UNR Students for Liberty » Videos

Friday Morning Lulz: It Just Makes Sense

Barry Belmont — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:01:10 +0000

Oh Reason TV, you’re so funny.

Human Beings Helping Human Beings

Barry Belmont — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 04:12:45 +0000

I know we were not able to sufficiently answer where exactly it is that the sanctity of human life comes from, but I’m glad to know there are still those out there that believe in it fully. Meet Narayanan Krishnan, a true humanitarian.

CNN Hero Narayanan Krishnan

A Policeman’s Duty

Barry Belmont — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:27:42 +0000

“It is a policeman’s duty to protect men from criminals—criminals being those who seize wealth by force. It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not the protection, but the plunder of property—then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.”

–Ayn Rand

We even made a video emphasizing the point:

Stossel: Who Owns Your Body?

Barry Belmont — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:19:21 +0000

Our next meeting, The Sanctity of Human Life, is going to be great. Might as well get the debate started with this short clip from Stossel exploring the issue of legal prostitution:

Police Brutality Time

Barry Belmont — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 01:07:16 +0000

For those of you looking for a reason to be angry, scared, and depressed:

Intellectual Property, Insomnia, and Lulz

Barry Belmont — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 14:06:55 +0000

What happens when you combine eclectic, off-the-wall musical tastes, a healthy sense of mockery for intellectual property, and an unceasing bout of insomnia? Well…a post like this.

Some of you may recall from our (three?) intellectual property meetings that things can get awful tricky when trying to parse out copying ideas, borrowing themes, being influenced, and converging tracts of thought. How do you tell which is which? Where do you draw the line? By what criteria? What each of these rhetorical questions is meant to emphasize is the utter arbitrariness involved in such disputes.

So consider these two rather odd songs. The first is “Skah of Iran” by Canadian ska band, The Planet Smashers. The thing I want you to take away is the chorus/chant “Skah of Iran!” at 0:33.

Now, stomach as much as you can of the next song, “Trollhammeren” by the Finnish folk metal band, Finntroll. The important part for your consideration is the chorus/chant “Trollhammeren!” at 0:45.

The astute among you will notice that the dah.da.da.dan! in both is exactly the same. And that’s okay. However, if this were a Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber (sp?), or Kanye West (is he still popular?) song, people would recognize it immediately and no doubt a lawsuit would be drawn up by the record company to ‘protect’ the intellectual property of their artists. After all this is what happens all too often in the “real world.” But since these are two no-name bands, there is nothing that could be strong-armed out of either of them and hence, they are free to have the same chorus.

If this isn’t the hallmark of the arbitrary, I don’t know what is.

And there you have it, the absurdity of intellectual property summarized through Iran and trolls.

Wealth Creation 101

Barry Belmont — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:39:47 +0000

Maybe this will help a few people understand that trade itself creates wealth and correct that nasty little assumption that it merely redistributes it.

Stossel and Boaz on War

Barry Belmont — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:58:08 +0000

A few members of the UNR SFL were not content to prattle on about academic matters nor bother with long, nuanced questions of narrow scope at the ISFLC. That’s why during many breakout sessions we more often asked what the lecturer wanted us to get out of the lecture than about what Hayek really meant in some obscure article that the presenter may or may not have ever even heard about.

As such, when given the chance to ask John Stossel and David Boaz, two leaders of the burgeoning libertarian movement, a question of fundamental importance in the acceptance of war, John Russell pulled no punches and asked the question that always stands all other issues related to war: “Is it okay to kill innocent people?”

~~EDIT: Due to copyright claims, we aren’t able to show this video right now. We’ll keep you updated when we know more…~~

EDIT OF THE EDIT: The video is back up since the episode has aired.

Video credit goes to Ty, the Guy From ~~Canada~~ Harvard.

This is the only time that John Stossel was not met with thunderous applause for his answer all evening. In fact, the loud boos and uncomfortable moans of discontent were quite out of place at the conference (which had a fairly positive attitude), only further emphasizing the poor responses of both Boaz and Stossel.

In fact, and I apologize to Mr. Boaz and Mr. Stossel if this ever gets back to them, but each of their responses is quite unacceptable. Stossel gives a broad “of course” type answer which fails to differentiate between what is perhaps necessary and what may be considered “justified.” While Boaz simply plays a pointless smug word game and dances around the issue. They should have taken more time to think of their answers, they should have taken more care: the issue is important, and the answer is a simple “Using violence against innocent people should not be legally justified.”

One would think that this simple (and fundamental tenant of libertarianism) would be well known to such prolific proponents of the movement, but it seemed to slip by both at the time. Perhaps it was nervousness, unpreparedness, tiredness, wanting-to-get-in-as-many-people-as-possible-ness, or a myriad of other things. Whatever the reason, we thought it was important to share it with people…because it certainly won’t be making it into prime time.

Abolish ASUN at CPAC

Barry Belmont — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:51:25 +0000

Who would have ever thought that our rackety ol’ club’s work would breach the hallowed halls of CPAC? Well it turns out that while being interviewed by PJTV, Blayne Bennett, the Communications Manager for the Students for Liberty (the Big Pappa institution which we base ourself around), discussed our Abolish ASUN event last year. Perhaps the thing I like more than her description of our event is the interviewer’s response to it.

I can’t seem to embed the video quite yet (but some of the top minds on the internet are working on it), but if you follow this link you can watch the five minute interview to your heart’s content.

Get owned PJTV. Next time just give us an embed tag to use.

Neil Gaiman on the Piracy of his Books

Barry Belmont — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:16:28 +0000

Excellent little interview by a fairly good writer (he’s a bit hit-and-miss in my opinion) on his opinion of copyrights, book piracy, and success in a world where sharing information of any sort gets freer and freer.

…might as well dive right into the intellectual property discussion…