Jacob Hornblower: What Does It Mean To Be Free?

From land of the free to indoctrination nation.       Johann von Goethe once wrote, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Goethe’s statement perfectly captures the plight of the American people in our time. That’s one of the principal challenges that we libertarians face, for if people are convinced  ... MORE

Why Trust A Government That Kills, Maims, Tortures, Lies, Spies, Cheats, And Treats Its Citizens Like Criminals?

by John W. Whitehead.      For that matter, why should anyone trust a government utterly lacking in transparency, whose actions give rise to more troubling questions than satisfactory answers, and whose domestic policies are dictated more by paranoia than need? Unfortunately, “we the people” have become so trusting, so gullible, so easily       ... MORE

VIDEO: Lies My President Told Me

Andrew Napolitano: Beware A Beneficent Government

The president is an ardent progressive. This dastardly philosophy of government was brought into the American mainstream 100 years ago by a Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, and a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson. Its guiding principle is the belief that government — not individuals — is the chief engine of human progress. If that means government   ... MORE

Jay Sekulow: The IRS's War On Free Speech

More evidence the government is not us.            The Obama administration’s IRS actively attempted to enlist the FBI in its war against the Tea Party. Does anyone still think this is a “phony scandal?” Does the following scenario sound like the United States of America, the land of liberty, or does it sound like a dictatorship, a land of paranoia    ... MORE

VIDEO: France's Reckoning With The Welfare State

California Identifies Unconstitutionality Of Teacher Tenure

by Howard Blume, Stephen Ceasar.  Unions squeal like stuck hogs. The ruling Tuesday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge that struck down job protections for teachers in California as unconstitutional will undoubtedly spawn a series of appeals that could last years before a final outcome is reached. But some contend that is too long of a ... MORE

Woman Dies In Jail Because She Failed To Pay A Fine

by Brian Doherty.     Jailed for her child's truancy from school. Some monstrous policy out of Pennsylvania, from Associated Press via the Pottstown Mercury News, a land where there is no such thing as debtors prison for the poor unless that debt is to the government, that institution that only monsters question because after all it's there to help   ... MORE

Our Police Departments Are Quietly Preparing For War

by Tyler Durdan.     What if the government is not us? At first blush, the title of this post could be perceived as somewhat hyperbolic by those who still have an impression of America’s police departments as bastions of safety, designed “to protect and to serve” the population of the “land of the free.” However, said impression would be promptly    ... MORE

John Stossel: Libertarians Versus Conservatives

Defense only versus policing the world.      Both libertarians and conservatives want to keep America safe. We differ on how best to do that. Most libertarians believe our attempts to create or support democracy around the world have made us new enemies, and done harm as well as good. We want less military spending. Some       ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Fracking Fears

Another Inconvenient Truth For Global Warmists

by Mark Prigg.    Great Lakes finally ice-free after record freeze. It has been a long, cold winter for much of America - but the Great Lakes have really suffered. Forecasters finally revealed today that all of the Great Lakes including Lake Superior are now ice free. It marks the end of a record breaking 7 month stretch where the lakes were covered    ... MORE

Paul Flahive: Civil Forfeiture Laws Under Fire

The police department's license to steal. "When it comes to civil forfeiture laws in Texas, you have no property rights." That headline, from last month's Texas Observer, sums up a lot of criticism surrounding civil forfeiture, the law that allows police to seize property that was used to commit a felony. The language of the statute has been called  ... MORE

VIDEO: Ayn Rand - The Rational Mind

Windsor Mann: We Should Ignore Michelle Obama

Why listen to an unelected busybody?        Last month, Michelle Obama took an "unusual" step, The Washington Post reported, "by delivering White House remarks taking issue with makers of frozen pizza and french fries." I'll say. One scours in vain the speeches of Martha Washington and Eleanor Roosevelt for proclamations about     ... MORE

Tea Party Upstart Sends House Majority Leader Packing

The winds of change begin to blow.   The Tea Party should plaster photos of Mark Twain all over their homes. "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," Twain said after two erroneous obituaries. Far more death notices were filed in the past year about the Tea Party — before Tuesday night brought one of the more stunning election     ... MORE

Policing Tactics The Public Isn’t Supposed To Know About

by Katie Rucke.      Public servants lobby to use excessive force. On May 28, 126 police officers in Seattle filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that restrictions placed on the department by a federal court in 2012 regarding officers’ ability to use excessive force was a violation of their constitutional rights as officers. Although the restrictions  ...  MORE

Walter E Williams: Who Owns You?

Who should decide your fate?        Darcy Olsen, president of the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, and Richard Garr, president of Neuralstem, a biotech company, wrote "Right to Try experimental drugs" in USA Today (5/28/2014). They pointed out that   ... MORE

VIDEO: Glenn Beck - Reclaiming Liberty



NSA Can Listen Through Your iPhone Even When It Is Off

by Mark Prigg.    The NSA could technically listen in to the microphone of an iPhone even if it switched off, experts have revealed. The claim was first made by Edward Snowden during an interview with Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News. Today, experts confirmed the technique was technically possibly - and revealed a way to sidestep it.        ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: The Prisoner Swap Deal

Obama wins; America loses.     People are arguing about what the United States got out of the deal that swapped five top level terrorist leaders for one American soldier who was, at best, absent from his post in a war zone. Soldiers who served in the same unit with him call him a deserter. The key to this deal, however, is less likely to be    ... MORE

VIDEO: Should Northern California Secede From California?


One path to liberty.

Anti-Gun Activists Adopt Anti-Abortion Tactics

by A. Barton Hinkle.        A dark, sinister game. Foes of abortion and foes of guns have a similar problem: The Supreme Court, which says government cannot ban either one outright. What to do? Increasingly, the two advocacy movements are resorting to a similar solution: targeted regulation. Abortion opponents started the trend and have it    ... MORE

Eliana Johnson: IRS Sent Confidential Database To FBI

More evidence the government is not us.   The Internal Revenue Service may have been caught violating federal tax law: In October 2010, the agency sent a database on 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups containing confidential taxpayer information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to documents obtained by a House panel. The    ... MORE

Tampa Cops Trash Innocent Business Owner's Truck While Searching For Drugs ... Then Leave Him A Note To Explain

Another false alert from a drug dog.     A Florida business owner left his vehicle in an amphitheater parking lot as he attended a hip-hop concert earlier this year. When he returned to the vehicle after the show, he found that his truck had been broken into and vandalized. It wasn't until Matthew Heller found a note in his trashed vehicle outside  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Chuck Schumer's Bogus Heroin Cure

Throwing good money after bad.         Last month Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked for "an emergency $100 million surge" in federal funding "to quickly combat the fact that New York City has become the hotbed for the East Coast heroin trade." Schumer declared that "heroin trafficking and usage are at epidemic levels," adding that    ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel: Rational Optimism

Sodas, Cigarettes And The Nanny State Neo-Prohibitionists

A Washington Times editorial.     Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, is all but forgotten, but he’s not gone, exactly. Like a New York Yankee who swings for the fences and misses on the first two pitches, His Former Honor took his Big Gulp ban to the state’s highest court Wednesday, hoping to avoid a strikeout. Two lower courts   ... MORE

ObamaCare Sends Patients Flocking To Emergency Rooms

by Laura Ungar.     It wasn't supposed to work this way, but since the Affordable Care Act took effect in January, Norton Hospital has seen its packed emergency room become even more crowded, with about 100 more patients a month. That 12 percent spike in the number of patients — many of whom aren't actually facing true emergencies — is      ... MORE

VIDEO: The Classic Logic Of Bigots

Why Eating A Marijuana Candy Bar Wasted Maureen Dowd

by David DiSalvo.     What's more dangerous than dope? Being a dope. New York Times’ columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote about her unfortunate experience with a cannabis edible—a pot-laced candy bar she bought at a legal marijuana dispensary in Denver. Dowd took a nibble, and when nothing happened she took a few more. For a while she   ... MORE
 

Police Enforce Mandatory Dress Code Along NJ Boardwalk

Cops deployed as fashion police.       There is too much freedom going on. People who do not dress in a manner that is deemed acceptable by the government are subject to penalties in this New Jersey shore resort town. According to the government, people must cover their feet, must must wear shirts after 8:00 p.m., and must never allow    ... MORE

Gun Homicides Down Dramatically; Americans Unaware

by Summer Dashe.   An inconvenient truth for gun control advocates. It seems there is something in the news every day about gun violence. The recent mass shooting in Isla Vista, California, a movie theater riddled with bullets in Colorado, children and teachers gunned down at school in Connecticut, and the list goes on. While you may be seeing     ... MORE

Progressives’ Latest Plot to Take Power From the People and Give It to Legislators: Reign In The Initiative Process

by Steven Greenhut.     The people are inconveniencing "our public servants."     Few things have defined California's politics more than the three election reforms championed by the state's 23rd governor – the initiative, the referendum and the recall. Hiram Johnson's system of direct democracy, used early and often in California since 1911,  ... MORE

VIDEO: Fox News - The Bergdahl Swap

Nick Gillespie: 10 Really Successful Potheads

Marijuana users are lazy, unmotivated slackers?       A few weeks ago, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that there is no "responsible way to recreationally use marijuana." Rubio's statement isn't wrong because it's unpopular. Plenty of people on every part of the political spectrum believe what he believes. It's wrong because it is flatly ... MORE

Cops In Texas Seize Millions By 'Policing for Profit'

by Nick Siblia.        Texas law enforcement are continuing to enrich themselves using a little-known legal doctrine known as civil forfeiture, according to a new series of investigative reports. Under civil forfeiture, property can be forfeited even if its owner has never been charged with a crime. In these proceedings, accused criminals have more rights   ... MORE

VIDEO: Edward Snowden Censored By NBC ABout 9-11


A video from footage left on the cutting room floor.

Cops To Perform Warrantless Searches On Beachgoers

Florida police troll for illegal drinks.        With the help of new technology and federal grant money, police are preparing to warrantlessly search people’s refreshments as they visit the beaches of Florida. New passive alcohol detectors can simply be hovered above a person’s beverage to detect whether it contains alcohol. Similar      ... MORE

Curbing Carbon Vs Rational Recklessness

by Steve Chapman.     Rousing the public to do something about the growing federal debt is not easy. The dangers it poses are distant and vague. The immediate effects are not apparent. Any measure to cut deficits looks trivial next to the scale of the problem. Doing nothing is the easiest option. But responsible adults understand the need to    ... MORE