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Welcome to the July 2015 issue of the online newsletter of the Libertarian Party of Michigan, the Michigan Libertarian. The newsletter is our main vehicle for sharing what's happening for Libertarians in Michigan. You may manage your subscription by going here or visiting our Website www.michiganlp.org).

From Kimberly Moore
chair@michiganlp.org

“Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others. — Ambrose Bierce

Happy July, Everyone! A Letter from the Chair

Thank you to those who attended the Libertarian Party of Michigan 2015 Convention in Kalamazoo hosted by the South West Michigan Libertarian Party.

Wow, June has flown by and it seems there is still so much to accomplish by the end of summer! I hope everyone is enjoying the long days and much as I am.

As noted in the last letter, we held team meetings and set up a few goals, one of which is by September, knowing who will be hosting “Liberty Fest 2015” and where it will be held. We’re still in that process, so be sure to watch for the event announcements on our Facebook and webpage.

We have a few groups interested in becoming affiliates, and I can’t wait to see us welcome them! The areas working on start-ups are Genesee, Monroe, North East Lower (Alcona, Alpena, Cheboygan, Iosco & Presque Isle Counties), and Roscommon areas. We’re also getting ready to conduct another Web Master search. We’ll be posting the requirements soon, so if you’re interested, be on the lookout.

In addition we’re hoping to start calling our members and getting feedback of what they’d like to see from us over the next year. Please remember, a year goes by quickly and we do have a lot to do, so if you’d like to help, please take a look at how you can help and send an interest email or letter:

• Can you help get members in touch with each other? Or are you passionate about helping the party grow? We could use some people on the phones!

 

Membership Team - membership@michiganlp.org

• Interested in helping start an affiliate in your area?

Vice Chair - vicechair@michiganlp.org

• Are you interested in helping promote the party via marketing & media?

Send any liberty minded articles to newsletter@michiganlp.org by the 25th of each month or to: Secretary – secretary@michiganlp.org

• Good at coming up with fundraising ideas? This may be the place for you!

Treasurer – treasurer@michiganlp.org

• Do you like following the bills at the state and/or federal level? Want to run for office?

Political Team - politicaldirector@michiganlp.org

In the next month, we’ll be reaching out to the groups working on petitions involving marijuana and helping them with their efforts. We’ll also be discussing helping a local Flint Stop the Violence group in a back to school event they’ll be hosting in early September. Please consider helping out, as these both resonate with the party.

Watch your local affiliate news as well as our Facebook page and Website. “Let Liberty Live” rallies are gearing up for a month of fun activities and we’re going to let you know when and where.

Thank you for your time and have a Happy Independence Day and a wonderful July!

Kimberly Moore
LPM Chair

The People of the United States Personal Protection Order (PPO):
An article for Independence Day

If some of you haven’t been following Facebook, I’d like to show you a meme that’s been floating around (see the picture). It and others like it encourage us to be able to protect ourselves by any means possible because some people don’t care if you have a piece of paper.

So what’s the use of a PPO? With the force of the law, it tells an aggressor to stay away. It gives us the ability to call in help (law enforcement) to stop an aggressor without having to use possible violent and/or deadly force. It gives peace of mind, right?

Not so much. It’s JUST a piece of paper.  We should always be ready to defend ourselves and our loved ones.  

The meme shows armed protection.  Depending on the state you live in, to carry a weapon in public, you need a Concealed Weapons Permit (CWP). One thing the meme makes clear: the right to the ability to defend yourself against an aggressor.

At this point you may be asking yourself what a PPO has to do with Independence Day? Independence Day was when we filed our country’s PPO from England.  It’s the day that is recognized as the signing date of the Declaration of Independence.  In the same way a PPO is filing for freedom from harassment, the Declaration of Independence was the filing of freedom for the colonies in the New World.

Wait a sec… Did I just call the Declaration of Independence, “Just a Piece of Paper?” Yup.

It doesn’t mean this piece of paper didn’t, and doesn’t still, inspire us.  It doesn’t mean that it’s worthless.  It just means we have to use it properly. The aggressor in the case of the Declaration of Independence was England (the government body overseeing the colonies).  After the American Revolutionary War, the “stipulation” of the “PPO” came out several years later as the Constitution.  

Every PPO lists what the aggressor can and cannot do.  The Constitution does exactly that against government, and in the Bill of Rights we were all issued our CWP in the 2nd Amendment telling us we have the right to bear arms in order to defend ourselves against our aggressor.

The problem is we haven’t been enforcing the Declaration.  It calls us to remain vigilant and to make sure our aggressor doesn’t break the limits set for them.  However, we have let our aggressors break the line time and time again. Our representatives no longer represent us and therefore no longer help enforce the restrictions set in place by the Constitution.

This Independence Day, let us reclaim the power of our Declaration of Independence and start looking to those who will really enforce the boundaries of our PPO.  Stop looking to the same people who keep letting government break the line with less than a slap on the wrist.  Help the Libertarian Party of Michigan grow so we can help protect against these aggressors of liberty!  It’s time to regain our independence.

Kimberly Moore

By Irwin Haas

Sobriety, Academic Probity, and Why Don’t our Kentwood Cops Arrest These Prostitutes?

Sturgeon’s Revelation states that 90% of everything is crap, so I immediately detected odor (not the first whiff in the commission chambers that evening) when our highly-respected city judge proposed that his Kentwood court host a sobriety court. You know - the contrivances imposing substance abuse interventions and treatment on defendants who plead guilty of driving while intoxicated or impaired.

Some background: I had served on the Grand Rapids Mayors Task Force on Drugs 15 years ago and researched the scientific literature. There was only one good clinical trial and it showed that even a well-funded alcohol rehab trial was no better than threatening the miscreant with severe punishment if he were caught drunk again. Our judge cited some “case-control” studies (close to worthless, but convincing enough for the commission) to put me down. Some other political body would provide the $160k, and it was a partial return to Kentwood of taxes that would be sent elsewhere.  I voted “yes” with everyone else and he implemented the hustle. The judge was told that he should not expect ongoing funding from Kentwood when the 3-year grant ran out.

Not content with the status quo, the judge recently sent out a widely-noised study funded by “The Michigan Association of Treatment Court Professionals” which touted the Ignition Interlock Systems that detect alcohol on the breath of drunks and prevents them from starting their cars. He misinterpreted it as showing the effectiveness of sobriety courts.

The actual research focused only on Interlocks, commercial products imposed on clients in sobriety courts, as allegedly diminishing recidivism as well as other crimes. The authors, trying to bolster their argument, included not just one but two comparison groups, one from a sobriety court and the other from a court using traditional probationers. On page 40, you’ll notice that there is a scarce difference in alcohol recidivism between these two groups at 1,2, and at 3 years.

My point is not especially that sobriety courts are useless (although they are). The main researcher, (a professor from GVSU, my old haunt) was doing marketing work on Interlocks, a series of commercial products. He never gave the data comparing sobriety courts with standard probationers’ courts a second glance; it supported his objective on Interlocks, so he innocently reported raw data on sobriety courts. His job was to “Evaluate Interlocks. What are these sobriety courts?” Like many social science “studies” that get reported, this one showed a favorable result for Interlocks, just like previous studies that compared standard probationers courts to sobriety courts showed the superiority of the latter.

This study illustrates the degradation of enquiry in colleges and universities; most of what the social sciences investigate is thinly disguised marketing research done to please someone in business, the press or for our purposes, government.

Tools used to investigate human affairs, surveys, experiments with students as subjects, retrospective looks at large data bases and the like, always require investigator interpretation on input variables, what criteria and tools to use in analysis, and what studies to report. Negative studies never get reported. Publicity always gets a better deal than integrity, and a researcher who finds unfavorable answers, even once, loses funding.

Social science researchers tout their probity in the daylight. At night and in the dim lights of academic offices, the prostitutes want their money.

by Gene Healy (WashingtonExaminer.com)

We libertarians tend to think of ourselves as a tiny, embattled sect, ignored when we're not reviled. Lately, though -- with Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" shooting up the Amazon charts and Tea Partiers with "Don't Tread on Me" flags storming Capitol Hill -- there's increasing interest in figuring out how this strange tribe thinks.

A team of social psychologists, including the University of Virginia's Jonathan Haidt, provides some of the most detailed answers yet, putting libertarians on the couch in a new study, "Understanding Libertarian Morality."

"Libertarian morality?" you say. "Isn't that an oxymoron, like 'military intelligence' or 'law school talent show'?" No, smartass, it isn't. "Libertarians are not amoral," Haidt and his colleagues report. (Whew!) We simply have "a unique moral-psychological profile." That profile helps explain both why we can be hard to get along with and why we're needed, now more than ever.

Haidt et al. aren't engaged in the sort of judgmental head-shrinking-from-afar that often mars political debate. For several years now, at YourMorals.org, they've let self-described liberals, conservatives, and libertarians speak for themselves, by voluntarily taking a battery of psychological tests measuring personality characteristics, cognitive style, and moral values. Along the way, they've compiled the "largest dataset of psychological measures ever compiled on libertarians" -- with more than 10,000 respondents.

What they learned may sound familiar, if you've ever been cornered at a college kegger by a twitchy Randian who called you "anti-life" when you dutifully threw your cup in the recycling bin. Liberals and conservatives beat us handily on "agreeableness" and "extraversion." Libertarians tend to be dispassionate and cerebral, less likely to moralize based on gut reactions like disgust (one source, the authors suggest, of our disagreement with conservatives on social issues).

"We found strong support," they write, for the proposition that libertarians "will rely upon reason more -- and emotion less -- than will either liberals or conservatives." Blubbery Clintonian empathy isn't our bag, baby; we don't "feel your pain." Where "liberals have the most 'feminine' cognitive style ... libertarians have the most 'masculine.' " And where others often "rely on peripheral cues, such as how attractive or credible a speaker is," when formulating opinions, libertarians are more likely to pay "close attention to relevant arguments."

Conservatives routinely outscore liberals on measures of self-reported happiness (getting to rub that in makes conservative pundits even happier). Alas, per Haidt, et al., "Libertarians appear to be less satisfied with their lives when compared to liberals and conservatives."

The authors speculate that this may be due to relatively lower social connectedness: libertarians "score high on individualism, low on collectivism, and low on all other traits that involved bonding with, loving, or feeling a sense of common identity with others."

But I prefer the explanation offered by my friend John Hasnas in his essay, "What It Feels Like to Be a Libertarian." (First line? "I'll tell you: It feels bad.")

We're doomed, Cassandra-like, to predict the disastrous effects of government policy. It's "human nature," John writes, "to want to shoot the messenger," so we suffer "scorn and derision despite being inevitably proven correct by events." (We're not so modest, either).

Personally, I've found that a dark sense of humor makes for an effective coping mechanism. As Elvis Costello put it, "I used to be disgusted/Now I try to be amused."

Our looming fiscal crisis is no joke, however. As the bill for the party comes due, more and more Americans are looking to libertarians for answers. Sure, we're cantankerous and sarcastic -- anything but huggable -- and we can occasionally come off as cold. But we're firmly "reality based," and good at facing the hard truths.

Join the tribe!

Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of "The Cult of the Presidency."    

Scotty Boman

1. Public Service Announcements needed.  The Libertarian Party of Michigan is Seeking Public Service Announcement videos to be used on television.  Videos must be approved by the LEC before being used.  If you would like to create a video, please email scottyboman@hotmail.com for specifications.

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2. Our America Initiative.

LEGISLATORS SPOKEN TO AT LOBBY DAY

Michigan Director of 'Our America Initiative,' Scotty Boman, is organized a legislative action day. Bills of interest included (but were not limited to):

•  SB 13 to remove the 'straight ticket' option from the ballot: http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2015-SB-0013

• HB 4505 would require an agancy to prove the guilt of a person who's property is being taken under civil forfeture rules: 
http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2015-HB-4505

• HB 4210 a bill to legalize and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries under certain circumstances: 
http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2015-HB-4210

• HB 4240 to allow the placement of the Brass Roots plaque and a monument celebrating freedom of speech on capital grounds.  Expenses would be completely paid for by private sponsors: 
http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2015-HB-4240

• Support the introduction of legislation to allow utility customers to opt-out of so-called 'Smart Meters' without penalty:  http://michiganstopsmartmeters.com/2015/03/23/utility-meter-freedom-of-choice-amendment/

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Debate Inclusion Battle

OUR AMERICA INITIATIVE LAUNCHES FAIRDEBATES.COM

June 24, 2015, Salt Lake City, UT – Ramping up the fight to insure that the 2016 general election presidential debates include all qualified candidates, the Our America Initiative has launched a new website, FairDebates.com, to provide up-to-date information about the debates and opportunities to become engaged in the effort.'

Learn more about this effort at:

Declaration of Independence Quiz

Courtesy of ConstitutionFacts.com

1. When did the continental congress actually pass a resolution of independence?

A. July 1

B. July 1

C. July 3

D. July 4

2. Who was the main author of the declaration of independence?

A. John Adams

B. Benjamin Franklin

C. Thomas Jefferson

D. James Madison

3. Who was on the committee to draft the declaration?

A. Franklin, Jefferson, Sherman and Washington

B. Hamilton, Hancock, and Livingston

C. Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Livingston and Sherman

D. Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and Washington

4. Why did Adams ask Jefferson, the youngest on the committee, to draft a Declaration?

A. Jefferson had a reputation as an eloquent writer

B. Adams himself was unpopular and had to keep a low profile

C. Jefferson was the smartest man on the committee

D. Both A and B

5. Which did congress cut out of Jefferson’s draft of the declaration?

A. All references to slavery

B. Some references to women

C. A paragraph written in Latin

D. All references to religion

6. Which two key players in the history of the Declaration died on its 50th anniversary?

A. Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock

B. George Washington and John Adams

C. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

D. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams

7. At what meeting did delegates adopt the final draft of the Declaration of Independence?

A. The First Continental Congress

B. The Second Continental Congress

C. The Constitutional Convention

D. The Boston Tea Party

8. Who was king of Great Britain at the time the colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence?

A. George III

B. Elizabeth II

C. James I

D. Queen Victoria

9. How many people signed the Declaration of Independence?

A. 13

B. 26

C. 34

D. 56

10. Where is the Declaration of Independence displayed?

A. Assembly room of the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia

B. Library of Congress building in Washington, D.C.

C. National Archives building in Washington, D.C.

D. Liberty Hall in Philadelphia

11. Which of the following is not included in the Declaration of Independence?

A. Preamble

B. Declaration of Rights

C. A Bill of Indictment

D. Articles of Confederation

12. Which member of the committee who wrote the Declaration refused to sign it?

A. Thomas Jefferson

B. John Adams

C. Robert Livingston

D. Roger Sherman

13. Who were the youngest signers of the Declaration of Independence?

A. Edward Rutledge and Thomas Lynch Jr.

B. Thomas Jefferson and Roger Sherman

C. Benjamin Harrison and John Hancock

D. William Hooper and Alexander Hamilton

14. What was the name of the resolution passed on July 2nd declaring independence?

A. The Lee Resolution

B. The Independence Resolution

C. The Jefferson Resolution

D. The Deliverance Resolution

15. Who was not a member of the committee who wrote the Declaration?

A. Benjamin Franklin

B. James Madison

C. John Adams

D. Robert Livingston

16. How many grievances were listed in the Declaration of Independence?

A. 10

B. 27

C. 50

D. 95

17. According to the Declaration of Independence, where does government get its power?

A. From its constitution

B. From its military

C. From the elected representatives

D. From the consent of the governed

18. Most of the signers actually signed the Declaration of Independence on what date?

A. July 2

B. July 4

C. August 2

D. August 6

19. Which signers of the Declaration would later be elected president?

A. John Adams and John Hancock

B. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

C. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson

D. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison

20. What is written on the back of the Declaration of Independence?

A. There is nothing written on the back

B. There is a secret treasure map on the back

C. Original Declaration of Independence, Dated 4th July 1776

D. American History Document, Drawer 4

Answers: 1.B, 2.C, 3.C, 4.D, 5.A, 6.C, 7.B, 8.A, 9.D, 10.C, 11.D, 12.C, 13.A, 14.A, 15.B, 16.B, 17.D,18.C, 19.B,20.C

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"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty." — John Basil Barnhill (often incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson)

 

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Take a stroll down memory lane with this excerpt from one of the longest-running state Libertarian newsletters. Click on this link for the full online version of this newsletter.

Former editor and LPM archivist Greg Stempfle has compiled the entire body of available Michigan Libertarian newsletters up on this page of the LPM Website (most if not all of the newsletters have been transferred over to the new site if you have a particular issue you're interested in and it doesn't show up on the page, please contact Webmaster@michiganlp.org).

Check out the Independence Day (July 4) events for Wayne County and the Capital Area!

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More... For all events, see the full online calendar on the Website:
http://michiganlp.org/?page_id=61. Note for those who do not have online access, please contact your local affiliate representative or call the office at 1-888-FREENOW (373-3669) to get a description of events in your area. The Michigan Libertarian ONLINE is distributed on the first of each month. Send calendar events and news articles by the 25th of the prior month to: e-newsletter@michiganlp.org

 

Note: The final print edition of the Michigan Libertarian is available online at http://old.michiganlp.org/Past%20Newsletters/
Michigan%20Libertarian%2038.2%20summer%202009.pdf

 

The Michigan Libertarian is published/posted on the first of each month. Send calendar events and news/articles to e-newsletter@michiganlp.org by the 25th of the prior month. The Michigan Libertarian is one of the longest-running Libertarian newsletters in the country, debuting in 1973 shortly after the founding of the Libertarian Party of Michigan. The "new" Michigan Libertarian (a predominantly online version) debuted on August 1, 2009 and replaced the weekly LPMOnline and the printed-and-mailed ML.  We will post the newsletter on the Website and deliver via email on the first of every month. A printed version of the new Michigan Libertarian will be sent free to anyone who signs up, which you may do at the LPM web site www.michiganlp.org (or www.mi.lp.org).

LPM members who need a hard copy may request one be mailed to them by contacting
e-newsletter@michiganlp.org or calling the LPM toll-free number 888-Free-Now (888-373-3669). Subscribe/Unsubscribe to Newsletter [Note: Just send us a message via our Contact page, and we will add you to the list.] We respect all unsubscribe requests.

Newsletter URL (Webpage address for this issue of the ML):
201507_ML.html

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