In that series, among other things, I analyzed the current situation, pointed out the contrast between Biden’s position on immigration as a presidential candidate in 2020 and where he appears to stand now, and discussed the effect this issue is having on American politics during a presidential election year.

What I didn’t do was provide an in-depth look into my own thoughts on immigration and the border crisis. I did include some commentary, but it was primarily focused on the political environment in which this discussion is taking place. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure I even have a firm position on immigration policy, as this issue is complex and I’m sympathetic to arguments from both sides of the debate, broadly speaking. However, I will say that I disagree with the way both dominant political factions in the U.S. have come to perceive and talk about this issue, particularly since it became deeply submerged in the culture war.

Generally, the American right tends to come off as indifferent to the plight of immigrants—most of whom are probably decent human beings simply seeking freedom, safety or opportunity, and many are often fleeing regions that have been destabilized by U.S. foreign policy. I’ll also add (with the risk of sounding like part of the Woke mob) that some of the American right’s rhetoric on immigration can occasionally come across as xenophobic or even somewhat racist.

The American left, on the other hand, generally comes off as indifferent to the real problems that mass, uncontrolled immigration brings to border cities and states, but they also seem to immediately (and hypocritically) acknowledge those problems once they reach blue cities and states. And while most immigrants are likely decent people, the American left tends to naively act like mass immigration carries no risk—like the very real possibility that some violent or dangerous individuals might gain entrance into the country and harm U.S. citizens, for example.

The conversation around immigration doesn’t necessarily fall along a simple left/right divide, however.

Longtime readers of Thoughts Into Words likely know that I identify as a libertarian, but that doesn’t automatically give away my position on the border crisis or on immigration more broadly. Much like the issue of abortion, libertarians are not all aligned on immigration and border policy; and ever since this conflict between Texas and the federal government began in January, that split has been continuously manifesting itself throughout libertarian corners of social media.

Twitter Feuds

The debate among libertarians over immigration—or more accurately, over “open borders”—has long existed, but the current border crisis and the ongoing spat between Texas and the Biden administration has intensified it.

The current round of this debate really took off after libertarian comedian and podcaster Dave Smith went on the Liberty Lockdown podcast in February to discuss conservative journalist Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which had just happened at the time. Toward the end of that episode, the conversation turned to immigration.

“[F]rom the most recent numbers I saw, there was approximately eight million that came across the border last year alone,” said Clint Russell, host of Liberty Lockdown. “They [the U.S. government] will not spend a dollar to try and address that issue, despite the fact that it is the number one issue amongst GOP voters and a quickly, you know, elevating issue among Democrat voters… they will still now do a stand alone bill to ship… $96 billion dollars to Ukraine.”

(Russell was referring to a recent foreign aid package that had just passed the U.S. Senate. In addition to the billions of dollars for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, the original bill contained spending to address the border crisis as well, but it was eventually stripped from the legislation. That bill has since passed the U.S. House of Representatives.)

In response, Dave Smith pointed out that the U.S. has troops “all throughout Europe, all throughout Asia, all throughout the Middle East,” and then said the “obvious answer” is “that all of our troops should come home, and be stationed around our borders.”

After acknowledging that there are many libertarians who disagree with his opposition to open borders—and maintaining that no one has been able to actually take on his arguments—Smith then said “if you believe in open borders right now under current… circumstances, you’re an insane person, and you’re as bad as a communist.”

“The answer is” Smith continued, “take our fucking entire military, and put them on our border, and secure our border.”

It was this part of the episode that began to circulate on social media and cause a flurry of heated debate among libertarians. Many different people within the liberty movement—some with fairly large followings—felt the need to respond to Smith’s statements.

One such person was Jack V. Lloyd, a libertarian content creator, music producer, and author, who got into a somewhat heated argument with Smith on X/Twitter that spanned several days.

The back-and-forth between Dave Smith and Jack Lloyd largely consisted of Lloyd offering to debate Smith, live and moderated, on the issue of immigration and open borders and Smith refusing, but throughout the days-long spat there were a few interesting moments.

One exchange that took place involved Lloyd’s wife, Pho, also known as The Pholosopher, who is herself a fairly prominent voice in the liberty movement.

In that instance, Lloyd was trying to convince Smith to debate him on immigration, to which Smith told Lloyd “tell me what you want to debate and make a compelling point. If you want to debate borders, do you understand my position? What am I getting wrong? If you make a compelling point, maybe I’ll do it.”

Lloyd’s response goes as follows:

“Okay: Collectivist rhetoric using ‘will of the people’ causes major confusion among your followers and leads them to rationalize more state control out of a fear-based mindset. There are better ways to talk about common problems due to state incentive distortions, and those ways involve privatization as the focus. No need for half-wayisms or rationalizations for state force, such as a call for putting all U.S. troops on the border. Straightforward?”

Okay:

– Collectivist rhetoric using "will of the people" causes major confusion among your followers and leads them to rationalize more state control out of a fear-based mindset.

There are better ways to talk about common problems due to state incentive distortions, and those…

— Jack V Lloyd (@jackvlloyd) February 19, 2024

“Yeah it’s straightforward. Simple even,” Smith replied. “The issue comes with the fact that government property exists. Is it still your position that there should be zero restrictions on public property? The drug addict should be allowed in public schools?”

Instead of answering the question, Lloyd once again told Smith to debate him. Smith responded by saying that both Lloyd and his wife Pho had previously stated that they don’t believe drug addicts should be restricted from public schools. This is where Pho entered the conversation. In her response, she said “my answer is ‘No’ – when it comes to ‘public’ or government property, the principles of individual liberty should still be applied and limitations on government power should be applied as to maximize individual liberty.”

“People should not be criminalized over victimless actions, such as being addicted to drugs or not paying taxes,” she concluded.

Since I was mentioned albeit indirectly… my answer is "No" – when it comes to "public" or government property, the principles of individual liberty should still be applied and limitations on government power should be applied as to maximize individual liberty (which was the…

— The Pholosopher (@ThePholosopherX) February 19, 2024

I’m willing to bet that Smith would agree with the last part of Pho’s response, but it doesn’t really pertain to what he was arguing. Smith wasn’t saying that anyone suffering from addiction—like a student or a parent of a student, for example—should be thrown in jail or barred from ever entering public schools. While his use of the term “drug addict” could seem overly broad, I thought it was obvious he was referring to a random drug addict wandering into a public elementary school from off the street. In which case, I personally think it’s entirely reasonable for that person to be forcefully removed if they refuse to leave voluntarily.

“So, just be clear, you believe that a 55 year old crack head has a right to enter a public elementary school and it would be immoral to force him to leave. A violation of HIS rights,” Smith said in response to Pho. “You are willing to put other people’s young children in danger because you believe that is consistent with your ideology.”

Smith then said that he views Pho “as being as evil as a communist or a Nazi. Maybe worse since you wrap this evil in the language of liberty.”

I appreciate you answering the question. I think we know why Jack wouldn’t.

So, just be clear, you believe that a 55 year old crack head has a right to enter a public elementary school and it would be immoral to force him to leave. A violation of HIS rights. You are willing to… https://t.co/1MVccOebCx

— Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith) February 19, 2024

Personally, I think it’s hyperbolic to equate Lloyd or Pho—both of whom have had a considerable impact on spreading the message of liberty over the years—to communists or Nazis, but as a parent myself, I can understand Smith’s frustration. Petty remarks and accusations have been thrown both ways, however. Lloyd and Pho have both insinuated that the reason Smith has taken the stance that he has is not because of his interpretation of libertarian theory, but it is instead a ploy to appeal to conservatives. I think that is a mischaracterization of Smith’s position, who is also a fairly prominent voice within the liberty movement.

Crackheads in Public Schools

Shortly after this exchange on X/Twitter, Lloyd went on The Free Thought Project Podcast to discuss the controversy. That episode also featured another guest, which was libertarian podcaster and entrepreneur Patrick Smith.

When the hypothetical of a homeless drug addict entering a public school came up, Patrick went on for several minutes about how such a situation would be properly handled according to his interpretation of libertarian theory. Patrick’s version of the hypothetical included a crackhead using drugs inside a school and Dave Smith arguing with an arbiter over how to have the crackhead removed. It ends with Dave being unable to take any action against a homeless drug addict smoking crack inside his child’s school.

Patrick’s version of this hypothetical is completely irrelevant to how the world currently operates, but I think it highlights a problem in how far too many libertarians perceive the world. Libertarians often get caught up in how they think the world should work—how it would work in a purely libertarian society—instead of how to reasonably address the issues we face right now, in the current moment, within a system that is far from the libertarian ideal.

In a purely libertarian society, all schools—and all borders—would be private, and it would be up to the property owners to set the rules and decide who’s allowed to enter or use the property. In that world, if a homeless drug addict was permitted to smoke crack inside a school, parents who object to such a policy (as almost any parent would) could simply choose to put their children in a different school without being forced to continue funding the school that allows drug addicts to use drugs near the students.

The problem is that, in the world we currently live in, government schools exist, and taxpayers are forced to fund them whether they choose to place their children in them or not—even if someone doesn’t have children, they’re still forced to fund public schools. This means that those schools are “public property,” which is why some libertarians have this idea that random drug addicts should be allowed to enter them from off the street, but frankly, that’s a ridiculous stance to take.

I’m almost certain that everyone who has been mentioned in this article supports the idea of getting government out of education, but until that happens, it’s not unreasonable for public schools to have certain restrictions. Libertarians would have no objections to a private school with private security preventing homeless drug addicts from entering the property or even forcefully removing them if they do, so why shouldn’t public schools be allowed to have a similar standard? Because the school is funded by taxes, anyone who has ever paid taxes at any point in their life is now allowed to do whatever they want on that public property?

If public schools were to make that position the official policy, it would inevitably lead to many children being put into dangerous situations. Because of that, those who advocate for this position do tend to come across as if they’re placing their idealized version of a political theory over the safety of real children who currently attend public schools.

Many libertarians take a similar stance on borders and immigration. The government controls the borders, and libertarians believe that the government should either be significantly decreased in size or cease to exist at all, and therefore, the government enforcing restrictions on immigration in any form is a violation of individual liberty.

To some extent, I can understand that argument, as I think people should be allowed to move around the world as freely as possible so long as they’re not harming anyone in the process. However, in the system we currently live under where private property owners are not always allowed to maintain their own private borders, and where the government doesn’t simply allow migrants to enter the country but often facilitates immigration by offering migrants various forms of taxpayer-funded handouts, allowing anyone and everyone to enter the country does come with potential risks.

Because of those risks, I think it’s reasonable for there to be some restrictions at the border for the time being, as we work to create a more libertarian society where all borders are private and property owners aren’t forced to associate with immigrants when they don’t want to, and won’t get caught up in red tape when they do.

The Libertarian Split

The way I see it, the argument over open borders among libertarians comes down to a dispute over how to interpret property rights, particularly when it comes to public property.

Libertarians who support open borders believe that public property—property paid for by taxpayers—is essentially everyone’s property, since the ownership of that property is claimed by the government and the government’s authority is seen as illegitimate. With that perspective, migrants should be allowed to access our borders unimpeded because the state has no real authority over anyone, including illegal immigrants.

Libertarians who oppose open borders also view the government as illegitimate, but argue that public property does not belong to everyone. Instead, it actually belongs to the people who have been taxed (i.e. robbed) to pay for it. According to this line of thinking, immigrants who only recently came to this country (especially those who came here illegally and are unlikely to begin paying into the system anytime soon) don’t have an inherent right to immediately begin utilizing public property, including our borders, because those who have been forced to pay taxes have a more legitimate claim to that property than migrants do.

In a purely libertarian society, this argument would likely cease to exist, as private property owners would be able to voluntarily invite, trade with, or otherwise peacefully associate with anyone they want from anywhere in the world. I think libertarians on both sides of this debate would likely agree with that, so the argument isn’t so much over immigration itself, it’s actually over which immigration policies libertarians should advocate for under our current system, while still maintaining libertarian principles.

The hypothetical of how libertarians should deal with a random drug addict entering a public school is a relevant analogy to the argument over open borders because they both deal with this issue of public property.

According to libertarians, all individuals have self-ownership and should have the freedom to use any substance they choose, move anywhere they choose, and associate with whoever they choose, so long as they don’t harm anyone or violate anyone’s rights in the process.

I personally think that a drug addict being allowed to smoke crack inside of a public school is an obvious example of someone’s choices violating the rights of other people, as it would put the students, and even the school faculty, in harm’s way. It would also force the students, their parents, and the faculty to associate with an individual the majority of them would most likely rather not associate with under normal circumstances.

In a similar sense, the government allowing—and even facilitating—mass immigration could also be viewed as a violation of American’s rights, as they could possibly be put in harm’s way if dangerous individuals are allowed to easily enter the country. It also forces U.S. citizens to associate with people they might not choose to associate with on their own. And if the government offers immigrants various forms of welfare (which it does) it also violates American’s rights by forcing people—even the many Americans who oppose such a policy—to essentially fund immigration.

Obviously, the libertarian solution is to minimize or abolish the state and allow individuals to make their own decisions on who they would and would not like to associate with, but until that happens, I think it’s necessary for there to be some basic restrictions at our border. Much like the crackhead who shouldn’t be allowed to use drugs inside a public school, there are some people who shouldn’t be allowed to just walk across our border.

Militarized Border

One aspect of what Dave Smith said during his appearance on Liberty Lockdown earlier this year that I think deserves some scrutiny is his call to place the entire U.S. military on our borders. While I understand the sentiment—our military is spread all over the globe engaging in unconstitutional wars that only serve the interests of the U.S. empire, not the average U.S. citizen actually living in this country, and a better use for our military would be national defense—there are some problems with that proposition.

One criticism that Smith has received over this is the claim that he’s suggesting we grow the government rather than shrink it, but I think there’s a flaw in that criticism. Bringing every U.S. troop stationed abroad home and then placing them on our border would not grow the government, it would simply move government-controlled resources and personnel from one place to another. In fact, I would argue it would actually shrink the U.S. government, because without our military scattered across the globe there could be no U.S. empire, and the maintenance of that empire is the main reason the U.S. government has grown to the size that it has.

However, that isn’t to say there’s nothing that could go wrong by placing our entire military—the largest military the world has ever known—on our borders. While it wouldn’t necessarily make the government larger, it would significantly increase the government’s ability to encroach on civil liberties domestically.

In response to Smith’s statement, The Free Thought Project co-founder Jason Bassler posted on X/Twitter asking “If some Libertarians got their way and the gov’t put ‘military on our borders,’ do you really think when the ‘border crisis’ subsided, the military and police state apparatus created to prevent it would just relinquish their authority & walk away? Is that how government works?”

If some Libertarians got their way and the gov't put "military on our borders," do you really think when the "border crisis" subsided, the military and police state apparatus created to prevent it would just relinquish their authority & walk away?

Is that how government works?

— Jason Bassler (@JasonBassler1) March 10, 2024

This is a fair critique. To some, placing our military on our borders might sound like a reasonable solution to the border crisis right now, but I have to agree with Bassler’s presumption that a militarized border would continue long after the current crisis ends.

Any policy the U.S. government puts in place in the name of fighting foreign threats can always been turned inward and used against Americans. In fact, as journalist Whitney Webb has written about for Unlimited Hangout, the border crisis is already being exploited to increase surveillance on anyone entering or exiting the country, which inevitably includes U.S. citizens as well as migrants.

Clearly, militarizing our borders even further would only exacerbate our government’s tendency to abuse its authority. So while our borders are an objectively better place for U.S. soldiers to be than various countries all over the world, the policy of placing our military along our borders would come with its own set of problems.

(To be fair to Dave Smith, I heard him clarify his position—at least somewhat—during a recent episode of Just Asking Questions, a podcast put out by Reason, where he debated Chris Freiman on open borders. Smith said that, ideally, all the soldiers would “be discharged” and then “rehired as border security”.)

Conclusion

Immigration is not a problem in and of itself. People who have not harmed anyone—regardless of where they’re from—deserve to be free to lead their own lives. If that means they decide to immigrate to the U.S., then they should be able to do so with relative ease.

With that being said, the chaotic nature of the U.S.’s southern border is leading to problems for both migrants and U.S. citizens, and as long as the U.S. government exists in its current form, it has an obligation to handle immigration in an orderly way rather than creating, incentivizing and fomenting that chaos.

As I said at the top of this article, this issue is complex, and under our current circumstances, I’m not sure a perfectly libertarian solution exists. There are certainly policies that are more in line with libertarian principles than others, but libertarians could take issue with anything the government does, whether it tries to ignore the issue or address it.

There are policies libertarians can advocate for, however, some that are seemingly unrelated to immigration at first glance, which would help alleviate the border crisis and correct some of the distorted incentives that helped create it in the first place.

Some of those policies are:

• End the U.S. empire and our involvement in foreign conflicts, which destabilizes entire regions and causes the waves of immigration that typically follow such events.
• End the War on Drugs, which would significantly reduce the power criminal organizations have gained through the drug trade, particularly in Latin America. The violence and criminality of those organizations is a leading driver of immigration into the U.S. from that region.
• End the welfare state, which creates an incentive for people to depend on the government once they immigrate to the U.S. (that same incentive applies to U.S. citizens as well).
• Reduce or abolish the bureaucratic red tape that causes legal immigration to be time-consuming, complicated, and burdensome. The complex nature of that process creates an incentive for people to immigrate illegally, which further empowers criminal organizations and puts both migrants and U.S. citizens in danger.

Regardless of where one stands on “open borders” as a libertarian, all of these policy proposals will address the border crisis in some way or another, and they’re all in line with libertarian principles. Rather than arguing over whether there should be no restrictions or some reasonable restrictions at the border, libertarians of all kinds should instead focus on the solutions that we can all agree on.

We can sort out what the ideal libertarian world will look like once we get much closer to making that world a reality.

This article was originally published on Thoughts Into Words.

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Americans around my age and younger have never really known a world without the Patriot Act’s influence.

For those of us who had already been born, we were still far too young to fully comprehend the ramifications of the bill, and the generations before us were too gripped with fear to think it all the way through. It was sold as a response to 9/11, but much of the legislation had been authored and introduced years before. Those former iterations didn’t have enough support to make it to the president’s desk, but after the nation witnessed one of the worst attacks on America since its inception there was finally enough momentum to pass the updated version of the bill.

The initial claim was that the sweeping powers the act granted to the government would be used to go after terrorists, but, as could be expected, they were almost immediately turned inward and used against U.S. citizens. Unsurprisingly, given the circumstances that led to the bill’s passing, Muslim Americans felt the brunt of the impact, especially in the very beginning. However, it didn’t take long for the Patriot Act to become just another tool used by law enforcement in the War on Drugs. And thanks to the information revealed by Edward Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor turned whistleblower, we know that the Patriot Act was also used to justify the National Security Agency’s (NSA) mass data collection of U.S. citizens.

More recently, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to the Biden administration asking them to investigate parents who were attending school board meetings and voicing their criticisms of the various school boards and their members. Had the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decided to actually go after those parents, the justification used to do so would’ve stemmed from the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act has also been used against Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, showing how a law passed to go after foreign terrorists can easily be turned around and used on citizens here at home. Regardless of how one feels about the protesters who stormed the Capitol, (I for one think that day was an embarrassing moment in U.S. history and those who engaged in violence or property damage deserve to be held accountable, but the overall danger of what happened that day has been greatly exaggerated) the ramifications of the response to it—characterizing half the country as “domestic terrorists” and treating them as such—are very dangerous.

This is the unfortunate reality of the state of our country, and those in my age group seem to be desensitized to the severe impact on civil liberties the Patriot Act has had over the last 21 years since its signing. As a proponent of freedom and privacy, I hope to see the day when the Patriot Act, with all the broad powers that came with it, is repealed and finally viewed by all as the massive overreach that it is.

Unfortunately, however, that seems unlikely, as the COVID-19 pandemic brought on a new round of government overreach and set many more dangerous precedents. It seems we have failed to learn the lessons that we should’ve learned from the last 21 years.

I wasn’t even six years old when the Patriot Act became law, and now I’m just a few years away from turning 30 and the effects of that law still reverberate today. My daughter, who is just two months old, has been born into the latest generation that will live their entire lives under the broad powers our government gained due to the Patriot Act, unless we actively work to bring an end to it. The Patriot Act should have never been signed into law to begin with, but after 21 years and multiple generations, it’s far past time to repeal it.

The post The Patriot Act: 21 Years and Multiple Generations Later appeared first on Free the People.

Currently, despite being legal in some form in a majority of states, marijuana is a Schedule I drug, in the same class as heroin and above much more dangerous drugs such as methamphetamine.

For those who are being pardoned, and more broadly, for the prospect of bringing an end to the War on Drugs entirely, this is welcome news. As I previously mentioned, the pardons affect roughly 6,500 people, as well as thousands more who were convicted in Washington D.C. However, this latest move falls short in several ways.

The most obvious example would be that these pardons only apply to those convicted federally when most simple possession convictions happen at the state level. Biden did encourage state governors to remedy that part of the problem on their end, but the fact remains that the number of pardons is still a drop in the bucket compared to the overall amount of those convicted throughout the country.

Also, a Biden administration official stated that none of the 6,500 people affected by these pardons are currently in prison, as nearly everyone in federal prisons for marijuana are there on distribution charges. That isn’t to say that this move won’t benefit those 6,500 people, just that these pardons are not as far-reaching as they initially seem to be.

One group of people that won’t be affected by these pardons are those who were not legally in the U.S. when they were convicted. This highlights how Biden’s rhetoric on immigration remains detached from many of his actual policies. Given the fact that Biden used former president Donald Trump’s harsh immigration policies against him during the 2020 election, it’s disappointing to see Biden fail to be much better on the issue than his predecessor.

While these pardons and the potential rescheduling of marijuana are positive developments, they fail to address the root cause of the problem. Namely, that marijuana remains illegal on a federal level. To be fair, Biden does not have the authority to unilaterally legalize the plant, nor should he, which leaves that task in the hands of Congress.

There have been bills introduced in both the House and the Senate to legalize marijuana on a federal level—in fact, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, actually passed the House—but those bills making it through the Senate require bipartisan support, and Democrats in Congress seem unwilling to put in the work to gain Republican approval.

There are aspects of these bills that are clear issues for Republicans, and Democrats have made no effort to compromise where they can to help these bills become law. This brings into question whether or not Democrats actually care to end federal marijuana prohibition, as it appears these proposed bills were more performative than substantive. If Democrats, including Joe Biden, are serious about marijuana reform, there are more steps that they can take.

Pardon all cannabis (marijuana)-related offenses, not just simple possession.
Expunge all associated convictions.
End civil asset forfeiture.
Decriminalize all drugs at the federal level.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) October 7, 2022

Joe Biden issuing these pardons means he’s fulfilling one of his campaign promises, but Biden has not always had this stance on marijuana. During his time as a senator, Biden supported and even authored tough-on-crime legislation, most notably his 1994 crime bill, the ramifications of which have helped lead to the problem he’s now trying to mitigate. One has to wonder, what would make a long-time drug warrior reconsider his position? Has Biden truly changed his mind on the subject, or are his motives political? Personally, I think the answer is obvious.

Biden’s extensive contribution to the drug war isn’t the only thing that’s ironic about these pardons coming out of this administration. Vice President Kamala Harris spent much of her career prosecuting people for using marijuana. She has also claimed her opinion has changed on the matter, but again, has she honestly changed, or has it become more politically viable to express support for marijuana reform rather than oppose it?

Polling suggests that marijuana legalization is supported by a majority of U.S. citizens, and that support spans across the political spectrum. Not only has support for legalization increased in recent years, but a recent Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans view marijuana positively in general. Clearly, it would be unwise for politicians looking to get reelected to oppose efforts to reform federal marijuana policy.

With that in mind, it’s important to note the timing of these mass pardons. As I stated earlier, Biden campaigned on pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession. Why then, did he wait over a year and a half into his term to fulfill a promise that he could’ve done on day one with the stroke of a pen?

Once again, I think the answer is obvious: the midterms.

Life for the average U.S. citizen has not been great since Biden took office, and Democrats are in need of some political capital before Americans head for the polls. The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade gave Democrats something to rally their voters around, but that may not be enough to distract from a drastic rise in inflation or the state of the economy in general.

People are also still very aware that Democrats largely supported the lockdowns, vaccine and mask mandates, and all the other harmful COVID-19 mitigation policies we were subjected to. Democrats also seem to be willfully ignorant that a large portion of the populace opposes much of the critical race theory and gender ideology curriculums of public schools, and voters haven’t forgotten the disdain Democratic politicians have had toward parents wanting a say in their children’s education.

Most recently, Biden’s insistence on sending U.S. tax dollars to Ukraine—despite the risk of nuclear war that policy creates and despite the many problems we face here at home—is not popular with the average citizen. Recent polling suggests most Americans would prefer diplomacy, something the Biden administration has refused to engage in since the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Apparently, stoking nuclear war with Russia is not a good way to ensure votes for your party.

With all that being said, it appears (to me, at least) that Biden cares less about pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession or reforming marijuana policy in general, and more about trying to secure votes for his party in the upcoming midterms which are right around the corner. This tactic isn’t unique to the Biden administration, as all politicians behave in similar ways, but it is important to recognize when it’s happening and to call it out.

I support these mass pardons, and even if it is all a ploy to garner votes, I welcome more moves like this one. However, we shouldn’t give Biden or his administration too much credit for something that barely scratches the surface of the problem and was only done for political reasons. We should all demand better from our politicians.

The post Joe Biden’s Marijuana Pardons appeared first on Free the People.

The potential of this movement to help reign in our unconstitutional foreign policy cannot be overstated.

Over the past couple of months, the topic of war has dominated the news cycle as the Russian government continues its appalling invasion of Ukraine. This war has highlighted the fact that a country sending its military into a sovereign nation to use violence and force to fulfill the political agendas of that country’s elites is a disgusting abuse of power that costs the lives of soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict, not to mention the destruction to infrastructure and the economic toll that war also entails. Many people in the U.S. were quick to condemn this ongoing invasion, and rightly so, but at the same time we seem to have failed to recognize an important lesson that we should take away from this awful situation.

Many U.S. citizens appear to view the actions of the Russian government as a window into a strange scenario that could only happen under an autocratic regime, but in reality, it’s more like a mirror showing us a dark reflection of our own foreign policy. Far too many of our government officials, both elected and unelected, have abused their authority over the years by using our military to invade foreign countries, destabilize foreign governments, and occupy foreign lands for decades; they have also misled us into each and every one of those conflicts. The brave men and women who sign up to serve this country and defend the Constitution should not be manipulated into participating in these military interventions that don’t pertain to our national security and only further the political agendas of warmongering politicians.

One demographic that understands this unfortunate reality better than most is those who have served in these wars and have seen the effects first-hand. Many people, including veterans and active-duty service members, have tried to draw attention to this issue and convince our elected officials to end our military interventionism abroad, but our politicians continue to engage in their warmongering habits and many U.S. citizens seem more than content to allow such behavior.

A group that has been fighting to bring an end to these unconstitutional military interventions is Bring Our Troops Home, a nonpartisan grassroots organization based out of Idaho that is “dedicated to ending American involvement in the Middle East and bringing our troops home,” according to their website. Their founder and chairman, Sgt. Dan McKnight, is a 13-year veteran who served in the Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, as well as the Idaho National Guard.

Bring Our Troops Home has taken on a project called Defend the Guard, a movement with the intention of passing state-level legislation prohibiting the deployment of National Guard troops for combat overseas without an official declaration of war from the U.S. Congress, which is a requirement embedded into the Constitution in Article I, Section 8. The last time Congress issued such a declaration was 80 years ago, in 1942. Every war since then has been waged without going through the proper constitutional process, a trend that has led to an era of Forever Wars.

“The modern Defend the Guard movement was started by Delegate Pat McGeehan of West Virginia,” McKnight told me over email. “Pat is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and served as an intelligence officer throughout the Middle East. In 2015 he introduced the bill in his home state, and continued to do so year after year. It takes principle to keep up that sort of thankless work, being the lone legislator sponsoring a bill. But that perseverance paid off.” He goes on:

It may come as a surprise, but National Guard troops are deployed for combat far more often than most people realize (myself included). “Even though they don’t get enough credit,” McKnight told me, “the National Guard has been the backbone of the U.S. military during the Global War on Terror.” Many people probably assume that the National Guard is only deployed within our borders to provide assistance in situations like natural disasters and mass civil unrest, but that’s not always the case. According to McKnight:

When you consider how often our government unconstitutionally deploys our National Guard overseas, it becomes clear why passing Defend the Guard legislation is so important. I would personally love to see every unnecessary U.S. military intervention come to an end, but that won’t happen overnight. If enough people put in the effort, however, I do believe it is possible, and Defend the Guard is a great step in the right direction.

McKnight told me that there were 31 states with legislators willing to sponsor the Defend the Guard bill in 2021 and that they’re on track to have it introduced in 40 states by the end of this year. If one state can successfully pass this bill it will set an example to others, and as more states follow suit it will significantly increase the likelihood of Defend the Guard legislation passing across the country. The potential of this movement to help reign in our unconstitutional foreign policy cannot be overstated.

Here, in my home state of Utah, local resident David Iglesias heads Defend the Guard – Utah, working locally to try and get this important bill introduced in the state legislature. He has also spread the word about the movement through his Unrestrained Thoughts podcast. For anyone reading this who wants to learn more about the Defend the Guard movement or about some of the history of the National Guard and its original purpose, I would recommend listening to Episode 8 where David interviews Sgt. Dan McKnight and Episode 11 with Peter Gilbert of the Utah Air National Guard. (Disclosure: David and I went to high school together and I can attest that he is a good guy with an excellent podcast. He also suggested to me that I write this article.)

I’ve long been an advocate for ending these wars, and I firmly oppose any attempts by our politicians to drag us into newer conflicts. However, I personally am not a veteran of any kind, so I was curious to get the opinion of someone who has actually served in the military.

I talked to my friend Dave Shepherd who told me he “was 5 years active duty USMC Rifleman. 3rd battalion 3rd Marines,” and that he also “worked as a designated Marksman with FAST (Fleet Anti Terrorism Security Team) which is a quick reaction force for AFRICOM and Centcom.” Considering his five years of military experience compared to my strictly civilian perspective, I asked him about his opinion on Defend the Guard to which he replied:

I personally believe that Defend the Guard has great potential to strike a blow against proponents of these Forever Wars and to prevent our politicians from sending even more National Guard troops into harm’s way overseas. The passage of this legislation across the country could possibly reach even further than that, however, as it would be a giant step toward eventually ceasing all unnecessary U.S. military engagements around the world.

For those who want to help support Defend the Guard, McKnight proposes several ways to do so:

I’ll end with the words of Sgt. Dan McKnight, as this last quote of his fully encompasses the purpose of this article: “If you believe in the Constitution and the American experiment in self-government, if you believe these endless, illegal wars in the Middle East have been bad for our country, and if you agree with a majority of veterans that we need to bring our troops home, then you ought to support Defend the Guard with everything you’ve got.”

The post Defend the Guard—A Grassroots Movement With an Important Goal appeared first on Free the People.

Despite a horrific track record, no-knock warrants continue to be used by police departments across the country.

These raids—which are commonly used in drug-related cases as part of the failed and deadly War on Drugs—became a national discussion after the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. There are many parallels between all of these situations, and while it’s true that some reform has taken place in certain areas since 2020, there is clearly much more work to be done. As I intend to highlight throughout this article, the use of this tactic cannot be allowed to continue as the risk of death or serious injury is just too great for everyone involved while the benefits are minimal.

The killing of 22-year-old Amir Locke occurred around 7AM on February 2, 2022, when officers from the Minneapolis Police Department executed a no-knock warrant on an apartment in downtown Minneapolis in connection with a St. Paul homicide investigation. Inside the apartment, Locke was asleep on a couch when he was startled awake by police officers with their guns drawn, one of which kicked the couch as they shouted commands at Locke to get on the ground and show his hands. They did announce that they were police officers, but only after they had already entered the apartment.

As Locke was asleep at the beginning of the interaction, he likely didn’t hear the officers announce themselves, so it’s reasonable to assume that he might’ve thought the apartment was being burglarized. Locke, being a legal gun owner with a concealed carry permit, reached for his handgun to protect himself. It took mere seconds for police to fire three shots into Locke as he was still wrapped in a blanket, without once telling him to drop his weapon. When viewing the graphic body camera footage, you can see that Locke—even in such a stressful situation—was practicing gun safety by keeping his finger off of the trigger.

Two points that make this story especially egregious are first, that Minneapolis had changed their no-knock warrant policy after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd (also in Minneapolis) in an attempt to prevent situations such as this. Secondly, the St. Paul Police Department had recommended using a knock-and-announce warrant, but Minneapolis police chose to issue a no-knock warrant anyway, to the detriment of an innocent person with no connection to the investigation. In response to the killing of Amir Locke, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has halted the use of no-knock warrants.

On January 10, 2022, a similar situation in Las Vegas resulted in the death of 19-year-old Isaiah Tyree Williams. At around 5AM that morning, the police executed a search warrant in relation to a shooting that had taken place months before and while they did announce themselves before entering the apartment, they also threw a flash-bang grenade through a window and used a battering ram to gain entry. The suspect police were looking for was not in the apartment at that time, and Williams had no connection to the investigation.

As police entered the apartment, Williams (who was also asleep on a couch before the raid) used a handgun to fire 18 shots at the officers—injuring two of them—who responded by firing back a total of 23 times. Williams was pronounced dead on the scene. Had he survived, he would’ve faced multiple charges for his attempt at defending himself from armed intruders breaking down his door. We’ll never know for sure, but I’m willing to bet that had Williams realized they were police officers, he would’ve reacted differently.

Despite the horrific results of the raid, Assistant Sherrif Andrew Walsh defended the decision to serve the warrant so early in the morning saying that “In the early morning hours, it’s much safer for the officers and it’s much safer for the community for us to do it at that time because there are less people out.” Considering that two officers were wounded and an innocent person was killed during the raid, I beg to differ.

The killing of Breonna Taylor also happened under similar circumstances, as her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, reacted to police breaking down their door by firing his legally owned handgun at what he thought was a home intruder, injuring one of the officers. The police responded with a barrage of bullets which killed Taylor, and then they tried to charge Walker with assault and attempted murder of a police officer. Those charges were later dropped.

Another similar story is the 2017 killing of Alteria Woods in Gifford, Florida, who was killed by police executing yet another no-knock warrant. Out of an attempt to defend himself and his girlfriend, Woods’ boyfriend Andrew Coffee IV, fired a handgun at the officers who fired back, hitting Woods ten times. The police then tried to charge Coffee with her murder. Fortunately, however, he was acquitted on those charges last year.

All of these stories involve police officers being put at risk of death or serious injury while executing no-knock warrants, people acting out of self-defense, and the loss of innocent human life. Considering how often these raids end in similar results, there is no good justification to continue such a dangerous and deadly tactic. In 2020 Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a bill to curtail the use of no-knock warrants throughout the country, but progress has yet to be made on the bill and no-knock warrants remain to be a common and harmful tactic to this day.

While the police reform movement of 2020 had some positive effects, it mainly consisted of violent riots and empty slogans to “defund the police.” However, ending no-knock warrants is an actual substantive step that we can take to put an end to police brutality. Other reforms include ending qualified immunity and civil asset forfeiture, abolishing (or at least reforming) police unions, demilitarizing our local police departments, and ending the War on Drugs. It’s long past time for improving the way police operate in this country, and every new victim of police brutality is another reminder of that fact. How many no-knock raids need to end in tragedy before we see significant police reform?

The post No-Knock Raids and Their Deadly Consequences appeared first on Free the People.

In almost every country that has implemented a vaccine mandate, protests have followed. In my view, these are all noble and worthwhile pursuits, but there’s one recent protest in particular that could potentially have an enormous impact on the overall movement against these oppressive policies. The protest I’m referring to is the large convoy of truck drivers that drove to the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa in an ongoing strike against a mandate that requires vaccination for all truck drivers that cross the U.S.-Canada border. The mandate affects roughly 20 percent of Canadian truck drivers, according to some studies. To make matters worse, the U.S. also has a similar rule in place.

What began as an industry-specific strike against a specific mandate has turned into a much larger movement protesting the government overreach Canada has seen over the pandemic.

The so-called “Freedom Convoy” has been condemned by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “fringe movement” that doesn’t represent most Canadians’ views. While it may be true that many Canadians disagree with the protest, the large amount of support the convoy has received implies it’s not as small of a minority as Trudeau suggests. Since the convoy began they’ve received millions of dollars in a GoFundMe account, and images and videos of long lines of vehicles and crowds of people supporting the protest have circulated on social media. The protest has also seen support from some conservative politicians in Canada, as well as a nod from billionaire Elon Musk in a recent tweet.

One of the main arguments against the vaccine mandate (and this could apply to the U.S. mandate as well) is that it will exacerbate the ongoing supply chain issues. At a time when store shelves are missing products and prices are rising, it seems like a poor decision to create another burden for our supply chains, especially considering the isolation that the job in question naturally entails. On a similar note, it never ceases to amaze me that the very people we rightly praised in 2020—truckers and health care workers, for example—are now being forced to choose between their occupations or their right to make their own medical decisions.

In the days leading up to the convoy arriving in Ottawa, officials began to warn of the possibility of violence, even though the organizers of the demonstration maintained that their intention was for a peaceful protest. As is the case with any large group of people, it’s entirely possible that some supporters of the convoy hold extreme views, but so far that hardly seems to be what the overall movement is about and as of now it appears peaceful. The protest began Saturday, January 29, 2022, but people began arriving on Friday ahead of the scheduled date with the protest expected to last all weekend.

As I mentioned earlier, this is just one of many protests that have taken place all over the world in response to governments imposing harsh public health measures, ostensibly for the sake of combatting COVID-19. While these protests receive little attention from the corporate media, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t significant, and we should all pay attention to these people who are taking a stand against what they deem are violations of their civil liberties. Whether you agree with getting the COVID vaccine or not, is not the issue. The underlying theme of these protests is that of personal choice and individual liberty.

The vaccines don’t prevent infection or transmission of COVID-19. What they do prevent is severe illness and death for those who choose to get vaccinated, and even that efficacy wanes over time without a booster—particularly when talking about the omicron variant. Considering this, I’m unsure how one can argue that these mandates are about safety when the chance of spreading the disease is just as likely in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The only danger caused by being unvaccinated, as well as any benefits (or risks) of being vaccinated, happens on an individual level, and therefore, deciding to take the vaccine should be an individual choice.

Let’s hope that the Freedom Convoy and other protests like it can remind our world leaders of that, and have a positive impact on medical freedom and more broadly, on liberty overall.

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