February 11, 2020

Red flag laws and the consequences of good intentions

fromSalon: The consequences of disarming the uncooperative.
2nd Amendment Assaults

Louisiana prosecutors say they can't be sued over the fake subpoenas they used to pressure witnesses

fromReason: In several cases, victims received higher bonds than criminal defendants and were forced to go to jail.
The Government is Not Us              Police State America

The death of federalism: Lincoln’s real legacy

fromTenthAmendmentCenter: Are you certain that Lincoln's birthday is a day you should celebrate?
The Government is Not Us

Philosophy on one foot

fromAtlasSociety: Ayn Rand was once asked if she could present the basics of her philosophy, in short form, while standing on one foot. Here’s what she said: 
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

How Big Tech reshapes politics by censoring conservative ideas

fromWashingtonExaminer: The forces driving Big Tech’s online censorship are market pressures, de-platforming campaigns by liberal activists and journalists, and the fact that Silicon Valley is staggeringly one-sided politically.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Alabama bill would bar enforcement of any federal red-flag laws

fromTenthAmendmentCenter: The federal government relies heavily on state cooperation to enforce almost all of its laws. By simply withdrawing this necessary cooperation, states and localities can nullify most federal programs.
2nd Amendment Assaults

5 Reasons Conservatives Should Support Pot Legalization

by James McClure.   Ever wonder how to bring up marijuana with your conservative friends, family or coworkers? You're in luck because there's an activist group that specializes in getting that sort of discussion started. RAMP (Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition) is dedicated to persuading people to rethink their position on cannabis. We     ... MORE

VIDEO: Gary Johnson - The Liberty Candidate

Tom Nichols: How the P.C. Police Propelled Donald Trump

By assailing sensible conservatives as sexists, racists ... The American left created Donald Trump. When I say “the left,” I do not mean the Democratic Party—or, solely the Democratic Party. Rather, the pestilence that is the Trump campaign is the result of a conglomeration of political, academic, media, and cultural elites who for decades ... MORE

Conservative Icon Thomas Sowell Endorses Ted Cruz

by Jordan Schachtel.     The Supreme Court is paramount. Thomas Sowell, a leading intellectual who has been on the frontlines of the conservative movement for decades, is endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as his choice to be the next President of the United States. Writing in RealClearPolitics, Sowell explained that “the vacancy created   ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Tragedy And Choices

Where Donald Trump may lead.     Amid the petty bickering, loud rhetoric and sordid attack ads in this year's primary election campaigns, the death of a giant — Justice Antonin Scalia — suddenly overshadows all of that. The vacancy created on the Supreme Court makes painfully clear the huge stakes involved when we choose a President of the United   ... MORE

Twitter Is Gearing Up To Interfere In The Election

by Milo Yiannopoulos.       Last week, a report from BuzzFeed claimed that Twitter was about to implement an algorithmic news feed, a departure from the chronologically-ordered tweets which users have grown accustomed to, and by which the platform is defined. CEO Jack Dorsey sought to calm users by saying they had no plans to implement  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: What Rand Paul Brought To The Race

The fate of the only small government candidate.  During the last Republican presidential debate in which he participated, Rand Paul condemned the National Security Agency's mass collection of Americans' telephone records, cautioned against reckless intervention in Syria's civil war, and declared that a "true fiscal conservative" must "look   ... MORE

VIDEO: Who Are the Racists: Conservatives or Liberals?

Trump Tramples Conservative Belief In Property Rights

a Washington Examiner editorial.     Margaret Thatcher, when she was British Prime Minister, used a simple formula to describe the economic freedoms due to a properly free people: "A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master." This was, in her view, "the British inheritance."  ... MORE

Americans Are Abandoning Political Parties

by Kenneth Walsh. Both major political parties are in trouble with the American people. The latest Gallup Poll finds that loyalty to the Democrats and Republicans is at or near historic lows. In 2015, for the fifth straight year, "at least four in 10 U.S. adults identified as political independents," a Gallup spokesman said. Forty-two percent said they were       ... MORE

Jack Healy and Kirk Johnson: This Land Is Your Land

The folly of federal land management.    Ken Ivory, a Republican state representative from Utah, has been roaming the West with an alluring pitch to cattle ranchers, farmers and conservatives upset with how Washington controls the wide-open public spaces out here: This land is your land, he says, and not the federal government’s. Mr. Ivory,   ... MORE

VIDEO: Penn Jillette - Freedom Is Freedom

Brent Bozell: The Worst Reporting And Punditry Of 2015

You decide which camp is more obnoxious.    If we're counting press clips, in politics the year 2015 was dominated by Donald Trump. The liberal press is emotionally conflicted on this one. Some are delighted with the notion that he's going to destroy the Republican brand with oafish overstatements. Some are disgusted that he's still in the race     ... MORE

VIDEO: How Big Should Government Be?

VIDEO: John Stossel - Bias In The Ivory Tower

Alexander Hendrie: Impeach IRS chief John Koskinen

Halt the tax agency’s partisan scheming.    After revelations that the Internal Revenue Service was restricting political speech and targeting conservative and tea party groups, John Koskinen was appointed to head the agency, promising reform and transparency. These promises never came to fruition. Instead of admitting fault, Mr. Koskinen’s IRS   ... MORE

Why Rand Paul Was The Stealth Winner Of The GOP Debate

by Peter Weber.   Fox Business wanted the fourth presidential debate to show that the network respects the Republican presidential candidates, unlike more successful financial news rival CNBC, and it proved that by letting the candidates largely run the show. That tended to favor candidates eager to jump in and assert themselves, so Ohio Gov.  ... MORE

Victor Davis Hanson: The Oldest Divide - Urban Vs. Rural

The freedom culture is outnumbered.  Of all the growing divides in America—red-blue, conservative-liberal, Republican-Democrat, white-nonwhite—none is sharper than that between city and country. The nation’s urbanites increasingly govern those living in the hinterlands, even as vanishing rural Americans still feed and fuel the nation. At the  ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: The Ben Carson Flap

Conservative blacks disrupt the MSM narrative.      Dr. Ben Carson's whole life has been very unusual, so perhaps we should not be surprised to see the latest twist — the media going ballistic over discrepancies in a few things he said. Years ago, when I was writing some autobiographical sketches, I dug up old letters, to check out     ... MORE