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

January 18, 2012

We don’t go black… We try to turn on lights

We’re not going black today, over SOPA or PIPA. In case you by some miracle hadn’t noticed it yet, tens of thousands of web sites around the country and around the world, are “going black” or putting up banners explaining that they are not available or there is no content today etc… In protest against [...]

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December 15, 2011

Quote of the Day: Bill of Rights 220th Anniversary Edition

December 15, 2011 marks the 220th anniversary of the Bill of Rights – at least what is left of them. Anthony Gregory’s article at The Huffington Post runs through the list of violations of these precious rights from the Adams administration’s Alien and Sedition acts all the way to the present day violations of the [...]

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December 1, 2011

National Defense Authorization Act Passes Complete With Indefinite Detention Provisions

Despite some valiant efforts of a handful of senators, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012 passed by an astonishing 93-7 vote. Earlier today, Sen. Dianne Feinstein offered yet another amendment to the bill that would have limited the military’s jurisdiction to detain suspects captured outside the U.S.; the amendment failed by a narrower [...]

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November 15, 2011

The Johnson Campaign Perpetuates the “Public Airways” Myth in Response to Latest Debate Exclusion

There’s very little doubt in my mind that the MSM and the G.O.P establishment have been doing all they can to keep certain candidates from challenging the establishment and ultimately win the nomination. Early in the campaign I wrote a response to Hugh Hewitt’s post where he suggested that the RNC should exile Herman Cain, [...]

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June 2, 2011

Controversial Organization Admonishes Soldiers and Peace Officers to Defend the Constitution

Every soldier and every police officer swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” but as a practical matter, what does this mean? What happens if the CO issues an order that violates the Constitution; is soldier or peace officer still required to carry [...]

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January 11, 2011

Back to First Principles: An Excellent Primer on the Rights of Life, Liberty, and Property

In beginning the 112th Congress, House members took turns reading the Constitution aloud to a nearly empty chamber. While I in some ways appreciate members at least uttering the words, I believe that the members would have been better served not by merely reciting the words but by studying the philosophical roots of the Constitution, [...]

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December 30, 2010

Open Thread: Successes and Setbacks for Liberty in 2010/Hopes for 2011

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 [...]

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September 14, 2010

Cato Presents: Cops on Camera

As cameras have become more available to individuals and government alike, viral videos of cops behaving badly have become quite pervasive on the internet. This short video by The Cato Institute provides a few recent examples of this relatively new phenomenon and explains why recording the actions of police and government officials for all the [...]

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August 8, 2010

Religious Freedom Is What Makes America

We live in weird times. There is still plenty to criticize radical Islamists about, and we really should be wary of efforts to bring political Islam special favors and acceptability in the United States and elsewhere. These rational arguments, however, are doomed to be misunderstood thanks to the efforts of Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol and [...]

Posted By: TomStrong @ 11:14 am || Permalink || Comments (11) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Freedom of the press,Individual Rights
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August 4, 2010

Point: The ACLU Is A Friend of Liberty

It takes considerable skill to be able to write from both ends of a political issue, and I’m happy to say that that is the task I am going about with the ACLU. For my critique of the ACLU, click here. The Left and Right political labels are pretty useless at a certain point, but for [...]

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June 21, 2010

Point: “State’s Rights” A Misnomer

This is a post in our continuing “Point/Counterpoint” series, where TLP contributors and/or guest posters debate a topic. In this installment, Michael Powell argues against the existence of “states’ rights”. Tomorrow, Brad Warbiany will defend states’ rights, and his post can now be found here. During the twentieth century, there were several confrontations between federal [...]

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January 27, 2010

Opening the floodgates…

From tonight’s State of the Union address: “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by [...]

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September 17, 2009

Happy Constitution Day

Two Hundred Twenty Two years ago in Philadelphia, the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia completed it’s work. At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly: “Well Doctor, what have we [...]

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August 23, 2009

Europeans Go On Strike; Americans Simply Defy

One of my personal bits of curiousity about the world is related to cultural “ways of thinking”. While I don’t believe that Americans are innately different than Europeans, or Chinese, or Russians, there are certainly differences in average thought borne of the different cultural histories of each place. Dale Franks at QandO recently posted about [...]

Posted By: Brad Warbiany @ 11:03 am || Permalink || Comments Off || TrackBack URI || Categories: Culture,Foreign Affairs,Free Speech,Freedom of the press,Government Regulation
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July 19, 2009

Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do

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 [...]

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July 1, 2009

Common Ground for the Left and the Right on the Bill of Rights

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June 21, 2009

This is Government

According to the Iranian government, the person dying below was a terrorist. No doubt all the people walking around her in apparent unconcern for there were fellow terrorists, and the people she was terrorizing were outside camera range. She is being called Neda. The person who uploaded the video to Youtube claims that he was [...]

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June 16, 2009

Obama’s disdain for free speech

According to Drudge, President Obama plans to take a bigger step closer to totalitarianism regarding the separation of the media and the state. On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care — [...]

Posted By: Stephen Gordon @ 8:26 am || Permalink || Comments (3) || TrackBack URI || Categories: Constitution,Free Speech,Freedom of the press
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May 12, 2009

The Limits of Campaign Finance Law Abridgement of the First Amendment Tested in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission

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 [...]

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January 13, 2009

Quote Of The Day

Over at Reason: Hit & Run, Nick Gillespie on the regulation of the internet: One trend that’s making a comeback with the Obama ascendancy is the need for smart folks not to regulate the Net per se, but to, you know, come up with better rules that will help make sure that everything that’s so [...]

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