Governments, the Declaration of Independence declares, “deriv[e] their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed,” and absent such consent for a particular government, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” Which, as you may recall, America’s British colonists proceeded to do. By force.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
Socialism is Satan
If you’ll pardon me, I’m going to engage in a little of my own Paul Harvey here: If I were Satan (and likely, there are more than a few leftists out there by now who believe precisely that), I would promote and engage in virtually every idea and activity that the modern Left presently does.
“For the Children”: The Last Refuge of Anti-Encryption Scoundrels
End-to-end encryption — encryption built directly into apps and requiring little or no effort to invoke — brings the benefits of online privacy to everyday Internet users. The campaigns against it aren’t aimed at terrorists or child pornographers or child sex traffickers. They’re aimed at you.
My Gitmo
My Gitmo. A small enclave where the philosophy of freedom still exists. Outside, in much of the rest of Vermont, is an ethical and intellectual wasteland filled with devious, diabolical, destructive, and downright evil ideas such as critical race theory, socialism, gun control, suppression of free speech, and cultural Marxism. Those things are not welcome here. Not on my 20 acres. Not at my Gitmo.
Easy Cases May Make Bad Rules
Hard cases make bad law, an adage apparently coined before 1837 tells us. In other words, “an extreme case is a poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases.” Not everyone has agreed that this is the case, but we’ll let that go. I just want to point out that easy cases also may make bad law, or at least bad rules.
Limited Government and Communism
What do the two share in common? The original end-concept of the latter was that ultimately, via socialism, the State would simply disappear altogether.
Modern Life Not From Government
Government would like you to believe it brought about this modern world’s peace, prosperity, and safety. Yet the truth is, when these things are the norm it’s in spite of political government, not because of it. Appreciate the heroes, not the freeloaders.
Of Pockets, Legs, and Polarization
When it comes to political issues, Thomas Jefferson offered a useful standard: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
You No Longer Believe the Government? That’s Not Enough
No one really believes the government itself anymore. Those days began dying, in all truth, when JFK did. Public incredulity of media and its relationship to government has only escalated ever since.
Vladimir Putin Is Not the Neville Chamberlain the US/NATO is Looking For
For 45 years, the justification was to defend Germany from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. As Germany moved toward reunification, US Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization wouldn’t expand so much as “one inch eastward” into the former Soviet sphere of influence it was created to contain.