Many libertarians say the traditional Left/Right political spectrum has become meaningless and useless. But to the extent that this is true for them, this is only because they have allowed themselves to be befuddled by political fraud and, perhaps, by a weak background in political history. The spectrum is just as useful and meaningful as…

This image tweeted by Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has a lot of people upset. Is it supposed to be Barack Obama holding a gun to his own head?What if it is? The picture is hardly threatening or aggressive in any way. After all, it’s not a picture of Khamenei holding a gun to…

Dylann Roof, who murdered nine black parishioners because they were black has been charged by the central government with committing hate crimes. Words cannot adequately express the evil of Roof’s actions at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and no decent person would want to say anything that be could possibly be construed…

In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten defined chutzpah as “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.” Today we have a new paradigm for chutzpah: the Israeli government’s demand for “compensation” from the American taxpayers for the Iran nuclear…

The nuclear agreement with Iran is good for two reasons: it reduces the chance of war, and it promises relief from sanctions for the Iranian people. Although American officials still say that war is an option, the chance has now shrunk. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that his military alone cannot deal a…

Compared to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, his colleague Clarence Thomas is well regarded by at least some devotees of liberty. This is not totally unjustified. Thomas has demonstrated a familiarity with the philosophy and history of natural law and natural rights, which he (at times) sees rooted in individual persons. For this reason, in…

Conservatives warn that the so-called liberals on the Supreme Court endanger our liberties. This is certainly true, although not exactly as the conservatives mean it. Now it’s time for them to acknowledge that the court’s conservatives do the same. Case in point: Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges (PDF), the case that declared…

I tried to come up with a solid libertarian argument for why the Supreme Court should not have struck down state bans on same-sex marriage (SSM). (By a 5-4 vote, the court this morning declared those bans unconstitutional.) I couldn’t do it.  Not that I was hoping to find such an argument. On the contrary,…

Dylann Roof’s racially motivated murders of nine black churchgoers have brought predictable calls for new restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. How ironic this is we shall soon see. Advocates of gun rights argue that the best way to prevent such atrocities is for would-be victims to arm themselves; killers will break…

The problem with responding to Alan Wolfe’s feeble attempt to critique libertarianism is that one might appear to be defending the particular people he targets: namely, Rand Paul and Ayn Rand. (Rand Paul was not named after Ayn Rand. At least Wolfe avoided that error.) I want to defend the libertarian philosophy without defending Rand…

King John of England, who 800 years ago this week was forced at Runnymede to affix his Great Seal to Magna Carta — which at least in theory subordinated his power to law — might have envied President Obama. Sure, Obama also pays lip service to idea that the executive is subject to law. But…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “Regulation Red Herring” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Sheldon Richman, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. What’s overlooked—intentionally or not—is that the alternative to a government-regulated economy is not an unregulated one. As a matter of fact, “unregulated economy,” like square circle, is a contradiction in terms. If it’s…

Monday is the 800th anniversary of the day in 1215 that rotten King John put his seal to the sheet of parchment called the Articles of the Barons — later to be known as Magna Carta — at Runnymede in England. It wasn’t the first charter issued by an English monarch pledging to subordinate his…

It’s time to disband the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 and all other secretive, unaccountable units of the U.S. imperial military. As is said about lawyers, if we didn’t have these units, we wouldn’t need them. The New York Times reported recently: While fighting grinding wars of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq, Team 6 performed missions…

In a democracy citizens prevent the government from abusing them by staying informed and exercising their “rights” under the system. They monitor the politicians’ and bureaucrats’ conduct, and when citizens see what they consider misbehavior, they act to stop it either by communicating to their “representatives” or by voting for better people at the next…

Sen. Rand Paul accomplished something worthwhile when, almost single-handedly, he saw to it that Section 215 of the Patriot Act expired. For that he deserves our heartfelt thanks. But where does the expiration now leave us opponents of indiscriminate government spying on innocent people ? Not in such a great place. Shortly after 215 disappeared,…

An article by George H. Smith from a few years ago makes a distinction about freedom that seems worth pursuing. In “Jack and Jill and Two Kinds of Freedom” (also a podcast), Smith distinguishes between (as the title indicates) two kinds of freedom, or between freedom and liberty. He tells the story of Jack, who…

Regarding the feverish effort either to reauthorize, “reform,” or abolish the National Security Agency’s collection of our phone and email data, two things need to be said: First, thank you, Edward Snowden. Second, isn’t it great to see the ruling elite panicking? Of course, the discussion about NSA collection of our “metadata” wouldn’t be happening…

The middle of next month will mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. My knowledge of the “great charter” is modest, to be sure, but lately I have been reading about it and its legacy. (See the “Liberty Matters” discussion, in which I have a small editorial role, going on this month at Liberty Fund’s…

Republican presidential aspirant and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio gave a major foreign-policy speech recently, and the best that can be said is that he did not claim to favor small government and free markets. What he wants in a foreign policy couldn’t possibly be reconciled with any desire to limit government power. Rubio is for…