Libertarian

**Mark your calendar for every third Friday of the month!** Come hang out with fellow freedom-lovers, get the inside scoop on the Liberty Movement in Northern Virginia, and hear what’s brewing with local festivals and upcoming election support. Whether you’ve been part of the cause for years or are just curious about Libertarian ideas, you’re welcome to drop by for food, fun, and lively conversations that keep the spirit of liberty alive!

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps 33:12, KJV) Please join the Christian Party of America’s monthly Nationwide, public Conference Call to discuss current political issues with like-minded Christians. The conference call is the second Thursday of each month at 8:30 PM est. Lets join in a discussion on what can be done to address the concerns we all share for the status of our country’s civil government and have prayer to close the call. Guest speakers will be present at some of the calls to provide input on political issues. The Christian Party of America (www.christianpartyof america.com) is a new, national third-party of Christian voters, dedicated to proclaiming that Jesus is Lord in the political arena. Our purpose is to bring our country back to being an unabashedly Christian nation, by offering and electing competent candidates who share and promote our vision. Please join us in our goal of uniting believers under the banner of Jesus Christ to bring constitutional freedom to all people of the United States. We believe in the Christian principles set forth in the Bible, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. The Christian Party of America’s nationwide Conference Calls are a great opportunity to connect with other Christian Party supporters as we try to make a difference in this country. So sign on with us for the conference call to discuss issues and contribute your thoughts about what we can be doing politically. Our conference calls are open to the public and are for all of us who are interested in the Christian Party of America. It is an easy-access way to share ideas and learn more about what is going on around the country with the Christian Party of America. Hope you can make it! There is no extra charge to participate other than the usual charges by your phone plan for a long distance call. "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV) KJV)

International Day of Protest Against Shock Treatment Educational Open House Join us for an educational Open House in observance of the International Day of Protest Against Shock Treatment, an internationally recognized day focused on awareness, ethics, and human rights in mental health care. This event is designed to inform the public about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)—its history, current use, reported risks, and the importance of informed consent, transparency, and patient rights. Through educational displays and guided discussion, attendees will have the opportunity to review documented information and see an excerpt of the documentary, *Therapy or Torture*. The Open House emphasizes the importance of ethical standards in mental health treatment and the need for safeguards that protect individuals from harm, coercion, or misuse of authority. What to expect: Educational exhibits and informational materials Historical and contemporary context on shock treatment Discussion on informed consent and patient rights A respectful, non-political learning environment This event is open to the public and intended for community members, students, professionals, advocates, and anyone interested in human rights and ethical mental health care. Quiet reflection, questions, and thoughtful conversation are welcome.

How much do we LOVE COLLECTIVE? So SO MUCH!!!! Come join us for a high energy Friday night on the rooftop in Tysons! The band starts at 6:30. We're going to try and get there early, but it's a work day... Collective returns for the 2026 rooftop season at Starr Hill Biergarten. Best of the 80s, 90s, 2000s and today across rock, pop, pop punk, alt and country music. Voted "Best Local Band" by readers of Arlington Magazine. Your assignment: bring friends - introduce them to our particular brand of fun, and let's get GO. We'll see you on the 11th floor!

Let us get together and plot to conquer the world!:) ***GRAB A DRINK AND YOU ARE ALL SET TO FLEX YOUR LANGUAGE CAPACITY. YOU NEED TO GET AT LEAST A DRINK OR FOOD:) To get the event going and show support. We know that you like our events. P.S. : We have non-alcoholic drinks as well.*** ***Tate has been doing crypto and investment for years and he will share his immense experience.*** We have a tiny venue and we hit capacity often and early arrival is suggested. We have the discretion to decide entry. Instead of silently doing research on your own, it is well known that when you are regularly connected with people of your own investment interest, you are likely to be more motivated, better informed and less likely to miss out on opportunities. Meet and discuss face-to-face. **HOW IT WORKS : We will try to assign tables for each represented INDUSTRIES/SECTORS/SPECIALIZATIONS and will direct attendees to their respective tables accordingly. All industries are welcome! However we don't guarantee the availability of a partner in that particular field, you would like to exchange experience. Space is limited and advance RSVP is required. PLEASE BRING BUSINESS CARDS (Hard/Soft Copy).** THIS IS NOT A SEMINAR or A PANEL EVENT AND THERE WILL BE NO SPEAKER. It is just a happy hour social event for those interested. In the past we had a great mix of developers, miners, investors, blockchainers and people who are completely new to cryptos. \- Come one\, come all OR FLY SOLO; this is the most friendliest event you have ever attended\! \- Feel free to invite your friends\. They don't necessarily have to be a member \- Event is 21\+ ***AFTER THE HAPPY HOUR, WE WILL HIT THE DANCE FLOOR AND DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY. BRING YOUR DANCING SHOES!*** ***N.B. : We have ZERO TOLERANCE for solicitation. We don't allow anyone to run their own agenda at the Event. If you are interested to promote/sponsor/collaborate; contact us via ([info@merevents.com](http://info@merevents.com/)).*** [)

Namaste and Blessings! We welcome you to join us for a House Kirtan Concert on **Sunday May 17** in **Silver Spring MD** (address below) \*\*\*4:00 - 6:00 pm. (\*\*\**mask optional)* ***We chant the Hanuman Chalisa at 4 pm – after which there is a break and regular chanting begins at 4:30 pm*** \~\~***Doors open at 3:45 pm - come early to get settled*** \~\~ **Please note:** This kirtan will be live-streamed using **Facebook Live** on this page: Bhakti Chant Kirtan (from 4 to 6 pm) **So about kirtan in Silver Spring** \- this is a private residence \- open to the public \- all are welcome \- bring a friend\, the family\, the kids\, the parents\, the spouse \- comfortable setting\. If you want to sit on the floor, it might be wise to bring something to sit on - Zafu or pillow or the like. *This is chanting with meditation* \- we chant in Sanskrit and English\, mantras and bhajans\, honoring the many aspects of the Divine\. ***Feel free to bring a percussion instrument***, if you are moved to do so. (This will be percussion by committee!) 
***Donation***: Suggested $10-20 (no one turned away) **On Paypal:** [paypal.me/RufusJuskus](http://paypal.me/RufusJuskus) **On Venmo**: Rufus-Juskus \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* **Snacks afterwards!** 

Many thanks -- peace and blessings to all! -Rufus Juskus **Address:** **9516 Pin Oak Drive** **Silver Spring MD 20910** The event page for this event on Facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Dpw3ZrSUe/

Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) was a pivotal early figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, a movement which strongly embraced empiricism and concentrated on the study of human nature and the relationship of individuals and society. Born in Ireland to a line of Scottish Presbyterian ministers, Hutcheson was educated by dissenting Irish Presbyterians in Ulster before matriculating at the University of Glasgow, where he studied philosophy and theology. In 1719 he was licensed to preach in Ireland, but rather than adopting the more traditional views of his forefathers, he gravitated toward the tolerant and liberal “New Light” Presbyterianism. Instead of further pursuing the ministry for which he had trained, he put his efforts into founding a dissenting academy in Dublin—a successful venture that occupied him for the next ten years. While teaching in Dublin, he moved in intellectual circles, and it was there that he wrote the four early treatises—collected into two books, the *Inquiry* of 1725 and the *Essay* of 1728—that quickly established his reputation as a philosopher. On being appointed chair of moral philosophy at his alma mater, he left Ireland for Glasgow in 1729. Contemporaries described Hutcheson as a popular and animated professor—the first at Glasgow to deliver lectures in English rather than exclusively in Latin. His most famous student was Adam Smith (enrolled 1737-40). Hutcheson's influence on Scottish thinkers was considerable. With his emphasis on the primacy of feeling over reason in our moral perceptions, he inspired David Hume’s moral sentimentalism. His analysis of natural rights and property in the *Inquiry* (Treat. II Sect. VII) as well as in his later works directly influenced Smith. The Scottish school of common sense realism derived partly from Hutcheson's explication of moral sense theory. His influence also made its way to colonial America, where his works were included in college curricula beginning in the mid-1700s. John Adams and other signers of the Declaration of Independence are known to have read Hutcheson. In the *Inquiry*, he takes up Locke’s epistemology of sense perception and broadens it into a theory of the “internal senses”—faculties of perception as powerful as the commonly designated five external senses. Elaborating Lord Shaftesbury’s notion of a “moral sense” and the earl's analogy between beauty and virtue, Hutcheson divided his *Inquiry* into a discussion of the sense of beauty and of the paramount moral sense—both being internal senses which operate without depending on mediation by the will or reason. Like Shaftesbury and the philosopher Richard Cumberland, Hutcheson held a strong distaste for the Hobbesian worldview. In the vein of the former two, he promoted a vision of humans as naturally benevolent and innately interested in the welfare of others, maintaining that others’ good brings us no less pleasure than our own good. Notably, he also sowed the seeds of utilitarian thought with his phrase “the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers” (Treat. II Sect. III). **Main Reading** The reading below is available at the Online Library of Liberty: * The [Inquiry](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004), comprising the first two of Hutcheson's four early treatises (we are reading the 1726, or 2nd edition, of the book): read the [Preface](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_head_019) and Treat. I: Sections [I](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_051), [II](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_071), [III](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_088) (Art. [IV](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_101) is optional), ([V](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_109) is optional), [VI](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_137), [VII](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_158), [VIII](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_165); and Treat. II: [Intro](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_head_032) and Sect. [I](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_181), [II](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_205), [III](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_228) (Art. XI, XII until “Intention, foresight” optional), [IV](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_258), [V](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_275), [VI](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_296), and especially [VII](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/leidhold-an-inquiry-into-the-original-of-our-ideas-of-beauty-and-virtue-1726-2004#lf1458_label_324). * Hutcheson's lecture upon his appointment at Glasgow, “[On the Natural Sociability of Mankind](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hutcheson-logic-metaphysics-and-the-natural-sociability-of-mankind#lfHutcheson_head_238)." The first 3 paragraphs, until footnote 10, are optional. * The beginning of the fourth treatise [Illustrations](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/garrett-an-essay-on-the-nature-and-conduct-of-the-passions-and-affections-1742-2002#lf0150_label_230), Sect. [I](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/garrett-an-essay-on-the-nature-and-conduct-of-the-passions-and-affections-1742-2002#lf0150_head_019), and Sect. [IV](https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/garrett-an-essay-on-the-nature-and-conduct-of-the-passions-and-affections-1742-2002#lf0150_label_296). Note that the ebook page on OLL can take a few moments to load. **Secondary resources** [IEP - Hutcheson](https://iep.utm.edu/hutcheso/) [SEP - Hutcheson](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hutcheson/) Liberty Fund: Editor’s [Intro to Inquiry](https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/hutcheson-on-liberty-and-happiness). [SEP - Scottish 18th C. Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottish-18th/) [Wiki - Scottish Enlightenment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Enlightenment) [Hutcheson and private property](https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/matson-hutcheson-property-virtue-march-2022) Routledge: [1](https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/hutcheson-francis-1694-1746/v-1/sections/life-and-works-43333), [2](https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/hutcheson-francis-1694-1746/v-1/sections/the-foundations-of-morality-and-the-moral-sense), [3](https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/hutcheson-francis-1694-1746/v-1/sections/practical-ethics-and-influence)

[Profs and Pints Northern Virginia](https://www.profsandpints.com/washingtondc) presents: **“How AI Alters Thinking,”** on dealing with artificial intelligence’s capacity to change and undermine our thought processes, with Eli Alshanetsky, assistant professor of philosophy at Temple University, principal investigator at its Cognitive Integrity Lab, and author of an upcoming book on AI and freedom of thought. [Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at [https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-how-ai-alters](https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-how-ai-alters) .] Doctors who give bad advice can be sued for malpractice. Teachers belong to a profession with set standards. When artificial intelligence guides you, however, that guidance comes with a disclaimer: Use at your own risk. Every day millions of people take that risk, and usually AI seems genuinely helpful. But even if AI gives us good answers, might its use over time do bad things to how we think? Explore the relationship between AI and our own minds with Eli Alshanetsky, whose Cognitive Integrity Lab studies how artificial intelligence changes how we think, learn, and build trust. Author of *Articulating a Thought* and the upcoming book F*reedom of Thought in the Age of AI*, he’s on the cutting edge of efforts to answer AI-related questions such as: How can we tell when work is truly our own? How can technology support rather than replace authorship and reflection? What does trust mean when AI mediates our relationships with others and with our own thoughts? To set up his discussion of potential consequences of AI, he’ll describe how social media’s impact on society serves as a preview. Social media didn’t just give people what they wanted to click on, it actually changed what they regarded as click-worthy. It broke attention spans and fueled radicalization across millions of very different people. It left us with people who doom-scroll for hours, who can’t focus, who don’t know what to trust anymore. If you’d shown people this version of themselves ten years ago, would they have chosen it? Artificial intelligence is making a similar deal with us, but the stakes are higher. It isn’t chasing clicks. It’s optimized for giving you the most satisfying response to whatever is on your mind right now. The risk over time isn’t just that you’ll get lazy. More profoundly, even when you think hard, your sense of what counts as good thinking—as well as what sounds like you—will shift to match what AI has been feeding you. We’ll consider what kind of person this produces and whether this is someone we want to be or want children to become. Professor Alshanetsky will lay out a practical framework, which he calls “the interaction layer,” for using AI without letting it replace the thinking it’s supposed to support. He’ll also talk about what AI-related concerns should be the focus of parents and educators. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image: Illustration by David S. Soriano / Creative Commons.

Join us for brunch and Freethinker discussion! We will meet at Caboose Commons at 11am (in the upstairs area of the building) to munch and chat. We'll organize into a handful of separate tables with 6-8 people at each table. Each person will write down ideas, drop 'em in a hat, and each group will pick 'em out at random to determine our topic(s). We'd love to mix the "louder" and "quieter" voices so that everyone has a chance to weigh in—we want to hear all perspectives! :) We're a very friendly bunch, and welcome participation from newbies and old-bies alike! Come with your best ideas—anything goes. Feel free to post interesting articles, videos or thoughts in the comments section beforehand to inspire our discussion. PLEASE NOTE: We have placed a cap on the event, so if your plans change, please adjust your RSVP, so someone on the Wait List can attend.

Main Library, Meeting Room 2B Join us for a welcoming evening of reflection, gentle music, and meaningful conversation. We’ll begin with a short grounding moment, followed by a brief reading from spiritual or philosophical traditions, and an open reflection circle where participants can share (or simply listen). Libera Animae is an interfaith community focused on inner growth, creativity, and authentic connection. All backgrounds are welcome.

Sleep in on Sundays. When you've had your fill of pajama-time, roll out and have some tasty brunch with your fellow Humanists!

ASH is Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists of First Unitarian Universalists of Columbus Ohio TBD Snacks are usually available, and you are welcome to bringing something to share!

Let’s meet and wander the galleries! General admission on Sundays is free.

Ciao a tutt\*! Let's meet Monday at 6.30pm at the Upper Arlington Library (**Tremont** Branch) in **Meeting Room A** to speak in Italian for 1 hour.