Pre-Order The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America, by Nick Gillespie & Matt Welch

The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America, by Reason's Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, will be published by Public Affairs on June 28.

Pre-order your copy now of this season's only political manifesto that name-checks the shock-rock band GWAR's album This Toilet Earth; argues that the survivors will envy the dead in a world where the choices are John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi; and embraces gay marriage, drug legalization, open borders, and casual Fridays.

Written with an engaging touch, The Declaration of Independents puts the pursuit of happiness at the center of a 21st-century American dream while providing an idealistic yet pragmatic blueprint for a country that is tired of debt, recession, and war.

Read this book to learn why: 

• Political independents are the largest voting bloc in America and will determine the 2012 election—and whether the country goes belly up.
• We need independence not just in politics, but from politics. We can't pursue happiness if our federal, state, and local governments are bankrupt—and controlling every aspect of our lives.
• Innovators in everything from air travel to craft beer to pop music show how individuals can be trusted to come up with exciting and fun new ways of radically improving living standards.
• The three areas of our lives most controlled by politics—education, health care, and retirement—are the most broken, and can't be fixed simply by spending more money and exerting more top-down control.
• Our potential future is so bright we'll have to wear shades. But it can only happen if we make it happen by banishing politics from the center of our lives and replacing them with the pursuit of happiness, not cheap partisan advantage.

Nick Gillespie is the editor in chief of the websites Reason.com and Reason.tv and Matt Welch heads up the print edition of Reason, which since 1968 has been a "kick-ass, no-holds-barred political magazine" (New York Post) whose "refusal to carry water for the Republicans and Democrats is deeply refreshing in this age of partisan bickering" (Folio).

Pre-order now at Amazon.com, BN.com, or your favorite online bookstore.

Comments

[rather]

Nick and Matt, congrats on your book. Who wrote it?

[rather retarded]

I have a book. I tried to read it but it's too hard.

[NotSure]

They are called independents, but yet they end up voting only for two possible parties, in a country of over 300 million. There are countries with not even 3 million people with a more vibrant political scene.

[derek]

I never understood why every one votes Dem or GOP. I almost always vote for a third party candidate. The two party system is ruining this country.

[sloopyinca]

The book is not available at zondervan.com and you said, "Pre-order now at Amazon.com, BN.com, or your favorite online bookstore."

WTF is a Christfag to do?

"The three areas of our lives most controlled by politics?education, health care, and retirement?are the most broken"

What about housing? That's pretty broken, too.

But much of that is controlled by (allegedly) libertarian institutions.

[cynical]

Well, it's too bad the government hasn't been involved in the housing market, then.

.

.

.

Oh, that was sarcasm by the way. I thought you might need a hint.

It was the government that was responsible for the theft of Michael Clauer's house?

It was the government that was responsible for the theft of Wenonah Blevins's house?

It was the government that was responsible for the theft of Pamela Bernhardt's house?

Because the Free Market Fairy would never allow private corporations and their lawyers to do such things.

[heller]

No one knows what you're referring to. Tune down the crazy a bit.

[Amakudari]

Michael Clauer has his house back.

Wenonah Blevins got her house back and successfully sued her HOA.

But I'm sure most people here support the right of an HOA to seize $300,000 worth of property to repay a delinquency of $800, sure. God bless Libertaprivatopia.

But I'm sure most people here support the right of an HOA to seize $300,000 worth of property to repay a delinquency of $800, sure.

Actually, libertarians do support the right of an HOA to seize $300,000 worth of property to repay a delinquency of $800. Or are you going to deny this?

And the only reasons Clauer and Blevins got their homes back was due to publicity (no thanks to conservatives and libertarians). But I guess that the end justifies the libertarian hell these home owners went through, or all the other home owners we don't know about never got their homes back.

In some states, HOA foreclosures account for 10% of foreclosures. I'm not sure anyone knows the total number.

Is this the fault of government, or private corporations who have given free reign to their collections attorneys?

[Amakudari]

No, he's some kind of hardcore anti-HOA activist. Because nothing says libertarian like forcibly taking someone's property for minor HOA delinquencies.

He also seems blissfully unaware that when people say housing is broken -- in a way similar to education and health care -- they're referring almost exclusively to the mortgage debt market, where the government has almost always backed a sizable majority of loans.

anti-HOA activist.

Yes. I don't deny that I am an anti-HOA activist.

Because nothing says libertarian like forcibly taking someone's property for minor HOA delinquencies.

You sincerely believe you're being sarcastic, but the sad truth is that your statement is unintentionally accurate.

He also seems blissfully unaware...

I am well aware of the government's role in the mortgage market (as well as the role of the banks and Wall Street investors, etc.).

What a lot of people are "blissfully unaware" of is that housing is broken in another way. And I'm not just referring to the privatized oppression and petty authoritarianism you sometimes hear about, although those are important too.

HOAs are a $50 billion (5 * 10^10) per year industry, with trillions of dollars of homeowner's equity as their assets. In case you're not aware -- and you probably aren't -- these privatized governments are in worse financial situations than the various levels of public government.

But unlike regular corporations, where an investor's risk is limited to the value of their investment, a homeowner's "share" in an HOA corporation is the equity of their homes, plus any other personal assets the HOA's attorneys can get their hands on:

Community associations are corporations, and aren't shareholders protected from corporate obligations? Isn't that the whole point of a corporation?

Yes, most community associations are corporations?non profit mutual benefit corporations. But there is a major difference between a community association and the typical business corporation. With a typical corporation the investors' (shareholders') liability is limited to the amount of their individual investment. Community associations usually have something more?lien rights to an individual owner's separate interest, either a lot or a unit, and the personal obligation of an individual owner for his or her share of assessments.

?

Where the value of all of the real estate interests within the community can be accessed through the lien process to pay assessments, where assessments are backed by the personal assets of all owners, and where the association has a statutory obligation to assess, the property and personal assets of the owners essentially become the "assets of the company."

This is the real-world result of libertarian utopia.

When those HOA corporations start going bankrupt, we're going to see another housing crisis. Well, libertarians won't see it, because they don't want to. As Glenn Reynolds often says (correctly) about the liberal media's various cover-ups, "it doesn't fit the narrative."

[rather]

Will you blog about it after you read it?

[laptop screen]

CMO N116B6-L22 LCD screen
Screen Size 11.6 Inch
Resolution Pixels 1366x768
Backlight Type LED
Aspect Ratio
Screen Surface
Data Connection -Pin
Application Laptop or Notebook

CMO N116B6-L22 LCD screen LCD screen is the most important component of laptop.Maybe Other laptop parts or components could be replaced or repaired easily at low cost.but for LCD screen,in most cases it only can't be compatible problem. For solve the following problem,broken lcd screen,bad pixels,white lines,color,shine screen.Replace A LCD screen is only solution.Sometime,you need to make sure anti-static steps prepared before remove old screens and check new lcd screen parameters match your original LCD screen. so sugguest buyers need buy it at professional laptop screen website.
The LCD screen review from http://www.nbkit.com
11.6 " lcd screen is for big size netbooks, popular in year 2009, 2010. 1366x768 resolution makes equivient to 14/15.6 inch standard 1366x768 display effect. more clear and bright. but much better price, multiple color, mini design. So it is very good gift for your friends or children... In fact , 11.6 has standard and slim difference inside. strictly speaking, slim screen is improved design and quality, buyers could not see inside ,but they can check it via some software like everest etc.

[laptop screen]

CMO N116B6-L22 LCD screen
Screen Size 11.6 Inch
Resolution Pixels 1366x768
Backlight Type LED
Aspect Ratio
Screen Surface
Data Connection -Pin
Application Laptop or Notebook

CMO N116B6-L22 LCD screen LCD screen is the most important component of laptop.Maybe Other laptop parts or components could be replaced or repaired easily at low cost.but for LCD screen,in most cases it only can't be compatible problem. For solve the following problem,broken lcd screen,bad pixels,white lines,color,shine screen.Replace A LCD screen is only solution.Sometime,you need to make sure anti-static steps prepared before remove old screens and check new lcd screen parameters match your original LCD screen. so sugguest buyers need buy it at professional laptop screen website.
The LCD screen review from http://www.nbkit.com
11.6 " lcd screen is for big size netbooks, popular in year 2009, 2010. 1366x768 resolution makes equivient to 14/15.6 inch standard 1366x768 display effect. more clear and bright. but much better price, multiple color, mini design. So it is very good gift for your friends or children... In fact , 11.6 has standard and slim difference inside. strictly speaking, slim screen is improved design and quality, buyers could not see inside ,but they can check it via some software like everest etc.

[laptop screen]

11.6 " lcd screen is for big size netbooks, popular in year 2009, 2010. 1366x768 resolution makes equivient to 14/15.6 inch standard 1366x768 display effect. more clear and bright. but much better price, multiple color, mini design. So it is very good gift for your friends or children... In fact , 11.6 has standard and slim difference inside. strictly speaking, slim screen is improved design and quality, buyers could not see inside ,but they can check it via some software like everest etc.

[laptop screen]

Is that so?

[air max pas cher]

thank you

[We]

"libertarians" are clever.

[R C Dean]

Perhaps we should look at whether the people who live in HOAs have voluntarily agreed to contracts that allow the HOA to seize their house to pay delinquencies, no?

Perhaps we should look at whether the people who live in HOAs have voluntarily agreed to contracts that allow the HOA to seize their house to pay delinquencies, no?

Yes, we should look at that.

If the libertarian position is that any fine print in a unilaterally amendable document called a contract, even if it's not actually presented to one party at the time of signing but is a "publicly posted" deed restriction filed with the county

on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'

counts as "informed consent," then

"the right of an HOA to seize $300,000 worth of property to repay a delinquency of $800"

is a libertarian position. So is the right to contract ourselves into slavery, since we're doing away with the concept of unconscionability.

If, on the other hand, you believe that HOA adhesion contracts fail to meet the requirements of Rational Choice Theory necessary for a free market to work -- eg, fully informed consent, fully informed consumers, mobile "consumer-voters," etc -- then mandatory membership in an HOA union as a condition of home ownership has no more moral authority than mandatory membership in a labor union as a condition of employment.

Why do I bring this up?

As noted, it's an area I'm active in.

But also because HOAs have so many libertarian (and conservative) advocates and apologists which I find both puzzling and disturbing.

HOA "private governments" do so many things we're supposed to hate: double taxation, oppression, violation of private property rights, parasitic lawyers extorting money from homeowners, collective ownership of your home's equity, moral hazards and perverse incentives that come from the power to use other people's money against them, etc. If this is the real-world result of libertarian ideals, then something is very wrong with libertarianism.

Telling people who are being abused "you agreed to it" only goes so far before they start looking for their rights elsewhere.

[Foogle]

I know of two types of Independents. One is like many of my friends (and my wife) who are really Libertarians, hate both parties, and usually tend to prioritize Social or Fiscal issues higher, and vote accordingly for one of the big two.

The other type of Independent is much more numerous. He doesn't agree AT ALL with the notion that the Government should be restricted. He wishes that more politicians could be like McCain and Lieberman (Social Conservatives and Fiscal Liberals who champion 'compromise' to the tune of trillions of dollars each year). He is extremely concerned about whatever problem is at the top of the news networks, and votes for whichever candidate argues the most eloquent 'solution'. He loves blue ribbon panels, FTC, FCC, FAA and SEC, but just wants them to be better.

So some proportion of Indies pay attention and are disgusted (the former example) but the majority (the latter) don't pay attention at all and actually hate to see principled bickering.

If Libertarians think they are going to get those center Independents, they are crazy.

If Libertarians really want to capture a proportion of voters, they need to target the ideologues in the parties. They are the ones paying attention.

[Joe M]

Any chance of this coming out in audiobook format? That's how I do most of my "reading" these days, with my horrible commute.