"Human freedom is today threatened by regimented statism."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower, October 12, 1948

As Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence of John Hancock et al in 1776 from King George III's Great Britain, and the Revolutionary War fought to replace British rule, it's worth exploring how liberty has been and can be achieved without resorting to the initiation of force.

Voluntaryists are members of the libertarian movement who seek to achieve a free society without resorting to electoral politics. Nonviolent resistance, perhaps most famously associated with Ghandi's ultimately successful bid to end British rule in India, involves many strategies libertarians can use to triumph over tyranny.

Given the substantial electoral barriers incumbent political parties have erected to protect their power and privilege, libertarians are rediscovering how to promote virtue through "social change."

"So long as libertarians withhold their consent from conservative politicians, those politicians can't win."

--Ryan Sager, columnist and blogger for the New York Post and RealClearPolitics.com

In the American political theory classic, Federalist 10, author James Madison proposed controls on the effects of factions:

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote.
...
Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan scheme of oppression most Americans live under today arose as the result of the single-member district plurality voting systems that underlie almost all elections in the United States, which has yielded two dominant political factions. Combined with the advent of "log rolling" -- a technique through which legislators poorly monitored by voters behave in ways that are costly to citizens -- the two-party system has managed to defeat the U.S. Constitution's checks and balances against "the interested combinations of the majority."

A modern example of the majoritarian erosion of constitutional barriers is the receipt of "significant income" from government programs by more than half of all Americans. In other words, the tax eaters -- both from the political left and political right -- outnumber the taxpayers.

How might those who champion the cause of liberty restore the free America envisioned by its founders; an American society as described in Federalist 51 "broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority"?

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."
--H.L. Mencken

As the handiwork of the 2007 General Session of the State of Utah's Legislature comes online, Utahns have until April 29th to find the exits, or prepare for the next assault upon civil society by the political class.

One tool used by the members of civil society to protect against institutionalized aggression is the jury, an assembly of citizens selected randomly to resolve disputes.

Is it time for juries to make a comeback in the defense of individual liberty?

Random acts of liberty

The classic film "12 Angry Men" dramatizes how one juror can save the citizen accused from being wrongfully convicted.

And because election-rigging Republicans and Democrats continue to cheat all Americans out of more competitive and representative means to choose lawmakers, randomly-selected jurors are among the few individuals who can stop the enforcement of an unjust law.

The Fully Informed Jury Association is one organization working to raise awareness of a juror's powers.

But what if a juror is unaware of his or her power to evaluate the law?

"Big Brother is Watching You"
--From a poster in George Orwell's 1984

Those who defend the ability of the political class to peek into the most private affairs of ordinary Americans routinely invoke the mantra, "I have nothing to hide."

Of the few problems with this standard, one is that the political class regularly enlarges the list of outlawed conduct beyond common law injuries to persons or property. Armed with such a list, nosy neighbors can lead to busybody law enforcement and petty prosecutions.

More importantly, by what authority does the political class claim the right to intrude into your life to investigate wrongdoing? And who watches the watchers?

[Nota bene: Following some the links from this essay is probably not a good idea in a shared work environment. And if for no other reason than not being a boor, it's probably not a good idea to discuss the topic of this post with your co-workers ... unless your co-workers happen to produce a "morning zoo" genre radio program. ;-) Please exercise discretion.]

Let's talk about sex.

I recently participated in a panel discussion among Utah political party leaders on KCPW's "Midday Metro." Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson hosted the program.

During our discussion, Mayor Anderson asked Deanna Taylor of the Desert Greens about the impact Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential bid arguably had on Al Gore's Democratic Party presidential bid. Did Nader spoil the race for Gore and elect George W. Bush?

Many Greens believe that spoiling Democrats like Gore is preferable to electing Democrats like Gore.

SALT LAKE CITY – The April 21, 2006 deadline for the first Fair Representation Challenge to Utah's colleges and universities passed without any entries, according to the Libertarian Party of Utah.

As a result, the $1,000 intended to be donated to the general scholarship fund of the winning school remains unawarded this year.

However, the LPUtah's Chairman Rob Latham will ask his party leadership to authorize the award next year.

"Our desire to encourage the use of more competitive and representative electoral systems at Utah colleges and universities remains the same," says Latham.

April 19th is a storied date in American history and the fight for freedom. The "shot heard 'round the world" that started the American Revolution was fired in Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775.

In Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993, a raid by federal agents left 76 people dead.

Motivated by the events in Waco, Timothy McVeigh admitted to participating in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that left 168 people dead exactly two years later.

Unable to remove from their hands the metaphorical blood of innocent Afghanis, Iraqis, and misled U.S. soldiers, Utah neoconservatives have turned their attention to undermining fair elections in Salt Lake County.

The neocon presence in Salt Lake County, much less Utah, hasn't received significant coverage by members of the local mainstream media -- some of whom oftentimes seem content to take an uncritical approach and cheerlead when on press tours sponsored by members of the military-industrial complex.

Although I received some initial interest from several students at Utah’s colleges and universities since the initial launch of the Fair Representation Challenge last summer, I have yet to hear of any efforts to make student body elections more competitive and representative.

Recently, the Salt Lake Branch of the NAACP warmly received Larry Miller in connection with the $1,000 scholarship he annually offers the organization, despite the “Brokeback Mountain” flap.