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Sunday, May 17, 2009
Motor Home Diaries: A road trip in search of freedom in America
Leave it to my dear fellow libertarians to envision the Motor Home Diaries<, a story of three friends who took to the road in April 2009 to search for freedom in America. According to their website....
Along the way the friends — Jason, Pete and Tom — interact with individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds and viewpoints at college campuses, homes, businesses and organizations that are united by one thing: increasing individual freedom and responsibility and decreasing the scope of government.
Their story takes place in a 30 foot used motorhome affectionately dubbed M.A.R.V. (Mobile Authority Response Vehicle). Driving from the urban jungles to picturesque small towns and everywhere in-between, they connect with those who reject government violence in favor of a voluntary society. Through the stories of the individuals they interview they explore the historic shift in power from individuals to the government and the growing movement of those who are fighting back to reclaim their liberties. They consider their project to be a near-real time documentary since they will post quickly edited videos online so their trip can be viewed on MotorHomeDiaries.com. There, you can read their frequently posted blog and tweets. Videos, photos and media will be posted rapid fire.
Tomorrow night, these three gentle liberty-lovers will be honored at my humble home. I look forward to sharing more details about their trip and the unfortunate sally with law enforcement.
There are rumors of the Motorhomers venturing into Leonard-Cohen-land, and I am sure they would love to do so given a little financial assistance (i.e. funding). Currently, they are being funded by the Atlas Foundation, Bureaucrash, Free State Project, and Free Talk Live. Any Canadian non-profits interested in bringing the Motorhome Diaries up north should send a friendly email to [email protected].
Posted by Alina on May 17, 2009 in Libertarianism | Permalink
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Comments
"Mobile Authority Resistance Vehicle" - bah! Losers. Genuine losers. They got what they deserved for mouthing off to a cop.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2009-05-17 3:02:08 PM
Conservatives hate freedom.
Posted by: Robert Seymour | 2009-05-17 3:37:59 PM
PS What I love even more about Motorhome Diaries is that Pete has a bachelor's and a master's in law enforcement and Jason is former military police and both are now hard-core libertarians who have renounced their former police ways.
That is, they are both former heroes of the pro-state, police-worshiping, freedom-hating conservatives who now detest them. They left the immoral conservative cause for liberty.
They're like Barry Cooper, a former drug cop, who now helps marijuana growers and dealers avoid arrest. www.nevergetbusted.com
Or like Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of decorated ex-cops who are pushing for the legalization of drugs.
Face it conservatives, you're losing people everyday because your cause is evil. You have uniforms, institutions, and money, but not morals.
Posted by: Robert Seymour | 2009-05-17 3:53:31 PM
What they claim to support is not freedom. It is more like anarchy. Hence they must be discredited. Fortunately they are doing this for us. How nice! :)
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2009-05-17 4:11:19 PM
Oh yeah conservatism is losing because we prefer to jail criminals instead of allowing them to roam free. Try finding better causes than legalizing narcotics.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2009-05-17 5:32:38 PM
Here are some related links:
http://www.freestateproject.org
http://www.freetalklive.com
http://bureaucrash.com/
Posted by: Keith | 2009-05-17 8:07:05 PM
"I repeat: maximizing freedom is not the end game. We seek the perfect balance of freedom and order. And so do you people: the WS staff would be vastly more free if they lived in a cabin in the woods instead of being unionized academics and frightfully PC chilled students, but you don't do that."
Posted by: Attacker | 2009-05-17 3:00:04 PM
Attacker,
You've now talked about the choice between freedom and order on a couple of occasion, but setting up this dichotomy demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding not only of what advocates of liberty mean by "freedom", but also of how orderly social institutions arise. Here's Sheldon Richman responding to a similar argument of David Brooks':
Back to Brooks’s false dichotomy. To create it he has to invent a straw man. He pits “untrammeled freedom and the lone pioneer” against social customs, community, and order.
The flaw in Brooks’s argument is that history’s most authentic advocates of individual liberty... saw harmony, not conflict, between freedom and community. Freedom, they realized, blossomed within a community, not just because of the benefits bestowed by the division of labor (as important as they are), but because of the rewards of deep human contact. Man’s nature as a social animal is not an argument against liberty. Quite the contrary. Liberty, Proudhon said, is the mother, not the daughter, of order.
What real individualists oppose — is coercive community. Here’s where Brooks shows either his ignorance or his disingenuousness. I defy him to name an individualist philosopher who extolled the life of the hermit. By nature individuals form communities. They don’t need to be coerced. The bedrock laws most people respect — those concerning life, liberty, and property — began as spontaneously evolving reciprocal social customs born of people’s desire to engage in material and “spiritual” exchanges with one another.
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2009-05-18 4:22:46 PM
Kalim,
Honestly, why are you bothering with "Attacker"?
Posted by: Charles | 2009-05-18 6:41:45 PM
Kalim, that's a perfect way to describe John McCain. I wish I had thought of it myself.
As for Attacker, you are more like a toy poodle than a bull dog. Please stop yipping.
Posted by: Alina Stefanescu Coryell | 2009-05-18 7:28:51 PM
Attacker,
Yes. The same.
Alina,
I have to give credit where credit is due.
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2009-05-18 9:28:08 PM
The illegal alien, amnesty loving McCain, a fascist? Adolph will be rolling over.
Richman is wrong. If the laws of liberty and property evolved spontaneously, they would be seen everywhere, but they are not. More common are mafia-like communities, reliant upon extended kinship, re-enforced through consanguineous marriage, and little dependent upon a strong centralised state. It is in Northern Europe and more particularly England where the "society of strangers" evolved eschewing reliance on extended families for protection in exchange for state enforcement of property rights and contractual arrangements. Why? Christianity's demand for monogamy and denial of cousin marriage.
Whatever the rationale given to these prohibitions by the Church, there is evidence that the aristocracy obeyed the ecclesiastical rules. There were very few marriages closer than 4th or 5th cousins among the French nobility of the 10th and 11th centuries.31 These practices weakened the extended kinship group, since the expanded range of incestuous marriages prevented the solidarity of extended kinship groups by excluding "the reinforcing of blood with marriage."In addition to its policy on consanguinity, the Church’s doctrine of consent in marriage acted as a force against extended kinship relationships. "The family, the tribe, the clan, were subordinated to the individual. If one wanted to marry enough, one could choose one’s own mate and the Church would vindicate one’s choice."34 Marriage came about as a result of consent and was ratified by sexual intercourse. By removing the fundamental nature of marriage from the control of the family and the secular lord to the individuals involved, the Church established its authority against the traditional ties of kinship and family. Freedom of choice of marriage partner was the rule in England throughout the modern period and that parental control was exercised only in the top 1% of the population.35
Posted by: eu | 2009-05-19 12:22:18 AM
Fortunately they are doing this for us
Posted by: car sales jobs | 2009-07-10 1:39:45 AM
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