The long and short of the case is that three days after his home was broken into, Fredrick fatally shot an intruder who turned out to be a police officer. Fredrick promptly surrendered to the police once he realized the intruders were in-fact a SWAT team serving a warrant (a very small amount of marijuana [...]

After reason.tv’s first foray into the explanation of the idiocy of Utah’s blue laws, the Hit&Run blog has followed it up with Utah’s proposal to finally end the “Private Club” craziness that they put people through. But is the cure worse than the disease? A plan to do away with Utah’s private club law and [...]

Here are a few choice comments in response to a recent post where I argued that Ramos and Compean should not receive presidential pardons. I was aware that this was a very unpopular position to take (even among libertarians) but I was stunned and disturbed by the tone of some of the comments. I’ll let [...]

Here’s a chilling interview of former NSA analyst Russell Tice conducted by Keith Olbermann. While I’m not the biggest Olbermann fan in the world, he asked some important questions about how far the NSA went during the Bush administration. It’s a chilling interview. Hopefully restraining the NSA to 4th Amendment boundaries will be a priority [...]

Many people have expressed a hope that Barack Obama will be an improvement over George Bush and that he will roll back some of George Bush’s excesses.  They see in Obama a man who understands nuanced argument, who at least acknowledges that those who oppose his policies can have good reasons and arguments for doing [...]

One thing that disturbs me to no end is the way despotic Communist serial killers like Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Mao Zedong are iconic figures in American pop culture. When I see someone wearing Che’s ugly mug on his/her chest, I want to ask him/her: “Do you really have any idea who this man was [...]

Reality TV junkie? Also a State-worshipper? Then you’re in luck! Every day the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security patrol more than 100,000 miles of America’s borders. This territory includes airports, seaports, land borders, international mail centers, the open seas, mountains, deserts and even cyberspace. Now viewers will get an unprecedented look [...]

Dear Senator Kerry, I was aghast to read your response to my email on the subject of requiring people to get Federal government approval to work.  It is the sort of totalitarian policy I would expect from some right wing fascist dictatorship. I am especially stunned see a former nominee of the Democrat party send [...]

And this time, I doubt that anyone will even notice: The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in [...]

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism [...] The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. -Ronald Reagan (1975) For the second election in [...]

The City Club of Cleveland extended an invitation to the top six presidential candidates*. Of the six candidates, Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, and independent candidate Ralph Nader participated; Democrat Barack Obama, Republican John McCain, and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney were no-shows. Unlike the debates we have already seen [...]

I just received my mail-in ballot a week or so ago. The ballot, with multiple choices with arrows to be filled out next to each choice, reminds me of taking standardized tests back in the day. Some tests were easier than others but I knew that if I did not study, one of two things [...]

This one has been making the libertarian rounds for a day or two now, and with good reason. A story about Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer who has taken security expert Bruce Schneier’s proclamations about ineffectiveness of security measures at airports and gone and proven them. Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to devote to this, [...]

The always thought provoking Cory Doctorow has a new book out, Little Brother.  I highly recommend it, even though I think he is very wrong on numerous points.  You can download it for free at the link above. It is very difficult to write a political novel.  I should know, I’ve started 3 or 4 [...]

Ron Paul spoke in front of a crowd of approximately 10,000 at the “Rally for the Republic” (AKA the “Ron Paul Convention”) across the river from the Republican National Convention. Below are the first 3 parts of his speech, the full text of the speech can be read here. Other speakers on the last day [...]

Back in June, the TSA decided that you were no longer allowed to fly without ID, even if you submit to a more strenuous search process. At the time, though, there was a loophole. Assuming you had lost or forgotten your ID, and were “cooperative” in assisting screeners to assess your identity, you would still [...]

“Comrade Members, like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. You now have freedom—if you can keep it. But do remember that you can lose this freedom more quickly to yourselves than to any other tyrant. Move slowly, be hesitant, puzzle out the consequences of every word. I would not [...]

Ahhh work, that most marvelous of pursuits that keeps food on the table. Today was my first official day of work as a full time employee of Gigantomegabankcorp North America, where I have been a contractor for 26 months. Going from Contractor to FTE means bennies, paid time off (25 days a year actually. Woo [...]