Students for Liberty Profile 2012’s Top 7 Victories for Liberty
According to the Students for Liberty blog, 2012 was a pretty good year for freedom. Writer Casey Givens has outlined a Top 7 victory list which is excerpted here.
Can You Count the Freedom?: 2012′s Top 7 Victories for Liberty
7. Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act passes the House of Representatives.
Not every libertarian agrees on monetary policy — or, Ron Paul for that matter. But, one tune we can all sing to is government transparency. That’s why the outgoing Texas Congressman got the best parting gift he could ask for on July 25th, when the House overwhelmingly passed his bill to audit the Fed by 327 to 28.
6. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) fail to pass Congress after Internet revolt.
Many items on this list aren’t well known outside of policy circles and the libertarian nerdosphere, but nobody can forget the day the Internet went on strike. On January 18th, more than 75,000 websites including Google, Wikipedia, redditt, and Tumblr protested a pair of bills that could have had severe censorship repercussions.
5. 25 states refuse to establish a state-based ObamaCare exchange.
Speaking of bills nobody understands, ObamaCare’s legitimacy was slightly undermined in recent months by half of the states refusing to set up a state-based health care exchange.
Read the whole list at the link below.
Can You Count the Freedom?: 2012′s Top 7 Victories for Liberty (Students for Liberty)
Comments
I think that I disagree with what “Students for Liberty” has for a definition of a win.
#7: Auditing the Fed – because the bill is going nowhere. So the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed it. Big deal. Without Senate action, it’s a dead duck.
#6: SOPA and PIPA were bad legislation. But we got something arguably WORSE in the piracy controls being implemented by the individual Service Providers, because they can now merely give us notice and terminate contracts or throttle customers for perceived violations, and have been completely opaque as to how they are going to measure said violations (is it by IP address, is it by download, is it by site visited, etc…).
#5: Obamacare exchanges – We will see how this one plays out. If my health care company forces a 3% tax onto my plan because that is what it is getting charged by the feds for the feds having to run the exchange, then this is a LOSS. Unless the states are going to REVOLT and refuse to pay, all we’ve done is allow the feds to “stealth tax” the people.
#4: Indiana and Michigan pass “right to work” legislation – this is a win, in so far as it applies. The grandfathering in Michigan is going to be an issue, as is the fact that it doesn’t cover municipal safety employees (firefighters and police).
#3: Gay marriage – you don’t have a right to marry a person that you love. By changing laws to allow same gendered individuals to marry, there is now manner to attack each and every OTHER restriction on marriage. This one, while a technical win for “liberty” is a loss for “culture.”
#2: Colorado and Washington legalize Marijuana. Again, not a victory unless there is a way to prevent the Feds from acting within state borders. Somehow I don’t think that the Colorado and Washington Legislatures are going to go toe-to-toe with the feds when it comes to enforcement by suing on 10th amendment grounds. That means the individuals themselves will have to do so.
#1: Commerce clause – you KNOW that somebody is going to make the “that was just dicta” argument. Further, the SCOTUS, in approving Obamacare, has effectively said that the Federal Government has UNLIMITED powers to TAX for ANY purpose that they deem fit. So, yes we won a limited victory on PRIOR interpretation, but we LOST ground on limited governance, because the Feds have gained UNLIMITED powers to tax and spend.