What are rights?

I don’t usually agree with the National Review, but this article is bang on the money.
During the presidential debate Tuesday night, Barack Obama was asked if he thought health care was a “right.”
He said he thought it was a right. Well, if you accept that premise, I think you can ask some logical follow-up [...]

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How dare Obama pronounce Pakistan correctly?

One of the great tragedies of modern USA, particularly seen in the modern Republican party, is its disdain for intellectualism and love for dumbing down. Do you pronounce foreign words correctly? It’s a liability. Eat aragula? Terrible! Skeptical about the existence of God? Kiss your chances of ever getting elected to office goodbye.
On the other [...]

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The lesser evil

Both candidates running for presidency are bad from a libertarian perspective, but, my opinion, as I have often stated on this blog, is that McCain is clearly worse. Radley Balko, who shares that view, has a fine post explaining why.
Obama is a seriously flawed candidate. And yes, Obama united with a Democratic Congress is a [...]

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Obama in the Virginia rain

Some of Obama’s speches, like the 2002 one on the Iraq war, the 2004 one in the DNC or the one earlier this year in race, are magnificiently written and rich in content.
By contrast, the one he delivered in Virginia on Saturday night is unremarkable, indeed trite in content, but stylistically brilliant. It starts off [...]

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The Missouri thugs?

I wrote earlier about Obama’s attempts to silence ads critical of him by legal intimidation.
His “truth-squad” at Missouri is, however, no less disturbing. [However, see update below]
Perhaps we are getting overworked about the whole thing and this “truth squad” is simply there to issue rebuttals and not actually engage in prosecutions.
Perhaps Obama really does not [...]

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Speech is best countered by speech

And thuggishness by, well, see below…
A month ago, I wrote critically about Obama’s attempt to silence advertisements that opposed him: using a combination of his passionate supporter-strength and legal threats.
Sadly, it was not a one-off incident.
The latest targets of the Obama campaign is an advertisement by the National Rifle association (NRA). Obama claims that the [...]

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Another prediction

A month an a half from now, when John McCain’s team tries to pinpoint the reason they lost the election, they will eventually stumble upon a date: September 24.
It was a day that saw McCain making his disastrous debate postponement offer (stellarly countered by Obama) that saw him mocked by Dave Letterman and much of [...]

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The bad and the ugly — measuring fallout

Neither of the major candidates of the upcoming US presidential election offers much hope to those who believe in individual liberty and limited government. In this post, I will outline the five things to fear most from each of them becoming President.
Five things to fear from an Obama presidency:
1. Card check. This ought to be [...]

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Two predictions

McCain will never again hold the lead in either the Gallup or the Rasmussen daily tracking polls.
The election won’t even be that close — Obama will win by at least 30 EVs.
[Update, October 11]: My first prediction has held good so far. As for my second, I now think Obama will win by at least [...]

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The Palin bounce

Check out the graphic above. Obama received a big bounce from the Dem convention, but then, McCain went..whoosh! Sarah Palin is the GOP dream — a potatoes-and-meat, ultra-glib, sexy, super-charismatic, Republican version of Obama.
As Althouse said:
It’s as if some mad right-wing scientists designed and built an android to counter all the things that Obama is. [...]

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Who is Barack Obama?

In essence, Obama is declaring simultaneous loyalty to individualism and to collectivism, to independence and to dependence, to free markets and to state control. If you wonder which half of this self-contradictory agenda will win out, Obama doesn’t leave you in suspense. [..] It is the free market that he wants us to regard as [...]

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Speech reaction

Not a great speech like some of his earlier ones but pretty good nevertheless. He did what he had to do.
Personally, I disliked quite a bit of the content, especially the economic populism at the beginning. But then, the speech was not aimed at me. I suspect that the democratic base and those who agree [...]

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Nudge to aim

An unusual tactic to stop make men from peeing on the floor:
Authorities at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam have etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal. It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess. But if you give them [...]

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Ban all stem cell research?

From the still-under-construction Republican platform for this election:
On stem-cell research — The 2008 Republican Platform calls for a ban on all embryonic stem-cell research, public or private.
On gambling — Millions of Americans suffer from problem or pathological gambling that can destroy families. We support legislation prohibiting gambling over the Internet or in student athletics by [...]

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The dangers of Obama’s national service plans

Jim Lindgren has an excellent article over at Volokh on the dangers of Barack Obama’s proposals on community service for middle and high schoolers.
On the surface there is nothing wrong with the proposal. Voluntary community service can be an enriching experience both for the child and the community. The trouble starts when the government steps [...]

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