How much do you respect and obey laws? How much should you? I suppose that depends on what you mean by “laws.” Most people confuse legislation for laws. Laws were discovered — usually thousands of years ago — while legislation is made up by politicians and imposed under threat of violence as if it were law. Occasionally, legislation is written to copy or reflect law, but not often.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
Voltairine de Cleyre
I have rediscovered Voltairine de Cleyre recently, or maybe I should just say “discovered.” I had previously known her only from quotes and pocket-sized bios. Listening to an audiobook of essays, however, I am learning of the artfulness that keeps her famous more than a century after her death in 1912.
How Republicans Can Win Back the Immigrant Vote
Today’s immigrant voters are heavily Democratic, but ’twas not always so. As Open Borders explains, immigrants were almost evenly split during the Reagan era. It’s not hard to see why. At least rhetorically, Reagan nearly endorsed open borders: I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever […]
The post How Republicans Can Win Back the Immigrant Vote appeared first on Econlib.
Don’t Make Mark Zuckerberg America’s Political Truth Czar
Some politicians want Facebook to stop politicians from lying. They phrase that desire as a request for Facebook to “fact check” content posted by politicians, especially political advertising. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I’m not sure it’s coincidence that the examples politicians offer tend to be drawn from content posted by their political opponents.
Open Borders: Hopes and Fears on Release Day
My first graphic novel, Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, co-authored with the great Zach Weinersmith, releases today. Since I’ve already shared the backstory, today I’ll share my hopes and fears. All of my books have been controversial. Yet so far, almost no prominent critic has accused any of my books of being “ideological” […]
The post <i>Open Borders</i>: Hopes and Fears on Release Day appeared first on Econlib.
Autumn Leaves
This time of year you have to deal with them, every one, sooner or later. The coloring and the fall of the autumn leaves is a miracle to behold, but the phenomenon presents a few problems as well — TANSTAAFL.
Evil Among Us
When I was a teen, an IRS agent lived across the street from my family. No one said anything to him about it, but everyone looked at him as though he were in the mafia. Which is closer to the truth than I realized at the time. People were a bit suspicious and standoffish around him. And he didn’t really socialize much. He acted guilty because he was.
In Syria “Withdrawal,” Less is Probably More
When US president Donald Trump announced his plan to relocate a few dozen US soldiers in Syria — getting them out of the way of a pending Turkish invasion — the Washington establishment exploded in rage at what it mis-characterized as a US “withdrawal” from Syria. Instead of fighting that mis-characterization, Trump embraced it, pretending that an actual withdrawal was in progress and announcing on October 9 that “we’re bringing our folks back home. ”
Guns and History
The enslavement, oppression, torture, genocide, forced starvation, concentration camps, and wholesale mass murder wrought by governments on unarmed citizens utterly dwarf by orders of magnitude harms, crimes, and accidents done by armed citizens to one another throughout history.
Anti-Liberty Pro-Gunners
Some legislation enforcement goon was puffing out his chest (in comment form), saying he would never participate in gun confiscation, but when I asked about other gang activities I suspect he participates in (prohibition, rules against full-auto weapons, seat belt enforcement, “speeding” tickets, etc.), people lost their minds. I was the bad guy.