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 16, 2016

The Constitution is not neutral: courts of justice should not act like courts of order

fromTheRutherfordInstitute: We no longer have a representative government, a rule of law, or justice. Liberty has fallen to legalism. Freedom has fallen to fascism. Justice has become jaded, jaundiced and just plain unjust. 
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process     The Government is Not Us

Why a Democratic City council is working with a Republican congress to overturn a minimum wage bill

fromReason:Restaurant workers and bartenders generally opposed the minimum wage ballot initiative, which passed despite their opposition.
Regulation Nation       Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - The Collective Value of Individual Self Interest

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Economics professor Walter E Williams delivers another powerful lesson about intentions and incentives.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Jury nullifies Georgia weed law, finds man not guilty despite admittedly growing marijuana

fromFreeThoughtProject: A marijuana user was found not guilty of drug charges—not because he didn't do what he was accused of, but because the jury disagreed with the law.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange        Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

After the dog told the cops it was ok to perform a warrantless search, they find some pot and toss the guy in jail for contempt charges because he won't unlock his phones and give cops evidence of drug possession

fromTechDirt: There's a Fifth Amendment case developing in Tampa, Florida revolving around cellphones, passcodes, and contempt charges.
Police State America      The Government is Not Us

Place your bets: legal sports gambling is coming to these six states in 2018

fromForbes: Before this year, you could only place legal wagers on single sporting events in the United States in one place: Nevada.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Paul Bedard: Americans Are Now Spending More On Taxes Than They Do On Food, Clothing And Housing Combined

After April 24, you get to work for yourself.    A tax advocacy group on Wednesday revealed that Americans spend more on taxes than their whole budget for food, clothing and housing. The Tax Foundation, in its annual report on when the nation as a whole has earned enough to pay its taxes, announced the date as April 24. "Tax Freedom Day  ... MORE

John Stossel: Freedom To Disagree

To each his own.    "Should a Jewish baker be forced to bake a cake for a Nazi wedding?" I asked that strange but important question during last week's debate between three Libertarian presidential candidates. You can see the second hour of that debate Friday, on my Fox Business Network TV show. If you're disappointed by Democrats' and Republicans'    ... MORE

VIDEO: Ayn Rand On Objectivism

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

Kyle Peterson: The Great American Disconnect

Blue state, red state, now libertarian state? Fifteen years ago a Yale grad student named Jason Sorens began pondering what might seem like a wild question: How many libertarians would it take to commandeer a state government? At the time Mr. Sorens, then a 24-year-old campus libertarian, felt failed by electoral politics. The Libertarian Party  ... MORE

Patients In Pain, And A Doctor Who Must Limit Drugs

Gov't declares war on pain relief. Susan Kubicka-Welander, a short-order cook, went to her pain checkup appointment straight from the lunch-rush shift. “We were really busy,” she told Dr. Robert L. Wergin, trying to smile through deeply etched lines of exhaustion. “Thursdays, it’s Philly cheesesteaks.” Her back ached from a compression fracture;   ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Free Range Kids

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Poverty As Squalor Of Behavior

VIDEO: Teachers Unions Vs. Students

John McAfee: I'll Decrypt San Bernardino iPhone For Free So That Apple Won't Need To Give Gov't Back Door Access

But gov't wants the keys to ALL phones.    Using an obscure law, written in 1789 — the All Writs Act — the US government has ordered Apple to place a back door into its iOS software so the FBI can decrypt information on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. It has finally come to this. After years of arguments by virtually   ... 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

VIDEO: Rush Limbaugh - The FBI Vs. Apple

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

Jackie Mason Says That If Michael Bloomberg Is Serious About Gun Control, He Should Disarm His 12 Bodyguards

by Awr Hawkins.   Comic Jackie Mason says that if Michael Bloomberg is serious about gun control, he should disarm the 12 bodyguards who hedge in his every move. Otherwise, Bloomberg is just a hypocrite benefiting from the safety of a wall of guns, while calling for Americans to forfeit the safety that guns could bring to them and their      ... 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

VIDEO: Ayn Rand's Philosophy For Living On Earth

Happy Birthday Ayn Rand!

How To Anonymize Everything You Do Online

by Andy Greenberg.    One year after the first revelations of Edward Snowden, cryptography has shifted from an obscure branch of computer science to an almost mainstream notion: It’s possible, user privacy groups and a growing industry of crypto-focused companies tell us, to encrypt everything from emails to IMs to a gif of a motorcycle jumping   ... MORE

VIDEO: Rand Paul - GOP Debate: Singles Night