The conventional wisdom of the last hundred years or so: The US government can and should decide what we may eat, drink, smoke, inject, or otherwise ingest. It can and should kidnap and cage us if we disobey, and if its restrictions kill us with adulterated or unduly strong black market products, it’s our own fault for not doing as we’re told.
Author: Thomas L. Knapp
Tom has worked in journalism — sometimes as an amateur, sometimes professionally — for more than 35 years and has been a full-time libertarian writer, editor, and publisher since 2000. He’s the former managing editor of the Henry Hazlitt Foundation, the publisher of Rational Review News Digest (2003-present), former media coordinator and senior news analyst at the Center for a Stateless Society (2009-2015) and also works at Antiwar.com. He lives in north central Florida.
SpaceX’s Declaration of Space Independence is Just Common Sense
Sooner or later, absent some kind of mass extinction event, humankind will establish itself there: On the Moon. On Mars. Among the asteroids. Someday even on planets orbiting distant stars.
A Lot More People Elected Jack Dorsey Than Elected Ted Cruz
You can fire Jack Dorsey from your life right now, by deleting your Twitter account, with no repercussions beyond not being able to use the service he offers. You can’t fire Ted Cruz. Nor can those 4.2 million Texans, at least until 2024. And if you don’t want the “services” he offers, he’ll send enforcers with guns to make sure you accept (and pay for) them anyway, or be caged or killed.
No, Google is Not a Monopoly
On October 20, the US Department of Justice — joined by 11 Republican state attorneys general — filed a civil lawsuit against Google, with the stated goal of stopping it from “unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets.” The lawsuit is meritless on its face.
COVID-19: Two Things About “The Science”
I support the Great Barrington Declaration — not because of the specific approach it advocates, although I agree with that approach, but because it demonstrates two important truths about science that many seem to have lost sight of recently.
Why “Preference” is a Dirty Word to the New Puritans
“I do want to be clear,” Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett said during her Senate confirmation hearing, “that I have never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would not ever discriminate on the basis of sexual preference.” A laudable stand, one might think. But some don’t.
Tucker Carlson and the Cult of the Court
“The Supreme Court,” said Tucker Carlson on the October 12 edition of his Fox talk show, “exists only to determine whether the laws that our politicians write are consistent with the Constitution of the United States. That’s why we have a Supreme Court. It’s the only reason we have it.” Perhaps Tucker should keep a copy of the Constitution, maybe even a history book or two, on his desk (or on the table in his show’s writers’ room) to help him avoid saying stupid things like that in public.
Why You Probably Won’t See More “COVID-19 Relief” in October
Both major political parties would have you believe that the devil is in the details — that they’re both fighting hard for particular priorities and just can’t come to a meeting of the minds. In reality, this is all about next month’s elections, which will decide control of the White House for the next four years, and possibly of both houses of Congress for the next two.
Trump vs. Biden: Keeping Up With Toddlers and Tiaras
If Daddy hadn’t made and left him a fortune on sweetheart government housing contracts, Donald Trump would probably be bragging about how cold the AC runs on the old Ford Escort he’s trying to get off his lot (“BUY HERE! PAY HERE! BAD CREDIT? NO PROBLEM!”) and hoping you don’t notice the transmission slipping when you take it out for a test drive. If Joe Biden had stuck with law, he’d probably be chasing ambulances to emergency rooms, loud plaid sport coat and chartreuse tie thrown across the passenger seat, visions of easy whiplash settlements dancing in his head.
COVID-19 Panic is the New State Religion
The TL;DR on COVID-19: Panic, not science, continues to drive the public policy discussion.