 Machan’s Archives: In Defense of the Right to Assisted Suicide
by Tibor R. Machan
Should aiding suicide be illegal? That is the question which faces legislators who are being urged to repeal statutes which state, basically, “Every person who deliberately aids, or advises, or encourages another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony.” I will argue, ever so briefly, that not all cases should aiding suicide be illegal, although the severest onus of proof of justification would be required in such cases.
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Nation of Islam' and Denial of Its Killing Fields!
by Iqbal Latif
On reasons 'Why Islamic countries stay at the bottom of the ladder of UNDP's Human Development Index. It’s appalling that with all of their oil wealth, two-thirds of the world’s poorest people live in Muslim countries? Why, in the last 20 years, have over million people died in conflicts involving intra Muslim wars?'
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Race Is NOT a Social Construct
by Libertarian Realist
Existence is objective, not social; perceived, not constructed. (Read more...)
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Getting Serious About Recovery
by Tibor R. Machan
This is how economic recovery can be encouraged by all levels of governments in the U. S.: (Read more...)
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Deciphering Paul Krugman
by Tibor R. Machan
From very early on in the history of human thought it was accepted that logic is the first device to be used in aiming for understanding and in offering criticism—all of Plato’s Socratic dialogues adhere to this. Students at colleges and universities are constantly chided for being inconsistent. Everyone is, in fact. Except by serious pragmatists, at least the radical variety of them. And the reason isn’t very complicated to grasp.
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Who is Near Socialism Now?
by Tibor R. Machan
But there is a good test for telling if an American statist is in fact nearly a socialist, even a socialist of the Marxist variety. This is to see if he or she holds that people’s labor belongs to the society or to them--is one’s labor private or public property? (Read more...)
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Some Serious Flaws of Egalitarianism
by Tibor R. Machan
These flaws of egalitarianism ought to be evident to all, especially to those who are familiar with George Orwell’s little story, Animal Farm, or Kurt Vonnegut’s novella, Harrison Bergeron, both of which are excellent depictions of the dystopian nature of any egalitarian political-economic system. But if that isn’t enough or has escaped the attention of egalitarianism’s champions, there are the zillions of examples from real life.
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My journey toward Ayn Rand and Objectivism
by Ed Thompson
A somewhat-unconventional journey. (Read more...)
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Why Evidence is Not Enough
by Michael E. Marotta
Confirmation bias and the attribution fallacy suggest what this scientific study verified: people make up their minds first, and choose their experts later. (Read more...)
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Pitfalls of Shared Responsibility
by Tibor R. Machan
There is a different ancient principle that President Obama ought to consider before he imposes responsibilities on those who didn’t consent to assuming them. It is “the tragedy of the commons.” (Read more...)
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The Sleep of Reason
by Tibor R. Machan
In basic reasoning courses one learns that certain ways of thinking are fallacious, others are sound. Sadly, most students don’t actually remember much of what they learn here because these courses are taught too early in their college years, just at the time they are still celebrating no longer being in high school. (Read more...)
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Making versus Owning
by Tibor R. Machan
Those who spread the ruse that we cannot own what we haven’t produced hope to persuade us that they, on the other hand, can. (Read more...)
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Obama is a Socialist--A Crazy Thought?
by Tibor R. Machan
It is not easy to tell what is in someone’s mind, especially not if that someone is convinced that the only way to advance his or her position is to keep its true nature obscure. (Read more...)
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Krugman’s Incoherent Moral Stance
by Tibor R. Machan
Finally Paul Krugman, Princeton University Nobel Laureate in economic science and columnist for The New York Times, has come clean about his “moral” position (TNYT, January 14, 2011). He has admitted that he doesn’t believe that when you earn something, you own it. (Read more...)
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How to Use the Constitution
by Tibor R. Machan
The plain fact of the matter is that while the U. S. Constitution--specifically the Bill of Rights--contains some very laudable provisions, all of them require a fairly nuanced interpretation and application to contemporary issues (such as government coercing people buy health insurance). While for some citizens this is all a piece of cake, no problem at all, for others it isn’t a slam dunk by a long shot. That’s because these folks focus on the fact that the principles incorporated in the Bill of Rights are stated in terms that had a slightly different meaning back when the Constitution was ratified from how we understand them today.
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Wednesday
December 8, 2010 |
The Road to Fascism
by Tibor R. Machan
Now what fascism has but socialism lacks is flexibility. A fascist ruler need not adhere to any system, nor some economic blueprint. Such rulers do whatever they prefer. Their rule is entirely arbitrary. They have no restraints that require of them adherents to certain public policies. They rule by virtue of being, at least temporarily, loved by a substantial percentage of the people. (Read more...)
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The Times’ Phony Integrity
by Tibor R. Machan
So what is it with The Times and others who appear to hold that the right of freedom of speech is vital--well, except when hate speech is involved--but the right to private property, which actually supports the former right (because, after all, unless property rights are secure, freedom of speech or religion isn’t either), can be dispensed with? (Read more...)
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Tuesday
September 28, 2010 |
Rejecting Anti-Natural Rights
by Tibor R. Machan
President Obama’s friend and former colleague Cass Sunstein, now apparently on leave from Harvard Law School, would have us believe that our rights are granted to us by government. Sunstein and his co-author Stephen Holmes have argued in their book, The Cost of Rights (W. W. Norton, 1999) that human beings have no rights until government grants them some. As they put it, "individual rights and freedoms depend fundamentally on vigorous state action" (p. 14) and "Statelessness means rightlessness" (p. 19). (Read more...)
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Thursday
September 2, 2010 |
Revisiting Wealth Redistribution
by Tibor R. Machan
It is time to bring this ruse to an end. Those people’s scam should be shut down. Their phony authority to take from everyone so they can use it as they see fit--in the name that they are the nice guys who redistribute wealth while we the greedy bunch intent on keeping it for ourselves--must be abolished. They should be sent off to join Bernie Madoff by now. (Read more...)
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Allah Akbar!
by Brigitte Gabriel
“Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims.” (Read more...)
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Two Insidious Trends in America
by Tibor R. Machan
Two powerful intellectual developments are ruining America. One is egalitarianism, the other pragmatism. (Read more...)
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Risks and Liberty
by Tibor R. Machan
Free men and women are naturally risky types! Freedom is characterized by making it possible for people to make choices, even bad ones, just as in the case of the liberty of the press. Journalists, editorial writers, reporters and the lot who are free to do as they choose can and will do what is risky, and at times what is indeed outright malpractice. (Read more...)
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No Excuse for Coercion
by Tibor R. Machan
For my money coercive force is not only when someone threatens to beat up or kill another unless that other does as told. I start much earlier, when someone presumes to have the authority to entice or nudge his or her fellow human beings to do as told (hoped for)! (Read more...)
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Nasty Effects of Egalitarianism
by Tibor R. Machan
Ideas do have consequences. You come to believe that you are invincible, you will take risks more readily. You believe government will bail you out, cover your debts up to a certain amount, you will borrow more (indeed, your financial advisor will tell you you should). You believe you can't lose at the roulette tables, you will wager more. (Read more...)
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Freedom of Association and Rights
by Tibor R. Machan
This issue is timely now that Democrats and mainstream Republicans have finally found something with which to demonize Rand Paul, the libertarian Republican who pulled off a win in Tuesday's primary election in Kentucky. (Read more...)
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