by: Rob Yates, Communications Director

Last month, LPNC Chair Ryan Brown and I took a trip to Waccamaw Hunting Services in Hemingway, South Carolina. We didn’t come home with a trophy this time, but the experience left an indelible mark on me—not because of the game we pursued, but because of the man behind the operation, Rick Grubbs, and the glimpse he offered into a quietly thriving part of America that feels increasingly rare in contemporary spotlight. In a world of corporate homogenization and fleeting digital connections, Rick and his family-run business embody the enduring spirit of the real America: hard work, honesty, dedication, and a deep respect for tradition.

The first thing that struck me was the simplicity of the Lodge. No ostentatious signs or over-the-top amenities—just a functional, welcoming setup that felt like stepping into a friend’s home. Rick is a third-generation hunting guide whose dedication to his craft is baked into everything he does. Over three days, I watched him pour an extraordinary amount of time and research into every detail of our hunt. Before we even set foot in the field, he took us through all the details we needed to know about, and explained why each mattered.

“I’ve been tracking the patterns of these hogs forever,” he explained, “I rotate hunters through different stands so we don’t overpressure any one spot. That’s how you keep the game quality high.” He chose blinds based on wind direction, temperature, and feedback from a network of game cameras he was constantly monitoring. He drops hunters off early, and demands near-complete silence getting out of the car and walking to the blind, leaving as little trace of human presence as possible.

Rick isn’t just meticulous, he holds honesty as one of his highest values, and means it when he says he wants every guest to have a great experience. Rick’s integrity has earned him a loyal following, as evidenced by the repeat customers who book with him year after year, as well as awards he has won for service and quality of the experience.

Rick’s not without his quirks, but as the trip went on, I realized these idiosyncrasies are part of what makes the experience so extraordinary. If you ever book a trip at Rick’s, I advise you turn off the lights when you leave the room. You can ask him why it matters – you might not agree, but his explanation makes a lot of sense. In fact, every rule has a purpose, rooted in his decades of experience and his desire to give us the best chance at success.

Rick is not just running the business, he is preparing his next generation to take over, should they choose. This reminded me that the real America is still alive and thriving in places like Hemingway, South Carolina. Rick Grubbs is a living testament to the values that built this country: hard work, honesty, and a deep connection to the land. He’s doing what he loves, the way his father taught him, and passing that love on to his son and his guests, and he’s making a living doing it. To me, that is as quintessential American as it gets.

Reprinted with permission from the January 31, 2008 edition of the E3 Gazette, written by blogger "The Monster"

Before you cast your vote for someone who promises to 'help' the downtrodden by fixing the prices of things, you ought to understand some basic economics.

Methodology note:Although it's said that a picture is worth a thousand words, I make every effort to avoid using pictures unless they are absolutely necessary. This is one of those necessary cases. I'll be using the kind of pictures you can see in most macroeconomic texts, only with the P and Q axes reversed, because it makes more sense to my math/science background: Quantity is a function of price, so the P axis is horizontal.

Fundamentally, a sale takes place when both parties to the transaction believe it benefits them. The buyer values the good/service more than the money he's spending, and the seller values the money he gets more than the good/service. Economists like to split this up and look at the motivations of both parties:

The Law of Supply

People sometimes have trouble grasping this simple concept:

When the price of something goes up, more of it will be produced.

It may seem backwards, especially to those familiar with 'volume pricing' arrangements, where suppliers will offer incentives to purchase large quantities, or 'sale' pricing designed to help liquidate inventory, or to keep contstruction workers productive during the slow season, etc. Those are actually responses to the interaction of the LoS and the Law of Demand as we'll see later. One factor that's important here is there are short- and long-term effects of the LoS: Potential producers make long-term decisions based on that they expect the price they can charge for their goods/services will be, that affect their capacity to produce the actual goods/services. Then they make short-term decisions based on fluctuating market conditions.

• If farmers think the price they can get for wheat will be higher next year, they may plant more wheat and less soybeans, or spend more money on fertilizer and pest control to increase yield per acre.

• If the price of oil is expected to go up, it justifies drilling deeper, or other more expensive techniques for getting to it.

• If the net income that can be earned by doctors (after paying for such things as malpractice insurance) looks like it's going down, fewer people will practice medicine. Perhaps some of them will work for insurance companies, medical schools, or malpractice law firms.

The exact amount that the quantity of the good/service produced goes up or down with the expected price thereof varies. Economists call this 'elasticity of supply'. The more elastic the supply curve is, the more the quantity will respond to increasing or decreasing prices. Economists also talk about short-term elasticity vs. long-term (it takes a long time from planting to harvest), but the general idea remains - in a few cases increasing prices will not increase the quantity produced, at least in the short to medium term (there are only so many seats in a stadium for a sporting event, but other/larger stadiums can eventually be built), but will never decrease.

The Law of Demand

This one's a lot easier to understand:

When the price of something goes up, less of it will be consumed.

There are a handful of situations where a low price affects the perception of the quality of the good/service, but that's contrary to the 'all other things being equal' clause that's implicit, if not explicit, in all economic discussions. How much quantity responds to price, once again, is 'elasticity'. The more elastic demand is, the more the quantity demanded will fluctuate with the price. Once again, long-term expectations drive long-term decisions. The more the price of gasoline is expected to rise over the life of your next vehicle, the more likely you are to buy one with good fuel economy, and thus you will use less gasoline. Even short-term changes in price will produce effects such as carpooling, riding public transportation, and cutting back pleasure travel in response to a sudden gas price hike.

Equilibrium

Since the supply curve slopes upward and the demand curve slopes downward, there must be a certain point at which they cross:

At the equilibrium price, exactly the same amount is produced as consumed.

It isn't hard to understand why.

• When prices go above equilibrium, the producers want to sell more than consumers want (and can afford) to buy. After producers have already made the investment to produce a good, or build the capacity to provide a service, they naturally want to maximize the return on that investment. Parking lots full of cars that aren't selling don't make an auto manufacturer any money, so the price will have to come down to move the merchandise.

• When prices go below equilibrium, the producers know that even if they raise prices, they'll still sell the same quantity, and make more money in the process, so they do.

Whichever direction prices drift from equilibrium, they are pulled back to it...

Interference with Equilibrium

Well, they are when market forces are allowed to work.

Here's where the Compassionate come in. The market can seem cruel and harsh, so they want to help protect people from it. All sorts of government policies have been enacted to manipulate markets by force.

Artificial Maximum Price

Sometimes, a government decides that the price of something is getting out of hand, and the best solution is to set a legal maximum that can be charged for it.

If that maximum is higher than equilibrium, then it doesn't do much other than make people feel good about having Done Something to fix it. It may actually have the perverse effect of reducing the expectation of future price increases, and therefore discouraging people from investing in the capacity to provide that good/service. The long-term effect of that may be best described as a flattening of the supply curve; the reduction in capacity shifts the point of equilibrium beyond the maximum price...

When equilibrium is above the maximum price allowed by law, we have locked in place the situation that would ordinarily only obtain temporarily without the price control: People are willing, and have sufficient funds to be able, to purchase more of the good/service than others are willing and able to sell to them.

If a maximum price law has any effect on price, it creates shortages.

Artificial Minimum Price

Sometimes, a government decides that it's unfair that the people who produce some good or service get so little for it, and try to set a minimum price. There are two ways to do this:

1. Have the government guarantee a minimum price that it will pay to producers, so they can always get that minimum price.

2. Make it illegal for anyone to pay them less than the minimum.

Either way (if the minimum is actually above equilibrium) the result is that people are willing and able to produce more of the good/service than people are willing to buy at that price, the price cannot drop to correct the imbalance. If a minimum price law has any effect on price, it creates surpluses.

Here's where the two ways to set a minimum price diverge. In the first case, such as for farmers, the government has committed to actually purchase the surplus commodities that no one wants to buy, at least in the short term. Typically, those commodities eventually are distributed ("government cheese") at a later date, absorbing some of the demand that would otherwise exist at that time, or they're simply destroyed. But in the second case, such as minimum- or prevailing-wage laws, it has made it illegal for the labor to be sold for less than the specified price.

A minimum wage law that has any effect on wages creates surplus workers, also known as unemployment.

It's really obvious when you think about it. The law doesn't guarantee that anyone who wants a job at $x/hr will get one, it only says that it's illegal to make anything less. If you believe that someone is better off unemployed than making anything less than some magic amount per hour, then this may make sense to you.

Minimum-wage laws disproportionately affect lower-income, inner-city people with little education and no work experience in a particular skill (important voting blocs for the politicians who insist on increasing the minimum wage from time to time). They don't get many chances to work those low-skill/pay jobs and gain experience that makes them more attractive to employers who are willing to invest in training them to be even more productive (and therefore pay more to retain those productive workers).

These wage laws are the economic equivalent to the secure fire escape on the side of a building, where the ladder from the 2nd floor to ground level is retracted to prevent burglars from climbing it. People who lack formal education or training can't get on the ladder and begin to pull themselves up to higher rungs. The true beneficiaries of minimum- and prevailing-wage laws are the leaders of organized labor, who can win higher wages from which to extract union dues, and the leaders of minority ethnic advocacy groups, who benefit from having a societal ill to organize against.

Because the workers they represent are better skilled, and therefore more productive, the labor leaders can demand a multiple of the minimum wage for those workers. Suppose there is a job that can be done in an hour by a union worker with years of experience, or in three hours by an unskilled worker. If the minimum wage is set to $7/hr, so long as the union scale is under $21, it's actually cheaper to hire union labor at nominally higher rates. So the employer agrees to a contract at $19-20/hr. it's a good deal for both sides. The union is using the law to forbid competition. It would be an anti-trust violation if it weren't being done by the government itself, or on behalf of a union. (Anti-trust laws specifically exempt labor unions.)

The very people that the law pretends to help are the ones hurt the most.

Let It Be Evergreen

by: Matthew Kordon, LPNC House Candidate

The title quotes an environmental song written by The Turtles because Environmentalism has been on my mind since I attended a town hall in Dix Park, Raleigh, nearby to me. I was even inspired after to rewatch Illumination’s The Lorax, about an unheeded spirit who spoke in defense of “the trees.” Fittingly, I even wrote this first draft on the first day of Spring.

By now, you might be rolling your eyes. I get it: Environmentalism stinks with the whiff of Big-Government spending and regulations. God knows the Greens and Democrats have turned Environmentalism into a subject of suspicion among Libertarians and Republicans; the result is that even George H. W. Bush seemed more eco-conscious than our current administration, which eyes park land to sell for housing development.

Winter has a way of making me miss nature, so with encouragement from our friend Brad Hessel, I attended that town hall to add a libertarian perspective: "Raleigh Planning Presents Branching Out: Trees and Urban Ecosystems."

If I was hoping to break from national politics by attending the city park event, it backfired. Prior to it starting, I joined a discussion led by our table’s event handler, a Wake County employee. She revealed —with what I perceived to be hysteria and disgust— that racial DEI initiatives at her job were halted. She stated with shock and horror that this meant her team may no longer prioritize minorities. She then proclaimed her plan to circumvent the new rule and continue racially motivated actions, off the record. Part of her momentary hysteria came from her fear that she might lose her job as a consequence.

I cannot say I feel sympathy for her, even if I lack the conviction to report her to her employer and instead listened quietly while she spoke. Understand that this woman was not elected by the people and instead intends to subvert the voice of the voters. Critically, she seeks to violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subverts due process which is heinous, but I digress.

Anyway, at the town hall, they gave out free food, drinks, flower seeds, pronoun button pins, and pamphlets once we walked inside. It seemed to me superfluous, a subtle microcosm of governmental waste. Even at the local level, governments will spend money on a wide range of things from that-which-is-easy-to-justify all the way to extremely-controversial-and-unnecessary. I might sound like a curmudgeon talking about free handouts, so consider this: they damaged the data they sought to collect by putting us in a better mood; we were bribed with our own money! If Raleigh is serious about collecting feedback, that was counterproductive.

Nevertheless, the bribe of hospitality is not a big issue. All the same, it adds to my suspicion that the city doesn't particularly want your feedback and instead holds town halls like this to appease concerned residents and make it seem like they listen. This is merely a hunch. My point is that government workers are human, and humans given power tend to exhibit hubris. Indeed, they only allowed enough time to answer two questions off a stack of about fifteen, as if they did not care about our feedback!

Much was said at the town hall by the three Raleigh-employed presenters that I found informative. Trees indeed have many positives, and some of their positives are things we take for granted, sure. Of note, Raleigh measured and discussed tree coverage as a ratio of trees among whites versus minorities and spoke about the need for “tree equity,” doggedly upset that people of color would choose to live in a place with fewer trees while White individuals showed an opposite preference. I would greatly prefer they stop stressing over the complete equalization of tree density because of the way it takes away a freedom to choose and to make trade-offs.

Consider this, if certain people want or need to live in Raleigh but are too poor to afford a nice area with lush greenery, then the city’s meddling is likely to inspire their landlord to raise the cost of rent afterwards. That in turn forces the poor sap to vacate the city in favor of a humbler place. If that poor sap owned a house, well, he could likewise expect the city to raise property taxes which often goes hand and hand with public improvements in my experience, and this too might force people out.

One of the three presenters works in zoning. He discussed policies, some reasonable and some unreasonable, regarding the delicate balance between citizen interests and environmental protection, which I actually was impressed by. When I recall that local governments are near-always better run than the Federal Government, it makes sense that Raleigh would surpass my low expectations. The Pew Research Center found in 2023 that 61 percent of citizens approve of local government whereas only 22 percent like our shared federal one. Those who understand this can better understand the appeal of decentralizing power; accountability makes a difference!

Although their recent efforts seem semi-successful among what was discussed, one fact stood out to me as a major failure: 28 percent of trees under the care of Raleigh are not "fair or better" condition. It was brave of the city to admit this to the public because that's over a quarter! Nevertheless, I really do not know what was meant by this arbitrary statistic as I rarely see a tree that looks sickly or hideous in Raleigh.

Towards the end, they reminded us of important reasons to care for nature: Raleigh is home to rare species of flora and fauna. Invasive species need to be combated. Controlled fires are needed to rejuvenate the forests. True, but what was implied is that it is their rightful job to do all of that. I actually largely agree, but I find the question of, "what exactly counts as an invasive species," to be perplexing. They regulate our gardens to exclude marijuana and have decided certain plant life off limits from government property. Central planning is absurd, and this is no exception.

It was by this point that I realized Climate Change went unmentioned. I have to wonder why. The closest they came to addressing the worrisome phenomenon was by pointing out that trees absorb CO2. I was disappointed they did not drive the point home that over 99 percent of people who have studied the science agree CO2 contributes to our ongoing rise in temperatures, gradually baking the Earth and everything on it.

Just before it was time for me to leave, an older gentleman told me he was deeply impressed by my analysis of how decentralized planning is seemingly used by Cary to boost environmental enthusiasm. I thanked his for his comment. As the meeting adjourned, we discussed the exciting future of electric bicycles. He then suggested that I work for government! Little did he know I ran for office only just a few months ago. If only more citizens had his faith in me.

I was glad to help Raleigh navigate the balance between plants, animals, and people. This is indeed our home, third from the Sun.

MAGA has become the perfect case study in everything he warned about.

by: Free Prince, Liberty warrior

This article was reprinted with permission and has been edited slightly from its original post for style. 

This former Soviet defector turned KGB whistleblower, laid out a terrifyingly simple blueprint for ideological subversion—how a nation could be destabilized from within, not by external invasion, but by manipulating its own people. The goal? To create a population so demoralized, so incapable of recognizing truth, that they would actively participate in their own subjugation.

Watch Yuri Bezmenov explain the destabilization roadmap.

Stage One: Demoralization

Bezmenov described demoralization as the systematic breakdown of a society’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction. A demoralized population doesn’t just accept lies—it needs them to function. We are living in a time where people do not just disagree; they do not even acknowledge the same fundamental reality. There is no shared frame of reference, no mutual set of facts from which discourse can begin. The political landscape has been so fractured, so meticulously warped, that truth itself has become irrelevant.

MAGA has become a perfect example of this. The contradictions are glaring:

• Trump is the ultimate warrior against the Deep State—yet he filled his cabinet with Bush-era neoconservatives, Wall Street elites, and military-industrial complex operatives.
• He fights the globalists—yet handed the reins of the economy to Goldman Sachs executives and enriched multinational corporations.
• He opposes the surveillance state—yet expanded FISA, renewed the Patriot Act, and increased funding for agencies like the FBI, NSA, and CIA.
• He’s anti-war—yet armed Saudi Arabia, escalated drone strikes, assassinated foreign leaders, and bragged about military spending.
• He fights censorship—yet called for banning flag-burning, persecuting whistleblowers like Julian Assange, and increasing surveillance under the guise of fighting “domestic extremism.”
• He champions free markets—yet imposed tariffs, corporate bailouts, and state interventions that his supporters would have called socialism if a Democrat had proposed them.

And yet—none of this seems to matter. Because demoralization is not just about lying to a population. It’s about making them dependent on those lies. People have not simply been misled—they have been conditioned into a state of ideological blindness. A cultivated resistance to contradiction. A mind so thoroughly welded to its chosen narrative that it will discard, alter, or fabricate whatever it must to maintain coherence.

MAGA has been programmed to reconcile every betrayal, every contradiction, through faith alone.

• When Trump betrays his promises? It was 5D chess.
• When he appoints establishment operatives? He had no choice.
• When he expands the very government power his movement was built to fight? It’s fine, because he’s the one in control.

This is not ignorance. This is something worse. A person can be shown, in real time, the unraveling of their worldview, and they will patch over the holes with fantasy rather than face the abyss of doubt. It is not an inability to see reality—it is a refusal to see it. And it’s not just the outliers, not just the extremists—this is systemic.

Politics has turned knowledge itself into a partisan weapon. The expectation is no longer to seek truth, but to defend your team at all costs. Everyone is obligated to have an opinion, to be informed at all times, to adopt the correct stance, even though it is impossible to be fully informed on everything.

And so, they improvise. They adopt prefabricated opinions handed down by their faction. They fill in the gaps with instinctive loyalty rather than independent thought. The game is rigged, and they know it. Two parties, two choices, two sides that everyone is herded into, and neither is worth the loyalty demanded of them. But to acknowledge this would be to admit powerlessness, to admit that they are trapped in an illusion of choice.

So, they cope. They retroactively justify their allegiance by turning their side into something righteous, infallible, and necessary. The alternative is too terrifying. The thought that they’ve wasted years fighting for something fraudulent, that they’ve dedicated their identity to a con, is unthinkable.

So, they double down. This is a coping mechanism turned mass psychosis. And it is escalating. When reality itself is dictated by allegiance, when loyalty outranks reason, when every fact must be bent into submission to fit the tribe’s chosen narrative, the outcome is inevitable: war.

When two factions exist in separate realities, they cannot coexist. They cannot negotiate, they cannot reason, they cannot even comprehend the other side as anything but a threat.

This is irreconcilable. We cannot function like this. A society cannot sustain itself when its people are no longer individuals but ideological husks, possessed by abstractions, fighting battles for masters who do not even know their names.

You are not your faction. You are not your party. You are not an extension of a collective mind. The moment you outsource your thinking, the moment you allow yourself to believe that your side must be right because the alternative is unbearable, you have ceased to be an individual. You have become another interchangeable pawn in a game that does not need you to think, only to obey.

Stage Two: Destabilization

The next step in Bezmenov’s playbook is destabilization—pushing a country into a permanent state of crisis, making it impossible for the population to focus on real, structural issues.

MAGA, once a movement built on skepticism of power, has been trapped in a perpetual crisis cycle, its energy constantly redirected toward manufactured outrage, never toward structural change. Every week, a new villain is introduced, each one carefully selected to keep the base locked in reactionary panic:

• Migrants
• Trans people
• Globalists
• "Communists" (which now includes libertarians, dissidents, and even fellow right-wingers who dare to question Trump’s narrative)
• The Deep State (which somehow never includes people like Jared Kushner, Bill Barr, or John Bolton—people Trump personally elevated)

The actual mechanisms of control—corporate consolidation, mass surveillance, government overreach—remain untouched, quietly expanding as people exhaust themselves chasing cultural boogeymen.

One of the most insidious forms of destabilization is the promotion of false hope operations—narratives designed to keep people passive, waiting, convinced that a hidden force is fighting for them.

The most famous example? "Trust the plan." MAGA was told again and again that justice was right around the corner:

• "The Deep State is about to be exposed."
• "Trump is playing 5D chess."
• "Mass arrests are coming."
• "The storm is coming."

The function of these narratives is obvious—to keep people waiting instead of acting. When real opportunities to resist tyranny presented themselves—whether it was government overreach during COVID, the expansion of the surveillance state, or Trump signing away civil liberties—the movement did nothing. They were too busy believing that some hidden force was fighting for them, that justice would be delivered without them lifting a finger.

This is the art of pacification. MAGA, for all its energy, for all its outrage, for all its supposed rebellion, has spent years in an induced coma, kept in check by carefully managed narratives that ensure their fight never leaves the realm of talking about fighting. If you think this is just a right-wing phenomenon, think again. The exact same tactics were used to neutralize left-wing populism.

• In 2011, Occupy Wall Street emerged as a direct threat to the financial elite, uniting people across political lines against corporate corruption. It was rapidly infiltrated, rebranded as a progressive culture war movement, and defanged into irrelevance.
• In 2016 and 2020, the Bernie Sanders movement tapped into widespread discontent over corporate influence, imperialism, and wealth inequality. It was co-opted—Sanders himself bowed to the establishment, his supporters folded back into the Democratic Party, and the entire movement was redirected toward culture war distractions rather than policy change.
• Black Lives Matter, originally a protest against police brutality, was absorbed by corporate interests, rebranded into a fundraising arm for the Democratic Party, and weaponized to push mass compliance narratives.

The playbook is always the same—redirect populist anger away from systemic reform and into dead-end culture wars. MAGA is not unique in its manipulation. It is merely the most recent case study in how movements that could pose a real threat to power are steered into irrelevance.

A destabilized population doesn’t organize. It doesn’t demand structural change. It doesn’t build anything. It reacts. It flails. It exhausts itself chasing ghosts while the real tyrants tighten their grip.

MAGA is kept in a permanent state of reaction—forever playing defense, forever distracted, never advancing toward its supposed goals. The wheels keep spinning, the outrage keeps flowing, and the machine rolls on, stronger than ever. This is destabilization in action.

The crisis stage, according to Bezmenov, is when a destabilized society, exhausted by chaos, demands order—and the system offers them a “savior.” But the trick is this: The savior does not dismantle the corrupt system. He reinforces it.

For MAGA, that savior is Trump. From the beginning, Trump was a pressure-release valve—a figure who could absorb and redirect right-wing populist energy back into the very system it sought to destroy. MAGA believed they were backing a leader who would:

• Dismantle the Deep State
• Drain the Swamp
• End the forever wars
• Challenge corporate corruption
• Restore liberties lost to the surveillance state

But in reality, none of this happened. Under Trump, there was no rollback of government power, no dismantling of the elite networks controlling the country. The structure remained exactly the same. In fact, in many ways, it expanded:

• The Deep State remained untouched – Trump’s DOJ and FBI aggressively pursued whistleblowers like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden while protecting the institutions he claimed to oppose.
• The war machine never stopped – Trump increased military spending and escalated drone strikes while claiming to be anti-war.
• The Swamp was never drained – His administration was stuffed with neoconservatives, Wall Street operatives, and Big Pharma insiders.
• Surveillance state powers expanded – FISA courts, the Patriot Act, and domestic spying operations continued without pause.
• The deficit skyrocketed – He printed more money than any president in U.S. history, accelerating the economic collapse he claimed to be fighting.
• The COVID response consolidated power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats – Operation Warp Speed was a gift to Big Pharma, enriching the very corporate elites MAGA claimed to despise.

MAGA was led to believe they were fighting the system, when in reality they were being led deeper into its grasp. Their anger was redirected. Their energy was contained. The machine remained intact. And after four years of empty promises, what was the result?

This strategy is not new. Throughout history, elites have used charismatic strongmen to pacify dissent, absorbing revolutionary energy while keeping real power untouched. Trump follows the same historical pattern. A system on the verge of collapse needs a figure like Trump—someone who can rally the people, absorb their frustration, and ultimately bring them back into submission.

Here’s the most dangerous shift of all: MAGA is no longer interested in dismantling government overreach. It simply wants its own people in charge of it.

They no longer oppose mass surveillance—they just want it directed at “the right people.” They no longer oppose authoritarian crackdowns—they just want to be the ones wielding the power. They no longer care about civil liberties—they just want their enemies silenced. The movement that once claimed to stand for liberty, decentralization, and individual rights has morphed into a full embrace of authoritarianism—so long as it wears the right colors.

This is the ultimate crisis stage victory for the system. The opposition has been co-opted.

Stage Four: Normalization

The final step is normalization—when the population, exhausted by years of instability, accepts the new order as inevitable. This is the endgame of ideological subversion. The process does not require the complete destruction of a movement—only its transformation into something unrecognizable.

MAGA was once resembled something rebellious. Today, it is an institution. It no longer even questions the levers of power—it merely seeks to wield them. The people who once stood for liberty now advocate for:

• Censorship—as long as it’s their enemies being silenced.
• Mass surveillance—as long as it’s their political opponents being tracked.
• Government intervention—as long as it benefits their side.
• Authoritarian retribution—as long as they’re the ones holding the whip.
• Endless war—as long as it's their guy waging it.
• Reckless spending—as long as their guy promises to reduce it later on.

The system wins, regardless of who is in charge. The wars continue. The surveillance expands. The corruption deepens. And the people—distracted, exhausted, pacified—keep cheering for their own subjugation.

MAGA was never about reclaiming America. It was about keeping a disenfranchised population distracted, enraged, and ultimately pacified. Every outrage, every betrayal, every contradiction—none of it matters. Because the demoralized mind does not seek truth; it seeks comfort. And nothing is more comforting than the illusion that you are fighting back while marching straight into the hands of those you swore to resist.

Yuri Bezmenov was right. The Soviet playbook didn’t just work—it worked so well that the people who scream loudest about communism have become its greatest case study. The government is larger than ever. The surveillance state is more powerful than ever. The corporate oligarchy is richer than ever. The war machine is more profitable than ever.

MAGA, the so-called “opposition,” has been completely absorbed. It has no demands. It has no principles. It has no vision beyond putting its own people in charge of the same machine it once wanted to dismantle.

And that is the final victory of ideological subversion. A population so exhausted, so demoralized, so consumed by tribal warfare that they no longer fight for real change. Instead, they simply ask: “When do we get to be the ones in control?”

That is not resistance. That is submission. And the machine rolls on. If you are truly against the establishment, you must be willing to question the movements that claim to fight it. If you are truly against tyranny, you must resist it no matter who wields it. If you are truly free, you will not let yourself be used. Because the final trick of ideological subversion is this: By the time you realize you’ve been played, you’re already too deep to admit it.

Think for yourself.

Check out Interlinked, the Free Prince's source for all things challenging the state and exploring the complex interaction between technology, humanity, and power dynamics that shape society on Substack. 

Endangered red wolves became a symbol of federal overreach—and a target for local ire—in eastern North Carolina.

by: Tate Watkins, Reason Magazine

This article is reprinted with permission from the April 2025 issue of Reason Magazine.

In October 1990, Richard Mann shot a red wolf that he feared was threatening his cattle. The wolf was a member of an "experimental population" the federal Fish and Wildlife Service had introduced to eastern North Carolina a few years earlier in an effort to save the most endangered canine on the planet. When the federal government introduces endangered species like wolves, it often seeks local buy-in by allowing activities that would otherwise be prohibited. In this case, it permitted private landowners to kill a red wolf if it was "in the act of killing livestock or pets, provided that freshly wounded or killed livestock or pets are evident."

Fortunately for Mann, the red wolf on his property hadn't yet attacked his livestock. Unfortunately for Mann, that meant he was prosecuted under the Endangered Species Act for preemptively killing the canine. He pled guilty, was fined $2,000, and was ordered to perform community service building "wolfhouses" and feeding red wolves.

Since the late 1980s, federal biologists have been trying to keep a tiny population of endangered red wolves alive in and around two wildlife refuges on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, just inland from a string of barrier beaches in northeastern North Carolina. They have spent a lot of time, energy, and resources—in the face of concentrated but consistent local opposition—with relatively little to show for it.

Over the decades, more than 100 red wolves raised in captivity have been released into the area, with dozens more pups placed in wild dens to be fostered. The population peaked at about 120 wolves in 2012, before falling rapidly due to human-caused fatalities of two types: gunshots and traffic collisions. The species has also been interbreeding with the increasingly prolific coyote, which could eventually cause "dilution, degradation and ultimate disappearance of the red wolf as a distinct taxonomic entity," as a 2023 government-commissioned analysis put it. As of September 2024, the wild population of red wolves was fewer than 20.

The red wolf has now become a symbol of federal overreach in the area, and local opposition to it seems to have become as much about resisting the feeling of being trampled by the government as about the canine itself. The animal also provides a salient target for ire over more fundamental issues, as traditional ways of life in a rural area become less tenable.

After Mann's prosecution, local opposition to the introduction grew. The Fish and Wildlife Service maintained that most of the public continued to support the endeavor, and it struck agreements with some landowners to allow red wolves onto their property. But the case increased tensions, particularly with locals concerned that a federally regulated carnivore brought to their doorstep would eventually trigger prohibitions on how they could use their land in an area heavy on farming and hunting.

Rather than rewarding people for helping recover rare wildlife, the Endangered Species Act imposes punitive regulations in the name of protecting listed species and their habitats. It can feel like a punch in the gut when a rare snake or woodpecker shows up on your property bringing government regulation in tow. Imagine the blow, then, when a rare species wasn't simply found on your land by happenstance: Federal biologists brought it to your neighborhood without asking. Oh, and it's a wolf—a carnivore that sits at the top of the food chain and, from your perspective, poses a threat not only to your chickens, pets, or cattle but to any toddlers wandering too far from the porch. It's little wonder that the federal approach turns endangered species into liabilities to avoid rather than assets to help conserve.

In the years following Mann's case, two of the five counties within the red wolf program area passed resolutions opposing the effort. Eventually, the state wildlife commission asked the federal government to terminate the program altogether. The introduction effort, and ill will over it, has ebbed and flowed ever since.

Admirable Aims Unrealized

"The passion of those who began this program to restore a species to the wild was admirable," Jett Ferebee told The Fayetteville Observer in 2014. "But it has become an effort to destroy the rights of private landowners." Ferebee is a real estate developer from nearby Greenville, North Carolina, who owns land in the red wolf recovery area. He has been described as one of the leading opponents of the introduction.

A year earlier, he had detailed various critiques in correspondence to a Fish and Wildlife Service employee, which he posted to an online forum. "I do not need to be told by [the Fish and Wildlife Service], any more, that red wolves are the next best thing since sliced bread. I have been told this for years by your program directors and biologists," it read in part. "I am intimately familiar with your program and how it has morphed into something totally different than what was promised [to] the citizens of NC….I resent that my friends and family no longer want to go to our farm and spend time hunting and enjoying the outdoors. I resent that not only our deer population but also our rabbit population has been decimated. The turkeys are likely next."

Ferebee added that he resented not taking some locals' advice to "just 'shoot 'em in the gut and let 'em walk off.'…I resent that my obeying the law…has left me defenseless to protect my property rights."

The message board runs to nearly 200 pages produced over a decade. It includes protests that genetic records show the red wolf is a hybrid rather than a "true" species and that fossil records contain no evidence red wolves ever inhabited North Carolina. While it contains the hysterics and general tone of many online forums, it presents many reasonable objections that locals have expressed over the years: farmer concerns over wolves preying on livestock, hunter concerns over wolves preying on deer and small game, and landowner concerns over regulations restricting how they can manage their land where wolves roam and den.

The red wolf once roamed throughout much of the southern and eastern U.S., but the population was dramatically reduced by predator-control programs, many of which were boosted by bounties from federal and state governments. It became one of the original endangered species protected by Congress in 1967, under the precursor to the Endangered Species Act. By the 1970s, only a small remnant population straddling the border of Texas and Louisiana persisted in the wild. The Fish and Wildlife Service began trapping the canines to start a captive breeding program with zoos to keep the species alive.

By the late 1980s, the Fish and Wildlife Service identified potential areas to introduce the captive wolves in an effort to reestablish the species. It believed the wolf would thrive in dense bottomland vegetation in Southeastern states. "Ideally," it noted, "such areas would also be isolated, have a low human encroachment potential, and be secured in either State or Federal ownership." It concluded that the "apparently ideal habitat for this species" was found in North Carolina at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, which contained 120,000 acres of "the finest wetland ecosystems found in the Mid-Atlantic region." Moreover, an adjacent military bombing range was expected to act as a buffer between the wolf habitat in the refuge and private lands. Releases of red wolves into the refuge began in 1987. Incredibly, in retrospect, the service wrote at the time: "No private entities will be affected by this action."

Initially, the wolves were released into an area covering a couple hundred thousand acres of federal land in two counties, Dare and Tyrrell. But as the wolf population grew, its range inevitably expanded, and the official recovery area also ballooned—eventually to roughly 1.7 million acres covering parts of five counties, including a second federal wildlife refuge and swaths of private property. By 2014, an estimated 60 percent of the roughly 100-strong red wolf population occupied private lands.

'Nearly Catastrophic'

In September 2024, a red wolf was killed by a vehicle on U.S. Highway 64, which bisects the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge on the way east to the beaches of the Outer Banks. Soon after, five pups that the wolf had sired with a 2-year-old female also died. One collision had effectively wiped out six red wolves, highlighting how difficult species recovery can be.

While biologists may see the red wolf as a missing part of Southeastern ecosystems, landowners and hunters see it much like early settlers saw large carnivores: as a nuisance and a menace. More than 80 red wolves died from gunshots during the program's first 25 years. Some were no doubt poached, but others were likely mistaken for coyotes, which can be killed any time of year and are subject to no bag limit. About the time the experimental population of red wolves was gaining a foothold in the late 1990s, coyotes began multiplying in the region, as they have done from Atlanta to New York City. Red wolves and coyotes don't simply look very similar (especially from a distance or at night), they actually share about three-quarters of their genetic ancestry—hence protests from some that the red wolf is "merely" a "coywolf" and not worthy of protection.

A flash point in the red wolf conflict was a 2010s pendulum of state hunting regulations. In 2012, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission permitted night hunting of coyotes (as well as feral hogs, another prolific nuisance animal) on private land. In the months that followed, at least seven red wolves were shot. Environmentalists sued and in 2014 a federal court blocked the nighttime hunts in the five-county red wolf recovery zone. The North Carolina Coastal Federation notes that the cost to the program was "nearly catastrophic," reporting that "landowners adjacent to the refuge, who had been cooperative or indifferent to the management plan, suddenly no longer permitted access to their property."

In 2015, the state wildlife commission formally asked the federal government to end the red wolf recovery program altogether and remove the existing population. Supporting resolutions were passed by state legislators. A year later, Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.) also called for eliminating the red wolf recovery program, claiming that more than 500 landowners and farmers submitted requests to the service that red wolves not be allowed on their land. "I think it makes the most sense," Tillis said at the time, "to shut the program down to figure out how to do it right and build some credibility with the landowners."

Since the mid-2010s, the recovery program has puttered along in fits and starts. The Fish and Wildlife Service, seemingly responding to landowner sentiments, tried to shrink the recovery area and number of wolves in the wild but manage the remaining ones more intensively; environmentalists sued and blocked the move. The feds again proposed to reduce the recovery area and the number of red wolves being managed, and to relax restrictions that forbid landowners from killing wolves on their property; environmentalists sued and successfully stopped the plan. The service stopped actively releasing red wolves into the recovery area for several years; environmentalists sued and compelled the releases to begin again.

All the while, red wolves have continued to die by gunshot, sporadically but regularly, even as five-figure rewards are offered for information on the illegal kills.

Infringing on a Way of Life

"We were concerned as landowners that something has been put on our property we didn't ask for, we didn't want," Wilson Daughtry, a farmer and landowner in the red wolf recovery area, told The Guardian in 2019. "For me," he added, "it is more about infringement on private property rights. I'm really irritated about that. Coming out here and stuffing those wolves down our throats, you're not gonna get any support like that."

That sentiment echoes one Colorado rancher's description of a 2020 referendum that mandated a reintroduction of the red wolf's larger and more familiar cousin, the gray wolf. The rancher described the state ballot measure as "people on the Front Range—a bunch of city dudes" trying to "cram it down our throats." Residents of Denver, Colorado Springs, and various ski towns largely supported the reintroduction, while nearly all rural counties opposed it.

The red wolf recovery program served as an early model to restore gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the 1990s. While the "wolf wars" in Western states have certainly brought and continue to bring their fair share of conflict, those reintroductions in the Rocky Mountain West at least acknowledged the costs that a large carnivore would bring to local communities and made efforts to mitigate the impacts. Conservationist Hank Fischer, who was instrumental in early efforts, helped establish a program to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to the carnivores, funded by proceeds of wolf artwork sold to back the cause. It paid out nearly $200,000 in the first few years. Then, as Fischer described it, suddenly "the wolf/livestock conflict was no longer an issue dominating the newspapers."

Even though the red wolf program is cited as a model for western gray wolf restoration, the idea of compensating locals who would bear the costs of living with wolves was never at the forefront. In 2020, the North Carolina Wildlife Federation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched a "Prey for the Pack" initiative to partner with landowners interested in promoting wolf recovery. It offers a cost share of up to 80 percent for participants who make habitat improvements to their property and allow for monitoring of red wolves, and the program has paid out $350,000 to date.

It seems like a step in the right direction if you want to get locals on board with conserving an apex predator. Yet it took more than three decades to launch.

In the meantime, a lot of water flowed under the bridges of the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, as Francine Madden has documented. The Fish and Wildlife Service hired Madden in 2022 as a third-party mediator to assess the long-running conflict. Her job, essentially, is to try to help people fighting over wildlife make peace. Madden spoke to more than 150 people over the course of 18 months in compiling her findings about the red wolf. Her report noted that some landowners declined to participate in Prey for the Pack because they feared being "paid to create problems for their neighbors, which they were not willing to do."

"Many felt that at the heart of the conflict," Madden added, was a perceived threat to "landowners' sense of control over the things that are important to them, such as their land, identity and way of life." She cited residents describing community challenges unrelated to the wolf, too, such as "churches closing, the quality of public schools, and the lack of grocery stores, among other problems." Other interviewees detailed additional hardships "in terms of gainful employment (given there is no real industry outside of government, fishing, and agriculture) and the threat of hurricanes and saltwater intrusion." Three of the five counties in the red wolf recovery area have seen declines in real gross domestic product over the past 20 years. Moreover, the number of resident humans in the area has followed a similar trajectory to that of the red wolves: All but one of the five counties (Dare) has declined in population since 2010.

Alienate or Collaborate

The Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula isn't the only place where red wolf introduction has been tried. In 1991, the Fish and Wildlife Service also introduced wolves to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Seven years later, it terminated the effort, citing "extremely low pup survival and the inability of the red wolves to establish home ranges within the Park." That history prompts a question: Why did the government end the red wolf experiment in the Smokies, yet persist with it decades later 500 miles eastward?

Another line from the service's decision to end the Smokies program underscores the wider implications of the ongoing experiment in eastern North Carolina: "Our goal for the recovery of this species includes establishing at least three self-sustaining wild populations that total a minimum of 220 animals." The 2023 federal recovery plan for the species similarly calls for establishing additional populations, to provide "redundancy and resiliency." Its authors expect the wolf's status to "improve such that we can achieve delisting criteria around 2072, in approximately 50 years," and estimate the total costs of the plan at $328 million.

With plans like those, federal officials need to find better ways to cooperate with locals, and not only when it concerns the red wolf. Colorado is currently managing its aforementioned introduction of gray wolves under federal oversight. The Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to restore endangered grizzly bears to the North Cascades in Washington, and it's considering bringing federally listed sea otters back to the coast of Oregon and Northern California. To succeed, it will have to find ways to avoid alienating local landowners and constituencies, like the fishing interests wary of ravenous otters decimating their catch.

While the red wolf may provide a blueprint for how not to introduce an endangered species, Madden, the independent mediator, notes that the situation has improved since its most heated times. In her investigation, she noted, various parties occasionally voiced "cautious optimism about what it could mean to really hear one another…and to establish a starting place to come together and work through the many challenges in this conflict." A sign of that optimism perhaps blossoming came in December when the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission rescinded its years-old resolutions regarding red wolves and adopted a new one committing to work toward recovering the species.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has gotten a lot wrong with the red wolf. But its fundamental mistake has been trying to do conservation to local communities rather than with them. The people who have to live alongside introduced species have the most to provide for them in terms of potential habitat, as well as potential collaboration as eyes and ears on the ground.

If the red wolf recovery effort has shown anything, it's that it's hard to make headway in recovering a species if the people most affected by it feel like they're having wolves stuffed down their throats.

Tate Watkins is a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a nonprofit dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets.

2025 LPNC State Convention

Friday, May 16 - Sunday, May 18, 2025 

Join us in Clemmons, NC for the 2025 LPNC Convention! Everyone wants to live their own lives their own way, for their own needs, and according to their own values. Join the Libertarian Party of North Carolina, the only political party that leaves your life choices where they belong... with you!

We'll be meeting at the Village Inn Hotel and Event Center for a weekend of business, enlightening speakers, and fun activities such as a New Silent Auction and a Photo Booth! Tickets include all convention activities, plus a catered Gala on Saturday. We will also have a Friday evening reception from 7pm-10pm.

Register Today!

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• Monday, March 31 – Dr. Mary Ruwart: What is Mental & Emotional Freedom, and How Can We Achieve It?
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• Friday, April 11 – Thomas Hill: How Facing Your Dark Side (We All Have One) Helps You Control It
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A Libertarian Blueprint for Freedom, Veterans, and Prosperity

by: Shannon W. Bray, Libertarian Candidate for U.S. Senate, North Carolina

Introduction: Liberty under Fire

In the rolling hills and bustling cities of North Carolina, a battle for freedom is brewing. House Bill 413, a bold proposal to legalize recreational marijuana, has sparked fierce debate in the General Assembly. On March 19, a vocal critic took to X, waving a red flag of doom: legalization, they warned, would unleash "a tidal wave of social decay," drowning taxpayers in rising costs—28 percent more marijuana use, 17 percent higher substance abuse rates, a 35 percent surge in chronic homelessness, and a 13 percent spike in arrests for violent and property crimes. Citing a Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City report, they dubbed it a "Trojan horse hiding devastation within," dismissing modest economic gains—3 percent income growth and 6 percent house price hikes—as a fool’s gold mirage for late adopters like us Tar Heels. "Say no," they pleaded, "to protect our people, our economy, and our future."

As a Libertarian running for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, I see a different vision—one rooted in individual Liberty, not state-sponsored fear. I'm a Navy veteran who's watched government overreach strangle personal choice, and I'm here to cut through the noise with facts, principles, and a fierce defense of freedom. Legalizing marijuana isn't a descent into chaos—it’s a lifeline for our 730,000 veterans, a boost for our economy, and a middle finger to the nanny state. Let's dismantle the scare tactics and build a case for Liberty that stands tall.

The Critic's Case: Shadows of Doubt

The critic's ammo comes from Economic Benefits and Social Costs of Legalizing Recreational Marijuana, a 2023 study by Jason P. Brown, Elior D. Cohen, and Alison Felix of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Their data, drawn from early adopters like Colorado and Washington, paints a mixed picture: a 28 percent jump in marijuana use, a 17 percent rise in substance use disorders, a 35 percent increase in chronic homelessness (though statistically shaky), and a 13 percent uptick in arrests for certain crimes. Economic perks? A 3 percent bump in per capita income—mostly from small business owners—and a 6 percent rise in housing prices near dispensaries. The critic clutches these stats like a lifeline, warning North Carolina’s late entry in 2025 will yield scraps while burying us in social rot.

But numbers without context are just shadows on a wall. Correlation isn't causation, and the report's own caveats—like the homelessness figure's weak significance—beg for a deeper look. Libertarians don't cower at shadows; we demand the state justify its chains, not slap them on out of paranoia. Let's shine a light on what's really at stake.

Economic Freedom: Seeds of Prosperity

Picture a small-town veteran in Asheville, opening a dispensary with a hand-painted sign: "Liberty Grown Here." That's the economic promise of House Bill 413. The Fed report's 3 percent income growth and 6 percent housing price lift may sound modest, but they're sparks of freedom in action. Nationwide, legal marijuana raked in $3.7 billion in tax revenue in 2021 alone, per the Marijuana Policy Project. Colorado's haul that year? $423 million—enough to pave roads, fix schools, or bolster veteran clinics without a dime of coerced income tax. North Carolina, even as a latecomer, could tap millions annually, fueling priorities without bloating the bureaucracy.

Critics scoff at "diminishing returns" for states joining the party in 2025, and sure, we won't rival Colorado's $2 billion industry peak in 2019. But our state's got an ace up its sleeve: agriculture. Since hemp legalization in 2014, North Carolina farmers have tilled fertile ground—literally and figuratively. A 2023 UNC study predicts legalization could sprout 20,000 jobs and $500 million in yearly revenue, even in a crowded market, if we keep regulations light. Think hemp farms turning to cannabis, rural entrepreneurs hiring locals, and tax dollars staying home—not feeding D.C.'s coffers. The Cato Institute pegs the illegal marijuana trade at a $50 billion annual loss to the U.S.; legalization starves that beast, as Colorado's 60 percent drop in seizures since 2012 proves (U.S. Customs Service, 2019). That’s not a mirage—it's Liberty paying dividends.

Veterans: A Fight for Healing

Now, let's talk about my brothers and sisters in arms—North Carolina's 730,000 veterans, per the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. I've stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them, from desert sands to home soil, and I've seen the toll of service: 11-20 percent of post-9/11 vets battle PTSD yearly (VA, 2023), while over 1,000 died nationwide from opioid overdoses in 2020 (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2021). The VA's answer? Pump them full of addictive pills and drown them in red tape.

I say enough. Legal marijuana offers a freer path—one the state has no right to block.

Science backs this up. A 2022 Journal of Psychopharmacology study found cannabis slashed PTSD symptoms by up to 50 percent in some patients—imagine a veteran in Fayetteville sleeping through the night without flashbacks. A 2021 PLOS ONE analysis tied legal marijuana states to 10-20 percent fewer opioid-related ER visits, a lifeline when Big Pharma's hooks run deep. Take John, a Marine vet I met in Raleigh: hooked on OxyContin for a back injury, he switched to cannabis in Colorado and kicked the pills. North Carolina could let vets like him grow their own medicine, cutting the VA's umbilical cord while saving money and lives. The American Legion’s 2021 survey found 92 percent of veteran households back medical marijuana—we demand that our voices are heard.

And that tax revenue? Colorado's funneled over $20 million into housing grants since 2014 (Colorado Department of Local Affairs, 2023), keeping vets off the streets. North Carolina could target funds to vet-specific care—think mobile clinics or PTSD programs—without swelling the welfare state. Freedom heals better than bureaucracy ever will.

Dismantling the Fear: Social Costs in Context

The critic's bogeymen—17 percent more substance use disorders, 35 percent higher homelessness, 13 percent more arrests—sound grim, but let's unpack them. For veterans, marijuana's risks are a whisper next to the VA's opioid pipeline; legalization could cut overdoses, easing clinic loads. That homelessness spike? Housing costs and mental health, not just weed, drive it—Oregon's woes predate legalization. The Fed report admits the 35 percent figure is flimsy; meanwhile, Colorado's violent crime dropped 10 percent from 2012-2022 (FBI, 2023), showing long-term stability. The arrest bump? That's a policy failure—cops chasing unlicensed dealers, not users. Fully decriminalize possession, as I propose, and we free police to tackle real threats, not pot smokers.

Libertarians don't waste tax dollars on victimless "crimes." Prohibition breeds cartels; legalization guts them. The critic's "public health crisis" is a scare tactic—let heavy users bear their choices, not the state. Accountability, not control, is the answer.

A Libertarian Roadmap: Seizing the Day

House Bill 413 isn't flawless—few bills are—but it's a crack in the state's iron grip. North Carolina can get it right: no suffocating regulations, just clear rules to shield kids and roads while maximizing Liberty. We're late to the game, sure, but Liberty isn't a market trend—it's a principle. That 3 percent income bump could mean a vet in Wilmington hires locals for a dispensary, building a life on his terms. Our veteran-heavy state, with rural roots and urban grit, is primed to prove legalization works—not through handouts, but through choice.

As your Senate candidate, I'll fight for a North Carolina where veterans heal with cannabis, not opioids; where businesses bloom without government crutches; where citizens live free, not under a state that bans what it can't control. The Fed report says benefits spread wide while costs hit heavy users hardest—perfect. Let individuals own their paths. House Bill 413 isn’t chaos—it’s a chance to show Liberty delivers. Let’s grab it with both hands.

Shannon Bray is an active LPNC member, and previous Libertarian candidate in North Carolina for U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and Lieutenant Governor. He has recently announced his candidacy for NC U.S. Senate in 2026. 

Resources

• Brown, J. P., Cohen, E. D., & Felix, A. (2023). Economic Benefits and Social Costs of Legalizing Recreational Marijuana. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. https://kansascityfed.org/Research%20Working%20Papers/documents/9825/rwp23-10browncohenfelix.pdf
• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2023). Veteran Population Statistics. https://www.va.gov/vetdata/
• National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2021). Opioid Overdose Deaths Among Veterans. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/veterans
• Walsh, Z., et al. (2022). Cannabis for PTSD: A Controlled Trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 36(5), 567-575. https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811221080000
• Livingston, M. D., et al. (2021). Recreational Cannabis Laws and Opioid-Related Emergency Department Visits. PLOS ONE, 16(4), e0249119. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249119
• Colorado Department of Local Affairs. (2023). Marijuana Tax Revenue Allocation Report. https://cdola.colorado.gov/reports
• U.S. Customs Service. (2019). Marijuana Seizure Statistics Post-Legalization. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats
• Marijuana Policy Project. (2022). Cannabis Tax Revenue in Legal States. https://www.mpp.org/policy/revenue/
• Cato Institute. (2021). The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition. https://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/budgetary-impact-ending-drug-prohibition
• UNC School of Government. (2023). Economic Impacts of Marijuana Legalization in North Carolina. 
• FBI Uniform Crime Reporting. (2023). Crime in the United States, 2012-2022. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s

Blast from the Past

by Susan Hogarth, LPNC

Published at the Mises Institute, December 20, 2007

Economics examples crop up in the most interesting places. Over the Thanksgiving holiday I ran smack into an application of the Law of Comparative Advantage that was so pure and simple that I can’t resist the opportunity to share.

After flying up to visit family for the weekend, I accompanied my sister to work on Thanksgiving morning, in order to hang out with her some and pitch in. “Pitch in” is precise, because I wound up with a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow. My sister works as stallion manager in a stable. (A really nice stable. This place is cleaner than my house, although such a statement could be considered damning with faint praise.)

“I’ll clean the stalls,” my sister said. “You can bed them down.”

Well, this was good news all around. I don’t at all mind the smell of stables, but it’s undeniably more difficult to clean stalls than to bed them down. Cleaning consists of removing the (heavy) soiled straw bedding while keeping the still-reasonably fresh bedding for another day’s use. Bedding down just requires lugging a fresh bale of (relatively light) clean straw bedding into the cleared stall, spreading the nearly clean straw left from the previous day, and then breaking up and scattering the fresh bale.

Very simple — but as with any sort of labor, there are little tricks and ways of conserving motion and effort that are not easy to explain but that accumulate with experience. Many of these economies of effort aren’t even known to the worker; they develop as a sort of optimized “body memory” in response to muscle aches and the need to get work done as quickly and efficiently as possible. I’ve done my share of stable work “back in the day,” but nothing even approaching the years my sister has put in under all sorts of conditions with all sorts of equipment. My sister even generously complimented me on knowing enough to “whack” the opened bale of straw with the fork to loosen it before I began spreading it around the stall. I’m not a complete newbie to stable work, after all. However, I’m sure I was wasting considerable effort — and time! — because of my relative inexperience and forgotten “body memory” of the necessary motions.

I think it’s probably reasonable to say that in the process of cleaning and bedding, the workload is split about 70% into cleaning and 30% into bedding (my sister may be inclined to offer a correction to that estimate, but it seems about right to my less-experienced eye and pitchfork arm). I knew that 70/30 was probably the best split we could work and still finish at or around the same time, given my relative inexperience, general out-of-shapeness, and, frankly, my holiday mood. But even so, after the first stall, I asked my sister if it might not be more efficient and fair if we both cleaned and bedded stalls — meaning, of course, that she do around two-thirds of both cleaning and bedding, and I do around one-third.

Taking much less time to think it out than I am taking to write it out, my sister replied, “Thanks, but it’ll go faster if I stick to doing the cleaning and you to the bedding.”

And that jogged loose a memory of Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage. I remembered having an early economics mentor point out that, although Ricardo was thinking of international trade, the principle of the law made just as much sense when applied to the division of two tasks between two individuals, one of whom is better at both tasks. And that was clearly the situation in this case! As long as my sister was even better at stall cleaning than at stall bedding, then the job would get done much more quickly if she stuck to the cleaning and I to the bedding. Since cleaning is more difficult to pick up than bedding, not only was she sure to be better than me at both tasks, but she was very likely to be even better at the more difficult task, since she had been doing both for so long. My effort — willing but awkward — was best put to use in the task that was easiest for my sister, so that she could concentrate on doing a superior job at the task that was hardest for both of us.

To flesh out the insight with some numbers for illustrative purposes, suppose my sister was three times as good at me at cleaning stalls and just twice as good as me at bedding them. I hope these numbers are unrealistic (I can’t be that bad!) but they do make for easier math. If it takes her five minutes to clean a stall and three minutes to bed one down, it would take me fifteen to clean and six to bed. So to finish two stalls with each of us working at both cleaning and bedding one stall, we’d take her 5+3 minutes and add my 15+6 minutes, which would give us a total of 29 minutes of labor — although, since we were working together, the total time to finish both stalls would only be 21 minutes, the last 13 of which would be filled by my sister nagging me to hurry up and finish so we could go for coffee.

If we do the same two stalls with her cleaning both and me bedding both, it would take her 5+5 added to my 6+6, which would let us get the job done in a total of 22 minutes of labor, or 12 minutes of time, allowing her only two minutes to relax while watching me finish the last bit of straw pitching. Assuming that the goal for both of us was to get the stalls completed in the least amount of time (and you can believe me when I say it was), then we both benefited from my sticking to what I was least bad at: bedding down stalls. But the best and most fascinating part of this is that it is the weaker and less experienced partner in the joint venture who stood to gain the most from this specialization and division of labor.

Well, who am I to argue with efficiency? I settled into the sneeze-inducing job of breaking open and spreading bales of straw around with a pleasure at knowing that my contribution to the joint effort was maximized by the rational division of tasks. Of course I was so tickled at running across Ricardo in such a seemingly unlikely spot that I spent — one might say wasted — several minutes enthusing on the subject rather than actually getting any work accomplished. The idea that it’s the relatively weak and the unskilled who benefit most from specialization and the division of labor is so foreign to an American-public-school education that, even as I write this, I have to think it all out again as if it were the first time I encountered the idea.

If you are unskilled, there is no doubt that cultivating one or more skills that are (or will be) in demand will better your position. But even without particular skills, each individual has something of value to trade with — and the fewer specialized skills he has, the greater proportional benefit he will see from a mature marketplace with a high degree of specialization and division of labor. The mere existence of specialists will make his willingness to do unspecialized labor valuable to them. This is exactly why the unskilled laborers of America are likely to have pickup trucks and widescreen TVs.

There’s a sort of built-in progressivism to the division of labor that, although it benefits all and almost always will benefit specialists by an absolutely greater amount, provides a greater proportional benefit to those who are relatively unskilled or weak. Again, this notion is so profoundly the opposite of the accepted economic tales of “robber barons” and Dickensian factory owners that, even while writing it, I find it startling.

The idea of the division of labor isn’t so much about the skilled and the wealthy exploiting the labor of the unskilled and the poor as it is about the benefits of cooperation to everyone. That those who bring better skills or more experience to the cooperation do absolutely better is no surprise, but the fact that those who bring relatively less in the way of skills and experience to the market gain a proportionately greater amount is big and exciting news to a world steeped in the weak tea of socialist labor theory.

Real civilization is built on a foundation not of exploitation but of cooperation. And those with the most to gain from civilization and the cooperation it is built upon are the weak and the unskilled. Chain together my clumsy pitchforking, my sister’s skilled farm management, her boss’s business acumen, and his clients’ professional success, with their employees’ skilled and unskilled labor alike and you start to see the only real “safety net” the working world will ever know: the vast and amazing web of transactions and interdependencies of the marketplace, where even the weakest and least skilled have something of value to contribute.

...and how it gets in the way of winning elections for us.

"One love, one life, one too many victims. Republicrat, Democran, one party system." -Sage Franics, Slow Down Gandhi

by: Rob Yates, LPNC Communications Director

For the two sides of the uniparty coin, the party itself is the terminal objective. In other words, there is nothing bigger or greater than the party, and winning is all that matters. Neither party adheres to some underlying principle. They have platforms built around nebulous concepts that they call principles, sure, but those change on a whim, even on core issues.

Derived from their platforms, each party has a set of policies and related messaging that exists - and changes - for the sole purpose of getting that party's members elected. Just in the last few years, both parties have dramatically shifted their positions on things like tariffs and free trade, government surveillance, free speech, undeclared war, and so much more.

For example, Democrats claim to be pro-bodily autonomy as a core principle, but they loved those jab mandates (that appears to have been the wrong choice, now, huh?). And the Republicans say they want freedom and small government as part of who they are, but they also want to put people in cages for smoking pot and they valiantly defend criminals when those criminals are wearing a badge and a uniform.

The uniparty, both sides, is publicly for or against whatever they need to be according to internal polls and focus group feedback and all sorts of other inputs they use to (they hope) drive voters to the polls to pull the lever in the party's favor. Then they go and pass laws that in no way reflect the will or good of the people, but benefit their big donors. The parties want power because they can cater to the people who make them rich and help them buy ever more power. This is demonstrably true and ubiquitous to almost all elected officials (Thomas Massie is a shining beacon of hope), regardless of party. We call them the uniparty because there is no difference between them, except maybe what culture war issues they use to drive their base into a frenzy.

The platform changes, the messaging changes, the focus changes, and the rationalization continues... The whole point is electoral success, and their efforts to demonize the "other" side in pursuit of that goal is a big part of why we are so polarized as a country (but that is a separate conversation). The only thing they cannot tolerate is a challenge to their power.

Most importantly, by the very nature of being solely constructed to pursue power, both parties are inherently and utterly anti-Liberty, because, for the most part, the members of each major party are unable to separate their desire to enforce their respective morality on others from any fealty to the principles of Liberty and self-ownership.

You can back the uniparty or you can back a principle. You cannot back both.

This is where the Libertarian Party (LP) differs from the uniparty. The LP exists not as its own terminal objective, but as a piece (a major piece, but a piece nonetheless) of the broader Liberty movement.

Libertarians (small "l" in this case) exist with the purpose of spreading Liberty, generally speaking. "A world set free in our lifetimes" is a platitude, for sure, but not a meaningless one. How individual libertarians spread Liberty varies widely. Some post memes and start podcasts, for example, while others go all the way to dedicated activism or engaging in the electoral and political process.

For those who are working through the electoral process to try and promote Liberty, the LP and its affiliates comprise the vehicle for furthering that goal, at the federal, state, and local levels. There is room for political work outside of just electoral campaigns, such as building coalitions and influencing legislation (#DefendtheGuard), and that work is a critical part of how the LP and state and local affiliates succeed. Nevertheless, the LP 's ultimate purpose is advancing Liberty through winning elections.

However, the LP is still a piece of the broader movement and thus must always act in the interests of advancing the principles and practices of Liberty. The structural difference is subtle, but it is massively consequential in terms of how the LP operates and why electoral success is rare.

If we act as if the Liberty movement exists to win elections and the Party should only think about winning elections, then members will necessarily follow the incentive structures inherent to that paradigm, meaning they will do what it takes to win elections. This approach is the hallmark of the uniparty - no principles, no scruples, just your team winning or losing so you can try and force your morality on someone else and mock them for disagreeing, then thinking your life is over a few years later when the pendulum ultimately swings the other way.

Of course, people with money want to buy power, and, since we Libertarians are interested in taking that power and giving it back to the people, we don't attract the self-serving big money that the others do. This, more than anything else, is the biggest single roadblock to Libertarian electoral success. Money buys ads, volunteers, infrastructure, media, signs, mailers, events, attention, and souls. The last major election cycle generated about the same net revenue as the entire Marvel movie franchise and more than one NFL season.

Further, libertarian principles are sacrosanct, which leads to an absurd amount of internal gatekeeping and infighting. "Don't hurt people and don't take their stuff" is an easy message to convey at a high level. Application gets trickier, and, because of our allegiance to our principles, proposing approaches to social and political problems generates a lot of "you're not a real Libertarian" nonsense. We spend a preternatural amount of energy infighting over the 5 percent of stuff where we disagree, instead of focusing on how to unite around the 95 percent of stuff where we agree completely, and ultimately, we aren’t focused on how to win.

There are a myriad other minor factors that play into the Libertarian Party's difficulties in making major headway at the ballot box, with impact that varies by candidate, election season, political climate, region, and more. I am not going to analyze them here because all of them could be overcome if we could unite around common purpose and find innovative ways to push back against the machine.

We are facing a behemoth that has unlimited funds, holds all the levers of power, changes the rules to its benefit but uses them against us, and has no scruples or restraints when it comes to pursuing its objectives. Resistance should be our only objective. Fixating on that which divides us assures nothing but a Sisyphean fate of increasing irrelevance. By the time people realize we were right all along, it will be too late, and our small pittance will be saying "we told you so" as the world burns.

Not that we are at lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate levels yet. The uniparty machine was built by humans and relies on predictable patterns of human behavior. Duverger is not invincible.  We have the most powerful weapon there is on the ideological battlefield - the truth. How we write our future story will be determined by our ability to work together to wield it.

This article was first published in The Torch, the news stream of LP Alliance.