Free Market Analysis of the Current Financial Crisis

http://www.youtube.com/v/pHIlr77NF8I&hl

The War on Drugs, A War on Ourselves

Few people will argue taking a product out of the violent and shady depths of the black market is a bad thing. However, when the product in question is a drug, most people have a much different response. It’s hardly a secret that the biggest beneficiaries of drug prohibition have always been the drug dealers themselves. Any lessons learned from the epic failure of alcohol prohibition in the last century were apparently forgotten. We are all familiar with the notorious gangsters of the 1920’s such as Al Capone making millions from black market ventures. Today the situation is no different. Every time access to a drug is restricted, the gangs get more power and more money. All of a sudden, these restricted drugs are being sold underground (using more toxic ingredients) and many more people die from overdoses. When the drug dealers are taken off the street today, it merely opens up a new job opportunity for someone else. If a shipment of drugs is seized, the price of the other drugs goes up and the users will just turn to robbery to cover the extra expense. Removing arbitrary restrictions on substances will destroy these gangs and save countless lives. Fortunately, citizens in some states have woken up to this fact but are running into opposition from government. Why could this be? Aren’t those in government supposed to be on our side?

While most law enforcement workers genuinely care for the well-being of the citizenry, the departments they work for care most about funding. This is where the War on Drugs helps these departments. Bureaucracies naturally want to grow larger in staff and in responsibility. Officers working for the government are put in a position where they need to make more drug arrests to maintain funding for their ever-growing departments. After all, what city needs a bloated police department when there is a decrease in crime? The Drug War provides many convenient sources of alternate funding. Police departments can seize the property of anyone they claim to be involved in illicit activities even when no charges have been filed thanks to asset forfeiture laws. These assets can include homes, vehicles, loose cash, drugs, and valuable weapons. In other words, the police get nice cut of the action and don’t want to give that up.

Having a serious discussion about this issue with a politician is like discussing their extramarital affairs; politicians just won’t do it. In fact, an affair is much more accepted by the public than any admitted, past drug use. When politicians talk about the war on drugs, they speak of it in the same terms as the war on terror. This makes sense. Both wars were “declared” against non-human entities, and both were designed to increase support for unpopular presidential administrations. Both wars give excuses for undermining 4th amendment rights and corrupting the justice system. Also, both wars lack clearly defined goals or benchmarks for success. Therefore, it is imperative that the opponents of both wars take a stand together in the name of reason and of decency to question the motives of politicians and authorities.

How to become a Ron Paul delegate

For Grand Forks County:

District Conventions have already taken place. If you are still interested in becoming a delegate, contact us ASAP as there are still some open seats.

If you are chosen to be a district delegate, you will attend the North Dakota GOP State Convention on March 28-30 at the Holiday Inn in Fargo. During the State Convention, a slate of nominees will be recommended by the Committee on Permanent Organization to be state delegates to the National Convention. Even though the Committee on Permanent Organization has chosen its preferred list of nominees, anyone may motion to nominate additional candidates from the floor. In order to be an eligible candidate for the National Convention, however, you must have submitted a delegate application by March 10, 2008. Twenty-six delegates and twenty-three alternates will be sent from the State Convention to the National Convention.

Finally, the GOP National Convention will be held in Minneapolis, MN, on September 1-4, 2008. The statewide Presidential Caucus results require all North Dakota national delegates to vote accordingly on the FIRST ballot ONLY. After the first ballot, delegates are free to vote for any presidential candidate at their own discretion. This is why it is so important to have Ron Paul supporters as national delegates!

If you are confused and the poorly drawn image below is not helping you, feel free to email me at alyssa.snyder@und.edu.

Meeting for Supporters of Dr. Ron Paul

Next meeting:
Saturday, January 12, 2008 @ 11:00AM
SWANSON 10-12, basement of Memorial Union

The College Libertarians will be hosting a meeting this Saturday in the Memorial Union. Our guest speaker will be Charlene Nelson, North Dakota State Coordinator of the Ron Paul campaign. Charlene will be explaining the North Dakota caucus process and delegating leadership roles to those who are interested. We also have some campaign materials available.

This will be a combined meeting with the College Republicans, the UND Students for Ron Paul Facebook group, the Grand Forks Ron Paul MeetUp Group, and Grand Forks community members that support Ron Paul.

We really hope you can attend. We are expecting a large turnout!

If you have (or decide to make) a Facebook account, you can RSVP here.

How the Justice System Works

by Jeffrey A. Tucker

"If you think about it, it is inherently implausible that the state could be an effective administrator of justice, for which there is a supply and demand like any other good. Shortages, inefficiencies, arbitrariness, and underlying chaos all around are going to be inherent in the attempt.

Because we are dealing here with the meting out of coercion, we can add that inhumane treatment and outright cruelty are also likely to be an inherent part of the system."

Full Article @ LRC

Dakota Free Press

We are looking for contributors for the College Libertarian Newspaper and Website (name not finalized yet). Anyone is welcome to submit content, we have had several volunteers so far. Topics will include, but are not limited to:

• Education
  
• Gun Rights
• Health care
  
• Middle East
• Internet censorship/activism
  
• War on Drugs

Also, perhaps a section on Music and Film and international news...

Meeting

Just to yet everyone know, there will be a meeting next week on Wednesday the (26th) to discuss our formal response to the smoking ban. It will be in the Alumni room in the Union at 7:00pm.

The next week on the 1st, we have a meeting scheduled with the student body president and vice president to give our group's opinion regarding the ban. It will be at 11am at the student government office. Anyone in the group can attend to give their viewpoints.

Why Does NASA continue to exist?

Google Sponsors Lunar X PRIZE To Create A Space Race For A New Generation


"The Google Lunar X PRIZE will challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The X PRIZE Foundation, best known for the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private suborbital spaceflight, is an educational nonprofit prize organization whose goal is to bring about radical breakthroughs to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today."



....and NASA continues to spend billions doing the same mission over and over again in the "international" space station. In fact, providing jobs for an army of bureaucrats is their main mission. They get paid the same whether they launch 50 rockets in a year or just 2. It's taken a few decades, but companies and private foundations are beginning to make satellite launches and space travel more affordable for the average man and woman. The exploration of space is awesome and exciting to a large majority of people. These are the people that should be funding it since they will make the best use of their own money. They'll actually get a chance to ride to earth orbit in their lifetime with new commercial space ventures such as Virgin Galactic instead of just watching some videos on television.



The bottom line is the development of space technology is far too important to be left to any government.