Garry Reed's Blog: Good Reed's Goodreads - Posts Tagged "libertarian"

Everyone should have Fun&Freedom!

That's why, for a limited time, I'm offering everyone a FREE DOWNLOAD of my ebook so you can download it, read it, enjoy it and then WRITE A REVIEW of it!

Just go to my Selected Salvos 2 book page and hit the "Read Book" button.
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...)

Or if that doesn't work for you follow this link offsite to download the full PDF.
(http://selectedsalvos.blogspot.com)

BUT only if you promise to write and post a review (good or bad but honest) and tell me where it is!

So take a break from the brain-draining strain of philosophizing, hypothesizing, theorizing, conjecturizing, politicalizing and polemicizing about libertarianism and freedom in general to read and laugh and post a review for me.

It's short (approx 74 pages), contains 20 articles (approx 750 words each) and all are written in a style that proclaims everyone should have a healthy dose of FUN along with their FREEDOM.

I posted my first book here a year ago and then got sidetracted, detracted, subtracted and otherwise distracted by other things.

Now, in Selected Salvos 2 from the Loose Cannon Libertarian my meme is "Playboynomics," defined herein as the practice of the political classes funneling taxpayer pelf to their academic cronies so they can "analyze" Playboy Playmates and "research" female orgasms in the name of "economic studies."

Download 'em, read 'em, review 'em, enjoy 'em!
Selected Salvos 2 from the Loose Cannon LibertarianGarry Reed

I just discovered yesterday that Lulu.com, the online self-publisher I use to create my "Fun&Freedom" book series ranked my book -- Selected Salvos 2 from the Loose Cannon Libertarian -- as No. 10 in their Top 100 books in their Humor category.

I have no idea why that happened or what their criteria is (sales? online hits?) but today I checked back and now it has risen to No. 9.

That should be worth something in the grand book promotion scheme of things, doncha think?

http://www.lulu.com/shop/top100produc...

I've been remiss in not sharing this, my first ever interview for Selected Salvos 2, back on February 18, by immediately posting it on my blog, which I've ever-so-cleverly named "Good Reed's Goodreads."

The questions were posed and answers posted at Indie Author Tactics by Vincent Lowry.

I originally challenged IAT with this post:

Anyone who thinks it isn't possible for discussions of libertarian political, social and cultural issues to be both informative and fun, both serious and satirical, both meaningful and mirthful hasn't read Volley 2 in my "Fun&Freedom" libertarian book series.

Here are the five Questions he challenged me with and my replies to each:

1) What is your name and bio? – I'm Garry Reed, born in Nebraska but have traveled coast to coast and border to border as a freelance contract technical writer. I'm now settled in Dallas/Ft. Worth with my lovely wife where I've been writing paper and online libertarian news and commentary since 2001.

2) What is your book title, synopsis, and where can readers find it? – After publishing "Selected Salvos from the Loose Cannon Libertarian" in 2014 I've just released "Selected Salvos 2" which is more of the same – a collection of 20 short articles from my website archives that deal with a wide range of political, social and cultural issues from a libertarian viewpoint. What makes my books different from virtually every other libertarian book on the market is that I write in my own unique "Fun&Freedom" style where freedom is always the message but fun is always the method. Reviewers have called my style "stimulating, amusing and engaging" and "bordering H.L. Mencken and Groucho Marx." Not your typical libertarian pontificating! Readers can download a PDF from my link below if they promise to read and review it.
Free PDF of Selected Salvos 2.

3) Where do you come up with your ideas? – Everywhere. I'm constantly reading a widely eclectic array of websites, news sources, personal blog commentaries and social media online and virtually everything suggests a response from my libertarian worldview. I'm currently posting my articles on my national site "Libertarian News Examiner" and my local "Dallas LibertarianExaminer."

4) What books/authors do you like to read? – Again, nearly everything. I grew up on Mad magazine and Science Fiction (Robert A. Heinlein and his contemporaries), read everything Ayn Rand ever wrote before branching out into the wider libertarian world but also read history, biography, mystery, adventure, travel, modern and classical novels, nonfiction, more satire (Douglas Adams) and will read whatever grabs my interest next.

5) What's your next writing project? – As an online journalist I closely followed and reported on a group of courageous, determined libertarian rights activists called "Tyranny Fighters" who attempted to educate people about their jury rights in the face of hostile establishment opposition who harassed, arrested, jailed and prosecuted them for simply speaking the truth in America. I chronicled their efforts as they happened in some 70 news articles and commentaries and am organizing them into a book.

Known to some as DullHawk, to many as Hooligan Libertarian, to others as creator of the "Time's Up" flag and to Texas - New Mexico Line news readers as a regular contributor to the Clovis News Journal (link up with him here: http://tinyurl.com/p4et8lh) onetime fellow Examiner and current fellow blogger, columnist and writer Kent McManigal let me know that he recently wrote a review of Selected Salvos 2.

"I liked the book a lot. And I love the attitude you displayed in the writing," he confessed.

Here's Kent's full review from his Hooligan Libertarian Blog in his own uncompromising "no-holds-barred liberty advocacy" style:

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Sunday, March 08, 2015

Garry Reed's "Selected Salvos 2"

I recently finished reading Garry Reed's latest little collection, "Selected Salvos 2 from the Loose Cannon Libertarian."

It was a lot of fun!

It is also a reminder of how little the State and all the associated problems have changed in the decade-plus since most of these essays were written. Most could have been written today, rather than in the dawning years of the 2000s. Sure, the names of some of the individual thugs have changed, but the stories are so familiar.

I like his "Fun & Freedom" approach, and loved the sense of humor he exhibits in exposing these statist imbeciles and their ridiculous behavior. Instead of letting them get him down, he points and laughs.

It is a pretty short book, but was just what I needed while sitting in doctors' waiting rooms and such, recently. I can recommend the book without reservation.

Selected Salvos 2 is now on BookDaily and it includes One FREE Article from the book!

BookDaily encourages authors to post excerpts of their books for readers to read free. They suggest posting an entire chapter, but since my book is only 74 pages long and consists of 20 articles that average 750 words each that means every article is a chapter in itself. And since each article is so short you get to read one whole article gratis.

I've published the same excerpt/chapter/article here in my "Good Reed's Goodreads Blog" before – "Tax Dollars for Sex Scholars" – but if you're curious and would like to see it on BookDaily (maybe as a place to show off your own book) here's the link:

http://www.bookdaily.com/book/4991173...

Selected Salvos 2 from the Loose Cannon Libertarian

Garry Reed

Susan Callaway, known to many libertarians as weblogger "The Price of Liberty" and affectionately to many others as "Mama Liberty" wrote a review and posted it several places on Amazon and on Barnes&Nobel, B&N Nook Books and her own website "The Price of Liberty." She not only reviewed the book but the author too!

Here's her full review from her own blog:

The Loose Cannon Libertarian
Posted on March 16, 2015 by Mama Liberty

MamaLiberty

Book Review: Selected Salvos 2
(http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/?p=7055)
By Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian

Garry Reed has been a friend for many years. We’ve talked a lot about most aspects of freedom and politics, not always in agreement by a long shot, but I was always pleased to see that he would er on the side of individual sovereignty, even when he didn’t immediately embrace the full extent of the potential because pragmatism kept getting in the way.

Gradually, with interesting back and fill at times, he came to understand that electoral politics could not even be justified by any kind of pragmatism. Slavery, by any name, is still slavery. And theft is still theft, no matter how many people want to justify theft.

Garry has collected articles from the last fifteen years or so into two small volumes. They describe the journey from Libertarian political apologist, to the voluntarist he has become. Unlike so many, this journey is taken with wit, much terrific insight into humanity, and an unbelievable number of plain old belly laughs. And he paints even his sometimes painful transition with humor and good cheer.

If you have also made this journey, or are even wondering about it, these books will do you much good, and will serve as a springboard, perhaps, to conversation with friends who remain stuck in pragmatism, or actually still believe that there is some magic about electoral politics that can “restore” freedom in America.

Show them it just isn’t so.

I'm grateful for the fact that interviews, book reviews, excerpt postings and other promotional opportunities have been coming so fast lately that it's actually hard to keep up with them all, but that's a great complaint for any writer to have.

Here's another book review of Selected Salvos 2, this time from an economist's-eye view. His name is Robert McKeown and he writes The Blue Collar Economist website where he explains free market "Austrian Economics" for non-economists like me. A year ago Robert wrote a review for my first book in my nascent "Fun&Freedom" Book Series, Selected Salvos from the Loose Cannon Libertarian, and kindly agreed to take a second shot at my second entry in the collection.

Below is a quick promo I posted on my Selected Salvos Blog. It has a cool graphic, more links and additional book info: http://tinyurl.com/nswrasq

Blue Collar Economist reviews Playboynomics in Salvos 2

After reviewing Selected Salvos 1 a year ago Robert was kind enough to take a second shot at the second Salvo.

From his review: "One of my favorite articles is, 'Uncle Shazam and His Magical Logic' where the reader finds example after example where the rubber hits the road in the school of Playboynomics. What is Magical Logic, you might ask? It’s a mental impairment of the governmentally afflicted. I believe 'governmentally afflicted' ought to be the next viral term on social media."

Read the entire review from Robert on his Blue Collar Economist website: "Salvos 2: Get Ready for More Fun and Freedom" http://tinyurl.com/l525k4l

And then listen to Robert who recently appeared with Joe Cristiano on BlogTalk Radio at this link: http://tinyurl.com/k3pog6g

Selected Salvos 2 from the Loose Cannon Libertarian
Garry Reed

Synopsis of my important new book:

From age 77 until he turned 80 veteran rights activist Julian Heicklen was confronted, harassed, attacked, arrested and jailed by the very law enforcers and justice officials charged with protecting his rights. On more than one occasion he was injected with dangerous antipsychotic drugs, all because he refused to be complicit in his own illegal arrests.

His "crime" was giving jury rights pamphlets to fellow American citizens who voluntarily chose to accept them while both were standing peacefully on public sidewalks in front of America's public courthouses.

Over the years he was joined by a thousand-strong group of supporters who came to be known as Tyranny Fighters, freedom-loving men and women who assisted him in whatever capacity they could; helping distribute brochures, video recording, photographing, witnessing, reporting, publicizing, interviewing, advocating and aiding in his legal battles.

Many of these Tyranny Fighters themselves became victims of the establishment's confrontations, threats, harassments, attacks, arrests and prosecutions.

In my own role as a Tyranny Fighter I served as a reporter, writer, opinionizer, publicist and advocate with my online column The Libertarian News Examiner. From the beginning of Julian's activism and the rise of the Tyranny Fighters I wrote and posted some 70 news and commentary articles in their support.

Now I've collected it all in a single volume under the title Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles. All of the original articles are here, amplified with additional introductory notes and by never before published background material from activist emails, and further supplemented with reader comments, social media commentaries and mainstream news sources.

The book tells the story as it happened, from beginning to end, article by article, dateline by dateline, blow by blow, the setbacks and successes and even the infighting, the coming together of the libertarian community in overwhelming support of the jailed activists with demonstrations and protests and marches and call floods and freedom pages on social media sites.

More than just a riveting chronicle of real world conflict and confrontation in the name of freedom this book celebrates the courage and inspiration of Julian Heicklen and applauds the contributions of all those who proudly took up the mantle of Tyranny Fighter.
Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles
Garry Reed

If you're not familiar with Julian Heicklen, the original "Tyranny Fighter," I've posted one of his earliest known video interviews on the Tyranny Fighters Blogspot. This was recorded by a supporter called "bile" on September 11, 2009 during Julian's fourth trip to the federal courthouse in Manhattan where he was once again illegally prevented from distributing Fully Informed Jury Association pamphlets to citizens on public property.

Find out more about Julian, the Tyranny Fighters, and the book that chronicles their story in over 70 "as-it-happened" news articles as their stories unfolded.

http://tyrannyfighters.blogspot.com/2...

Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles

Garry Reed

In June 2010 I posted excerpts of Julian's Jailhouse Journal in Libertarian News Examiner after Julian was released from Rikers Island and made it available to all of his Tyranny Fighters. Here is that article:

Julian's Jailhouse Journal: Police State USA
June 17, 2010
10:43 AM MST

News from the liberterrain…

Seventy-eight year old veteran libertarian, Fully Informed Jury Association activist and indefatigable freedom campaigner Julian Heicklen released his jailhouse journal to his fellow Tyranny Fighters on Tuesday.

Heicklen was arrested on May 25 for committing the crime of standing on public property in front of the US District Courthouse in Manhattan while peacefully giving jury rights information to individuals, sent to jail for 18 Days in New York City's notorious Rikers Island, and then released "in the interest of justice."

Following are just a few outtakes from his journal. Anyone who finds these entries disturbing, disgusting, outrageous and inexcusable should read his entire journal.

"The handcuffs were removed. A number of capillaries had been broken in my wrists. My hands turned blue."

"I was physically and verbally abused during these drags. My upper arms were crushed in their hands, and blood vessels broken. This was painful. My upper arms turned blue. My sneakers had no shoelaces, so my toes kept smashing into the front of the sneakers breaking blood vessels in my toes. This was unpleasant to say the least. My toes turned blue, and did not return to normal for two weeks."

"The nurses and doctors pounded on my chest and pinched my fingers, which was quite painful, but I would not utter a sound. Then they sodomized me by shoving a needle up my rectum. Presumably they were looking for drugs (or bombs)."

"I objected vociferously, but the attendants pinned me to the floor while the doctor gave me an injection in my buttocks. Presumably this was a thorazine shot. I passed out."

"The toilet had overflowed, so there was urine and feces on the floor. I got very little sleep in these pens, because I did not have room to lie down and my old body would ache in the sitting position."

"The toilet did not flush, so feces and urine accumulated in the toilet."

"However the NY City police officer who had to drag me up and down stairs in the courthouse was more articulate. Every few minutes, he would say: 'You worthless piece of sh*t," apparently directed at me.

Heicklen, blessedly, is not without a sense of humor:

"On Sunday at 6:00 am some guy got a razor and cut up my face pretty severely. That guy was me. It was my first shave since I left home the previous Tuesday morning."

Now everyone can read JULIAN'S JAILHOUSE JOURNAL in Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles where it's published in its entirety as a Special Bonus Chapter.
Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles
Garry Reed