Immigration, especially of the illegal variety, is one of those important issues that is difficult to have a rational discussion about. The discussion quickly devolves into the need to “secure” the border with a wall or fence…at least on the Southern border (the Northern border is more porous but I don’t recall the last time [...]

Tuesday night, I spoke before the Bonner County Republican Party Central Committee (all elected county officials in Bonner county are Republicans right now), in support of a resolution (which I had a small part in writing) supporting the second amendment and: “Strongly urging” the county commission (all commissioners are Republicans) to enact an ordnance 1. [...]

Expect more of the same.

Like most people who value individual liberty, I listened to President Obama’s speech about reducing gun violence with a great deal of trepidation. He presented several ideas such as limiting the size of magazines to 10 rounds, banning “military-style assault weapons” (i.e. any gun that looks scary to progressives who know almost nothing about firearms), [...]

The welfare state is a problem in America, there’s no question about it. When you have a country were nearly 49 million people are dependent on food stamps as of this writing, that is a problem. We libertarians as well as conservatives lament the growing welfare state because of what it is doing to the [...]

As usual, before many facts were known, before the victims were removed from Sandy Hook Elementary, and probably before the bodies were even cold, people on the Left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) were already calling for more gun control laws. It’s this so-called “gun culture” that is causing this death and destruction [...]

I’ve written fairly extensively about the philosophy behind my particularly type of libertarianism… and how there are a LOT of different schools of libertarian thought… and a lot of pointless, anal, wonky, yet often completely epically vicious… argument and disagreement between them. A selective overview of these pieces can be found here: A Refresher on [...]

I’m not normally one who takes conspiracy theories seriously but I have a very open mind about the question: what did FDR know about the Pearl Harbor attack and when did he know it? When people I respect like Judge Andrew Napolitano say he believes that FDR “knew goddamn well” the Japanese were going to [...]

There is so much economic ignorance/stupidity in this video (below), I wouldn’t even know where to begin. John Maynard Keynes himself would probably be embarrassed by this video courtesy of the California* Federation of Teachers and narrated by the great economist of our time Ed Asner. I don’t have much else to say about this [...]

Former Liberty Papers contributor and current editor at United Liberty Jason Pye is going to do something I have only dreamed of doing: being a panelist in a Cato Institute discussion. If you want to know more and possibly attend this event, here’s a link to Jason’s post at United Liberty. As for me, I [...]

Part 2 Did Voters Reject Capitalism? Some on the Right have said that the 2012 election was a rejection of Capitalism. I’m not entirely sure I agree. Yes, there seems to be a large percentage of the electorate who want money to be taken away from the top 1 or 2% and redistributed to the [...]

When the 112th Congress comes to an end, it will also mark an end to the political career of Ron Paul, who represented the 22nd Congressional District in Texas from 1979 to 1985 (after serving a one term stint from 1976 to 1977) and the 14th Congressional District from 1997 through 2012. I’ve had made [...]

Part 1 Confusing Economic Policy of Suck I’m sure there are many other areas where Romney went wrong but I think most of the rest of this special kind of suck is courtesy of other Republicans. During the Republican primary, the “anyone but Romney” crowd was so desperate to eliminate Romney that they resorted to [...]

Barack Obama’s Record of Suck Four years ago, Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. He promised hope n’ change from the failed policies of George W. Bush. His policies were going to lower the debt, reduce unemployment to around 5%, become the “most transparent administration in U.S. history,” close Guantanamo [...]

“Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods.” – H.L. Mencken I don’t know about you but I’m very eager for this Auction Day to be over with.

A great deal of ink (or film, or bits) has been expended this election cycle, primarily on the far left (though some on the right… particularly with the more populist factions), decrying the actions of “independent” political action committees, superPACs, and “issue advocacy groups”; as somehow corrupt, evil, anti-democratic etc.. The rhetoric on the left, [...]

Over at Ezra Klein’s place, Dylan Matthews points to the fact that elections are driven by the economy (and in some years, by war). And that George McGovern, who died yesterday, gets a bit of a bad rap based on the fact that he was up against an incumbent President presiding over a rapidly-expanding economy [...]

[I]f you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things. And you know what? It’s worked before, because it feeds into the [...]

The Commission on Presidential Debates has been coming under a lot of fire for their exclusion of third parties this year, due largely to the fact that Gary Johnson is polling at 6% nationally and happens to be suing them* at the moment. As Reason points out, they’ve already lost three national sponsors, and are [...]

“In this world, there are good causes and bad causes, and we may disagree on where that line is drawn. Yet, there is no such thing as a good terrorist. No national aspiration, no remembered wrong can ever justify the deliberate murder of the innocent. Any government that rejects this principle, trying to pick and [...]