The Gulag Takes Over the GridironIn recent decades, professional sports franchises have increasingly relied on the sale of corporate “naming rights” – in addition to various kinds of government subsidies -- to pay for sports stadiums. This trend has caught on in college football, as well. As a result, a growing number of stadiums are named after companies that produce goods or offer services. Florida Atlantic University has sold naming rights to a company that warehouses convicts – and lobbies government to produce more of ... (more)
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What's Immoral for the Private Goose Is Moral for the Government Gander?Why do so many people consider certain actions to be immoral if taken by private persons, but not immoral—perhaps even morally praiseworthy—if taken by government officials?
One possibility is that people have become accustomed to government officials' taking certain actions (e.g., getting income by insisting that people either hand over their money or suffer punishment) over long periods, sometimes from time immemorial, and they no longer evaluate the morality of these actions at... (more)
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Meteors and EntrepreneursAmerican political culture is full of absurd myths. Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves because of a divine moral imperative and Harry Truman dropping the atomic bomb in the name of saving lives both come immediately to mind. In the realm of economics, practically everything espoused by the political class and its fawning press should be taken as a falsehood. This includes one of the greatest myths espoused in the past three decades: Ronald Reagan's toppling of Soviet Russia through a massive dom... (more)
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Why Isn't the Murder of an American Boy an Impeachable Offense?Article 2, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
In 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for matters arising out of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.
If perjury and obstruction of justice constitute high crime... (more)
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Will Obama Confiscate Guns and Gold?Barack Obama often compares himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt. When he does, gold owners reach for a gun, of which they usually have several. Gold and guns are becoming politically entangled, and a connecting word is often “confiscation.”
The prospect of gun confiscation is fueling discussion of FDR's 1933 nationalization of gold ownership, which resembled Hugo Chavez's nationalization of Venezuelan gold mines in 2011. FDR did so by executive... (more)
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Political Problems Have Only One Real SolutionEldridge Cleaver famously declared, “You’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.” Although I did not agree with this sentiment in its original context, it has more definite applicability in regard to what one might think of as "solving political problems.”
Notice, first, that politics consists in the struggle to control the power that allows one party (whether an individual or a gr... (more)
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Executioner in Chief: How a Nobel Peace Prize Winner Became the Head of a Worldwide Assassination Program“Much of our foreign policy now depends on the hope of benevolent dictators and philosopher kings. The law can’t help. The law is what the kings say it is.”
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing for The Atlantic
“If George Bush had done this, it would have been stopped.”
- Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman and current MSNBC pundit
When Barack Obama ascended to the presidency in 2008, there was a sense, at least... (more)
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Christopher Dorner and the Chaos Inherent to GovernmentLAPD officer Christopher Dorner's killings and the manhunt that they sparked left Angelenos in a state of terror. Innocent people were, wounded, or psychologically traumatized as a result of Dorner’s actions and those of his former fellow officers. These tragedies were not random flukes. They were a direct result of political government, its monopoly on “legitimate” violence, and the psychology of entitlement bred by its authority.
Maggie Carranza, 47, and her 71-year-old mother E... (more)
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Can the Internet Save Us?Many of my freedom-loving friends have great confidence that communication via the Internet and the World Wide Web will prove to be a game-changer in the fight against the disinformation and propaganda disseminated by the state and its running dogs, and that the greater ease of spreading the truth will shift the balance in favor of those who seek to protect and extend liberty. I have always had my doubts.
For one thing, the state continues to have a preponderance of physical power... (more)
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The Omnipotent Power to Assassinate Any of UsSuppose an American citizen who is openly critical of governmental policy decides to take a trip overseas, say to Yemen. Suppose that President Obama orders the military and the CIA to assassinate him while he is traveling within Yemen. Suppose the order is carried out and that that American is, in fact, assassinated.
Most Americans would consider such an assassination to be a grave wrong. They might not like the criticism that the American was leveling against the federal governm... (more)
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Obama's Expanding Kill ListProsecutors always expand laws far beyond their intent. Attorneys in civil cases do the same. For example, the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was passed in order to make it easier for the government to convict members of the Mafia. However, the law, despite its intent, was quickly expanded by prosecutors and attorneys and used in cases against pro-life activists, Catholic bishops, corporations accused of hiring illegal immigrants, and in divorce cases. “Junk bond... (more)
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One Hundred Years of IntrusionsImagine a time when the government knew nothing about the money in your bank. It cared nothing about how much you made, where you made it, and what you did with it. You could take your earnings in gold, silver, paper, or anything else, and never filed a sheet with the government.
How you earned a living was none of the business of the political class. For that matter, your bank account could be under a false name and absolutely no one cared.
This was the world of a ... (more)
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Officer Safety Uber Alles: Christopher Dorner and the 'Rickoverian Paradox' The intrepid Captain Phillip Tingirides of the Los Angeles Police Department has come down with a sudden case of "Blue Flu." This is an oddly selective malady, one that only afflicts police officers. "Sick-outs" are a common police union tactic in contract disputes with municipal governments. In this case, the epidemic appears to be contained in the Tigirides household, where the bold and vali... (more)
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The Four Signs of a Collapsing State“This used to be a hell of a good country, I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.” said George Hanson in the movie “Easy Rider.”
My old friend Joe Sobran (1946-2010) loved that line and quoted it often.
Sobran, who worked alongside William Buckley at National Review during its heyday, was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. After a lifetime of thinking about politics, he eventually decided that there was only one way out of our troubles: the whole of ... (more)
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Should Americans Emigrate or Defect?Anyone planning to permanently leave the US should give deep thought to whether they are emigrating or defecting.
The two concepts have so much in common that they tend to blur together. They may be best viewed as two extremes of the same axis upon which people can 'grade' themselves. But there is a significant difference between the attitude, motives, and actions of a straightforward emigrant versus a defector. And where you stand on the axis affects the most important aspect of ... (more)
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Absurdity on PatrolThere is nothing humorous or whimsical about people killing - or threatening to kill - other people, no matter who the targeted victims might be. Peace and the sanctity of life are at the very core of the libertarian philosophy. But as the Christopher Dorner drama continues to play out in southern California, the political establishment in general, and the police system in particular, celebrate their absurdity. If someone had murdered three people, and the killer could not be located, a token ... (more)
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The FISA Model for Summary Execution?Diane Feinstein and some liberals have suggested that, if the president’s targeted killing policy is too unilateral, the remedy might be found in something modeled after the FISA court.
Make no mistake: Such a court would be nothing more than a rubber-stamp. At best.
In 1978, after Church Committee hearings exposed massive abuse of FBI search procedures to spy on... (more)
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'Heroes' View Us as Little More Than Collateral Damage Rarely, will Americans witness the kind of full-scale manhunt now going on throughout Southern California and the San Bernardino mountains, as hundreds of heavily armed and armored police and federal agents hunt down Christopher Dorner, a 33-year-old former Los Angeles cop and former Naval officer suspected of three murders.
Homici... (more)
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It Has Happened Here The Bush regime’s response to 9/11 and the Obama regime’s validation of this response have destroyed accountable democratic government in the United States. So much unaccountable power has been concentrated in the executive branch that the US Constitution is no longer an operable document.
Whether a person believes the official story of 9/11 which rests on unproven government assertions or believes the documented evidence provided by a large number of scientists, fir... (more)
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Now We Know: War Is MurderThe response to the leaked Obama administration document explaining its rationalization for targeted drone killings of American citizens has proven louder than I expected. Obama’s kill list was reported very early in his first term. In October 2011 I wrote about his summary execution of Anwar al-Awlaki. A few months ago it was reporte... (more)
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Is America a Police State Yet?If you need to ask the question, then the answer is “yes”. But that is a glib response and I do not feel glib about America's slide through the nine rings of political hell.
A police state is generally defined as a totalitarian government that exerts extreme and pervasive social, political and economic control over peaceful citizens. Ayn Rand called it “the ultimate inversion...the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by per... (more)
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A License to KillAnd so we now know (per CNN, February 5) of a 16-page Department of Justice memo setting forth parameters for when the U.S. government can “legally” murder an American citizen completely outside the requirements of due process.
The elements of “legality” established in the policy paper are nothing if not vague and overbroad. Applying a three-p... (more)
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