http://www.washtimes.com/…

Environmentalism, says Czech President Vaclav Klaus, is the new communism, a system of elite command-and-control that kills prosperity and should similarly be condemned to the ash heap of history.

The provocative Mr. Klaus, an economist by training and former prime minister, said in an interview that today’s global warming activists are the direct descendants of the old Marxists who trampled on individual freedoms and undermined free markets in pursuit of a greater good.

“I understand that global warming is a religion conceived to suppress human freedom,” he told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. “It is used to justify an enormous scope for government intervention vis-a-vis the markets and personal freedom.”

The 66-year-old Mr. Klaus was in Washington this week for talks with senior U.S. officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, and to tout his new book, “Blue Planet in Green Shackles,” about the dangers to life, liberty and prosperity posed by the modern environmental movement.

He may be just stirring things up to sell his book but there are many who see this environmentalism movement as an excuse to give governments more power. I can’t say I disagree. Very few of the eco people advocate non-statist solutions.

http://www.townhall.com/…

The other day, reading the New York Post’s popular Page Six gossip page, I was surprised to find a picture of me, followed by the lines: “ABC’S John Stossel wants the government to stop interfering with your right to get high. The crowd went silent at his call to legalize hard drugs”.

I had attended a Marijuana Policy Project event celebrating the New York State Assembly’s passage of a medical-marijuana bill. (The bill hasn’t passed the Senate.) I told the audience I thought it pathetic that the mere half passage of a bill to allow sick people to try a possible remedy would merit such a celebration. Of course medical marijuana should be legal. For adults, everything should be legal. I’m amazed that the health police are so smug in their opposition.

After years of reporting on the drug war, I’m convinced that this “war” does more harm than any drug.

Independent of that harm, adults ought to own our own bodies, so it’s not intellectually honest to argue that “only marijuana” should be legal — and only for certain sick people approved by the state. Every drug should be legal.

“How could you say such a ridiculous thing?” asked my assistant. “Heroin and cocaine have a permanent effect. If you do crack just once, you are automatically hooked. Legal hard drugs would create many more addicts. And that leads to more violence, homelessness, out-of-wedlock births, etc!”

Her diatribe is a good summary of the drug warriors’ arguments. Most Americans probably agree with what she said.

But what most Americans believe is wrong.

Myth No. 1: Heroin and cocaine have a permanent effect.

Truth: There is no evidence of that.

In the 1980s, the press reported that “crack babies” were “permanently damaged.” Rolling Stone, citing one study of just 23 babies, claimed that crack babies “were oblivious to affection, automatons.”

It simply wasn’t true. There is no proof that crack babies do worse than anyone else in later life.

Myth No. 2: If you do crack once, you are hooked.

Truth: Look at the numbers — 15 percent of young adults have tried crack, but only 2 percent used it in the last month. If crack is so addictive, why do most people who’ve tried it no longer use it?

People once said heroin was nearly impossible to quit, but during the Vietnam War, thousands of soldiers became addicted, and when they returned home, 85 percent quit within one year.

People have free will. Most who use drugs eventually wise up and stop.

And most people who use drugs habitually live perfectly responsible lives, as Jacob Sullum pointed out in “Saying Yes”.

Myth No. 3: Drugs cause crime.

Truth: The drug war causes the crime.

Few drug users hurt or rob people because they are high. Most of the crime occurs because the drugs are illegal and available only through a black market. Drug sellers arm themselves and form gangs because they cannot ask the police to protect their persons and property.

In turn, some buyers steal to pay the high black-market prices. The government says heroin, cocaine and nicotine are similarly addictive, and about half the people who both smoke cigarettes and use cocaine say smoking is at least as strong an urge. But no one robs convenience stores for Marlboros.

Alcohol prohibition created Al Capone and the Mafia. Drug prohibition is worse. It’s corrupting whole countries and financing terrorism.

The Post wrote, “Stossel admitted his own 22-year-old daughter doesn’t think [legalization] is a good idea.”

But that’s not what she said. My daughter argued that legal cocaine would probably lead to more cocaine use. And therefore probably abuse.

I’m not so sure.

Banning drugs certainly hasn’t kept young people from getting them. We can’t even keep these drugs out of prisons. How do we expect to keep them out of America?

But let’s assume my daughter is right, that legalization would lead to more experimentation and more addiction. I still say: Legal is better.

While drugs harm many, the drug war’s black market harms more.

And most importantly, in a free country, adults should have the right to harm themselves.

He may be preaching to the choir but it’s still nice to have a man like him in his position. I nearly went to the MPP event last week and it saddens me that those who did go paused when he advocated full drug re-legalization. Must not have been many libertarians there.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The New Jersey race for U.S. Senate became a little more crowded yesterday with the addition of a serious third-party candidate to the official ballot.

Jason Schuerer, 39, a Mercer County Libertarian, announced yesterday he was approved by the New Jersey Division of Elections to be included on the November ballot.

Schuerer will face-off against Democrat incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Republican Richard Zimmer. Also in the running are Socialist Sara Lobman and Independents Daryl Brooks and J.M. Carter.

Schuerer, of West Windsor near Princeton, is a private money manager for Wachovia. He previously ran for state assembly in the 14th district.

Campaign manager Lou Jasikoff, said Schuerer had been invigorated by Ron Paul’s presidential campaign and was running on a “platform of common sense.”

“We’re aiming to be the purple party,” Jasikoff said. “When it comes to personal liberties, Jason is more democratic than what the Democrats stand for. From a fiscal standpoint, we’re what the Republican party claims to be.”

More from the New Jersey Libertarian Party’s page.  Scheurer [note correct spelling] has a small website up from his previous campaign for the 14th district state legislature.  Jason Scheurer for Senate website is up, but a placeholder promises content coming July 4th.

http://www.cbsnews.com/…

Calling it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country,” John McCain ripped into the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Guantanamo detainees access to civilian trials for the second day in a row. “We’re now going to have the courts flooded with so-called “habeas corpus suits” against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material,” McCain said. “Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that.”

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 yesterday that enemy combatants can challenge their detention at Guantanamo Bay in U.S. courts, instead of military tribunals. It was a decision welcomed by McCain’s rival. “The Court’s decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain,” Barack Obama said. “This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus.”

At a town hall meeting here today, McCain sought to use Obama’s embrace of the decision against him. “Sen. Obama applauds this decision and he supports it,” McCain said. “I argue against it and will do what I can to at least narrow down some of the wide open aspects of this Supreme Court decision.”

He shows how much of a warmonger he is yet again. He doesn’t want to give these individuals one of the most fundamental rights in western and common law, habeas corpus. He wants the government to be able to just lock people up indefiently with no charges brought up in front of their peers. Why? Likely because he knows it will show that this war on terror is a farse and that many of these men held have done nothing to harm US subjects. This and the last warmonger info to come out should be more than enough to discredit this man and keep him from being dog catcher let alone president.

http://www.examiner.com/…

Six parents of chronically truant San Francisco schoolchildren - each of whom missed more than 50 days of class - were arraigned Tuesday before a superior court judge on infractions that charged the guardians with failing to make sure their kids receive an education.

The infractions, pursued by District Attorney Kamala Harris, carry a $100 fine. If the truancy continues, the next step would be misdemeanor charges of neglecting a child’s education, charges that could land a parent in county jail for up to a year with a fine up to $2,500, Harris said Tuesday.

The parents - Connie Wilson, Jamelia Kellom, Shanae Seastrunk, Kenneth Reed, Chanell Brown and Joshua Pomar - were the first to be prosecuted under stricter enforcement guidelines announced by Harris at the beginning of the school year.

The number of students skipping school in San Francisco has long been above statewide averages and costs the already cash-strapped district more than $5 million in state funding every year. One absence costs the San Francisco Unified School District about $42, according to district data.

Among the most common reasons for truancies, especially among elementary school children, are child care issues, drug abuse by parents, lack of transportation, family abandonment and the students ditching classes, according to school district Superintendant Carlos Garcia.

“You know, little kids, what rights do they have? I think we as a society need to stand up for their rights, the right to an education,” Garcia said.

1. Education is not a right. You don’t have a right to other people’s labor. Your existence doesn’t create an obligation for others to provide you with anything. Taxation is theft, period. 2. The absence wouldn’t cost anyone anything if there wasn’t compulsory government schooling. This whole “your actions cost us all” “problem” only exists because these power hungry, megalomaniacs who think they know better than everyone one else use guns to force people into participating in things they could be doing voluntarily. If the service was so important as these people like to claim why then wouldn’t the free market be able to provide it? If you look at it historically it could… what has changed? Could it be that religious and socialist idealists wanted to control the populous? Could it be that compulsory education was instituted not for the children but those in power who wish to propagandize their utopian values?