September 27, 2017

When the government declared war on the First Amendment

from Reason: It all started with President Woodrow Wilson a hundred years ago.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Mel Brooks: Political correctness 'is the death of comedy'

from CNS News: Blazing Saddles could not be made today. Too many snowflakes might melt.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The coming war on business

from NY Times: So much more than the title suggests. A great article to explain how racism has polluted an otherwise worthwhile move to embrace traditional American principles.
The Government is Not Us

Brazil’s latest outbreak of drug gang violence highlights the real culprit: the war on drugs

from The Intercept: Legalization is their answer. "The data show that, judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success.”
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

John Stossel: Entrepreneur saves free college courses from government ban

from Reason: An internet entrepreneur saved 20,000+ free online college lectures after the government declared them illegal.
Indoctrination and Censorship

California considers following China with combustion-engine car ban

from Bloomberg: This makes sense -- but only in explaining where California's goofy Governor Brown gets his guidance.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

September 25, 2017

Has asset forfeiture gone too far? Damn right Skippy!

from FoxNews: How the legalized theft of one man's truck brings the morality of civil asset forfeiture to light.
Police State America

Oklahoma is imprisoning so many people it can’t hire enough guards to keep up

from In These Times: “Prison guard unions often have a strong incentive to push back against reforms, because so much of what we spend on incarceration goes to correctional officers,” explains John Pfaff, a Fordham Law School professor.
Police State America

Scientists go after the media for highlighting a study showing IPCC climate models were wrong

from Watts Up With That!: Sadly, these scientists cannot rejoice that things are not as bad as they thought because the new finding threatens their funding.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

UC Berkeley’s ‘Free Speech Week’ officially canceled, appeared to be set-up from the start

from The Mercury News: Email suggests organizers didn’t intend for the event to happen
Indoctrination and Censorship

Sweden's 'man-free' music festival prompts response from transgender people

from Fox News: The ban on men, it turns out, only applies to what Knyckare described as “cisgender men”—which is a term for men whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. That's not very PC.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Judge approves surveillance on Reno buses

from Mohave Valley Daily News: If you are in public, you are in government's space and will be monitored and recorded. That is what public means these days.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

September 20, 2017

The silencing of dissent

from TruthDig: The ruling elites, who grasp that the reigning ideology of global corporate capitalism and imperial expansion no longer has moral or intellectual credibility, have mounted a campaign to shut down the platforms given to their critics.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Venezuelan price controls lead to predictable shortages

from Reason: Venezuelan grocery stores only have products shoppers don't want.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Princeton’s Constitution Day lecture titled ‘F*ck Free Speech’

from National Review: This logic-challenged professor knocks those who value free speech on campus, while using her position as a campus leader to spearhead a project that openly calls the president “racist” (hate speech if directed at a lefty).
Indoctrination and Censorship

Trump vindicated: report says Obama government wiretapped Trump campaign

from Breitbart: Just in case you watch CNN or were away for the weekend, you may have missed this one.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Governments turn tables by suing public records requesters

from Associated Press: The new tactic of corrupt government agencies is to sue those make  FOIA requests, banking that the high costs of defending themselves will silence them.
The Government is Not Us

Unapproved thought is violence

from American Thinker: The cockamamie rationale that uttering unapproved or unconventional speech is can be perceived as violence to some, thereby justifying actual violent behavior.
Indoctrination and Censorship

September 12, 2017

End warrantless deep state spying: don't renew 702

from WND: One more chance to rein in warrantless domestic surveillance before it's too late.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The largest threat to our prosperity is government spending and we are all to blame

from Creators: The fabulous Walter E Williams explains that politicians are doing precisely what the American people elect them to office to do — namely, use the power of their office to take the rightful property of other Americans and deliver it to them.
Economic Policy: Statism vs. The Free Market

Entire student section detained, forced to have blood/urine tests after beer can found at football game

from The Free Thought Project: After high school officials found a single beer can during a football game, 75 students had their rights violated with forced blood draws and urine samples.
Police State America

Net Neutrality rules threaten internet free speech

from The Competitive Enterprise Institute: Advocates of net neutrality regulation profess preservation of free speech online as their motivation for heavy-handed government control of the Internet, but recent events show that just the opposite is true.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Feds spend $138,000 asking four-year-olds about their ‘internal sense of gender identity’

from The Washington Free Beacon: "Our current research study is recruiting children aged 3–12 who are transgender, gender nonconforming, and siblings of gender nonconforming children," Your tax money at work.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

September 7, 2017

National Guard Authorized to Seize Guns Ahead of Hurricane Irma

from The Daily Bell: Is this a testing ground to see what the U.S. National Guard can get away with?
2nd Amendment Assaults

Laws against 'gouging' are simplistic and wrong

from Reason: So-called price gouging helps send important signals to buyers and sellers. It is a necessary function to attract resources to where they are most needed.
Economic Policy - Statism vs The Free Market

Berkeley wimps out on free speech

from the NY Post: You really didn't think a leopard could change its spots, did you?
Indoctrination and censorship

CNN gets embarrassed again trying to tie Trump to Russia

from The New York Times:  CNN's elite reporting team has been exposed again. Story retracted.
Media Bias on Parade

Government barriers to private solutions hinder hurricane relief efforts

from Creators: "Raising prices of goods and services to the highest level the market will bear is not only what entrepreneurs do on a daily basis but also the mechanism that gives people access to a supply of goods they wouldn't otherwise have access to."
Economic Policy - Statism vs The Free Market

September 6, 2017

The maximum price of the minimum wage

from The Washington Times:  When the bill for feel-good economics comes due, only the ignorant scream.
Regulation Nation

When cowards give in to looters, the American people are the losers

from The American Spectator:  Republicans wave the white flag on Obamacare as RINO senators and governors move toward a blueprint for surrender. When they ran for election, the GOP put on their masks. When they failed to act, they took them off.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Wisconsin moves to be first state ever to nullify federal cannabis prohibition through legislation

from The Free Thought Project:  State nullification of federal marijuana prohibition is completely constitutional, with the feds having little, if any, recourse to stop the process. Until now, cannabis has been legalized ONLY through direct initiative of the people, not by our so-called representatives.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Internet censorship bill would spell disaster for speech and innovation

from Electronic Frontier Foundation:  The bill, named the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, would not stop sex traffickers (its stated pretense), but it would chill free expression.
Indoctrination and Censorship

A 2020 Democratic agenda is emerging

from The Washington Post:  Intolerant and unrealistic, the party ditches pretended moderation and will openly fight for their left-wing agenda.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

September 4, 2017

The greening of Gore's bank account

from Forbes:  How crony capitalists used environmentalist propaganda to justify fattening their accounts with taxpayer dollars.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

How society grew cold

from The Daily Bell:  Compelling essay about how dependence on institutions is now out of control. A far more interesting piece than the title suggests.

The Government is Not Us

How Facebook, Twitter silence conservative voices online

from The Hill:  The intolerant left recognizes they cannot win the arena of ideas. Therefore, censorship.

Indoctrination and Censorship

Congress is finally working to defund civil asset forfeiture

from The Hill:  Jeff Sessions may be thwarted in this ratcheting of the police state.

Police State America

September 2, 2017

Hollywood & New Yorkers Agree: We should aspire to be more like starving Venezuelans

from Squawker:  The Bernie Sanders' mentality of imposing universal poverty as a means to achieve equality.
Leftists would be wise to grasp the wisdom of Milton Friedman: “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.
A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”

Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Ohio’s Campus Free Speech Act helps build free minds, free people

from The Hill:  Free speech is the best antidote for poisonous ideas. That is why the intolerant left is so scared of it.
Students need to explore their ideas, not constrain them. Education is about learning how to think, not being told what to think.

Indoctrination and Censorship

FDA pushing forward with terrible menu-labeling rules

from The Hill:  Unless this idiotic provision of ObamaCare is repealed, menu labeling will continue to be abnormally costly and ineffective (since costly and ineffective is the normal state of government). 

Regulation Nation

Indoctrination And Censorship

Latest Update: July 3, 2017
VIDEO: Eugene Volokh: Campus Speech Intolerance
Climate change, scientism, and the politics of certitude
The Day of the Censors is coming: truth telling will soon be verboten
Kid gets suspended for 10 days for ‘liking’ a picture of a gun on Instagram
Parents: Prepare your college kids for left-wing campus bias
Spoiled children put the bad manners of the campus left on display
In California, history class no longer even pretends to tell what really happened

VIDEO: Prevailing Campus Nonsense

Political Correctness & Other Nitwittery

Latest Update: May 17, 2017
Walter E Williams: Sheer Lunacy on Campus
Frustration with political correctness was a huge predictor of whether you voted for Trump
If environmentalism succeeds, it will make human life impossible
VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - Leftwing Nitwittery Exposed
Pigs trash the streets while carrying "protect the environment" signs
‘Ban cars to stop terror’ says Sweden’s best-selling newspaper after Stockholm attack
The hysterical left is creating the white tribe
VIDEO: Keith Preston - The Politically Correct Totalitarians

VIDEO: Comedy, College & The Fight To Save Free Speech

Green Light For Jury-Nullification Crusaders

by Emma Gannone.     The 10th Circuit upheld an injunction that lets protesters disseminate pamphlets about jury nullification outside a state courthouse in Colorado. Jury nullification describes the practice by which a jury acquits a defendant, despite evidence of his guilt, because the jury members believe the law at issue is immoral. Protests over   ... MORE

Protecting Consumers From Speech-Chilling Lawsuits

by Michael Beckerman.    Summer is almost here, which means sun, fun, and summer vacations. It also means many of us are going to be spending time browsing online reviews to preview the good, the bad, and the ugly on travel locations. Imagine a world in which a hotel company could sue customers because they didn’t like their stay. What if  ... MORE

Dear AG, Conspiring Against Free Speech Is A Crime

by Glenn Harlan Reynolds.    Breaking the law to shut up climate change dissenters. Federal law  makes it a felony “for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of   ... MORE

Europe Sacrifices Free Speech For Political Correctness

by Dr. Michael Hurd.     Europe has gone crazy. Yes, there are the terrorist attacks. But it’s the political correctness and censorship, too. Governments in Europe are literally sacrificing their citizens for the sake of not offending Islam. Here’s an example. Anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders went on trial last Friday for allegedly inciting hatred against the  ... MORE

More People Recognizing Copyright's 'Free Speech Problem'

by Mike Masnick.  For many years now, we've written about the fact that copyright law and the First Amendment are actually in quite a lot of conflict. After all, copyright is regularly used to stifle speech, and the First Amendment isn't supposed to allow for the barring of speech. Over the years, legal experts have been increasingly starting to realize    ... MORE

Jack Hellner: Prosecuting Free Speech

Speak up now or forever hold your peace.     The U.S. attorney general and the Democrat attorneys general in several states are indicating that they are considering legal action against people who believe that current climate change is natural and cyclical, as it has been throughout billions of years, instead of caused by humans.  Is it any wonder  ... MORE

Rattled Students Demand Protection From Chalk Message

by Robby Soave. As anyone who has spent five seconds at a college can attest, sidewalks covered in chalk messages are a pretty common fixture of the campus scene. But Emory University students had their delicate worldview shaken by the sudden appearance of one specific chalk message, "Trump 2016," all over campus. The students were so ... MORE

VIDEO: Steven Pinker - Free Speech, Reason & Knowledge

Trump Is Not Responsible For Violence Against Him

by Michael Hurd.  The anti-free speech, anti-American protesters are. Donald Trump was forced to cancel a rally in Chicago due to threats of violence. Apparently, even the police were afraid. Black Lives Matter, a group which openly supports violence to attain its goals of socialism, cheers the shutdown. They tweeted such comments as, “Way   ... MORE