discussing, modeling, or doing just that by:

• Developing libertarian/SMILE informed neighborhood networks

• Re-contacting and revitalizing their extended families

• Encouraging eco-prepping entire local communities and foodshare programs that buy cheap in bulk for distribution to low-income volunteers, and ending statutes against worker/user co-ops

• Promoting local entrepreneurship classes, re-share, and forward share networks and stores

• Advising, co-housing or ‘adopting’ lower-IQ (bottom 40%) persons or homes for mutual and long-term benefit as a barrier to top-down feudalism, and jointly

• Developing co-housing, shared activity, solo-living assistance, and long-term intergenerational education and wealth plans/permanent portfolio plans with assets in several countries as both an ecological and official-misbehavior protection

• Encouraging cities to adopt independent and labor/asset based local currency choice, de-tax solar energy experiments, and allow farmer’s markets, mass buying via local farms, and more

• Turning poor areas into user-run ones owned by their users to prevent gentrification, aid long-term help

Individually, LIO fans use these tools to help think about what sort of home, community, and local economy they want from short to long term. They defy economic and 'moral' analysis rooted in the totalitarian 1930's.

One final thought about the SMILE economy: The unexplored planets and wealth therein are your home’s in aliquot division with all other families. It may well be that in future times they will own their own planet. At the same time vast ‘government’ but legally public common wealth is being mismanaged so defenseless people live in the streets, and the US Government perversely counts as an asset student loans while demanding new taxes for ‘free colleges’—all due to passing many regulations to hinder by-exam/thesis and other low-cost or free college options. Why let petty regulations and attitudes stand in the way of these present and long-term entitlements?

Discuss these concepts with your family and community along with our other tools to decide on your areas for betterment. What is your home's constitution, learning/prosperity plan, self-sustaining, life extension, mutual help, and other short-to-long term intergenerational approach?

Tools: Take Action-- Some Resources of Libertarian User-Defined Home and on Economy:

What not to do…

• http://www.lpf.org/news-archive/south-florida-libertarians-join-forces-feed-homeless-today/

• http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/01/27/farmer-faces-2-million-fines-after-throwing-birthday-party-her-own-property

Home wealth/Co-housing/Condo

• http://www.thefarm.org LIO Fellow Gaskin’s commune turned condo offers many tools

• http://www.biblio.com/9781891231339 Homeless man discovers Libertarian tools, becomes homeowner.

• http://harrybrowne.org/PermanentPortfolioResults.htm

• https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=make+your+family+wealthy

• https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=family+constitution

• http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-turn-your-family-into-old-money-2012-9?op=1

• http://vickirobin.com/books/summary-of-your-money-or-your-life

• http://iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx In general, a billionaire who in general didn’t misemploy legislation to effectively steal money based on our interviews has a 170+ IQ, and of those willing to learn how in the US now one in 10 homes are millionaires--but even modest IQ homes that are helped to save and invest are building substantial wealth over time. Obviously, many highly intelligent people choose more modest living or are not interested in studying precise wealth-building techniques.

Free exchange rethought the Libertarian way…

• http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/eng/

• http://www.heinleinsociety.org/pay-it-forward Heinlein publicized pay-it-forward free exchange approach

• http://free-share.org/

• https://www.freecycle.org/

• http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/gp/perspectives2.html

• http://www.communityeconomies.org/Home

• http://www.ic.org/directory/ecovillages  

Costa Rica Libertarian-Liberal leader former Legislator Otto Guevara Guth is greeted by Li Yuancho, PRC Politburo. Mr. Li is not connected to LIO, but many in the Li clan say they like LIO tools.

Our survey of 3000 LIO homes in China (2011) report a focus on 3 key areas:

1. A US of China--the Chinese Dream--with more localist democracy
2. Stabilize growing free-exchange with anti-corruption and property law
3. Peaceful attitude with all nations towards science/cultural exchange

LIO L/libertarians there see the 'Chinese Dream' as a nice home, free-exchange for wealth and self-development in an atmosphere of respect for personal-property rights, choices of preferably voluntary-based low-cost social programs that work in a tolerant society.

From 2010 discussion handout:

In the early 1970's LIO Libertarian Advisor Damon Bordenave led a project of dialogue meeting with key persons in PRC and India, helping open up both socialist countries to Libertarian choice concepts. The vast Chinese Lee (or Li) clan has many branches with blood connection to the Lemos, the League founders  and LIO co-founders, and who worked to maintain choice concepts in less equable times.

In China in the last few months, outreach and interest has been considerable as citizens there continue to both liberalize and libertarianize.

• LIO activists and officials met to review the PRC plan for increasing democratization, and process issues such as development of a United States of China ( see e.g.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism_in_China ) on a more con-federal model. Concerns were reviewed on invasion of the PRC by right-wing religious extremist parties under pretense of spreading free markets, accountability tools, and non-interference with eventual LIO clubs. Contrary to popular belief in the West, the PRC has several parties. Libertarian-interest civic groups were discussed as means of innovation starting in small areas; tools such as DDI and juries, and non-partisan local entities examined. Also examined were eco-concepts, free immigration within the PRC (which still has internal controls); abolition of the military to police levels; and ways of addressing the retirement crisis. LIO Fellows discussed how population reduction, universal unions, better wages and self-driven insured regulation could result from LIO tools. A separate workshop on ISO and CALEA standards resulted. It was set to work on Sister Cities more as well. Matters concluded with the PRC participants stating that without LIO dialogue nuclear war might have resulted; today the complaints are over cheap shirts.
• Groups such as the Unirule think tanks continue seminars and workshops on market reform and public program choice ( http://english.unirule.org.cn ), along with information efforts such as IMPencil ( http://www.impencil.org )
• A delegation from the Costa Rica Movimiento Libertario headed by Otto Guevara Guth discussed numerous issues to better trade and party-related concerns.
• Lib-interest groups such as www.ISIL.org have held conferences in China.

RESOURCES:

• http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/libertarianism-in-china/ Lib books translated
• http://mises.org/daily/1967 Thoughts on Chinese proto-libertarianism

(Article was prepared 2010-11 by R. Swanson and John Li )

What do Libertarians and those using SMILE/voluntary tools actually do? Volunteers are changing the world: e.g. the gallant Hope & Service to Mankind Foundation in Africa ( http://www.servicetomankindfoundation.org/ ) empowers rural dwellers and is one of many groups with LIO Friends who examine SMILE-interest or share voluntary tools and inspire other projects worldwide in a non-partisan, common-ground atmosphere.

It shares: " ...We promote and encourage the development of the spirit of voluntarism among the youth and people of all communities by organising workcamps..."

Libertarians and users of Libertarian-based tools celebrated World Libertarian Day (July 17th) for the first time worldwide as LIO Friends --noting their group topped 3000 as the activist advisory and share network to the LIO and general public.

Participants from all parties ( http://www.libertarianinternational.org/apps/videos/ ) share SMILE-oriented personal/ public entrepreneurship non-partisan projects @: http://www.facebook.com/LibertarianInternationalOrganization piloting or spreading voluntary tools and rights-oriented or other projects. A frequent comment recieved is along the lines that "I thought we were the only ones" and "We love the environment of inspiration and useful sharing." While the co-editors highlight projects and useful data, most work is user-driven; and much sharing is peer-to-peer.

LIO Friends, not all of whom are at the network, are 51% women, reflective of their nations with a bias towards native people and minorities, and describe themselves as working-middle class, student, and retiree. Many are or were public officials, and come from or continue work in independent, progressive or conservative action areas. Top users are in Latin America, CIS, China-East Asia, India region, and emerging democracies.

LIO co-editors and activists have been overwhelmed by the massive data and a blog is underway to highlight each nation on what LIO Friends and libertarians are doing to better:

• Native American rights and aboriginal issues
• Homeschool understanding and use, life long free learning
• Homeless protection and projects legalizing donations that do the job
• Empowerment of poor and women seminars and micro-loans
• Protection of pre-borns e.g. cloning, snowflake babies, in vitro
• Tools for urban homesteading and gardens including legalization
• Defense of under-publicized minorities e,g, albinos in Africa
• Organizing youth on democracy and market particpoation workshop
• Ending world borders that block free residency and may create war
• Public safety betterment: Police, lifeguards, fire safety
• Bringing federal democracy to Somalia, Somaliland and other lands
• Spread good use of co-operatives, e-barter and freeshare projects
• Open and transparent governance in all democracies and emerging nations
• Consumer-driven pricing sytems that set aside part for higher worker wages
• Info projects exposing corporate, religious, and other institutional abuses
• Persuading landowners and governments on eco-areas and shore protection
• 'Take back' movements of public parks and land donations being restricted
• Certification and user-info to replace corrupt regulation
• E-Literacy programs for rural  world villagers
• Workshops in every country on SMILE themes and Libertarian projects
• Projects to abolish taxers, better services and choice, and end poverty
• Art projects for underserved youth and community betterment
• Union and collective bargaining legalization and choice work
• Women empowerment and anti-abuse workshops in Islamic countries
• Promotion of community watch and private policing/mediation prototypes
• Pilots of currency options now in over 300 communities
• Postive parenting, co-housing, and similar group projects
• Drive to bring barter/farmer markets and freeshare books to all libraries
• Spread of direct democracy focused on rights to choices in all nations
• Ballot access and fair elections
• Secularism information projects e.g. atheists helping homeless
• Daily petition projects for prisoners, against corruption and more
• Formation of civic rights and libertarian-civic groups

Work by activists dedicated to Libertarian legal and policy reform is no longer networked by LIO but the emerging www.Libertarian-Institute.Info (LI) which works on management/law lines to build a climate for Libertarian-based organizations, management styles and community. LI hosts teams centered on autonomous solo/small team activists promoting general Libertarian rights reform themes and specific foicus on the original Gilson reform lines personally promoted by the LIO co-ordinator. The blog reports daily wins on rights and Libertarian policy worldwide.

LIO expects to be reformatting the old contact groups through blog-based country portals highlighting world project communication and work in each country as the blog proceeds for LIO Friends, and connecting to seperate Libertarian/SMILE-interested society projects at the local level. This current site will then be re-dedicated primarily to trends developed by LIO Fellows and overall reviews with an eventual LIO Fellows blog highlighting their often pathbreaking and paradigm-shifting work, articles, proposals and papers in many SMILE-interest fields from Martian colonization to life extension research.

OPERATION DEMOCRACY

...fans starting in the Mid-east have adopted  this meme to spread the good word and stay on mission, using English as the effort lingua franca to engage emerging professionals in the various countries. The meme at right has also become popular in explaining the effort which has used everything from ham radios to contact/phone-trees as well per LIO-inspired pamphlets. The effort is the current phase of LIO's long term dialogue--initiated with the blessing of then US President Eisenhower--to by peaceful methods legalize federal and direct democracy with choices of designed and  libertarian community and scientific voluntary association--and peaceful space colonization and future focus using voluntary and private tools.

Note: In 1940 there were, not counting small countries, 14 democracies (Great Britain, United States of America, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Uruguay ) . LIO principals have been key in the spread of democracy since that time, starting with work on the Libral International.

LIO's OPERATION DEMOCRACY is being segued by activists interfacing through www.Libertarian-Institute.Info  to gently continue pressure as changes are made. The initiative began in 2010 as an effort to end the excuse for war and set core conditions for voluntary systems by moving the last 40 countries towards democratic process, and continuing with efforts to on dialogue to bring direct democracy, dialogue on marlets and tolerance, and initiate Liberal-Libertarian civic groups in all counties.Help was greatly due to co-ordination with local unions and professional societies, say activists--as well as tools circulated to help e-activism and 'street networking'  with many civic and open society groups which provided workshops. China and Russia were not included in the effort as they're treated by LIO facilitators as emerging democracies where think tanks and other efforts are well at work as in manmy countries where LIO Friends help drive initiatives such as: http://www.southasia.fnst.org/Recent-events/380c4599i1p/index.html

In the US and other advanced countries, predictably, many extreme conservatives and leftists some purporting to be 'libertarians' have written articles or made statements that direct democracy cannot be used to support rights, that democracy is the enemy of freedom, that unions need to be regulated by the government, and other confusions based on gimmicked defintions--along with ritual declarations of libertarian lack of progress, or Liberal/progressive evil. The peaceful organizing has been marred in some countries by big-power military intervention, but effortts remain focused and long-term.

Activists say they will focus on secular legalization ( e.g. ending official religions) and promoting market and user-designed communty tools along with tolerance initiatives.

TOOLS:

•  A report is here: http://rightsandpolicyreporter.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/lio-operation-democracy-of-44-targeted-countries-14-bettered
• Prof. Becker, the world authority on DDIR and teledemocracy mentoring the effort, has been advising this group sharing net tools and more here: http://www.navigatingourfuture.org/index.php/whoweare?view=employee&id=5
• Please save the above meme and share at your e-groups.To assist and also get into local public office, check your local Sister City advisory board: Many cities in toubled countries await partners in advanced democracies..

Growing Brazilian (   http://www.pliber.org.br ) and Argentine Liberal-Libertarians (  http://www.liberallibertario.org/home/ ) meet at conference to discuss among other topics  how government regulation begins when they coercively regulate new parties and  suppress rights movements, vowing to soon have the 'last election without a liberal-libertarian candidate' in what by 2012 is a spectacular public information and petition campaign in the region.

While academics claim that government coercive policing and regulation is needed to suppress wild free enterprise, even police are turning to private groups to compare and better methods and crush internal abuses.

LIO Libertarians and fans say they’re having concrete successes spreading the Gilson libertarian model of ‘open accountable voluntary certification, not backroom coercive regulation’ also extended by Libertarian thinkers such as Dr. Mary Ruwart, USLP education director and author of the enlightening ‘Healing Our World’ free at Libertarian Book Club at www.LibertarianBookClub.org  . LIO curator and past co-ordinator Michael Gilson (“MG” was a regulatory and management systems consultant for many years, travelling to many countries to spread his ideas and libertarian tools of voluntary dialogue and action in general with senior officials, union, and business leaders; and promoting the now common concept of ‘best practices’ and continual improvement.

This has been summarized by MG as the Libertarian 3 C’s helping dialogue on voluntary options:

1. Clarity of Label: Many statutes actually prohibit useful info that follow from common law user inspection

2. Co-op Certification: Not one monopoly coercive agency but many transparent on-task groups

3. Comprehensive Re-insurance: Insurers themselves insured performing autonomous third part inspection

Even as this model has been spreading, many Libertarians are focused first on the prime regulator of the political process—coercive rules on independent political parties—as e.g. a grinding long-term battle in the US, and in Argentina a massive campaign for “the last election without liberals and libertarians.”

Since 1971 LIO has sponsored informationals culminating in a massive meetings in the mid-80’s of management consultants to spread private certification such as by the www.ISO.org  which brings many groups together to develop open and self-correcting basic and best practice standards that now the agencies themselves have begun to use, or e.g. www.CALEA.org  (a private group that sets standards for police), www.UL.com  working on independent product safety testing (that also helps people target regulations that mandate unsafe practices to accommodate inattentive or corrupt regulators and criminal corporations out to preference by statute their shoddy products) ; participative approaches open to the consumer; legalization and spread of both mass and specialty consumer organizations or services to rate services such as Angie’s list at www.AngiesList.com  or the growth of consumer comment sections such as at www.amazon.org  to rate vendors, increasing popularity of factory, service restaurants, and other facility consumer tours so users can see what is going on.

Essential has been the push for increased citizen regulation and user participation in public programs. When we began most countries hid their laws, punished people for making suggestions, and favored state monopolies. Even in the US statutes are passed that prohibit evaluation by success outcomes, and many academics still deride the Libertarian push to challenge services and get basic consumer information. Included have been the Libertarian push for e.g citizen academies ( e.g. http://www.scgov.net/planninganddevelopment/neighborhoodservices/NeighborhoodUniversity.asp   to better citizen understanding and bring clear definitions of process; initiatives to oblige local governments to clarify operations and involve citizens; legalize private options from roads to cell phones to home schools, use the internet to post standards, statutes, success data, and suggestion links; or meet with regulators on ways to promote accountability; and worldwide efforts to promote transparency, sunshine and sunset laws, whistleblower protection, and simple tax information transparency such as the worldwide taxpayer union efforts ( http://www.worldtaxpayers.org  ;).

Many people do not realize that regulation, originally conceived as a convenience to determine current standards and minimal safe practice for courts, have in many instances blossomed into agencies that promote and imposed fascist model of enterprise management, typically reduce common-law safety to accommodate political donors, and boast of good deeds that are actually the result of industrial progress. Many companies have adopted two systems of regulation—one to satisfy behind-the times regulators, and one to advance actual best practice. In addition, unlike the libertarian certification model, regulations despite growth of public comment opportunities are typically uninsured, unaccountable and often hide regimes of bribery and corruption. In some cases, as in the US until Libertarians led a campaign, consumers could be arrested for comparative pricing in stores: many industries such as medicine keep costs hidden from users with predictable mismanagement and waste by statute or policy while regulators and academics prattle about the ills of lack of market data they help create. LIO Libertarians have helped you champion work to:

1. Re-open home standards and use, and regulatory transparency/user friendliness

2. Remove legal blocks to open, re-insured certifications and open or private voluntary options

3. Re-structure for more informative voluntary labels with interlocking inspection and certification by unions-consumer, industry, insurers, etc. vs. when used clear ‘buyer beware’ situations not concealed by statutes.

Libertarian approaches are seeping into the culture. Many communities have gotten rid of complex licenses and permits-- that enriched officials or merely extended bureaucracies-- for private certification, spot or periodic checks by maintenance companies reported to agencies at no taxpayer cost, or nothing at all where certification was evident.

1. Government agencies themselves are adopting private certification and open review by users

2. Companies are adopting SPC, ‘six sigma’ and beyond processes and meeting on best practice sharing

3. The spreading culture of transparency is routing corruption while legalizing co-ops, consumer groups, etc.

Much remains to be done. LIO urges teams forming to use such tools to help:

• Identify areas of betterment and potential best practices elsewhere,
• Meet with officials and coalition groups, and
• Help inform the public to promote dialogue.

RESOURCES:

o Check the links above

o Websearch ‘best practice’ and seek open information as to price, quality, etc.

o Research how other groups, governments or industry members solve the problem

Death Penalty: Blue and yellow mean abolished or only special circumstances; light brown is not in use, brown is judicial murder still legal. As the death penalty-which kills inmates often abused children, rights workers,  or those with clear mental problems in cold blood-- is abolished, murder goes down  assisted by  a less coercive atmosphere and focus on prevention and environment.

A review shows that since 1969 the LIO effort to promote dialogue towards more focus on rights not wrongs, prevention not punishment, anti-death penalty and increasingly anti-punishment has spread worldwide:

1. Authoritarian countries have moved to democracy and abolition of the death penalty and life in prison…

2. Many countries are at least in theory moving to containment, rehabilitation, and preventative models…

3. The US, despite a commitment to rehabilitation, by promoting the drug war and other morally repugnant lifestyle interferences has developed a shockingly large prison population while yet reducing many factors. In states such as Arizona, cynical crony capitalists and prison labor unions have used pretended privatization or passing a barrage of petty prohibitions including anti-immigrant statutes in hopes of filling up their prisons—and emptying apartments that rented to immigrants, contributing to defaults and hence the economic crisis.

LIO has sponsored workshops and colloquia since 1971; and especially encourages prison abolition and limited rehabilitative sentences discussion with attention to environmental factors: Minimizing unwanted births in at-risk families, lead and other environmental contamination affecting behavior, recognition that so-called criminal behavior is a mental dysfunction from a variety of factors from stress to genetic problems; and spread of versions of the pledge to diminish e.g. bullying and violence towards children that start a cycle of coercion, including the punitive practices and disrespect to children and women in some religious environments. In addition, a general atmosphere of cultural tolerance, educational correction of religious violence, and focus on officialized violence in prisons is making headway. Above all LIO encourages dialogue towards a proactive and citizen-driven voluntary atmosphere of successive Pareto-type 20/80 problem identification and reduction, not out-of-context reactions in a self-fulfilling punitive atmosphere.

Some countries--such as the Netherlands which have embraced elements of the approach--are now finding their correctional facilities are becoming vacant as violent and other offenses diminish—even renting inmate space to less advanced countries. Libertarian legal approaches alert courts to ban child executions in the US and elsewhere.

Many at LIO Friends are involved in sharing support, info and their work in spreading interest in tools such as volunteer community patrols and at-risk youth mentors, prison and prison violence abolition, sentence reduction, harm reduction policies, decriminalization, domestic and spanking violence reduction, LGBT rights, and other activities. Projects range from stopping police violence towards homeless in the USA, prison privatization, to essentially co-op/intern-run rehab in Belize that is slashing recidivism, to anti-domestic violence workshops in Pakistan, to weekly information on improper sentences in Iran.

These are often shared or highlighted at the LIO Friends Facebook (  http://www.facebook.com/LibertarianInternationalOrganization ). LIO invites you to share your work and get inspired by the positive voluntary atmosphere with concrete how-to models and tips.

Dr. Palmer challenges  the often self-serving misidentification of moral capitalism with cronyism by officials in this excerpt from a talk at the Locke Foundation.

LIO Fellow Dr. Tom Palmer is travelling the world to share views on Libertarianism, encourage young scholars, and promote study societies and think tanks. His book Morality of Capitalism (Free e-book, please share)  is an entertaining, paradigm-busting set of essays  being translated into many languages.

The Liberatarian advocate and educative  philosopher travels to many countries with his book as a core text shared in translation with local workshops. The book introduces key information and helps the reader who challenges common false choices and myths--such as identification of free capitalism with cronyism--needed for those in countries where information is often hard to obtain or effectively censored. Usrs say the  book is suitable for preparation towards more advanced awareness of Libertarian themes, while stimulating interest in historical mythologies, economics and policy in general.

Topics handled include the concept of capitalism as a moral tool for empowering individuals and voluntary and effective co-operation; common misconceptions; themes of application beyond usual business ones; and extensive recommendations for additional research bibliography and refrences for young scholars and informed citizens.Many feel the work is an an excellent companion to LIO Fellow Ayn Rand's Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal or Economics in One Lesson (Free e-book) but is also being provided as a book free to students.

Dr. Palmer earned his B.A. in liberal arts from St. John's College, his M.A. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, and his doctorate in political science from Oxford University, where he was an H. B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College. During the late 1980s and the very early 1990s he worked with the Institute for Humane Studies and other organizations to spread classical-liberal/libertarian ideas in Eastern Europe. He traveled throughout the region to hold seminars and smuggled books, cash, photocopiers, and fax machines from an office in Vienna, Austria.

Palmer is currently attempting to duplicate in the Middle East some of the work he did in Eastern Europe. He has commissioned translation into Middle Eastern languages (Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Azeri) and publication of works by Frederic Bastiat, F. A. Hayek, James Madison, and other libertarian influences, and has published essays in Middle Eastern languages on such topics as "Challenges of Democratization" and "Religion and the Law."

In April 2005 Palmer addressed members of the Iraqi parliament in the parliamentary assembly hall on constitutionalism and has written on Iraq.] He has also promoted the creation of a libertarian web site, lampofliberty.org, where it is available in Arabic, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and Persian; and started an Arabic publishing venture. He continues to lecture in the Middle East and works closely with Arabic and Persian bloggers. He has been actively involved in campaigning for free speech rights in the Middle East, notably with the campaign to free Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, through articles in the Washington Post, the Daily Star of Lebanon, and other activities.

Palmer's political activities include being founding member and national secretary of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (1979–81), president of the Oxford Civil Liberties Society (1993–94), and manager or communications director for several political campaigns. He was a plaintiff in Parker v. District of Columbia, a successful lawsuit in Washington, D.C. to secure the right to own a handgun in one's home, based on the text of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

RESOURCES

• To contribute to his project  and watch free videos, http://atlasnetwork.org/blog/2011/02/the-morality-of-free-enterprise/
• Learn of his latest work, please see: http://tomgpalmer.com/

Developed by LIO Fellows and US Libertarian Party legislators, the "Libertarian Un-Tax" Alaska Permanent Fund reverses taxes--moving away from seizing resources towards endowment-based public services providing an income for all and in time core public services, and tax rate reduction that maximizes revenue with additional voluntarization (We recommend dialogue on to 5% based on internal studies performed by M. Gilson and M. Rothbard with voluntary dedicated streams to autonomous public services such as social pension at 45 vs the current mess; see article at bottom).

--PLEASE DISSEMINATE/POST TO YOUR E-GROUP OR CIRCLE--

SUGGESTED LANGUAGE FOR PRESENTATIONS/DIALOGUE GUIDE

• Instead of less/no government/public program--voluntary choice of programs/non-coercive community program and user governance
• Instead of no/less taxes--lower unified and recommended tax rates that maximize revenue with voluntary taxes, endowment funding by sovereign autonomous funds: 'coercive taxes are obsolete and as knowledge of this spreads, grossly immoral.'
• Instead of privatizing/cutting services--voluntary community and comprehensive services with legalized private options
• Instead of deregulation/no regulation--guideline, data-based practices recommended by consumer, unions and firms with multiple quality and other optional but open and re-insured certifications
• Emphasize along with market choice proactive choices and fundamental right
• Instead of charity-Libertarian zero-poverty goal with proactive, non-coercively funded entities and endowments by community, family, and private entities
• Instead of union as association--unions based on right to attorney/agency.

OVERVIEW

Along with OPERATION DEMOCRACY focused on dialogue on implementing voluntary options via and including Democracy, Decriminalization and international Development with direct implementation by democracy of Libertarian rights and choice by majority vote (and which has led to work on gay marriage, fair redistricting and massive real estate tax harbors in that state)... LIO has launched OPERATION DIGNITY to focus on the other Gilson  ' D' of  Devolution . LIO-encouraged Meetings have already led to an initiative in the US by the Republicans to abolish all income taxes, starting with state level taxes; and move away from an association model to an agency model for the right to collective-bargain but user-chosen unions. --along with tradional and now virtual consumer unionism .

FOCUS ON VOLUNTARY OPTIONS DATA DISSEMINATION

This will move LIO-supporter dialogue language away from ameliorative Liberal /Libertarian-oriented "smaller government" to implemntational  "rights implemented through voluntary choices and programs." These pave the way for demand for and use of model Libertarian eco-community. This tracks growing public familiarity with 'Libertopian voluntary options' as documented in use-and-spread-the-tools format at the LIO co-editor blog www.TheLibertarian.Info and with massive LIO participant catalyzed changes of the last 40 years, especially in particular programs.

This moves dialogue from what civic Libertarianism permits to what Libertarianism and LIO advocates as best or usual practice, and away from partial forms. That is, Libertarianism defends one's legal freedom to e.g. jump from one's roof dressed in a clown suit, but does not advocate such activity per se. As a policy example, many people equate Libertarian themes with "small to no government."' These are Libertarian-oriented/directional themes, and only if involving poledged Libertarians and voluntary choices. Libertarian focus is now on "voluntary governance" and choice of public and private programs in Libertarian applications in public administration/civic matters, themselves voluntarily funded.

NO/SMALL GOVERNMENT VS. VOLUNTARY COMMUNITY PROGRAMS

 At no point has the LIO called for the abolition of anything unless coercive: It is a mistake to equate Libertarianism with abolition of e.g. social security (though this may depending on the Constitution or program be prudent), but an array of personal, privately provided to the public, and many community trust (replacing previous coercive government as commonly conceived ) programs; pro-Libertarians have however urged the public to challenge doctrines of state or official omnicompetence, superiority or omnipotence and 're-engineer' by asking if various statutory measures are actually needed or rightful.

As another example, many activists and commentators mistakenly equate legalizing privatized and self or peer/user certified and regulated items such as roads with replacing all public roads with personal roads. Legalizing privatization is not the same as de-communitizing programs, as many conservatives or anarchists enthusastic about Libertarianism improperly conclude. Libertarianism should never be confused with its implementations, and transcends and absorbs in civics all other systems. It is not a form of government or absence of government--it replaces and voluntarizes all forms as the user may understand and need.

This has led to some confusion in Libertarian-direction parties e.g. the USLP candidate Gary Johnson proposes what many view as an outdated and extreme right-wing favored Fair Tax (note: In early years Libertarian supporter proposed e.g. CATO flat taxes as an initial discussion step, and this may be useful in some high-tax countries) that is behind the times in Libertarian US practice (e.g. LIO Fellow Ronald Reagan focused on tax rate reduction that resulted in increased public revenues). even as state parties reflect LIO dialogue such as the Hawa'ii LP (see: http://www.libertarianpartyofhawaii.org/platform1.html "...elimination of the state-supported social welfare system and indeed all taxation for voluntary alternatives along lines of the Libertarian originated Alaska Permanent Fund. ..."

 Libertarian supporters and candidates should, however,neutrally present a range of solutions--from modest improvement to complete voluntarization respectful of user choice (Dallas Accord on presentation, curated by LIO). Besides LIO links that may be provided to the purpose, links to a variety of Lib-interest/solution non-partisan groups per an LIO/USLP dialogue several years ago is sufficient at this time.

OPERATION DIGNITY THEMES

Current themes of dialogue and data-dissemination, and citizen initiative on voluntary and non-coercive options include:

• Greater autonomy of household composition and economyand provision of family/inter-family agents and internal markets.
• Continued removal of 'stealth' statutes or legal irregularity of 'not for profit for profits' and free free market arrangements; along with co-ops and co-op legalization and de-coerced taxification, and voluntary barter exchanges or user-run currency alternatives to central banks and general entrepreneurship education...and sharing of inormation on social entrepreneurship tools General encouragement of free-market and business-aware options especially with focus on open consumer, small-firm, and worker co-ops options.
• Voluntary tax and comprehensive community and private social programs and models e.g. health care and full legalization of private help efforts, along with continued debate on the cycle of prohibiting private action, then using its paucity to justify more prohibitions and coerced e.g. monopoly programs.
• Continued highlighting of coercively created stealth taxation in the form of so-called 'low' inflation of currency by official agencies by printing currency or complex public debt transactions
• Continue shift of public services to data/result-orientation of maximum user-defined efficiency and quality while highlighting attempts to reverse trend, and private/community endowment non-tax/non-monopoly models that do not, as coerced oligopolies/monopolies must structurally do, backfire due to lack of choice or accountability from their stated purpose-- with additional legalization of all private forms such as volunteer provision, non-profits, co-ops, for-profits, etc.
• Our model is self-sufficient public libraries free of official government micro-management with an array of e.g. private bookstores without censorship. Included is continued exposure of de jure or de facto crony corporatism  and seizure of public assets in a tacit enclosure movement of the commons under false color of 'privatization.' In addition, encouragement of joint community/private projects with removal of coercive components and encouragement of volunteer service.
• Ecological protection including by continued spread of citizen llawsuit and private boundary definition.  to pre-industrial pollution levels or better; highlighting of backfiring inter-action of differing coerced regulations.
• Eco-planetary improvement by non-coercive and property-based means e.g. pollution-free sea and coastal eco-zones (vs. politicized coercive regulations) which should proceed irrespective of beliefs on climate or other eco-change as benefical and rightful no matter what occurs; along with encouragement of bottom-up ecologies..
• Continued attention to attitudes or  coercive policies that actually create poverty along with self-directed, less economic and leisure-society  opportunity/consumer autonomy and information.
• Continued process of replacing coercive and punitive-focused regulation with common-law restatement and regularization LIO helped start to continue internationally with increasing rights and choice/certification approach along with  general and public service specific open and free/low-cost certification and re-insurances, peer/choice-driven continual improvement to rights and best practice data. 
• In addition, we encourage discourse highlighting of reactive-coercive regulations or deliberate data obfuscations under color of stopping 'market anarchy' , or against in some cases literally healthful voluntary trends or cultural commercial prejudices reflecting bigotry.
• Unschooling/Freeschooling as model for legalizing private options and communitizing current public ones
• Continued encouragement of unionization and automatic availability, including legal recognition for freelancers.

OPERATION DIGNITY is the advice of the LIO curator to promote fruitful dialogue and voluntary action; and assist LIO supporters in self-organizing effort. LIO remains neutral as always in any specific proposal, but encourages fans and the public to, upon review, proceed according to their freely chosen strategies towards  better fellowship, mutual respect, and understanding.

________________________________________

ARTICLE ON ALASKA FUND

http://www.bestsyndication.com/2005/A-H/gilson-mike/092705-user-fees-taxes.htm

Why Pay Taxes when User Fees are Better

September 27th 2005

 Libertarians Slash, Replace Taxes with Spending Challenges, User Fees, Trusts, and Permanent Funds

Libertarianism targets tools to enhance individual rights, and their liberty of use, replacing coercive old-fashioned government programs by creative non-government alternatives, fulfilling the Constitution’s ideals.

The myth? Taxes are “the price we pay for civilization.” Textbooks say no system of justice can exist without it; that it’s the first task of public management; and even Franklin said that, like death, you couldn’t avoid them. Overturn that myth: if civilization is less coercion, taxes are the price we pay for incomplete civilization.

The reality? Once enacted taxes not only grow but become the engine for abuses of power needed to enforce their increasing scope. Adults are treated like government slaves—democratically authorized or not—taxed in every area, from the womb to the tomb. Rights and privacy vanish in “implied powers” to enforce taxes.As taxes multiply people have no idea of the real total tax burden (over 60% in many cases); what they’re spent for (One Libertarian weapon in tax reduction is simply embarrassing legislators by revealing they’re raising taxes for things no one’s defined or, like education, are supposedly already funded); or why: The US has gone from a Constitution with a few optional taxes by relatively un-intrusive methods to co-operating with international “standards” actually demanding that any country with low taxes raise them..

 Libertarian Information  

The truth? All ignore numerous examples, from parts of Elizabethan England to medieval German towns to lotteries for public funds to Ancient Thailand to the Amish to the present where taxes aren’t used.

Is there a better way? Yes. Libertarian tools are being adopted: To treat public services as a business with an attitude that costs should go down constantly, nut rise. Why not think big and seek well managed services that pay you, and make that challenge to officials? Stop confusing Public with Government: they’re not the same. A private entity can have a public purpose; the real difference is if you’re being compelled. Junk the free rider model, where taxes are justified on the basis some will benefit from “universal services” who don’t pay, making service inertia a virtue. Why not public trusts designed to be open to all? More:

• Spending Challenges. Citizen Teams are getting a hold of public budgets and finding that, by challenging each item line by line and asking if voluntary options are even being considered, they’re locating what consultants have said for years: by the program’s own standards often over 90% of money spent is wasted compared to options of self-help, co-ops, competing firms, or using simple business methods. The trick: Test budgets line-by-line for voluntary alternatives, and standard methods: user needs, best practices, performance standards, business accounting.

• User Fees and Lotteries: Some things are just wanted by some users. Libertarians suggest set-asides for low-income and to keep reducing the fees, and earmarking lottery funds.

• Self-help through co-operatives, personal accounts. Examples: user-owned public utilities, IRA’s.

• An “Un-Tax” with Permanent Funds. I had a hand in this. At 12 I wrote a short paper suggesting that if government assets and efficiency savings were simply earmarked, captured and invested by long term “permanent” funds not run by government, all could soon get a check that would simultaneously cure unemployment, poverty, basic costs, and retirement woes. I had no idea that I’d overturned 200 years of economics, but my well-connected doting Dad did, and sent the paper to Attorney General William Rogers, later Alaska Governor Jay Hammond (they were all old buddies), Libertarian economist L. von Mises, Robert Kennedy, and even Martin Luther King Jr., who as it turns out had similar thoughts. Libertarian legislators in Alaska took up the idea, and the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend plan arose. Now Alaskans have no income tax and a small family gets about $10,000 yearly and growing. Remember: a twelve year old could figure this out.

 Bottom Line? Take Action.Taxes are obsolete. Bring these tools to your community: Share this article; call for tax exemptions: of conscience, homesteads, elderly; for challenge teams; local Permanent Funds. It’s time for attitude change: To see officials calling for more taxes, ‘fair taxes,’ or any tax as uninformed or incompetent. For info on fund, Libertarian Dick Randolph: http://www.apfc.org/publications/TP5-3.cfm

By Michael Gilson-De Lemos

LIO Fellow Advisor Richard Winger is a world expert on field of fair elections. While focused on US issues he covers worldwide at : www.ballotaccess.org

LIO Friends, fans and activists continue leading and catalyzing dialogues worldwide on election improvement, and joining in coalitions to drive fairer elections in every country in  what is proving to be a multi-generational process.

1. Implement Basic Fair Elections and Rights Charters: http://www.wymdonline.org/
2. Fair Ballot Access and Party Registration with Citizen Initiative
3. DDI and MMP  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation resources share

Join LIO Friends to share your good work. For more on OPERATION DEMOCRACY

Libertarian International Organization Fellow Observer Col. William Gilson, USMC, advised on military trends.

LIO remembers the signal work of Col. William Gilson, United States Marine Corps.

Said by friends to be gifted with 'the legendary Gilson charm and diplomacy,' Col. Gilson advised LIO on military trends and worked behind the scenes for encouraging those working for  friendly military and trans-partisan contacts leading to the end of the Cold War and fall of the Latin and other dictators. He had been inactive in recent years but followed work towards world peace with interest, and was deeply supportive of historical study of aviation.

Col. Gilson served on the Board of the Dallas Military Ball, where he was Chairman in 2007. He has served as the Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps Aviation Association and on the Board of the Veterans Memorial Air Park. Col. Gilson also gave generously of his time to the Wounded Warrior Program and Young Marines Association.

 Czech leader Vaclav Havel's father was an LIO (then the League) Advisor who sought to create model proto-Libertarian voluntarist neighborhoods  for the poor and middle class that were then expropriated, and whose ancestors  in turn were involved in the salon of  then co-ordinator Henriette De Lemos y Herz that was the center of much of our predecessor League's activity in the early 1800's. Vaclav was denied a liberal education by the coercive Communist regime for suspected 'Libertarian anarchist and middle class market-poetic and democratic tendencies.' Indeed.

In a period where cultural Libertarians and Liberals have seen many distinguished LIO Fellows and Friends pass on--David Nolan, Dr. Hospers, Christopher Hitchens, Geraldine Ferraro--Public Safety Group member Vaclav Havel must now be recalled.

Havel hand in glove with activists to overthrow Communist dictatorship through firmly peaceful and hence successful means that deserve imitation and are LIO policy. He later led the country to peaceful development, and remained interested in efforts to bring about more voluntary markets, voluntary public services, and voluntary socialist and research communities.

As health allowed he was active in working for change in the Mid-East by behind the scenes encouragement, and also recoimmeneded these projects in which he was deeply in support and for especial interest by LIO supportive activists:

1. European Tolerance Council: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council_on_Tolerance_and_Reconciliation
2. Human Rights Foundation: http://www.thehrf.org/
3. Victims of Communism memorial http://www.victimsofcommunism.org/ 

Havel continued his main cultural work with plays, publicizing efforts to inspire youth and other educative or arts activities, and encouraging interest in the marriage of new technologies and the arts.

His advice to LIO  Friends: "Think in generations, act in the now, and smile."

.

Libs are at work worldwide using the LIO Friends project, such as activists helping people develop micro-lending in Afghanistan.

...Now past 1 year after foundation, the LIO Friend's network is twice over the goal of 750 and at press over 1700. It is @ http://www.facebook.com/LibertarianInternationalOrganization . The group will branch out in due course into regional e-conferences, and items will feed an eventual blog site. 

...The new advisory and inspiration group is facilitated by young Libertarians in public office and culture, and helps participants who're typically edgy local activists share personal, financial and social entrepreneurship worldwide on LIO SMILE lines. Users say they're motivated and informed seeing what people are doing using voluntary tools in many areas. Projects led or supported by participants include:

• Anti-poverty using voluntary empowerment in many countries
• Democracy including groups leading change in the Mid-East
• Civil rights including gay, GLBT, and discrimination issues
• Anti-rape, abuse, and various whistleblower sites and workshops
• Work on barriers against the homeless, small business, and ballot access
• Info sites on urban gardens, tax comparisons, space tourism, etc.

Participants are also at work in groups such as: the Elders, Amnesty International, the ACLU, Campaign for Liberty (non-partisan work), Sister Cities,  various unions, and more from across the political spectrum. Many say they take inspiration and encouragement from the example of LIO Fellows leading innovation in their fields.

At press participants are in over 140 countries, with (outside US) strong presences in (in order): Argentina, United Kingdom, Canada , Spain, Italy , Peru , India , Germany , Poland , France, Malaysia , Australia , Sweden , Pakistan , Portugal , Brazil , Costa Rica, Mexico , also China, Russia, Egypt, Tunisia, Japan, West Africa, and Indonesia. There're even supporters from Tristan de Cunha, where web access is difficult and they participate by mail. The  project is the first to unite people worldwide of this type for concerted citizen-driven development.

LIO Fellow political economist and integral historian of the under-studied the late Dr. Murray Rothbard's Titanic Man, Economy and State is now available on web in an audio suitable also for the disabled. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj1EKocQXls

The ground-breaking work seeks to re-organize economic knowledge in an axiomatic fashion based on the concept of prioritized action. It includes many discussions of voluntary options and the mechanics of coercive failures, and critiques of the limitations of many economic measures.

The treatise also provides a sweeping presentation of so-called Austrian economic theory, a reconstruction of many aspects of that theory, a rigorous criticism of alternative schools, and an inspiring look at a science of liberty that concerns nearly everything and should concern everyone says narrator Jeff Riggenbach, a noted activist.

More items are at the sponsoring http://www.youtube.com/user/LibertyInOurTime . Dr. Rothbard was highly interested in anarcho-capitalism, a potential application of Libertarian-direction entities, and studied it from the assumption of a society without Libertarians for purposes of methodological rigor.

Ayn Rand became involved with LIO in the 1930's, became inactive, and was re-activated shortly before her death. The artist-philosopher revived interest in Aristotelianism as a modern approach--through her work as an advocate of focused awareness, causal thinking, self-empowerment,and constitutional freedom.

April 15 was, in the Roman calendar, associated with Libertarian freedom, and is when a new movie based on Philosopher Ayn Rand's romantic thriller, Atlas Shrugged, comes to the screen--after an equally epic saga to be made and distributed in the face of sceptics.

The story presents the overthrow of a US totalitarian government when the most productive people simply go on strike, creating a domino effect and leading to a televised speech where the hero outlines an objective and secular philosophy and the relation of totalitarianism to arbitrary thought and action. Rand was vilified for years--and lionized--as her work was perversely misrepresented as e.g. fascist. The attached national TV appearance in the US greatly increased interest in her best selling books and acceptability in the electronic media. Rand was not associated with the US Libertarian Party after an unpleasant experience with anti-Rand religious fanatics led to doubts about its role. LIO advisors are presently reviving the New Intellectual Society next year, the oldest group dedicated to studying her work and publicizing Aristotelian concepts for the average person.

Rights advocates across the world are already calling for movie versions in their own languages in a unique phenomenon. Links to the movie trailer in English and Spanish, along with trailers of her other movies, are available at our Libertarian International Organization Facebook--please page down the Wall. Her work, Anthem, is a free-ebook at the Libertarian Book Club linked @ http://www.libertarianbookclub.org   . Her work has been published in her native Russia, where, though long by US standards, they're considered by some somewhat short in the land that created the 18 hour movie and epic super-long novel.

Says LIO past Advisory Chair R. Swanson, " I knew the woman and she was deeply interested in our cause and the need for the spread of a rational philosophy as the foundation for other improvements. She was very enthusiastic about the concept of a completely voluntary society from a constitutional point of view and the heroic spirit of everyday people. She was drill-sergeant tough with her students as one would expect of a no-nonsense philosophy teacher who won't let you get away with anything, but 'off-duty' and personally was a kind and tolerant person who was at heart an artist. She felt the answer to family problems and the future were things that empowered the child such as Montessori education and the like. As a self-taught immigrant, that she wrote with such a poetic command of English was incredible. She had courage when others faltered. Her husband was a very surprising person, an artist who made them a fortune in real estate with a knack for summarizing complex issues with pithy comments out of the blue."

Note: The Roman April 15 festival related to a community event of resolving rights and sharing goods in a community meal related to a sacrifice of cattle to Tellus, who guarded rights and boundaries. There is a tradition that people were freed at this time or assumed citizenship. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordicidia In the US, April 15 is also when unpaid income taxes are due.

RESOURCES:

• http://www.atlassociety.org/ Publicizes and studies her work
• http://www.atlas-shrugged-movie.com/ Info blog on movie
• http://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rand-Her-Own-Words/dp/B004KDYQY4/r Upcoming  where she answers FAQS in her own words

LIO Senior Advisor Harry Browne passed away 5 years ago this week.

While newspapers and officials blamed the economic crisis on "too much" Libertarianism, claiming it proves freedom false, Libertarians were actually doing well following the "Libertarian Lifestyle" precepts of "people's philosopher and economist" Harry Browne, a US best-selling author who passed away 5 years ago this week.

Browne, who with other LIO advisors helped lead the USLP to its largest size in paying members and people in office to date by 2002--and was a twice Libertarian presidential US candidate helping smash down ballot access barriers--proposed a simple system of portfolio or investment class management for all economies.The public educator wrote many best-selling books on applying Libertarian concepts to better relationships, businesses, and public finances; and was consulted by many world leaders.

His system ( in his book Fail Safe Investing ) was based on the idea that one must not passively accept the market but 'manage upwards' with proactive thinking. Far from depending on government to regulate the economy coercively, one was best advised to realize that very regulation was the main danger and act both to defeat it, and be ready for inevitable economic changes for better or worse. The system was meant to be usable by the average person to safeguard key investments meant to produce basic income against 'officials misled by crackpot statist theories' tampering with free markets, which he held was the main reason for recurring and major economic crises.

He pointed out that by annually re-adjusting one's investments among cash, bonds, stocks, and metals such as gold each year, at least one of them grew in any economy and the re-adjustment served as a "circuit breaker" or bulwark against problems with the others. The portfolio should be the main focus of activity until it produced sufficient income. If one was willing to dedicate the time, he also recommended a second portfolio divided among home and real estate, home business, community help and disaster insurances. The disaster preparation ranged from additional cash and asset reserves to catastrophe insurance to some assets abroad to e.g. an extended supply of food, guns and medicine, and water for emergencies or major catastropes. Only with this basic security should the average person consider more speculative investments, he proposed, which would become better as the public became more informed; and nations naturally better civil and emergency defense.

Browne also felt the system would, as it spread, pressure errant officials towards reforms as they saw their policies outwitted. Widespread adoption would itself help stabilize economies while increasing investor education. Libertarians who used the system, for example, saw their portfolios rise with gold investments and automatic removal from deteriorating real estate, while automatically positioned for better investment at the lows due to more cash and survival stores for long term unemployment. In addition, he felt that the system helped critique public finance towards more stable and proactive policies and away from e.g. deficit financing and uncontrolled taxation. Similarly, he advised banks and business to use a similar philosophy with cautious reserves, which are still there while others sank or sought government bail-outs in the crisis, say fans of his approach.

Browne left a legacy of applied Libertarianism for improving households, relationships, workplaces, and citizen action in his many books; plus a project meant to help the public easily contact officials he hoped would be an example worldwide, www.DownsizeDC.org

 WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Check out: http://www.trendsaction.com/ and http://www.harrybrowne.org/
• Review your portfolio and set up a savings and investment plan
• Encourage local public entities and fiorms to use stabilizing investments
• Use www.DownsizeDC.org for monthly e-activism or start one locally

Philosopher and Psychologist Dr. Nathaniel Branden has made his seminal 'Introduction to Objectivism' available to international acclaim. He is also interviewed at: http://www.newdimensions.org/program.php?id=2441

LIO friend and honorary board adviser Dr. Nathaniel Branden was recently recognized with an award at the Libertopia conference, where attendees hailed and highlighted publication of his long-requested transcription of his seminal Introduction to Objectivism lectures. The lectures were the first organization and presentation of the philosophy and life improvement system, which may be described as a modern and updated form of Aristotelianism. Many users feel it is the best and most approachable introduction to the themes, integrations and discoveries emphasized by Rand and Branden. Branden notably emphasized that improvements in rational philosophical awareness and civic structures go hand-in-hand, and are not just the realm of a few experts but vital concerns of everyone.

The influential and interdisciplinary-interest lectures were delivered via tape recordings in an innovative seminar format that welcomed  the general public. The format simultaneously launched the modern lifestyle improvement, self-esteem, and commercial lectures movements. Users say it had an energizing influence among advocates and scholars of free markets and constitutional government as well. Many philosophy students praised it as bringing philosophy out of the classrooms and back to the people where it belonged. Many felt their use suffered in that the lectures were not transcribed and recordings were sometimes hard to obtain. The English transcription is hoped to be a first step to needed translations into other languages, which in principle should be facilitated with modern translation software. Many of Dr. Branden's other works are available in translation in 18 languages and growing.  Another valuable series on improving thinking by Barbara Branden awaits transcription at this time (http://www.barbarabranden.com/thinking.html) .

The LIO encourages interest and education in rational- and reality- based approaches to improve lifestyle and promote self-development and scientific progress, within and without formal milieux, as part of its SMILE focus. It is hoped that as the transcription becomes available in every country, many things will advance with the generated public interest and understanding. The new edition is available at: http://www.lfb.org/product_info.php?products_id=292 and Dr. Branden has a website of his activities at: http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/about.php . The LIO will add the book to the Libertarian Book Club reading extended reading course in 2011 ( http://www.libertarianbookclub.org ) and place it 'front and center' in due course in its projects along with other key books.

WHAT YOU CAN DO...

>Obtain a copy and share the link with your addressbook and e-groups.

>Urge purchase by your local library or donate a copy.

>Suggest it as a supplementary reading or basis for a college course.

Former US LP Chair, LIO Advisor Dr. James Lark III is more than a university professor; he helps enlighten students in all countries on Libertarian tools.

Management thinker and consultant Dr. Jim Lark III has long been admired for his tireless efforts to promote university student groups to study Libertarianism and voluntary concepts in general. Many US Libertarians joke they are in a "Jim Lark Slept Here Club" having hosted his sleepovers in his travels to speak with local student groups small or large, typically at his own expense.  He has now advised in the formation of Students for Liberty, a US group that has gone international, and is honored as a frequent workshop speaker. Recently, it has begun to offer webinars available worldwide, such as this one by Dr. Lark on understanding policy data: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/392324130

A non-partisan effort started by several students cheered on by academics, the group seeks to complement the work of the Institute for Humane Studies in promoting elements of good citizenship, tolerance and critical thinking informed by awareness of voluntary and quasi-voluntary alternatives. The group has a somewhat economic-issue emphasis but readings suggested are wide ranging, say users. It offers manuals, a chartering system for groups, and after a start filled with hard work a growing series of well-attended student regional conferences: http://studentsforliberty.org

RESOURCES:

• http://studentsforliberty.org/college/conferences/international
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_For_Liberty

LIO Advisor Dr. Milton Friedman travelled the world to advance the LIO poverty reduction approach.

LIO Libertarians have led the way in efforts focused on actually abolishing systemic poverty by increasingly sane and voluntary measures, not just creating another coercive program that becomes a political soccer ball.

A negative income tax capturing government efficiencies, spread of freer markets to combat oppression and raise prosperity partu cularly at the local level such as farmer's markets, and a pilot trust fund to provide a permanent income are the 3-pronged approach LIO advisors used to reduce poverty and coercion...but much remains to be done following the greatest poverty reduction program in history. The prongs were Libertarian-oriented or direction initiatives meant to lay the foundations of a better voluntaryt approach;

1. Prior to board appointment, Nobelist Milton Friedman proposed a "negative income tax" that would cut bureaucratic inefficiencies and, capturing improvements be used to provide a stable basic income. In time the program would be peeled away into  separate local public trusts and true social insurance  voluntarily funded to end poverty forever. The concept has created in the US the Earned Income Credit and similar programs in many countries, ending humiliating poverty tests and make work programs as are again being proposed in the UK by the extremne right.
2. A pilot permanent fund trust was proposed by LIO co-ordinator the then young Michael Gilson-De Lemos, and after championship by Friedman was adopted upon motion of Libertarian legislators in Alaska. The Fund provides a regular income top each Alaskan funded from public property, and is independent of the government despite several takeover attempts. Similar voluntary sovereign funds are in place in other countries. In addition, moves to restore personal pensions and trust funds--such as in the US simplified trust law, removal of perpetuity blocks, and promotion of arrangemnents such as Keough and IRA plans--have resulted in great wealth for many people even despite the recent downturn, including pilot social security personalized arrangements in countries such as Chile.
3. Friedman criss-crossed the world meeting with officials to champion freer markets starting at the local level with simple farmer markets, combined with lower tax rates and red tape. He also advised LIO honorary board members in the set up of the educational Atlas think tanks to train young advocates. China, India, the former Soviet Union, many former Latin and African dictatorships,  and many formerly poverty stricken countries have advanced with rises of national income in multiples, and a pressure for more rights and better services by the growing middle class and educated professionals.

Much of course remains to be done: including promotion of completely voluntary and hence de-politicized permanent funds to end taxation not dependent on any one resource and to promote stable services run by the users, and also guarantee a meaningful basic income no matter what. Increasingly, people can take matters in their own hands with IRA type and other arrangements invested in not just stocks but a range of assets, in turn of improving performance as inane regulations are targeted.

Shortly before his death, Dr. Friedman said to us: "Libertarians, especially LIO supporters and advisors, led the non-partisan effort to crush poverty with the tools we had and provided many new ones. Coercive government programs create a vicious circle, we a way out. Communism, the welfare state, be-responsible conservatives and all the rest perpetuated and deepened the problem, we're ending it. The reverse is often unjustly charged, but I did my part, I know what happened, and I'm proud of it. So there."

RESOURCES:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_Income_Tax_Credit
• Why Pay Taxes?  at http://www.bestsyndication.com/2005/A-H/gilson-mike/092705-user-fees-taxes.htm and Alaska Fund History: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22alaska+permanent+fund%22+%2B+%22dick+randolph%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
• Atlas Foundations: http://atlasnetwork.org
• LIO longstanding committment noted: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5t6Nhw38EdEJ:www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Libertarian-International-Organization+%22alaska+permanent+fund%22+%2B+libertarian&cd=52&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
• CATO Social Security project: http://www.cato.org/research/ss_prjct.html

EDITORIAL by Ralph Swanson, past LIO Honorary Advisory Board Chair

The LIO Project for Libertarian Citizenship and Community replaces the old LIO Clubs and focuses on the creation of non-partisan Libertarian and Libertarian-Interest communities from households on using interpersonal, legislative, educative, activist, and political-civic means, assisting the fundamental mission of the Libertarian movement with support projects in each area. These have been tested to pilot community projects along those areas over the last few years.

Now, a project of book-civic action e-clubs around a set reading program--developed by a team assisting the LIO co-ordinator co-chaired by Milton Friedman and myself-- is being rolled out, with a video to put on your site and share with friends, eventual e-groups in every country, and free e-books and low cost readings supporting the LIO Program and also the SMILE initiative. The project was initially developed by M. Gilson-De Lemos, Vince Miller (www.isil.org) and Virginia Heinlein.

The Clubs are facilitated by Libertarian in public office Julie Chorgo, and are meant to serve as a nucleus and support platform of continuity and intake for not just LIO but all interested groups. Clubs may meet for coffee or household study the 3rd Saturday of each month. Other elements will follow in due course. Link to your site for free e-books and spread the good word. The Clubs are non-partisan. Finally, we're delighted to have as project patron Dr. Ken Schooland, whose work "Jonathan Gullible" is the lead reading along with his site's free Libertarian Flash in many languages.

RESOURCES:

• http://www.jonathangullible.com
• http://www.libertarianbookclub.org