Don't waste your money - it won't afford you any protection - you'll still have to sue if they use it and if they have deeper pockets, it may be a moot point. I would still love to hear your song. I do a LOT of songs by people I know and they have never been heard anywhere else. My favorite songwriter does some stuff that would get me lynched in Portland and I already sing a couple I have to be sure to be close to the door when I sing....just in case. Sounds like the libreto would have been really good.

As to the musical, the best tune in it was old; I looked it up on the Internet to see if the tune was under copyright, and the information I got was no.

The music ("Battle Hymn of the Republic" aka "John Brown's Body" aka "Shall We Gather in Canaan's Happy Fields"[?]) is certainly not under copyright now, or I could be prosecuted if I used it. But I could probably get the lyrics copyrighted for about $25. I once wrote a musical (the tunes were old tunes, mostly), I mean a libretto, and I got it copyrighted as an unpublished work. That was in 1978. It has never been performed. Somebody stole my typewritten copy, along with other stuff, in a burglary. I think I have another copy, very poorly typed; that's why I paid a typist to type it over before I sent it to the Bureau of Patents and Copyrights. But the neat copy I had of it from her is gone. I have not been able to find it in the National Archives, or whatever it is, to get a reprint; maybe because it has run out. But the whole thing needed more work anyway. I haven't had much time, trying to make a living, and now, being unemployed, trying to get a job.

By the Berne Convention, your lyrics are already copyrighted the second they are reduced to material form (and no longer in your head). The US agreed to this in about 1990 or so. But....to be honest, it's much easier to GET someone to do your songs than to ever see any money from copyrighting anything. I do several songs by PROFESSIONAL songwriters (as in Nashville and New York). They market like crazy and only make money when a song is made a hit and lots of royalties come rolling in. I've recorded Tom Paden's songs - big deal. Until I'm famous, his song won't be. Just a reality check on the mafia run entertainment industry. Copyright registration only means the governments get their cut. The best thing you could do is have a copy of someone singing your song :-)

Your call.
I think the music is out of copyright but then, Happy Birthday doesn't seem to be. I would love to see them - I'm at ReneeDaphne@q.com

Sorry, I'd want to get those lyrics copyrighted first.

Thanks for two more sources of fun! The best marketing book is "The Unbreakable Rules of Marketing 9 1/2 ways to get people to love you" by Kathey Armillas and Jeff Berry. The rules are the same regardless of what you're marketing. Some great sources of marketing FUN are
LEARN LIBERTY http://www.learnliberty.org
LOVE GOV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSGgm...
WE THE INTERNET https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa1D...

Sounds like you might be into some guerilla tactics for education. We do a lot of that here in Portland. I wish there was some interest in enthusiasm these days. Everybody seems so lack luster in their "pursuit of liberty".

Great response - thank you for making it.

The grassroots I engage in these days is "Free Marketing Advice" = I set up a table and tone all my advice in a libertarian fashion. It's working unbelievably well and the best bang for my activist hour that I've gotten so far. My point in asking the question was to find out if people realized we actually LOST liberty by our inaction and stupid insistence to be "left alone". They didn't take it.

I agree with Rand - all parties suck. Good for you in getting the job done. Too many people just beat their lips instead of the street. I would LOVE to get the words to the Street Vendors' Fight Song - can you send - I'm a professional singer and raise a lot of hell at open mics and karaoke here in Portland.

First, the word freedom is so coopted and bastardized it's useless as a descriptive term of anything. Liberty is much better. However, by your description that you are not free unless you can act "in accordance with your choices", then there is no such thing as "freedom". There are always opportunity costs to everything and therefore "influences" you choose to ignore or accept.

How do you "quantify" a word by emotion and since when are emotions NOT reality? Your argumentative style is a little loose when it comes to definition. Again, you are pontificating on what the human race does...please, you don't know but a tiny fraction of people on this planet so please leave off the "overview of humanity". I don't appreciate it any more than when it comes from the left. What are you doing to encourage others to make different choices?

I was hoping it was made clear why with the 22 things they do that we don't. It's not rocket science, it's just plain math. If you do certain things often enough, you will get rewarded with positive results. They do the stuff and we don't seem to have the time or want to spend the money.

And what rules of marketing would you have us follow?

The best marketing/PR I see being done on the right these days is from comics like Remy and Milo. And it's hard to keep the media from shutting them up.

Ayn Rand did have a "set of principles" -- her philosophy -- and it takes much more than four statements. She was from the beginning opposed to being a personality as leader of an organized "movement"; she wanted those who agreed with her ideas to apply them in their own professions. She wanted a "philosophical or intellectual movement, in the sense of a growing trend among a number of independent individuals sharing the same ideas". She actively discouraged people from following her as a personality, such as when she discouraged lecture audiences at universities from breaking into wild cheering before she even began to speak, and did not want "Ayn Rand clubs" following her.

The "network" that Branden built, originally for educational purposes but significantly deviating from that, collapsed because his organization ceased to exist when he collapsed intellectually and morally. There remained, however, a smaller and more intellectually serious network of those following the educational lecture series that continued. But that was never for political action. Organizing political action around a specific issue supported by an alliance of different kinds of people who share a concrete political goal is a very different matter.

Engaging in grass roots action is necessary to make a difference, but is often not sufficient. There are still realms in which you can appeal to common sense, but much of that is gone. You have to pick your battles where there is a chance of success. It is too soon for many of them because the philosophical basis is not widely enough accepted, and there aren't enough people who do understand to make getting out of their chairs effective.

As for "There was a time in the past when their collectivist crap was a really hard sell. What happened?" -- "So long as the statist-altruist-pragmatist doctrine of the welfare state remained unchallenged, there was no other place to go." https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

Political compromise and comprising on principle are two different concepts. In politics you have to 'compromise' to get anywhere -- there is no choice, but you don't have to concede your principles by endorsing what is wrong. Those who compromise their principles are doomed to fail. Fighting for the right principles affects which way the political trend goes as the political compromises accumulate.

Rather interesting. In 1980 I attended 2 meetings of the Libertarian Party but never joined. Ayn Rand repudiated that Party. Peter Schwartz once wrote an article in which he said that Party reject[ed] "the very idea of a fundamental idea".
I do accept the Objectivist tenet that individual rights is the foundation of a free society.
I well remember one time (about 30 years ago)
when some people in the Richmond City govern-
ment were trying to ghettoize us vendors and try
to restrict us to vending on Brown's Island. They didn't get that passed. And there was the time they tried to knock us down to 1 (at least I think it was 1) per blockface ; the different streetvending
businesses were together in having a petitiion, which we presented to the public, on the carts. However, I thought it might be just as well to do the same thing off-duty. First I went around in my own neighborhood. Then I went elsewhere. Eventually I went into the Northside area and knocked on doors. And I believe I turned in a record number of signatures for one individual, and our company turned in more signatures than any other. My boss-man even said that he hadn't at first thought that the off-duty tactic would work.--And, in the end, we won that battle. The measure went down to defeat. It was during that time that I composed the words to "The Street Vendors' Fight Song". (Same tune as "Battle Hymn of the Republic"). I'd like to make a "vendor's video" of it some day.

I have commented here before about how I am confused by the party. I'm not confused about Libertarianism, I don't think. But, that last presidential candidate?...Come on! Some here even defended him but he came across as a loon with a real convoluted message. I honestly started to think that the Libertarian Party was just being hijacked over and over and that's what we were seeing. Still think that might be the case.

The message should be simple, repeated often. The message is so powerful. I, personally, know of very few people who would argue against fundamental Libertarianism.

Perhaps the movement keeps being usurped by people who are preoccupied with legalizing recreational weed(?) as their main concern. I just can't figure the failures out...

Re: "You seem to believe that as long as fluoride is not added to the public water supply, then it is OK for government to have a public monopoly in distribution water to homes and businesses." No I don't. In my previous reply to you I said, "Ideally water delivery should be a private activity, not a government one." As for "wasted time", the campaign against fluoride that the original poster worked on was actually successful. I've worked on a few successful anti-statist campaigns myself.

It depends on one's philosophy whether it is OK for oneself or not. Politically, when in a democracy or a representative constitutional republic like the USA, large numbers of citizens say what is OK or what they are willing to put up with or work around. You seem to believe that as long as fluoride is not added to the public water supply, then it is OK for government to have a public monopoly in distribution water to homes and businesses. If you do not like it, then find your own water source and transfer it to your place as long as you do not steal it from someone else.
If you have a way to limit the nanny state, go to it, but that will require a lot of wasted time to convince those who want it, just as it is near impossible to change religious or philosophical beliefs, even in oneself.

Although you are free to choose how you react to a situation that does not make you free. If you live in a collectivist state you are still free to react how you want but it might get you killed or imprisoned for disagreeing with the state. That does not mean you are free. If you cannot act in accordance with your choices you are not free. I am not presumptuous in assuming what people have chosen I am observant. It is easy to determine when you can define slavery correctly. When you choose to quantify a word by emotion rather than reality you destroy the usefulness of the tool (language). I am able to judge 'another's' slavery by understanding the meaning of the word then observing their action. The human race for the most part is committed to slavery or else they could rid themselves of it by refusing to choose or obey it. When most choose slavery it makes it difficult for others to resist for the slaves will ensure that individuals don't break free.

This why we need something more than "people" to make libertarianism and voluntaryism visceral enough for folks to get excited about them. I have a set of 4 principles I've been trying to get up someway on the internet and not figured out how yet. It's a PowerPoint and when I upload to DropBox - you only get the slides and no audio. If we had a set of "principles" to subscribe to that were more than just policy statements. It would go a long way to holding the ideas together.

About me, my opinion or Rand and Brandon?

You may be a little presumptuous in assuming you know what the majority of people have chosen. You are always and forever free to choose your reaction and response to every situation.

Besides, who says any of us are a judge of another's "slavery"? There are a few people on this list which points high enough to qualify them as being a "slave" to this list.

As to being popular, You may note that as I regularly put my foot in my mouth, you'll realize that my feelings about that are expressed by: "You must have me confused with someone who gives a shit."