Windsor Liberty Seminar Video

For those who missed this year's Windsor Liberty Seminar, or did attend and want to see it again, here are the videos of the four talks. This was our first outing with the new camcorder, future attempts will feature better lighting.

The day started off with Dr. Fred Miller (Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University) giving an excellent talk on the philosophy of liberty with emphasis on the ideas of Aristotle.



Next up was Malkin Dare, President of the Society for Quality Education. Malkin explained how school choice makes education better for all of us.



We returned from lunch to hear Jim Watkin of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition evaluate North American drug policy.



And our last speaker of the day was Brett Skinner, the Fraser Insitute's Director of Pharmaceutical and Health Policy Studies. Brett's explanation of how liberty and individualism can improve the Canadian system is a must-see for anyone concerned about health care.

peter kormos is after my kidneys, frank klees wants to bribe me with health care and driving privileges.

You can call libertarians alarmist all you want when we're talking about the encroaching state, but when the government starts talking about having a right to your organs by default, all I'm saying is that maybe you might want to start listening to us.
(Granted, it's just the opposition talking about it now, but I have faith in Smitherman to pick the most freedom-hating option.)

And Frank? What the hell? Didn't this guy want private health care a few short years ago?

Klees says the law would create jobs for bureaucrats promote awareness. So why not just print off a bunch of posters and pamphlets and distribute them to the local library? Because in Ontario, it's acceptable to withhold government monopolized services to force consent.

If the purpose of a driver's license is to ensure that you're a safe driver, then why on Earth would it have anything to do with your organ donation or high school education intentions? And I guess now, if you carry the bill through logically, you have a univeral right to health care... so long as you do what we want.

(Of course, if all the government wanted was for everyone to have access to health care and education, they would have just subsidized insurance and tuition... but I digress.)

Credit for the quote and a hat tip go to The London Fog. If you don't read them, you should.

x-posted to Liberty is Good

UPDATE: due to a long, drawn out argument with Matt, I am refining the title of my post.

feds charging huge markup on pot

The Canadian Press reports today that Health Canada is charging patients fifteen times what they pay for medicinal marijuana.

...the Access to Information Act show that Health Canada pays $328.75 for each kilogram of bulk medical marijuana produced by Prairie Plant Systems Inc. ... [and] sells the marijuana to a small group of authorized users for $150 – plusGST – for each 30-gram bag of ground-up flowering tops, with a strength of up to 14 per cent THC, the main active ingredient. That works out to $5,000 for each kilogram, or a markup of more than 1,500 per cent.

Sure, it's lower than street prices, but never forget that the only reason street prices are as high as they are in the first place is that the government continues to fight legalisation. Even with the sin taxes that would likely be piled on the base price of legal pot it's unlikely that people would be paying what these pain patients are if pot was sold in an open market.

Don't think for a second that typical government bureaucratic stupidity doesn't have a hand in this. Health Canada pays a ludicrous packaging fee of $9.06 for each 30-gram package to the suppliers. No one is going to convince me that I can buy an EggMcMuffin for $2.64 and that pays for the food (with egg market control),
packaging, labour and a profit but Health Canada can't find someone who will package some dried leaves for less than $9.

Thankfully, most medicinal marijuana users can grow their own pot and avoid these
ridiculous fees, but - here's a shocker - the government is planning to phase out all other suppliers but its own "sometime after 2007."

(I'll let you insert your own joke equating the government with the organized crime they think they're fighting via the drug war.)

x-posted to Bureaucrash and Liberty is Good.

Another LSS music picture collage video

Paul over at Blue Blogging Soapbox put a second video together. His YouTubing skills are better than mine, since I stil haven't figured out how he got the photos to look so clear. Enjoy!

LSS Theme Song

Yes, believe it or not, the Liberty Summer Seminar (happening August 18, 19) has an official theme song. A theme song. You know, like a TV show. Lindy, who rocks, put this song together yesterday, and I did my best to put together a slide show for everyone (can you do better? Help us by putting together a video for the song yourself!)

You can check it out here (YouTube):



Or here (Google Video):

tattoos and liberty

I'm considering getting a tattoo of ama-gi, the earliest known writing of the word "freedom" and was trying to find out if the Ontario tattoo industry was regulated or not, since if it was I would go to Michigan, where the industry is unregulated.

I texted my friend, who has a bunch of tattoos, is best friends with the girlfriend of a tattoo artist and worked in a tattoo parlour for a while, to ask her if the industry was regulated. She responded to say that she didn't know, but, being the caring friend that she is, gave me a list of questions I should ask anywhere I go to verify that their equipment is safe.

She asked why I was asking, and I told her that, on principle, I wanted to get my freedom tattoo in an unregulated tattoo parlour. She responded, "So, on principle you want to get hepatitis?"

I couldn't help but laugh, half out of amusement and half out of sadness.

Let's face it: it's a very sad thing that people, even people who have been working in and using an industry that is not regulated by the government, assume that a lack of government regulation implies a lack of safety.

We went back and forth for a while on whether or not government regulation discourages people to ask the questions about safety, whether or not it would cause someone concerned about safety to stop asking those questions, whether or not government regulation stops the (already very rare) infection of hepatitis through dirty tattoo parlour needles, and such.

Finally, I had an epiphany. I texted her: "It's important to me that where I go is being safe because they think it's important to be safe, and not because they're doing the absolute minimum the government says they have to do."

And I think that's at the heart of the libertarian argument against regulation.

Government regulations take away our vigilance for our own well-being and the rewards that should be enjoyed by people who are willing to go the extra mile with their business through a declaration that all businesses are acceptable in their eyes. It's a terrible injustice; in fact the epiphany probably put me one step closer to a pro-tattoo decision.

(x-posted to Bureaucrash and Liberty is Good.)

What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing really, but it's certainly a foreign concept to most Canadians.

This picture was taken at the Great Lakes Crossing Mall in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Look above the 5 and you'll see that a hospital is giving money to a shopping mall. Quite the opposite to the situation where local people and businesses are being begged to make voluntary donations on top of their taxes in support of an sustainable healthcare system.

Clearly this hospital is making bad financial decisions. I mean with all that money being spent on advertising their service must suffer. Just think of the shortages of beds, doctors, nurses and supplies. I imagine the wait in their Emergency Room goes on for days.

Oh. Maybe these guys are onto something with the whole "competition" thing after all.

H/T: To photog Janet Neilson.

Help Lindy win

ILS' good friend Lindy Vopnfjord has entered a contest. He's entered his band, MajorMaker, co-fronted by Todor Kobakov, into Yahoo's "Up Yours" music contest. The reward is a stack of money, a contract with Universal Canada, studio time, and other goodies. You can help them win and get more attention (which they richly deserve).

How? Watch their video, rate them, and leave a comment. Then send the link to your friends, and encourage them to vote too. Here's the vid (follow this link if this doesn't work for you):



Lindy played the 2004 and 2006 Liberty Summer Seminar (and has agreed to come and play at this year's Liberty Summer Seminar on the August 18, 19 weekend--check out our facebook group and let us know you're coming!).

Do help. His stuff is awesome.