Speech & Book Signing on “In Defense of Chaos”

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on April 19, 2013

 


Speech/Book Signing by L.K. Samuels

“In Defense of Chaos”

 Sat., May 11, 2013

Starting at 3:00 PM

Bay Park Hotel: 1425 Munras Ave., Monterey, CA

 Upstairs in the White Horse Room

Introduction by Prof. David R. Henderson

FREE to the Public (Includes Wine and Cheese Reception)

 

 

Chaos gets a bad rap. Few people realize that without the dynamics of chaos, order would not exist. In fact, nothing would exist. Without chaos there would be no creation, no structure and no existence. After all, order is merely the repetition of patterns; chaos is the process that establishes those patterns.

The newly revealed importance of chaos theory is that it provides the scientific evidence that shows why open-ended, chaos-driven systems are far superior to inflexible, closed-ended systems, including command-and-control political systems.

 

BIO: L.K. Samuels’ 420-page book In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action was released by Cobden Press in April of 2013.  Samuels is also the editor and a contributing author of Facets of Liberty, an anthology of political and economic writings from 1969 to 2009, and winner of the 2007 Karl Bray Memorial Award. His historical novel about 17th Century Ireland – Ferret: The Reluctant King — won “Honorable Mention” at the East of Eden Writers Conference held in Salinas in 2002. Samuels was elected Chair to the Project Area Committee (PAC) in 2008, a citizens committee to advise the Seaside Redevelopment Agency and the city of Seaside over eminent domain issues. Visit his website at www.lksamuels.com. His Wikipedia page is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.K._Samuels.

 

 For more information:lawsam1951@hotmail.com.

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Speech on the United States, Iran and the Threat to Peace

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on April 12, 2013

Prof. David R. Henderson, co-chair of Libertarians for Peace, will be one of two speakers discussing the U.S., Iran and the threat to peace. The event is on Thursday, April 18 at 7:30 PM at the Irvine Auditorium, Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at 499 Pierce Street in Monterey. The program is free and open to the public.

–Lawrence Samuels

David R. Henderson: 
“The Perverse Economics of Sanctions” 
David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution and a Professor of Economics at the Naval Postgraduate School. Sponsored by the Peace Coalition of Monterey County and Amnesty International.

Stephen Zunes
: “Hegemony, Repression and the Nuclear Standoff” 
Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He is recognized as one of the country’s leading scholars of U.S. Middle East policy and strategic nonviolent action.

For more information, call 831-899-7322.

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Libertarian Party of California 2013 Annual Convention

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on March 12, 2013

Speakers

Friday to Sunday, April 5-7, 2013

Hyatt Regency Sacramento

More Info: http://ca.lp.org/2013-convention


The list of speakers is impressive, and although their expertise and topics will be wide-ranging, the theme of the event is “Liberty Is Common Ground.”

  • Judge Jim Gray (ret.), former Libertarian Party Vice Presidential candidate and retired Superior Court Judge, author “Voter’s Handbook”
  • Tim Donnelly, Assemblymember, 59th District
  • Susan Marie Weber, Palm Desert City Council
  • John Inks, Mayor, Mountain View
  • Steven Greenhut, Vice President of Journalism, Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity
  • Paul Green, Jr., Morning Star Self Management Institute
  • Tim Sandefur, Principal Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
  • Taylor Peck, co-founder, ISideWith.com
  • Evan McMahon, Atlas Liberty PAC
  • Charles Heller, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
  • Rocky Twitchell, Oath Keepers
  • Chuck Shea, California Business, Property, and Resources Owners (CABPRO)
  • Gale Morgan, Libertarian Party of California advocacy trainer

Libertarian Party of Monterey County

Contact: Lawsam1951@hotmaill.com

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Libertarian Party of Monterey County Annual Meeting

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on January 25, 2013

Our Anual Meeting for the LP of Monterey County will be:

Wed, Feb. 20, 2013

Starting at 5:30 PM (social hour) 6:00 PM (meeting)

Round Table Pizza — conference room –1717 Fremont Blvd., Seaside

Everyone is welcome. We will discuss the State LP Convention coming up soon (April 5-7 at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento with speakers: LP Vice Presidential candidate Judge Jim Gray, journalist Steven Greenhut, Atlas Liberty Ex. Director Evan McMahon and others, more details at: http://ca.lp.org/2013-convention )

We need to elect new board members and officers for 2013 for LP of Monterey County. This is also a good time to discuss what projects our members what to pursue this coming year.

The LP will provide pizza and drinks.

More information: Lawrence Samuels at lawsam1951@hotmail.com or 831-238-5058 cell

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Cut Federal Spending Now

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on January 8, 2013

Fiscal Cliffhanger: A Study in Government Fear Mongering

The Libertarian Party Says: Cut Federal Spending Now

An open letter to American voters from Geoffrey J. Neale, Chair, Libertarian National Committee
Dear Voter,
    You’re being scammed. Conned. Deceived.
    Big Government politicians are trying to whip you into a frenzy of fear over what they like to call the “fiscal cliff.”
    But it’s just their latest episode of a cliffhanger drama. They’re using it to continue their reckless government overspending and stampede you into paying higher taxes.
    Why are they combining massive tax increases with “reductions” in federal government spending — and giving it a scary name?
    Tax increases and government spending reductions are polar opposites when it comes to their impact.
    Tax hikes hurt you. They diminish your family’s wealth and hurt the economy.
    Government spending cuts are good for your family. They transfer money out of the reckless, irresponsible, wasteful government sector that consumes wealth and into the productive, private sector that creates wealth.
    By blending tax hikes with (alleged) government spending cuts, they try to convince you that they’re all part of one scary package. That both things are bad.
    To add injury to insult, their phony “fiscal cliff” doesn’t include a dime of actual government spending cuts. Just pretend reductions in future spending.
    Big Government politicians are using embezzlers’ accounting tricks to avoid removing waste and truly discretionary spending from today’s federal budget. They refuse to balance the budget now — the way you have to every month with your family budget.
    They threaten us with insanely inflated tax increases — while demanding praise for any taxes that they don’t raise.
    It’s as if a thief breaks into your house and threatens to take your new flat-screen TV, your car, all your precious jewelry, and your kids’ favorite electronic games — and then takes just the car and a few rings. He makes you feel relieved that you still have your TV, the kids’ games, and the rest of your jewelry.
    On New Year’s Day, what did Big Government politicians actually vote for?
    They voted to rip you off an average of $800 a year MORE — a 2 percent increase in your Social Security payroll tax. While they bragged that they were doing you a favor.
    They raised a pile of other taxes as well, including taxes on estates, higher incomes, investment income, health care, and businesses.
    These Democratic and Republican tax hikes will allow them to rake in a total of $514 billion in new revenue and will destroy millions of private sector jobs. While we have 8 percent unemployment.
    While raising taxes, they refused to cut a dime from this year’s government spending. They didn’t even allow their phony future spending cuts to stand.
    But they did slip into the deal loads of new federal spending, adding even more to this year’s $1.3 TRILLION deficit.
    More government debt = higher taxes for you. Government debt devalues the dollars you earn and save. This hidden tax will gouge you just as surely as a direct tax would. Instead of taking it out of your paycheck, it will cost you in the form of higher prices you will pay for groceries, utilities and virtually everything you buy.
    This is what you get when you vote for either Democrats or Republicans. Higher taxes. Higher government spending. More government debt. Higher prices. More unemployment.
    It doesn’t matter which of the two you vote for. For all the posturing and gamesmanship, both Democrats and Republicans are peas of a pod. Birds of a feather. They are both addicted to Big Government.
    Libertarians have the solution, and it’s simple. To immediately revive the American economy, we must dramatically cut total government spending now.
    Every dollar transferred out of government coffers and back into the private sector creates business investment and jobs.
    Libertarian candidates who ran for federal office in 2012 called for big spending cuts and balancing the budget now, including Gov. Gary Johnson for president. He proposed to immediately slash spending by at least $1.3 trillion in 2013 to balance the budget his first year in office.
    American voters: Help us help you. Join the Libertarian Party today. Help us run bold Libertarian candidates who will eliminate wasteful and bloated Big Government programs now, dramatically reduce government spending now, stabilize the dollar, and cut your taxes.
    If you want less government, lower government spending, and much lower taxes, please join the Libertarian Party today.
Yours in liberty,
Geoffrey J. Neale
Chair
Libertarian National Committee

118 Comments

US Census Rates California Poorest State in the Nation

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on January 6, 2013

California: One of the Highest Taxed, Now the Poorest State

The Greek philosopher Aristotle once said that “subjects are also kept poor by payment of taxes.” California seems to have proven Aristotle’s observation correct. After the passage of Proposition 30, California may now have the distinction of being one of the highest taxed states, as well as the poorest state in the Union. The U.S. Census just released figures revealing that California has a whopping poverty rate of 23.5 percent, meaning that nearly one of four is below the poverty line, making us even poorer than Mississippi. We even beat out the city of Washington, D.C.  Bravo to the tax increasers; job well done.

What splendid achievement can we now expect from the single-party supermajority in Sacramento? Maybe we can top other nations and become poorer and more over-taxed then the country of Greece. Get working, taxocrats. We can’t let Aristotle down.

Lawrence Samuels

(This was a letter to the editor sent to the Monterey Herald, who, so far (sent Dec. 27, 2012), has not printed it)

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Halt the Massacre of Innocent Children by Ending Prohibition on Self-Defense in Schools

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on December 17, 2012

Message from the national Libertarian Party

Families throughout the nation mourn the horrific deaths of 26 people, including 20 young children, killed Friday during a Newtown, Conn., mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“It’s impossible to imagine the depths of despair and grief that the victims’ families are experiencing right now,” said Geoffrey J. Neale, Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. “Our hearts go out to every one of them.”
In the immediate aftermath of news surrounding the shootings, pundits and politicians called for new restrictions on firearm ownership, exactly the opposite of the approach needed to combat tragic gun violence in schools.
“We’ve created a ‘gun-free zone,’ a killing zone, for the sickest criminals on the face of the Earth,” said R. Lee Wrights, vice-chair of the Libertarian Party. “We’ve given them an open killing field, and we’ve made the children of this country the victims.”
Wrights pointed out that merely the knowledge that armed people will be present acts as a deterrent for would-be shooters.
“They’re not going to walk into a police station, and why not? Because that’s where the guns are,” he said.
The Federal Gun Free Schools Zone Act prohibits carrying firearms on school grounds in most cases, effectively criminalizing the right to self-defense in places filled with the most vulnerable citizens. Without that federal prohibition, adults working at the school would have been free to defend themselves, very possibly saving the lives of many of the young children and adults who were slain in this horrific tragedy.
“We must stop blinding ourselves to the obvious: Most of these mass killings are happening at schools where self-defense is prohibited,” said Carla Howell, executive director of the Libertarian Party. “Gun prohibition sets the stage for the slaughter of innocent children. We must repeal these anti-self-defense laws now to minimize the likelihood they will occur in the future and to the limit the damage done when they do.”
Responsible gun owners can and do prevent mass shootings from occurring and escalating.
  • A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school’s vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
  • A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
  • A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
  • A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
  • A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
  • A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
  • A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
  • At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon.
For several years after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, gun prohibitionists blocked pilots from carrying firearms. But after it became undeniable that guns are an essential line of defense against hijackers and other terrorists when the lives of innocent passengers are at stake, Congress finally passed legislation allowing it.
It’s time to take the same approach with teachers, school administrators, and security guards, who should be allowed to carry the tools necessary to protect the students in their care. It’s time to put an end to gun-free zones and make it much easier for responsible adults to arm, train, and protect themselves and the people they love from the violent criminals who seek to harm them.
“You can’t depend on somebody else to take care of your own life for you,” Wrights said. “It’s too precious to put it into the hands of somebody else, particularly when the seconds count.”
The Libertarian Party Platform on Self-Defense states: “The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. This right inheres in the individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or group. We affirm the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.”

170 Comments

Election Results for the Libertarian Party

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on December 8, 2012

Was 2012 the Best Year Ever for our Libertarian Party Candidates?

The numbers say “Yes!”  What do you say? 

1,272,105 Votes for Gov. Gary Johnson.

2012 Libertarian Presidential Candidate Sets a New LP Record for Highest-Ever Vote

  • Gary Johnson Shattered Ed Clark’s 1980 Vote Record of 921,128 Votes for President of the United States.
  • 2012 Libertarian Presidential Ticket of Gov. Gary Johnson and Judge Jim Gray More Than DOUBLED the 2008 Vote Total of Bob Barr and Wayne Root.
  • They More Than TRIPLED the 2004 Libertarian Presidential Vote Total of Michael Badnarik and Richard Campagna.

Item: Republicans Blame Libertarian U.S. Senate Candidates Andrew Horning and Dan Cox for Republican U.S. Senate Losses in Indiana and Montana. Each Libertarian Candidate received more votes than the Republican candidates lost by.

Item: Republicans Blame Libertarian U.S. Congressional Candidate Dan Fishman for Republican Loss in Massachusetts.

Item: 2012 Libertarian Votes Give LP Ballot Access in 30 States + the District of Columbia.   Saves LP over $400,000 in 2016 Petitioning Costs.

 

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NOVEMBER 2012 VOTER GUIDE

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on October 15, 2012

Ballot Measure Recommendations by Lawrence Samuels

Chair, Libertarian Party of Monterey County

NO, NO, NO on PROP. 30—Increased Sales Tax and Personal Income Tax that goes into the general fund, not education per se. (California is one of the highest taxed states—CA has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation, highest gas tax, second worst state income tax, highest corporate income tax rate west of the Mississippi, 15th highest in per capita property taxes.) See Richard Riders’ “Breaking Bad” at http://sdrostra.com/?p=30181

NO on PROP. 31—State Budget “Reform” Initiative. (This law just makes California governance more Byzantine and burdensome. It would increase administrative burdens at all levels of local government, and increase the power and influence of Sacramento at the local level.)

YES on PROP. 32—Prohibit Payroll Deductions for Political Contributions by Corporations and Labor Unions. (An attempt to take special interests out of elections. This proposition would give union members more control over their paychecks).

YES on PROP. 33—Allows Auto Insurance Companies to Set Prices Based on Driver’s History. (This will reward responsible drivers, but a part of the measure might help raise rates on drivers who have lapses in their insurance coverage).

YES on PROP. 34—Repeal Death Penalty. (Too expensive to put criminals on the death row—billions spent on a handful of them in the last few decades. Also, dangerous for the government to use capital punishment.)

NO POSITION on PROP. 35—Increase Penalties for Human Trafficking. (This measure broadens the definition of trafficking and might hurt people who are voluntarily in the sex trade).

YES on PROP. 36— Modifies Three Strikes Law Sentencing for Repeat Offenders—(Currently, a felon with two previous convictions for serious/violent offenses can be imprisoned for life if convicted of a minor third offense–for instance, a drug arrest.)

NO on PROP. 37—Genetically Engineered Foods Labeling. (Put on the ballot by attorneys to increase litigation and make more money. Inevitably means higher costs for consumer, more bureaucracy. Regulations should come from tort-based judicial cases where a real victim is involved.

NO on PROP. 38—Personal Tax Increase for Local Schools—Pay More and Get Less. (Increases Personal Income Taxes on anyone earning over $7,316 a year. Regressive, hurts the poor. Money is dedicated to education. But CA public school teachers are the highest paid in the nation.  And CA students rank 48th in math achievement, 49th in reading. Would more money help?)

NO on PROP. 39—Multi-State Business Tax and Clean Energy Initiative. (Will increase taxes on CA businesses. Why not tax businesses out of business. Who needs a job anyway?)

YES on PROP. 40—Senate Redistricting Referendum. (Democrats covertly took control of the Redistricting Committee Commission and cheated on redistricting the state senate districts. If the new districts are rejected (If a Yes vote wins), the State Senate district boundary lines will be adjusted by officials supervised by the California Supreme Court.)

 

387 Comments

2012 Election Eve Party Pot Luck

Posted by lawrence in Uncategorized on October 11, 2012

Freedom-Lovers Unite– 2012 Election Eve Party Pot Luck

Nov. 6 at 6:00 PM

Hosts:  Lawrence Samuels, Jane Heider and David Henderson

Location: near the mouth of Carmel Valley

Email for details

Lawrence Samuels (directions): lawsamz@gmail.com (831) 238-5058

David Henderson (what to bring): davidrhenderson1950@gmail.com

Sponsored by: Libertarian Party, Libertarians for Peace, Seaside Taxpayers Association and “Left Coast Liberty: The Classical Liberal Hour” Radio Show (KRXA-540AM)

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