The philosophy of liberty

This says it all:

The Philosophy of Liberty is really the best, most concise, and most understandable explanation I have seen of how to determine what is right and wrong in the realm of politics.  Any law that cannot be justified on the basis of these principles is unjust.  Any time a freedom lover, anarchist, libertarian, or voluntaryist justifies force to violate these principles, he or she is making a terrible mistake.

I've seen people in these camps (or this camp) occasionally veer off of these principles for causes that might seem "left-wing" or "right-wing" or might not seem to fit into either category.  At the same time, I've seen people who've never even seen this presentation follow these principles perfectly.  This is what libertarianism is about (and all those other groups I listed above).  This is what morality is about.  Everything else involves initiating force against people who have done nothing wrong.

Armistice Day / St. Martin's Day

Today is Armistice Day, a day for celebrating the only thing worth celebrating about war: when it's over.

Today's a good day to go read about The Christmas Truce.  Maybe even view Joyeux Noël.

More great viewing today is this amazing cartoon from 1939: Peace on Earth.  Or its 1955 remake, Good Will to Men.  Perhaps those who lived through the disastrous great wars of the twentieth century did not worship warfare as we are sometimes led to believe.

Today is also St. Martin's Day, honoring Martin of Tours, who refused to continue to fight in Caesar's army after he became a Christian.  Martin later opposed execution as a punishment for heresy, rightly recognizing that Christians could not support using the state to punish religious error.

Checks and balances

There are no genuine checks and balances in the American political system.  The only genuine check and balance would be "I don't have to give you my check if I do not agree with your agenda."  Since in the American system, the minority are forced to comply with the agenda of the majority, if only for a few years, there is no check and balance on government power, and as we have seen for over two hundred years, it grows without limit.

Imagine a world where nobody had to pay for a war they did not approve of.