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…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Toxic Waste and Inequality Are Good for You” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. After making the arguments above, Pagels slips and reveals the real source of his primary concern: “Most income inequality reports focus only on the most negative interpretation of the data, creating a narrative that the…

Right now the usual suspects are united in joy by Hillary Clinton’s official announcement of her candidacy for president (although anyone who seriously believed she was previously undecided on the issue probably also still believes in Santa Claus). By “usual suspects,” I mean self-styled “progressives” who think the Red/Blue divide reflects a serious disagreement in…

Un titolo recente su The Week diceva: “NSA: Stavamo per smettere di spiare tutti poco prima che parlasse Snowden” (30 marzo 2015). A prima vista si direbbe una buona imitazione di un titolo satirico di The Onion, se non fosse che la realtà è più strana della finzione. La Associated Press dice: “A sentire alcuni…

Understanding history as best we can is important for obvious reasons. It’s particularly important for libertarians who want to persuade people to the freedom philosophy. In making their case for individual freedom, mutual aid, social cooperation, foreign nonintervention, and peace, libertarians commonly place great weight on historical examples most often drawn from the early United…

The New York Times revealed April 7 (Bernice Dahn, “Yes, We Were Warned About Ebola“) that there was adequate prior warning of an Ebola outbreak in Liberia, but nobody drew the proper conclusion from the data and acted on it because the necessary information was all hidden behind academic journal paywalls. An article in Annals…

Il decreto sul razionamento dell’acqua che il governatore della California Jerry Brown ha approvato il primo aprile (Executive Order B-29-15) ha ricevuto molti elogi immeritati dagli ambienti di centrosinistra. A leggere bene la proposta, si capisce che non riduce i consumi del 25%, anche se questa è l’impressione che se ne ricava leggendo i titoli….

A recent story on the British elections reports on a letter warning voters that a Labour government would prove harmful to the country’s economic recovery. Endorsed by leaders in Britain’s business community and submitted to The Telegraph, the letter argues that the election of a Tory government would signal to the rest of the world…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “The Poverty of the Welfare State [PDF]” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Joe Peacott, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. As the government, at various levels, attempts to cut back on welfare and other entitlement payments to poor people and/or require people to work in exchange for their welfare…

To get a sense of how badly the regime in Iran wants sanctions relief for the Iranian people, you have to do more than contemplate the major concessions it has made in negotiations with the United States and the rest of the P5+1. Not only is Iran willing to dismantle a major part of its…

In the 1997 Simpsons episode “Homer’s Enemy” viewers meet Frank Grimes, a man who has never caught a break. He has had to work hard, if not outright struggle, for everything he has in life. Grimes is hired to work at the nuclear power plant alongside Homer Simpson, who is very much the opposite of…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Ricketson‘s “A Left-Libertarianism I Don’t Recognize” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. In fact, what left-libertarianism has as its central tenet is that every individual should have complete control over their life and no one else’s. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and the myriad other bigotries that can haunt the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “The Political Class’s War on Immigrants is a Diversion” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. Politicians rely on this hugely important power to maintain a stranglehold on their subjects. The right to bestow work upon their subjects, and all of the ancillary terms and conditions that come with granting…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Mind Your Own Business, Bobby Jindal” read by Ian Anderson and edited by Nick Ford. The “English only” movement is especially clueless. In most places practical necessity is a far greater incentive to learn English than anything they can come up with. And people are generally pretty smart about learning whatever languages…

A recent headline from The Week says “NSA: We were just about to stop spying on everyone before Snowden spoke out” (March 30, 2015). At first glance this may seem like a good imitation of an Onion headline but truth is stranger than fiction. The Associated Press tells us, “The proposal to kill the program…

California Governor Jerry Brown’s April 1 decree (Executive Order B-29-15) for rationing water has gotten lots of undeserved positive coverage on the center-left. If you read the fine print, it doesn’t actually reduce the state’s total usage by 25% (although that’s the impression you’d probably get just reading the headlines). It only applies to “potable…

Una recente indagine della Associated Press sulle pratiche dei tribunali del Tennessee durante il patteggiamento ha messo in allerta gli americani su una delle tradizioni governative più agghiaccianti e finora considerate proibite: la sterilizzazione forzata dei carcerati. Secondo la giornalista della AP Sheila Burke, un caso recente ha riguardato una donna del Tennessee con disturbi…

According to the received version of “interest group pluralism” in J.K. Galbraith’s book American Capitalism, there’s supposed to be a sort of check-and-balance system (Galbraith called it “countervailing power”) between big business, government regulatory agencies and organized labor. But what usually happens in the real world, when the allegedly “opposing” centers of power are so…

Recent investigations by the Associated Press into the practices of Tennessee prosecutors during plea-deal negotiations have alerted Americans to one of their government’s most gruesome and supposedly forbidden traditions: forced prisoner sterilization. According to AP reporter Sheila Burke, a recent example of this practice involved a mentally ill Tennessee woman whose infant child died under…

I hear expressions like “I don’t see race” or “I’m color-blind” a lot from people who want to ignore the issues of structural power imbalance or privilege in race issues. The same people are fond of equating racism to simple bigotry; by this standard, white bigotry against blacks and black bigotry against whites are equally…