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[ Disclaimer: The author of this article is neither black nor white, and, for that matter, is not (yet) an American. He is an Indian citizen and is a legal tax-paying temporary resident in the US. He considers himself an ideological American patriot. ] [ This article was first self-published here on Jun 04th, 2013 ] “free at last, free at last....thank God Almighty.....we’re free at last”. --MLK The collage above showcases some of the strongest leaders of the Tea Party movement and grass-roots conservatism. Stare at the picture for a while. Then, read on. The last few decades have witnessed the systematic neutering of patriotism, cultural pride & laissez faire thought in American civic and political life. This was made possible by the steadily increasing, and now dominant, influence of progressive ideology in the public school system, academia and mainstream media. The American public forum has been degenerating into a caustic and suffocating environment,...

A free(er) market is emerging and has been emerging ever since the advent of the Internet and the Web. Newer technologies have accelerated this. Old inefficiencies in knowledge and access to the market are quickly disappearing. Participation is increasingly peer-to-peer (P2P). Participants can produce, create, curate, give, lend, sell, share, auction, consume, take, borrow, buy, reuse, rent and/or barter goods, services, cash, credit, currency, equity, debt and/or knowledge. The resultant economy is highly collaborative and is sometimes referred to as the ‘ sharing economy ’. Efficiencies are being introduced and value is being created in the smallest of markets. Non-profit activities are thriving as well, in addition to for-profit ones. The marketplace is becoming, at once, global and local. An important subset of the new economy is collaborative and crowdsourced , and may be described as commons-based peer production . Asymmetries in information are diminished by algorithms (Google...