Arthur Brooks: A Moral Case For Free Enterprise

Excerpted and adapted from "The Road to Freedom." Liberals often accuse conservatives of being obsessed by morality. But the truth is, many conservatives are reluctant to talk about morals or make a moral case for anything in politics and policy. They're willing to talk about principles, perhaps. Values, maybe. But morals? That evokes unpleasant    ... MORE

Stephen Lendman: Police State Harshness


The unleashing of unchecked police powers.    On April 26, the House passed HR 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) of 2011 248 - 168. A companion S. 2105: Cybersecurity Act of 2012 awaits Senate consideration. Obama promised a veto if passes. He lied. He does it repeatedly. The Senate will pass or defeat what he wants.     ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Every Move You Make

How new surveillance technologies threaten privacy.   “If you win this case,” Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told the Obama administration’s lawyer during oral argument in U.S. v. Jones last fall, “there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United  ... MORE

Walter E. Williams: America's Two-Faced Liberals

Behind the facade. President Barack Obama and Wall Street occupiers, along with their allies in the mainstream media and on college campuses, have maintained an ongoing attack on high-income earners, people they call 1 percenters. Listening to their deceitful demagoguery, you would naturally think of them as 99 percenters, but you'd be dead-wrong. Last week, ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Makers Vs Takers

Jessica Meyers/Jonathan Allen: TSA's Groping Problem

Embattled TSA takes one hit after another.   TSA’s got a groping problem — physically and philosophically. In the past year, a former Miss America, a wrinkled Texas congressman and an angel-faced 4-year-old have accused Transportation Security Administration agents of harassing them. As if that wasn’t enough, the agency’s damaged brand took another  ... MORE

LA Times: Police Wait For FAA Clearance To Use Drones

Law enforcement salivates over prying eyes in the sky. Police departments across the country have bought inexpensive small drone aircraft with cameras to help track drug dealers, find missing children and locate wandering Alzheimer's patients, but federal rules designed to protect the nation's airspace have kept them grounded. That is about to change  ... MORE

VIDEO: Consumer Choice in Health Care

Kleiman/Caulkins/Hawken: Rethinking The War On Drugs

A policy that does far more harm than good.  "For every complex problem," H.L. Mencken wrote, "there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong." That is especially true of drug abuse and addiction. Indeed, the problem is so complex that it has produced not just one clear, simple, wrong solution but two: the "drug war" (prohibition plus massive,  ... MORE

Will Sondermann: Free Speech Is Still A Fundamental Right

There is no right not to be offended.   The First Amendment of the United States Constitution reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government ... MORE

Star Parker: How To Keep The Poor Poor...

And blacks enslaved to government.   Media personality Tavis Smiley and Princeton philosophy professor Cornell West have just published their latest contribution to American poverty propaganda, “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto.” The book should have a second subtitle: “How to keep the poor poor and blacks enslaved to government.” To the  ... MORE

Steve Chapman: A Bribery Ban Backfires

Choosing feeling good over doing good.  Until 1977, there was no country that criminalized the practice of bribery abroad. But that year, President Jimmy Carter signed a law making the United States the very first. In due course, this measure eliminated corruption from every nation where our corporations operate. Yes, it did—right after Carter got a ... MORE

VIDEO: David Henderson - Markets Breed Virtue

Brian Phillips: The Freedom To Choose

The essence of liberty is the freedom to choose.     Imagine the outcry that would occur if the government announced that manufacturers could only make one type of soda. Every soda manufacturer would be required to use the government’s formula, and Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, 7-Up, along with every other soda, would become a relic of history. The     ... MORE

Chris Ladd: Who Still Supports The Drug War?

Politicians hide from the issue.    Last month Pat Robertson, televangelist and long-time icon of the religious right, announced that it's time to legalize marijuana. The firestorm of shock and indignation from all sides ... never materialized. Not a whimper. Who still supports our prohibition strategy in the War on Drugs? You won't find a single major political ... MORE

VIDEO: Houstonians Revolt Over TSA On Buses

Patrick Brennan: Public-Employee Unions Gone Wild

The expectation of retirement at 47. Terry List, a teacher in Saginaw Township, Mich., has a depressing lesson for her students: “I would not recommend to my pupils to become a teacher in Michigan.” What’s discouraging her? A proposed pension-reform bill in Michigan would derail her plans to retire — at age 47. After these rapacious reforms, List  ... MORE

Steven Greenhut: How Big Government Is Killing California

Bad destination for entrepreneurs, free spirits and dreamers. The new USC study pointing to a much-slower population growth rate in California has been greeted by demographers and urban planners as good news, in that it supposedly gives our state’s leaders a little breathing room to plan better for the future. The rate of growth has slowed to ... MORE

Eric Peters: 'Your' Car Won't Be After 2015

After a certain point, it's not paranoia. The latest brick in the wall is the predictably named "Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century Act," also known as Senate Bill 1813. (See here for the full text of the bill itself; the relevant section is 31406.) This legislation -- already passed by the Senate and likely to be passed by the House -- will impose a legal        ... MORE

John Stossel: The Assault On Food

Instinct tells us to fear poison.   If our ancestors were not cautious about what they put in their mouths, they would not have survived long enough to produce us. Unfortunately, a side effect of that cautious impulse is that whenever someone claims that some chemical — or food ingredient, like fat — is a menace, we are primed to believe it. That makes it   ... MORE

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - Stimulus and Inflation