There are few figures in the American libertarian movement that gave rise to as much controversy or passion as Ayn Rand. Love her or hate her, it’s hard to find a libertarian who doesn’t have an opinion about the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. For many of us, she was the one who [...]

I think many libertarians are a bit like myself, and tend to like a good dystopian novel. 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Anthem, etc. It’s typically a book detailing a future utopian society, where government controls the lives of their citizens for their own good (1984 being the exception there), but the [...]

Over the past 30 years, America has seen Presidential scandals ranging from Watergate to Iran-Contra to Travel-gate, Whitewater, the Lewinsky scandal, and the Valerie Plame affair. We’ve learned the truth about some of the truly nefarious actions undertaken by some of most beloved Presidents of the 20th Century, including the iconic FDR, JFK, and LBJ. [...]

It seems improbable that monetary policy could become a “sexy” political topic, but Ron Paul has done it. It started during his 2008 Presidential campaign when he continually talked about the Federal Reserve when asked about the economy, continued through his oft-entertaining interrogations of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and most recently has culminated his sponsorship [...]

There have been plenty of books and policy papers written, plenty of speeches and television and radio interviews, about the economic reasons that high progressive taxation is a bad idea. We’ve heard many times about how it restricts innovation by discouraging investments, or how higher tax rates actually have the seemingly perverse impact of decreasing [...]

THIS BOOK IS BASED on a single idea: You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own person and property, as long as you don’t physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other.
Thus begins a book that everyone interested in politics should read; Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do: The Absurdity [...]

All,
Co-blogger Chris just announced a new cookbook that he and his wife are putting together, heavily based upon a number of recipes that he’s posted on his blog. I still haven’t managed to go and enjoy any of said cooking on my trips into the Phoenix area, but I can say that based on [...]

A few weeks ago, I wrote on my personal blog, about an author who had, essentially by accident, trained himself to become an intelligence analyst:
Trevor Paglen is an author, and Dr. of Geography, who developed a fascination for the “black” side of the military some years ago; and started snooping.
His first book on the subject [...]

The always thought provoking Cory Doctorow has a new book out, Little Brother.  I highly recommend it, even though I think he is very wrong on numerous points.  You can download it for free at the link above.
It is very difficult to write a political novel.  I should know, I’ve started 3 or 4 of [...]

So, today is Constitution Day, a day to celebrate the ratification of the Constitution. Aptly, then, I’ve been reading John Ferling’s

About half way thought Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto, I found myself thinking that he should have written this book before he ran for President, not afterwards, and that his campaign should have handed out as many copies of the book as they could, because it does a far better job of explaining and [...]

Glenn Reynolds reviews Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto:
The main shortcoming in Paul’s book, as with his candidacy, is in the follow through, the transition from critique to action. Although he does include a chapter entitled “The Revolution,” about reducing the size of government, it’s a pretty skimpy plan. Were we to see a Ron [...]

Barbara Branden is one of the few people who was part of Ayn Rand’s inner circle during the years that she was writing Atlas Shrugged who is both still alive and willing to speak outside of “official” Objectivist circles. Back in October she spoke at a conference sponsored by The Atlas Society marking the 50th [...]

When the 20th Century was still young, things didn’t look good at all for the ideas of individual liberty and self-government that had been the spark that lit the American and French Revolutions. Intellectually and politically, collectivism, of both the right and the left, was on the march. In Europe and most of the rest [...]

Federal Appeals Court Judge Richard A. Posner is known for being both prolific and controversial. In addition to authoring one of the most important academic treatises in the field of law and economics, he is also known for writing on more controversial topics ranging from the 2000 Presidential election to sex. And it’s when [...]

If you haven’t seen the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”, you should. Tonight. It’s on HBO, I believe. It has some interesting lessons regarding freedom.
The movie follows the adventures of Andrea, a serious, intellectual, hot, young woman who wants to be a journalist, as she works for a difficult editor of a [...]

Today, we celebrate 1776, and more specifically the 4th of July as the birthday of American freedom, the day that the American colonists courageously stood up to the most powerful monarch on the planet and declared the independence of the thirteen British colonies on the Eastern seaboard of North America.
The truth of the matter is [...]

I teased this one in my bookaholic post, so I figured I might as well get around to reviewing it. The book is The Multiplex Man, by James P. Hogan. I’m not even sure where I first heard about this one (a libertarian blog somewhere, probably), but I picked it up used from [...]

Some of you have probably notice me link the Scott Stein a few times in the past. I found him a while back, when he was looking for examples of humorous writing for a class he was teaching. In fact, I even got him to give me a literary critique of The Search [...]

I’ll admit a cardinal sin. I’ve never read The Wealth Of Nations. It’s always been on my “to read” list, as it is one of the most revolutionary books in economics history, and routinely quoted by many of the libertarians I admire. I actually bought a copy last year, and took a [...]