What's next for the liberty movement?

[Bryan]

With Rand's campaign now behind us there have been questions about the next steps of the site and the liberty movement in general. How can we build towards liberty? What is the best thing to do?

These are questions that I have given serious thought to and there is a lot that I'd like to see done and be a part of. Real progress however is going to take a team effort so I am seeking site members who are interested in collaborating.


If you are potentially interested in collaborating on an initiative please send me a PM and we'll go from there.


Thank you.


Bryan

 

[Isaac Bickerstaff]

Right here

http://gersonforcongress.com/

 

[Southron]

Local/state elections have taken a back seat far too long IMO. I think most of the focus should be there. Good leaders will rise up from there.

 

[fr33]

Stop acting like the Republican party gives a shit about liberty. As far as bills go; we have nothing to show for it. As far as politicians go; we have Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash. What have they accomplished? Not much. No bills passed and a lot of "no" votes.

 

[sdsubball23]

Stop acting like the Republican party gives a shit about liberty. As far as bills go; we have nothing to show for it. As far as politicians go; we have Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash. What have they accomplished? Not much. No bills passed and a lot of "no" votes.

Individual members don't pass bills, it's a team effort. Unfortunately the team hasn't been passing some of the bills.

We need to build a good team that is on the same page.

Also, we have to find a way to influence the mainstream media. They are too powerful at shaping public opinion.

 

[groverblue]

I think that we all need to pull our resources and choose ONE liberty candidates to support for the Senate.

According to this article:

The folks over at MapLight recently used Federal Elections Commission data on the 2012 elections to work out just how much it costs to win a seat in Congress:

* House members, on average, each raised $1,689,580, an average of $2,315 every day during the 2012 cycle.
* Senators, on average, each raised $10,476,451, an average of $14,351 every day during the 2012 cycle.

Keep in mind that those number include the primary & general.

Can we get someone to challenge McCain or Graham?

So, ladies and gentlemen, let's choose wisely.

 

[hells_unicorn]

Stop acting like the Republican party gives a shit about liberty. As far as bills go; we have nothing to show for it. As far as politicians go; we have Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash. What have they accomplished? Not much. No bills passed and a lot of "no" votes.

You do realize that it takes a lot more than 1 senator and 2 congressmen to pass bills, right? The best you can hope for with such tiny numbers is a lot of "no" votes. Electing more people like them should be our chief aim, and doing so in the GOP makes a lot more sense than trying some futile 3rd party venture that will go nowhere.

 

[groverblue]

You do realize that it takes a lot more than 1 senator and 2 congressmen to pass bills, right? The best you can hope for with such tiny numbers is a lot of "no" votes. Electing more people like them should be our chief aim, and doing so in the GOP makes a lot more sense than trying some futile 3rd party venture that will go nowhere.

I agree. Third Party won't have any relevancy until we dismantle the Presidential Debate Commission that eliminates all third candidates.

 

[Bitcoin SEO Technologies]

Bryan, I'm a site administrator. I'd like to coordinate with whatever you have in mind.

And from the look of the polls this year, we have a lot of education to do.

 

[invisible]

Local/state elections have taken a back seat far too long IMO. I think most of the focus should be there. Good leaders will rise up from there.

THIS! Go with the advice that Ron Paul gave us back in 2008. Focus on getting more Ron / Rand supporters into office at the state and local levels, and of course a few more in Congress can't hurt. We've been making incremental gains in getting good people in office since 2008. We need more Massies, Amashes, Rands, Lees, Yohos, and Gunnys. Massie started out at the County level, and where is he now? When mitch retires, where do you think he will end up? THIS is how we win! Forget all about the Presidential race for this election, we can still get good candidates on the ballots in many places and chalk up wins this year while attention is focused on cruz / trump / sanders. Just go into midterm mode, like we've done here before in 2010 and 2014.

 

[IDefendThePlatform]

The best hope for actual progress towards liberty is the movements that bring liberty-minded people together in specific geographic areas. I'd like to see more about the multiple efforts currently doing this, as well as future projects:

- Free State Project
- Austin movement
- Peaceful parenting city (was somewhere in North Carolina or Tennessee I thought)
- Jeff Berwick Anarchist movement Acapulco, Mexico
- Free State Project West/Wyoming
- Galt's Gulch Chile
- Fort Galt Chile
- any new or proposed projects or concentrations of liberty-minded people (more choices lets more liberty activists find a good fit for themselves and increases everyone's impact)

There's been a lot of books written recently on the effectiveness and advantages of network/multiplier effects that cause certain industries to consolidate in the same geographic region (tech in Silicon Valley, finance in New York and Charlotte, music in Nashville, etc) and it's the same or even more pronounced for liberty activism. Not everyone can move but even people who stay in less active, less liberty friendly places can still contribute.

Its much, much more than just getting enough people in an area to win votes. The multiplier effects of living near other people working on solving the same problems is incredibly important and something the liberty movement absolutely needs to take advantage of.

 

[Dianne]

Stop acting like the Republican party gives a shit about liberty. As far as bills go; we have nothing to show for it. As far as politicians go; we have Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash. What have they accomplished? Not much. No bills passed and a lot of "no" votes.

Nothing passes because the rest of the Congress is bullshit. Our focus should be getting rid of these guys. Challengers to McConnell, Ryan, McCain, Graham, just to name a few, should be supported by us vigorously. Greg Brannon versus Richard Burr right now is a prime example of where energy should go. Let's take them down one at a time.

 

[Xerographica]

Its much, much more than just getting enough people in an area to win votes. The multiplier effects of living near other people working on solving the same problems is incredibly important and something the liberty movement absolutely needs to take advantage of.

I like that you mentioned multiplier effects... but it's "quaint" to believe that our two heads have to be in physical proximity to each other. Right now your head is in Iowa and my head is in California. Yet... here we are putting our heads together. Our two heads are better than one even though our heads are many miles apart.

What we can't do in this virtual space is spend. We can vote (rep)... but we can't spend. Does it make a difference that we can't spend? Well... it means that this virtual space isn't a market. Which is a problem because markets utilize infinitely more information than the alternative systems.

Imagine that every member on this forum was stranded together on an island. We could talk with each other... and rep each other... but we couldn't trade with each other. Would this be a good system? Of course not... it would be infinitely better if we could trade with each other. It would be infinitely better if we had a market on the island rather than a democracy.

It should be pretty straightforward that larger markets are better than smaller markets. No matter how large a physical market you created with libertarians... you could always create a larger virtual market.

Here are two way to turn this virtual space into a market...

1. Facilitate micropayments... Micropay, Vote Or Dance For Quality Content

2. Crowdfund advertisements. Right now the banner ad immediately above me says, "Building Futures... Medical Assistant". It's a stupid ad because it's entirely irrelevant to my preferences. Also... I'm guessing that these ads are the reason why this website utilizes so much of my computers resources. I just started writing this on another forum and, as a result, the resource usage plummeted.

Anyways, imagine if there was a page on this forum with links. I could paypal Bryan $5 dollars and he would add a link to my blog to the page. You could paypal Bryan $6 dollars and he would place a link to your blog above the link to my blog. If I received enough traffic from this website... then I would send Bryan another $5 dollars and he would place my link above your link. If somebody preferred your blog... then they could paypal Bryan and say, "Here's $5 dollars... add it to IDefendThePlatform's link."

The top 5 or so most funded links would be displayed on this website's homepage. Can you guess which links they would be? Why would you want to settle for guessing rather than knowing? Wouldn't you want to know which websites are the most valuable to the liberty movement? How could this information not be important?

All the liberty movement needs to do in order to win is to do a better job of accessing and utilizing the available information. Members of the liberty movement really don't need to be in the same general physical space in order to accomplish this. Thank goodness! All we need to do is to turn this virtual space into a market.

 

[IDefendThePlatform]

The best hope for actual progress towards liberty is the movements that bring liberty-minded people together in specific geographic areas. I'd like to see more about the multiple efforts currently doing this, as well as future projects:

- Free State Project
- Austin movement
- Peaceful parenting city (was somewhere in North Carolina or Tennessee I thought)
- Jeff Berwick Anarchist movement Acapulco, Mexico
- Free State Project West/Wyoming
- Galt's Gulch Chile
- Fort Galt Chile
- any new or proposed projects or concentrations of liberty-minded people (more choices lets more liberty activists find a good fit for themselves and increases everyone's impact)

There's been a lot of books written recently on the effectiveness and advantages of network/multiplier effects that cause certain industries to consolidate in the same geographic region (tech in Silicon Valley, finance in New York and Charlotte, music in Nashville, etc) and it's the same or even more pronounced for liberty activism. Not everyone can move but even people who stay in less active, less liberty friendly places can still contribute.

Its much, much more than just getting enough people in an area to win votes. The multiplier effects of living near other people working on solving the same problems is incredibly important and something the liberty movement absolutely needs to take advantage of.

More on the positive multiplier effects of living near other people working in the same industries:
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/enrico-moretti-geography-jobs

 

[IDefendThePlatform]

I like that you mentioned multiplier effects... but it's "quaint" to believe that our two heads have to be in physical proximity to each other. Right now your head is in Iowa and my head is in California. Yet... here we are putting our heads together. Our two heads are better than one even though our heads are many miles apart.

What we can't do in this virtual space is spend. We can vote (rep)... but we can't spend. Does it make a difference that we can't spend? Well... it means that this virtual space isn't a market. Which is a problem because markets utilize infinitely more information than the alternative systems.

Imagine that every member on this forum was stranded together on an island. We could talk with each other... and rep each other... but we couldn't trade with each other. Would this be a good system? Of course not... it would be infinitely better if we could trade with each other. It would be infinitely better if we had a market on the island rather than a democracy.

It should be pretty straightforward that larger markets are better than smaller markets. No matter how large a physical market you created with libertarians... you could always create a larger virtual market.

Here are two way to turn this virtual space into a market...

1. Facilitate micropayments... Micropay, Vote Or Dance For Quality Content

2. Crowdfund advertisements. Right now the banner ad immediately above me says, "Building Futures... Medical Assistant". It's a stupid ad because it's entirely irrelevant to my preferences. Also... I'm guessing that these ads are the reason why this website utilizes so much of my computers resources. I just started writing this on another forum and, as a result, the resource usage plummeted.

Anyways, imagine if there was a page on this forum with links. I could paypal Bryan $5 dollars and he would add a link to my blog to the page. You could paypal Bryan $6 dollars and he would place a link to your blog above the link to my blog. If I received enough traffic from this website... then I would send Bryan another $5 dollars and he would place my link above your link. If somebody preferred your blog... then they could paypal Bryan and say, "Here's $5 dollars... add it to IDefendThePlatform's link."

The top 5 or so most funded links would be displayed on this website's homepage. Can you guess which links they would be? Why would you want to settle for guessing rather than knowing? Wouldn't you want to know which websites are the most valuable to the liberty movement? How could this information not be important?

All the liberty movement needs to do in order to win is to do a better job of accessing and utilizing the available information. Members of the liberty movement really don't need to be in the same general physical space in order to accomplish this. Thank goodness! All we need to do is to turn this virtual space into a market.

There's still no substitute for physical proximity. Even the most tech-intensive, abstract fields do better when concentrated in geographic clusters, i.e. Silicon Valley. Some of the major advantages of this proximity are in that link I just posted. Examples are just the simple frequency of face to face meetings and discussions, the energy we all get from being around like minded people, always having a diversity of other activists to work with and draw on for support, the "10% effect" where all that's needed to bring about real change is to have 10% of people in a given population believing strongly in that one new idea. Technology helps shrink the world in certain ways for sure, but for the vast foreseeable future there will continue to be myriad advantages to physical geographic proximity.

 

[Mike4Freedom]

The site is great the way it is. It lets us have a discussion about great ideas. I am fortunate to have some close friends that are hardcore liberty lovers. It is nice to have this forum as well.

Now on to the difficult question. How to acquire more liberty? I think it lies in the future. The young people that will eventually be middle aged and old people. They get their media from internet articles, streaming media, social media and web forums. The generation that gets their news from the TV and newspapers are fading. As it stands it is extremely difficult to break people like this from the propaganda that controls their minds.

So we need to work on new ways to capture the young generation and not just voting age eligible. Talk to kids that are in their teens about liberty. Their minds will be more receptive.

Liberty is something we cannot achieve in four years it will take generations as it took generations to get us into this form of fascism we find ourselves in.

So, onto some actions you can take.

1. Cancel your cable TV! Go internet only, get an antenna for basic channels over the air, Netflix for streaming(Making a murder is really waking young people up), Also Truth in media by Ben Swann is a great news source.
2. Do not vote for the lesser of the two evils it is better to stay home and abstain from voting unless it is someone that will advance liberty.
3. Get out of debt. The economy will not improve so if you are not loaded with debt it will help with the harder times ahead.
4. Grow a garden. If you can get to the point where at least 20% - 40% of your food comes from your backyard you have gained a little bit of food independence.
3. Donate to liberty causes, truth in media, this forum(I still haven,t donated but I will, lol) and many others. If your church does community outreach donate to them as well.
4. Buy some gold,silver, have some physical cash no more then 25% of your portfolio
5. Own at least one firearm and learn how to use it
6. If you have kids do not put them in public brainwashing organizations(Public Schools) Home school or private school

Also, I would recommend not supporting personalities that are using the Liberty movement for wealth and power such as:

Alex Jones, Stefan Molyneux, Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimando, Curt Shultz(he is the superbrochure guy), and a few others. Some people on this list minus Alex claim to be purists yet they support an authoritarian fascist(Trump). They do not come out and endorse him but they post pro trump articles. They see the Trump movement as a way to increase their website viewership.

I understand it, but the fact is that we had a liberty candidate running, Rand Paul, and most of these personalities would shit all over his efforts because of minor disagreements.

I do not know if I can trust these people again.

Ok, If I think of anything else I will post it. Have a nice day.

 

[IDefendThePlatform]

Heck this website is an example of physical proximity. Josh and Bryan met Face to Face at a local meetup and that's what gave them the energy and determination to make this thing a reality.
Facebook was invented because Mark Zuckerberg met face to face with the winklevosses and they discussed an idea. Sometimes lone individuals come up with great ideas on their own but they almost always have been incubated with physical discussions and experiences with other people, not solely rooted online. Until we're all living our lives in virtual reality suits, physical proximity matters.

 

[robertwerden]

I think we should shift our focus to every other elected seat. Start a liberty score card, and rank every one who is elected or running for election on a scale. Make this site a goto place for people to evaluate candidates and their degree of liberty. Politicians like to tout where their NRA rating is or other private group ratings, so why not offer our own rating system.

 

[K466]

I suggest repeating what has been most successful for our movement is a top priority.

That is, of course, Ron Paul presidential runs. We need to do that again, with different people, using Ron Paul's strategy. That strategy is something we deliberately did not use in 2016, and I hope we are learning that was a mistake.

Winning smaller political offices has minimal effect and should not be a top priority... it's more something that will happen spontaneously as we change minds across the country. If Ron retired in 2007 instead of running, he would have been a great Congressman but he would not have really helped the liberty movement that much. That only happened when he stepped up to the megaphone of a presidential campaign. We're not going to win by simply changing out the politicians one by one. You can't build a majority like that and not have the underlying support of liberty among the masses.

(Something else we need to prioritize is self-education. I have fallen way behind in book reading myself :/)

 

[presence]

On thing that has really been on my mind lately is poll and vote tally.

As a programmer I strongly believe that black box online polls (and likely public voting) are HACKED.

I think we should be taking a two pronged approach to this:

1) hacking online polls and publishing our hacks

2) outreach to web poll publishers and local elections to push for open source blockchain voting