This is a thread for the libertarian and libertarian leaning people on the board. If you don't agree fine ... but don't go derailing this thread's discussion point.



I find one of the bigger issues amongst those who strive for liberty is the fact that everybody is going in a gajillion different directions, and (unusually for this bunch of people) usually not applying good cost benefit analysis. I've given it some thought ... and here, broadly, is my outline for what to do to maximize your liberty and everyone else's. I would like feedback/critique/criticism/patches/suggestions from those sympathetic to this viewpoint.


In decreasing order of impact (items appearing in multiple groups are intentional):


1) Defend Your Assets
Before you can help others or invest resources, you must first be in good enough shape to do so.

- Make your assets hard and diversified. Avoid bonds. Avoid CDs. Avoid large cash stores. Go for real estate. Go for diversified stocks.
- Diversify political risk. If your assets are all under one legal jurisdiction, you are beholden to the whims of one group of bureaucratic imbeciles.
- Hold dual citizenship as a way to rapidly transition assets in a worst case scenario. At minimum ... have a valid passport with the maximum length of time remaining on it possible.
- Have a marketable skill set that also works abroad. Know more than one language fluently. Have trade skills.
- Be proficient with privacy tech. Know and use VPN/SOCKS5/GPG and even Linux. Join the Free Software Foundation and Electronic Frontier Foundation to further open source tools along these lines.



2) Legal Investment
The fastest way to deal with bad law is to invalidate it legally. No buying of political scum required.

- Join the Institute for Justice
- Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Join Gun Owners of America


3) Policy Investment
The counter argument to a litany of bad policy that is pre-existing. These groups not only propose good policy and back it up with examples, fact, case studies, statistics, and more ... they actually educate the elected officials and can essentially do the hard policy work for them. Policy groups can pave a road so that is more readily followed by politicians (who, let's just be honest, tend to be pretty weak on policy).

- Join the CATO Institute
- Join the Reason Foundation
- Join Gun Owners of America
- Join the Goldwater Institute
- Join a think tank similar to CATO in your state (Mackinac Center, SC Policy Council, etc)
- Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation


4) Education Investment
What, you mean government run schools didn't teach you for crap much less even introduce you principles and philosophies which are counter to big government programs like the education system itself? Shocker.

- Join the Reason Foundation
- Subscribe to Reason Magazine
- Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Donate to the Mercatus Center
- Instead of arguing with people.... find common ground and then point them to news/op/ed at the Reason blog and tell them to check that site out. Follow up to get their thoughts. Either the facts will make a beach head and advance or they're going to be shut off competing information. Send them to somewhere like Reason before opting for more lengthy sitting material like Penn & Teller's bull**** or Stossel or The Independents.
- If you're Nielsen ... say you watch The Independents and Stossel on FBN on every new show.
- Refer people to Penn & Teller's bull****, Stossel, The Independents, Reason.TV


5) Political Investment
Go in with low expectations. It makes the constant losing easier to swallow. Free stuff is always popular at the ballot box. The prosperity and increased standard of living for all derived from freedom, capitalism, and work is far more abstract, difficult to understand, and doesn't provide immediate gratification.

- Go local. Your city and county council should be majority liberty before you even consider going after state and federal positions. Just somebody recording and documenting meetings at city and county councils can have enormous impact.
- Vote all available times. The earlier in the process you vote the bigger the impact you have. By the time primaries are over, usually the choice has already been effectively made.
- Support liberty profile candidates where ever they break through nationwide whenever they are in trouble or they are breaking through (Amash, Massie, Yoho, Sanford, etc, etc). Don't bother if their polling is bad. Even a maximum legal limit donation won't make up double digit polling issues ... that is up to the candidate to bridge a gap that big.
- In decided races, vote a liberty friendly third party whenever available.
- Volunteer for favorable candidates

Well not everybody at once now slow down.

Actually a well informed post, thanks Gtech. Also for empty nest types who have
a lot of equity in you home. Sell it take the profit. Find a strong city urban yuppy area,
but a small apartment building or duplex, buy it and move into 1 of the units. The other
tenants pay your debt service and mortgage. You can also be picky and rent only to good
tenants.

I dont disagree with any of that. I am however tired at this point of even caring. It seem no matter what steps I take towards my own personal liberty..some fcker is standing there in the way. I am just at this point trying to protect my assets from confiscation and keeping my head down. I actually believe we have crossed our Rubicon. From here the water is circling the drain and very little can be done to stop it.

It's hard to convince people to go against their pocket book. I see the Liberty movement however making tremendous gains.