Charles Krauthammer makes a trenchant argument in defense of a perennial whipping boy: Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to...
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Islamic States and Thought Crimes: The Thug’s Ideal
What deeper attack on civilization, freedom, the mind, and human life could be possible than to propose the establishment of thought crimes in an American university?
Defining the Right of Self-Defense by Gun
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.
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 November will be...
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, convicted by...
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 allegiance to the...
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 recognized the work...
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 lost? Yes. A joint...
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 Fries," which are boiled in lard. The...
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 child care; and flexible work schedules?"...
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.
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