C4SS Feed 44 presents Jason Lee Byas‘s “Who is the Government?” from the Students for a Stateless Society‘s Volume 1, Issue 1 of THE NEW LEVELLER read by Stephen Ledger and edited by Nick Ford. On this month 29 years ago, the Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a row house in order to attack…

Classical liberalism recommends, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, “a wall of separation” between church and state. In his case for religious toleration, John Locke argued that separation protects people from the “compulsive force” of individuals trying to inculcate “certain doctrines” through “fire and sword.” Robert Audi later added that “if the state prefers one or more…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Meg Arnold and Alex McHugh’s “The Untenability of Libertarian Transphobia” read by Athena Roberts and edited by Tony Dreher. “Trans people are not calling for the feds to come sweeping in and arrest every person who’s had a transphobic thought. Rather, we have a truly classical liberal intention; we just want…

Government is more than a territorial monopoly on aggressive force. It’s also the heir to a centuries-old manufactured mystique, reinforced through its schools and other institutions, regarding its sanctity and sacrosanctity. The mystique is generated by and tends to manifest itself in the dogma that one’s State is uniquely virtuous and deserves to be judged…

Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women di Victoria Law Quando si parla di prigioni solitamente si pensa a detenuti uomini. Comprensibile, perché i detenuti sono in gran parte uomini. Secondo Victoria Law, però, la popolazione carceraria femminile cresce a ritmi allarmanti. Tra il 1990 e il 2000 le detenute sono aumentate del 108%,…

Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women by Victoria Law Conversations about prison typically focus on male prisoners. This is understandable, given that the vast majority of prisoners are men. But according to Victoria Law, the population of women in prison has been growing at an alarming rate. The number of women incarcerated grew…

The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey, by Michael Huemer (Palgrave McMillan – 2012) Whether anarchy is good or not isn’t important. It’s whether it’s comparatively better than the alternatives. Or at least that’s what Michael Huemer begins arguing in chapter eight of The Problem…

Transgender people and issues are receiving more attention in media and policy spaces, but there seems to be some uncertainty from libertarians on how to go about approaching them in both personal and political contexts. This is odd from a group that boasted acceptance of same-sex unions long before the mainstream left or right and…

We are told there is a pipeline in the United States that travels from our school system to our criminal justice system. Correct as the data corroborating the pipeline’s existence may be, it is a flawed way of conceptualizing the issue. There is no pipeline out of schools and into prisons, because schools and prisons…

by Michael S. Rozeff Introduction Aggressive violence opposes freedom of action. This is a central libertarian tenet. What then are we to make of non-violent means of controlling an individual’s beliefs, such as methodical inculcation of religious, nationalistic, or superstitious beliefs? Do these methods also oppose freedom? How do we characterize such methods and contrast them…

Usually, it’s upsetting to see a person’s livelihood attacked and destroyed by government bureaucrats. In the case of Thomas Chipperfield, it’s not so bad. Chipperfield is one in a long line of family members extending back many generations who’s made his living in the circus. The Chipperfield family takes their show on the road across…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Dylan Delikta‘s “Assist the Refugees, Abolish the Borders” read by Katrina Haffner and edited by Nick Ford. We cannot let the tyranny of borders continue. It is apparent, especially with the current mass migration of Syrian refugees without shelter or safety in Europe or elsewhere, that borders are inhumane and need…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kelly Vee‘s “Will the Real Feminists Please Stand Up” read by Katrina Haffner and edited by Nick Ford. Amnesty International understands what Lena Dunham apparently doesn’t: women own their own bodies. Outlawing sex work is just another way in which the State exerts its control over women’s bodies (as most sex…

The Middle East is in great turmoil. It is plagued with war fought by factions of varied political, ethnic and religious tendencies. Some are fighting for liberation, some for nationalism, and others for religious fundamentalism. Whilst the carnage continues, two things have become certain: First, these wars are the result of decades (arguably centuries) of…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kelly Vee‘s “Bill Cosby, Rape Culture and Individual Responsibility” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. We don’t have to choose between combatting rape culture and holding individual rapists accountable. Under rape culture, individual rapists are not held accountable for their actions. Our society treats rapists as innocent boys…

A little ways into The Utopia of Rules, an anarchist critique of state and corporate bureaucracy, author David Graeber asks, “Why are we so confused about what police really do?” It’s an important question, as the problem of police violence and impunity in America can no longer be ignored. For far too long, argues Graeber,…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Ryan Calhoun‘s “Bland, McKenna, and the State’s Psychiatric Weapon”  read by Thomas J. Webb and edited by Nick Ford. It’s clear McKenna’s death was no accident, just as a woman who dies as a result of her husband beating her is no accident. McKenna’s physical condition leaves no doubt that her…

On July 26th, 35 of Bill Cosby’s rape victims came forward to discuss their rapes and the culture that ignored their cries for help. A serial rapist going uncharged for years due to celebrity is indicative of a deeper cultural problem — one that treats rape as an innocent mistake rather than a violent crime….

Amnesty International has drafted a proposal calling for sex work to be legalized worldwide. The proposal “reflects a growing body of research from UN agencies, human rights organisations, and social science which indicates that criminalisation, in its varying forms, exposes sex workers to increased risk of human rights abuses.” According to Amnesty, the policy is…

After Sandra Bland was found hanging in her jail cell from an apparent suicide, her mental health immediately became the focal point of discussion by police and the media. According to law enforcement, Bland had attempted suicide within the past year, but was no longer suicidal. As recently as October, she’d listed herself as suffering from depression. Marijuana…