Yawn. Another Big Drug BustU.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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Support Your Local Slave PatrolPhyllis 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)
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Obama, Let Them Eat Food StampsEarly 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)
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To Collectivists, Lenin And Mussolini Defined "Liberty"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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Continuing the Drug War is StupidI find the mind of a statist to be absolutely fascinating. Consider, for example, an article by a man named Steve Booher, a columnist for the St. Joseph News-Press in St. Joseph, Missouri. The title of the article is "It's Not Time to End War on Drugs."
Is that amazing or what? Booher actually wants the drug war to continue. He seems to realize that it has be... (more)
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Don't Get Out the VoteA 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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Facebook Trash Talk is "Terrorism"; Presidential Mass Murder is "Policy""Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don’t get any ideas," riffed Barack Obama during his stand-up routine at the May 2009 White House Correspondents Dinner, directing his words at the Jonas Brothers, who were in attendance. "But boys, don't get any ideas. I have two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming.”
The assembled sycophants responded... (more)
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The U.S. Government Makes a Mockery of the Principal-Agent RelationshipThe 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)
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The State is a Parasite on Society
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-soci... (more) Sounds like Paul Joseph Watson has made the leap to Ancap! There is simply no denying the logical consistency! |
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The Law You Won't Be Told
A concise run down of jury nullification.
Official Discussion on http://www.reddit.com/r/CGPGrey
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The Path To Dictatorship Is Paved With Obama IntentionsWhat 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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Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US CourtsMany commentators following the NSA scandals have been eagerly awaiting the recommendations of the US government task force on the matter, and the proposed reforms to be implemented by President Obama to bring the spy agency under control. If you're interested in this kind of thing, you can watch the president's recent speech and nod your head approvingly when he talks about the "tradition of limited government" in the United States, and t... (more)
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Why Socialized Law – like Socialized Anything – Is a Bad IdeaIn 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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Who Is Really CrazyOn 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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Could Different Drug Policies Have Saved Philip Seymour Hoffman?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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Obama Insults Our Intelligence on Civil LibertiesIn last night’s state of the union, an uncharacteristically boring speech climaxing in a bipartisan tribute to sacrificial militarism, the president had very little to say about civil liberties, one of the main focuses of his campaign in 2008. He uttered less than a paragraph. And with every word, he treated us like we’re all idiots. He spoke so little about human rights in respect to the war on terror, I... (more)
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TGIF: Warfare/Welfare/Corporate State: All of a PieceIf I understand Princeton historian Sean Wilentz correctly, progressives ought not to be grateful to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Glenn Greenwald for exposing government spying because they are not card-carrying progressives. ("Would You Feel Differently About Snowden, Greenwald,... (more)
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Whatever Happened to Peace Officers? Today when we use the term peace officer, it sounds antiquated and outdated. I'm sure most people in the room under 40 have never heard the term actually used by anyone; we might as well be talking about buggy whips or floppy disks. But in the 1800s and really through the 1960s, the term was used widely in America to refer generally to lawmen, whether sheriffs, constables, troopers, or marshals. Today the old moniker of peace officer has been almost eliminated in popular usage, replaced by "pol... (more)
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Anarchy and LawlessnessThe etymology of the word "anarchy" is interesting. In Greek, "an" signifies an antonym, and stands for "without." The second root word "arkhe" means ruler and/or kingdom. Put together, that defines anarchy as "without rulers." For politics, no other word has come to be more dangerous. Anarchy as a concept threatens the very existence of politics as we know it. If there are no rulers, then there is certainly no governing authority by which to commandeer. This is why the term is still largely pai... (more)
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The Surveillance State LivesPresident Obama has some nerve. He opened his speech on NSA spying by likening his surveillance regime to Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty. How insulting! They were helping people resist government tyranny, and the British spied on them to put down the coming rebellion.<... (more)
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Obama's Lies, NSA Spies, and the Sons of Liberty: Will You Choose Dangerous Freedom or Peaceful Slavery?“All governments are run by liars.”—Independent journalist I.F. “Izzy” Stone President Obama has managed, with singular assistance from Congress and the courts, to mangle the Constitution through repeated abuses, attacks and evasions.
This is nothing new, as I’ve documented in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. However, with his recent speech on the National Security Agency—a heady cocktail of lies, obfuscations, contr... (more)
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They Don't Mean WellAmericans have a strange need to believe that their "leaders" mean well. Nowhere is this more true than in foreign policy. Even when the horror of some government operation is revealed (usually after being kept from the American people), solemn pundits and elder statesmen will drone on about unintended consequences and the fog of war, while admonishing against "pointless" recriminations. Typically, the harshest accusation leveled against those responsible for a calamity is incompetence, and even... (more)
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Mussolinism in the 21st CenturyWe know about the transformation of the American police, with their paramilitary equipment, their SWAT team raids, and incentive to terrorize people over drug offenses rather than pursue crimes against person and property. We know about the National Security Agency, which can access every American's e-mails, phone calls, or text messages. And yet too many average Americans have greeted all this with indifference.
This indifference, I suggest, derives from the widespread public acc... (more)
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Edward Snowden vs. the USSASome of Edward Snowden’s detractors criticized the NSA whistleblower for fleeing into exile, rather than facing trial for disclosing the agency’s illegal activities. One persistent theme in such criticism is that Snowden should have worked through established channels, rather than going public.
Several previous NSA whistleblowers had attempted to do so, and were either ignored or threatened with prosecution. There was no institutional recourse in a system that punishes whistle... (more)
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Don't Like My Article? I Will Sue!Does everyone in America have a lawyer on speed dial?
McDonald's is being sued again by a California woman who claims she was scalded by their hot coffee. In 1990, a New Mexico woman was awarded $2.9 million in a hot-coffee lawsuit against McDonald's; the award was later reduced to about $500,000. Meanwhile, a continent away, a New Jersey woman is suing a real estate developer for not disclosing the presence of a 'bad' neighbor when she purchased a house.
In any oth... (more) Especially relevant if you read the entirety of the Salem News article above this one. |
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