Thoughts, essays, and writings on Liberty. Written by the heirs of Patrick Henry.

November 6, 2009

ACTION ALERT: Put The Stake in Obamacare

Well the good news is that the Democrats are saying they don’t have the votes. Probably one of the reasons why they don’t have the votes is because people are finding all about what’s in HR 3962.
They’re objecting to:

Higher taxes on individuals and businesses which will drive up unemployment
Government dictating what’s in their healthcare plan
Government [...]

Posted By: Kevin @ 6:59 pm || Permalink || Comments (3) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Activism, Constitution, Healthcare, Individual Rights
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Good News On Health Care Reform: They Don’t Have The Votes Yet

This is a good sign:
WASHINGTON – A House leader says Democrats haven’t yet lined up enough votes to pass their health care overhaul bill.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland says the vote that House Democrats had scheduled for Saturday could slip to Sunday or early next week.
Hoyer acknowledged to reporters Friday that Democratic leaders don’t [...]

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 9:43 am || Permalink || Comments (4) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Activism, Constitution, Democracy, Economics, Healthcare
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November 4, 2009

Is the End of Government Reefer Madness Near?

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 [...]

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November 3, 2009

The Enduring Legacy Of Ayn Rand

Part One in Reason.tv’s new series about Ayn Rand:

Few authors have ever achieved the popularity that the novelist and essayist Ayn Rand (1905-1982) did. With the publication of The Fountainhead in 1943 and Atlas Shrugged in 1958, Rand became a full-blown cultural phenomenon, selling millions of books and inspiring countless readers—ranging from former Federal Reserve [...]

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 4:19 am || Permalink || Comments (0) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Individual Rights, Liberty, Theory and Ideas
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November 2, 2009

Gene Healy Talks About The Cult Of The Presidency

Recently, Cato Institute Vice-President Gene Healy, author of , which I recently reviewed, spoke on Freedom & Prosperity Radio about his book and the rise of Executive Branch power in the United States.
The whole interview is worth listening to.

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 8:22 am || Permalink || Comments (0) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Constitution, Separation Of Powers, Theory and Ideas
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November 1, 2009

The World Of Ayn Rand

On Wednesday evening, I was fortunate to attend a forum at The Cato Institute featuring the authors of two new biographies of Ayn Rand — Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and Anne C. Heller, author of Ayn Rand and the World She Made.
It was a very [...]

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 7:59 am || Permalink || Comments (0) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Individual Rights, Politics, Theory and Ideas
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October 31, 2009

The Cult Of The Imperial Presidency

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. [...]

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October 29, 2009

Coming Next Week At Reason TV: Honoring Ayn Rand And Her Ideas

This promises to be very interesting:

Coming November 2, Reason.tv will debut “Radicals for Capitalism: Celebrating the Enduring Power of Ayn Rand’s Ideas,” a new video series featuring segments on the novelist’s continuing presence in American culture and exlcusive interviews with Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Reason Foundation founder Robert W. Poole, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), and [...]

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 11:31 am || Permalink || Comments (0) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Individual Rights, Theory and Ideas
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October 28, 2009

Street Value

Uh-oh:
Last week the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that bong water is an illegal drug. Under state law, a controlled substance includes any “mixture” containing that substance, “regardless of purity.” The consequences of reading that definition literally can be severe. In the case before the court, a woman whose bong contained 37 grams of water with [...]

Posted By: Brad Warbiany @ 12:10 pm || Permalink || Comments (1) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Crime and Punishment, Humor, Legal, The War on Drugs
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The Institute for Justice Challenges Unjust Law Banning Compensation for Bone Marrow

In January 2008 I wrote a post calling for the repeal of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984. As I mentioned in the post, many thousands of lives are being sacrificed because of the moral hang-ups of certain individuals who think its icky to sell organs to people who need them. How dare they. [...]

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October 27, 2009

Obama Creates Perfect Storm with Marijuana Policy Change

Last week’s announcement from the Obama Administration that the Justice Department would call off the dogs with regard to medical marijuana in states where legal has created a perfect storm regarding state and local regulations. Colorado Attorney General lamented that with this announcement, a “legal vacuum” has been created and was quoted in [...]

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October 22, 2009

Government v. Prosperity

Leslie Carbone, local Virginia blogger and author of Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform spoke at an Accuracy in Media sponsored even in D.C. last week.
Here’s the video:

And, here’s my review of Leslie’s book, which I highly recommend.

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 11:33 am || Permalink || Comments (1) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Constitution, Economics, Liberty, Taxation, The Welfare State, Theory and Ideas
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Is An Individual Health Insurance Mandate Constitutional ?

Over at Findlaw, Cornell University Law Professor Michael Dorf criticizes the libertarian argument that a government requirement that every citizen purchase health insurance is unconstitutional:
A federal statute that was already in effect in 1994 provides that “all citizens shall have . . . an obligation to serve as jurors when summoned for that purpose.” To [...]

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 4:27 am || Permalink || Comments (5) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Commerce Clause, Constitution, Federalism, Healthcare, Individual Rights
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October 21, 2009

Government Reasonability Quiz

On Monday morning around 5:30 a.m. in Springfield, Virginia, Eric Williamson was making coffee (in the privacy of his own home) in the buff. Unbeknownst to Williamson, a woman and her 7 year old son could see him in all his glory as they took a shortcut through his front yard.
The woman, horrified that her [...]

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October 12, 2009

Fact Of The Day

Well, this is good news:
According to today’s Washington Post, the Cato pocket Declaration of Independence and Constitution have made the bestseller list!
This is going to make establishment Washington nervous — with good reason.
Order your copy here.
Order a few

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 9:18 am || Permalink || Comments (6) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Constitution
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October 8, 2009

Civil Unions In Illinois

My best friend of 29 of the 31 years I’ve been aboard this rock is a work-in-progress. I think he currently falls far too close to the “bleeding-heart-liberal” mindset, but he’s smart enough to eventually make the transition to “steely-eyed pragmatic libertarian”. He sent this along to me, and asked me to pass [...]

Posted By: Brad Warbiany @ 9:39 am || Permalink || Comments (3) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Activism, Equal Protection, Human Rights, Individual Rights
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An HSA Isn’t Insurance

My old representative when I lived in Georgia, Tom Price, has offered competing health care legislation to the Democrats’ bills. I’m not a health-care wonk, so I’m not going to get into the meat of his proposal, but apparently one of the key points is limiting the employer-provided health insurance tax deduction and extending [...]

Posted By: Brad Warbiany @ 8:38 am || Permalink || Comments (1) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Government Regulation, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Socialism
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September 30, 2009

Supreme Court To Rule On Second Amendment’s Applicability To The States

One of the issues left unresolved by the Supreme Court’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller was whether the Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment as an individual right applied to state and local governments. The last time the Court had the opportunity to rule on the issue, in 1886, in the case Presser [...]

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 7:02 am || Permalink || Comments Off || TrackBack URI || Categories: Constitution, District of Columbia v. Heller, Individual Rights, Keep and Bear Arms, Legal
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September 28, 2009

Republican Senator Expresses Support For Mandatory Health Insurance

Former Republican Senator Bill Frist starts out the U.S. News And World Report article in which he comes out in support of a government requirement that each American have health insurance with what can only be described as a fair degree of irony:
I believe in limited government and individual responsibility, cherish the freedom to choose, [...]

Posted By: Doug Mataconis @ 1:26 pm || Permalink || Comments (6) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Commerce Clause, Constitution, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Politics, Republicans
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Sorry Granny, “But For The Good Of Everyone, The Law Was Put Into Effect.”

I tells ya, sometimes ya just gotta to make an example of ‘em:
When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.

Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a [...]

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