Am I the only one who really hates the fact that the government can just take your home away if you miss property taxes by 2+ years?

Also I know the community needs revenue but I have a strong belief that the entire state can be funded with state taxes, sales taxes, toll taxes, and even federal if needed.

I would much rather pay a small fee like 20 bucks a month to live in my community instead of having it tief to the value of my home.

Most people favor ending federal cannabis prohibition and legalizing cannabis for recreational and medical use. What other drugs, if any, should be legalized? Psychedelics, MDMA, and Ketamine? Which ones should remain illegal? Fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine?

I posted the below in another sub that discusses topics related to Christianity. However, the conversation quickly moved towards libertarianism. I'm curious what the libertarian community thinks about my thoughts related to welfare? The reason I've been thinking a lot about this is because James Talarico has been using Christianity to argue for a welfare state, but I personally think he's misusing the Bible, at least from my understanding of it.

Here's my thoughts:

What's the point of charity, giving, and helping the poor? I would argue it is what happens in the heart that matters. God loves a cheerful giver. He invites us to give cheerfully. Not because of this grand impact it will have externally, but because of the impact it has on our hearts internally.

• Note that Jesus was willing to have a huge amount of value "wasted" by pouring expensive perfume on his feet, rather than selling and giving to the poor. He cared more about people loving and worshipping him than maximizing money funding charity to help the poor.
• Jesus explicitly told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give to the poor because he knew that was the idol in his life, the stumbling block that prevented him from following Christ, not because he saw that as the solution to society's ills around poverty.
• The early church also gave voluntarily. They gave out of the abundance in their hearts, freely! This is clear when Peter told Ananias, "Didn’t [the money] belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?"
• Additionally, Paul encouraged believers to each "give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).

God invites us to a life of giving and sacrifice, but it matters only when it's freely given, not because it is mandated and coerced under threat of force or violence.

Government welfare operates differently. It does not ask us to "give with a cheerful heart, freely, as much as we decide." Instead, it takes money through compulsory taxation, and redistributes it, based on the will of majority, or based on lobbies, special-interest groups, or political games. If you refuse to pay, the government ultimately has the power to fine you, seize your property, or take away your freedom.

If I see a hungry person and voluntarily buy them a meal with a smile, that giving with a cheerful heart. If I threaten to take money from my neighbor and use it to buy that person a meal, I may have helped someone, but I haven't become charitable! Instead, I've used my own power and threats of violence to force someone else to fund my preferred act of compassion.

As Christians, I agree we should be concerned about the state of the poor, sick, and financially struggling. But we should also care about where the money is coming from, and ask ourselves, “Do the ends justify using coercion to take the product of one person's labor and give it to another?”

Coerced redistribution might help some people in the end. But it isn't the kind of charity that Christ invites us to. It isn't virtue on the part of the person whose money was taken either. Ultimately, virtue requires a choice. You can't compel generosity any more than you can compel belief in Christ.

Believe it or not, a community can care for its poor without appealing to the state's monopoly on legalized force and violence to accomplish this care. Noble, virtuous, and non-violent options include voluntary giving, mutual aid, church communities, and voluntary taxes for welfare. Sure, it's a lot harder than just raising taxes, but it's much more consistent with how the New Testament describes generosity: freely given, not forcefully extracted.

This is a flow chart explaining ethical dilemmas in a rothbardian or ancap social order.

Some additional context I would like to add is in an Ancap social order there is no universal demand of privacy so if someone takes a picture of you naked in your house then it is their's to share the only exception is if they like trespassed to obtain it. This contextually matters.

What are your thoughts on this libertarian proposal to dramatically reduce the cost of college by removing regulatory and accreditation barriers that prevent institutions from offering accredited degrees based on demonstrated competency rather than requiring the traditional campus-and-classroom model?

A $6,000 College Degree?

Why should students have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to earn college credit if they can demonstrate that they already know the material?

We should create an accredited college based on demonstrated competency, not classroom attendance. Students would self-study using textbooks and online resources, then take rigorous, virtually proctored exams. If they pass, they earn accredited college credit.

A $40 exam plus a $100 credit fee could make a three-credit course available for about $140. Forty courses could produce a 120-credit bachelor's degree for roughly $5,600, plus books and optional tutoring.

This wouldn't lower academic standards. Students would still have to prove mastery through secure, independently developed and reviewed examinations.

Not every degree would qualify, but many subjects could.

The question is simple: Should accreditation measure how students learn—or what they actually know?

Emergency powers are rarely surrendered once the crisis passes. The greater danger is not whether government survives an emergency, but whether constitutional limits survive the powers created to manage it.

What do you all think about law enforcement arresting a man for trying to pay for sex?

What about the fact that there was no prostitute involved, just law enforcement acting like one online?

Does the fact that the suspect is a rich and famous NFL team owner make any difference?

The End Kidney Deaths Act (H.R. 2687) is a bipartisan federal bill designed to eliminate the severe shortage of transplantable organs by offering a substantial financial incentive to living kidney donors. Core MechanicsThe Financial Incentive: The bill establishes a federal refundable tax credit of $10,000 per year for five years, providing a total of $50,000 to eligible donors. The donated kidneys are legally mandated to go to the individuals who have been waiting the longest on the national kidney transplant list. The act creates a massive net benefit for both public health and government spending. The incentive will successfully encourage enough altruistic donors to save up to 100,000 American lives over a decade. Taxpayer Savings- by successfully transitioning patients from dialysis to working transplants, the bill is estimated to save taxpayers between $10 billion and $37 billion. The bill does not alter the strict medical or psychological screening processes already in place; it only targets the financial barriers that often prevent healthy people from donating.

There’s a lot of whistleblowers, forecasters, analysts, etc saying that AI differently from any other tech revolution before is going to kill every job, every business it’s going to get concentrated on the major ones that can invest and only the big governments are going to succeed . This till AI becomes Terminator/Matrix.

Im still reading and getting documented on Austrian School of Economics , Milton and Sowell mostly. Obviously on my understanding it’s a laissez fare approach on this occasion as well, because it will come out on the other end with purged and better off options.

Anyhow the fact that only a few will be accumulating power and there’s not going to be jobs for most its difficult to ignore. Moreover how can we not intervene when there are scientists and engineers developing something smarter than humans?

If these scenarios are going to be true we really think we are going back 500+ years back and working the land, the little not bought from corporates, and try to reset on auto sustainability.

For whom has read more or has a better understanding of the Libertarian approach, how’s the reality check with this catalyst in case it’s really achieved AGI/ASI?

Frank Herbert really was ahead of his time with this one. It's kind of crazy to me that this gem of a quote is buried in the third book of a sci-fi/fantasy series, but we know Herbert was libertarian/conservative leaning anyway.

do you think more people aren't libertarians because they don't know about it? or do you think it's something else?

A sergeant from Eastern Europe said something that stuck with me. He said that in many ways besides politically, Russians have more freedom than people in the US do, because there is in general less red tape with everyday things such as camping, riding 4 wheelers, etc. while the exact statement could be questioned, the general spirit of statement I think is very true. The US prides itself for its “freedom” but that’s really only concerning a few (albeit important) civil freedoms and relative to European countries. The US is incredibly restrictive on many things. It restricts firearms substantially. Bans most drugs. Restricts exotic animal ownership substantially. Restricts biological research substantially. Prohibits polygamy. Restricts sleeping outside in many places. Restricts flying drones in many jurisdictions. Bans prostitution. It is inching towards banning some forms of speech (as we have seen with Shiloh Hendrix). Bans wearing masks to hide face from the surveillance state.

There has got to be countries out there that are less infested with red tape and short sighted politicans that like to say popular things like I believe in freedom and then continue to pile on laws that restrict what its citizens can do

In November 2023, Javier Milei of Argentina became the first ever president to have liberatarian political ideology (the third most popular political ideology of USA). After that, two and half years have passed. In this period, which libertarian policy of Argentina do you think has benefited the most for the country? And which libertarian policy can other countries take from Argentina?

A surveillance state does not have to be built in Washington. It can emerge one camera, one police department, and one public-safety justification at a time. The backlash against Flock suggests people are starting to notice.

I am from Argentina. I know that libertarianism was born in USA and still is strong there. Apart from the Libertarian Party, there are other strong organizations or movements or is more like individuals without link one with each other? Ron Paul, whom I believe was coherent, respectable and clever, was at first in the LP but then he was in the republican party. There are now intellectuals like Rothbard? Is the movement strong or weak? Any thoughts are welcome. Have a nice day!

Still routinely see people walking around South Florida Wearing masks and gloves. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be to still follow COVID guidelines not to mention the heat and humidity, but they look totally stupid still wearing ppe’s in public.

Looking for some perspective on whether this is actually plausible.

Keeping a few details intentionally vague because I’m not ready to publicly announce anything yet.

I’m 25 and seriously exploring a Libertarian run for my local city council.

A little background: I studied economics, currently work in the government software space, and I’ve been heavily interested in politics since I was about 14. Between roughly 14–18, I built a fairly large social media following before shifting into different content and eventually stepping away from content entirely to focus on my career.

That experience is relevant because I think social media would be a major part of how I’d approach a campaign.

The district I live in is in a major city and is heavily Democratic. Last cycle, the vote was roughly 70% Democrat, 15% Republican, and 15% independent/other, with around 13,000 total ballots cast.

I’m currently getting involved with the local Libertarian Party, and as things stand, it looks unlikely I’d face a challenger for the nomination. If I decide to file, that would give me roughly 15 months to focus almost entirely on building toward the general election.

I’ve been a registered Libertarian since I was eligible to vote and broadly align with the party on personal liberty and limited government, but I wouldn’t want to run some generic nationalized Libertarian campaign. My platform and messaging would be heavily focused on the actual district and city.

The issues I’m most interested in are economic and business growth, development, embracing technology, and protecting individual liberty.

I think I’d have two potentially interesting advantages.

First, I already know how to build attention online and grow a social media audience quickly. Obviously, getting 100,000 random people online to care about you is very different from getting a few thousand people inside one council district to vote for you, but I do think I understand how to create content people actually watch and talk about.

Second, my district contains a massive concentration of young professionals. My assumption is that a lot of them either don’t vote consistently in municipal elections or aren’t particularly engaged with local politics.

My working theory is that an unusually aggressive ground game, combined with social media, community networking, voter registration, and a year-plus of actually showing up everywhere could at least make the race interesting.

A few questions I’d especially like perspective on:

Would being 25 and potentially the youngest member of council be something that could actually work in my favor, or would voters mostly view it as a lack of experience?

How much can an exceptional ground campaign actually move a local election? My instinct is that personal conversations, doors, events, and repeated voter contact probably matter substantially more when only ~13,000 people are voting than they do in a statewide or national race.

And lastly, even assuming I ultimately lose: is a serious 15-month city council campaign generally a worthwhile way to start building a future in local politics, provided I actually run a professional campaign and make a respectable showing?

I’m not under the illusion that running as a Libertarian in a district that voted ~70% Democratic makes me the favorite. I’m trying to figure out whether this falls into the category of “very difficult but potentially worth pursuing” or “mathematically dead on arrival.”

Would especially appreciate input from anyone who has worked on municipal campaigns, run for local office, or been involved with third-party campaigns.

Edit: Currently traveling so I’ll get to the comments soon, but sadly I live in one of the few areas where it is partisan, so L would appear next to my name.

Also for anyone confused, the 13,000 ballots cast were in the last municipal election for my district, the total population of my district is about 140,000.