A great deal of attention is focused on the recent raids on the FLDS compound in Texas. The behavior of the state has rightly been condemned, most effectively by Les Jones who wrote: Imagine that some parents in a school district were accused of child abuse. Now imagine that the authorities took every child from [...]

In an earlier post, I discussed the economic damage that “energy independence” would cause to U.S. consumers. In a recent conversation in meatspace, I ran into someone who acknowledged this problem, but argued that the price is “worth it” because when we trade with people who make oil, those people use the wealth to do [...]

Very quietly, a bill has been working its way through Congress that bans Genetic Discrimination. The bill, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, has been passed by the House of Representatives with overwhelming support and will probably pass the Senate in the next few weeks. While this bill has some powerful arguments behind it, it is [...]

This week Boston’s Mayor Menino testified before the Congressional Task Force on Illegal Guns. He had this to say: We share a common disdain for what we have seen happen in our cities, to our residents and to our police officers as a result of illegal guns. So, we signed a statement of principles and [...]

In the field of professional executioners, the Saudi executioner has one of the more brutal reputations since he uses a sword to cut off people’s heads. This is not the clean antiseptic push-button executions of the U.S. but one where the executioner has to physically exert himself, gore splatters and the smell of blood fills [...]

One of the hot topics in this campaign is a call for “energy independence”. All the candidates for president, with the exception of Ron Paul are for it. The vast majority of the candidates for Congress are for it too. Essentially, the proponents are arguing that if people living in the U.S. bought less oil [...]

Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason. Ovid One interesting question within political theory is the question of when armed rebellion against a government is justified. Most people that tackle this subject try to find some set of moral lines that a government must cross before [...]

Internet Broadcasting Systems has a new breathless article warning of the latest danger to government space travelers making the rounds of the internet: Astronauts aboard the International Space Station apparently have access to a gun. Oh the horror! Then comes the letdown: Russian Cosmonauts carry a gun on their Soyuz space capsule, which is attached [...]

Mitt Romney, seeing the writing on the wall, has suspended his campaign according to CNN. This essentially kills any chance of a brokered convention; John McCain, once written off as lacking the money needed to make it to Super Tuesday, will be the Republican nominee come the convention. This is, of course, a disaster for [...]

On the eve of the New Hampshire primary a staffer made allegations accusing Ron Paul of consorting and collaborating with racists. The first hint came with this interview on the Tucker Carlson show: This was followed by an article published today: Angry White Man: The bigoted past of Ron Paul. by James Kirchick The thesis [...]

On Reason’s website, Radley Balko has a great takedown of the Post Office’s hostility to the so-called ‘Do-Not-Mail-List’, which would prohibit the U.S. Postal Service from sending junk-mail to people who register themselves as not wanting junk-mail. The U.S. Postal Service is opposing a “do not mail” list for junk mail because . . . [...]

Bill Moyers has published an interesting interview with Ron Paul on his website. Whether you are a friend or foe of Paul, I highly recommend it. Part 1 Part 2: Part 3: He makes many good points. He calls for less government regulation of media, even in the face of Fox News’ refusal to include [...]

In 1973, OPEC announced an embargo of oil sales to countries whose governments had supported Israel in the Yom Kippur war. In the U.S. this precipitated a major economic crisis as the U.S. government attempted to ration gasoline and control production and sale through a regime of price controls. The U.S. Central bank also embarked [...]

A perennial question that comes up this time of the year is the question of how Christmas should be celebrated in public places, with a significant amount of anger and heated accusations being traded between proponents and opponents of the idea. The Argument For Christmas is a major part of American culture, especially since it [...]

However, Mr. Duke, you are right in claiming that your views are far more closely aligned with those of the founding fathers than mine. Some, like Benjamin Franklin, were even more hardcore than you, with his opposition to permitting “ruddy-complexioned” Germans from immigrating to the U.S. This is not to their or your credit. Where the principles of the Declaration of Independence were betrayed, the motivation was generally a racist one. In past generations, white Americans were quite willing to betray or give up the freedoms hard-won by their ancestors rather than extend them to black people, Chinese people, Mexicans or Filipinos.

If you purchased a newspaper in the past week or so, you might have noticed a bunch of circulars advertising post-Thanksgiving sales. The stores publicize these sale prices in an attempt to attract customers for what is known as “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving which, by custom, is one of the largest shopping days [...]

In the end, it is quite clear to me that it is the hostility of these law-enforcement officers which is the problem. Confusing suspicion of the state with criminal intent, they are convinced that these institutions that have criminals as customers are in fact conspiring with the criminals. So they shut them down, ruining the guilty and the innocent indiscriminately. There is nothing precluding the FBI from reviewing e-gold or Norfed’s records while the firms continue to do business. Shutting them down is as absurd as shutting down the Motel 6 down the road, because it was the preferred resting place of mobsters visiting town.

Lately there has been a great deal of brouhaha about Ron Paul’s support amongst white-supremacists and the, er, “racially aware” types that frequent Stormfront. Make no mistake, the support is real. Now, these guys support Ron Paul because they like his policies. The white supremacists are actually making a serious mistake in supporting Ron Paul; [...]

I recently discovered the thoroughly enjoyable podcast put out by Skepticality magazine, and was browsing through some past ‘casts, when I stumbled across an interview (in Podcast #59) with Lori Lipman-Brown, a lobbyist in the employ of the Secular Coalition of America. The interview was pretty wide ranging, but at one point it focused on [...]

Ever wonder why the the police in London are called Bobbies? They got that name from their founder, Sir Robert Peel, who is widely held to be the father of modern policing. I don’t think this is accurate, since modern policing as of the beginning of the 21th century has as much to do with [...]