David Bier: The Coming National Identification System

Big Brother is watching you.      “Maybe we should just brand all the babies.” With this joke, Ronald Reagan swatted down a national identification card — or an enhanced Social Security card — proposed by his attorney general in 1981. For more than three decades since, attempts to implement the proposal have all met with failure, but now         ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - A Philosophy Of Self-Ownership

Baylen Linnekin: Food Freedom Vs. Regulatory Busybodies

The state of things are looking up.   While national stories like the multi-pronged assault on energy drinks and the FDA’s proposed Food Safety Modernization Act rules rightly grab headlines—and often my attention—it’s perhaps too easy to overlook the fact that much of what’s good and bad in the area of food law and policy is taking place in our backyards    ... MORE

Mike Riggs: The Pot Reform Movement Picks Up Speed

Four more states to reform pot laws in 2013. It's been only two months since Washington and Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana, but the advocates who raised millions to pass Amendment 64 and Initiative 502 aren't wasting time celebrating. In addition to helping craft the rules and regulations in the Centennial and Evergreen   ... MORE

VIDEO: Nanny of the Month - Jan 2013


Busybodies minding your own business. Will it be permits for strippers or prison for smokers?

Devin Brian: Price Gouging On Guns?

Where is the outrage? Every time there is a natural disaster of some sort, gas station owners are considered monstrous for raising prices to coincide with increased demand of their scarce resources. However, I have not heard anyone calling for the immediate lynching of those greedy gun shop owners who have doubled or even tripled prices on    ... MORE

Donald Lambro: Economy Progresses Downward

Americans re-elected this recession.    When millions of voters went to the polls in November to narrowly re-elect Barack Obama, the economy was rapidly shrinking toward recessionary levels. In the last three months of 2012, the gross domestic product — the measurement of everything America produces — fell to an annualized rate of 0.1 percent, the      ... MORE

Tibor Machan: On Rape And Pragmatism

Principles in the age of the pragmatist.   Something not often noted in the discussion of rape across the globe is that in an age that prizes pragmatism as opposed to firm principles of conduct, even rape can be excused based on the expected benefit to the rapist versus injury to the victim. If one doesn't care about the basic principle of consent,  ... MORE

John Harvey: Trusting Your Own Government (Or Not)

The masters who pose as servants.      Earlier this month, Geraldo Rivera asked a caller: "How could you not trust your own government?" Putting aside big and little episodes of untrustworthy government in the history of this country like the Trail of Tears, the internment of Americans of Japanese descent, Kent State, Waco, ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Affirmative Action

Walker Baird: It Is Time To Reclassify Marijuana

Introducing common sense to American drug policy.    Recent voting in Colorado and Washington exposes a striking discrepancy in the national legal status of marijuana. Under current federal law, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I Controlled Substance, which places it in the same category as heroin, peyote, LSD and Ecstasy. To be qualified as a ... MORE

Jillian Kay Melchoir: The EPA Vs. Reality

Push toward cellulosic biofuel is out of control. The Environmental Protection Agency has been demanding the impossible of refiners and then penalizing them when they fail to comply. A new ruling from a federal appeals court stops this shakedown. For the past few years, the EPA has required refiners to purchase vast quantities of cellulosic biofuel,  ... MORE

VIDEO: You Can't Ban Evil

David Harsanyi: Stagnation, The New Normal

The only growth is in Obama's popularity.      So, U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly plunged in January to its lowest level in more than a year. The U.S. economy unexpectedly posted a contraction in the fourth quarter of 2012 -- for the first time since the recession -- "defying" expectations that economic growth is in our future. If the    ... MORE

John Stossel: Obama Is Not King

A dangerous agenda putting the country at risk.       Watching President Obama’s inaugural, I was confused. It looked like a new king was being crowned. Thousands cheered, like subjects worshipping nobility. At a time when America faces unsustainable debt and terrible economic troubles, why such pomp? Maybe it’s because so many people tell   ... MORE