Kid’s TV Sucks

By Isaac M. Morehouse

Watching the TV shows and movies my 3 year-old son enjoys, I’ve noticed something - they suck.

I’m shooting from the hip here, since I’ve only been privy to the selection of kids media that my son happens to watch, but I have noticed in these stories some disturbing trends that don’t bode well for the future of freedom.

Movie Review: Sicko

By Eric Plourde

In trying to demonstrate argumentative strategy to his son Joey, Nick Naylor, the main character in the movie Thank You for Smoking, sets up a simulated debate between himself and his son about whether chocolate or vanilla ice cream is the better flavor. The conversation goes like this:

Joey: Chocolate is all I need.

Nick: Well I need more than chocolate, and for that matter I need more than vanilla. I believe that we need freedom. And choice when it comes to our ice cream, and that, Joey, that is the definition of liberty.

Joey: But that's not what we're talking about.

Nick: Ah, but that's what I'm talking about.

Joey: But you didn't prove that vanilla was the best.

Nick: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong, I'm right.

Joey: But you still didn't convince me.

Nick: Because I'm not after you. I'm after them.

The Libertarian Rap Game
PI Symposium

J. Hartfield:

“Get money.” - Every rapper ever.

In my mind, every libertarian candidate should walk up to the podium with hardcore gangsta rap blaring on thirty 15” subwoofers located directly in front of the stage. Think about it: hip-hop is the sound of the movement. What are rappers always talking about? How much money they have. Or they talk about being famous and making money. Or being famous and making money and fornicating with models from Milan. There’s more to the list but I think if you are smart enough to read this website, you don’t need me to elaborate in order to deduce the pattern.

Where is the Love?: The Political Divisions in Music
Prometheus Institute editorial

The fact that PI can unequivocally promote the work of artists and musicians whose opinions - and often work itself - might represent political issues at odds with ours seems to confound certain individuals. How do we, they ask, reconcile our love of hip-hop with the hip-hop community's often blatant afro-centric socialism? Or how do we reconcile our interest in rock with rock's own traditionally statist positions?

The Greatest Rap Lines of All Time
A random, capricious list

Despite hip-hop being one of the most popular musical genres, it noticeably lacks defenders among the political intelligentsia. Conservatives clearly despise rap music, and even the liberals join them in parent-pleasing indictments of the social degeneration Luda and Em have wrought. Is the establishment is simply afraid of rap, or have they simply never had the pleasure of growing up with Tupac? Undeterred by this puritan opposition, PI unequivocally supports the existence, popularity, quality and artistic value of hip-hop music.

Hip-hop, in its brilliance, merges lyrical modernized poetry with beats inspired from nearly every genre of modern music. The rapper thus performs two distinct duties in his songs. First, his voice must function as a musical instrument. Rather than a melodic effect, as in traditional music, the voice acquires a rhythmic quality. It becomes part of the beat of the song.

Book Review: Elephant in the Room
Evangelicals, libertarians, and the battle to control the Republican party

By Barry Fagin

Every once in a while, somebody writes a book that makes you want to tie complete strangers to a chair and hold the pages in front of them until the writing burns into their eye sockets. The Elephant in the Room is such a book. Written by journalist Ryan Sager, it’s required reading for anyone interested in the future of American politics.

Sager’s book is subtitled, “Evangelicals, libertarians, and the battle to control the Republican party.” Living today, where the dominance of the Republican Party by Christian conservatives is so depressingly obvious, it’s easy to think the battle is lost. But it isn’t. And it is worth fighting.