John Stossel recently penned a piece titled Equality vs Liberty. In it, he argues that wealth inequality is not a serious issue. This post is the beginning of a lengthier response to him. It will be expanded into an opinion editorial. Quotations from Stossel will be used in both pieces. Stossel remarks: It’s true that…

I – What Is Anarchy. The statesman, intent on schemes to compromise principles and tide over clamorous demands for justice, says it is disorder and spoliation. New taxes are then levied to defend the state, to repress incendiary talk, and protect privileged prerogatives. Or false and surface issues are prepared to distract attention, to embroil citizens in partisan quarrels,…

Millennials are disgruntled, and it’s no wonder. In 2008 they turned out in record numbers in support of a presidential candidate who used the most leftish-sounding rhetoric of any Democratic candidate since McGovern. This president came into office with a seemingly filibuster-proof Democratic Congressional majority, by the largest Democratic electoral margin since LBJ beat Goldwater….

One question that libertarians and anarchists never stop hearing is “without government, who will build the roads?” Given Bridge-Gate — an intentionally manufactured traffic jam on New Jersey’s George Washington Bridge — one might ask “without government, who will block the roads?” The scandal emerged after four grueling days of inexplicably awful traffic turned out…

Review 12 is here! Martin Morse Wooster reviews, Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Ceaser’s Mortal Enemy. Sheldon Richman discusses the ceding of the war power to Israel. Sheldon Richman discusses how morality and practicality coincide in making the case for liberty. Jim Miles reviews, Goliath – Life and loathing in Greater…

Foundation The Industrial Revolution is typically regarded as a story of capitalism, free enterprise, and progress in technology and living standards. This paper attempts to disentangle the threads of capitalism, free enterprise, and progress, in the context of the Industrial Revolution, with a focus on Britain and the United States. It aims to bring some historical perspectives into…

Los aficionados de la tecnología y defensores de la privacidad observaron atentamente el ataque que Microsoft lanzó a finales de 2013 contra el sistema operativo Chrome de Google. Por un lado, es inusual que una empresa gaste los dólares de su presupuesto publicitario atacando a sus competidores en lugar de promover sus propios productos. Por…

Tech aficionados and privacy advocates took notice in late 2013 when Microsoft rolled out an attack on Google’s Chrome OS computers. For one thing, it’s unusual for any company to spend its advertising dollars attacking its competitors rather than promoting its own products. For another, Microsoft’s position atop the computer operating systems market is such that…

Enjoy review 10! William Pfaff discusses how history will remember Obama Elizabeth Goiten discusses “good guys” and “bad guys” in the War on Terror. Bruce A. Dixon discusses how Obama won a court case to keep sentencing disparities intact. Chris Floyd discusses the murderous character of the American system. Chris Floyd discusses the NSA spying…

Christmas is now a commercial frenzy, a profusion of overplayed songs and overwrought sentiment, mixed with pleading to remember “the reason for the season” and to “keep Christ in Christmas.” But there’s something else that’s being lost and perhaps was never emphasized enough to begin with, something I think we need now more than ever-…

From Boing Boing: The ACLU has spent years in court trying to get a look at a top-secret FBI interrogation manual that referred to the CIA’s notorious KUBARK torture manual. The FBI released a heavily redacted version at one point — so redacted as to be useless for determining whether its recommendations were constitutional. However,…

The annual digests continue. Let’s get moving on number 9! Stephen Masty has a quiz to decide whether you’re an imaginative conservative or not. Matthew Feeney discusses 5 hot foreign policy subjects of 2013. Gene Healy discusses the myth of isolationism surrounding a foreign policy of non-intervention. Laura Carlsen discusses the setbacks for women’s rights…

Pope Francis wrote in his recent apostolic exhortation, “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality.” He’s right — but not in the way he intends. Before…

On his blog, libertarian bestselling author and Ron Paul homeschooling curriculum writer Tom Woods has written some thoughts about thin and thick libertarianism and how they apply to the Duck Dynasty controversy. If you’ve been living in a cave, the star of reality television show Duck Dynasty said some unfortunate things about gay people and…

The main plotline of the Star Wars prequel trilogy concerns an apparent conflict between the central government (the Senate) on the one hand and a coalition of mercantile interests (the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, etc.) on the other. As events unfold, however, it quickly becomes obvious to the audience (though much less quickly to the protagonists)…

After the meaningless theater of the March 2013 “sequester” and October’s anti-climactic two-week “shutdown,” you knew the third act was coming. US congressional leaders of both parties have announced a two-year budget deal which “would avoid tax increases, shrink the sequester by $63 billion over the next two years and modestly lower the long-term deficit”…

As the White House struggles to rouse itself from its self-induced ObamaCare public relations nightmare, the primary excuse — at least regarding the canceled health insurance portion of the fiasco — has been to claim that the relevant policies were “substandard” and, therefore, harmful to individual consumers. Ergo, the “substandard” plans needed to be abolished…

On the night of May 14, 2010 16-year-old Bronx resident Kalief Browder was walking home from a party. He was stopped by police and “identified” by a stranger as a robber. Despite the lack of any evidence whatsoever, Browder was put in prison where he remained for three years. He missed the birth of his cousin,…

Advocating liberty means opposing the use of force to restrain peaceful, voluntary exchange. But it doesn’t have to mean calling a system of peaceful, voluntary exchange “capitalism.” Some people, of course, think this is obviously what “capitalism” means. And I can’t prove they’re wrong, because the word means different things to different people. I’m confident, though, that…

The JFK administration’s public image has often been compared to that of Camelot, a mythical royal court. What’s more disturbing is that the people who apply such terms to this 20th century gang are almost always applying it in a positive sense. “What could be better,” say these waxing nostalgic imperialists, “than an administration which commands…