Vote your conscience, don't waste it. Can you vote by not voting? In a presidential election year in which the critical issues have been how much personal behavior the federal government should regulate and how much private wealth it should transfer and consume, rather than whether it should do so, many folks who are fed up with what George W. Bush ... MORE
Derek Robertson: Negative Versus Positive Rights
Just what is a "human right"? The phrase “healthcare is a human right” displays a profound ignorance of basic terminology, as well as a contradictory, self-imploding notion of what qualifies as a “right.” A poll once indicated that many Americans believe healthcare to indeed qualify as a right, probably mistaking themselves to possess compassion ... MORE
VIDEO: PC Is Never Having To Say You're Sorry
WARNING: Members of the ethnic or gender grievance industries will be offended.
John Stossel: Coulter Defends Romney
Her defense goes only so far. Mitt Romney tells people he won't fire federal workers or cut education spending. He says he'll spend more on the military. He sounds like a big-government guy. Or is he just pandering for votes? Ann Coulter came on my TV show to defend Romney. "What you call pandering is called getting elected," Coulter said. Romney says ... MORE
In Seattle, Nothing Says 'Liberal" Like Being Unarmed
by Dave Workman. If there were any lingering doubts about the City of Seattle being
the Evergreen State’s biggest liberal stronghold, they vanished Monday
with KIRO’s revealing report about concealed carry across Washington. As this column reported
the same day, there are more than 382,000 active concealed pistol
licenses in the state, according to ... MORE
Doug Doan: Homeland Security - What Next?
What we should do next. So far, none of the presidential candidates have mentioned much about Homeland Security. With so many other problems, issues surrounding how best to organize, manage and lead the vast DHS bureaucracy are just not that important. Too bad. I would have liked to see the candidates talk about what they might do. Here is an agenda ... MORE
Ioan Grillo: Hit Mexico's Cartels With Legalization
Death by prohibition. Whenever I’ve interviewed Mexican cartel killers, the aspect that I’ve found most disturbing about them is that they appear to be sane. Even though they have described to me such unfathomable actions as hacking off the heads of still-living victims, it is something other than mental illness that drives their violence. Their sanity is ... MORE
President Obama Jabs At Ayn Rand, Knocks Himself Out
by Wendy Milling. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, President Obama stated, “Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up.” I’m not trying to mock the President here – he is just repeating an old propaganda line that was hatched by Rand’s opponents – but I have to ask the “adults” ... MORE
Dylan Scott: Pot Legalization Close To Passage In 2 States
The times they are a changin'. Barring an abrupt reversal in support among likely voters on Nov. 6,
at least two states will become the first to legalize marijuana for
recreational use. Colorado’s Amendment 64 would allow adults 21 and over to possess
marijuana and requires the state to license and regulate cultivation and
retail centers. In essence, ... MORE
Labels:
freedom,
individual liberty,
legalize,
marijuana,
medical marijuana,
prohibition,
regulation
Edward Cline: "Hate" Laws Are Criminal
The First Amendment should not be a felony offense. The end of freedom of speech began with the invention of “hate crimes”
as a means to deter and punish crimes committed against an individual or
members of a designated or protected “minority.” Hate crimes had their
conspicuous genesis under the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which ... MORE
Jacob Sullum: Pick Your Constitutional Poison
Obama and Romney share a disdain for civil liberties. During the final
presidential debate, the moderator asked Mitt Romney about
President Obama's policy of killing suspected terrorists, including
U.S. citizens, with missiles fired from unmanned aircraft. "I
believe we should use any and all means necessary to take out
people who pose a ... MORE
50 Obama-Backed Companies Are Financially Troubled
by Micheal Bastasch. The October bankruptcy of solar company Satcon Technology Corp. puts
the number of bankrupt or troubled green energy companies as high as 50,
according to one estimate. During the first presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt
Romney said the Obama administration had doled out $90 billion to green
energy ... MORE
The 10 Most Unexpected Marijuana Reform Supporters
by Tom Angell. With less than one week before we find out how voters in Colorado, Oregon and Washington will decide on ballot measures to regulate marijuana like alcohol, polls indicate there's a very good chance at least one of these states will make history by enacting the world's first-ever marijuana legalization law. While the movement to reform marijuana laws ... MORE
Labels:
election,
freedom,
individual liberty,
law enforcement,
legalize,
marijuana,
prohibition,
voting
Quarter-Billion-Dollar Stimulus Creates Just 400 Jobs
by Jim McElhatton. Battery maker A123 Systems
vowed thousands of new jobs when it received a nearly
quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant in late 2009, but federal
job-tracking figures show only a few hundred positions were created
before the company joined a growing list of federally backed energy
businesses that ended in bankruptcy. ... MORE
Brian Phillips: Zoning Versus The Internet
The key to success is freedom. The stated purpose of zoning is to control land use within a community
to prevent “incompatible” land uses and to promote planning. Most
Americans accept zoning as a “necessary evil” that prevents pawn shops
and factories from operating in residential neighborhoods. Most
Americans are, to paraphrase Benjamin ... MORE
Thomas Sowell: 'Cooling Out' The Voters
Playing the electorate as chumps. Confidence men know that their victim — "the mark" as he has been called — is eventually going to realize that he has been cheated. But it makes a big difference whether he realizes it immediately, and goes to the police, or realizes it after the confidence man is long gone. So part of the confidence racket is creating a ... MORE
Walter E Williams: Black and White Standards
Black people should not keep accepting excuses. The Washington Post (10/25/2012), in giving President Barack Obama an endorsement for another four years, wrote, "Much of the 2012 presidential campaign has dwelt on the past, but the key questions are who could better lead the country during the next four years — and, most urgently, who is likelier ... MORE
Robert Poole: The Libertarian Case For Mitt Romney
He will be significantly less bad than Obama. Should libertarians like me declare a pox on both major parties’
houses by voting for the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary
Johnson? Or should we opt for the Republican Mitt Romney, who
I think would be significantly less bad than the Democratic
incumbent, Barack Obama? Over the decades since ... MORE
Greg Lukianoff: Feigning Free Speech On Campus
Our political correctness zones. Despite high youth voter turnout in 2008 — 48.5 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds cast ballots that year — levels are expected to return to usual lows this year, and with that the usual hand-wringing about disengagement and apathy among young voters. Colleges and universities are supposed to be bastions ... MORE
Emily Bazelton: Do Police Dogs Invade Our Privacy
Chemicals found in drugs are also elsewhere. When I see a police dog inside a train
station or at a public gathering, I feel safer. I figure it is there to
protect us from explosives, and if it sniffs out drugs along the way,
well, that's against the law, too. But what if it turns out that
the dogs aren't all that good at the job the police are ... MORE
REPORT: EPA Regs Could Cost 887,000 Jobs A Year
Economic green death dispensed by government agency. Environmental Protection Agency regulations will contribute to projected shutdowns of up to 69,000 megawatts of coal-fueled electric generation and job losses of up to 887,000 jobs per year, according to a report. Total compliance costs for the electric sector could be ... MORE
George Will: Mugging Our Descendants
The entitlement states steals from future generations. The election-eve mood is tinged with sadness stemming from well-founded
fear that America’s new government is subverting America’s old
character. Barack Obama’s agenda is a menu of temptations intended to
change the nation’s social norms by making Americans comfortable with
the degradation ... MORE
$60,000 In Welfare Spent Per Household In Poverty
by Daniel Halper. New data compiled by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee
shows that, last year, the United States spent over $60,000 to support
welfare programs per each household that is in poverty. The calculations
are based on data from the Census, the Office of Management and Budget,
and the Congressional Research Services. ... MORE
Labels:
benefits,
budget,
Congress,
entitlements,
handouts,
income,
poverty,
spending,
welfare state
Robert Moffit & Alyene Senger: MediCare's 'Efficiency'
Private insurance has lower administrative costs. Everybody “knows” that government agencies are more efficient than private health insurance at delivering medical benefits and services. After all, Medicare’s administrative costs, at roughly 2 percent of the cost of benefits, are lower than those of private insurance. In the first presidential ... MORE
Voter Initiatives Breathe New Life Into Federalism
by J.D. Tuccille. There's an important constitutional issue on ballots across the country next month, but it's not labeled by its name anywhere that it appears. That issue encompasses concerns traditionally considered both conservative and liberal, even if it is embraced oh-so-selectively by its newfound friends. That's right, federalism ... MORE
Labels:
drugs,
election,
federalism,
gay rights,
health,
initiative,
marijuana,
ObamaCare,
states' rights
Police Union Intimidates California City Council
Shameless tactics by law enforcement unions. Many people were outraged this summer after a private investigator, with ties to a law firm that represents 120 police unions in California, made an apparently false report to the cops claiming that a councilman in the Orange County, California, city of Costa Mesa stumbled out of a bar drunk and ... MORE
Top Court To Hear Arguments Over Government Spying
by Terry Barnes. A debate over how freely the U.S. government can eavesdrop on international communications reaches a climax on Monday in the country's highest court. At issue is a law passed by Congress in 2008 allowing the government to monitor the overseas communications of individuals without obtaining a warrant for each target. ... MORE
"The New Economic Patriotism" Is Not A Jobs Plan
by David Harsanyi. Fear not; Barack Obama has an economic plan for America, and it's all in a glossy brochure, called "The New Economic Patriotism: A Plan for Jobs & Middle-Class Security"—an antidote, we're told, to the vagueness of Mitt Romney's agenda. This is what the president, according to a campaign official, believes will ensure ... MORE
Brian Domitrovic: Inequality Is The Child Of Fiat Money
The Federal Reserve is the problem. For a while there, it looked like the 2012 election was going to be a referendum on economic inequality. This would have been weird, in that economic growth and its twin, employment, are the clear issues of choice in these years of torpid economic recovery. Had President Obama succeeded in making ... MORE
Supreme Court To Determine Legality Of Reselling
Testing the boundaries of copyright laws. All eyes will be on Justice Elena Kagan on Monday, when the Supreme Court considers a copyright case that some fear could prevent people from reselling certain products they own such as the iPhone, as she may have the deciding vote. In a case that tests the boundaries of copyright law, ... MORE
Labels:
automobile,
China,
commerce,
copyright,
literacy,
policy,
smart phones,
Supreme Court,
trade
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