This is as succinct, and as masterful a description of the relationship between the rights of man, and the government of a free state, as I have yet seen.
“I cannot, and will not, consent that the majority of any republican State may, in any way, rightfully restrict the humblest citizen of the United States in [...]

Referring back to my post I wrote last week about the “perfect storm” the Obama Administration has created regarding medical marijuana, Colorado in many ways seems to be in the eye of this storm. It seems that more and more people are starting to understand the insanity of declaring war on a substance which has [...]

For the first time today, TASER international has acknowledged that the use of their electro-compliance device has a higher risk to the health of the restrainee than they have advertised

Taser: Don’t shoot stun gun at chest
First time company has suggested there is any risk from its stun guns
AP – updated 8:23 a.m. PT, Wed., Oct [...]

The first recorded mention of the term “War on Terror” in the New York Times did not occur after 9/11 as many would assume… In fact it was in 1934, and wasn’t even about the U.S.
You might be shocked as to exactly which nation it was about… or perhaps not…

War On Terror

(New York Times) December [...]

The PATRIOT Act was sold to the country as the line in the sand protecting us from the murderous hordes of Islamist terrorists. Passed in a hurry following 9/11, they told us that these powers were needed for terrorism only, and not for general law-enforcement. Civil libertarians didn’t believe this assertion, of course, [...]

“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim [...]

A 38 year-old mother of three, who posed no threat to the police or anyone else, was tasered right in front of her children in January of this year. Yet to my knowledge, President Obama has failed to address this genuine case of the police “acting stupidly.” Maybe it’s because Audra Harmon cannot help the [...]

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 [...]

Tell me, just once, where a government that has created a million-name no-fly list gets a legitimate power to ban people arbitrarily placed on that list from firearm ownership?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to the Obama White House!

Critical text (h/t David Rittgers, Cato@Liberty):
“if you’re on that no-fly list, your [...]

…and route around them

By the by, for those who don’t get the reference, it’s a paraphrase of a quote from John Gilmore – “The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it”

First a little humor in this Sprint Spoof from Reason.tv

Now Dr. Ron Paul’s prescription for reforming healthcare in America

It seems that most of the time the U.S. Supreme Court is divided 5-4 on what should be very basic Constitutional principles (such was the case I wrote about in my most recent post). But once in awhile, SCOTUS does the unthinkable and actually upholds the Constitution. In Safford Unified School District #1 et. al. [...]

Last week in District Attorney’s Office for the Third Judicial District et. al. v. Osborne the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that convicts have no Constitutional right to DNA testing even if such testing would conclusively determine the guilt or innocence of the convict. In this particular case, William Osborne was willing to pay for [...]

Read the news story here and reason’s coverage here. The video below is Lynch’s response:

While I’m not happy that Mr. Lynch is doing time for legally dispensing marijuana under California’s compassionate use law, he certainly could have received a much harsher sentence (up to 100 years). U.S. District Judge George Wu should be commended for [...]

This article in The Boston Globe about Sonia Sotomayor ought to delight “tough on crime” conservatives and cause great concern for civil libertarians of all stripes. Prosecutors and law enforcement organizations give her high marks for her “aggressiveness” both as a prosecutor and as a judge.
One quote from the article stood out and seems [...]

Hey Cougars? Want to flash those pearly whites and shiny disposition when that mid-20’s waiter flatters you by asking for your ID at the bar? Well, good luck in Virginia… Smiling is forbidden:
Few places in Virginia are as draining to the soul and as numbing to the buttocks as the branch offices [...]

For going above and beyond the call of duty, I herby nominate these three members of L.A.’s finest to receive the Ramos-Compean Medal of Valor. As clearly shown in the footage below, the first officer bravely kicked the suspect in the head after he had surrendered. The second officer also deserves to be recognized for [...]

During the 2008 presidential campaign, an organization called Citizens United produced an anti-Hillary documentary called “Hillary: the Movie.” The movie was available on pay-per-view cable channels until the FEC pulled the plug claiming that the broadcast violated campaign finance law. The case, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, is now being considered by the Supreme [...]

The passengers of United Flight 93 were heroes. Scared, unsure of what the future held, and in the face of everything that passengers previously understood about hijackings, they knew that it was their duty to try to overcome the odds and take down the hijackers on that flight. They didn’t turn to a [...]