A recent Gallup poll found that Americans agreed by a record 52-45 margin that the government “should… redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich” (Matt Yglesias, “Americans want the government to ‘redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich,’” Vox, May 5). The nos consistently outnumbered the yeses since the question was first asked…

As an anarchist, I avoid doing anything that expresses consent to being governed, or an endorsement of any government; I am therefore a principled ballot-spoiler. However, this time around I was secretly rooting for a Labour victory (or at least a Conservative defeat). The Conservative Chancellor has been sustaining and inflating the housing bubble, particularly…

As the Reason Foundation’s Emily Ekins wrote back in February, “A recent Reason-Rupe poll asked Americans to rate their favorability towards capitalism, socialism, a free market economy, and a government managed economy.” Quite unsurprisingly, of these choices, Americans most favored free markets, with almost 7 out of 10 respondents reporting a positive opinion of a…

Once again — this time using the Baltimore uprising as a pretext — Thomas Sowell has pulled out the template for his favorite column dismissing what he calls “the ‘legacy of slavery’ argument” and blaming black poverty on the Great Society (“The Inconvenient Truth About Ghetto Communities’ Social Breakdown,” National Review, May 5). As is…

On Monday (May 4), the City Council of Recife, Brazil, approved the urban plan authorizing construction consortium New Recife to develop a project of the same name in the area of the José Estelita Dock — which includes the construction of 13 skyscrapers that may reach 38 stories. In a concerted move to pass the…

In an April 24 speech, new “Intellectual Property” Czar Danny Marti confessed that the whole point of federal IP policy is to inflate nominal GDP and corporate profits by maximizing what monopolists are able to charge for stuff. He didn’t mean to state it that baldly, of course. But that’s what it amounts to —…

On May 3rd The Guardian posted a piece discussing a recently enacted statute, by the city of Madison, Wisconsin that would officially ban discrimination against atheists. The law passed with little publicity in early April, but has gotten significantly more attention since the Guardian’s report. The law explicitly includes non-believers in the city’s existing prohibitions…

Statists put forth some fairly ridiculous arguments regarding why the state must exist in the first place, from regulating simple business transactions to policing what we do in our personal lives. Out of all the regulations state-supporters say are “necessary,” the criminalization of drug use is the most detestable. People partake in many sordid vices,…

On April 29th, the US Supreme Court ruled that states could “prohibit judges and judicial candidates from personally soliciting funds for their campaigns”, in the case of, in the case of Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar. Much has been made of Chief Justice John Roberts remarks: Politicians are expected to be appropriately responsive to the preferences…

In his call for the nationalization of police forces, Al Sharpton perfectly encapsulates the mainstream left — frequently dead on target in the diagnosis, yet prescribing a remedy that would only exacerbate the infection. The problems Sharpton identifies, persistent police abuse, unaccountability, and distance between the police and the policed, are the results of a…

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has devastated Nepal. Buildings, old and new, have crumbled. Older brick and wood homes are almost exclusively reduced to rubble. In an interview with The Guardian, Bhaskar Gautam, a local sociologist, describes the situation: “Outside Kathmandu it’s the rural poor. But in the city it’s the people in the older precarious housing. It’s…

If you’ve been paying attention to the trends of copyright law in the last ten years or so you may have noticed something: Corporations are gaining more and more power over what they claim is rightfully “theirs”. One of the largest company in making agricultural machinery, John Deere, is the latest in this destructive trend…

We speak of the blowback that results from American foreign policy, the senseless, heinous acts of terror that represent an unfocused and irrational rebellion against American imperialism. We understand that calling it what it is, blowback — pointing out the causal relationship between American foreign policy and terrorism — is not an attempt to exculpate…

After the Providence Journal printed Chad Nelson’s commentary on Boston’s violations of Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure protections (“Marathon Security Violates Constitution” April 20), reader Rick Hawksley responded in a letter to the editor that Nelson “seemed to be more concerned about drug dealers than with the health and welfare of his neighbors.” The sharp escalation of…

Just when I’d managed to get control of my laughter over the “Obama is a Marxist” trope —  he held Red Study Circles where he read Quotations From Chairman Mao with Geithner, Rubin and Summers, presumably — David Harsanyi accuses Hillary Clinton of “class warfare” (“For Hillary Clinton, No War But the Class War,” Reason,…

The Everglades are among the last sub-tropical wilderness areas in the United States. Their Floridian air is thick with humidity, but a cool breeze is commonly felt from both the fresh and saltwater systems that spread throughout the landscape. Open prairies provide relief from the dangers of the swamp. A mosaic of forest, from pinelands…

On April 15th, the Department of Education stated it is “working on a process to help federal student loan borrowers submit a defense to repayment of their federal student loans.” The statement came with a press release announcing that the federal government will fine Corinthian Colleges $29.6 million for lying to students about its jobs…

In a recent speech to the Mortgage Bankers Association, Sen. Ben Sasse — a freshman Republican from Nebraska — jokingly accused his colleague Elizabeth Warren of wanting to remove all risk from the economy. Presumably he means that Warren wants to insulate ordinary people from risks like mortgages with unsustainable payments relative to their unexpectedly…

The U.S. government has charged into another civil war in the Middle East. When you find yourself repeatedly asking, “Will they ever learn?” the answer may be that the decision-makers have no incentive to do things differently. What looks like failure may be the intended outcome. Quagmires have their benefits — to the ruling elite…

With the second anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing upon us, NPR is running a series called “The Road Ahead”. In its daily segments, NPR examines how everyday lives have been affected by the horrific events two years ago. One unfortunate but seemingly inevitable part of that road entails law enforcement’s stepped-up abuses of its…