Modern Times: Good Libertarian Ideas Never Die... And Take New Forms

Photo: Modern times co-founder, LIO (then the League) attorney Stephen Pearl Andrews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAKK_N_EOyg  …such as open organizing seemingly from the air around–and natural freedom of–these great teens rediscover and seek to emulate Modern Times, the 1850′s Libertarian intentional community formed by the all but forgotten Jacob Monfort de Lemos ( collateral great etc grampa of the co-editor, his cousins the brilliant synthesistand Victor Hugo intimate  Joseph Déjacque , co-founder of modern sociology, and LIO (then the League) attorney, and Lib pledge revivalist S. Andrews, [by people taking the pledge of rights respect and agreeing to fair mediators coercive courts and government vanished; Andrews and the other synthesists are today misunderstood by historical ignoramuses unaware that a great socialist issue of the day was the right of workers to own stocks; this concept is expanded in current Libertarian thought) and others  who also founded the brief firstLiberty and  Libertarian party that became the NY Republican Club led by anti-slavery, pro-peace, pro-union anarchist-friendly, pro-native Americans, Free Enterprise and Science Liberals, subsidized the French-Iberian  Libertaires and Ultral-Liberales; de Lemos went on to successfully use positivism to introduce Libertarian and democratic ideals and  fight slavery in Brazil. Their Libertarian & Workingmen’s Reading Association before moving to what is today the Woolworth building from 17 White St is here ) and others in what is today Brentwood Long Island (NY, USA) and other LIO predecessors, is rediscovered by these young activists who have picked up the ideas from the culture to advance the world around them that reflect those ideals–eager to discover new forms…

( Photo: Joseph Déjacque  Defending a censorship case, according to Lemos family tradition the judge described him as “A paper-hanger and man of letters” he objected that the last characterization was an insult.)

…Thanks to the visionaries of Modern Times who set a new agenda

, we enjoy consumer-run Savings Banks and Credit Unions, Free Love, Racial & Gender Franchise &  Equality, the right to form local communities and alternate currencies, a Libertarian pledge, automatic infrastructure creating clean roads to sewer systems and garden space (they didn’t use taxes but bnilt them in), the concept of self-sustaining y urban homesteads, a secular society receptive to spontaneous open activities and organizations, and dare we say worker mass stock ownership and autonomous social security such as IRA’s, or beneficint open utilities such as Youtube itself…and who saw capitalism, anarchism, socialism etc. as –when voluntary– potentially complementary, not antagonistic, a point lost on historians and many pro-libertarian enthusasists…now Libertarians of today work to make voluntary forms for all easier than ever in a braod movement…and as we LIO fans say, Libertarianism–and Libertarian Community– is not a destination but a tool and process…and there is work to do!

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