Greedy-Bastard Economics
If your landlord or apartment manager hasn’t gotten around to fixing your garbage disposal for weeks, how carefully do you think about why? If you are like many people, you simply blame your landlord...
View ArticleWe Don’t Need to Rush to Misjudgment
Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) 2009 has seen massive expansions of government control over people’s lives, always justified as necessary because of a claimed crisis and demanding immediate federal...
View Article“Man alone is an end unto himself.”
Albert Camus (1913–1960) November 7 marks the 1913 birth of Albert Camus, 1957 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for work that “illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.”...
View ArticlePreventing the Prostitution of Freedom
In America today, for every problem, a national “solution” is proposed, regardless of how individual or local the issues are. Whether we consider housing, education, energy, transportation, finance,...
View ArticleThinking Resolutions Through
Socrates argued that the unexamined life was not worth living. So, in a world short on serious reflection, New Year’s resolutions can lead to useful self-examination. But it is important that we think...
View ArticleWords and Politics
Whenever political correctness fades from the headlines, another example pops up. The latest installment comes from Washington State Senate President pro tem Rosa Franklin. She has proposed replacing...
View ArticleWe Don’t Sing in the Rain
Having grown up near a rain forest on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, with friends I have visited during “monsoon seasons” in Florida and elsewhere, I’ve seen rain before, and even have some idea of...
View ArticleOur Founders’ Supreme Court Litmus Tests
Justice Stevens’ forthcoming retirement from the Supreme Court has triggered instant buzz and opposition research in Washington, beginning with the short list passed over for Sonia Sotomayor. But the...
View ArticleRemember Emerson’s Legacy of Liberty
May 25 marks Ralph Waldo Emerson’s birthday. “The Sage of Concord” was a major poet and influence on 19th century America and is considered as “the outstanding representative of romantic symbolism in...
View ArticleRemembering Longshoreman Philosophy
July 25 marks the 1902 birth of Eric Hoffer, known as the “longshoreman philosopher” for the manual labor he performed for most of his life. In eleven books, beginning with The True Believer, the...
View ArticleUsing Jobs Against Workers
Sensitized by month after month of bogus claims of jobs “created or saved” by government stimulus, the vast mountain of misleading Labor Day bloviation about government and unions as the source of jobs...
View ArticleCelebrating Robert LeFevre’s Centennial
This year is the centennial of someone little known outside libertarian circles but very important within: Robert LeFevre. According to Damon Gross, “Robert LeFevre was a leading intellectual force in...
View ArticleRestrict government, not superstores
California has long been in the forefront of attempts by unions and their liberal allies to legally protect themselves against more efficient competitors, despite the inherent harm to consumers. One...
View ArticleJustice versus Social Justice
There was a time when people understood justice far better than we do today. Aristotle’s definition was “Justice is to give every man his own.” Cicero’s was almost identical. America’s Declaration of...
View ArticleDistinguishing Chaos from Incomprehensible Order
With the turning of a new year, many make resolutions intended to improve their lives. Most of them involve rectifying perceived errors, mistakes and failings in people’s personal lives. But making...
View ArticleConstitutional Law Is Supposed to Be Different
Constitutional law is supposed to be different from other types of law. But the Obamacare litigation headed to the Supreme Court shows that liberal interpreters of the Constitution have forgotten the...
View ArticleScrewtape Politics
If there is one thing the 2012 presidential campaign has already taught us, it is that past complainers that politics was negative and underhanded didn’t know how good they had it. Abetted by...
View ArticleAmoral markets versus immoral coercion
I am a believer in the power of liberty — voluntary relationships — to bring out the best in individuals and, therefore, society. But that well-founded belief makes it painful to see markets (willing...
View ArticleWhat should government do?
Toward the end of his State of the Union speech, President Obama said “I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by...
View ArticleDéjà vu on the greatest food stamp fraud
The Los Angeles Times has given me a case of déjà vu. It recently (February 6) ran an opinion piece titled "Food stamp fight," by history professors Lisa Levenstein and Jennifer Mittelstadt, that had...
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