Find out more about New York's government at congress.org State legislature page State Constitution Board of Elections website

Steven Vasquez [Message] Interim state coordinator 31 Burning Bush Blvd. Ballston Lake, NY 12019

NY State Campaign for Liberty

Welcome to the NY State Page.  Our mission is to bring responsible, accountable, and Constitutionally-limited government back to the Empire State and turn it into the Liberty State.  Our Goals are to:

• Identify and encourage liberty candidates to run (but as a 501c4, not endorse)
• Educate and mobilize your neighbors on liberty issues
• Be proactive and reactive on major Federal, State, and Local Legislation
• Encourage members to join their local Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, or any other party's County Central Committee
• Build up the membership and encourage them to become Local Coordinators

There are a number of active legislation we are working to support such as stopping the implementation of Real-ID in NY and State Sovereignty, and others that we are fighting against including violations of our civil rights (including our 2nd Amendment rights) and irresponsible government that pushes the nanny state on the overtaxed NY State population.

There are a number of major Campaign for Liberty Meetup Sites across the state.  Sign up to your local Meetup, but also be sure to post events and announcements on this site for all members who are not on meetup.

Albany Capital District (Albany, Troy, Schenectady): http://www.albanycampaignforliberty.com

Binghamton: http://ronpaul.meetup.com/559/ 

Buffalo: http://ronpaul.meetup.com/258/

Columbia County/ Hudson Valley: http://www.meetup.com/HudsonValleyC4L/ 

Dutchess County: http://www.meetup.com/NorthernDutchessC4L/ 

Ithaca: http://www.meetup.com/Ithaca-Liberty/ 

Long Island (Nassau/Suffolk): http://www.meetup.com/Campaign-for-Liberty-suffolk-county-long-island-chapter/

Greater NYC: http://www.meetup.com/campaignforlibertynyc/

Rochester/Monroe County: http://ronpaul.meetup.com/346/  

Saratoga County: http://www.meetup.com/Saratoga-Campaign-For-Liberty/ 

Syracuse/Central NY: http://www.meetup.com/campaignforliberty-cny/ 

If you have any other meetups to list or would like to see your blog post on the NYS page, email me at steven.vasquez at campaignforliberty.com.

Ron Paul Day in NYC! Book Signing, Colbert Report, Stossel, and Webster Hall with Peter Schiff Posted by Steven Vasquez

Posted 04/20/11 Last updated 04/19/11

Ron Paul will be in NYC to promote his new book, Liberty Defined, on The View, Colbert Report, and Stossel.  He will have a book signing at 1PM at McNally Jackson Bookstore in SOHO at 52 Prince Street, NY, NY 10012.  

Also, the NYC Campaign for Liberty is throwing Dr. Paul a big party at the largest night club in NYC. If you are in the Greater Metropolitan area, you are invited!

Ron Paul at Webster Hall NYC - Tickets available at door

Webster Hall
125 E 11th Street
New York, NY 10003

Monday, April 25 at 8:00pm - April 26 at 12:00am

Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) comes to New York City One Night Only!!

Featuring honored guests:

Peter Schiff CEO Euro Pacific Capital
New York Republican County Chairman Daniel W. Isaacs
Honorable Dan Halloran R-19th Council District NE Queens

Doors open 8pm till midnight

Tickets available at the door $20 CASH ONLY

Business casual required

Join us for an evening of friends, fun and a kick off to a great 2011! Details and RSVP on Facebook here.

How Would We Survive Without Joe Biden? Posted by Thomas Woods

Posted 02/07/11

Today is the official day of release for my new book, Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse.  The title is actually unfortunate and misleading.  The book covers all kinds of topics, all with an eye to giving the liberty movement as much ammunition as I can.  (See the bulleted list in this description of the book for an idea.)   It takes aim at the familiar picture of government that was painted for us in sixth grade -- why, government is composed of selfless public servants who seek only to pursue the common good; only a doltish ingrate would fail to acknowledge and honor their daily sacrifices, etc.

Rollback takes the impending fiscal collapse as a jumping-off point to re-evaluate the key arguments by which Americans were sold the ongoing growth in government in the first place.

Big media is likely to be scarce for this book, unfortunately, but as of this posting the book has managed to reach #50 on Amazon overall and #9 in nonfiction anyway -- almost entirely on the strength of the Internet, Facebook, etc.  (Nullification reached #31 overall on its first day, also with minimal media.)  This is very difficult to do, so I am extremely grateful for the support.  If you enjoy the book, I hope you can help me circumvent the guardians of approved opinion and get the word out about it.  Thank you!

Hey, Net Neutrality: Why Not Try Freedom? Posted by Chester Gould

Posted 04/29/10 Last updated 04/29/10

Net Neutrality is a proposal for the federal government to take ownership of internet service provided and owned by private corporations because they believe that they are the best at protecting freedom of speech. This ironic statement is sad when you consider the federal government's recent role of suppressing the freedom of speech such as;

(a) Three years ago in Morse v. Frederick the U.S. Supreme Court held that public schools have the authority to tell students what types of signs they can hold on their own private property (2007) [1].

(b) In direct opposition to the freedom of speech the federal government purchased Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) from American Technology Corporation for the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, which lead to riot police using their new weapon for the first time on humans, the arrests of hundreds of innocent civilians, and physical attacks to students at the University of Pittsburgh- all to prevent peaceful protesting with political dissent (2009)[2] [3].

(c) Senator Jay Rockefeller is drafting and proposing bills in congress that give the federal government control over thousands of private corporations' property and state that the president can "declare a cyber security emergency" and completely disconnect everyone from the internet (2009) [4].

In 2008 the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered the internet service provider Comcast to stop their network management strategy, under the guise of what they call an "open internet" [5]. Unfortunately there is nothing "open" about it, as it further inhibits competition and is designed to give the federal government more control over the internet and service providers.

The Comcast Corporation wants to implement their "congestion management practices" which include; manipulating bandwidth allocation to lower the priority of subscribers who use more bandwidth [6]. Many people believe this practice will lead to Comcast filtering and prioritizing data and bandwidth to their advantage in order to suppress the freedom of speech and to gain a more competitive advantage in other business ventures. For example Comcast might provide faster access to their recently acquired MSNBC website and may slow down access to competitors such as; Fox, ABC, CNN and other alternative news websites such as infowars.com.

Many people and organizations such as the FCC believe that it is the role of government to take an authoritarian approach and command others what to do with their own private property in order to protect freedom, however one has to take into account that Comcast has invested millions of dollars into running physical cables throughout 39 out of 50 states including the District of Colombia, and if the FCC were to block them from selling their own services how they see fit; it would be essentially robbing them of their investment. Even though Comcast may be acting unethical if they do resort to the practice of filtering data; stealing from them is not the sensible, ethical response. There are few practices less logical than; We don't want you to do anything unethical, so we are going to steal from you. However, when one learns the real reason why Comcast is able to propose these strategies, the entire issue becomes moot.

It is popular belief that only legal regulation can stop monopolies, but top experts in the specific field of monopolies and antitrust acts such as; Professor of Economics at Hartford University Dominick T. Armentano author of Antitrust & Monopoly, disagree completely and state that not only does regulation create monopolies; the only way to stop one is with the power of a free market [7]. Unfortunately the United States hasn't experienced a truly free market in roughly 100 years, and the majority of the population confuses the term with corporatism. Corporatism is defined as corporations working in coalition with government entities such as a city or state, a free market is defined as an economy based on supply and demand with little or no government intervention [8] [9].

In most cities and towns throughout the United States an individual has very limited options with regards to high speed internet service providers, there is often only one service provider offering Cable (~3-12mbs) and another offering DSL (~1-3mbs). This by definition is a monopoly on the market, and it is common in most municipalities for the city or town to have an agreement with these service providers- effectively suppressing free market competition. It does not take a computer scientist to realize the potential unethical behavior that can result from a corporation having a monopoly on a service with high importance such as the internet, especially when they have private agreements and protection from local governments. This is corporatism and is the real source of the problem.

The basic fundamentals of economics in supply and demand state that when a corporation is not providing services that the public wants, there is an excellent opportunity for a new corporation to step in and fill the gap. The only reason why Comcast can even speculate implementing this strategy is because they know they have a complete monopoly in their market. If there was competition there ready to fill in the gap giving consumers a choice between filtered traffic and freedom, Comcast would not dare to promote anything less than a completely free and open internet, else they would naturally lose a lot of business to their competitors.

If one takes a look 5,000 miles to the east you may see Japan; currently the home of one of the world's fastest, most free, internet services, offering Fiber To The Home (FTTH) in over 30 million homes all over the country [10]. One can currently obtain a connection to their home with speeds of up to 1,024Mbs for less than $50/month, compared to Comcast which offers ~12Mbs. 1024Mbs is a max upload/download speed of 128 Megabytes per second, so theoretically one could download an entire DVD worth of data from across the country in ~36 seconds, compared to more than 3 hours from the current Cable/DSL providers. The average size of a web page is 130KB that means that in Tokyo you can download and view a web page in just over 1 millisecond or ~1,000 web pages in one second.

How is this possible in Japan? Free market competition; there are currently numerous companies that provide the service of just running these cables directly to your home, compared to the only one company in the cities and towns all over the United States. Then there are dozens of separate service providers that manage your connection to the internet, compared to options in the U.S. where the same company that runs the lines offers the service. A service provider in Japan would not dare publicly discuss such tactics as Comcast's congestion management practices, because they would instantly be boycotted and crushed by their competition. This is fundamental economics in a free market society.

Everyone that wants better, faster, and more freedom in internet service should NOT be screaming Net Neutrality, they should be screaming Free Market. How do current service providers have monopolies in their market? Is it because they are the only companies in the entire country capable of offering internet services? Absolutely not, it is because of corporatism and the many local towns and municipalities that work out private agreements with current service providers, effectively creating and ensuring the permanent sustainability of these monopolies. This type of strategy belongs in a socialist country, not the United States; for how can liberty prevail in a society where governments cater to only one specific special interest?

If politicians are serious about a long-term permanent solution to continuously provide a real "open internet", the only answer is to influence these municipalities into adopting a free market system and promote competition. Keeping the market closed and discriminating against other corporations that want to compete, will only further propagate monopolies and ultimately suppress not just the freedom of speech, but also the American Dream that the free market provides.

By Chester Gould for the John Dennis 2010 Campaign:

Original Article: http://www.johndennis2010.com/blog/2010/april/hey-net-neutrality-why-not-try-freedom

[1] Morse v. Frederick, No. 06-278, http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/06-278.pdf

[2] LRAD Weapons, http://www.lradx.com/site/

[3] Attacks on University Students,
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=G20+attacks+on+University+of+Pittsburgh&
aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

[4] Cyber Security Act, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s.00773:

[5] Open Internet, http://www.openinternet.gov/

[6] Comcast - Congestion Management Practices, http://downloads.comcast.net/docs/Attachment_B_Future_Practices.pdf

[7] Dr. Dominick T. Armentano with Dr. Ron Paul discuss Antitrust and Monopolies, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C4gRRk2i-M

[8] Corporatism defined, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/corporatism

[9] Free market defined, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free+market

[10] KDDI offering 1Gbps FTTH, http://www.auone-net.jp/service/connect/ftth.html

[11] List of ISPs in Japan offering high speed internet, http://www.hikaku.com/isp/

[12] List of ISPs in US offering high speed internet, http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/

No more salt for this man! Posted by Tim Shoemaker

Posted 03/11/10

From the Daily Caller:

New York State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has introduced a bill that would outright ban the use of any salt in the preparation of restaurant food. "In this way," Ortiz babbles maniacally to Nation's Restaurant News, "consumers have more control over the amount of sodium they intake, and are given the option to exercise healthier diets and healthier lifestyles."

NYC already has a ban on smoking in private establishments, they've banned the use of trans-fats in restaurant prepared food -- all this is now followed up by this insane proposal!

Salt was mentioned on the Food Network, cable's mecca for cooking shows, over 900 times last month. That should give you some idea of just how crucial the ingredient is to nearly every dish. Without it, food would be exponentially less flavorful.

Statists should stay out of the kitchen and leave food preparation to the professionals. 

Read the rest.

2010: Your Fight, Your Decision Posted by Steven Vasquez

Posted 01/04/10

Well a New Year is upon us, leaving behind what I called the Year of Fear.  Between Bailout/Stimulus or Economic Doomsday; Cap & Trade or Florida is underwater in a decade; Swine Flu Vaccine or death of millions; Universal Health Care this year or millions will suffer; Patriot Act or the Terrorists will win;  Invade <Insert Third World Sovereign Nation Here> or they will attack us here; we all suffered through the normal fear mongering used to force the deterioration of freedoms and natural rights upon the American people.  But thanks to the hard work and awakening by grassroot groups such as yourself in the Campaign for Liberty, the Tea Party groups, and the 9/12 groups, we all created road bumps for the statists that slowed down their desperate agenda away from the US Constitution and brought awareness to a growing portion of the American free people.  As stated in the last newsletter, New York was in the forefront of much of the liberty movements, with many of the Health Care Town Halls protests originating here, as well as massive Tea Parties, and our victory to stop mandatory flu vaccines on NY health care workers.

Now in 2010, we will turn it around upon the statist insiders, by changing the political landscape through the movement for State & People Rights, State Nullification of unconstitutional Federal Mandates (Real-ID/PASS Act, Health Care, Gun Control), Transparency and Audits of the Federal Reserve and Government Agencies, Introduction of Constitutional Competing Currencies, Protection of Individual Civil Liberties, and of course the 2010 election cycle where dozens of liberty candidates across the country will be campaigning for federal, state, and local positions.  We will not accomplish everything in 2010, but the seeds of 2008 and 2009 will start to blossom this year, and we all have to do our niche to grow deep roots for our trees of liberty.

Nationwide, we will of course continue to fight some of the big battles such as our proactive Audit the Federal Reserve movement, Health Care Freedom, and other attacks on our liberty as they come our way.  Here in New York, we need to concentrate on a few objectives, and not take on all of them, to wisely use our resources to be successful and win some battles.  We have a poll below to get your prioritization on the top 1 or 2 major statewide projects to work on in 2010.  Included is legislation stop Real-ID, Carry-Conceal, and my favorite pet project, a tri-annual Congressional Report Card for all representatives to hold them accountable for violating the law of the land, the Constitution.