Jacob Sullum: 'Drugged' Drivers Who Aren't

What if the risk ratio is statistically insignificant?   Last year, during a congressional hearing on the threat posed by stoned drivers, a representative of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was asked how many crash fatalities are caused by marijuana each year. "That's difficult to say," replied Jeff Michael, NHTSA's  ... MORE

Democrats Seek Relief From Obamacare Penalties

by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar.     Politicians fear the ugly truth. The official sign-up season for President Barack Obama's health care law may be over, but leading congressional Democrats say millions of Americans facing new tax penalties deserve a second chance. Three senior House members told The Associated Press that they plan to strongly    ... MORE

VIDEO: Don't Mess With The Internet

Tammy Bruce: FCC, FEC Look To Ruin The Internet

The left lifts its boot toward the free flow of information. We knew this was coming. Within the last couple of weeks, both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Election Commission declared their intention to regulate the Internet. Fascists always explain their actions as efforts to either make something more efficient, ... MORE

Scott Shackford: One Way To Deal With DUI Checkpoints

Police aren’t happy about it.   Warren Redlich, back in 2010, was the Libertarian Party candidate for governor of New York (Nick Gillespie even highlighted him on the blog here). Needless to say, he didn’t win. But Redlich is back in the news getting publicity for his method of dealing with police DUI checkpoints in Florida (where he lives now) while     ... MORE

Police State America: Public Servants Or Public Masters?

Andrew Napolitano: A Worthless Piece Of Paper

No document can defend itself.  President George W. Bush was fond of saying that "9/11 changed everything." He used that one-liner often as a purported moral basis to justify the radical restructuring of federal law and the federal assault on personal liberties over which he presided. He cast aside his oath to preserve, protect and defend the     ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - Fraudulent Education Of Blacks

John Stossel: Spontaneous Order

Most of life happens without a central planner.     Yet people think we need one. Suppose you'd never seen a skating rink, and I told you that I want to lay down some ice and charge people money to strap sharp blades on their feet. They will zip around on the ice — young and old, skilled and unskilled. My only rule: Go counter-clockwise.   ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Fairness And Justice

What you need to know about them.     Oxfam reports that the richest 1 percent of people in the world own 48 percent of the world's wealth. Many claim that we should be alarmed by income inequality because it hampers upward mobility. Others argue that because income is distributed so unevenly, justice and fairness require income     ... MORE

VIDEO: Would You Let Your Kids Walk All Alone in NY City?

J.D. Tuccille: Check Out On Your Own Terms

Tragic or self-empowering?     Every couple of years, some well-intentioned scribbler pens a hand-wringer about the national tragedy of suicide among the elderly. "Suicide rate for elderly men is alarming," noted Dennis Streets in the Chatham Journal last month. "Suicide rates are high among the elderly," cautioned Paula Span in a 2013 New York   ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Measles, Vaccines And Autism

Vaccines don't cause autism. The current controversy over whether parents should be forced to have their children vaccinated for measles is one of the painful signs of our times. Measles was virtually wiped out in the United States, years ago. Why the resurgence of this disease now? The short answer is that false claims, based on other false claims,  ... MORE

Craig Biddle: What Is Objectivism?

Reason, egoism and capitalism.  It is widely believed today that our moral, cultural, and political alternatives are limited either to the ideas of the secular, relativistic left—or to those of the religious, absolutist right—or to some compromised mixture of the two. In other words, one’s ideas are supposedly either extremely “liberal” or extremely    ... MORE

Justice Department Budget Projects More Asset Forfeiture Seizure Revenue Despite Eric Holder's Puny Reforms

by Matt Sledge and Ryan J. Reilly.   Attorney General Eric Holder last month announced reforms to asset forfeitures, the controversial government practice of seizing property associated with alleged illicit activity. But the new Justice Department budget released this week projects the changes will barely cut into federal seizures.      ... MORE

VIDEO: Johan Norberg - Economic Freedom In Slovakia

Ronald Bailey: The Minimum Wage And Magical Thinking

Defying the law of demand never works.     If all other factors remain equal, the higher the price of a good, the less people will demand it. That's the law of demand, a fundamental idea in economics. And yet there is no shortage of politicians, pundits, policy wonks, and members of the public who insist that raising the price of labor will not have  ... MORE

Could Rand Paul Spark a Libertarian Political Surge?

by David Boaz, CATO. Tens of millions of Americans are fiscally conservative, socially tolerant, and skeptical of American military intervention…. Whether or not Rand Paul wins the presidency, one result of his campaign will be to help those tens of millions of libertarian-leaning Americans to discover that their political attitudes have a name, which will make for a stronger and more influential political faction. ... MORE

VIDEO: Rob Hustle - Call The Cops