Tax Day: What Kind of "Civilization" Are We Paying For?
posted 04/14/2014, 7:34 AM (Kevin Carson)
[Category: Commentary]
April 15 seems to be a holiday of sorts for progressives, who inevitably trot out Oliver Wendell Holmes’s quote about taxes being “the price we pay for civilization,” and reminding us of all the great stuff — roads, schools, etc. — that they pay for. But on closer examination, tax day really isn’t a very good choice for progressive holiday.
Let’s start with the idea of progressive taxation as a remedy for economic inequality and unjust distribution of wealth, taking Bill Gates as an illustration. Virtually the entire price of Microsoft software — probably 99 cents out of every dollar that goes into his pocket — amounts to robbery. The entire Gates fortune is stolen loot, monopoly rent extorted from the pockets of consumers by virtue of the state’s “intellectual property” [sic] laws. If not for copyright and patent monopolies on his operating system and other products, Gates might — just possibly — have become a millionaire from selling customization and tech support services for software that was itself free (that’s the business model of Linux distributions). Even if he accumulated $10 million, that comes to about 0.01% of his actual peak fortune of $100 billion. Considering that Gates’ entire treasury of stolen loot could never have been acquired without the help of federal law, it stands to reason that the only way for government taxation to achieve net justice would be to tax Gates’s income at 100%. Otherwise, the government’s just helping Gates rob you, then giving back a fraction of it so the injustice doesn’t become too destabilizing.
That same principle applies to all “progressive taxation” of the plutocracy’s wealth. The primary purpose of the state is to enforce artificial property rights and artificial scarcities that the economic ruling class can extract rents from. On an entirely secondary level, it gives back a tiny share of those extracted rents to the poorest of the poor, in order to prevent starvation and homelessness ... (more) |
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Thursday April 10th, 2014
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I am a North Korean defector
posted 04/10/2014, 8:17 AM (DailyLife.com.au)
[Category: Commentary]
I lived in North Korea for the first 15 years of my life, believing Kim Jong-il was a god. I never doubted it because I didn't know anything else. I could not even imagine life outside of the regime.
It was like living in hell. There were constant power outages, so everything was dark. There was no transportation – everyone had to walk everywhere. It was very dirty and no one could eat anything.
It was not the right conditions for human life, but you couldn't think ... (more) |
Justice Should be Blind, Not Crazy
posted 04/08/2014, 1:34 AM (Will Grigg)
[Category: Commentary]
 Two years ago, Chicago-area voters reelected a criminal court judge named Cynthia Brim despite the fact that she was declared legally insane. Her state-certified mental illness was the only thing that kept Brim from being sent to jail for assaulting a sheriff’s deputy.
Judge Brim, who shoved the deputy during what was described as a manic episode, was found not guilty of battery by reason of insa... (more) |
The Big Lie of a "Rape Culture"
posted 04/08/2014, 1:32 AM (Wendy McElroy)
[Category: Commentary]
April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, and it will be used to promote a big lie -- namely, that we live in a "rape culture."
The term "rape culture" was coined by politically correct (PC) feminists in the 1970s. It refers to attitudes, beliefs, and values that allegedly normalize sexual violence against women and encourage the act of rape by men. America is called a "rape culture" because sexu... (more) |
The Disturbing Truth Behind Your Next Income Tax Return
posted 04/07/2014, 7:40 AM (Jeffrey Tucker)
[Category: Commentary]
The least of the problems with income tax is that it takes your money. The really big problem is that the income tax takes your life. It gives the government direct access to the things you own and sets up the political-bureaucratic sector to be the final arbiter of what you can and cannot consider to be yours.
Illustrating this point is the bitter news that the IRS has considered it completely legal to demand access to your email archive whenever it wants. This news came about be... (more) |
Gun-Control Madness
posted 04/01/2014, 11:05 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
British commentator Piers Morgan took a parting shot in favor of gun control during his final appearance on his CNN news show last Friday. Morgan exclaimed, "It's your country; these are your gun laws. And the senseless slaughter will only end when enough Americans stand together and cry: Enough!"
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times is exclaiming against th... (more) |
America's Liar in Chief
posted 04/01/2014, 1:30 AM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
 Everyone is familiar with where America's Cold War national-security state apparatus has led our nation: down the dark road of assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, coups, surveillance, regime-change operations, secrecy, tribunals, and other dark-side practices that are inherent to communist and other totalitarian regimes.
But how many Americans ever give thought to the fact that the national-security state apparatus has also converted the duly elected president of the Un... (more) |
Pardon Martha Stewart and Joseph Nacchio
posted 03/31/2014, 12:15 AM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
The Get Out of Jail Free card that the Justice Department has given to national-security state official James R. Clapper can't help to bring to mind what the feds did to Martha Stewart.
Clapper commits perjury before Congress and nothing happens to him.
Stewart lies to some federal agent when she's not even under oath and she's indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to five months in prison and fined.
How can anyone claim that that type of jus... (more) |
Obama's Iraqi Fairy Tale
posted 03/31/2014, 12:15 AM ( Sheldon Richman)
[Category: Commentary]
I promised myself that I would no longer comment on what Barack Obama has to say, because it's just not worth the time and effort. Obama's public remarks are comprehensible only if you keep one thing in mind: he, like other politicians, thinks most people are morons.
I am so appalled by what Obama said in Europe the other day, however, that I must break my promise. In his s... (more) |
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Thursday March 27th, 2014
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A Misguided Attack on The Future of Freedom Foundation
posted 03/27/2014, 5:05 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
In an article at PJMedia.com, writer Keith Farrell suggests that libertarians should support foreign interventionism and specifically takes The Future of Freedom Foundation and LewRockwell.com to task for opposing foreign interventionism. Acknowledging that some U.S. interventions have proven to be absolute disasters, Farrell feels that libertarians should nonetheless be supporting U.S. foreign inter... (more) |
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Wednesday March 26th, 2014
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Putin, Obama Agree: Everyone Into the Briar Patch!
posted 03/26/2014, 3:05 PM (Thomas L. Knapp)
[Category: Commentary]
 Since reading 1984 as an adolescent, I’ve remained perpetually amazed at George Orwell’s prescience. The Edward Snowden/Glenn Greenwald surveillance state strip-tease has recently focused attention on one aspect of that predictive acumen, but “we have always been at war with Eastasia” is returning to the fore due to the … “situation” … with Ukraine, Crimea and Russia.
The most recent development on that front as I write this column — quite possibly to be superseded by other... (more) |
The Iranian Threat That Never Was
posted 03/26/2014, 3:05 PM (Sheldon Richman)
[Category: Commentary]
If you take politicians and the mainstream media seriously, you believe that Iran wants a nuclear weapon and has relentlessly engaged in covert efforts to build one. Even if you are aware that Iran signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, you may believe that those who run the Islamic Republic have cleverly found ways to construct a nuclear-weapons industry almost undetected. Therefore, you may conclude, Democratic... (more) I love how the media/government cycle from one "imminent" threat to another and the idiot public goes along with it none the wiser. - Chris |
Treating People Like Garbage
posted 03/21/2014, 2:17 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
As English colonists living in America understood, living under an empire is not a pleasant experience. Empire officials are inevitably arrogant, pretentious, pompous, haughty, big-headed, insufferable type of people. They believe that others should bow down them, pay them homage, and behave subserviently to them.
American colonists, of course, haven't been the only ones who have had to suffer under the dominion of imperialist officials. Generations of people in Africa, the Middle... (more) |
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Thursday March 20th, 2014
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Kennedy's "Weakness" During The Cuban Missile Crisis Saved Our Lives
posted 03/20/2014, 12:39 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
The Obama-Putin faceoff on Ukraine inevitably brings to mind the Kennedy-Khrushchev faceoff during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The confrontation between Kennedy and Khrushchev, of course, was much more dangerous given that it brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of all-out nuclear war. But the two confrontations are similar with respect to the pressure brought on the president to be "tough."
Like Obama, Kennedy was accused of being a weak, vacillating presiden... (more) The neocons want to start a thermonuclear war because Putin is making Obama "look weak." |
The Blind Eye Of The Law
posted 03/20/2014, 12:39 PM (C4SS.org)
[Category: Commentary]
Though it is responsible for lies, for deceit, for the distribution of misinformation, for inequality, for discrimination and many other things, the one area that I believe is most unethical about the state, is it's hypocrisy. Though they repeatedly claim that it is not so, there is quite obviously one rule for the state, and those working for it, and another for everyone else.
A common response to anyone advocating a form of direct democracy, participatory democracy, or anarchy, ... (more) |
Pay Taxes or Go Directly to Jail
posted 03/20/2014, 12:39 PM (C4SS.org)
[Category: Commentary]
It's been more than a month since Toine Manders, tax consultant and former leader of the Dutch Libertarian Party, was arrested and jailed for protecting his clients from theft. Less than a week away from his son's first birthday Toine is still held prisoner and his custody has been extended for an additional 90 days. It seems impossible that someone would be arrested for avoiding theft. However, arrest is the natural consequence when you are up against government thieves who disguise their the... (more) |
Fraud or Freedom?
posted 03/20/2014, 12:38 PM (Logan Albright)
[Category: Commentary]
Most libertarians recognize fraud as a form of theft, and therefore a form of coercion that violates the non-aggression principle and should be subject to legal reprisal. In general, I agree. But what constitutes fraud?
The case of Kevin Trudeau has got me thinking. The famous pitchman has been convicted of fraud and sentenced to ten years in federal pr... (more) |
Free Kevin Trudeau!
posted 03/20/2014, 12:37 PM (John Seiler)
[Category: Commentary]
I might get thrown in the Gulag Americana for writing this, but Kevin Trudeau helped me in at least two medical areas. I’m going to describe how.
But first, although I’ll discuss some minor problems I had with Kevin below, there’s no reason for a vicious judge to throw him in prison – just for publishing a book!... (more) |
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Wednesday March 19th, 2014
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How the Drug War Failed Philip Seymour Hoffman
posted 03/19/2014, 1:56 PM (Mark Thornton)
[Category: Commentary]
Now that sufficient time has passed since the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, it is time to assess if there is anything positive that we can learn from this tragic and horrific event. Some questions may never be answered, but there are some questions with answers that provide us with insights for improvement and possibly some resolve to make those improvements.
The question that remains is: why did this happen? How could someone with so much talent and a bright future end up dead... (more) |
Washington Makes Moscow Look Reasonable
posted 03/18/2014, 10:18 AM (Will Grigg)
[Category: Commentary]
In 1999, the US government, with the aid of the NATO alliance, bombed Serbia for 78 days, killing thousands of people and inflicting billions of dollars’ worth of damage to the country’s infrastructure. Serbia never attacked or threatened the United States.
The purpose of the campaign was to force Serbia to surrender the province of Kosovo into the hands of ethnic Albanian separatists. In other words, Washin... (more) |
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Thursday March 13th, 2014
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Obama Regime's Hypocrisy Sets New World Record
posted 03/13/2014, 7:51 AM (Paul Craig Roberts)
[Category: Commentary]
From the moment that Washington launched its orchestrated coup in Kiev, Washington has been accusing Russia of "intervening in Ukraine." This propaganda ploy succeeded. The Western presstitute media reported (nonexistent) Russian intervention to the exclusion of coverage of Washington's obvious intervention.
Having falsely accused Russia of invading Crimea, the Obama regime now demands that Russia interfere in Crimea and prevent the referendum set for next Sunday. Unless Russi... (more) |
Making Men Rapists
posted 03/13/2014, 7:50 AM (Wendy McElroy)
[Category: Commentary]
It is called "affirmative consent." It is a new front in the growing regulatory oversight of the most intimate aspect of personal life: making love or having sex. If the White House Council on Women and Girls gets its way, then the doctrine of affirmative consent will regulate sex on a campus near you. It may already be happening.... (more) |
Cancer, McDonalds and Justin Bieber - Stefan Molyneux and Jeffrey Tucker
posted 03/13/2014, 7:51 AM (YouTube)
[Category: Commentary]
Stefan Molyneux and Jeffrey Tucker talk overcoming Cancer, loving McDonalds, eating cheesecake, Justin Bieber hatred, intellectual property and frozen creativity at the Texas Bitcoin Conference.
Jeffrey Tucker is Chief Liberty Office of Liberty.me, a social network and online publishing platform for the liberty minded. He is also distinguished fellow Foundation for Economic Educa... (more) |
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Wednesday March 12th, 2014
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Wars on Everything
posted 03/11/2014, 4:11 AM (Anthony Gregory)
[Category: Commentary]
This year marks half a century since Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty. The rhetoric of war harkened back to Franklin Roosevelt's declaration of war against the Great Depression, in which he demanded all the executive power the president would have against a foreign foe. Johnson's Great Society inaugurated many billions of dollars worth of social infrastructure. Neighborhoods were torn down and rebuilt. People were forced out of their homes by eminent domain. Trillions of dollars have bee... (more) |
Stefan Molyneux Interviewed on The Alex Jones Show
posted 03/06/2014, 11:15 PM (YouTube)
[Category: Commentary]
[Interview starts at 48:00]
On today's show, Alex welcomes the founder and host of Freedomain Radio, Stefan Molyneux, to discuss the future of human freedom, the global awakening to tyranny thanks in large part to independent and alternative media sources, and what the future holds in store for true libertarians. |
Home of the Slave, Land of the Fee
posted 03/06/2014, 11:15 PM (Strike The Root)
[Category: Commentary]
My Fourth Edition of Black’s Law dictionary defines “slave” thusly: “a person who is wholly subject to the will of another.” The phrase “will of another” sounded familiar. I checked the same dictionary for “statute,” and found it defined as the “written will of the legislature.” You might come to suspect that a person subject to the legislators’ will—i.e. the “law”--is a slave of the legislators. Ah, no! That couldn’t be, in the Land of the Free!... (more) |
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Wednesday March 5th, 2014
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Propaganda Rules The News
posted 03/05/2014, 3:06 PM (Paul Craig Roberts)
[Category: Commentary]
Gerald Celente calls the Western media "presstitutes," an ingenuous term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites.
Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who deno... (more) |
Private vs. Government Data Collection
posted 03/05/2014, 12:08 AM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
When referring to the massive, super-secret NSA surveillance scheme over the American people (and the people of the world), commentators oftentimes conflate data collection by the government with data collection by private entities, especially those on the Internet. The notion is that it's all sort of the same thing and that since people are willing to let Google, Yahoo, Amazon, retailers, and physicians know so much about them, they really shouldn't have any reservations about letting the gover... (more) |
Where's their nerve? Today's comics mock poop, not the powerful
posted 03/03/2014, 12:46 AM (New York Post)
[Category: Commentary]
As Chevy Chase might have put it on “Saturday Night Live,” Harold Ramis is still dead. And with him has gone the finest era of comedy: The ’70s kind.... (more) Superb article. The absolute worst comedy movie in modern times has to be "Grandma's Boy," a film in which every joke revolves around laughing at the socially-awkward and disenfranchised. It's the exact opposite of a movie like "Revenge of the Nerds." - Chris |
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Thursday February 27th, 2014
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Is the Drug-War Worth This?
posted 02/27/2014, 1:52 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
For the past several days, the mainstream media has been agog over the arrest of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, much as they've gone agog over every other big drug bust for the past 50 years or so. The hoopla surrounding these much-ballyhooed drug busts is to ensure that the citizenry, who have become increasingly disenchanted with the drug war, don't lose faith and that they continue to support the drug war for another 50 years.
Yesterday, in a surprising turn... (more) |
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Wednesday February 26th, 2014
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Tom DiLorenzo: "Jon Stewart is Very, Very Afraid"
posted 02/26/2014, 1:00 PM (Thomas DiLorenzo)
[Category: Commentary]
Of us, apparently. Several emailers have written to inform me that Stewart did a hit/smear job on Judge Napolitano on “The Daily Show” last night. The “hit” was apparently about how the Judge wrote in one of his publications (or said on his former television show) that the U.S. probably could have ended slavery the same way that New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and all the other Northern states did, as well as the British empire, Spanish... (more) |
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Tuesday February 25th, 2014
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Yawn. Another Big Drug Bust
posted 02/25/2014, 12:38 PM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
U.S. officials and the mainstream press are going gaga over the latest drug kingpin to go down. This one's name is Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo, described by the New York Times in a front-page story today as "the world's most wanted man -- the chief executive of what experts describe as the world's most sophisticated narcotics enterprise, the Sinaloa cartel... (more) |
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Friday February 21st, 2014
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Support Your Local Slave Patrol
posted 02/21/2014, 12:03 PM (William Norman Grigg)
[Category: Commentary]
 Phyllis Bear, a convenience store clerk from Arizona, called the police after a customer threatened her. The disgruntled patron, seeking to purchase a money order, handed Bear several bills that were rejected by the store’s automated safe. Suspecting that the cash was counterfeit, Bear told him to come back later to speak with a manager.
The man had left by the time the cops arrived, and Bea... (more) |
Obama, Let Them Eat Food Stamps
posted 02/21/2014, 12:03 PM (The Dollar Vigilante)
[Category: Commentary]
 Early immigrants fled Europe to America because the New World offered a glistening promise: the classless society. It was not a society without rich and poor because freedom always produces an inequality of results. It was a society in which people were equal under fair laws and they could move fluidly from one class to another. The North American dream said people could rise by merit and hard work into economic independence and become the rulers of their own lives.
My ancestors a... (more) |
To Collectivists, Lenin And Mussolini Defined "Liberty"
posted 02/21/2014, 12:03 PM ( Will Grigg)
[Category: Commentary]
A character played by John Wayne once dismissed an irritating fellow as someone who was merely spitting out words in order to watch them splatter. In similar fashion, the leftist publication Salon continues to emit anti-libertarian screeds in the hope of attracting internet traffic. It isn’t interested in examining ideas.
Salon’s most recent effort focuses on a proposed measure in Kansas that would recognize the right of business owners not to accept patronage from homosexual ... (more) |
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Wednesday February 19th, 2014
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Sunday February 16th, 2014
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Don't Get Out the Vote
posted 02/16/2014, 3:17 PM (Sheldon Richman)
[Category: Commentary]
A seminar student once became upset with me for suggesting that instead of running get-out-the-vote campaigns, the government should keep the dates of elections and the locations of polling places secret so that only people with enough initiative and interest to ferret out the information could vote.
It was not a serious suggestion, but the college-aged young woman didn't catch that, and she thought my idea was horrible. My point, of course, was that making it easy and even social... (more) |
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Friday February 14th, 2014
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Thursday February 13th, 2014
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The U.S. Government Makes a Mockery of the Principal-Agent Relationship
posted 02/13/2014, 6:18 AM (Robert Higgs)
[Category: Commentary]
The philosophical and legal foundation of the U.S. government (and some other governments) is that government officials are the agents of the citizens—in the familiar phrase, those who govern have the “consent of the governed.” An agent, of course, is someone I authorize to act on my behalf. For a host of reasons, this doctrine has always been more or less absurd, but its absurdity has been placed in stark relief recently by the government’s mass spying, which violates the Constitution, various ... (more) |
The State is a Parasite on Society
posted 02/13/2014, 6:18 AM (Paul Joseph Watson)
[Category: Commentary]
The state forbids murder, yet organizes murder on a colossal scale.
The state punishes theft, yet engages in the rampant looting of society's productivity through taxation at the barrel of a gun.
The state is not necessary for the survival of society, the state is a parasite on society.
The state is the ultimate anti-social, anti-society entity ever ... (more) Sounds like Paul Joseph Watson has made the leap to Ancap! There is simply no denying the logical consistency! |
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Wednesday February 12th, 2014
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The Path To Dictatorship Is Paved With Obama Intentions
posted 02/12/2014, 7:15 AM (The Dollar Vigilante)
[Category: Commentary]
 What do you call a President who can choose which laws to enforce and how, a leader who can create new laws with the stroke of a pen? A dictator. Some would say a king.
Obama has denied both claims. In 2013, he told CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin, “I am not a dictator, I’m the president.” By this he meant he could not bypass Congress to unilaterally impose his will. In a 2013 interview with the Hispanic network Univision, Obama explained his immigration policy ... (more) |
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Tuesday February 11th, 2014
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Why Socialized Law – like Socialized Anything – Is a Bad Idea
posted 02/11/2014, 6:06 AM (Logan Albright)
[Category: Commentary]
In order for a legal system to be just, it must treat everyone equally and fairly, giving special treatment neither to the rich nor the powerful, and protecting the rights of all individuals wherever they are being violated. Justice, as they say, should be blind. It's a noble goal, but one that proves difficult in practice. We have all experienced frustration at the Justin Biebers and Paris Hiltons of the world receiving slaps on the wrist while the young, impoverished and disadvantaged members ... (more) |
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Wednesday February 5th, 2014
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Who Is Really Crazy
posted 02/05/2014, 1:46 AM (James E. Miller)
[Category: Commentary]
 On the surface, Cass Sunstein seems like a put-together guy. A former Obama administration official, he currently holds a prestigious teaching position at Harvard Law School. Throughout his career, he has been awarded a litany of accolades from academic institutions of high regard. University of Chicago, Columbia, Harvard – Sunstein has seen the inside of all these ivory towers.
But, methinks, this seemingly calm lifestyle is all a ruse. Sunstein fancies himself an intellectual an... (more) |
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Tuesday February 4th, 2014
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Could Different Drug Policies Have Saved Philip Seymour Hoffman?
posted 02/04/2014, 12:21 AM (StoptheDrugWar.org)
[Category: Commentary]
The tragic death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman yesterday has prompted expressions of grief and of praise for his talent. It also, naturally, has prompted discussions of addiction, the impact of pain pill prescriptions on the addicted, even of pain pill restrictions causing more people to turn to heroin.
While the latter raises the question about whether different drug policies could make things safer or less damaging or risky for heroin addicts, I haven't heard that question dir... (more) |
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Wednesday January 29th, 2014
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Friday January 24th, 2014
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The Century of the Self: The Untold History of Controlling the Masses Through the Manipulation of Unconscious Desires
Operation Gladio: The Hidden History of U.S. Sponsored False Flag Terrorism in Europe
The New American Century: The Untold History of The Project for the New American Century
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Caught On Tape: Officer Sucker Punches Inmate In Face, Files Report Claiming 'Self Defense'
Insult Person On Twitter, Go To Jail
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Cop Karate Chops NY Judge In The Throat
When the Right to Resist Becomes the "Duty to Submit"
The Missing Lesson From Norway: Never Trust a Man in Uniform