Free Republic

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - A woman admitted to smoking marijuana daily with her 13-year-old son to reward him for completing his homework. Amanda Lynn Livelsberger, 30, pleaded guilty to several charges Monday and will be sentenced Nov. 27. Livelsberger, of Conewago Township, admitted in Adams County court that she had been smoking marijuana with her son since he was 11, and that she often gave it to him as a reward. The boy told police that he was required to do his homework as soon as he got home from school, and then was allowed to smoke marijuana with his mother,...

Dear friend: Do you want to see a Libertarian in Congress? Of course you do. And thanks to Tom DeLay, the Libertarian Party may have its best chance ever. A surprise opportunity has offered itself recently, and we need to exploit it. A federal judge has ruled that Tom DeLay’s name can not be replaced on November’s ballot with another Republican politician. Late last week, DeLay announced that he will withdraw his name, leaving only two candidates on the ballot: a liberal Democratic former congressman, and Libertarian Bob Smither. Bob is well known by the voters and media in this...

Essay one addressed Modern Liberalism as the religion, albeit the false religion, that it is. Next, enter stage right, Libertarianism. Libertarianism, or at least that mainstream brand of Libertarianism which zealously waves that oxymoronic political banner "Political Conservative, Social Liberal," has its own pint-sized political party, but more importantly the faith of Libertarianism has a Titanic-sized impact upon the religious inclinations of the leadership ranks of the Republican Party, and upon many of the prestigious think-tanks which preach republicans their gospel. Libertarianism's central claim to fame from a political standpoint is that it represents an anti-statist, limited government answer to...

`Tis the season for Christmas trees and immigration reform, two issues that are rarely considered in the same thought. But they are intricately interconnected in important ways: As with most agricultural products, growers rely heavily on immigrant labor to bring the trees to market... ...While politicians put presents under their trees they should think about workers such as Buca, a 35-year-old Mexican immigrant who works in North Carolina, where one out of every five Christmas trees sold in the United States is grown. It is grueling, backbreaking work, the sort that most of us born in the United States would...

TORONTO (Reuters) - Comedian Tommy Chong has spent almost three decades wringing laughs from cigar-sized joints and smoke-filled vans but now a nine-month jail term has turned him serious and revitalized his flagging career. Promoting his documentary "a/k/a Tommy Chong" at the Toronto International Film Festival, he hopes the film will expose what he says is the U.S. government's heavy-handed dealing with marijuana offenders in the post-September 11 era. "The United States is under martial law, it's under dictatorship," the 67-year-old father of four said in an interview. The film chronicles the Canadian-born comedian's 2003 arrest and imprisonment for selling...

But Wouldn't Warlords Take Over? by Robert Murphy [Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005] On two separate occasions in the last couple of weeks, people have asked me a familiar question: “In a system of ‘anarcho-capitalism’ or the free-market order, wouldn’t society degenerate into constant battles between private warlords?” Unfortunately I didn’t give adequate answers at the times, but I hope in this article to prove the adage that later is better than never. APPLES AND ORANGES When dealing with the warlord objection, we need to keep our comparisons fair. It won’t do to compare society A, which is filled...

This thread has been pulled. Pulled on 07/23/2005 10:40:47 PM PDT by Jim Robinson, reason: Censorship Goodbye FreeRepublic,I'm off to Liberty Post. It was good while it lasted........Please ban me NOW Jim!

After years of false starts, state lawmakers voted Tuesday evening to reduce the steep mandatory prison sentences given to people convicted of drug crimes in New York State, sanctions considered among the most severe in the nation. The push to soften the so-called Rockefeller drug laws came after a nearly decade-long campaign to ease the drug penalties instituted in the 1970's that put some low-level first-time drug offenders behind bars for sentences ranging from 15 years to life. Under the changes passed yesterday, which Gov. George E. Pataki said he would sign, the sentence for those same offenders would be...

Psychotic symptoms more likely with cannabis 16:58 01 December 04 NewScientist.com news service Using marijuana in adolescence and early adulthood can cause psychotic symptoms later in life, a new study suggests. The risk of developing these symptoms is “moderate”, say researchers, though is higher in people with a pre-disposition to psychosis. Up to a third of people develop signs of psychosis at some point during their lives and several studies have already linked cannabis use with psychotic symptoms. But it is often difficult to decipher whether cannabis really triggers psychotic symptoms - such as hearing voices and paranoia - or...

http://badnarik.org/plans_civilliberties.php Civil Liberties The erosion of our civil liberties since 9/11 does not represent a new phenomenon. It represents an acceleration of long-existing trends. As president, my goal will be to to reverse those trends and to restore, respect and enforce the Bill of Rights. In crafting the Bill of Rights, the framers were careful to acknowledge implicitly and explicitly two key truths: The first is that government does not grant rights it acknowledges them. They exist independently of government. They're part of who and what we are. And, as Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence, the only legitimate...