Liberty Revealed

The US Government, specifically President Joe Biden, has proposed mandating vaccinations for COVID for everyone. Mike is joined by Cason Pratt to discuss this and other liberty related issues.

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about why I believe you should oppose lockdowns.As you are no doubt aware, the response to the COVID pandemic has been to lockdown entire countries. In the United States, this has happened on a state by state basis. What started as a “two weeks to flatten the curve” lockdown has now extended into an 8 month-long period of lockdowns of varying severity.The issue I have, and it is why I say you, too, should oppose lockdowns, is that this response is not based in scientific evidence despite us being told we need to listen to science.The World Health Organization has come out against lockdowns. They say lockdowns hurt economies (duh) and are not needed. Despite the many warnings, California, where I live, is now on lockdown yet again. Some counties have closed up all restaurants. Others have allowed outdoor dining. The problem is ther

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about how to handle liberty issues without being selfish.I recently had an interaction in a Facebook group and it gave rise to what we are about to discuss. It showed me exactly how much the Libertarian party is failing at its messaging. The fact that people still have a completely erroneous idea of what Libertarians stand for is evident by the conversation I am about to share.The person in question shared an article that described libertarianism as destroying our society. I immediately got intrigued because, to me, for that to happen, libertarian principles have to be prevalent in society and they are not. That’s what initially made me perk up and take notice. Upon reading the article, it was apparent that the author didn’t understand libertarianism at all. The author (and the person I encountered on Facebook) looked at libertari

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about the importance of continuing the fight for liberty.The election is over. At least that is what the media has said. Donald Trump clearly has another opinion.Whatever you think about the outcome of the election, one thing is very clear-- we libertarians need to continue the fight for liberty. We must be diligent and do this starting now. We cannot wait until it is an election year. That just doesn’t give us the time to spread the word.I am proposing that libertarians start campaigning now for liberty. The democrats have been very successful by taking control of local elections. They do this by having small democrat clubs that help with donations and campaign volunteers when a candidate surfaces for a given office.Anyone who has run for office as a libertarian will tell you that the sound of crickets is deafening when you ask f

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about the importance of voting for the candidate who most resonates with you.As I record this episode, it is election day in the United States. We have endured a solid year of campaigning and rhetoric. Perhaps, like me, you voted for the Libertarian candidate for President? If so, and you made this known on social media, you’ve no doubt been told that you are wasting your vote or that you are really voting for Trump. Today we are going to discuss these things and we will come to a very solid conclusion.When someone tells you that you are wasting your vote by voting for a third party candidate, remind them of how selfish their comment is. Help them to understand that we don’t try to vote for the winner, we vote for the person we are most ideologically aligned with and then we hope for them to win. Anyone saying you are wasting your

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about the lockdowns that have been caused by the pandemic.First, thank you for bearing with me as it has been several months since an episode has been released. The show will get back to a regular frequency going forward.On March 13, 2020, life changed as I knew it. That day, in particular, we were moving from one home to another. We got an automated call from my son’s school announcing that in-person instruction was suspended due to the coronavirus. From there, things just got worse.The California state government installed lockdowns that have crushed the economy and taken away the rights of the people. The government has rushed to find a way to control the spread of the virus. Across the world, a range of surveillance technologies are being deployed in an effort to find out more about who is sick. Although a crisis may make incr

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about universal basic income.Universal basic income is so much better than our current system of welfare. If such a program were to be implemented in the United States, the details become extremely important. The main pout is that universal basic income would replace welfare.Current federal social welfare programs in the United States are an expensive, complicated mess. According to Michael Tanner, the federal government spent more than $668 billion on over one hundred and twenty-six anti-poverty programs in 2012. When you add in the $284 billion spent by state and local governments, that amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America.Wouldn’t it be better just to write the poor a check?Each one of those anti-poverty programs comes with its own bureaucracy and its own Byzantine set of rules. If you want to shrink the size and

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about data privacy and how I feel it should be dealt with.Protecting internet data privacy without hindering innovation requires a dose of legislative humility and strong trust in consumer intelligence. Neither is easy for a Libertarian to swallow.The recent data breaches at Google and Facebook have amplified the debate around data privacy and the laws governing the same. Commentators seem to feel the US regulatory approach to all of this is akin to the Wild Wild West. They act as though no regulation exists.Some are calling for the adoption of heavy-handed, European-style controls such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which imposes 45 specific rules on data-driven enterprises. They have applauded new data regulation rules in California, which grants sweeping power to the state’s attorney general to collect fees,

 Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to discuss why I am so disappointed with Americans in general and Libertarians specifically.As I record these words, much of our country is under lock down. This has happened due to an attempt to control the spread of the virus known as COVID19. The problem is that the story keeps changing. Let’s begin by addressing some very concerning issues.Right now the government is exercising vast power to keep citizens inside as much as possible. On March 30, 2020, Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC announced people will receive 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes. The only exceptions: grocery shopping, essential workers, and outdoor exercise. What the hell is wrong with people?Why aren’t people marching in the streets in protest? Why are people so willingly relinquishing their rights? Why can’t they see the obvious problem

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about why the United States should stop its constant interventions in foreign countries.Over several decades, Libertarians have expressed opposition to United States intervention in foreign countries. We have offered alternatives that have been ignored by the leadership in Washington DC. Every election cycle the Republican and Democrat candidates claim they will bring peace and stability and never seem to do that. The American people are growing weary of this constant cycle of intervention. Is it now time for a Libertarian foreign policy?Adam Smith taught that for there to be a tolerable government, there needed to be in place the essential ingredients of peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.” War doesn’t make the list for good reason. It is probably the largest and most far-reaching of all statist enterpri

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about lying to a governmental body.Every state in the United States has laws regarding public meetings. These laws prescribe the procedures for open public meetings. From the notice requirements to what legislators can address during a meeting, these laws aim to provide transparency in government. The concept is most definitely positive. Keeping government transparent is essential to the progress of the liberty movement. In July of 1987, the Los Angeles Times published an article that has a very important title -- “Brown Act Keeps Sun Shining on Government.”  For those who don’t know, the Brown Act is California’s open meetings law. These laws work best in smaller settings like commissions and school board meetings because there is very little public attendance at these meetings. These open meeting laws force the government to con

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about approval voting and why I believe it will lead to better representation for the United States.I am certain you are wondering what approval voting is. It is a single-winner electoral system where each voter may select ("approve") any number of candidates. The winner is the most-approved candidate.Robert J. Weber coined the term "Approval Voting" in 1971. Guy Ottewell described the system in 1977. It was more fully published in 1978 by political scientist Steven Brams and mathematician Peter Fishburn.Approval voting ballots look like the ballots we are currently used to. They have a list of the candidates running for that seat for each office being contested. Next to each name is a way to select that candidate.Each candidate is essentially treated as a separate question: “Do you approve of this person for this job?” Approval v

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about censorship.What exactly is censorship? Defining this term properly will help you decide if it is ever a good thing. Censorship is the coercive silencing of dissenting views by political authorities generally in order to protect an official orthodoxy or to prevent the spread of ideas not authorized by the powers that be. As Alberto Manguel writes in A History of Reading, censorship “is the corollary of all power, and the history of reading is lit by a seemingly endless line of censors’ bonfires.”It should be noted that censorship has been and continues to be a common feature of oppressive regimes. John Milton, whose Areopagitica (written in protest of the censorship of his writings on divorce) remains the most eloquent defense of the free press written in English, provided a history of censorship from 411 B.C., when the works

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about someone who gets bashed on a continual basis. This person gets bashed when they do something right and when they do something wrong. I am speaking of President Donald Trump.Let me begin by saying that I am not a huge fan of President Trump, but I am definitely a fan of fairness. I feel that we shouldn’t judge a leader because they do or do not do things the same as previous leaders. It is my personal opinion that a leader should choose a style and approach that fits them the best. Criticizing a leader for not following the traditional approach seems wrong on many levels. Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about.At the start of President Trump’s term he took a lot of heat (and continues to take a lot of heat) for separating families at the border and detaining children. The issue is that this has been going on

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to discuss freedom of speech.As a libertarian, I value the freedoms we are given by the Constitution. One of these is the freedom of speech granted by the First Amendment. Where I personally struggle is with allowing people who tell complete lies to do so under the guise of freedom of speech.On the one hand, I completely grasp that people need to be allowed to speak their minds. I agree that being able to speak up about our government is extremely important. But lying about another person is fraudulent speech. Should fraudulent speech be allowed?On the surface, the answer seems like it should be a resounding “no!” Why do we have libel laws if it is OK to lie about others? Well, if you are a business owner and a client is going around lying about you, that is not protected speech. You have every right to go after them in court for lying about you

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to discuss what it means to be a pragmatic Libertarian.I’ve spoken about things like this on the show in the past. So many Libertarians are dogmatic with their positions on the issues. They want to see the Libertarian position in play and nothing less. Unfortunately, we live in a society where there are people who think like Libertarians, Republicans, Democrats, etc. Unless one election cycle every other party is voted out and Libertarians replace them, this is not a likely thing to happen.The United States is not likely to create an open border policy any time soon. However, it is highly possible that Congress will expand the number of highly skilled immigrant visas allocated each year. It is highly unlikely that drugs will be legalized in the United States in the near future, but it is possible to expand access to Naloxone programs to reduce d

Welcome to another episode of Liberty Revealed. I am your host, Mike Mahony. This is the show that puts personal liberty at the forefront of all discussions. Today I want to talk to you about the homeless crisis in our country and specifically, Orange County, California where I live. I will start by telling you that I do not have a particularly libertarian view of the solution to this problem. As I’ve explained many times, I am a pragmatic libertarian, believing that a utopian libertarian society would be the ultimate place to live, but understanding that we must integrate into the society we currently live in, a society where, unfortunately, the government does play a role in social issues. While I am completely opposed to this, I understand that solving problems in today’s world depends upon the approach used in today’s world. As many of you listeners know, I live in Buena Park, California, a city in Orange County. Like most places in the United States, Orange County is struggling to solve a homelessness

Mike introduces his guest,Greg Kotstafis. Greg tells the story of how he wound up in trouble and losing his freedom. Greg says losing his freedom was devastating. He says the repercussions of getting out are worse than when you are in. Greg says you lose credibility. Your relationships have difficulty with trust. New relationships require you to disclose what you did. It can be hard for people to understand and it takes time for them to trust you again. He says he's been dealing with this for 7 years and he is still dealing with it. Greg advises that people need trusted people they can talk to about these issues as they arise. Greg discusses how he was given the advice to file for bankruptcy. Greg explains how we take so much about our freedom for granted. Greg points out that one mistake caught on social media can also ruin your life forever. Greg says that when you can be transparent you have better relationships. Mike and Greg discuss the need for boundaries.

Mike introduces the topic of Media Bias. Mike introduces John Daly, today's guest. John speaks about fake news. He says it is a worn out term. John points out that not only the media is biased–everyone is biased. John says the best way to get more informed is to set up a Twitter news account. Mike discusses the fact that the best way to solve a problem is to know all the different sides. John talks about what happened when he did a commercial for a book on the Trump tax cuts. John says listening is the key to everything. Mike explains why he agrees with John.

Mike introduces his guest, Abe Abdelhadi. They run through the candidates. Kamala Harris: Abe says she was one of the worst attorney generals in California history. He mentions she is beholden to corporate interests. Elizabeth Warren: Abe says she's great at chastising people doing unethical things, but never introduces legislation to deal with the issues once and for all. Beto O'Rourke. Abe lists his record of voting to bail out banks, not opposing wars and several other issues as a reason not to vote for him. Tulsi Gabbard. Abe says he respects her as a veteran. He likes her voting record. She backs up what she says. She holds journalists' feet to the fire. Pete Buttigieg. Abe calls him the Gay Obama. He says that Buttigieg uses identify politics to get recognition. He talks about values. Cory Booker. Abe calls him an empty suit. Bernie Sanders. Abe says Bernie is dead to him because of how he handled the 2016 primary. Andrew Yang. Abe says he has a business background, but he is still a corporate Democrat.