For some time, the national libertarian community has been paying attention to the Free the Hops movement in Alabama.  A brief overview provides:
Of the Top 100 beers of the World at BeerAdvocate.com, a renowned beer review site, 98 cannot be sold in this state. Why is our choice so limited?
Currently, Alabama is one of [...]

Some group calling itself the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution yesterday opposing what they see as the leading human rights issue of our time. You’re probably thinking, maybe they’re now addressing the situation in Darfur, or perhaps they’re talking about Communist China’s treatment of Tibetians. Perhaps there maybe a resolution about Cuba’s [...]

David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch, who come from totally opposite sides of the same-sex marriage debate, offer this compromise in a New York Times Op-Ed this morning:
It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them [...]

One aspect common to totalitarian regimes is the forced loyalty oath. Nazi Germany, for example, forced all pastors, civil servants and soldiers to take an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. In the Soviet Union, in Communist China, and numerous other nations, the state demanded that people swear loyalty to the government as [...]

California’s Proposition 8, the ballot measure aiming to outlaw same sex marriage, passed on a very close vote. Prop 8’s supporters* pushed a campaign of fear, misinformation, and a complete distortion of the meaning of individual liberty. This campaign commercial is typical of the intolerance and hysteria being promoted from the “yes” campaign.

Argument [...]

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a personal attack ad? I have. During the 2006 campaign, I thought it would be fun to write my own personal attack ad…against myself! Like many attack ads, everything I wrote about myself was (is) technically true but lacked [...]

George W. Bush rewrites the Declaration of Independence:
“We need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism and embrace a culture of justice and truth,” Bush said in brief remarks welcoming Benedict to the White House. “In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need [...]

A Democratic State Senator in Maryland has come up with an idea that actually makes sense:
Advocates for same-sex marriage plan to introduce legislation in the Maryland General Assembly today that would abolish civil marriage ceremonies now confined to heterosexual unions in the state and replace them with domestic partnerships for all couples.
The bills represent an [...]

On Wednesday Jason noted that Mike Huckabee had stated his desire to amend the Constitution to bring it in line with “God’s law.”
Later that day, he appeared on Hannity & Colmes and attempted to clarify what he had said earlier in the day:
On last night’s Hannity & Colmes, Colmes cited Huckabee’s quote about changing the [...]

Clubforgrowth.org

For the life of me, I don’t understand why so many “conservatives” support Mike Huckabee*. He raises taxes, increases spending, his anti-capitalist/populist rhetoric is indistinguishable from that of John Edwards (minus the “Two Americas” b.s.), he wants a national smoking ban in all workplaces, and he once thought that AIDS patients should [...]

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 was heavily [...]

Mitt Romney was deluged today with questions about yesterday’s speech on faith, specifically about the statement that: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.” “It was a speech on faith in America, first of all,” Romney said, during a testy exchange with reporters after a town hall forum here. He said he was paraphrasing [...]

Doug has posted over the last day or so about Mitt Romney’s speech on religion and politics… Romney, as a Mormon, is facing some interesting attacks from the evangelical wing of the Republican party, who don’t regard Mormons as “true Christians”. Doug’s opinion is that such a worry is pointless, and that voters [...]

NEW YORK – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced sharp criticism Monday about his opinions on women, gays, Israel, nuclear weapons and the Holocaust in an appearance at Columbia University, where protesters lined the streets bearing signs reading, “Hitler Lives.”
Inside a crowded lecture hall, the university president issued blistering introductory remarks. Ahmadinejad exhibits “all the signs [...]

It’s hard to win with a campaign based on liberty, when so many Americans don’t seem to really believe in it:
WASHINGTON — Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that the nation’s founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the “State [...]

This photo just warms my heart. Here we have the Christian Right’s dream candidate Sam Brownback drawing…let’s just say a less than impressive crowd in New Hampshire. Could it be that his vision of government imposed family values isn’t resonating even within the G.O.P.? Could this be a sign that maybe, just maybe the Christian [...]

We seem to have strayed a long way from our valuing of free speech, perhaps best stated by Voltaire “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In this age of political correctness, both the Right and the Left has bastardized the idea of free [...]

The Supreme Court ruled today that atheists don’t have standing to challenge their exclusion from President Bush’s faith-based initiatives programs:
The Supreme Court today handed President Bush’s faith-based initiatives program a victory, ruling that federal taxpayers cannot challenge the constitutionality of the White House’s efforts to help religious groups obtain government funding for their social programs.
In [...]

Cross-posted here at Fearless Philosophy for Free Minds
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one brave woman who refuses to submit to Islam. Ali grew up in a devout Muslim home in Somalia and witnessed the brutal treatment of women first hand. When her father arranged a marriage to a complete stranger to whom she would be required [...]