In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration crafted a legal theory and detention policy to handle accused terrorists. Nowhere was the policy more conspicuously problematic than at Guantánamo, where a total of 779 detainees were held and where today 166 remain after over ten years. The Bush administration referred to these people as the most dangerous terrorists, as “the worst of the worst,” but that was simply a lie. Of the total captured, only a little over half were even det... (more)
We crossed another milestone in industrial history last week. Over the weekend of May 4-5, 2013, the world’s first handgun was printed on a 3-D printer. It was fired and it worked. The implications are dazzling for people all over the world. The printers will become cheaper over time. The files for printing can be distributed all over the world through the Internet.
And no government in the world is in a position to stop it.
That’s not to say that governments won’t ... (more)
Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.
These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martia... (more)
Slate reports in an article titled "Not That High: Today's marijuana is too strong, and that's bad for new business," that the potency of marijuana is now "too high." Writer Emma Marris's brother is a professional chemist who tests the composition and potency for growers and medical marijuana dispensaries. Based on the information she obtained from her... (more)
One thing which seems evident to me is the advantage of renting instead of buying property. While 50 years ago buying a home would have perhaps been a great thing to do in America, these days the ability to cut and run to flee from fascism seems to be more important than anything. - Chris
Unless the search passes certain legal criteria, it is illegal.
The search in Boston set a precedent, which means that such searches can be generalized to other places in America and to other situations, unless whoever authorized the Boston search is reprimanded and sanctioned for having ordered it. That seems to be Governor Deval Patrick, at a minimum.
“Of all the tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”—C.S. Lewis
Caught up in the televised drama of a military-style manhunt for the suspects in the Boston Marathon explosion, most Americans fail to realize that the world around them has been suddenly and jarringly shifted off its axis, that axis being the U.S. Constitution.
For those like myself who have studied emerging police states, the sight of a city pl... (more)
As an ambulance took the seriously wounded Dzhokar Tsarnaev to a hospital, people in Watertown, Massachusetts, realized that the police hunt was over and they cheered. And cheered. Some in the crowd began to chant, "USA! USA! USA!" as though an American team had won an Olympic competition.
To the relieved residents who finally could go back to something normal after effectively living a day under martial law, Gov. Deval Patrick issuing a "shelter-in-place" order, the... (more)
The horrific bombings at the Boston Marathon have left us all stunned. We still don't know the perpetrators' motive, but there are some things we do know.
The bombers chose the most closely monitored location in all of Boston. They could have chosen a different site, knowing that all eyes were on the marathon route. But no. They chose the finish line of the oldest marathon in America.
Let that sink in. Since 9/11, law-abiding Americans have been subjected to intrusi... (more)
On Friday, while he hunt for Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was still going on (and after his bother, the other main suspect, had already been killed), Senator Lindsey Graham took to Twitter to argue that the US government, if it captures him while he's still alive, shouldn't read Dzokhar his Miranda rights. As you hopefully already know, the Miranda rights are the famous "y... (more)
Libertarian anarchists are the Rodney Dangerfields of the ideological universe. Born and reared in a world pervaded by the state and statism, we must fight our way through a dense jungle of clinging, collectivist vines, obscured by murky, mendacious propaganda, and populated by brainwashed lizards, political opportunists, and a multitude of wormy moochers. If we are hardy and continue to hack our way toward the light of truth, we ultimately grasp an understanding of the state in all its violent,... (more)
The Supreme Court — a politically appointed gang of black-robed lawyers — is soon going to decide on one of the most contentious issues in medical science: Can human genes be patented, and to what technologies can those patents be extended to cover?
The particular issue concerns one company, Myriad Genetics, and its claim to own the source code of two genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, which, when mutated, are related to breast and ovarian cancer. If anyone else tries to test for this ... (more)
While watching coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, I couldn’t help but notice multiple uses and variations of the word “lockdown” (e.g. “Boston is locked down”). Nor could I help thinking that I’ve been hearing that word used more and more frequently over the last few years, and finding its connotations are troubling.
Internet etymological sources inform me that the word “lockdown” emerged in the 1940s to describe mechanical processes such as shutting down ... (more)
The video above shows the Boston Marathon bombing and it's immediate aftermath. One thing running through my mind watching the aftermath is the fact the US in it's routine so-called 'double-tap' drone strikes would have staged a second bombing on the rescue teams and survivors pouring into the scene to help the victims. Something to keep in mind while watching Ob... (more)
Did you know that the greatest period of economic growth in American history was during a time when there was absolutely no federal income tax? Between the end of the Civil War and 1913, there was an explosion of economic activity in the United States unlike anything ever seen before or since. Unfortunately, a federal income tax was instituted in 1913, and this year it turned 100 years old. But there was no fanfare, was there? There was no celebration because the federal income tax is univer... (more)
Tax Day, April 15, is traditionally the time of year when liberals trot out that old Oliver Wendell Holmes chestnut: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”
But what kind of “civilization” are we paying for? At the federal level, if you include not only the nominal “Defense” [sic] budget, but Veterans’ Affairs, the military aspects of NASA and the Department of Energy, interest on the national debt from past wars, etc., military spending is nearly half the total budg... (more)
As I was explaining the need for copyright monopoly reform in Dublin this week, an elderly gentleman red-faced with rage exclaimed in the Q&A session that the copyright monopoly was absolutely crucial for freedom of expression. It surprises me that some monopolists still have things this backwards: the monopoly was always a gag on freedoms of speech and expression.
When Queen Mary I created the copyright monopoly on May 4, 1557, it was a purebred censorship mechanism: in exch... (more)
The least of the problems with the 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 the 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... (more)
As a rule, libertarians incline toward wishful thinking. They constantly pluck little events, statements, and movies from the flow of life and cry out, "Eureka! Libertarianism is on the march!" With some of my friends, this tendency is so marked that I have become amused by its recurrent expression—well, there he goes again!
Some of this tendency springs, I believe, from their immersion in abstract thought and writing. Many of them have read hundreds of books and articles on liber... (more)
A shop owner in the slave-city of Chicago was forced to use a stick to fight off an armed robber with a loaded pistol and his criminal partner. It's extremely difficult to legally get guns in the slave-city of Chicago due to their restrictive gun laws, so the law-abiding are disarmed slaves and the criminals, both public and private, run the town.
Via WGNTV:
A Logan Square shop owner and his family members fought for their lives last night during an arm
Emblazoned across the lucre-basted exterior of the Internal Revenue Service Building in Washington, D.C., is one of the most intellectually polluted quotes any free mind is ever likely to encounter:
“Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.”
Its effortlessly officious author, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., could scarcely have been more wrong in his (albeit paraphrased) assertion. Unless, that is, the mustachioed... (more)
I suspect that most readers of The Beacon tend to favor personal freedoms to a sufficient degree that they will immediately agree with the title of this post. If we want to live in a free country, freedom has to mean that we are free to make choices that others, including others in positions of authority, believe are bad choices. We are not free if we are only allowed to choose options government believes are good for us.
The tremendous harm that the war on drugs has around the wo... (more)
In between drug prohibition and drug freedom are two concepts that are often confused.
Drug prohibition is the criminalization of the production, distribution, and possession of drugs as currently exists in the United States on the federal level and in most of the 50 states. Drug freedom is the complete absence of federal and state laws and regulations concerning drugs because what a man wants to grow, sell, or smoke is his natural right.
...after fourteen people were stabbed today at a Texas Community College. All knives should be registered with the government; everyone should undergo a background check before being allowed to purchase dinnerware; all knives now on the market should be dulled and their sharp edges made square; all boy scouts known to possess pen knif... (more)
