For the very youngest children, learning is constant. Their wondrous progress from helpless newborn to sophisticated five-year-old happens without explicit teaching. They explore, challenge themselves, make mistakes, and try again with an insatiable eagerness to learn. Young children seem to recognize that knowledge is an essential shared resource, like air or water. They demand a fair share. They actively espouse the right to gain skills and understanding in a way that’s useful to them at the time.
Author: Editor's Pick
Selected content picked by the editor of Everything-Voluntary.com.
Government is Not Abstract
Editor’s Pick. Guest post by Connor Boyack. Government is not abstract. I find that many people treat it like it is. This is evident in how they discuss a political issue. Here’s an example. “Marijuana should not be legalized.” This sounds so benign, yet it masks a number of disastrous consequences such a position requires.…
Ship-Jumping Libertarians
Editor’s Pick. Guest post by Robert Higgs. A message to former libertarians who jumped ship because of a perceived crisis (e.g., Islamist terrorism, immigrant “invasion,” Chinese driving the U.S. economy to ruin by flooding the country with cheap imports): You have forgotten, among other things, what you used to understand about the injustice and destructiveness…
Steve Patterson
Four years ago, I became an anarchist, and I’ve never looked back. My political philosophy now runs through my veins. But this wasn’t always the case. I used to be a young, apathetic conservative. Then, I was introduced to libertarianism, which slowly turned me into an anarchist. This might sound crazy, but I assure you, it’s quite reasonable, and many people share my same story.
We Are Ungovernable
Editor’s Pick. Written by Trevor Hultner. Listen. I’m genuinely afraid of a Trump presidency, and I’m really not looking forward to a Clinton presidency either. Do I think one is more-or-less “preferable” to the other? Yeah I do. Ultimately, though: the next president will have just as much blood on their hands as, if not…
Caution on Climate Change
Editor’s Pick. Written by Jordan Vaughn Neal. Note: This is not meant to be a definitive proof of anything, only something designed to make one question and think. It is a fact that the measured global average temperature has been rising. It is also a fact that a higher carbon concentrate in an atmosphere, all…
Rethinking “Evil”
If you watch the news (not recommended) you see people committing despicable acts of violence, and the general consensus is that these people who do evil… are evil. Ironically, when you have decided that someone is evil, bad, or wrong, it’s easy to justify doing evil things to them. “An eye for an eye” makes everyone blind. All this evildoing perpetuates the false belief that humans are inherently evil and would behave badly if not for our prohibitive laws and the constant threat of punishment.
Abstain Altogether
Editor’s Pick. Written by Connor Boyack. I fault nobody who abstains from voting. Voting is largely a corrupt process whereby people hope to be in a majority that can impose their will on the minority. As Lysander Spooner once observed, defensive voting is justified as a way to minimize the burden placed upon the individual:…
New Zealand’s Remarkable Economic Transformation
When writing a few days ago about the newly updated numbers from Economic Freedom of the World, I mentioned in passing that New Zealand deserves praise “for big reforms in the right direction.” And when I say big reforms, this isn’t exaggeration or puffery.
The Anti-Helicopter Parent’s Plea: Let Kids Play!
It was a Friday afternoon at Mike Lanza’s house in Menlo Park, Calif., and the boys were going crazy. There were boys playing ball in the street, while in the backyard, boys were skittering along the top of the fence while others were wrestling on the trampoline.