Cut the red tape, please. According to the federal Small Business Administration, the cost of complying with regulations for the typical small business is $10,500 per year, per employee. A firm with 10 workers, for example, must pay more than $100,000 every year just to remain on the right side of the rules imposed by Washington. That's a drop in ... MORE
What Liberals Don't Understand About Ayn Rand
by Cathy Young. Ayn Rand, the Russian-born writer and self-styled philosopher who died three decades ago, is back in the news as a favorite author of Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. In recent years, the passionately individualist, pro-capitalist Rand has been embraced as a champion of freedom by many conservatives ... MORE
Ronald Bailey: Energy Regulators Think You're Crazy
New study shows what regulators think of consumers. Federal regulators evidently believe that Americans are irrationally choosing to spend hundreds of billions more on energy than they should. Consequently, benevolent bureaucrats have imposed regulations to guide hapless consumers toward making the proper energy saving choices ... MORE
Jason Koebler: Police To Use Drones Against Citizens
Warrantless surveillance deployed. Law enforcement agencies that have requested permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly unmanned drones plan to use them for surveillance purposes, according to documents obtained by an Internet freedom organization. "With some exceptions, drone flights in the U.S. have been all about ... MORE
Jury Nullification May Be Only Hope For Raw Milk Farmer
by Dan Flynn. We are going to have to wait a little longer to see if supporters of Wisconsin raw milk dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger can pull off a rarely used legal maneuver called jury nullification. Sauk County Judge Guy Reynolds has moved the start of the Hershberger jury tail to Jan. 7, 2013. Evidence and witness lists are due Oct. 19, and the final ... MORE
A Government Of Unions, By Unions And For Unions
by Matt Patterson. In 2009, the U.S. government bailed out the auto industry, ostensibly to save the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who work for automakers and their supporting companies. Sounds nice, except that this federal largesse was not distributed equally. In fact, some employees who were also members of the powerful, politically ... MORE
Marine Gets NDAA Treatment: Detained Without Charges
“This should be a wake-up call to Americans that the police state is here.” - John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
Forced 30-day psych evaluation for Facebook post. Pitting human and First Amendment rights and freedoms against security, a 26-year old former Marine targeted individual was ordered Monday to undergo ... MORE
Steve Gunn: Just Say No When The TSA Asks You To Chat
A bizarre and outlandish violation of the Fourth Amendment. I came face-to-face with Big Brother the other day, and it was a frightening experience. He actually presented himself in the deceptive form of a young, attractive female officer, working for the Transportation Security Administration at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. At first she ... MORE
Paul J. Watson: Questioning Authority Is Suspicious Activity
Man kicked off flight for anti-TSA shirt. A man and his wife were treated as potential terrorists and kicked off a Delta Airlines flight over a satirical T-shirt because it made passengers and employees feel “very uncomfortable”. Writing on his blog, Arijit Guha describes how he was flying out of Buffalo-Niagara Airport after attending his wife’s ... MORE
Labels:
airport,
authority,
free speech,
government,
individual liberty,
power,
security,
travel,
TSA
John Stossel: Who Is Paul Ryan?
Does he really believe in the free market? I wanted to like Paul Ryan. Before he was nationally known, Rep. Ryan visited me at ABC, and we went to lunch. He was terrific. He was a rare politician, one who actually cared about America's coming debt crisis and the unfairness of entitlements. He even talked about F.A. Hayek's "The Road to ... MORE
VIDEO: US Prison Population: The Largest in the World
Many incarcerated for statutory crimes in which no one's rights were violated.
Ted Nugent: Crimes Against Gibson Guitars
Uncle Sam is Uncle Sham. My all-American sonic-bombast weapon of choice for 50 years has been those world-class pieces of musical art, the mighty Gibson guitar. I own a stunning arsenal of them. It wouldn’t surprise me if some Fedzillastooge from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s Department of Gunrunning Injustice will try to tell us American ... MORE
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business,
federal,
government,
industry,
law,
police,
politics,
power,
prosecute,
regulation
There's No Magic To Lowering Prices And Raising Quality
by Christopher J. Conover. One of the sharpest dividing lines between conservatives and liberals is whether or not markets can work in medicine. Progressives admit to being "deeply suspicious of the claim that a health care system dominated by powerful vested interests and mystifying in its complexity can be tamed by consumers who are strapped for ... MORE
Andrew Bernstein: Intensify The War On Drugs
But in a radically new form. The War on Drugs must forcefully continue. Toxic drugs destroy lives. No rational person wants to kill himself on drugs—or witness innocent others kill themselves in similar manner. The first step of a rational, morally proper, and effective war on drugs is to fully legalize all drugs for consenting adults. The government’s ... MORE
Labels:
crime,
DEA,
drug war,
force,
gangs,
individual liberty,
legalize,
police,
reason,
self-ownership
Thomas Sowell: A Powerful Movie
Insight into the messiah. Years, and sometimes decades, pass between my visits to movie theaters. But I drove 30 miles to see the movie "2016," based on Dinesh D'Souza's best-selling book, "The Roots of Obama's Rage." Where I live is so politically correct that such a movie would not even be mentioned, much less shown. Every seat in the theater... MORE
VIDEO: Property Rights Up In Smoke
Liberty is lost incrementally.
Labels:
government,
individual liberty,
prohibition,
property rights,
regulation,
rights,
smoking,
tax
Thomas Sowell: "Issues" Or America?
Obama reelection means arbitrary rule by decree. There are some very serious issues at stake in this year's election — so many that some people may not be able to see the forest for the trees. Individual issues are the trees, but the forest is the future of America as we have known it. The America that has flourished for more than two centuries is being ... MORE
Government Spending Cuts Are Bad For The Economy?
by Tyler Watts. “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines,” laments the gruff air traffic controller played by Lloyd Bridges in the ribald disaster-spoof Airplane! Facing the tense situation of helping a nerve-wracked pilot safely land a large passenger jet, “Steve McCroskey” could get a performance boost by popping some pep ... MORE
Investors Business Daily: Fracking Leads To Cleaner Air
The greatest story never told. Carbon emissions in the U.S. have hit a 20-year low due to a supposedly environmentally unfriendly drilling technique that has created an abundance of cheap natural gas. The free market, it seems, does it better than the EPA. Environmentalists find themselves between shale rock and a hard place after a ... MORE
Erica Martinson: Court Strikes Down EPA Pollution Rules
Court agrees federal bureaucracy goes too far. In a rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal court took a hammer Tuesday to a controversial EPA regulation aimed at forcing states to be “good neighbors” on air pollution. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Tuesday that the EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule ... MORE
Daily Mail: Stealth Mailbox Cameras Raking In The Revenue
The tactics of public servants or public masters? The speed traps in the surrounding counties of Washington D.C. are going stealth, forgoing the clunky cameras of yesteryear and embracing an unobtrusive model to catch fast drivers. Montgomery and Prince George's County law enforcement officials hope that the new 'mailbox'-like models ... MORE
Walter E Williams: Educational Lunacy
Taming the barbarians. If I were a Klansman, wanting to sabotage black education, I couldn't find better allies than education establishment liberals and officials in the Obama administration, especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who in March 2010 announced that his department was "going to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement." For Duncan, the civil ... MORE
Don Watkins: Atlas Shrugged Is Required Reading
The promise of freedom from welfare enslavement. It's not often that an American election sparks debate about a philosopher. But ever since Mitt Romney announced his selection of Paul Ryan as his vice presidential candidate, talk has turned to the ideas of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand. Ryan is on record as being a fan of Rand's, and although ... MORE
Labels:
Ayn Rand,
capitalism,
economics,
freedom,
independence,
individualism,
politicians,
students
Art Carden: Isn't It High Time We Legalize Marijuana?
Filling prisons and ruining lives is not winning. On a couple of different occasions, I have used this space to call for an end to the economic, moral, and cultural disaster that is the drug war (1, 2, 3). American governments at all levels have been fighting the war on drugs for over four decades now, and it’s overwhelmingly clear that ... MORE
VIDEO: How Government Regulation Kills Opportunity
Are government regulators public servants or public masters?
Gary DeMar: How Government Creates Unemployment
Economics isn’t hard, unless you’re a liberal. Before Paul Ryan was picked by Mitt Romney to be his running mate, there was speculation that New Jersey governor Chris Christie was in the running. Republican governor Christie mocked a network graphic insisting that 55 percent of New Jersey residents think he would be the VP pick and 68 ... MORE
Government-Subsided Automaker Recalls Hybrid Firetrap
by Becket Adams. Electric-car maker Fisker Automotive is recalling all of its $100,000 Karma sports sedans to fix cooling fans that can catch fire. The recall comes after Fisker and a private fire investigation firm finished probing an Aug. 10 fire in a Karma in Woodside, Calif. It was the second of its kind. The company said the probe found that the blaze started in ... MORE
Labels:
auto industry,
automobile,
bailout,
GM,
government,
green,
safety,
standards,
subsidies,
waste
Katie Kieffer: Stressed? Are You Disabled?
Liberalism is a mental illness. Government worker: “Do you have a disability?” Man: “No.” Man’s wife: “What does he get if he’s disabled?” Government worker: “His monthly payments will [double].” Man’s wife: “Well, then he’s disabled.” Government worker (to man): “What’s your disability?” Man: “I’m stressed.” ... MORE
Labels:
bureaucracy,
disability,
entitlements,
government,
incentives,
mental health,
values,
welfare
SEATTLE TIMES: Get Real About Legalizing Marijuana
Seattle residents disagree with marijuana prohibition. Revelers at Seattle's Hempfest celebration of marijuana were offered a debate by supporters and opponents of Initiative 502. We hope they were sober enough to think through it. For the first time, it is possible to envision an end to marijuana prohibition. That is a huge change -- ... MORE
Sylvia Bokor: Right To Work And Individual Rights
A matter of freedom, not economics. The Right to Work clause came into existence in 1935, embedded in the Taft-Hartely Law. It means that (a) employees may not be forced to join a union, that (b) employers need not hire only those who agree to join a union, and (c) that employers need not fire employees for failing to join a union or pay union dues. ... MORE
Peter Ferrara: The New Face Of Health Care -- The IRS
The enforcer is in place and ready to roll. When President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka "Obamacare") goes fully into effect in 2014, the American people will only then begin to see the implications of its thorough government takeover of health care, in all its glory. But what they are not expecting is the massively expanded ... MORE
Don Watkins: Ryan, Rand And Rights
Talking about individual rights is a positive, but ... Whether he likes it or not, Paul Ryan’s worldview is going to be defined in large part by its distance from philosopher Ayn Rand’s. Ryan is on record as praising Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” and her moral defense of capitalism. He’s also on record as rejecting Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism. ... MORE
Labels:
Ayn Rand,
capitalism,
entitlements,
government,
individual liberty,
IRS,
morality,
rights,
welfare
Charles C. W. Cooke: Words Don't Pull Triggers
People do. On Wednesday morning of this week, a malcontented volunteer from an LGBT community center in Washington, D.C., walked into the lobby of the socially conservative Family Research Council. Along with a handgun and a box of ammunition, he was carrying a backpack that contained 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches — an obvious if peculiar ... MORE
Labels:
crime,
free speech,
gun control,
gun rights,
individual liberty,
protection,
shooting,
violence
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