Posted in libertarianism, tagged copyright, freedom, freedom of speech, intellectual property, laws, liberty, neil nataniel, paradox, patent, property, property rights, volokh on May 15, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Intellectual property laws, such as those relating to copyright or patents, are a source of considerable disagreement among libertarians. The reason is not hard to see. In the words of Rodrick Long,
When libertarians of the first sort come across a purported intellectual property right, they see one more instance of an individual’s rightful claim to [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged absurd, cops, crime, death, drug legalization, drug war, drugs, informant, murder, police, prison, rachel hoffman, war on drugs on May 13, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Rachel Hoffman was a college student and a bit of a hippie. She tried drugs and got caught. Police threatened her with prison time unless she agreed to become an informant and set up a meeting with the supplier to buy $10000 worth of drugs and weaponry, a purchase drastically out of character for a [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, news and links, tagged city, communities, community, freedom, paulville, politics, ron paul, society, town on May 10, 2008 | No Comments »
The goal of Paulville.org it to establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and/ or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty.
Link.
I am curious — will a Paulville resident have the freedom, for instance, to question the ideals of freedom and liberty? What if a resident has a change of heart after [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, sci, tech and gizmos, tagged addict, addiction, craving, drug war, drugs, food, government, health, junk food, neuroscience, obesity, regulation, war on drugs on May 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
In that the addictions produced by both are similar.
I can see the health police salivating at the prospect of using this as a reason to regulate or ban junk food (though to me, it looks like yet another argument for drug legalization).
However, as the author of the linked article says:
Because if we really do crave junk food the way [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged consent, dc madam, death, freedom, laws, prison, prostitution, sex, suicide, suicide note on May 8, 2008 | No Comments »
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called D.C. Madam, killed herself last week. She was due to be sentenced soon for offences related to an elite prostitution ring she ran from 1993 to 2006. In her suicide note addressed to her mother, she wrote:
I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what both you and I have come [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged abortion, collectivism, federalism, freedom, laws, liberty, majority, south dakota, states, tyranny on May 5, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Damon Root has an excellent article at Reason where he discusses liberty and federalism in the context of a draconian South Dakota law that, if the voters decide so, would ban virtually all kinds of abortions.
Look at it like this. The United States Constitution guarantees a number of specific individual rights, including free speech and the [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged behavior, consensual, consent, crime, crimes, fraud, impersonation, law, laws, massachisetts, rape, sex, sexual consent, sexual fraud, victimless crimes, volokh on May 5, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s the classic pitfall. The law tries to prevent a reprehensible act of fraud (in this case, obtaining sex from one’s brother near-sleeping girlfriend by impersonating the brother). However it does so by passing a law whose language is much broader than it should. The result is yet another encroachment by the law into an area it [...]
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A couple of months ago, I blogged about the Keith Sampson case. The Volokh Conspiracy has an update about the matter:
The matter seems to have been finally resolved, and resolved right (though the complaint should have been thrown out at the very beginning, rather than leading to a finding of racial harassment). Here’s the letter [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged ayn rand, beliefs, bryan caplan, freedom, gus van horn, ideology, libertarians, liberty, objectivism, objectivists, philosophy, politics on May 1, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Libertarianism and objectivism have always shared a somewhat uneasy relationship. Most libertarians, while acknowledging the importance and influence of Ayn Rand’s ideas, nonetheless feel a certain degree of discomfort with the more simplistic or dogmatic aspects of her message. In the words of Nick Gillespie, former editor of Reason Magazine, Rand is “one of the most important figures in the libertarian movement” and she ”remains [...]
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Is shown most starkly by the graph below.
(Source: NYCLU)
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Posted in education, libertarianism, tagged absurd, anti-discrimination, civil rights, college, course, dartmouth, discrimination, education, freedom of speech, funny, harassment, laws, lawsuit, priya venkatesan, professor, studies, title vii on April 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
This case is so absurd that it is difficult to take it seriously. Priya Venkatesan, who taught writing this year at Dartmouth College, is threatening to sue former students under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for criticizing her in course feedbacks. This report has the details along with snippets of Ms Venkatesan’s own [...]
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This is one of the most interesting ideas I have seen in a while.
Needless to say, I am excited. Yet a part of me tells me that it will result in something like what one commenter predicts:
It sounds like a great idea, seeing as anyone with a boat could hook up to whichever jurisdiction they [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged amsterdam, ban, drug, drug laws, drugs, dutch, laws, liberty, magic mushrooms, mushroom, mushrooms, netherlands, personal responsibility on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
This is very depressing news.
The Dutch cabinet has proposed a ban on the sale of all hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms because they could induce life-threatening behaviour.
A bill will now pass to the Dutch parliament, where a majority of lawmakers are expected to back a ban after a teenage French girl who had eaten mushrooms died jumping [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, personal, tagged beliefs, change, coercion, coming of age, faith, force, freedom of speech, government, growing up, ideology, liberty, life, maturity, personal, rationality, reason, religion, science, scientific spirit on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Apropos of nothing…I remembered myself from ten years back.
When I hated all mongerers of superstition; when I simply could not fathom why the government did not declare the practice of astrology, quackery, faith-healing and all related unscientific mumbo-jumbo illegal; when I would have liked all religious extremists and preachers of hate put behind bars; when the ultimate [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, politics, tagged decriminalization, drug, drug laws, free state project, laws, liberty, live free or die, marijuana, new hampshire, pot on April 27, 2008 | No Comments »
The Senate judiciary commitee of New Hampshire has voted against a bill that would decriminalize possession of up to one-quarter of an ounce of the drug. That represents the end of the marijuana decriminalization efforts in that state, for now. It also demonstrates that public opinion (about 60% of NH residents support decriminalization) is not [...]
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