As everyone is fully aware, today marks the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Due to this passage of time, I’m somewhat conflicted about whether today should be strictly about remembering the victims and celebrating the heroism of the first responders (as well as how ordinary Americans came together donating their time, money, blood, and [...]

FreeMarketAmerica.org has released a great video (above) called “If I Wanted America to Fail.” It’s a pretty decent list of policies one would want to implement to cause America to fail but it’s far from complete. Here are a few suggestions of my own: If I wanted America to fail, I would want congress to [...]

Newt Gingrich calls Mitt Romney “a liar” but says he would support him over Barack Obama if he wins the nomination. Talk radio host and raving lunatic extraordinaire Mark Levin threatens to campaign against Rand Paul if his father chooses to make a third party run. What a petulant asshole. Sarah Palin warns: “G.O.P. had [...]

So I’ve had a tiny bit of time to reflect on the budget deal. Here are the key points: $900B in immediate cuts [1/3 to defense], coupled to a $900B immediate debt ceiling increase. Additional $1.2T-1.5T debt ceiling increase IF Congress either passes a balanced budget amendment or a bipartisan commission creates a debt reduction [...]

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side, the mandate section of ObamaCare was found unconstitutional, the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was repealed, Wikileaks exposed the federal government for the [...]

The reports I have read today so far are that the Opt-Out Day protests haven’t been very widespread with most travelers opting for the full body scan. Is this really what is happening at the airports or is this an attempt by the MSM and TSA to discourage protests? What I’m interested in is hearing [...]

5 years ago today, Eric introduced The Liberty Papers to the world. A blog that was once a general “classical liberal” home has significantly expanded, as those of us writing here have grown and changed. When the doors first opened, we generally followed a Constitutionalist small-l libertarian mindset in general, and as Eric pointed out, [...]

Coyote, in far more concise words than I probably could have generated, asks a very good question. What I would really understand is: what drives these folks? I will take them at their word that it is not racism. If its violent or property crime, the stats are pretty clear that immigrants don’t really contribute [...]

The census is a bit of a lightning rod for libertarians, largely due to the questions in addition to the actual enumeration. Fundamentally question #1 on the census is definitely Constitutional, and I’d say the additional questions asked are mostly harmless. But I didn’t fill those out. I answered question #1, and only question #1. [...]

March Madness has arrived. For the first time, I’ve decided to throw together a Liberty Papers Bracket Challenge. Hosted at CBS Sports (p/w “thomaspaine”), feel free to sign up. Hurry, of course, as the games start Thursday morning. Scoring rules are somewhat standard, but with a kick on the first two rounds. Picking a winner [...]

I am a stickler for grammar, but it is also one of my pet peeves. So on National Grammar Day, I’d like to post a few of them. #1 – Nested parentheses: The general grammar rule is never to nest parentheses. But as an engineer with the combination of math, computer code, and boolean logic [...]

Read this op-ed at Reason by Greg Beato. Maybe it’s the effect of several Stone IPAs, but I can’t quite answer this question: Is Greg defending business casual, or attacking it?

In this country, it has become socially acceptable to use internet or over-the-phone consults with a fraudulent “ailment” for prescriptions of a recreational drug (Viagra/Cialis). In this country, it is still socially unacceptable (in the areas where it is legal) to go see a doctor in-person with a moderately fraudulent ailment for prescriptions of a [...]

Hey, folks. Slow day here at TLP, so it’s probably a good a time as any to open the floor. What’s currently on the reading shelves for all of you? For me: Just finished: The American Story, by Garet Garrett. — Available from the Mises Store. I plan on a review of this once I [...]

All, if you’ve followed the ClimateGate scandal, you’ll note that most coverage on both the left and the right centers around the emails. There is discussion in the emails of trying to influence access to peer-reviewed journals to stop critics (unethical), and even some suggestions that data requested under FOIA be deleted (potentially illegal). So [...]

Way back in 2006 (and prior to that at my old site), I raised a question of how a libertarian society deals with children. It’s well summarized from this comment: If a parent believes in spanking, we don’t take the child away from the parents. If the parents are beating their children abusively, we do. [...]

Possible discussion point — should we on the libertarian end of the spectrum start more aggressively using the rattlesnake image from the Gadsden Flag? I’m a huge fan, but may not be a representative sample. UPDATE: Photo originally from this post. The post is itself worth a read.

This news just came through the tubes – A U.S. Supreme Court justice on Monday granted a request to put on hold the sale of bankrupt automaker Chrysler LLC to a group led by Italian carmaker Fiat SpA. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a one-sentence order, said the orders of the bankruptcy [...]

All, if you’ve been reading me for any extended period of time, you know that I’m a bit of a Cassandra when it comes to the economy. I think the fundamentals are f***ed, and that this little lull of stock market strength is the calm before the storm. I have a lot of reasons to [...]

I was listening to the local talk show host on my way to work this morning and the topic was the ongoing saga surrounding the auto makers. This particular talk show host is a very pro-union “buy American” (and therefore anti-free trade) kind of guy in the mold of Lou Dobbs. As I pulled into [...]