Self-defense was his right, as it is ours. A proper legal system recognizes and protects that right, by permitting private ownership of handguns under appropriate limits.
LAW
All laws must be objective (and objectively justifiable): men must know clearly, and in advance of taking an action, what the law forbids them to do (and why), what constitutes a crime and what penalty they will incur if they commit it. – AYN RAND
Alternatives to Incarceration and The Costs of Crime
For more than two centuries, the political left has been preoccupied with the fate of criminals, often while ignoring or downplaying the fate of the victims of those criminals. So it is hardly surprising that a recent New York Times editorial has returned to a...
Jesus in the Constitution?
A liberal friend phoned last week with his analysis of how the presidential race was shaping up. The news that morning was that both John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani had dropped out. “Same old,” he said, referring to the likelihood that our choice in...
Hiding Black Interracial Crimes
If you’re like I am, you’ve heard scores of media reports about the 2006 Duke University rape case, in which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper at a wild party at the home of one of the team members. These guys,...
Free Speech or Censorship: Their Is No Middle Ground
Americans face a choice: free speech or censorship. There is no middle ground.
A World Where Abortion is Murder
In the United States, just as in the Middle East, there are large numbers of people who believe that the cloak of religion and their claim to be inspired by the will of God entitles them to practice lunacy, in total disregard of the suffering and harm they cause to others.
In Support of the Concept of Intellectual Property
If individuals do have a property right in their own identities, do they not also have a property right in the words and symbols that uniquely identify their products and services?
After Ten Years, States Still Resist Assisted Suicide
Conservatives have no right to force such mindless, medieval misery upon doctors and patients who refuse to regard their precious lives as playthings of a cruel God.
Congressional Constitutional Contempt
Here’s the oath of office administered to members of the House and Senate: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and...
Crime and Rhetoric
Oakland, California, continues to suffer the high crime rate, and especially the high murder rate, which has long afflicted that city. Judging by a recent speech by its current mayor, long-time leftist Ron Dellums, it can look forward to a future all too much like its...
Anti-Smoking Paternalism: A Cancer on American Liberty
By employing government coercion to deprive us of the freedom to judge for ourselves what we inhale or consume, the anti-smoking movement has become an enemy, not an ally, in the quest for health and happiness.
High Murder Rates in Cities with Large Black Populations
Should black people accept government’s dereliction of its first basic function, that of providing protection?
Fighting Climate Change, Gun Control and Income Tax Laws
Last week, Japan pledged $100 million in grants to fight global climate change. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world’s major leader in the struggle against climate change. The World Conservation Union has recently...
The Glorification of Violence
Gang wars, ethnic wars, religious wars, and now the “rampage”, are all tragic manifestations of the same root cause – the rejection of reason, individualism, and rational belief in the sanctity and inviolability of every human life.
Hazardous Safety Regulation
Whenever someone is hurt in an accident, people say, “There ought to be a law!” Politicians rush to oblige them and then take credit for all the lives they saved. But shouldn’t they also accept blame for the lives lost because of those laws? Lives...
FCC Violates Free Speech on Principle
In this headlong rush to expand the government’s authority over the media, no one has paused to consider whether the government should have such authority in the first place. No one has noticed that the very existence of the FCC is a flagrant violation of the right to free speech.
Advertising is Good Medicine
Advertising, of prescription drugs or anything else, is a form of free speech that should never be restricted, unless it’s fraudulent.
The Sex Police vs. The Heart Attack Grill
The motto at the popular Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Ariz., is: “Taste … worth dying for!” That’s because it serves only artery-clogging food like big hamburgers (the biggest is called the “Quadruple Bypass”) and “Flatliner...
Women’s Progress: Damsels in Distress?
Last week, my “20/20” co-anchor, Elizabeth Vargas, returned from maternity leave. Her first story was on the “mommy wars.” “Why,” Elizabeth asked, “has so little been done on issues like paid maternity leave; safe, affordable...
Duke University Rape Case
Nothing should be surprising any more about the Duke University rape case. Still, it is a little staggering that, after all these months, District Attorney Mike Nifong has still not interviewed either the accuser or the accused. Rape is a felony with serious...
Abortion is Not Murder
The “pro-life” movement is on a faith-based crusade to ban abortion no matter the consequences to actual human life.
Books: Solon the Thinker – Political Thought in Archaic Athens
John Lewis’s Solon the Thinker contains a careful reading of the poetic fragments of Solon – not as poetry, but as political thought.
Conspiracy Theories: Was 9/11 An “Inside Job” and Other Stories
I was recently forced to break off an amicable correspondence of several years because of 9/11 conspiracy theories and this person’s acceptance of them. Our conversations became nothing but this person trying to convince me that the terrorist attacks of 9/11...
Silencing Opposition to Greens on Global Warming
The petition I have referred to has no financial support from Exxon or any other company in the oil, coal, or natural gas industries. Can the same thing be said about governmental support of The Royal Society and the endless “studies” dedicated to advancing the Green agenda?
Constitution Day
Each year since 2004, on Sept. 17, we commemorate the 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution by 39 American statesmen. The legislation creating Constitution Day was fathered by Sen. Robert Byrd and requires federal agencies and federally funded schools, including...
Reflections on Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons: A Panel Discussion
On April 11, 2006, the University of Southern California Objectivist Club sponsored an event titled “Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons: A Panel Discussion” which was attended by more than 300 people. Many critics on the Left grudgingly uphold the right...
Anti-Abortion “Pro-Life” Movement is Anti-Life
The recent ban on abortion in South Dakota is a victory for the “pro-life” movement–and thus, anti-abortionists claim, a victory for “the sanctity of human life.” But is it?
The Anti-Life Movement
The recent ban on abortion in South Dakota is a victory for the “pro-life” movement–and thus, anti-abortionists claim, a victory for “the sanctity of human life.” But is it? The South Dakota law bans abortions in all cases except saving...
The Biggest Scandal in the Duke University Rape Case
The worst thing said in the case involving rape charges against Duke University students was not said by either the prosecutor or the defense attorneys, or even by any of the accusers or the accused. It was said by a student at North Carolina Central University, a...
Justice Delayed for the Lacrosse Players in the Duke University Rape Case
If there is a smoking gun in the Duke University rape case, it is not about the stripper who made the charges or the lacrosse players who have been accused. The smoking gun is the decision of District Attorney Michael Nifong to postpone a trial until the spring of...
Anti-‘Price-Gouging’ Regulation
With gasoline prices across the nation at $3 a gallon, one knows that American oil companies are easy targets for every regulator (and every potential regulator) in town. And when an oil-man-turned-president blames Americans for having an “energy...
Rape Accusations Against Duke Lacrosse Players: Law or Lynch Law?
People who were not within 1,000 miles of Duke University have already taken sides in the case of a stripper who has accused Duke lacrosse players of rape. One TV talk show hostess went ballistic when a guest on her program raised questions about the stripper’s...
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