Smart People ShareFor young people facing terrible job prospects and a generally bad economic environment going forward, starting a business sounds very appealing. It has advantages over embedding yourself in a big institution, taking your wages in forms of benefits, and hoping (against hope) to climb the ladder.
It’s never been easier to strike out on your own, except for one thing: Commerce is always harder than it appears. Success means overcoming challenges that seem insurmountable and th... (more)
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Trying To Reform Government Is Largely a Waste of TimeWhenever I speak or write about California’s pension and public debt problems, I always hear from well-intentioned, conservative- and libertarian-minded people who want me to consider their solutions. Most of their ideas – caps on this kind of spending or that, changed pension formulas, public votes, etc. – are sensible enough, but they always miss the main point.
That is, they misunderstand the nature of government. They think that government is an ... (more)
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Why is it a "Crime" to Disarm a Uniformed Aggressor?Sheriff Terry Maketa of Colorado’s El Paso County has promised his constituents that he “will actively oppose any effort that infringes upon your second amendment rights.”
“Like every elected official in the state, I took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Colorado,” wrote Maketa in an open letter to El Paso County residents. “This means all rights.”
That promise... (more)
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No, I Have Never Been in the Military It happens every time I write an article about war. It happens every time I write an article about the military. It happens every time I even mention war or the military.
The question may take a variety of forms but it is really always the same: "Have you ever been in combat" "Have you ever been in the military?" "Have you ever served?"
Because I have never been in combat, been in the military, or "served," my answer is, of course, always in the... (more)
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Schools as Black-HolesNever let school interfere with your education. ~ Mark Twain
There is an old joke about how knowledge accumulates in universities: students enter college, knowing everything, and graduate knowing nothing. In this way does knowledge continue to grow within universities. My years of experience in what is referred to as "higher education" inform me that there is more than sophomoric humor in this description.
As I ... (more)
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Harper's War on Pot GrowersLast fall, Health Canada announced the national government will be leaving the marijuana distribution business and privatizing the whole affair. For a conservative administration like Stephan Harper's, this can be seen as a welcome step in taming Leviathan's reach over the country. But as with any program that still resides fully within the grasp of the s... (more)
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I Put My Life On The Line Writing This Article!America’s two biggest groups of scammers have got to be police officers and firefighters, whose union reps routinely tell Americans that their members put their lives on the line every day simply by slipping into their uniforms. They really use that terminology as they lobby for "donning and doffing" rules that give them extra pay for the time they spend slipping into their government-supplied garments.
But the latest data from the federal Bureau of Labor Sta... (more)
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Government Undermines Social CooperationI should know better than to take seriously the insipid words of presidential speechwriters, especially those who composed an inaugural address. Still, I can't let some of the words President Obama read at Monday's inauguration pass without comment.
For example, Obama ... (more)
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It's Not Evil to CopyA crucial feature of the evolution of the social order is the capacity to use what’s good and improve on it, and throw out what’s bad. But people have to be free to do this. The government and lots of industry groups don’t think they should be.
A recent case underscores the point.
FoxTV recently used what’s good, putting Jonathan Coulton’s remix of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” on its show Glee. Is this stealing? Is ... (more)
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Troubling Public Opinion Trends for Gun Rights and Civil LibertiesOn how to respond to mass shootings and violent crime, the public opinion trends frighten me, especially when broken down by political identification. Predictably, Democrats are in favor of gun control by wider margins than Republicans. But still, 92% of Republicans favor universal background checks, ... (more)
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Government Will Lose the War on PiracyIt began as a skirmish. Then it was a battle. It became a war. Now it is a bloody conflict that is global in scope. Both sides have passed the point of no return. There is no question who is winning and going to win totally in the end, despite massive carnage along the way.
The field of battle in this case are the digital networks that swirl around the world in arrangements so thick and wide — seemingly infinite points of light that represent human contact backed by technolo... (more)
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John Mackey's Political CorrectnessWhole Foods CEO John Mackey found himself in hot water lately. After likening the dubiously titled Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, typically known as ObamaCare, to fascism in an interview with NPR, Mackey is facing a wave of protests from his base of organic-eating, conscious shoppers who accuse the libertarian CEO of being a rotten capitalist an... (more)
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John Taylor Gatto on the Inanity of Gun ControlThe following is an excerpt from John Taylor Gatto's book "The Underground History of American Education," it was submitted by a reader in relation to the gun control debate.
What if I proposed that we hand three sticks of dynamite and a detonator to anyone who asked for them. All an applicant would need is money to pay for the explosives. You'd have to be an idiot to agree with my plan -- at least based on the assum ... (more)
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"Gun Control for the Children?" Sorry, No Sale.“This is our first task as a society,” said US president Barack Obama at a January 16th press conference: “Keeping our children safe.”
The event’s purpose was to leverage last month’s school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut into support for a set of new executive orders and legislative proposals relating to what supporters euphemistica... (more)
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Gun Control: Who Gets Control?Supporting gun control laws means giving government more credit than it deserves. Government is an institution run and staffed by people with their own interests and personalities. Are they really any smarter, more competent, or less likely to escalate violence than the average person?
If anything, institutional interests and incentives combine with the difficulty of holding government actors accountable to make them more dangerous. The laws they enforce make them an even bigger t... (more)
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Put Not Your Trust in Federalized Sheriffs "You look depressed."
"I was lamenting. I’ve lost my innocence."
"You lost that some time ago. If you've only just noticed, it can't have been very important to you."
Exchange between Thomas Cromwell – the Machiavellian Lord Chancellor of England – and Richard Rich, an ambitious functionary who had sold his soul in a buyer’s market, from A Man for All Seasons.
"I will not enfo... (more)
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Another Obama Inauguration as Amerika's Fascism Continues To Escalate The Amerikan people have spoken: "We love and adore our Dear Leader. We want more fascism, more government control over our private lives, more theft of the workers and producers, more spying, more war, more drones, less freedom, more destruction and more death." I wonder if Barack Obama invited his half-brother George Obama to the inauguration – remember George Obama? He’s the president’s half-brother who apparently lives in a shanty in Nairobi, the one President... (more)
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LegitimacyWhat is the difference between a government and a criminal gang or protection racket such as the mafia? In a word, it is legitimacy. In practice, this vague notion suggests that people view the government—its institutional composition, its personnel, and its conduct—as morally acceptable or proper, whereas they view the mafia—at least in its conduct—as morally unacceptable or improper.
Many g... (more)
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Why Have Representation At All?In a recently conducted analysis by the Washington Times, it was found that many members of the U.S. House of Representatives "don't understand the founding document [the Constitution] or don't take its precepts seriously." To the conservative newspaper, the discovery was a shocking scandal. Here are men and women who take an oath to support the very te... (more)
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Aaron Swartz, Hero and MartyrMy apologies for the sad tone of this piece, but a hero has fallen and we need to pay him tribute — and make sure his death is not in vain.
Every turning point in the history of civilization has its champions and its opponents. The opponents of the digital age are those who use the power of the state to keep the population in a state of ignorance, even though the technology is at hand to universalize knowledge through digital networks. The main weapon they use is known as &l... (more)
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Liberals Are NOT Gun-Haters Throughout the blog-o-sphere, I’ve been reading about how much liberals, such as those in the Obama administration and the Democrats who run our state government in California, hate guns. The term "gun-haters" can be found in countless articles written by conservatives about advocates for gun control, with one publication listing myriad "gun-hating" organizations.
No doubt, the politicians and groups named in these articles and lists are advocates for gun-c... (more)
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Gun Control: Using Threats To Get What We WantHow many of us in our daily lives threaten others with violence to get them to comply with our wishes? I reckon that the majority of us don’t regularly threaten people. There is a logical reason for this; when we threaten people we burn social bridges. Cooperative arrangements between humans are necessary in order for people to enjoy a high standard of living. If you threaten your hairstylist, the chances are pretty good that they aren’t going to cut your hair... (more)
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