 The Anatomy of Coercion
by William Scott Dwyer
In this article, I reply to arguments by John Hospers in which he questions the clarity and legitimacy of the non-initiation-of-force principle. I defend the principle and explain what is wrong with his philosophical objections to it. (Read more...)
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 Peddling the Corruption of Liberty
by Tibor R. Machan
When a human being is free in the most important, political sense, he or she is sovereign. This means that one governs one’s own life—others must refrain from intruding on this life, plain and simple. That life may be fortunate or not, rich or not, beautiful or not, and many other things or not, but what matters is that that life is no one else’s to mess with. One gets to run it, no one else does. (Read more...)
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Big Business as Opponent of Free-Markets
by Tom Blumer
A link to an article at another web site. (Read more...)
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In Defense of Joe Stack
by Brian Lovett
Which do you consider more delusional: flying a plane into a government building in retaliation of government abuse or believing that the government exists to protect your individual rights? If you answered the former, you're certainly not alone. However, though you might not have thought twice before responding to what appeared to be a silly question, perhaps it's worth considering the moral premises that led to your belief. (Read more...)
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How about them Philosophical Differences?
by Tibor R. Machan
The little commitment to individual liberty and free market transactions left within the ranks of Republicans just isn't going to give them intellectual--philosophical--leverage against a clever bunch of egalitarians. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 24, 2010 |
AS THE WORLD WATCHED INFERIOR BOWL SUNDAY 2010
by Alexandra York
So there it was in all its international “glory”: Super Bowl 2010, this year becoming the most-watched show in the whole of television history, broadcasting to the entire world a series of snapshots depicting Americans’ preferred pleasures and pastimes. (Read more...)
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Tea Parties vs. Originalism
by Curtis Edward Clark
Tea Party language calls for "smaller government". Smaller government means nothing, because theoretically it could still include Medicare, Social Security, income taxes, death taxes, and other forms of government power over the individual that was never "originally intended." (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 17, 2010 |
 My Take on Current Situation in Music
by Alexander Feht
The following is my personal view of the current state of the "serious" music. I compose tonal music and earn my living mostly as a translator; I am Siberian Russian, arrived into the US as a political refugee in 1987, and live in Southern Colorado mountains. I am looking for congenial minds who would be interested in ... (Read more...)
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Public Service Work and Unionization
by Tibor R. Machan
America is supposed to be a free country, as are in fact all others supposed to be, and here some semblance of such a country had been attempted. But public service unions, as many other "pseudo-market" agents--companies receiving subsidies and protection from foreign competition--are subverting this attempt. It is high time to put an end to it all. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 10, 2010 |
 A baseball prodigy in an Outcome Based world
by Scott Webster Wood
A young boy with a talent and a passion for baseball learns a valuable lesson about altruism. (Read more...)
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"A Republic, If You Can Keep It"
by Joseph C. Maurone
The obvious question to ask is: Did we keep it? The tougher question is, was it ever even possible? (Read more...)
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Why the First Amendment?
by Tibor R. Machan
All the fuss about the various US Supreme and other court rulings pertaining to campaign contributions would, I believe, subside once the matter were put into the right framework, namely, the exercise of the right to private property. It is not about free speech but about freedom to use what belongs to one as he or she--or they-- see fit. (Read more...)
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Untying the Gordian Knot
by Warren Chase Anspaugh
Sitting in my room on a sunny summer day, surrounded by vertiginous stacks of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Archie, and Richie Rich comic books, and still more books, I read with an intense fascination, as if I'm on the verge of discovering the secrets of reality, the hacks of existence, the Cheat Codes of Life. One may wonder how such a feat could possibly be gleaned off of children's comics, but I'm not entertaining myself with Casper, Archie, or Richie. No, I'm immersing myself in something much less pedestrian and much more dangerous. Drowning my intellect in a miasma of fallacies, I instead satiate my naiveté-stricken appetite for knowledge with encyclopedias of superstitions, stories of the supernatural, and what would otherwise be the peddling of a snake oil salesman in lesser civilized countries. (Read more...)
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Game Theory of Communism and Capitalism
by Dean Michael Gores
Ever want to see what the numbers were behind people's motivation to be productive in Capitalism vs in Communism? Here's the full scoop, with equations in generalized form. Maybe its time to relax? (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 20, 2010 |
Planners and Earthquakes
by Tibor R. Machan
A massive earthquake is only a reminder of what the Austrian economists taught with their research and theoretical work--the most reasonable economic system is one that lets decisions be made on the ground, among the free men and women who make the market do its work. (Read more...)
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"Don't You Eat That Yellow Snow," or, The Unmitigated Audacity of "Hope"
by Joseph C. Maurone
They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when that lemonade comes from the Obama administration, the best advice is to "watch out where Alinsky goes, and don't you eat that yellow snow..." (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 13, 2010 |
Will Google Leave China?
by Jack Zhang
Google's threat of pulling out in China due to its refusal to comply with Chinese censorship laws and the numerous severe web attack against it's google.cn chinese server that might be caused by Chinese officials or anonymous hackers. What do you guys thing?
also look: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Google-threat-a-rare-show-of-apf-1244144999.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10433745-265.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1 (Read more...)
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Fear of Nuclear Power and Global Warming
by Michael F Dickey
Environmental alarmism hi-jacked the natural technological progression into nuclear power and, if anthropogenic global warming is real, subsequently caused the very global warming that environmentalists are raising alarming fears about now. (Read more...)
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On Uniting the Country
by Tibor R. Machan
On January 3rd, just after Meet the Press, NBC-TV broadcast a radio address by President Obama and while I have become nearly completely pessimistic, even cynical, about expecting anything uplifting from politicians these days--I think there could be some and have been a very few--I listened to the whole message. I never quite foreclose the possibility that people will change course, improve, gain new insights, and otherwise depart from their bad habits. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 30, 2009 |
Avatar and the Prog-Rock Revival
by Joseph C. Maurone
Avatar is not only a hash of new-age ideas in a technicolor dreamcoat, it's a rehash of new-age ideas in said dreamcoat. The progressive rock bands of the seventies beat Cameron to the punch, and it shows; not only are the visual designs digital animations of a Yes album, the philosophical themes are co-opted as well...including the contradictions. (Read more...)
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Saturday
December 26, 2009 |
The Myth of Surplus Wealth
by Tibor R. Machan
The right to private property is a right of action, an extension of the more general right to liberty: everyone must be left free to pursue wealth, to take those peaceful actions that could result in prosperity (although there is no guarantee that they will). (Read more...)
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Avatar
by Michel Hulmann
I watched Avatar yesterday. I was impressed with James Cameron's ability to boost the film industry, to revolutionize the technique and expand the possibilities of narrative. However, aesthetically, the movie is a garbage. If art is "re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments", ... (Read more...)
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Temporal Altruism
by Curtis Edward Clark
While our politicians are extending the national debt into the futures of our grandchildren, Thomas W. Clark wants to extend altruism into the future---over the issue of ecology. "For those with children and grandchildren," writes Clark, "imagining loved ones facing an ecologically impoverished world works well to motivate concern. But for those of us who don’t, why should we forgo present pleasures for the sake of a future we’ll never see?"
(Read more...)
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 Ayn Rand: The Wired Interview (1998)
by Brian Lovett
FTA: "11 years ago I blind-pitched Wired magazine an ill-defined article on Rand. In response, they asked me to write an "interview" with her, where I would come up with all of the questions and then cobble together her answers from things that she had written and said (she died in 1982). Fun!" (Read more...)
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A Bit of Good News
by Tibor R. Machan
Private property rights are the bedrock of a bona fide free country. Just for starters, the rights to freedom of religion and the press directly depend on it--if private property can lawfully be taken by state agencies, based on spurious, subjective grounds like blight, any religious or journalistic practice not approved of by state agents becomes vulnerable to censorship or worse. (Read more...)
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