As my C4SS comrade Charles Johnson has pointed out, circumventing state authority and capitalist monopoly is far more cost-effective than lobbying and organizing to reform the law. This is confirmed, once again, by news of open-source hardware projects that offer much cheaper versions of two outrageously expensive medical devices: the EpiPen and the MRI machine….

At first glance, Missoula, Montana’s agricultural non-profit, Garden City Harvest, might seem like an ill-advised target for the Animal Liberation Front’s graffiti. By most accounts, Garden City Harvest does some fantastic work in its local community. According to GCH’s website, its mission is “to build community through agriculture by growing food with and for people…

Turtle Island (or as the illegal immigrants renamed it, North America) has a long and storied history of labor activism. After the Civil War, the nation saw a rise in union activity. With the fight for the eight hour workday, libertarians, socialists, communists, and anarchists alike joined together to fight for working class liberation. Eventually…

Donald Trump is no peacenik. Leave aside Trump’s proclamation that he “love[s] war” and unpredictability, and that he is more “militaristic” than anyone. Forget that he wants to enlarge the military and that he refuses to forswear first use of nuclear weapons. Ignore his bellicosity toward Iran and China or his promise to support Israel unconditionally….

Recently, Troma Films alum Oliver Stone’s newest film Snowden hit theaters. While Stone’s often historical films have been called into question for their accuracy (*cough*cough* JFK *cough*cough*), this film is the product of several months of conversations with Edward Snowden himself who hopefully kept the record straight. But what’s most impressive about the movie is…

Recently, the Guardian reported a grim story about a pupil in an elementary public school in the city of Milan, Italy. At lunchtime, the school principal took the pupil from the cafeteria and forced her to eat her lunch in the classroom, alone and away from her mates. Why? Because she had been caught red-handed. She…

On September 28 the U.S. Senate voted to override President Obama’s veto of a bill permitting American citizens to sue foreign governments for any role in terrorist attacks. Obama warned that the law would have unintended consequences, setting a “dangerous precedent” for other countries. The United States government, he warned, might face lawsuits by foreign…

Last week, the New York Times published their endorsement for President. Unsurprisingly, the “Paper of Record” endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Republican nominee Donald Trump. It is almost impossible to imagine a world where the New York Times – a paper with liberal values and a history of endorsing liberals – would endorse Trump….

Writing at RenewAmerica, Cliff Kincaid takes Angela Davis to task for “going vegan” (“Black Power icon goes vegan to save animals,” September 21, 2016). Rather than actually consider the extreme torture and slaughter of animals perpetrated by humans, Kincaid seems wedded to the standard tactics of other animal oppressors — basing his attack solely on…

Last week, Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer Betty Shelby fatally shot 40-year-old stranded motorist Terence Crutcher in the back after another officer tased him to the ground. The database killedbypolice.net lists Crutcher as the 825th individual to have been shot and killed by a cop in 2016. At this point, it’s clear that nothing short of a complete…

In part of a hopefully rising trend, five police officers were denied service at a Taco Bell in Louisville, Kentucky recently. The owner has since apologized and promised that the employees will be retrained to be more respectful to all customers, including law enforcement. But this is just one domino in an entire series of…

The football hooligans are at it again but this time instead of street riots and violence, they are raising hell with flags and fundraisers. With the recent news of Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand during the U.S. national anthem and Gabby Douglas not placing her hand over her heart during the anthem at the 2016…

Since the early days of President Barack Obama’s first term, the United States has pursued a high-octane policy of punishing whistleblowers to the fullest extent of the law. If an individual can be identified as having been the source of a leak, and if that individual falls under the jurisdiction of the US or its…

People don’t like seeing their gods blasphemed, and the backlash against Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem has revealed the completely religious nature of American patriotism. Tomi Lahren, whose views on racial matters are about what you’d expect from a “conservative commentator” on Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze, has been on a nonstop outrage…

With the passing of “Labor Day” earlier this month it’s useful to reflect upon its origins and the state of the labor movement as it stands today. First celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882 in New York City by members of the Central Labor Union, a branch of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor…

Every day I despair of the British Left, and hearing them on the issue of housing is no exception. On the one hand, they should be praised for being the only ones to draw serious attention to the very real problem of rising rents and urban displacement. On the other hand, however, there are serious…

It’s common among centrists to describe themselves — in contrast to the “far Left” and “far Right” — as the “rational adults” who can compromise and get things done. The “rational adult” trope usually appears in conjunction with “Horseshoe Theory,” according to which wisdom and reasonableness inhere in the political center and deviation from the…

Every prohibition, no matter how reasonable, has its bootleggers and every state, no matter how authoritarian, is unable to truly enforce a total ban on anything. So when a father in Berlin discovered swastikas painted on a children’s playground, a symbol that is actually illegal according to German law, he realized it was more effective…

If there’s one common theme that unites the economic Right — conservatives, right-libertarians and disciples of Ayn Rand — it’s that looting is bad and extremely prevalent. And they’re all pretty much agreed on who the looters are, besides. The framing has been pretty much the same going back at least to that (possibly Snopesbait)…

At Reason, Nick Gillespie (“How to Build a Better Epi-Pen — or Something Totally Different That’s Much Better,” Sept. 4) argues — correctly — that Mylan’s EpiPen price-gouging is enabled by government regulations. He cites fellow Reason writer Scott Shackelford’s earlier article (“Want to Reduce the Price of Epipens? Approve Some Competition!” Aug. 25) showing…