On Tuesday in Santa Rosa, California, two of that city’s “finest” cowered behind a car door and gunned down a thirteen-year-old boy carrying a toy rifle. This little boy, Andy Lopez Cruz, was walking down the street with a fake plastic rifle when the two “heroes” boldly got out of their police cruiser, hid behind the…
It’s impossible to make this stuff up, folks. Salon.com columnist Tom Watson, in an article on the upcoming “Stop Watching Us” rally in Washington, D.C., has excoriated all of his progressive friends for supporting something that libertarians — surprise! — also support. He writes, “Some of the biggest names in civil liberties and digital freedom…
Frankly, I have a hard time understanding what goes on in the heads of “progressives.” On the one hand, they constantly complain — and rightfully so — about the power of big business and corporate domination of our society and economy. But on the other, their rhetoric is full of nostalgia for the government policies…
Thomas Nestel, the Philadelphia Transit Authority police chief, is aghast over the refusal of bystanders to help a transit cop — Sam Wellington — being beaten up by one of their fellow citizens that he’d been trying to arrest. “I was horrified. I was frightened for my cops.” Well, it’s hard not to sympathize with…
In 2011 I sat on a panel discussion at King’s Books in Tacoma, Washington, on the subject of the effect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on soldiers and their families. My prepared remarks were a discussion of the impact of repeated deployments on the families I saw on the labor and delivery floor…
Jon Hochschartner’s article in Salon on Saturday argues that the classic video game “The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time” is a mess of classist, racist, and sexist tropes. He will get no argument from me on the sexism score — the entire series is focused on rescuing the princess, again and again. But on the…
Throughout the US government “shutdown,” Democratic politicians have compared their Republican rivals to “anarchists” and argued that the “shutdown” proves government necessary. A recent speech by US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on the Senate floor exemplifies this trend. Misconceptions run rampant in Senator Warren’s speech. She conflates cooperation and government, stating “In our democracy, government is…
The shooting on Capitol Hill of Miriam Carey, an unarmed woman who refused police commands to stop her car, was a familiar situation for any veteran of the Iraq War, with one significant difference — rather than moving through a progressive escalation of force while attempting to defuse the situation, Capitol Hill police officers went…
I’m hearing a lot of negativity — constructive negativity, but negativity nonetheless — from my comrades on the libertarian left, concerning the US federal government’s “shutdown.” As the Center for a Stateless Society’s Kevin Carson notes with reference to “furloughed” government employees, “[S]ome of what government workers do — for example cops who enforce drug…
Cory Doctorow, guest of honor at the upcoming FenCon science fiction convention in Dallas, notes (“During the shutdown, some scientists can’t talk about science,” Boing Boing, October 4) that some of his fellow speakers will be unable to speak if the government shutdown continues. Because they’re government space scientists, they fall under the purview of the…
The government shutdown is teaching us a lot about the “public sector” — mainly that it doesn’t exist. For many folks Autumn is a season for getting out into the wild, for viewing fall colors, building camp fires, breathing in the still sweet air and plainly enjoying the great outdoors — “our” public lands. With…
On the 28th of September four European classical-liberal and libertarian parties signed the Utrecht declaration and covenant of European Classical liberal and Libertarian parties which provides the foundation for the new European Party for Individual Liberty (EPIL). The coming years will show if the EPIL can bring a new perspective on the principle of liberty…
Libertarian science fiction author J. Neil Schulman made some waves at this year’s Libertopia conference in San Diego, CA when, following Angela Keaton of Anti-War.org’s talk, titled “The War At Home: What Domestic Violence, Homophobia, and Misogyny Have To Do With Empire,” he demanded that Keaton refer to Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, currently serving 35…
In 399 BCE, for the crime of “corrupting the youth” and undermining belief in the customary gods of Athens, Socrates was sentenced to drink a cup of hemlock. If the goal was to silence Socrates’ voice, it’s safe to say that plan backfired in a big way. The story of Socrates stands second in the…
How many times have you heard a politician, addressing some issue of regulatory policy, speak of “all the stakeholders” being at “the table?” That phrase has become popular recently, in particular among sponsors of maximalist copyright law proposals like SOPA and ACTA. “All the stakeholders had seats at the table — the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft…
The long-awaited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2013 report is now making headlines. The report is designed to inform the global community about the current state of climate science — the scientific debate, consensus and (most importantly) data. We will learn of the latest scientific projections of temperature increase, sea level rise and extremes in weather. The report is seven…
“You wouldn’t steal a car, you wouldn’t steal a handbag, you wouldn’t steal a television, you wouldn’t steal a movie.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it? For years the copyright industry has been telling us that piracy is a crime. However, recently another supposedly heinous copyright crime has been added to the list: exposing racism. On September…
Rightists like David Brooks and former UN ambassador John Bolton, are, predictably, going ballistic over Edward Snowden — not only over his leaks, but over everything he represents to the society they identify with. By unilaterally deciding to leak documents, Brooks writes (“The Solitary Leaker,” NYT, June 10), Snowden has betrayed the “respect for institutions…
In a recent Esquire column (“Dianne Feinstein Defines ‘Journalist,’” September 19), Charles Pierce recalled presidential historian George Reedy’s prediction years ago that so-called “shield laws,” which protect reporters against criminal prosecution for not revealing their sources, would involve de facto government licensing of the press. After all, the law would have to define who qualified…
Every once in a while a government functionary slips up and inadvertently lets out the truth about how things work, in tones so frank it leaves us shaking our heads and wondering if we really heard correctly. That’s what happened when Blake Ewing, an Austin area assistant DA, expressed his true feelings (“Breaking Bad Normalizes…
