The Freedom Report

The Freedom Report takes on the difficult issue of policing our own today. After reports surfaced of two conspiracy theorists who went on a shooting rampage, killing two cops and a concealed carry owner, some people calling themselves libertarians claimed that the murderers were heroes. Left wing media outlets licked their lips in glee at the reports that killers Jerad and Amanda Miller were fans of Ron Paul, FreedomWorks, Rand Paul, and most notably conspiracy theorist supreme: Alex Jones.

Of course any fringe movement will attract lunatics. The communists in the 1960's had to deal with Lee Harvey Oswald killing the very anticommunist President John F Kennedy. But one of the leading progressives of the time, a man named Saul Alinsky, instructed his fellow socialists to cut their hair, wear a suit and infiltrate if they wanted to actually bring their ideas to power. But many libertarians have expressed hostility at people who suggest they should clean up their act and stop acting like freaks if they want to actually change things. Is it really statism to suggest that taking a shower before you go to an open carry event might be a good idea?

The Libertarian Republic Associate Editor Ian Huyett and Austin Petersen break down the difference between moral and legal responsibility for driving people insane, as well as deconstructs the idea of whether kooky fringe types are the majority of libertarians, or just a vocal minority. 

Austin Petersen speaks with Connor Boyack, a leading Mormon

libertarian and children’s author. Boyack’s book “The Tuttle Twins Learn About ‘The

Law’” – which can be purchased at tuttletwins.com -  is designed to help homeschoolers and other

liberty-minded parents introduce their children to the thinking of Frédéric

Bastiat.

Boyack talks about his work combating forcible entry and

bulk data collection in the Mormon environment of Utah.

He also announces, for the first time, the subject of his

next children’s book.

All that and more on the Freedom Report podcast. 

President Barack Obama is in hot water with members of his own party after Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) complained that the president did not inform her of the planned prisoner exchange. Feinstein was "surprised" and "dismay" that the transfers went ahead without her consultation "totally not following the law" in notifying the senatorial committee that is tasked with oversight of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Did the president violate the law in trading 5 Taliban commanders for POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl?

Fox News Contributor Charles Krauthammer claims that the president does have the authority to act unilaterally to perform a prisoner exchange. He argues that the congressional notification clause was meant to prevent the president from clearing out the entire base, not to stop him from a simple transfer. But Senator Marco Rubio of Florida disagrees, claiming that the president is acting like a monarch or an emperor in not fulfilling his obligations to notify congress that he was releasing prisoners from Gitmo.

Sgt. Bergdahl's former squad members have been taking turns pillorying him in the media, claiming that he deserted them and that their fellow soldiers died searching for him. The New York Times is reporting that Bergdahl left a note which stated his intentions in leaving his post. Some news outlets are also reporting that Bergdahl renounced his American citizenship.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave a speech to soldiers at Bagram Air Force base trying to extol the prisoner swap, but members of the military sat grim faced and silent over the news, seemingly unhappy with the deal that saw an alleged deserter traded for high level Taliban prisoners whose release could jeopardize American national security. President Obama is now backing away from claims that Sgt. Bergdahl served with "honor and distinction" as previously claimed.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has released a video of the hostage swap showing the dramatic helicopter evacuation of Sgt. Bergdahl. The Afghanistan based terror group is calling the entire operation a great success and declaring it a great victory against the United States.

Just what is going on in Washington D.C.? Find out on this exciting episode of the Freedom Report podcast!

Freed Prisoner of War Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl is slated to be promoted, fueling speculation about whether or not he will be court martialed after it was revealed by the New York Times that he left a note that allegedly confirms he deserted his platoon. Fellow platoon members have been speaking out against him, claiming that men died in the hunt for Sgt. Bergdahl and suggesting that he should be put on trial. 

Opponents of the Obama administration are rushing to condemn the president over the prisoner swap that saw five high-ranking Taliban commanders go free. Did Obama release Bergdahl to shield himself from the scandal at the Veterans Affairs administration? Has the president put the U.S. in danger by negotiations with terrorists? Did Obama break the law? 

All that and more on the Freedom Report podcast. 

The Washington Post dissected Reason Magazine editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie's article titled "Libertarianism 3.0," which analyzed three distinct epochs in the movement's history. 

Gillespie posits that the first wave spans the 1960's and 70's, when groups were deciding what it really meant to be a libertarian. Then the second wave, libertarianism 2.0 was the last thirty years, when the movement became its own separate ideological entity, distinct from a conservative movement that saw it as something of a red-headed step child. 

Now Gillespie sees the modern day movement as the third iteration, libertarianism 3.0, which he sees as following two distinct paths. The first path is the movement against identifying with a major party, which gives movement libertarians the ability to form short term coalitions with people who are of like mind on important issues. One example he draws is the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the senate version, the Protect Intellectual Property Act. Both of these initiatives were defeated by progressive/libertarian alliances. 

The second path is the infiltration of the GOP by liberty-loving types who are infusing the party with more socially tolerant views on issues. Gillespie believes that soon libertarians could be driving the agenda on social and fiscal issues in the future. But is he right? Could a libertarian/conservative alliance work alongside a progressive/libertarian coalition? Can we set aside our differences on a variety of issues to be able to team up in the important areas where we actually agree? 

All that and more on the Freedom Report podcast! 

Homeowner Byron Smith was convicted of premeditated murder and given two life sentences without chance of parole for shooting and killing two thieves who had repeatedly burgled his residence over the course of a summer.

Smith was convicted after a jury listened to an audio recording of the incident that the man had captured which revealed him laying a trap for the burglars and shooting them both after they broke into his basement where he had been hiding. Smith's rants after the shootings appear to paint him in a bad light due to the manner in which he first shot one burglar, then hid their body in a tarp, and then shot the other, finishing them off with extra shots and stating openly that he did it to make sure they would never come back to hurt him later.

So was his shooting of the burglars justified? And if not, what should have been the sentence? Surely not premeditated murder? All that and more on this episode of the Freedom Report podcast.

President Obama gave a speech at West Point recently where he discussed his administration's foreign policy agenda. The Washington Post wrote that the President's speech was a 'takedown' of Senator Rand Paul, claiming that the veiled messages were pointed jabs at 'isolationists' and 'realists.' 

Although he never mentioned Paul by name, Obama chastised those who claim that it's not our business what happens in places like Libya and Syria. The president acknowledged that the American public was war-weary, but cautioned that it should not stop us from continuing to engage in foreign entanglements. 

So is the job of the United States to forever play Team America: World Police? Or can the growing libertarian trend in America reign in the beast of the ever-growing federal government? 

All that and more on the Freedom Report podcast!

The Freedom Report podcast turns 100 today! 100 episodes that is. Today on the podcast we go back over the last year at The Libertarian Republic and discuss some of the greatest hits in the history of our show and website. Where were you when Belle Knox said that rough sex porn was empowering? Were you struggling with your WiFi to be able to listen to our show on the Satanic Black Mass? Did your head explode when Ambassador John Bolton said he was a libertarian?

This super special episode of the Freedom Report goes into the story of how The Libertarian Republic came to be, as well as the Freedom Report podcast. We talk about how many listeners have been tuning in (it's a lot!) and what stories everyone has really responded to the most. So if you're a fan, have a download and listen as assistant editor Ian Huyett and myself discuss liberty's greatest hits in the last year.

 

 

Was mass murderer Elliot Rodger a "kissless virgin" because he believed his "white male privilege" as a "nice guy" made him entitled to sex with a beautiful blonde girlfriend? Or was it because of his introverted, misanthropic life spent wasting away in video games and online forums that perpetuated his anti-social personality? 

The Freedom Report podcast today takes on the case in California where a disturbed 22-year-old  man murdered his roommates before driving to the University of California Santa Barbara to kill three more people. The media reaction has proven predictably insane on the level of the killer himself, with leftist rags proclaiming that the killer was motivated by his "white guy rage," while conveniently ignoring the fact that Rodger was half-Asian, and identified himself as more Asian than white. 

Meanwhile, the usual suspects of the feminazi community are engaging in their regularly appointed rounds of blood libel, aimed at Mens Rights activists in order to paint their activism as somehow responsible for the misogynistic hatred that Rodger displayed for blonde white women. Ignore the fact that the killer murdered more men than women and hated sexually active men just as much. You can always count on the feminist community to ignore the facts in order to confirm their irrational biases. 

So what caused Elliot Rodger to go postal in California? Listen to the Freedom Report and subscribe to us on iTunes for a fascinating discussion about Misogny, Men's Rights and Mass Murder. 

Editor's Note: In the podcast we speculate about reports that claimed that Rodger was seeing a therapist and was a high-functioning aspergers sufferer. The Libertarian Republic has learned that Rodger was never officially diagnosed with Aspergers, but his parents believed that he was. 

Chipotle announced that it would be disallowing the carrying of firearms on their premises, reversing their earlier trend of allowing peaceful gun owners to exercise their right to bear arms. The Bloomberg-backed Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense reacted to a photo of a fat neckbearded dude and a shorter hispanic guy bearing assault rifles on private property. The public relations disaster was a perfect storm for gun grabbers to paint the caricature of gun nuts, shoving their weapons in everyone's faces.

Marxist radical Saul Alinsky and his progressive followers successfully infiltrated the system by crafting a strategy aimed at bringing the middle class onboard. He argued against crude language, a defiant demeanor or a menacing appearance that suggested radicalism. That's why he disliked hippies and the counterculture of the 1960's.

Author Richard Poe wrote: “Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left for scaring off potential converts in Middle America. True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.”

Alinsky wrote that successful “Tactics must begin with the experience of the middle class, accepting their aversion to rudeness, vulgarity, and conflict. Start them easy, don’t scare them off.”

Are fat, neckbearded activists scaring off the middle class from those principles of liberty that so many others have fought and died for? All that and more on the Freedom Report podcast!