 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Can We Cause Our Actions?
by Tibor R. Machan
In a recent Op Ed column for Free Inquiry magazine--December 09/January10--Mr. Thomas Clark claims that the defense of human agency that some folks, including me, have been advancing for many years involves what he terms “contra-causal” free will. It does not. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 11, 2009 |
On Corporation Phobia
by Tibor R. Machan
What would be cool, actually, is if both Michael Moore and Ralph Nader, as well as their admirers, recognized that the bad guys are mainly those in power, the politicians and bureaucrats, not the citizens who, various grouped, are trying to get in on the game of wealth redistribution. (Read more...)
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Another Ayn Rand thread at Reason.com
by Jim Henshaw
On yet another Ayn Rand thread over at Reason.com's Hit and Run (presumably to cross-promote the upcoming Ayn Rand series at Reason.TV), one of the Reason staffers (Tim Cavanaugh) who is reading the Fountainhead for the first time (!) posed two question about the book that I (posting as "prolefeed") and two other peopl... (Read more...)
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Sex in The Fountainhead - The Rape of Ayn Rand
by Brian Lovett
Rape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or without sexual penetration of another person without that person’s consent. I’ve had many conversations over the years about this scene, especially with those who I would consider "surface-readers" - those who read without the curiosity to explore the implications. Was it rape or wasn’t it? The answer boils down to whether or not Dominique Francon gave her consent to Howard Roark.
I think Dominique did consent to the sex, wanted it, and even encouraged it through her actions. (Read more...)
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The Desperate Defense of Obamacare
by Tibor R. Machan
The political arena has abandoned all civility, it seems. It was coming
our way once folks like Ralph Nader and Michael Moore got to be big wigs,
speaking up in support of populism and a massive federal government. (Read more...)
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Keynes and his Ideology of Planning
by Tibor R. Machan
What Keynes was eager to promote is the idea of the government's
unbridled authority to tinker with economic affairs. That is the point of
insisting so vehemently that nothing exists that stands opposed to that
authority, no notion of Adam Smith's natural liberty, John Locke's natural
rights, and other classical liberal ideas that were at one time beginning
to be used so as to pull the rug from under those who saw fit to interfere
with other people's economic decisions and circumstances. (Read more...)
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BANK FAILURES: Market Failure or Government Failure
by William Scott Dwyer
Many banks have failed under government control of the financial system, but wasn't it worse under free banking in which there was no lender of last resort and no federal insurance of depositors' funds in the event of bank failures? The following article examines this question in light of the historical evidence. (Read more...)
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Tuesday
September 22, 2009 |
Objectivism and charity
by Jim Henshaw
Discussion of Objectivist principles regarding "compassionate" release of convicted criminals with terminal illnesses, and regarding when charity is justified and non-sacrificial. (Read more...)
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Saturday
September 19, 2009 |
The Expanding Public Realm
by Tibor R. Machan
Virtually every time someone promotes increasing the scope of government's
involvement in our lives, the excuse is that the problem being tackled is
a social or public type, not one of individuals. (Read more...)
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