NJ Libertarian Blog
Imported from NJ Libertarian News from the published feed
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- Written by: David J. Bier
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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David J. Bier is the Director of Immigration Studies and occupies The Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration Policy. He is an expert on legal immigration, border security, and interior enforcement. |
Originally published on Cato.org, republished under Creative Commons agreement.
On December 4, the Department of Justice (DOJ) disseminated a memorandum to all federal prosecutors creating a strategy for arresting and charging individuals supposedly aligned with “Antifa.” The memo requires DOJ to investigate and identify the “most serious, most readily provable” crimes committed by potential targets, including those with “extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders.”
Specifically, the document defines domestic terrorism broadly to include “doxing” and “impeding” immigration and other law enforcement. Doxing is not specifically defined, but the memo references calls to require Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to give their names and operate unmasked. Individuals who donate to organizations that “impede” or “dox” will be investigated and deemed to have supported “domestic terrorism.”
Therefore, it is crucial to understand that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consider people who follow DHS and ICE agents to observe, record, or protest their operations as engaging in “impeding.” DHS has a systematic policy of threatening people who follow ICE or DHS agents to record their activities with detentions, arrests, and violence, and agents have already chased, detained, arrested, charged, struck, and shot at people who follow them.
The purpose of this post is to establish that these incidents are not isolated overreach by individual agents, but rather, an official, nationwide policy of intimidating and threatening people who attempt to observe and record DHS operations. This matters legally because courts are more likely to enjoin an official policy rather than impose some new requirements to stop sporadic, uncoordinated actions by individual agents.
The Right to Follow, Record, Report, and Protest
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- Written by: Mike Guadagnino
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Dr. Michael Guadagnino holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from the New York Institute of Technology and earned his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from New York Chiropractic College. He served as Vice President of Public Relations for the New Jersey Libertarian Party from 2017 to 2022. Dr. Guadagnino is the author of the best-selling book Fitness Over 50, 60, 70 and Beyond, available on Amazon and other major platforms. He also shares health and wellness insights on Instagram at @Dr._Guadagnino. As a regular guest contributor, Dr. Guadagnino writes on health care topics through the lens of personal freedom and individual liberty. |
The Affordable Care Act, commonly called “Obamacare,” was “designed” to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Americans, but it also created major financial opportunities for insurance companies. At its core, the law tyrannically required most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty (until the federal mandate penalty was reduced to zero in 2019). This mandate, paired with subsidies for lower-income individuals, brought millions of new customers into the insurance market—many of whom were previously uninsured. For insurance companies, this meant an immediate and sustained surge in policyholders, which translated into billions in new premium revenue.
Another financial advantage came from the creation of government-run online marketplaces where consumers shop for plans. While the ACA imposed certain regulations—such as requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions—it also guaranteed that insurers would have a central, highly visible platform to market their products to millions of potential customers. The plan comparisons often increased competition, but it also pushed more people to purchase coverage rather than skip it altogether, again expanding insurers’ customer base.
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- Written by: Mike Guadagnino
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Dr. Michael Guadagnino holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from the New York Institute of Technology and earned his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from New York Chiropractic College. He served as Vice President of Public Relations for the New Jersey Libertarian Party from 2017 to 2022. Dr. Guadagnino is the author of the best-selling book Fitness Over 50, 60, 70 and Beyond, available on Amazon and other major platforms. He also shares health and wellness insights on Instagram at @Dr._Guadagnino. As a regular guest contributor, Dr. Guadagnino writes on health care topics through the lens of personal freedom and individual liberty. |
For decades, Americans were told to trust the Food Pyramid. Introduced in the early 1990s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the pyramid was marketed as the gold standard of healthy eating. Its neat design suggested simplicity: a wide base of bread, pasta, and grains; moderate layers of fruits, vegetables, and proteins; and a small tip for fats, oils, and sweets. It looked like an easy-to-follow blueprint for health. But behind that tidy image lay a web of corporate influence, government policy, and agricultural lobbying that prioritized profits over public well-being. What was sold as nutrition guidance was, in many ways, a governmentsponsored marketing campaign for big agriculture.
The roots of the Food Pyramid lie in the powerful lobbying forces that shaped it. The USDA is not just a health agency; it is also responsible for promoting American agriculture. That dual role created an obvious conflict of interest. Grain producers, dairy farmers, and processed food manufacturers had immense sway over the final recommendations. It’s no coincidence that the base of the pyramid—the foods Americans were encouraged to consume most—was filled with carbohydrates from wheat, corn, and rice. These crops represent some of the most heavily subsidized and mass-produced commodities in the United States. By telling Americans to consume six to eleven servings of bread, cereal, rice, or pasta daily, the government wasn’t just promoting “health”; it was ensuring steady demand for the agricultural industry.
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- Written by: Mike Guadagnino
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Dr. Michael Guadagnino holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from the New York Institute of Technology and earned his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from New York Chiropractic College. He served as Vice President of Public Relations for the New Jersey Libertarian Party from 2017 to 2022. Dr. Guadagnino is the author of the best-selling book Fitness Over 50, 60, 70 and Beyond, available on Amazon and other major platforms. He also shares health and wellness insights on Instagram at @Dr._Guadagnino. As a regular guest contributor, Dr. Guadagnino writes on health care topics through the lens of personal freedom and individual liberty. |
There can be no true liberty or personal freedom if you are not in control of what goes into your own body. Every individual is born with natural rights—chief among them is bodily autonomy. The Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), a foundational concept in libertarian philosophy, prohibits the use of force or coercion against others or their property. So how does this apply to medical freedom?
While I won't rehash the intense government pressure and mandates that occurred during the pandemic, it’s important to recognize that many of those policies still cast a shadow today. To be clear, this is not an anti-vaccine message. If you choose to receive a vaccine, that is entirely your decision. It’s your body. Likewise, if you choose not to get vaccinated, that too is your right. Medical decisions should remain between you, your doctor, your partner—or just you alone, if that’s what you prefer. It is, after all, your body.
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- Written by: Bruno Pereira
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Bruno Pereira is the Chair of the New Jersey Libertarian Party. |
Over the past decade, near-zero interest rate policies have wreaked havoc on safe savings and forced millions of Americans into high-risk investments. Rather than allowing market forces to determine fair returns for savers and retirees, government intervention has suppressed natural yields, misallocated capital, and enriched a select few at the expense of the working class. As a libertarian, I firmly believe that this distortion of the free market is not only unjust—it is morally corrupt and fundamentally unethical, undermining individual liberty and long-term economic prosperity.
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- Written by: William F Sihr
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the “Declaration of Independence” wrote that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This core philosophy, that would be used as both a rallying cry for our struggle against the British monarchy, as well as the inspiration for our Constitution literally says that “all men are created equal.” This beautiful and inspiring statement is not what the Founding Fathers meant. Women were not universally granted voting rights in the United States until 1920, and people of color, whether or not legally freed from their servitude, were not seen as equals. Even ‘whiteness’ is an oversimplification, as the Founders did not see all Europeans as equally ‘white’. A harsh truth that immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy and Ireland had to contend with when they came to our shores.
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- Written by: William F Sihr
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a name that lives in infamy within libertarian circles. With a Presidency spanning 3 terms, a World War and the record for the greatest number of Executive Orders ever issued, there is perhaps no other President that embodies such an antithesis to what we hold dear. Some go so far as to call him the President who brought us socialism, and you wouldn’t necessarily be mistaken. With his New Deal FDR instituted many socialist policies and greatly expanded the role of the State. However, if you ask a socialist about FDR, especially those around in the 30s and 40s they often spoke very ill of him. They argued that he cherry-picked the key positives in their plan in order to bolster his own new-liberal agenda (and yes, there is a difference between neo-liberal and socialism) without making the necessary systemic changes to actually “better” America. Or, in other words, he implemented surface level policies just enough to empower himself and his fellows, without actually changing how things really worked in America. From Social Security, the WPA and ending the Gold Standard FDR was able to secure the loyalty of disenfranchised Americans who were desperate for change and the wealthy financial elites who were looking for protection, all the while pulling the rug out from under American socialist efforts. Even today, our nation’s ideology and institutions seem almost stitched together with FRD’s New Deal, despite them being at odds and causing many issues, be they budgetary, ideologically or legally. Yet they remain in effect because they were reimagined as the “American Ideal”. En masse, most Americans experience no cognitive dissonance when they say “socialism is bad” while standing in line for a check from Uncle Sam.
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- Written by: Lana Leguia
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
New Jersey Libertarian Party members,
I am excited at the prospects for our candidates this year. Reflecting on my performance in 2024, I can confidently say that I did the best I could with the limited resources I had and the internal and external barriers I had to break through. I can also confidently say that given everything I have learned, the connections I have made and the experience I gained - there is plenty I could have done better. I am far from perfect. It is no secret that my priorities as a board member have always been what is best for the New Jersey Libertarian Party’s integrity and what is best for our candidates. Everything I have done up to this point and everything I plan to do in the future will be to elevate the NJLP and its candidates.
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- Written by: Steve Friedlander
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Steve has been a libertarian Party member since the founding. He resides in Mercer County. |
The Libertarian Party needs to broaden its appeal in order to attract a wider spectrum of voters. It can do this by embracing classical liberal principles that are an integral part of America’s tradition. Its messaging should convey the idea that voting Libertarian is a vote for these time-honored principles. Even though most people may not be familiar with the term, classical liberal principles are quintessentially American and should appeal to a broad segment of the population.
- Classical liberalism is a tradition that grew out of the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries and was articulated by thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith among others. Their ideas of individual freedom, limited government, free trade, and democracy were embraced by America’s founding fathers and embodied in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Modern day libertarians should be “squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy.”[1]
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- Written by: Joseph Dunsay
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
July is mad pride month. This has personal meaning to me, because I am a mad person, a person who has been through the mental health system. Mad people in New Jersey face systematic discrimination from the state that can deprive them of their freedom without due process. They can be incarcerated and forcibly injected with drugs without ever being charged with a crime. In my experience, psychiatric wards are more comfortable than prisons and have better food, but they still have locked doors that prevent psychiatric patients from seeing loved ones or going about their daily lives. The drugs given to mad people involuntarily also have unpleasant side effects. Some of them can be quite dangerous. We should fight for the rights of mad people to live free of this coercive psychiatric system.
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- Written by: Christopher G. Russomanno
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
At the time of the founding of the United States of America, and at various times thereafter, there was much heated debate over whether the new nation should have a central or national bank. The founders had seen what havoc was wrought by the Bank of England, a central bank, and the detrimental effects it had on that nation and its empire by a devaluation of its currency which enabled the never-ending stream of wars in which it was involved. The founders also had a vivid memory of what happened when the government run colonial bank created rampant inflation by printing an infinite amount of paper money. Inflation is a hidden tax which robs people of the value of their money by devaluing the currency. This is used to pay for the government’s debts. Accordingly, there is no provision in the constitution for the creation of a central/national bank. Therefore, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) system of banking in the United States of America is unconstitutional because of its ability to print unlimited amounts of fiat currency, or paper money, thereby robbing people of the value of their dollar.
In determining the constitutionality of a central bank, with the ability to create unlimited amounts of paper currency, we can look to the constitution, our founding document, itself: “Article I Section 8 says that, The Congress shall have the power ... To coin money, regulate the value thereof ... and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures…To borrow Money on the credit of the United States.”1 In Pieces of Eight, Edwin Vieira explains in detail why the founders used such explicit language when writing this part of the constitution:
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- Written by: Fox
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
This past Sunday, February 19th of 2023, I took my son to the Rage Against the War Machine Rally. This is a follow up to a previous essay explaining why I was psyched about the idea that people from different political philosophies can coalesce to fight for one cause and the opportunity to hear many speakers I admire present their cases for peace. I was not disappointed.
But I did not go there for entertainment. I did not bring my son to Washington DC to see the sights or gain a better sense of the greatness of America. No. To the contrary, we came to Washington DC to protest.
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- Written by: Daniel Krause
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
With somber hearts, knowing that no verdict or punishment can bring back life that was taken, we are glad to see justice prevail in this case. George Floyd did not need to die. May his family and friends find peace.
Many who have lost a loved one to unnecessary police violence never get to see justice for the life that was cut too short. While the vast majority of law enforcement officers seek to do their jobs with respect and empathy, those who lose sight of the humanity in the people they are meant to serve and protect damage the relationship that civilians have with officers.
The Libertarian Party continues to support ending qualified immunity, which protects police officers when they abuse the authority they are given. Those who are given authority over others ought to be held to an even higher standard than what is expected of the general public. The Libertarian Party further recognizes that many of the tragic incidents involving police officers would not have happened had unnecessary laws not created a crime out of a peaceful act. For this reason, we strongly support abolishing victimless crimes such as drug possession, sex work, gambling and working without documentation or government licensing.
Let us not waste this moment, but act with intention now so that a more peaceful future can be possible.
Joe Bishop-Henchman
Chair, Libertarian National Committee
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- Written by: Alex Nowrasteh
- Category: NJ Libertarian Blog
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Alex Nowrasteh is the immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. |
The alleged murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by illegal immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez has reignited the debate over the link between immigration and crime. Such debates often call for change in policy regarding the deportation or apprehension of illegal immigrants. However, if policies should change, it should not be in reaction to a single tragic murder. It should be in response to careful research on whether immigrants actually boost the U.S. crime rates.
With few exceptions, immigrants are less crime prone than natives or have no effect on crime rates. As described below, the research is fairly one-sided.
There are two broad types of studies that investigate immigrant criminality. The first type uses Census and American Community Survey (ACS) data from the institutionalized population and broadly concludes that immigrants are less crime prone than the native-born population. It is important to note that immigrants convicted of crimes serve their sentences before being deported with few exceptions. However, there are some potential problems with Census-based studies that could lead to inaccurate results. That’s where the second type of study comes in. The second type is a macro level analysis to judge the impact of immigration on crime rates, generally finding that increased immigration does not increase crime and sometimes even causes crime rates to fall.