Showing posts with label individual liberty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label individual liberty. Show all posts

Jury Nullification Gets Big Boost From Lawmakers

by Bob Unruh. Because justice is a result, not just a process.   A New Hampshire bill would require state courts to inform juries that a defendant who has been shown to have committed a crime can be declared not guilty if a guilty verdict would “yield an unjust result,” a concept known as jury nullification. The plan, approved 184-145 by the state House  ... MORE

Trump And His Protesters Both Hate Free Speech

by Michael Graham. No love for the First Amendment. When it comes to Donald Trump’s “Go to Auschwitz!” thugs versus MoveOn.Org’s “Shut them down” rioters, I go for the full Kissinger: “It’s a pity they both can’t lose.” (Kissinger was talking about Iran and Iraq. Close enough) But they aren’t losing. If fact, the sucker-punching Trumpies and    ... MORE

“National Purposes” Versus Individual Rights

by Richard M. Ebeling.   With the seventieth anniversary last year of the end of the Second World War, a number of commentators have focused on the presumed “unity” of America seven decades ago to “win the war” against global tyranny and international aggression by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Individuals put aside their individual personal    ... MORE

John Stossel: Libertarian Lite

Lighten up, truth can be scary. In this year's Republican presidential primaries, Sen. Rand Paul got little traction. In 2012, his father failed. That year, the Libertarian Party candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, got just 1 percent of the vote. We libertarians must be doing something wrong. Maybe our anti-government message is too   ... MORE

Rebecca Perring: Did Germany Just Ban Sausages? Pork Banned In Cafes And Schools To 'Not Offend Refugees'

Muslims 1 Bratwurst 0.      An increasing number of public canteens, child daycare centres and schools have stopped serving sausages, bacon and ham over religious considerations. Now members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party are fighting to keep pork on the menu, insisting the consumption of pork is part of German culture. Daniel Günther,  ... MORE

New Hampshire Committee Approves Jury Nullification Bill

Because justice is a result, not just a process. A New Hampshire House committee has approved a bill that would make jury nullification an official aspect of the state legal system. A coalition of nine representatives introduced House Bill 1270 (HB1270) in January. The legislation would allow a defendant or defense attorney to request that the court  ... MORE

VIDEO: Apple Vs The FBI - Congressional Hearings

VIDEO: Why We're Losing Liberty

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

Dozens Of Studies Libertarians Should Know About

The proof for economic freedom.         Over the years I have been running ‘Being Classically Liberal,’ I have done a bit of research and come across a number of empirical research papers which I find very interesting and relevant to many current socioeconomic debates. I figured I’d share them here, so that other people can use them as resources.  ... MORE

Justice Sotomayor Supports Practice Of Jury Nullification

by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.  An article published by the Fully Informed Jury Association reports that on February 8, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor (shown) told a group gathered at New York University that she disagreed with the Second Circuit Court’s holding in United States vs. Thomas. In that ruling, the court refused to recognize the    ... MORE

Mary Ramirez: I’m Done Apologizing For Being White

And you should be too.   I’ve often been told I have no right to write about race. I’ve also been told that I pompously “think I have a right” to write about race just because I married a Mexican. And you know what? Often I find myself second guessing nine-tenths of what I say because, undoubtedly I’ll say something that someone somewhere will     ... MORE

Tim Cook Is An American Hero: Apple Will Fight Against Court Order To Unlock iPhone To Government Searches

Side fighting for individual liberty is not the government. Tuesday night, a California court ordered Apple to assist the FBI in hacking an iPhone. It’s an unprecedented request, one with potentially huge repercussions for the privacy and security of every Apple customer. This morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted an impassioned defense  ... MORE

Dennis Sevakis: Is It Possible To Restrain The Federal Judiciary Or Downsize The Federal Government?

A population frozen in an extended adolescence.      When one man, Justice Anthony Kennedy, acting as the deciding swing vote on the Supreme Court, declared that “gay marriage” was now the law of land for a country of some 320 million persons, he may as well have been seated on a planet other than the one originally occupied by the men who   ... MORE

Hayden Bird: Just Legalize Sports Gambling Already

The right to spend your money as you want.  NBA Commissioner Adam Silver reiterated a point in a recent TV interview that he famously made in a New York Times op-ed in 2014. Sports gambling, currently illegal in the United States, should be brought into the light. For the sizable demographic of people who oppose legalization of sports betting,  ... 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