In his State of the Union address, President Bush demanded an end to “the practice of partial-birth abortion.”
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
Abortion and the Left: All the Rights But One
Last month marked the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case which overturned a Texas ban on the procedure. To commemorate that anniversary, the well-known abortion rights group NARAL hosted a public event...
Blacks and Guns
Black Americans have a serious problem with guns. They don’t have enough of them. Despite being victimized by crime at several times the rate of whites, only 30% of black adults own guns, compared to 43% of whites.(1) Blacks are also heavily represented in...
Guns: A Loaded Argument
The language of the Second Amendment seems straightforward: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Yet the debate rages on: Does each American...
Abortion Rights are Pro-Life
Thirty years after Roe V. Wade, no one defends the right to abortion in fundamental, moral terms, which is why the pro-abortion rights forces are on the defensive. Abortion-rights advocates should not cede the terms “pro-life” and “right to...
Capitalism and Job Safety
What is essential for safety is not bureaucratic regulation, but free, motivated human intelligence and judgment, which includes a consideration of the costs of achieving greater degrees of safety.
Clinton-Era IRS Regulation Threatens Economy and Financial Markets
Three days before President Bill Clinton left office, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed a regulation (No. 126100-00) that would have forced American banks to report the interest they pay on the deposits of nonresident aliens. The IRS openly admitted that the...
“Hate Crime” Legislation is an Assault on Free Speech
If images of people being persecuted for “thought crimes” strike you as the stuff of science fiction — or, at worst, something that happened when communism was at its height and jackboots were storming Europe — get ready for a wake-up call. It...
Rights and The Constitution, Part Three
The purpose of this article is to trace and to explain the history of the concept of rights in judicial treatment.
A Physician Comments on Abortion and the Morning After Pill
I was recently confronted in the Emergency Department with a situation I rarely encounter: a woman requesting “the morning after pill.” Since I practice in a largely conservative state, for a few minutes I introspectively debated whether I should provide...
Gun Control Myths and the Facts
Most people who are in favor of gun control laws support such laws because they believe that these laws will reduce the number of firearms deaths. Such people are not the problem. Their minds can be changed when they learn that the facts are very different from what...
Gun Control Myths: Gun Restrictions and Murder Rates
Talking facts to gun control zealots is only likely to make them angry. But the rest of us need to know what the facts are. More than that, we need to know that much of what the gun controllers claim as facts will not stand up under scrutiny. The grand dogma of the...
Gun Control Myths: The Case of England
Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm of Bentley College deserves some sort of special prize for taking on the thankless task of talking sense on a subject where nonsense is deeply entrenched and fiercely dogmatic. In her recently published book, “Guns and...
The Legitimacy of Intellectual Property
Revolutionary technologies always disrupt society and one of America’s biggest “digital age” disruptions is occurring in the area of intellectual property (IP). Indeed, the digital revolution has re-ignited a heated debate over whether intellectual...
Gun Statistics for the Second-Amendment-challenged
Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D) recently urged a ban on Saturday Night Specials and “assault weapons,” while recommending a national ballistic fingerprint database. The interviewer, CNN’s Judy Woodruff, asked no difficult...
More Gun Control, Please!
Gun-control proponents, predictably, in the wake of the Beltway sniper, urge still more gun-control laws. So, as news watchers sit through another round of softball interviews with gun-control advocates, we humbly offer Second Amendment-challenged hosts some...
Hate is not a Crime
Last month, the Canadian government detained several newsletters from the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) defending “Israel’s moral right to exist” out of concern that “they may constitute obscenity or hate propaganda.” Although the government...
The Sniper and the Gun Controllers
It was perhaps inevitable that the recent sniper killings in the Washington area suburbs would be seized upon by advocates of gun control. Like so much in the agenda of the political left, gun control arguments would collapse like a house of cards if people just...
A Cycle of Injustice: Mob of Teenagers Beat Man to Death
On September 29th, 2002 in Milwaukee, a 14 year-old teenager threw an egg at a man, named Charlie Young. The man in turn struck the teenager for throwing it, knocking out the teenager’s tooth with the force of his hit. “According to police, a mob of boys...
Rights and The Constitution, Part Two
The purpose of this article is to trace and to explain the history of the concept of rights in judicial treatment.
Would-Be Intellectual Vandals Get Their Day in the Supreme Court
In 1998 Congress, pursuant to its Constitutional power to determine the duration of federal copyright protection, passed a law extending the term of that protection by 20 years. This law brought United States copyright protection in line with that already afforded in...
Permission to Speak: The End of Free Speech
Two recent events show the real meaning of two popular ideas: “hate speech” regulations and campaign finance controls. The real meaning of both is the end of free speech. The first story comes from Canada, where “hate speech” laws are already...
Guns for Rapists, But Not For Potential Victims
A picture on the front of The Boston Globe’s metro section last month showed a group of women waiting to apply for firearm identification cards at the District 14 police station in Brighton. They were in a line, the accompanying story noted, that stretched the...
Appealing to Reason in Killers
Police in Montgomery County, Maryland (where I work), and the Washington D.C. area are searching for two gunmen who are currently on a rampage against people going about their daily business. People filling their cars with gas; waiting for a bus; crossing the street;...
The Canadian Government vs. Free Speech
There are two principles that taken together are the cornerstone of freedom. One is that an individual has a right to his life. The other is that an individual has the right to speak uncoerced. Today, the 2nd right is under threat in Canada. According to Ray Girn,...
Ayn Rand Institute’s “In Moral Defense Of Israel” Released By Candian Government
IRVINE, CA–After a three-day detention, Canadian Customs released today a shipment of newsletters from the Ayn Rand Institute titled “In Moral Defense of Israel.” Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, said “The...
Anti-Capitalist Demonstrators and Freedom of Speech
Last weekend’s anti-capitalist demonstrations in Washington were every bit what most observers expected them to be: sessions in idiocy, lunacy and general mayhem. As expected, portions of the city were significantly impacted by the demonstrations and despite...
Censorship in Canada
The University of Toronto Objectivist Club is having an event this Sunday entitled “The Moral Case for Supporting Israel”. The club ordered from the Ayn Rand Institute 350 complimentary copies of a pamphlet entitled “In Moral Defense of...
Censorship on Campus? Time to Privatize America’s Universities
The terrorist attacks of September 11, according to many college professors, have claimed another victim: free speech on campus. They contend that a chilling climate has arisen, in which they hesitate to voice ideas critical of America for fear of reprimand by...
Race, Sex, Class & Tiger Woods
The ancient Scottish game has expanded in popularity steadily since the simultaneous rise of Arnold Palmer and television coverage of the PGA Tour in the 1950s; in recent years the game has seen increased participation at all professional and amateur levels, and much...
Pilots and Guns
In a stunning reversal, California’s liberal Senator Barbara Boxer has come out in favor of allowing airline pilots to carry guns if they wish, while the Bush administration opposes it. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has passed a bill to permit pilots...
What Is Killing The Stock Market? Government Regulation
Politicians and economic analysts are shocked. They have told us for weeks that the stock market is crashing because of low “investor confidence” in response to a “crime wave” of corporate fraud–made possible by “a climate of lax...
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