A Government Without SpiesYesterday, a federal judge ruled that the NSA's previously super-secret surveillance scheme over the American people violates the U.S. Constitution, which sets forth the powers and restrictions on power that we the people have established for U.S. officials. Calling the NSA's surveillance scheme "almost Orwellian," Judge Richard Leon's ruling is an amazing one, especially given the long history of the federal judiciary's extreme deference to the national-security state, especially when the two m... (more)
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The 2014 Master Auction and Battered Voter SyndromeRepublican or Democrat? It's a trick question and a faux fight in the political war. Like a circus, it offers distraction from the real problem. The problem is not the face behind the office of power; it is the office of power itself which is unjust and destructive of all that is decent within man and society.
On some level, intelligent people understand this and so they chuckle cynically at jokes like “don't vote, it only encourages them.” Yet the same people will lin... (more)
Related: What If We Had To Vote On The Food We Bought At The Grocery Store?
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Crony Capitalism Drives Airport SecurityThere is yet another reason not to fly into or within the US. “Nazi-style detention pods” – that's what opponents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have called the new “exit pods” being tested at the Syracuse (NY) airport. But the pods are not primarily a rape of civil rights. Their import is equally ominous but more subtle. Their main purpose seems to be profit rather than the flex... (more)
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Killing Unnamed Children in AfghanistanWhen I read this Washington Post article about the two-year-old child that U.S. forces just killed in Afghanistan, I wondered what the child's name was. Nowhere was it to be found in the article. Maybe the Post hadn't acquired the name. Or maybe it just doesn't matter. It's just one more deat... (more)
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Copyright Monopoly Disintegration Inevitable As It Only Takes A Single CountryThe emergence of experimental legally autonomous startup zones in Honduras and other places is one of the most exciting developments in a long time, and forebodes the collapse of the copyright industry’s tyranny over culture and knowledge.
I believe in competition. I believe in experimentation to see what works best and what can be predictably repeated – call it the scientific method applied to society, if you like. This has been a problem geopolitically, as the Unite... (more)
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Debunking the Myth of the Hero CopIn a recent article at The Independent Political Report, James Gray perpetuates the fairy-tale of the police as heroes to be looked up to. He writes, “One of the most noble public servant positions in our society is a police officer. These men and women often have difficult jobs, and frequently do not get the credit and appreciation they deserve.” I... (more)
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Don't Be Thankful for TyrannyI will be the first to acknowledge that there is much to be thankful for about life in America, especially when compared to those beyond our borders whose daily lives are marked by war, hunger and disease. Despite our kvetching, grumbling and complaining, most Americans have it pretty good compared to less fortunates the world over.
Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that all of our so-called blessings will amount to little more than gilding on a cage if we don't safeguard... (more)
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Without The State, Who Will Falsely Imprison Teenagers?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, holiday after holiday with his family, and his high school prom. After three years in a cage he was suddenly released. All ch... (more)
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David Friedman on Inequality
The justice system is rigged in favor of the state.
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Pirating Creativity: The MPAA Is Going After Schoolchildren For years now the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been trying its best, unsuccessfully, to enforce its “intellectual property” claims upon those who would dare share and distribute media. They are of course not the only ones trying to get IP enforced; we have seen the same trends in music and gaming. Since it has long become clear that they cannot stop the sharing of media on the internet, the MPAA is going for the gold: Get pirates when they are young. In other wor... (more)
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American Borders Will Be ChangingAn iron curtain is slowly descending around the borders of America. When it falls, some people will be shut in; others will be shut out. It will be up to bureaucrats and agents with guns to decide which one of those people you are.
Changes in border policy are in the wind. On June 27th, 2013, the 1,300-page Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act passed the Senate and proceeded to the House of Representatives. Debate on the Act has focused on the p... (more)
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The Gravest Threat to FreedomSacred Monarchs have been overthrown by military leaders throughout all 5,000 years of statism. Caesarism is ancient. Bonapartism is the modern version of Caesarism. We see it happening every day in the world’s media. The Egyptian Army and secret police just overthrew the first elected, democratic government in Egypt’s history. (I believe for many reasons the CIA is behind this and supplies the vital war materials and money and intelligence to the Egyptian Army, but the U.S. governme... (more)
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Closing Gitmo Isn't Nearly EnoughOnce again we hear calls to close Guantánamo’s prison camp. Every once in a while, Americans see reminders of this detention facility in the news cycle. Months ago, we heard about the hunger strike, yet it was scarcely in the national headlines early in Obama’s presidency, when I first read about it, and today we hear much less about it, although it continues.
The president is taking steps, five years into his administration, toward the promise he had made t... (more)
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Taking Pride in State FailureWhat do "normal" people want from politics?
Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic contends to know. In a recent diatribe, he slams National Review Editor-at-Large Jonah Goldberg for taking sweet delight in the failed rollout of President Obama's signature health care legislation. In doing so, he misses out at basking in one of the best cases of state incompetence since ... (more)
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Ike Warned Us About This GuyThe words of H.L. Mencken rang through my head as I listened to a certain Alabama congressman talk to 40 or 50 shivering supporters the other night: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
The congressman said, “Don’t ever call me moderate” and emphasized that he’s pragmatic. His employer may be brok... (more)
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Ringo: The Ex-Pat DogRingo is moving to Galt’s Gulch Chile with us.
The big guy wandered up our driveway four years ago in the dark, early hours of a fall morning. My study is just off the foyer, and I was hunkered down over my computer when Bear – a dog since deceased – erupted into a string of barking in the front yard. That wasn't unusual. Bear patrolled the perimeter of our farm every night and he challenged every shadow that ... (more)
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None Dare Call It...Here is something that is odd.
For the past six years President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have waged a relentless attack on the health insurance industry. In the most recent iteration, the president assures us he is not responsible for the wave of health insurance policy cancellations. The insurance companies are.
Okay, so where is the other side?
When is the last time you saw an insurance industry executive interviewed on a TV talk show, pr... (more)
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Who's to Blame for Battlefield America? Is It Militarized Police or the Militarized Culture? “It felt like I was in a big video game. It didn’t even faze me, shooting back. It was just natural instinct. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”— Sgt. Sinque Swales, reflecting on a firefight in Iraq It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly is responsible for the growing spate of police shootings, brutality and overreach that have come to dominate the news lately, whether it’s due to militarized police, the growing presence of military veterans in la... (more)
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Janet Yellen's Mission ImpossibleMost market watchers expect that Janet Yellen will grapple with two major tasks once she takes the helm at the Federal Reserve in 2014: deciding on the appropriate timing and intensity of the Fed’s quantitative easing taper strategy, and unwinding the Fed’s enormous $4 trillion balance sheet (without creating huge losses in the value of its portfolio). In reality both assignments are far more difficult than just about anyone understands or admits.
Unlike just about eve... (more)
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Obama's "Noble Lies"President Obama’s repeated assurances that Americans would be able to retain their current health care plans under the ObamaCare program were conscious, deliberate lies. NBC News, tardily performing the kind of journalistic due diligence that should have been done years ago, reports that administration officials were aware that two-thirds – or more – of those currently i... (more)
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America: Rumors of Food Riots, Realities of WarThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spent $80M to fortify federal buildings in New York apparently in preparation for civil disturbances and possible food riots on November 1st. The DHS plans included armed private guards who would protect IRS and other buildings against attack by fellow Americans.
Other officials joined in ringing an alarm bell. Margarette Pur... (more)
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