Easily the most persistent question that arises when we endure another shooting such as the recent one at LAX in which a TSA agent was killed and others injured is “Why?” It appears that the shooter, 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia, had one thing in mind: Killing TSA agents. He did not appear to want to…

I just read that the parents of an autistic high school student arrested in a drug sting operation in Temecula, California last December have filed suit against the school district. The parents were “initially happy their son had made his first and only friend last year at school,” but became suspicious when his “school friend”…

Os disparos, na Colina do Capitólio, contra Miriam Carey, mulher desarmada que desobedeceu a comando de policiais para que parasse o carro, foi situação bem conhecida para qualquer veterano da Guerra do Iraque, com importante diferença — em vez de moverem-se numa escalada progressiva de força para neutralizar a situação, os policiais da Colina do…

One of the first things I learned in my health care career is that pain is an inherently subjective experience. Different people experience different levels of pain in different situations, and everyone has their own idiosyncratic problem areas — one can’t bear dental pain while another finds back injuries unbearable. Because of this fact, backed…

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…

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…

Libertarianism has nothing to do with national interests. Libertarianism is about individual liberty. The liberty to live your own life, to pursue your own livelihood, and to come and go as you please to anywhere that’s open to you or anywhere you’re invited to go. The implications for immigration policy are obvious: Everyone – not…

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…

Direitistas como David Brooks e o ex-embaixador junto às Nações Unidas John Bolton estão, previsivelmente, ficando possessos a propósito de Edward Snowden — não apenas a propósito dos vazamentos dele, mas de tudo o que ele representa para a sociedade com a qual eles se identificam. Ao decidir unilateralmente vazar documentos, escreve Brooks (“O Vazador…

NSA analyst Edward Snowden shook the intelligence community as well as the public when he released a trove of secret NSA files to the world. In the aftermath of his action, the United States government reared its aggressive head as it worked very hard to capture and imprison him. In the process a global drama…

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…

I suppose it takes a true radical these days to question the progressive’s sacred cow: Ronald Reagan. You read that right. This paradigm of modern conservatism was one of the most important American champions of gun control in recent decades, and so he has become a convenient talking point for liberals who want to argue…

The United States and Russia appear to have reached an agreement over the conflict in Syria. The powers have adopted a diplomatic resolution to bring Syrian chemical weapons under international control. For now, this development has calmed the rhetorical march to war as it is now unlikely to see a U.S. military strike on Syria in the…

Obama y Kerry no proponen una guerra. Usarán misiles crucero para masacrar sirios y, si no les gusta la reacción siria, podrían enviar tropas terrestres. Especuladores de la guerra como Raytheon se beneficiarán. Pero el Secretario de Estado insistirá en que no es una guerra. ¿Cuándo una guerra no es una guerra? Según John Kerry,…

En todo el mundo, la gente protesta contra la intervención de EE.UU. en Siria. Los sondeos muestran un escepticismo generalizado ante la amenazante guerra. En lugar de aumentar la seguridad de los estadounidenses, es probable que la intervención apoye a fuerzas vinculadas a al Qaida. No obstante parece inevitable que el Gobierno de EE.UU. lance…

A few days ago, US Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) recycled his familiar contention that “[w]hat enables [the United States’] war-friendly philosophy is the fact that there is no military draft to dodge.” Yoking ordinary people to the decisions of the political class, he argues, would somehow disincentivize U.S. bellicosity abroad. In tandem with Rangel’s proposal…

When is a war not a war? According to John Kerry, launching cruise missiles at Syria is not a war. Testifying before the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry said, “President Obama is not asking America to go to war.” Kerry’s argument seems to hinge on the idea that no American ground troops will likely…

Across the world, people are protesting against US intervention in Syria. Polls show widespread skepticism of the impending war. Rather than making Americans safer, intervention is likely to support forces connected to al Qaeda. Yet it still seems inevitable that the US government will launch cruise missiles at Syria, escalating the country’s bloody civil war….

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that when a garment gets so old, attempting to patch it with new cloth will just tear it up worse. The authoritarian state seems to be reaching that point, beyond which any attempt to patch it up or prolong its life just inflict new damage and hasten…

Desde o início do julgamento de fachada de Bradley Manning ficou patente que o criminoso é o estado, não o Pfc. Manning. Apesar disso, o denunciante via Wikileaks acaba de ser sentenciado a 35 anos de prisão. Manning está sendo punido por expor crimes do governo, mais famosamente soldados dos Estados Unidos atingindo civis inocentes,…