May 23, 2020

68% of unemployed workers in the U.S. “are eligible for payments greater than their lost earnings”

fromTownhall: Can anyone explain how we are going to motivate unemployed workers to go back to work when most of them can actually make more money camped on their sofas watching Netflix? 
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The real climate science deniers

fromWattsUpWithThat: Manmade climate crisis promoters reject inconvenient evidence of natural climate change.
Indoctrination and Censorship

The railroading of Michael Flynn

fromCommentaryMagazine: Excellent. Compelling. Complete. 
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

In Michael Flynn case, Judge Sullivan's gross overreach turns justice into mob rule

fromUSAToday: The case against Micheal Flynn is abusive and should be dismissed, as the Justice Department requests. But Judge Emmet Sullivan has other ideas. 
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Democrats have abandoned civil liberties

fromNationAndState: Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

COVID-19 patients’ right to privacy against quarantine surveillance

fromEFF: Automated location tracking is a grave intrusion on personal liberty, including by means of a GPS ankle shackle or compelled download of a surveillance app. 
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

February 3, 2020

Impeachment is killing Trump Derangement Syndrome

fromFrontPage: You can only hit the rage button so many times.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Massage parlor panic

fromReason: A potent combination of puritanism, racism, and political opportunism is putting Asian masseuses and the people who support them in needless danger.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange           Regulation Nation

Walter E Williams: Democracy and tyranny

fromCreators: "It's Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties. The framers' distrust is seen in the negative language of our Bill of Rights such as: Congress 'shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage ...'" 
The Government is Not Us

First Assange, now Greenwald: The growing attacks on adversarial journalism

fromNationOfChange: It’s unlikely that Greenwald, who at least has the benefit of widespread fame and international support, will be the last journalist to be targeted.
Indoctrination and Censorship

How the House lost the witness battle along with impeachment

fromTheHill: The hard truth is that House Democrats lost this case the minute they rushed an impeachment vote, and they knew it.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

U.S. veteran sentenced to life in prison for selling less than a gram of weed

fromSgtReeport: Any time anyone is deprived of their freedom or extorted by government for possessing or partaking in this plant, it is cruel and excessive, yet sadly it remains a function of this entire system.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Jan 3, 2019

Prices rise as the minimum wage increases in several states

fromAP: Arbitrary increases in the cost of labor gouge into the limited resources of the poor, making them even more dependent on government.

Economic Policy Versus The Free Market     The Welfare State: Promoting Dependency     Regulation Nation

New Washington gun laws spark defiance

fromKomoNews: Washington rolled out a new law barring anyone under the age of 21, including military personnel, from purchasing a semi-automatic rifle on Tuesday.

2nd Amendment Assaults

VIDEO: Rand Paul - Pulling out of Syria

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: An explanation of why pulling out of Syria is essential.

Defense Versus The War Machine

44 numbers from 2018 that are almost too crazy to believe

fromTheEconomicCollapse: Was 2018 everything that you expected it to be?  Every year contains surprises, but 2018 truly turned out to be a year that we will never forget.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Trump administration sets record for lowest number of regulations

fromAmericanThinker: An undeniable success of the Trump administration has been a radical altering of the mindset of federal agencies when it comes to creating new regulations.

Regulation Nation

Democracy Is a threat to individual liberty

from71Republic: Democracy is flawed when it comes to protecting the rights of the individual, but is successful in restricting those rights.

Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Dec 19, 2018

A crisis in the making: Know your rights or you will lose them

fromTheRutherfordInstitute: We are approaching critical mass, the point at which all hell breaks loose. The government is pushing us ever closer to a constitutional crisis.

Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Why Banks will shut you down for nothing that is actually Illegal

fromArmstongEconomics: The government fines banks if its customers are caught doing wrong incentivizing the process of ditching customers who use cash instead of conveniently trackable credit cards.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

73% of top U.S. universities do not guarantee the presumption of innocence in sexual misconduct trials

fromReason: The long-held judicial concept known as the presumption of innocence is now hopelessly out-of-style. At college campuses, it must take a back seat to #MeToo feelgoodism. 

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery    Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Report: 9 in 10 colleges restrict free speech

fromWatchDog.Org: Ninety percent of public and private higher education institutions in the U.S. restrict the speech of their faculty and students, according to a new report produced by FIRE.

Indoctrination and Censorship

Democracy Is a threat to individual liberty

from71Republic: Democracy is flawed when it comes to protecting the rights of the individual, but is successful in restricting those rights.

Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Mueller destroyed messages from Peter Strzok's iPhone; OIG recovers 19,000 new "FBI lovebird" texts

fromZeroHedge: Nothing to see here! After Strzok was kicked off the special counsel investigation, Mueller's Records Officer scrubbed Strzok's iPhone after determining "it contained no substantive text messages." 

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

October 29, 2018

5 things Canada got right when it legalized pot

fromReason: Our northern neighbors are handling the transition from prohibition to regulation better than the U.S. in several ways.
Regulation Nation     The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Defaming Muhammad does not fall under purview of free speech, European court rules

fromScienceMag: Forget government permission. Forget those long lines at the pharmacy: Someday soon, you might be making your own medicines at home.
Regulation Nation      Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Walter E Williams: Price gouging during a natural disaster

fromCreators: Price gouging after natural disasters is often seen as evil exploitation by sellers to rip off desperate customers. Let's hold off on that conclusion until after you give thought to some very important questions.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

You could soon be manufacturing your own drugs—thanks to 3D printing

fromScienceMag: Forget government permission. Forget those long lines at the pharmacy: Someday soon, you might be making your own medicines at home.
Regulation Nation

Has America become a dictatorship disguised as a democracy?

fromRutherfordInstitute: We’re living in two worlds, you and I. There’s the world we see (or are made to see) and then there’s the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of).
The Government is Not Us

More than half of America gets more in welfare than it pays in taxes

fromMisesInstitute: Why exploding debt? More than half of Americans receive more money in various types of government transfer payments (Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security) than they pay in federal taxes.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

December 16, 2017

Free speech is democracy's greatest safeguard 

from ToledoBlade: In a time of social turbulence, ensuring that all avenues of expression remain open and unabridged will ensure the preservation of our democracy and the promise of progress.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Trump calls conduct at the FBI ‘disgraceful’ in latest criticism of bureau

from TheWashintonPost: Trump has said the FBI’s reputation is “in tatters” over its handling of politically sensitive cases.
The Government is Not Us

Google Hiring 10,000 Certified Morons to Further Throttle Free Speech

from The BurningPlatform: Google openly and unabashedly champions censorship to curry favor with government authoritarians.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Have a statute of limitations for calling out men's behavior 

from StLouisPostDispatch: There should be a statute of limitations on calling men out on behavior that wasn't a crime then, and frankly is not a criminal offense now.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Residents outraged as DHS spraying town with chemicals—using them as human guinea pigs

from TheFreeThoughtProject: Residents of a small Oklahoma town fear they are being used by Homeland Security as test subjects for the chemical/biological warfare testing.
The Government is Not Us    Defense Versus The War Machine

Big Brother installing surveillance cameras in places of worship 

fromActivistPost: Places of worship are paying the government a $100 dollars a month to spy on families.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

October 27, 2017

When it comes to surveillance, watch the watchmen

from NY Times: The relationship between security and liberty is often described as a balancing act. This act can’t take place if we’re not informed about the technology used to safeguard our security.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Hashd al-Sha’abi commander calls for US forces withdrawal from Iraq

from PressTV: "To the US secretary of state, your military forces must prepare now to get out of our homeland Iraq immediately and without delay once the ISIS elimination excuse is over."
Defense Versus The War Machine

Health care is not a right

from Capitalism Magazine: If your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue their happiness.
The Pursuit of Happiness

Major study shows legal weed reversed a decade of rising opioid deaths in Colorado

from FreeThoughtProject: The end of cannabis prohibition is paying many dividends for society.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Identitarianism and the Splintering of Democracy

from Quillette: This very good piece looks at how identity politics plays out in a representative democracy.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Sessions continues to push 'gateway drug' myth about marijuana

from Reason: "Much of the addiction starts with marijuana." Jeff Sessions attempts to peddle 20th century propaganda long after the train has left the station.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Thomas Sowell: The 'Voice Of The People' Fallacy

An understanding of convenience.      We hear many fallacies in election years. The fallacy that seems to be most popular this year is that, if Donald Trump comes close to getting the 1,237 delegates required to become the Republican nominee, and that nomination goes instead to someone else, then the convention will have ignored "the voice   ... MORE

VIDEO: Robert Nozick - The Tale Of The Slave

John W. Whitehead: The Rise Of The Political Psychopath

From democracy to pathocracy.    Twenty years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “What’s the difference between a politician and a psychopath?” The answer, then and now, remains the same: None. There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians. Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent   ... MORE

IBDaily Editorial: Obama's False Equivalency

1776 wasn’t anything like Castro’s 1959 Putsch. In one of his last acts in Havana, President Obama threw out a false equivalency between the American Revolution and Cuba’s 1959 communist takeover. What are we to make of a U.S. president who embraces such hoary Marxist equivalencies? In his Tuesday address to the Cuban people,   ... MORE

Bob Unruh: How Much Power Do Juries Really Have?

Answer: much more than they are told. A case against a Michigan man for handing out informational leaflets on jury nullification in front of a courthouse could impact what juries can do and how much control judges and prosecutors have of their decision-making process. “Freedom of speech is not absolute,” argued Brian E. Theide, who is        ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Our Forgotten Statesman

James Madison should have a holiday.  George Washington, our first president, is probably our greatest and most decent statesman. We celebrate Washington's Birthday each February. But March 16th marks the birthday of probably the second-most important and decent American, James Madison. Madison became our fourth president, but his   ... MORE

Ray Williams: The Cult Of Ignorance In The United States: Anti-Intellectualism And The "Dumbing Down" Of America

The rise of the idiot in America.  There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, says in an article    ... MORE

Brian Phillips: The Founding Fathers And Democracy

Democracy means unlimited majority rule.  The majority may do as it pleases simply because it is the majority. Under democracy the individual is subservient to the majority, that is, the collective. Democracy is a form of collectivism. Collectivism holds that individuals exist only as a member of a group—whether a race, an economic class, or the  ... MORE

VIDEO: The Free Market - Understanding Milton Friedman

Sheldon Richman: Representative Government Is A Fiction

If we really live under a representative government, how can a president take the country to war in Syria without even a show vote in Congress?   "The success of government...," the late historian Edmund Morgan wrote, "requires the acceptance of fictions, requires the willing suspension of disbelief, requires us to believe that the emperor   ... MORE

VIDEO: Should Majorities Decide Everything?

Don’t Be Fooled: The Illusion Of Freedom In America

Put away the sugarcoating. It is what it is.    Being a citizen in the American corporate state is much like playing against a stacked deck: you’re always going to lose. The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, most stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that their luck will change.        ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - The Enemy Of The People