June 27, 2020

Venezuelans take extraordinary steps to beat water shortage

fromAP: Critics of the socialist government blame chronic infrastructure failures on years of corruption and mismanagement that have also left the electrical grid fragile and destroyed Venezuela’s once-thriving oil industry.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Will government mandate COVID-19 vaccinations?

fromTheHill: Government mandated vaccinations for adults would be a major and controversial step. But then government has taken a number of major and controversial steps recently, such as shutting down the economy.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

California agency blocks release of police use of force and surveillance training, claiming copyright

fromActivistPost:Our elected officials can pass laws regulating the police, and watchdog bodies can review law enforcement policies, but if training materials are kept secret, it provides a back door for manufacturers of surveillance technology and private organizations to influence police practices without oversight or accountability.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make        Police State America         Regulation Nation

Walter E Williams: Insults to black history

fromCreators: Both blacks and whites can benefit from a better appreciation of black history.
Indoctrination and Censorship

The pandemic's economic carnage looks worse than expected

fromReason: If you thought the economic toll wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic was only going to be horrendous, you may have been overly optimistic.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Black Wisdom Matters - Good Intentions of the Welfare State

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Thomas Sowell, Walter E Williams, Star Parker, Jason Riley, Bob Woodson and Larry Elder share their insights on how a half century of the welfare state has changed America and the American family.
The Welfare State: Promoting Dependency

April 24, 2020

The attorney general defends civil liberties against overreaching COVID-19 control measures

fromReason: While denying Donald Trump's dictatorial impulses, William Barr notes that public health emergencies do not give governments unlimited powers.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Hard times in America renew the call for mandatory national service

fromTheHill: Americans have complied in giving up Constitutional rights to comply with government dictates. So what's next? Some say indentured servitude.
The Government is Not Us

Big tech COVID-19 surveillance data and censorship threaten privacy and free speech

fromTheSociable: Big tech companies are collecting enormous amounts of data on the movement of private citizens while censoring free speech and removing any content that goes against official narratives.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make           Indoctrination and Censorship

VIDEO: What is COVID-19 'contact tracing'?

fromFoxNews: A 3 minute discussion of state efforts to track coronavirus patients with a 'contact tracing program' to identify those they’ve been in contact with.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

VIDEO: Ayn Rand - Altruism and Selfishness

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Rand compares and contrasts the philosophies of altruism and rational self-interest as proper guides to action.

The coronavirus economy will bring inflation

fromNationalReview: It really doesn’t matter which economic theory you subscribe to, they all arrive at the same destination — more inflation.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

July 30, 2016

TSA tracking regular travelers like terrorists in secret surveillance program

fromTheBostonGlobe: Welcome to the Quiet Skies.  
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

VIDEO: Carter Page - The Pretense to Spy on the Trump Campaign

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: The Obama administration’s DOJ and FBI deployed a phony Clinton-DNC paid dossier as a pretense to spy on Page, the Trump campaign and then launch the Mueller probe.  
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Hilarious straw ban memes hit on the dark truth that all laws require force

fromReason: Straw banners will soon have to answer for all the people fined, arrested, or even jailed for violating their petty prohibitions.  
Regulation Nation

Burro-eato! Donkey herds are dwindling as hungry Venezuelans slaughter them for food

fromMiamiHerald: End stage socialism is a terrible thing to witness.  
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Dad guilty of manslaughter for pointing gun at a cop who then shot and killed his 12-year-old daughter

fromDailyMail: They kill his daughter, then send him to prison. Twisted justice always favors the state.  
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of education: The homeschooling option

fromTownhall: Americans have lost faith in the public school system. Only 36 percent of U.S. parents have a “great deal” of support for public schools, according to a 2017 study by Gallup.  
Indoctrination and Censorship

How Obamacare Just Made Filing Your Taxes Worse

by Nathan Nascimento.    It’s that wonderful time of year again: tax season. Some 150 million American businesses and individuals are expected to file taxes by this month, covering thousands of arcane provisions that determine how much you and your family will pay Uncle Sam and state governments this year. But this filing season is the second     ... MORE

VIDEO: Richard Epstein - ObamaCare

Little Sisters Of The Poor Case Not About Contraception, It's About Gov't Forcing You To Violate Your Conscience

by Stephanie Slade.   This morning the eight justices of Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell. The case will determine whether the Little Sisters of the Poor and six other petitioners (including Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik) can object to an "accommodation" from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that they   ... MORE

Jaana Woiceshyn: Making Moral Business Choices

On rational self-interest. Having recently concluded teaching an MBA business ethics course, I received unusual feedback from a student. He liked the course but told me that all of it should have been spent on covering the moral code of egoism—rational self-interest—because that is the code he liked the best and considered the most applicable    ... MORE

America’s Gestapo: The FBI’s Reign Of Terror

by John W. Whitehead.  “Don’t Be a Puppet” is the message the FBI is sending young Americans. As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist.”   ... MORE

It’s Actually Easy To Force People To Be Evil

by Annalee Newitz.   We've known for a long time that people will do terrible things under orders—like hurt strangers. But why are we so easily persuaded to do things we wouldn't otherwise choose, even when nobody is holding guns to our heads? A new scientific experiment sheds light on this ancient ethical question. University College London neuroscientist ... MORE

New York Judge Rules The FBI Cannot Force Apple To Unlock The iPhone Used In A Brooklyn Drug Case

Contradictory ruling to that in San Bernardino.   The U.S. Justice Department cannot force Apple to provide the FBI with access to locked iPhone data in a routine Brooklyn drug case, a New York judge says. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein made the ruling on Monday. The decision follows a California magistrate judge's order requiring  ... MORE

Anybody Believe The FBI Isn’t Out To Defeat Encryption?

by Scott Shackford.  FBI Director James Comey starts his defense of their effort to force Apple to help them break into the iPhone of San Bernardino terrorist and killer Syed Farook with a sentence that is that is extremely hard to take seriously: "The San Bernardino litigation isn't about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message."       ... MORE

Rand Paul Weighs In On The Apple-FBI Dispute

by Elias J. Atienza.      Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told CN2 that Apple shouldn’t be compelled to hack the encrypted iPhone of San Bernadino shooter, Syed Farook. Apple has strongly opposed a court ordered request by the FBI to open the phone, citing that it could create a backdoor and weaken the security and privacy  of users. “What’s extraordinary ... MORE

Debt Collection, At The End Of A Gun (Update)

by Scott Greenfield.     A good friend came to me decades ago with a problem. He received a letter from the Department of Education informing him that he had to repay his student loans that had been incurred decades earlier. He did repay them, he told me. “You have proof?” I asked. Are you kidding? It was 25 years ago. I threw the checks away decades  ... MORE

VIDEO: Eminent Domain After Kelo

Kade Crockford: This Federal Appeals Court's Ruling Put A Dent In The Police Officers' 'Qualified Immunity' Defense

Cop to be held accountable in killing of unarmed man.    A police officer is not immune from accountability after he points a gun at a non-threatening person, with his finger on the trigger and the safety off, and accidentally fires. So ruled the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston last week, in a case that has far-reaching implications for public ... MORE

Michael F. Haverluck: Homeschoolers Face 23 Years In Jail For Missing The Filing Deadlines Imposed By The State

Treating citizens like slaves.       Parents from two homeschooling families in Ohio face up to 23 years in jail for missing filing deadlines imposed by the state. Despite the fact that each of the families were relatively new to homeschooling in Ohio — along with hundreds of other families around the country who report having trouble navigating ... MORE

Richard Ebeling: The Proper Role Of Government In Society

Individual rights must be preserved   - without interference from government. What is the role of government in society? This has been and remains the most fundamental question in all political discussions and debates. Its answer determines the nature of the social order and how people are expected and allowed to interact with one another   ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Television, Football & Politics: Gaming Spectacles Designed To Keep The Police State In Power

Freedom is an action word.    When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk;    ... MORE

Daniel Holtzclaw And The Limits Of “Community Policing”

by Victoria M. Massie. At the sentencing last week of Daniel Holtzclaw — the 29-year-old former Oklahoma City police officer convicted on 18 counts of rape and sexual assault of African-American women in the neighborhood he was assigned to patrol — District Attorney David Prater told the media: “I think people need to realize that this is not a ” ... MORE

Terence P. Jeffrey: Can The Government Force You To Fund The Agenda Of GOP -- Or That Of A Teachers Union?

In a free country, the answer is obvious.    Yet in the Supreme Court last week, it was up to Justice Antonin Scalia to ask the question. "Is it OK to force somebody to contribute to a cause that he does believe in?" Scalia asked. Note: Scalia did not ask if it is OK to force somebody to contribute to a cause he does not believe in. "I wouldn't think,    ... MORE