Posted in politics, tagged liberty, obama, mccain, patriotism, politician, speech, missouri, independence on June 30, 2008 | No Comments »
The full text of the speech, as delivered in the town of Independence, Missouri, earlier today.
Posted in uncategorized musings, tagged law, freedom, liberty, government, laws, power, protest, libertarian, thought, disobedience, rebel, outrage, anger, civil disobedience on June 21, 2008 | No Comments »
If you are a rebel and the law comes in the way of your natural course of action, you would probably feel justified in violating it. But what if those in power decide they are going to stop you from doing something that you hadn’t planned on doing anyway? What do you do if there is [...]
Posted in quote for the week, tagged liberty, quote, individualism, ayn rand, greatness, courage, rand, wynand on June 20, 2008 | No Comments »
“Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness.”
-Ayn Rand
Posted in libertarianism, tagged behavior, freedom, health, healthcare, japan, liberty, morality, nanny-state, obesity, paternalism, public health, reason, responsibility, risk on June 13, 2008 | No Comments »
One of the dangers of publicly funded healthcare is that it increases the likelihood of the government micromanaging your health and other private affairs. Jacob Sullum wrote an excellent article in Reason last year about the totalitarian implications of public health. The Japanese government is the latest to prove him right.
Under a national law that [...]
Posted in libertarianism, tagged annulment, consent, france, freedom of contract, government, individual freedom, islam, laws, liberty, marriage, nanny-state, privacy, virginity on June 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »
France is perhaps the worst place in Western Europe for individual liberty — recall the recent conviction of Brigette Bardot for hate-speech — however, their courts do get things right once in a while. In a marriage annulment case, much in the news lately, the French judge did rule in favour of privacy and freedom. Here’s an excerpt from [...]
Posted in libertarianism, quote for the week, tagged freedom of expression, freedom of speech, liberty, quote, voltaire on June 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
“I disapprove of what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
- Voltaire (as paraphrased by Evelyn Beatrice Hall).
Posted in libertarianism, tagged canada, cartoons, danish, discrimination, ezra levant, fee speech, freedom of speech, hate speech, islam, laws, liberty, offended feelings, rights on June 1, 2008 | No Comments »
OMG, this is so awesome!
But a little bit of background first. Ezra Levant is the publisher of Western Standard, a right-wing Canadian magazine. I quote from Glenn Greenwald’s post on Salon, where I first came across the video that appears next.
In February, 2006, he published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which prompted an Islamic group’s imam to file a complaint against Levant [...]
Posted in libertarianism, people, politics, tagged authoritarian, clinton, government, liberty, mccain, nanny-state, obama, paternalism, patriotism, radley balko, reason on May 28, 2008 | No Comments »
After landing in Columbus, the [Hillary Clinton] campaign entourage headed by motorcade to Zanesville, a town of about twenty-five thousand, sixty miles away, for what was billed as an economic “summit.” When one speaker offered encomiums to Clinton rather than economic prescriptions, she gently reprimanded her, saying, “We’re going to put a moratorium on compliments.” [...]
Posted in libertarianism, tagged advance directive, death, euthanasia, incapacitated, involuntary commitment, involuntary treatment, liberty, living will, mental capacity act, right to die, treatment on May 27, 2008 | No Comments »
I think this is a great idea.
If I hadn’t just escaped that dreadful accident, where would I be now? Would I rather be dead than depend on others to keep me alive?
A new card seeks to address that very question. Available in pubs, banks, libraries, GP surgeries, even some churches, the Advanced Decision to Refuse [...]
Posted in libertarianism, people, politics, tagged article, campaign, election 2008, liberty, n y times, ron paul, supporters on May 26, 2008 | No Comments »
A nice article in the New York Times on Ron Paul and his passionate supporters.
Mr. Paul was supposed to be a memory by now. But in the Oregon primary last week, he won 15 percent of the vote, and the campaign appears to be growing into something beyond a conventional protest campaign. Some supporters have [...]
Posted in libertarianism, tagged freedom of speech, liberty, freedom of expression, legalization, netherlands, dutch, cartoonist, cartoons, islam on May 23, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The Dutch got it once. So they legalized abortion, prostitution, soft drugs and euthanasia and guaranteed absolute free speech. But isn’t there an old proverb about not seeing the value of things you’ve had for a long while? It seems the famously easy-going Dutch are tired of their freedoms. What else to make of the ban on magic mushrooms, and now the arrest [...]
Posted in libertarianism, tagged country, europe, freedom, hang-up, happiness, iceland, liberty, paradise, place, relationships on May 22, 2008 | No Comments »
According to this article, Iceland has the happiest people on the planet:
Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - [...]
Posted in libertarianism, people, tagged freedom of speech, liberty, freedom of expression, violence, karen fletcher, obscenity, first amendment, laws, writing, artistic freedom, court, gulity, agoraphobia, stories, fiction, child pornography, sexual, trial on May 21, 2008 | No Comments »
Remember Karen Fletcher? The woman in the centre of the high-profile obscenity case I wrote about earlier? The reclusive lady who wrote violent sexual stories involving children in an attempt to cope with her own history of child abuse and was subsequently hounded by federal prosecuters? Well, the matter’s come to an end.
She battled the federal government’s allegations [...]
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 [...]
Posted in libertarianism, tagged freedom, liberty, laws, tyranny, collectivism, south dakota, abortion, majority, federalism, states 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 [...]
