Quick and to the point:

Bring the troops home.  Stop wasteful spending.  Preserve rights.  No Real ID.  No invasion of privacy.

Mark and Debra Kuhn of Asheville, North Carolina were arrested and charged with assault on a government employee, obstruction and flag desecration.

The Kuhns were flying a flag upside down on their own property with signs pinned to it explaining why it was being flown in that manner: being upside down represents a sign of distress. A picture of George W. Bush was also pinned to the flag with the text “Out Now” printed underneath. The Kuhns apparently desecrated the flag by pinning signs to it, not by flying it upside down.

According to the Sheriff’s office, deputy Scarborough informed the couple that they were illegally displaying the flag and attempted to issue Mr. Kuhn with a citation. Kuhn allegedly refused to show I.D. and slammed the door on Scarborough’s hand causing a glass pane to break, which cut the deputy’s hand.

The Kuhns have a different story to tell. They claim that they shut and locked the door and that Scarborough intentionally broke the glass with his fist in order to reach in and unlock the door. He then proceeded to enter their home, without a warrant or permission, and placed them under arrest.

Flag desecration is protected under the First Amendment of the constitution as free speech; a fact that is supported by two U.S. Supreme Court cases. Any law prohibiting it is blatantly unconstitutional.

Mark Radford, the National Guardsman who issued the complaint about the flag, does not seem to care about the Supreme Court or the constitution he swore to uphold.

“The law is the law, and if we don’t follow the rule of the law as a society, where does it go from here?” he asked.

Ever heard of civil disobedience Mr. Radford? A principle employed by Samuel Adams and many others in the founding of our country. A principle exploited by Martin Luther King Jr. in his quest for civil rights. Have you learned about the Boston Tea Party? How about the Revolutionary War? Does any of this mean anything to you?

When there are bad laws, they need to be broken and any law — whether constitutional or not — that restricts free speech is a bad law. Civil Disobedience and Jury Nullification are the last strings for citizens to grab at if they wish to change the laws that oppress them. That is, after all, how the prohibition of alcohol was essentially ended.

I would like to personally thank the Kuhns for standing up for their rights and subsequently the rights of every citizen of this country. If we lose the right to free speech, unpopular being the most difficult to protect, then we really have no rights at all. Expression is the most essential human freedom.

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My favorite part is at the very end…

Here is a great video about libertarian ideals.  A lot of you may have seen it already, but its worth posting for those of you out there that may not have.  For better quality, check out the original flash animation.

A Pittsburgh girl was recently arrested for taking nude photos of herself and sending them to people she met in chat rooms on the internet. Among her charges were possession of child porn (for having the pictures stored on her hard drive), sexual abuse of children (for taking the pictures of herself) and dissemination of child porn (for distributing the pictures).

In America, the Land of the Free, a minor is not allowed to take nude pictures of herself. Not only is it not allowed, but it is considered to be child porn, and the act of taking the pictures is considered child abuse. A minor can actually be charged for sexually abusing herself. Whats next? Is masturbation going to be considered child molestation for minors?

Also, don’t forget that a child porn charge makes her a sex offender at the ripe, old age of fifteen. That means that she faces the stigma of being put in sex offender databases for the rest of her life. Some places require that sex offenders live a certain distance from schools, parks, and churches. Will her parents have to move her if they live to close to any of those places? Or will the state just take her away?

Next thing you know, a 17-year-old is going to be arrested for receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old. Oh wait, that already happened.

I recently stumbled across a great article by Stefan Molyneux entitled, “The Gun in the Room“, over at LewRockwell.com. I highly suggest reading the whole thing. The first paragraph is as follows:

One of the most difficult – and essential – challenges faced by libertarians is the constant need to point out “the gun in the room.” In political debates, it can be very hard to cut through the endless windy abstractions that are used to cover up the basic fact that the government uses guns to force people to do what they do not want to do, or prevent them from doing what they do want to do. Listening to non-libertarians, I often wish I had a “euphemism umbrella” to ward off the continual oily drizzle of words and phrases designed to obscure the simple reality of state violence. We hear nonstop nonsense about the “social good,” the “redistribution of income,” the “education of children” and so on – endless attempts to bury the naked barrel of the state in a mountain of syrupy metaphors.

The article then goes on to explain how every political debate can be boiled down to pointing out the gun in the room. If someone supports taxes, point out the gun in the room. If someone supports the war on drugs, point out the gun in the room. The list goes on. Molyneux uses the public school system as a good example. The debate is not about whether or not public schools are a good thing, but rather, whether or not I am allowed to disagree with the idea of a public school system without the fear of being shot. This is not the case. If I do not believe that publicly funded schools should exist and, in turn, do not pay my property taxes I will be shot. Sure, that outcome may not be immediate, but it will happen when the government tries to take my house and I am prepared to defend it. So the next time you are in a political debate with someone who hates liberty, simply point out the gun in the room and urge them to take out all the bullets. Then, you might be able to get somewhere with them.

I was looking around Michael Badnarik’s campaign website today and I found this video:

It is amazing to me how we knew what freedom was in the 1950’s but we seem to forget today. Maybe thats because we have Socialism implemented in this country today. Maybe it is because cops abuse their power daily and no one seems to stand up for their rights. Whatever the reason, we need to take a lesson from this video. At one time, our government knew what freedom and liberty were. At one time, there were actually Public Service Announcements to show us our liberties and freedoms and how to protect them, but not anymore. Today, all we have is government commercials showing us how our rights are trampled on by various government. Pro drug war commercials are a wonderful example. The government uses our money to shove this propaganda down our throats. They tell us that drugs are bad and that drugs cause crime, but what they don’t tell you is that you have the right to do whatever you want with your body. They will never tell you that the reason drugs cause crime is because they are illegal, but that is an argument (and an article) for another day. Watch that video and watch it again then remember, freedom isn’t free, we need to fight and raise hell to bring freedom back to this country. Stand up for your rights or you will never be free.