John W. Whitehead: Kick Open The Doorway To Liberty

What are we waiting for?  “The greatness of America lies in the right to protest for right.”—Martin Luther King Jr. Everything this nation once stood for is being turned on its head. Free speech, religious expression, privacy, due process, bodily integrity, the sanctity of human life, the sovereignty of the family, individuality, the right to self-      ... MORE

George Will: When Everything Is A Crime

Congress has work to undo.   What began as a trickle has become a stream that could become a cleansing torrent. Criticisms of the overcriminalization of American life might catalyze an appreciation of the toll the administrative state is taking on the criminal justice system, and liberty generally. In 2007, professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law   ... MORE
  

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - Virtue of the Free Market

Anger Over Killer Cop's 'Cover-up' Grows Llouder As Questions Are Raised Over His Fellow Officers' Actions

5 bullet wounds to the back and few questions asked.   North Charleston police are facing growing accusations that killer cop Michael Slago would have got away with a cover up had a bystander video not emerged - as questions emerge over his colleagues' conduct after the shooting. Seven of Michael Slager's fellow cops responded to his   ... MORE

What Romance Can Tell Us About Government Regulation

by Julian Adorney. Dating is perhaps the freest “market” in the United States today, and its lack of regulation can teach us powerful lessons about the flaws inherent in government regulation. Most people recognize the absurdity of trying to regulate romantic relationships. What many don’t realize is that this absurdity stems not from the nature of   ... MORE

VIDEO: Free Speech On Campus

Andrew Napolitano: Shooting Themselves In The Foot

Next time, consult the Constitution.    The turmoil over the efforts by the State of Indiana to make lawful the decisions by operators of public accommodations to decline their services based on their stated religious views has died down because the legislature amended the offending parts of its legislation so that the new law prohibits denying services  ... MORE

Peter Holley: Kansas Wants To Ban Welfare Recipients From Swimming Or Seeing Movies On Government’s Dime

A downside of government being your daddy.   There’s nothing fun about being on welfare, and a new Kansas bill aims to keep it that way. If House Bill 2258 is signed into law by Gov. Sam Brownback, R, this week, Kansas families receiving government assistance will no longer be able to use those funds to visit swimming pools, see movies, go   ... MORE

Rand Paul Vows End Of NSA Spying 'On Day 1' Of Presidency

by Robby Soave.    Taking back America. Rand Paul's campaign kickoff just concluded with a rousing speech by the libertarian-leaning U.S. senator from Kentucky in which he promised that his first act as president would be to stop the NSA's illegal spying on American citizens.  He vowed to win the White House while clutching the Bill of Rights in one ... MORE

Rand Paul Champions An Unenumerated Right To Privacy

by Damon Root.       In his speech yesterday announcing his 2016 presidential campaign, Rand Paul gave the following reasons for why he is seeking the White House: I have a vision for America. I want to be part of a return to prosperity, a true economic boom that lists all Americans, a return to a government restrained by the Constitution. A return  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Rape Culture

John Stossel: A Right To Discriminate

Bake me a cake, or go to jail!   Sadly, that is the new message from "inclusive" America. If you don't want to cater, photograph, preside over, sell pizza at, sell flowers to or otherwise participate in a gay wedding, you will be punished. If you don't want your business to pay for a kind of birth control that you consider murder, you will pay fines until your  ... MORE

U.S. Secretly Tracked Billions Of Calls For Decades

by Brad Heath.   The U.S. government started keeping secret records of Americans' international telephone calls nearly a decade before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, harvesting billions of calls in a program that provided a blueprint for the far broader National Security Agency surveillance that followed. For more than two decades, the Justice Department   ...  MORE

VIDEO: How To Listen, A Valuable Skill Nobody Teaches

Rand Paul Unveils Populist, Anti-Establishment Slogan

by Mike Allen. Sen. Rand Paul gave POLITICO a sneak peek at the slogan he will unveil at his presidential campaign announcement on Tuesday: “Defeat the Washington machine. Unleash the American dream.” The slogan, beneath the RAND PAC logo of a torch flame, will set the tone as the Kentucky Republican kicks off a five-day, five-state       ... MORE

Colbert I. King: A Rising Insurrection Against Obama

Liberty rising.    It’s a scary thought (OR NOT), but here it is: If some red states were to openly defy the authority of President Obama in the exercise of his constitutional duties, would today’s Republican Congress side with him? Or would they honor the insurrection? I wish it could be said with confidence that the legislative branch would oppose a     ... MORE

Can Libertarian Rand Paul Win A Republican Primary?

by Mara Liasson.    Rand Paul is not like other potential presidential candidates. The Kentucky senator, who announced his candidacy for the White House on Tuesday morning, doesn't fit neatly into the molds of either party. Socially liberal on issues of crime and punishment — especially when it comes to drug sentencing — against a federal  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: South Carolina Cop Charged With Murder After Video Shows Him Shooting Motorist in the Back

Bystander video reveals inconvenient truth.    In a column last December, I noted that video footage, while not necessarily decisive in cases where police use deadly force, can make a crucial difference. Here is a good example: Today police in North Charleston, South Carolina, arrested one of their own, Patrolman Michael Slager, and charged ... MORE

VIDEO: The War Against E-Cigs

Ron Paul: IRS, Congress Hold Our Liberty In Contempt

Unaccountable government marches on.       This week the Justice Department announced it would not charge former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Lois Lerner with contempt of Congress. Some members of Congress requested that Lerner be charged with contempt after she refused to testify at a congressional hearing        ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: The Iran 'Agreement' Charade

Throwing Israel to the wolves.      By abandoning virtually all its demands for serious restrictions on Iran's nuclear bomb program, the Obama administration has apparently achieved the semblance of a preliminary introduction to the beginning of a tentative framework for a possible hope of an eventual agreement with Iran. But even this   ... MORE

VIDEO: Who's Afraid Of The NSA?

Dynamism and Durability Are Great Features Of Capitalism

by Ira Stoll.  A lesson in basic economics courtesy of an old Toyota. The odometer on my 1999 Toyota Camry hit 100,000 earlier this week. It triggered a small family celebration and some reflection on what might be learned from the achievement. One takeaway is that newer isn’t always better. You don’t have to be an adherent of Judaism (older    ... MORE

Jeffrey Tucker: 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Libertarians

How to sustain a lasting passion for liberty. What does it mean to be an effective advocate of liberty? It means to love what you do and adopt sustainable patterns of thinking and living that contribute to making the world a freer place. Sustainability is key. Most of today’s attacks on freedom lovers include a dismissal that libertarianism is an ideology for idealistic (or maybe deluded) kids, not one for adults. ... MORE

Ronald Bailey: Minimum Wage and Magical Thinking

No one can defy the law of demand.     If all other factors remain equal, the higher the price of a good, the fewer people will demand it. That's the law of demand, a fundamental idea in economics. And yet there is no shortage of politicians, pundits, policy wonks, and members of the public who insist that raising the price of labor will not have the  ... MORE

Rick Moran: Obama's 'Record-Breaking' Economy

What happened to the labor force?  Corporate profits are sky-high, Wall Street is on an historic winning streak – and President Obama must be extremely grateful that commentary about his framework nuclear deal with Iran sucked up all the media oxygen so that the terrible jobs report that came out on Friday was largely ignored. Zero Hedge gives  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Teaching About The Free Market

Walter E Williams: The Ticket To Proserity

Private property rights, contracts, personal freedom ... Gaza is home to Palestinian people, who have suffered injustices and have a history of legitimate grievances against both Israel and Arab governments. If there's one immutable fact of life, it is that history cannot be changed or controlled. What can be changed and controlled is the future. ... MORE

Rand Paul Polling Ahead Of Hillary In Important Swing State

by Jana Benscoter.     Pennsylvania is in play for its 2016 presidential election. Philadelphia has been the chosen location for the Democratic National Convention, and Democrats could have their work cut out for them to keep the state blue. On March 31, Pennsylvania Democrats posted on their website a delegate selection plan that allows for    ... MORE

VIDEO: Top 5 Pointless Congressional Hearings On Baseball

Jacob Sullum: Obama Frees Drug War Prisoners

Credit where credit is due.  On October 31, 1996, the Sanilac County Sheriff's Office, which serves a largely rural area in Michigan's thumb, got a call from a local resident who said he was concerned about his neighbor, Darrell Hayden. No one had heard from Hayden for several days, the man said, and his horses were wandering down Argyle Road. The       ... MORE

Scotland: The Most Nannying of Europe's Nanny States

by Brendan O'Neill.    It's all about the mandatory salad bar. Many Americans, when they hear the word Scotland, will think of Mel Gibson in blue facepaint yelling: "FREEDOM!" That's how Scotland is viewed by non-Scots the world over: as a plucky, liberty-loving nation that sits atop snooty England and longs to be free and wild and beer-soaked in  ... MORE

SWAT Team Raids House And Kills Homeowner Because Criminal Who Burglarized The House Told Them To

by Tim Cushing.  We've heard complaints that warrant requirements for searches are an obstacle to efficient crime fighting. Here's a timeline of an incident that led to the death of a homeowner during a SWAT team raid in search of drugs it never foundLate Sept. 22nd/early A.M. Sept. 23rd: David and Teresa Hooks' home was burglarized. Among     ... MORE

Special Operations Troops Doubt Women Can Do The Job

by Lolita C. Baldor.  Expect lower standards to come. Surveys find that men in U.S. special operations forces do not believe women can meet the physical and mental demands of their commando jobs, and they fear the Pentagon will lower standards to integrate women into their elite units, according to interviews and documents. Studies that surveyed   ... MORE

VIDEO: Andrew Breitbart - Racism And The Tea Party

Stop Pretending To Be Offended By Everything

by David Hansanyi.  Lena Dunham received plenty of criticism for her insufferable New Yorker piece titled "Dog or Jewish Boyfriend? A Quiz." In it, the creator of Girls weighs the pros and cons of getting a pet or keeping her Jewish boyfriend: "He doesn't tip," and "he never brings his wallet anywhere," and so on. The jokes may tell us something about   ... MORE

In Nevada, Applying Lip Balm While Driving Gets You A Fine

Distracted driving laws are great revenue scheme.    A Nevada woman received a $200 ticket after she was pulled over for putting on makeup while she was behind the wheel as part of a statewide crackdown on distracted drivers. So what sort of beauty product was she applying while stopped at a red light?  Lip balm. Stephanie Fragoso was    ...  MORE

VIDEO: Reflecting On Statism: The Most Dangerous Religion

New Federal Water Heater Regs Are Tough On Consumers

by Julie Watts.    Time to go tankless? New federal regulations for water heaters will go into effect in a few weeks. They are designed to make them more efficient but many people are running out to buy the older remaining water heaters. While new ones will provide savings on energy costs, consumers will have to pay much more in upfront  ... MORE

Ronald Bailey: What Evidence Would Be Needed To Persuade You That Man-Made Climate Change Is Real?

Evidence does not mandate any particular policy.     In 2005, I changed my mind about climate change: I concluded that the balance of the scientific evidence showed that man-made global warming could likely pose a significant problem for humanity by the end of this century. My new assessment did not please a number of my friends, some of    ... MORE