Content-Based Liberty
The NFL "take a knee" controversy, once an annoying brush fire, has turned into a full-blown conflagration, with protestations, counter-protestations, expressions of "solidarity," gestures, regrets in both directions, and calls for systematized boycotts. The...
The Lost Art of Indifference
There was a time, not that long ago, where people could hear or read an opinion they disagreed with and not feel the urge to hurl insults or demand that someone silence the sharer of that nonconforming opinion. There was a time, not that long ago, where Other People's...
Hating Sovereignty
President Trump caused quite a stir at the United Nations the other day. His speech before the General Assembly was hailed by many and disparaged by many more. No surprise there - Trump's not been one to mince words or soft-pedal his message. He touched on many themes...
Settled Science, Enormous Egos, and Appeals-to-Authority
I just finished a very enjoyable book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. The book presents, in layman's terms, what we know about the Earth, the universe, our ecosystem, and the human race through the history of how we learned it all. Or, more...
Baltimore Stoops To Frame
To study the patterns of media umbranoshes and outrages, it seems the more one knows the less one understands. Try to make sense of rioting in the streets over the totally justified actions of the Police in the Michael Brown shooting, versus the comparative community...
Equal In Misery
Proving that there's no idea so terrible that a politician cannot make it worse, today's New York Post reports a nasty little nugget about BernieCare, Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal to expand the government's Medicare program to cover everyone. Apparently, it's not...
Zero-Sum Everything
A core premise of capitalism and free markets is that people voluntarily enter into exchanges and interactions with each other. Each does so because he believes there's a benefit to be gained from that exchange or interaction. Thus, the benefit is mutual. It is...
Re-Electing Trump
Offering proof that there is no lesson so obvious that it cannot be ignored, today's political and social media landscape demonstrates, time and time again, in ever more bewildering ways, that the Left hasn't come to terms with why Trump won the Presidency and why the...
Scarcity Pricing and Price Gouging
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, and ahead of the likely devastation of Hurricane Irma, social media is awash in expressions of outrage over what is commonly labeled as "price gouging." For the few unaware of the term, price gouging is a (derogatory) term for sharply...
Energy is Life
The preparations for Hurricane Irma's Florida landfall served to shine light on a core reality of modern life: energy is fundamental. The mass exodus out of Miami and other threatened coastal areas has taxed the regional infrastructure's ability to provide sufficient...
Presidential Power and the Do-Nothing Congress
Earlier this week, President Trump elected to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy established by the Obama administration in 2012. Simultaneously, he stayed this repeal for 6 months, so that Congress could have time to figure out what it...
Gun Rights Lesson #940 – Confiscation
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is one of a series of articles on gun rights. Each addresses a common anti-gun trope. "The government doesn't want to take your guns away!" This lesson is a follow-up to Lesson #831, wherein I challenged the declaration by those who favor increased...
Power and Responsibility
Comic book fans will recognize the quote "with great power comes great responsibility" from the Spider-man comics (and movies). This statement, (apocryphally) uttered by Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, who was later murdered by a criminal that Parker (as a newly-powered...
Hurricanes and Socialists
In appalling but typical "never let a crisis go to waste" style, big government advocates and apologists aren't even waiting for the Hurricane Harvey floodwaters in Houston to subside before attacking conservatives' and libertarians' small government principles....
Review: Ozark on Netflix
The deluge of original television programming, from the networks, from cable channels, from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streamers, and from innumerable other sources, is one of the great byproducts of the Internet age. But, just as the universe of information...
Anger Is A Gift?
The American band Rage Against The Machine, categorized as "rap metal" or "alternative metal," is notable for, among other things, an overt political agenda in their songwriting. Unlike many or even most musicians who dabble in politics by leveraging their fame, Rage...
Gatekeeper Censorship
Three years ago, I asked whether social media platforms might one day be deemed a "public good," subject the principles of public accommodation currently applied to brick-and-mortar businesses, as well as other government mandates (e.g. those imposed on broadcasters)....
Boycotts and Victims
Hot on the heels of the Dunkin Donuts "doesn't serve cops" incident, a tale that offered a teaching moment in economic liberty, comes another tale of public-space malfeasance. In this instance, a server at a high-end romantic restaurant refused to allow a gay couple...
Socialist Relativism
Nazis suck. So do neo-Nazis, Nazi wannabes, Nazi sympathizers, and those who share the "values" of racism, oppression, broad hatred, ethnic cleansing, and all the rest of that garbage. The Third Reich and the war it started killed tens of millions of people. As I...
Review: Marvel’s The Defenders on Netflix
This past Friday brought the debut of the newest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU): The Defenders. A Netflix original limited series, an 8 episode story arc, it became available in its entirety in traditional Netflix style. Being a fan of most of the...
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