Libertarian International Organization

...join a low-traffic fan Facebook to share tools at bottom of article.

• Takeway: Discussion points on how Libertarian Green policies are working. Spread in your area?
• Recently Libertarian policies were denounced by the US extreme left and a Nobel economist for pollution spills in US lakes and rivers. One problem: Local Libertarians had been attempting to prevent the problems, which were created by anti-libertarian policies of leftist officials. Why the attacks? Libertarians are actually saving the environment. Top 5:

1. Save the planet from long-term destruction. Asteroid hits, super-volcanoes, space junk, and yes, climate change were ignored until brought to public attention by LIO Libertarians/fans. LIO Fellow Reagan was called crazy for calling on re-targeting nuclear missles to anti-asteroid defense. Now many efforts are underway.

2. Population tripled, yet: Air pollution down by over half, forests and eco-zones tripled in many areas. In 1969 MG set the Libertarian air and sea pollution standard: Return to pre-industrial levels or better via voluntary eco-policies and technical improvement towards a Garden Earth. Sent to over 3000 industrial/national leaders as a goal, politicized official pollution standards still lag behind or impose too much too soon, while private effort has responded to this dramatic goal still ignored by the media. Libertarian cap-and-trade, a transitional measure invented by MG and LIO Fellows, is still misused: Monies collected go to politician’s salaries instead of accredited universities and sustainable Green research labs. In the good news, relaxed regulations have led to voluntary eco-parks, new vast commercial sustainable forests, anti-pollution devices. In the Dominican Republic, the president, also an LIO Fellow, led the country to reserve 40% of the land—i.e. all already common land--to pristine parks. This also boosted tourism and national wealth contrasted to Haiti.

3. Green is now a common mental tool. People are interested now, not hostile to eco-friendly options.

4. You can now sue polluters, protecting your property lines: In 1969 such suits were often forbidden for reasons of ‘resource management’ and ‘ending capitalist greed.’ Result: Without control by courts, legislators went wild until government bodies and cronies became the major polluters. Libertarianism champions respect for property (pollute away on your own if you must, but not on your neighbor’s land) lines, and lobby so class action environmental and property suits are commonplace. As a result, incidents plummeted.

5. Empower you to have the environment you want. Continuing dialogue so all may enjoy, at minimum, tax-free eco-family small and self-sustaining homesteads (as in Florida, USA). This involves flagging extremist efforts to coercively tax or seize your: Cash, land or home, deny aliquot use of runoff/rain water while handing watersheds over to official projects, coercively tax environmental and passive eco-improvements, limit small eco-farms and urban gardens, criminalize speech or price-data open info/comparison, home business, etc.

Resource: Share your tools, ideas at: https://www.facebook.com/LibertarianGreenSolutions

Petra Kelly, LIO Fellow, Founder of Modern Green Movement

LIO Fellow (then Advisor) scientist John McConnell led way for Earth Day, here with Earth Day flag. LIO Flag is the same but on white with blood-red accents.

Takeaway: Let’s not forget ‘Passive Green’ is the basis; Green is being used to justify backfiring anti-solutions.

By MG

• While accomodating voluntary deviations, LIO Libertarians dialogue for Green Garden Earth. A lot of people spend a lot of ink and a lot of money to keep you from understanding that. Such disinfo didn’t work for the Communists, who’re now officially libertarian-friendly pro-privatization now. It won’t work for these guys. So share this as basis of debate. Also: http://www.libertarianinternational.org/apps/blog/categories/show/161118-space-sea-gardenearth
• I helped develop Earth Day, and created the Green ‘libertarian socialist’ movement with my then companion Petra Kelly as well. Those were tough times. The ‘progressive’ left hated ecology as ‘bourgeois indulgence’ along with LGBT rights, pot legalization, suing polluters, and all LIO Libertarian dialogues they now claim to love. Today it’s a civil war among progressives between the growing libertarian-receptive vs. dying neo-Marxists whose only hope is that new generations will forget that Communism=Mass Murder.They knew a Libertarian threat when they saw one. They knew that if they conquered the world, my Green virus would destroy them. They tried to kill me; LIO Libertarianism ended them; Petra was murdered by the Communists. The neo-Communists/Marxists have been trying to take over the Green movement since. They pretend they’ve been always pro-Green and pro-localism. Yet ‘Green’ is a household term. New people may have trouble defining it (as with Libertarianism) but they know it when they see it, and increasingly like it. In the US, 22% of all political parties are self-identified informal (non-LIO) libertarians (small-l libertarian=aware applier)...and many more try to be Green. 'Greening of America' is here.
• So we must not hesitate to discuss: That Green is about keeping a small, sustainable, and voluntary presence. It involves thinking about costs and benefits cradle-to-recycle on new technologies--which gives results sometimes counter-intuitive. It doesn’t involve unnatural vast coercive programs but personal-local organic good sense. Many officials don’t get that, seeing a coerced regulation as salvation, instead of a sinecure for old tech and new bribes. In this the extreme left conspires as usual with the extreme right. Hence the need for LIO/libertarian-inspired campaigns e.g. calls to not tax small homes in town and country, or to legalize urban gardens/mini-farming, public breastfeeding, medicament and vaccine data and choice, solar panels, low-pollution vehicles, class suits for pollution, prepping, etc.
• Where I live we just won long battles to legalize pedi-buses, protect bicycle lanes, and Green taxis. A proposal for a polluting ‘Green’ public light rail so costly one could have bought everyone a new Prius every year was defeated. Florida libertarians have revived a coalition to remove anti-Green statutes (While things like started in 1969 when we united for direct democracy this now uses, extremists sell a narrative that libertarian-catalized broad coalitions are odd: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/16/green-tea-coalition-strange-bedfellows-fight-for-solar-power-in-sunshine-state /  
• Yes, we’re just beginning to understand how Green=Continual improvement. But what this process doesn’t involve are vast new coerced programs on climate (are officials reducing pollution--or forcing corporate terraforming?); or to forbid autonomous living; or forced gee-whiz techno-tools that reduce choice to raise costs, involve questionable ‘new’ materials, and backfire—like the recent lighting mandate in the USA banning older bulbs. Green tools for future focus:

o Legality of self-sustaining untaxed Green Homesteads in country and city for every family

o Insulation back-engineer of e.g. walls, appliances that naturally cool, heat, save money in buildings

o Legality of local low-impact vehicles that use batteries, pedals, etc.

o Legality of self-regulating farmer market’s in every neighborhood—not just set areas

o Study of ideal organic soils with encouragement of home-based food production, prepping

o Community progressive air/water pollution reduction guidelines and barrier walls

o Legality of tax-free/deductible organic co-ops, no-pollution agreed zones, firms, retrofits

o Use cap-and-trade to directly grant search for promising low-pollution technology as intended

o Focus on voluntary choices--and not taxing, seizing, or regulating the above when they work

Earth Day is one tool to raise awareness. But Green solutions, like all voluntary choices, start and end at home.

Check out: http://reason.com/blog/2014/09/21/joel-salatin-against-elitism-at-lpac2014

LIO head MG says join him in world & local dialogue to end taxes--to put in a negative tax rate.

...

OPINION, By MG

If you don't share this article with all your e-circle and more RIGHT NOW, don't complain about coercive or inept government fiscal mis-management to me, ever.

The recent spectacle of Governor Gary Johnson, the US Libertarian Party candidate--a truly wonderful cut of man I feel no shame in praising-- advocating a flat tax and no real lowering of taxes/tax rates vs. US Democratic President' Obama's tax rate cut and additional proposals--including extending the so-called Bush cut 2 years the GOP originally refused to do-- shows two things.

Many people are joining  the Libertarian parade but some libertarians are falling away. Yes, many sincere libertarian supporters are letting it pass them by instead of leading it, perhaps worried some ignoramus will say, why, they're just too far out.

No great things were ever seized without nerve. So join me in getting back in front--not 'far-out' in the rear.

Coercive taxes rob you in 3 ways: Paying over-much for things you don't need, being a constant temptation to incompetent or corrupt officials to spend, spend, spend; and not having the correct libertarian end-state of public programs where the programs pay you.

Pay attention: I'm saying that not only should tax rates be ZERO, but public programs should pay you--a NEGATIVE tax rate. Impossible?

An example of what I mean is the libertarian-championed Alaska Permanant Fund--which instead of an income tax uses investments to pay the people a living dividend not as some government handout and politician's spree, but an autonomous trust jealously guarded by the people themselves--and IRA's where you can have a tax-advantaged mini-public program to pay for retirement and much else besides. I helped conceive the first and championed both. Several countries have used to concept to not only create automatic benefits so that concepts such as the need for a minimum wage and poverty vanish, but fund lavish social services such as as much education as you want and a free home to boot. Sure, there is corruption, but the answer is to get the funds into autonomous trustees supervised by the beneficiaries, not legislators armed with legal immunity for misdeeds. Here're 3 key steps:

1. Decriminalize non-payment and lower all tax rates.No one should pay a dime if they have reasons of culture, commerce, conscience. Forget the social-duty argument: these pious thinkers have created vast mismanagement and should have been making not irresponsible public trusts but actual public trusts that took care of anyone through wide investment, open management, and legal responsibility. Altruism is an excuse for lack of results in many cases. Switzerland already makes tax non-payment non-criminal.
2. Simplify and voluntarize: Immediately exempt --adjusted for inflation-- the bottom 50% from any income tax while encouraging the wealthy to pay a larger share into medical and social. No corporate or technical taxes--taroiffs, etc. Start a national dialogue on voluntary payment and choice of programs. Remember: the bottom 50% of  income-tax payers just pay a sliver of revenues for waste; the rest effectively fund defense in the US. Social Security would have been funding additional personal pensions and lavish healthcare if part had not been used for years from everything from fact-finding trips to Paris not to mention funding goal-free military shenanigans. Make a portion go to fund endowments to in due course pay the costs. My prediction: Revenues will skyrocket as people have a say and programs are obliged to improve.  We've surveyed wealthy people who say they would cheerfully pay double such a voluntary tax given the assurance that it would end up abolishing taxes and they would become public heroes. Libertarian fans in many countries are getting some action. Thus Russia is catching up in development with a lower tax rate than the US. Hear that, USA? Russia.
3. Segregate local taxes to set lands and move programs to endowment funding with accountable trustees. End all these real estate and sales taxes. We could double the salary of every public servant by putting funds where users could watch it, people were rewarded for improvement suggestions. Homeowners and small business could rest easy in a tax-free environment. legalize private options of every kind. Some libertarian-loving economists confuse government with public and so write all day of how to privatize every road when the reality is we need to legalize private roads and democratize public easements away from politicized control by restoring endowments--and many things besides. Let us legalize such investment-oriented user-designed libertarian communities while were at it.

Sure, social adjustment may take a generation. That only means that by starting today in one generation coercive taxes can vanish and a variety of entities send you a check instead. Sure, every community might have a different spin. That's what libertarians are there for... to share the good work, remind us one-size-need not fit all,  suggest best practices, and keep things on-point as far as rights. So go: E-mail this. Translate it. Tell your friends. Meet with officials. Pester college departments. E-mail journalists and policy wonks. Talk to unions. Address community leaders. This is a starting point for dialogue leading to one discussion: How can we do this so it works for our community ?

As a US Citizen please excuse me for patriotically saying I don't want to hear as I grow older about how now Russians are having a ball with their libertopian social stipend and at last enjoying true communism thanks to capiatlism. I don't want to hear how some zero-tax micro-country is putting go-go private space colonies on Mars funded by their investments in the US while in the USA Americans still kill entire forests to print their ever-more bizarre tax forms motivated by piously funereal slogans. 

One thing I can guarantee as LIO co-ordinator:  2 million people in every country will have had the opportunity to read this already--and many are discussing how to beat the Americans in the Zero-to-Negative Tax Race.

It is time to prepare the funeral for coercive taxation and plan for our yearly and growing check at the wake besides as we bid this barbaric medieval remnant a tearless RIP . That's a funeral worth having.

RESOURCES:

• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1828&dat=19830224&id=3dMhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ip8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1359,3796903
• http://www.bestsyndication.com/2005/A-H/gilson-mike/092705-user-fees-taxes.htm

 LIO Welcome Host Ecuadorian Astronaut R. Nader in presentation.

As NASA continues to work with Virgin Galactic and other groups in paving the way for increased space privatization options, LIO Fellow and Welcome Host Astronaut Cmdr. Ron Nader did presentations on various systems at the recent International Astronautical Conference.

Cmdr Nader was highly instrumental in developing and publicizing the innovative Ecuadorian Space Agency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian_Civilian_Space_Agency which was designed as a civil agency with openness to many private options and non-tax funding from the beginning, and as an engine for peace and education:

"The Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program has three phases, Suborbital, Orbital and Lunar, in the first Suborbital phase, three manned missions are planned, the orbital phase has at least two manned missions and three unmanned missions and the Lunar phase is composed of four unmanned and one manned mission.

ESAA-01, the first suborbital mission is set for year 2012, it will be manned by Ronnie Nader and will carry two scientific experiments designed to study the radiation environment on the suborbital space zone. It is not clear from where the mission will take off, however some EXA executives have stated that, depending on some key factors, it is possible that the mission will launch from some point in the Ecuadorian coastal region.

This first phase employs a novel and ingenious scheme for low cost scientific access to space, renting the exclusive use of suborbital commercial space ships to develop this scientific missions, in order to be able to offer free or nearly no cost access to scientific research opportunities in space for Ecuadorian academic institutions. Other space agencies like NASA, have similar schemes for suborbital space scientific research like its Scientist Participant Suborbital Research Program this is due the convenience and low cost of renting commercial suborbital ships instead of developing and maintaining their own.

All the manned and unmanned missions for the Ecuadorian space program involve scientific experiments developed in the country; the objective, EXA has said, is the "Encourage the scientific and technological development of the country and to inspire the next generations of Ecuadorian scientists, engineers and explorers..." "

Space Enterprise was a book by the founders of International Space University, including Todd B. Hawley

The International Space University is gropwing, an innovative idea developed in conversations among LIO Fellows led by the late Todd B. Hawley.Hawley contacted LIO after reading a presentation summary by LIO Fellows at an Astronautical Conference advocating Space privatization and serious industrialization in 1977.From a task list arising from the effort he selected an international space education college and curriculum as essential, an idea that seemed mad  during the Cold War. Says his memorial site: :Todd was a visionary who believed in humanity's capability to open the space frontier as described by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Gerard K. O'Neill. He dedicated his life to fulfilling this vision, and in the process touched the lives of thousands of space leaders and entrepreneurs. "

RESOURCES:

1. http://www.isbnlib.com/isbn/0387776397/Space-enterprise-living-and-working-offworld-in-the-21st-century
2. http://www.isunet.edu/
3. http://www.celestis.com/memorial/founders/hawley.asp

  LIO curator and co-ordinator Michael Gilson-De Lemos met with LIO Fellows and other speakers or workshop leaders visioning low-cost, peaceful interstellar travel efforts and autonomous colonies of voluntary character 100 years from now. "The best way to change the future," he told participants, "is to make it." Here he and teen Libertarians in public office at session greet representative of Virgin Galactic, and later LIO Friends and others at Tau-Zero, NASA, Icarus Interstellar, DARPA  and other co-sponsors and participants. Unlike other conferences, it was opened free to the public, many of who participated in comment and brainstorm sessions.

 Libertarians and futurists worldwide praised a pioneering conference on the century long changes to launch interstellar starships to colonize planets in a peaceful way.

For some time LIO has been working for a conference open to the public to begin the needed development, especially private, for Stellar colonization, saying we need to think in terms of at least a century. Efforts first focused at the first 1977 conference on Private Space Industrialization, hosted by the American Astronautical Society at the behest of LIO Fellows Robert Heinlein and G. Harry Stine, with LIO Co-ordinator M. Gilson as a lead keynote speaker, along with other pioneers such as Robert Poole of Reason. This launched a trend for the needed generational and attitude changes for a world movement.

In this year's international Space Week on October 1 2011, this movement became a reality.

Over 100 Libertarians joined attendeess at http://www.100yss.org -- The 100 Year Starship™ Study Conference in Orlando, Florida, USA, which describes itself as: "...an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible.

The genesis of this study is to foster a rebirth of a sense of wonder among students, academia, industry, researchers and the general population to consider "why not" and to encourage them to tackle whole new classes of research and development related to all the issues surrounding long duration, long distance spaceflight. "

In the main session, after greetings from Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic with several astronauts and intellectual leaders, and a keynote update by Virgin representatives, workshops discussed:

>Long range support groups, required legal changes

>Private exploration and law systems

>Faster-than-Light (FTL) Travel research

>Current capabilities

>Century-long private funding

>Status of private-public spaceports

>Milestones for Solar colonization

>Training and international goodwill creating a cohesive culture to drive change-- a "Starfleet" set of groups

>Peaceful use and e.g. defense against asteroid collision, etc.

A long-term Libertarian contact group was created by attendees to be curated byr LIO with a web presence in due course. Mr. Gilson-De Lemos or "MG", LIO Co-ordinator, received a special cerificate of recognition for his work from Libertarians in a separate event. MG made a few remarks of thanks citing his ancestors who had developed the first expeditions past the Equator, discovering the New World, and proposing space travel: "... We were there in 1511, 1921, 1971 and '77, today--and will be there in 2111. Change is slow, but we've been doing this a very, very long time. No one here today doubts the great truth that people strive to be basically good. The Stars are the path to our future heritage, and we will all benefit from Libertarian tools in, as Washington said, a growing social spirit of Justice and Liberality among all peoples."

RESOURCES:

• http://www.tauzero.aero/index.html
• http://www.space.com/11200-nasa-100-year-starship-interstellar-travel.html
• http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=18076

Space Enthusiast, ecologist and champion of micro-entrepreneurship for change Ayodele Faiyetole is bringing solar light to rural schoolchildren in Africa.

 Ayodele Faiyetole who interacts at the LIO Fellows group is with team mates developing projects to, starting with micro-entrepreneurship, bring voluntary improvements and inspire similar work.

After founding a networking effort on Space issues for students from Africa, his current effort is focused on Innovations to Society, which is bringing low-cost solar lamps to rural Africa. See: http://innovationstosociety.org/

" Innovations to Society aims to address the needs of the least-advantaged two billion people in the world. Nearly all of these live in developing countries and lack things that people in first-world countries take for granted -- such as access to electricity or clean energy, clean water, and basic medical services...Our approach is to strongly push high-impact technologies that are suited for particular regions...Employees of MTN Nigeria, through their cooperative society, MTN...Employees Multipurpose Cooperative Society (MEMCOS) have employed one of our functional solar lamps for their schoolkids...Innovations to Society (ITS) solar lamps are efficient, environment-friendly, and produces bright and clean lighting,...(one) also charges varieties of cell phones and other handheld devices..."

LIO Friends and many Libertarians are encouraging a world movement to devolve failing coerced programs or at least not block private and voluntary ones, plus pave the way for voluntary ones to empower the disadvantaged and share information.

Ayodele holds a M.Sc. (Space Management) from International Space University, France. He is the 2009 winner of the prestigious Todd B. Hawley Space Visionary Award, named after the LIO Fellow who carried out the LIO concept of an international space university among other innovations and help found the first privately funded successful space venture, Celestis.  Ayodele is also a Federal Overseas scholar, and has been hailed as a young light in space education efforts for African youth and Pan-African understanding. While LIO does not endorse efforts per se, interested persons are welcome to look at the effort as a model or donate at the site.

 RESOURCES:

• http://ayodelefaiyetole.emurse.com/
• http://www.celestis.com/memorial/founders/hawley.asp
• http://www.isunet.edu/ ISU

LIO Fellow Mike Barr, who served on a local public office on Soil & Water Board, is leading a local movement where people are working on ecological issues, volunteering, and property rights protection. LIO Friends have been working to remove coercive laws against urgan gardens, farms, and community garden co-ops.

LIO Friends, in the LIO network for SMILE activists, are communicating worldwide on spreading personal autonomy tools in urban mutual help and self-support while driving or helping coalitions against an array of problematic policies. Targeted are rules against:

• Urban gardens and farms; communities such as the Venus Project
• Community gardens and home or co-op food production
• Rules forbidding helping the Homeless without government sanction

The problem is worldwide, either from sudden enforcement of once dormant laws to misguided efforts to regulate traditional home food production from raw milk to pies for friends and neighbors, to police arresting people for buying food for the Homeless. At the same time over 30,000 activists worldwide have directly or indirectly received links to helpful tools. In addition, work is increasing to better communication on rules favoring polluters by undermining property rights. Many Libertarians and others in the US are getting involved in local boards to address these issues such as Barr, who was the subject of articles such as : See: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-12-28/news/barr28_1_mike-barr-soil-and-water-environmentalist  and has served to inspire many people. Says the Sentinel:

" Barr's efforts as chairman of the county soil and water board earned him more than a grudging respect from the county's elected leaders, all Republicans....In a scant four years Barr went from being persona non grata -- the Libertarian-dominated conservation district board was kicked out of the county services building -- to being publicly honored by the commission....During his tenure from 2002 to 2006, Barr helped turn a do-nothing board into one of the most innovative and successful soil and water conservation districts in Florida. In November, the County Commission honored him with a proclamation." Also : http://www.libertarianinternational.org/apps/blog/show/787326-us-libs-green-u-s-soil-and-water-boards   

RESOURCES::

• http://squarefootgardening.com/?gclid=CNvvh6OUwKsCFQ1b7Aod6jN8qw Square Foot Gardens
• http://www.urbanfarm.org/
• http://www.urbangardensweb.com/
• http://www.verticalfarm.com/
• http://www.thevenusproject.com/

Libertarian concepts of space privatization and localization continue as NASA announces stepped up use of more voluntary-oriented private ventures as "a support entity" for asteroid and other use --while Spaceport America, a state-level venture to create a private-public spaceport in New Mexico, USA, is nearing 90% completion. The link is at: http://www.spaceportamerica.com/

The efforts represent a far cry from when LIO Fellows persuaded the American Astronautical Society in 1977 to sponsor a conference to study private space industrialization and colonization. The conference concluded with the then revolutionary proposal that centralized government agencies should give way to increased voluntary and private companies or at least local ventures, and proceed as a tool for peace. In 1990 LIO Fellows hosted workshops to make state level spaceports and asteroid mining a  reality, and encouraged visioning of autonomous space colonies.

In future years LIO Fellows and activists will be working on bringing interest in low-cost planetary and interstellar space colonization and development minimizing coercive government involvement, replacing uninsured government regulation for private insurance and liability, and international protocols to assure peaceful use and ending space junk. Other countries such as Mexico are examining space freeports and another US state, Virginia, has a spaceport as well: http://www.marsspaceport.com/

RESOURCE:

The Third Industrial Revolution, G. Harry Stine.

News today that there is additional evidence of FTL or Faster than Light particles was greeted by encouragement from many Libertarians and the LIO/Libertarian International Organization curator. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos  LIO Fellow Dr. Richard Feynman sponsored a private colloquia 2 decades ago to encourage scientists to look into the matter.

The matter is of great interest to LIO curator Michael Gilson-De Lemos, (MG) who in 1976 wrote a controversial thinkpiece noting that the speed limit lacked direct physical demonstration from the nature of space-time itself, and suggesting it was more of the nature of the once common view thatl no typical material could go faster than sound. "It is like epicycles in Ptolemaic Theory. All the evidence was for them, as means to predict planetary motions, except there was no proof of the epicycles or why they had to be. The theory described but did not define."

LIO Fellow Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry also encouraged the visioning process, saying that "There is a real cultural barrier on the subject and challenging it has become academic suicide," suggesting that even if it was a barrier in some sense it could be circumvented by e.g. possible warp or other drives that changed the structure of underlying space-time. Roddenberry and MG worked with Feynman to bring in hand young scientists who might put the matter on a sounder basis.

LIO takes no position on technical matters but encourages voluntary efforts to examine evidence, especially when there appeares to be a taboo on the subject.

People in Asia open new local project thanks to Openworld: http://www.openworld.com where Somali activists and Libertarians are not only fighting for a better Somalia on a democratic-localist and market model free of the remnants of government and other imposed terror, but spreading tools worldwide for improvement based on their insights and advice of development experts on voluntary options.

 (See earlier article on Somalia and Somaliland below)

A Somali Investor inspired by Libertarian development tools and an LIO Fellow are among those at work using the concepts and the web to empower under-served people around the globe, and hope their work will inspire similar efforts. Among other items, users are informed by tools of Libertarian choice, Liberal tolerance, and progressive action to implement the needs of the users in simple and cost-effective ways.

Soleman Abdi Idd, founding Chairman of Openworld Inc., is a Somali-born investor and entrepreneur active in private sector environmental initiatives, ecotourism, agricultural ventures, and free economic zone development in Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East.

LIO Fellow Mark Frazier, Openworld's President, has experience in developing market-oriented initiatives for private and public sector clients in 56 countries. A graduate of Harvard University and former Visiting Fellow of the Lehrman Institute, he is a past publisher and managing editor of Reason magazine as well as cofounder of the Local Government Center, springboard for Reason Foundation's privatization practice. He specializes in economic reforms, free zones for knowledge industries, sustainability strategies for self-help groups, and skills diffusion initiatives in emerging economies.

GROWING LIST OF PROJECTS

The group networks volunteers, investors, people with proposals and contributors who simply like the concept. Among the projects underway, according to the site:

>The Horizon Lanka Academy in Sri Lanka. Openworld and its partners are helping to fund microscholarships, work-study projects, student creation of eLessons, and a dedicated internet connection for a pioneering private school launched on a volunteer basis in rural in Sri Lanka. The project has attracted diaspora funding for land grant and building endowments to help ensure its future, and gained national media and political support as an example for villages across the country.

>eCenters and Microscholarship Funds in Kyrgyzstan. With support from the Academy for Educational Development and a $100,000 catalytic microvoucher challenge grant from USAID, Openworld has assisted private telecenter operators in this Central Asian country in extending online learning and certification opportunities at grassroots levels, following local commitment of land grants as endowments for ongoing microscholarship funds. A multimedia presentation on their progress -- with more than 5000 microvoucher recipients over the first 18 months -- can be seen here.

>Strategy development for Business Parks and eGovernment initiatives in Eastern Europe. In response to the growing interest of municipalities in private sector-led eCenters and Business and Technology Parks, Openworld and its partners have been working with communities to design "quickstart" facilities and development tenders for land grant concessions that offer liberalized business climates.

VIRTUAL TOOLS

In addition, Openworld is extending catalytic offers of microscholarships, work-study projects, and in-kind contributions -- including video cameras, notebook computers, and software -- to local self-help initiatives interested in endowing microvoucher funds and "eAcademies" through land grants in Somaliland, Gabon, and Haiti.

Openworld and its partners also have a range of online projects to promote sustainable eLearning opportunities and to support private sector-led projects that can generate resources for local microscholarship funds. These include:

>Launching an "Assisting Entrepreneurial Schools" portal with resources for market-based learning alternatives to succeed, including information on microscholarship funds, land grants, and opportunities to engage students as designers/co-owners of new for profit schools and eLearning ventures;

>Preparing a Virtual Business Incubator CD - with funding from USAID's Regional Competitiveness Initiative - for jobseekers and freelancers in Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro to find projects in rapidly-growing online free markets for telework (click here to request a copy);

>Offering "Openworld Presenter" freeware/shareware authoring tools for creation of eLessons that can fill gaps in existing educational systems;

>Using free Skype internet calling software for diaspora and other volunteer faculty to offer online "English as a Second Language" practice sessions for schools serving poor communities;

>Working with FLOW -- an emerging movement for liberating the entrepreneurial spirit and focusing it on the goals of sustainable peace, prosperity, and happiness -- to engage students in cross-cultural exchange to understand and develop Openworld approaches to local social and economic development; and

>Providing digital toolkits in international and local languages for private development of eAcademies, eCenters and Technology Parks around the world on a success-sharing basis with nonprofit organizations.

>Click the siute for more on tools for e.g. global eAcademies , Bulgarian eCenters and Business/Technology Parks, and Krygyz eCenters.

Said LIO curator Michael Gilson-De Lemos: "You can teach someone to fish, or show  how to fish--or best of all teach how to start a fish farm. In my opinion the combination of such networking sites and making assistance programs non-coercive and better accountable make the Libertarian approach-- of dialogue for international understanding while ending poverty and teaching wealth creation so the free markets and intentional community or co-op proejects are a ready tool, not a mystery-- a growing reality to end humanity's true foes: poverty, ignorance, and mutual fear. We heartly encourage interest in such projects especially of people reaching across borders to share their experience where it may help others." 

LIO Welcome Host Ecuadorian Astronaut Commander Ron Nader embodies, as a non-partisan advocate of peace and education of under-served youth, LIO interests in dialogue on voluntary approaches, global multi-culturalism, future and proactive focus, and  respect for the aspirations of each individual to do great things.

As some leaders predict a centuries-long "War on Terror" and declining civil liberties it may be we need to re-vision. What will "foreign policy " be a century from now? Will we, 100 years from now, leave these problems behind?

In 1976 LIO began to network a series of workshops to re-orient humanity away from the cold war and towards peaceful and private colonization of space and the sea respectful of non-human life and ecologies, and voluntary public programs. We're beginning to see the results after a generation of discussion, private experimentation, and massive changes in attitude: If LIO Libertarians have anything to do with it, in the future  'foreign policy'  will be merely formal as humanity unites in peaceful development of space with growing legalization of voluntary and non-coercive means...prepares space arks for stellar colonies...debates the prospects of FTL or Faster than Light speed travel...and begin by highlighting and spreading projects for just that that are well underway, many catalyzed or supported by LIO Friends  as can be seen from the X-Prize lists at:

• A list of X -prize general items @ http://space.xprize.org/
•  http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

For example:

• The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth.
• The Ansari X PRIZE, won by Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites in 2004, was a $10 million competition to build a privately funded craft that reaches a sub-orbit of 100 km twice in two weeks.
• The X PRIZE Cup is an annual two day air and space expo designed to bring together all sections of the aerospace industry to demonstrate their capabilities for the general public.
• The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X CHALLENGE is a two-level, two million dollar competition requiring a vehicle to simulate trips between the moon’s surface and lunar orbit.
• Thanks to Lib-led legal simplification, private space Mars ventures are under discussion, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/21/musk_mars_dragon_claim/
• Prodded by private envisioning groups, now NASA is discussing inter-stellar travel as part of the debate: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/24/nasas-100-year-starship-project-sets-sights-interstellar-travel/

In addition, cultural change is accelerating:

• Many US States have begun work on private-public Spaceports
• Movies such as Avatar, widely prasied by Libertarians and Liberals as showing how we should not proceed, show a deepening public discourse
• Science Fiction stories that re-envision government as a center of information along lines proposed by Madison, playing a modest and advisory role for a peaceful and educated society
• Meetinmgs by policymakers to prevent areas of conflict in space use and invite co-operation and private involvement on a voluntary scale
• Growing involvement is itself an engine for peace and public information.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

>Encourage a local workshop on your community 100 years from now as a peaceful community

>Examine policies that may be hindering development and choices

Along with insterest in voluntarist Seastead and colonies in the Ocean, LIO Libertarian activists and Friends are working to lead or promote coastal eco-parks with no unsafe offshore drilling, and homesteaded fisheries and no-go zones to better preserve sea life:

• A group in Florida is working to make the offshore a park area of around 500 miles, with insured and third-party monitored (instead of regulated) safe drilling. In time residents may also homestead areas for receational purposes and boat living atomatically with their landed Florida homestead..
• In Asia activists have saved species and small fisherman from over-fishing by favored companies by advancing homesteaded zones owned by local communities, trusts to preserve certain species, or native families.
• Activists are working worldwide on no-go zones as mid-ocean parks to cobat dead zones, and to encourage courts to adopt a zero-toerance pollution policy of all shores, rivers. Governments, usually through corporate monopolies, special laws preventing court lawsuits,  or military porograms, account for over 90% of the pollution, say many experts and bodies including the US GAO.

Says the LIO curator: "We would not pollute the family swimming pool or pond for ducks and fish. The ocerans are the family swimming pool and pond of the children of Earth. A system of dialogue and contractual entities is already showing the way."

LIO Fan turned Fellow Christina Tobin discusses election improvements with Mr. Grayson, Kentucky, USA Secretary of State.

LIO fans continue expanding their work in bringing low-requirement and fair ballots and elections to every country. One target is the US itself, where Libertarians have been chipping away at laws over 4 decades that made third parties difficult until a few years ago...but much remains to be done. Christina Tobin co-ordinates various coalitions and efforts in the US that work for fair ballot access and elections, inspiring many worldwide to work to improve democracies on a non-partisan basis to better citizen participation.

Common ballot problems, advocates say, include nonsense requirements, unrealistic signature levels, ill-trained officials, bizarre party qualifications, and openly hostile legislation.

RESOURCES:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Tobin
• http://www.freeandequal.org/

Brazil's 'Super-Green' Mayor Antanas Mockus helped citizens work wonders with 'market-friendly' Green policies and community problem solving groups. He now leads a consulting venture, has spoken at Harvard, and has run for President, sparking further reform: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/03.11/01-mockus.html

Extreme Conservative and pseudo-Libertarian critics of Libertarianism love to claim Libertarians should get practical, stop talking about philosophy, avoid 'extreme' ideas, recognize democracy and freedom conflict,  and join the conservatives to attack everyone else in expensive campaigns. They apparently have not met Columbia's Antanas Mockus.

Philosopher, past University President  and mathematical theorist Mayor Antanas Mockus who, as a Green, emphasizes his trans-partisan and collaborative posture, has revitalized transpartisan use of Libertarian tools doing things by 'unleashing people power' many Libertarian advocates elsewhere might otherwise fear pre-mature. As mayor of the capital, Bogota, in two non-consecutive terms, he evidenced Libertarian tools that:

•  De-localized governance to thousands of local 1000 voter or less problem solving groups who quickly found methods to do more with less taxes
• Abolished the police force for volunteer watches and the 7000 local groups, with the result of plummeting crime and incidents ( the municipal force was retained), including 70% drop in murders
• Leadership by example and incident focus activities--derided as stunts by an uncomprehending media--that cut water waste, domestic violence and traffic incidents dramatically
• Market /choice based policies that kept unemployment rates stable despite worsening conditions elsewhere and helped cut taxes and rules
• Voluntary taxes increased revenues 10% covering projects proposed by the groups, massively increasing sewer and water services, for example.

Mockus is one of the growing number of  non-partisan "non-Libertarian Libertarians in public office" who use Libertarian-oriented devolution, best practice, and choice tools as a starting point of study by citizen groups that, when empowered to look at all the data, put them to work. Continuing his work with the new mayor, the result was  to "...in less than 10 years turned one of the world's most dangerous, violent and corrupt capitals into a peaceful model city populated by caring citizens" according to the promotion of a movie on him. Mockus felt this worked well with Green Values of localism and more.

His consulting group at http://www.corpovisionarios.com/ continues the work internationally. Page down at our site for similar stories of mayors and public officials using LIO and Libertarian tools.

For decades LIO's Milton Friedman worked on issues internationally from abolishing the draft to freeing up markets and ending poverty with limited government tools. Now his relative Patri Friedman is an LIO Fellow and helping people discuss how to bring more societal choice through small and designed community tools, especially free cities and new mini-countries. In addition, his network includes people working on cleaning up the oceans and other ecological issues using market or voluntary tools.

Friedman has brought together interested activists from around the world to study and present commercially viable sea communities and alternatives such as charter communities. He invites those interested to join his groups and monitor and contribute with the many intellectuals, business investors, and interested consumers involved. The LIO encourages general use of Libertarian and voluntaristic tools to design innovative and stabilizing communities, eco-villages and co-housing experiments, and dialogue on clean oceans with residential but minimal industrial or drilling use by e.g. coastal eco-parks with both common and family permenent seastead use.

The USA has over 15,000 competing governments, and people increasingly accept that once territorially based public services can be privatized by firms or non-profit groups and offered locally or on the market e.g. phone service co-operatives  or competing cell phone companies instead of a state monopoly as existed before Libertarians got involved. In addition, Libertarians have driven a relaxation of localism impediments leading to an explosion of designed communities and housing co-operatives in e.g. the US  that act with whatever level of governance participants desire. Many feel what the Friedman group is studying is an important next step.

RESOURCES:

• http://www.seasteading.org/blogs/main/2010/12/03/the-future-free-cities-conference-2011-announcement Seasteading
• http://athousandnations.com/ Cambrian Explosion in Governance
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkdqqpkDVyQ Eco-village ideas
• http://www.projectkaisei.org/ Clean oceans

Direct Democracy expert Prof. Ted Becker advises DDI projects.

The Libertarian International Organization is encouraging rights activists to work for dialogue on DDI in all countries--the combination of Direct Democracy, citizen Initiative including plebiscite and referenda, MMP (mixed-member proportional, or at large by party legislative representatives additional to direct by district  ones) representation, and eased ballot requirements--as essential to citizen participation, official accountability, and implementation by direct citizen authorization of e.g. Libertarian voluntary options. Dialogue may include devolution of decisions to local neighborhood levels, as is done in parts of the US, Switzerland, and elsewhere where Direct Democracy is equivalent to the vote, a system praised by Thomas Jefferson and others (typically of 1000 voters). The LIO encourages both individually-decided public programs, and where there is a consensus a range of communities as designed or as desired by the users on the local level, consistent with respect for rights and voluntary participation.

WHAT IS NEW

The LIO has started a conversation that DDI should be treated as a political priority, and  as structurally essential and implemented in every country on local-regional levels and national or federal levels where devolution does not apply. In addition, encouragement includes the concept that citizens should be able to e.g. set governmental budgets in their own homes by a simple system of check-offs, enjoy electronic or Tele-democracy voting, and dialogue on other innovations.

Many countries have become aware that these are desirable components of open governance and improved social quality through accountability. New Zealand, including at the instance of LIO Libertarian activist initiated coalitions, has adopted MMP with good results; Florida, USA has direct citizen amendment of the constitution creating a more choice-oriented trend in public policy championed by LIO activists; and many countries have dramatically eased ballot requirements creating a wave of independent and 'third party' candidates. Many intentional communities use forms of DDI as well.

Neither Direct Democracy nor other methods may be understood as means of oppression or subversion of rights: typical experience has shown an independent judiciary and citizen education is adequate protection. In practice, as is seen in countries such as Switzerland, DDI best facilitates obliging a social dialogue, removing corrupt officials or racket rule, increasing citizen involvement and education, and building consensus in setting policies for increased choice or better management.  In addition, elements such as fair ballot access are basic, and quickly implemented or improved where there is DDI.

LIO Fellow and international DDI champion Prof. Ted Becker and others have developed valuable websites to network and inform activists and policy leaders. The autonomous LIO registered public administration project will focus on moving to help citizens if desired implement DDI/MMP as first priority; then use these for ballot access improvements and authorize Libertarian choices in each area and improve Liberal localism and other improvements desired by citizens; and ease proportionately representative elected officals, facilitating a natural political dialogue and evolution at whatever pace the electorate deems comfortable. Dialogue includes this be developed as a non-partisan effort involving joint support by all parties and groups.

RESOURCES:

> http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/

> https://fp.auburn.edu/tann/ (Tele-democracy)

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_member_proportional_representation MMP

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy DDI across the globe

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communes_of_Switzerland Swiss communes

>  http://www.iandrinstitute.org/ US status

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

> Form a coalition to improve along these lines in your area or country

> Dialogue on multi-party common ground

Libertarian International Organization Fellow General Robert Richardson III strategized on space defense, outer space migration, and peaceful end of Communist and other dictatorships through clever citizen diplomacy.

Retired US Air Force founding figure Brigadier General  Robert Richardson III passed away. The honorary co-ordinator of the Public Safety Advisory Group of the LIO--succeeding Salvador Marariaga, father of the Europen Community--he led an LIO contact group to bring pro-Libertarian ideas and help citizens move away from dictatorships, and organized a Citizen Advisory council with many LIO Advisors that developed the SDI process and also made many recommendations on moving towards more privatized outer space frameworks. A biography is at: http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6901 Names of the Group are kept confidential until they pass on.

He co-chaired a task group with LIO Advisory Board Chair emeritus Ralph Swanson and the "10 ruthless men" a sub-contact group of the LIO that networked and included figures such as A. Fisher, Boris Yeltsin and Ronald Reagan to discuss ways of promoting "re-structuring" towards citizen participation, think tanks of economic Libertarianism in every country, and conversion of nuclear missiles to planetary defense and peaceful energy fuel as exists today outside of national defense institutions; eventuating also in things such as the Atlas Research foundation and think tank network. The group was led by then LIO Advisory chair William Rogers, a noted American diplomatist and legal resource, and longtime intimate of the past two and current LIO curators. The General in recent years had become a staunch advocate of space colonization and groups such as http://www.spacetransportation.us/index.php to introduce space privatization ideas, and welcomed rcent construction of state level spaceports as in New Mexico.

See also:

http://www.highfrontier.org/Highfrontier/index.html

Somalia=Libertarian Paradise? It's coming, say determined activists.

Somalia broke apart starting in 1989 into chaos due to what many feel was misguided US government interference to impose a 'friendly' right-wing Islamist regime under color of 'democracy' and centralization. Local Libertarians were murdered in their beds by government thugs, and to add insult to injury, corrupt or incompetent US media apologists derided Somalia as a 'Libertarian Paradise' showing the evil of 'Libertarian anarchism'  and 'market fundamentalism.'

Somali Libertarians and Liberals met with LIO advisors and worked to use Libertarian tools to in their words 're-route' the situation, and have stabilized part of the country using secession tools in a breakaway region, Somaliland, which now enjoys democratic reforms, rising incomes and a freer economy ( see:  http://www.somalilandgov.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaliland ). In the remaining Somalia LIO Advisor Michael Van Notten travelled the country after an analysis of the original proto-Libertarian clan-supervised Somali law system, the Xeer (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeer ), to meet with elders on using the practices to circumvent corrupt officials and provide free, low cost justice and stability and enable dialogue. One area, Awdal, has proposed additional autonomy.

The Somali group  has now begun a long term networking project in Somalia to build a consensus to move towards a Somaliland model. In addition, an LIO Advisor is working on projects to help develop entrepreneurship and dialogue which will be profiled later this year.

  New LIO Welcome Host and Board Observer Commander Astronaut Ron Nader developed an independent Civil Space Agency for Ecuador.

In 1977, LIO Board members, led by US Space pioneer and science publicists G. Harry Stine,  successfully pushed for the first conference on private outer space colonization, hosted by the American Astronautical Society in San Francisco. LIO co-ordinator/international curator and facilitator Michael Gilson-De Lemos presented a critical and eye-opening overview, along with many Libertarians such as Robert Poole and other experts and visionaries saying it was time to get beyond the coercive paradigm and explore opportunities for civic action and entrepreneurs. The effort has lead to:

• Simple standards for space projects in the US
• The first spaceports built privately under state sponsorship
• Numerous conferences on peaceful colonization, and interest among entrepreneurs

Now news sources say billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson recently stated that Virgin Galactic is on track to offer commercial space travel within 18 months, and that space hotels are next on the drawing board. The project's SpaceshipTwo, an aircraft built by aviation engineer Burt Rutan and designed to carry paying customers into suborbital space, had its maiden flight in the California desert in March."We just finished building SpaceShipTwo. We are 18 months away from taking people into space," Branson told a business conference in Kuala Lumpur, adding that the fare will start at 200,000 dollars.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100927-virgin-launch-space-tourism-18-months

To encourage the day when we will see a new frontier of privately-driven, low-cost, safe space colonization by peaceful humans respectful of rights, and general interest in Science and its peaceful uses by young persons worldwide especially in developing countries, along the lines of the "Star Trek Universe" delineated by former LIO advisor Gene Roddenberry (as opposed to the nightmarish cautionary tale of the movie Avatar) we salute our new LIO Welcome Host among the astronauts, scientists, authors and and homesteading proponents on our advisory board, Commander Ron Nader.

Resources:

• Relation of seasteading and spacesteading ( http://seasteading.org/interact/forums/community/introductions/hello-seasteaders )
• Wiki article overview ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_colonization )
• RPPI Spaceport page ( http://reason.org/search/results/?cx=000107342346889757597%3All4jwmwz-2e&cof=FORID%3A11&q=space+ports#514 )