The people who will be stopped by the system will not be terrorists but innocent citizens, seeking to evade unjust laws and regulations.
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
Religious Terrorism vs. Free Speech
Ayatollah Khomeni’s attack on Salman Rushdie and his publishers represents religious terrorism. Americans oppose the Ayatollah’s death-decree, but our government is doing nothing to combat it.
The Cartoon Jihad: Free Speech in the Balance
A battle for Western freedom is being fought overseas. The specific object of the battle is merely a handful of cartoons. The outcome of the struggle, however, will reverberate for years.
Love Thy Enemy: The Twilight of Freedom of Speech
To fathom our government’s contemptible treatment of a handful of unbowed journalists, you must see the roots of that treatment in the moral ideal Christianity bequeathed the West. In the face of the intimidation and murder of European authors, film makers and...
Assisted Suicide: A Moral Right
Conservatives crave to inject religion into the bloodstream of American law, thereby assisting in our own national suicide. However, they cannot succeed without the Supreme Court’s consent. Sooner or later, the Court must confront the main issue, and decide whether an individual’s right to life includes the right to commit suicide.
The Virginia Military Institute and Abortion
The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is a curious institution–it is both a military academy and a state-supported college. Its history draws back to before the US Civil War (future confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson served as a...
Cut Federal Spending and Put Medicare Prescription Drugs on Hold
Republicans in Congress are now struggling to carve some spending cuts out of their recent vast increases in the Federal Budget. Democrats, while critical of deficit spending, are helpfully suggesting even more spending increases. The best quick fix would be to delay...
Ostracism
Earlier this year, when the Ward Churchill essay became news, my initial reaction was that he should be charged with a crime such as ‘treason’ or ‘aiding and abetting the enemy’. But through discussion with friends, I realized my reaction was wrong, and that his...
Proposed Iraqi Constitution Will Not Bring Freedom to Iraq or Security to America.
As the world eagerly watches the Iraqi constitutional referendum, the Bush administration and its intellectual supporters herald the occasion as a historic step toward freedom in the Middle East and security for America. This view betrays an appalling ignorance of the...
Presumed Guilty: The Injustice and Destruction of Sarbanes-Oxley
Sarbanes-Oxley is a moral and economic atrocity. It is past time to repeal this monstrous law and start treating businessmen as American citizens: innocent until proven otherwise.
The Sex Education False Dichotomy
MSNBC.com is reporting, “a leading group of pediatricians says teenagers need access to birth control and emergency contraception, not the abstinence-only approach to sex education favored by religious groups and President Bush.” I think both sides are...
Assisted Suicide: A Moral Right
In the end, only the Supreme Court can thwart the designs of conservatives who, by injecting religion into the bloodstream of American law, seek to assist in our own national suicide.
Environmental Regulations Reduce Safety and Productivity in the Energy Industry
An explosion last week at a British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas refinery in Texas killed fifteen workers and injured seventy others, five critically. As usual, myopic media accounts blamed BP and its allegedly unsafe work conditions – and called for more intense government regulation and fines.
Iraqis Should Look To American Founding Fathers When Writing Their Constitution
On December 15, 1791, 213 years ago, the American Bill of Rights was ratified. Thus ended a long and difficult process by which the American people first liberated themselves from tyranny and then established the first government in history founded on individual...
Supreme Court Should Uphold Rights, Not Majority Sentiment in Ten Commandments Cases
Judicial review, properly conceived, is merely one method among many by which judges resolve legal conflicts.
The Tyranny of Eminent Domain
Should the government be able to use its power of eminent domain to seize property from one private party and transfer it to another?
Professor Ward Churchill, The First Amendment and Free Speech on Campus
Because the comments he made shortly after September 11 have come to light, obscene comments in which he vilifies the World Trade Center victims as “little Eichmanns” and lauds their killers as “humanitarians,” Professor Ward Churchill has...
Public Power, Private Gain: The Abuse of Eminent Domain
the public – things like roads, water systems and public buildings. Times have changed.
Are We a Republic or a Democracy?
The framers gave us a Constitution that is replete with undemocratic mechanisms.
PC Empowerment: Empowering Women By Leaving Them Defenseless
George Mason University is dedicated to empowering women. Take, for example, the “Turn Off the Violence Week” event that ran October 3rd-9th. The event, like similar events offered on college campus throughout the country, was a partnership between...
Unicorns, Jedi, and Plastic Guns
During the recent vice presidential debate, Senator Edwards criticized Vice President Cheney for voting “against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors.” The ban to which Edwards was referring was the Undetectable Firearms Act of...
American Despotism: Emasculation of the American Constitution
No one’s private property is safe because what’s a public benefit is subject to wide interpretation.
A Conspiracy Theory: Bush Contracts
See if you can guess which stock I’m talking about. This stock topped out in early January at 75. It steadily declined all year, hitting bottom at 49 on Aug. 12. After that, it rallied magnificently. On Monday it was trading at 65. Then something very strange...
Kerry’s Demand for Censorship
John Kerry has gained control of the Bush campaign and has, psychologically and strategically if not yet literally, won the presidential election. While Kerry’s own party systematically decimates Bush’s competence and character for daring to actually use...
Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition
“In the United States, there are now more than 318,000 people behind bars for violations of drug prohibition, more than the number of persons incarcerated for all crimes in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined,” writes Jeffrey A....
The Injustice of the Insider Trading Laws
Martha Stewart is an enormously productive businesswoman caught up in a network of immoral laws. It is far more just to repeal the laws than to punish one who obstructed an investigation that was wrongful from its inception.
Ban on “Partial-Birth” Abortion Violates Women’s Rights
“Fetal Rights” are a gimmick to destroy a woman’s individual rights.
Assisted Suicide: A Moral Right
If a doctor is willing to assist in the suicide, based on an objective assessment of his patient’s mental and physical state, and on objective evidence of his patient’s consent, the law should not stand in his way.
Judicial Activism and Crime: Half a Century After Brown, Part 3
Although Brown v. Board of Education dealt with race and with schools, its judicial philosophy spread rapidly to issues having nothing to do with race or schools. In the half century since Brown, judges at all levels have become unelected legislators imposing the...
The U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime: Disaster for America
The United Nations threatens to chip yet again from America’s Constitution and its system of individual rights, as a 2000 treaty aimed at combating crime on the global level has reared its menacing head in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The U.N....
The People Who Brought You the Weekend
Another bumpersticker for you: “The Labor Movement–The People Who Brought You the Weekend.” Not quite. Improved working conditions don’t happen because a compassionate President signs them into law. If any given law would harm significant...
Counting the Costs of Government Regulation of Land Development
A dispute about how tall the city of San Mateo, California, will allow buildings to be built may seem like a completely local problem that no one outside of San Mateo should care about. But the principle involved touches everyone from coast to coast, on issues having...
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