Archive for December, 2010
Thursday, December 30th, 2010
Was 2010 a good year or bad year for liberty and why? Like most of you will likely respond, 2010 was very much a mixed bag IMHO. On the positive side, the mandate section of ObamaCare was found unconstitutional, the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was repealed, Wikileaks exposed the federal government for the [...]
Continue reading Open Thread: Successes and Setbacks for Liberty in 2010/Hopes for 2011
Posted in Blog Discussions, Castle Doctrine, Civil Liberties, Corruption, Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice Reform, Culture, Currency and Monetary Policy, Death Penalty, Democrats, Economics, Election '10, Election '12, Federal Reserve, Fiscal Policy, Free Speech, Freedom, Freedom of the press, Healthcare, History, Human Rights, Individual Rights, Legal, Liberty, Open Thread, Politics, Privacy, Property Rights, Republicans, Supreme Court, Tea Party, The Bill Of Rights, The War on Drugs, Theory and Ideas | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 29th, 2010
Posted in Economics, Humor | Comments Off
Monday, December 27th, 2010
On Boxing Day, our self-styled intellectual overlords at the New York Times gave us a gift of epic proportions: a gob-stoppingly vapid and shallow editorial on the principal of federalism. Let the fun begin! With public attention focused on taxes, the deficit, gays in the military and nuclear arms reduction, little attention has been paid, [...]
Continue reading NYT: Myth-based editorializing
Posted in Constitution, Democracy, Doublespeak, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Tea Party | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Up until about Monday of this week, such a question would have made me laugh. As I have increasingly involved myself in criminal justice issues, I have found the Democrats to be slightly more willing to take on the Prison Industrial Complex, mandatory minimum sentences, and decriminalization (if not outright legalization) of marijuana. These Democrats [...]
Continue reading Is it Possible that More Conservatives are Getting a Clue About Criminal Justice Reform and Even the War on (Some) Drugs?
Posted in Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice Reform, Culture, Democrats, Economics, Legal, Libertarians, Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Multimedia, Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, The War on Drugs, Theory and Ideas | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Just remember folks: if you ever see police officers drowning, get thee to a store pronto and buy life jackets before you attempt a rescue. It’s the law. Context
Continue reading Quote Of The Day
Posted in Quote of the Day | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Just yesterday, Gov. Christie commuted Brian Aitken’s sentence to time served and earlier today he was released from state custody. Christie commuted Aitken’s sentence Monday, shortening it to time served. It was the first time he has commuted a sentence since taking office almost a year ago. “The governor has reviewed all the facts of [...]
Continue reading UPDATE: Gov. Christie Commutes Brian Aitken’s Sentence to Time Served
Posted in Activism, Civil Liberties, Crime and Punishment, Freedom, Individual Rights, Keep and Bear Arms, Legal, Liberty, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty | 4 Comments »
Friday, December 17th, 2010
The latest revelation from Wikileaks shows that Michael Moore may have been a bit too good at making agitprop even for Cuban authorities to handle: US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show that the government of Cuba banned Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary, Sicko, “because it painted such a ‘mythically’ favourable picture of Cuba’s healthcare system [...]
Continue reading Cuba banned Michael Moore’s “Sicko” for fear of public backlash
Posted in Civil Liberties, Healthcare, The Welfare State | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 17th, 2010
Want to inject liquidity into the market, support American jobs, and do so without raiding the US Treasury or overheating the printing press? The answer is simple: get out of the way. Now, some may say that’s a libertarian’s answer for everything. And they’d usually be right. But I’m not signing you up for a [...]
Continue reading The Trillion-Dollar Zero-Cost Stimulus Program
Posted in Economics, Federal Reserve, Fiscal Policy, Free Trade, Government Incompetence, Monetary Issues, Taxation | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
From Bruce Schneier, who suggests that because the Washington Monument would be very difficult to secure against terrorist attack, it deserves a more fitting response from our Feckless Feds: I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears. An empty Washington Monument would serve [...]
Continue reading Quote Of The Day
Posted in Quote of the Day, War on Terror | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this case involving a lawful gun owner being caught in the snare of New Jersey’s strict gun control laws, here’s a summary of what happened: On January 2, 2009 Brian was arrested for illegal possession of firearms while moving from one residence from another. All of the [...]
Continue reading ACTION ALERT: Call/Write NJ Gov. Christie and Tell him to Pardon Brian Aitken
Posted in Activism, Civil Liberties, Crime and Punishment, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Human Rights, Individual Rights, Keep and Bear Arms, Legal, Liberty, Police Watch, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, The Bill Of Rights | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
I’m a bit late to the party, but significant discussion has been made about a potential “repeal amendment” to the Constitution. Advocated by Randy Barnett, he suggests that it is a necessary counterpunch to the 16th and 17th Amendments, which together increased the Federal government’s ability to raise revenue to do what it likes while [...]
Continue reading A Repeal Amendment Would Be A Benefit, But A Limited One
Posted in Constitution, Fiscal Policy, Separation Of Powers, Strategies For Advancing Liberty | Comments Off
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Policy proposals are often advanced in very abstract terms. This is true, undoubtedly, of taxes. Tax rates are seen as numbers on a Washington policy chart rather than what they really are — the amount taken out of every individual person’s paycheck every day of every year. I hear the refrain on the left that [...]
Continue reading Not Extending The Tax Cuts *IS* A Tax Hike
Posted in Taxation | 8 Comments »
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
One point that I often try to make when debating policy with friends and family is that virtually all policies have unintended consequences. How could anyone be opposed to such idealistic acts of legislation such as the War on Poverty, Social Security, Medicare, hate crimes legislation, affirmative action, the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the [...]
Continue reading Reason.tv Presents: Great Moments in Unintended Consequences
Posted in General, Government Incompetence, Government Regulation, Government Waste, History, The Nanny State, The Welfare State, Theory and Ideas | 1 Comment »