You’ve seen the headlines. So Have I. For example, a November 23 story in my local paper (the Gainesville, Florida Sun) : “Gainesville man charged with murder for Sunday shooting in dispute over marijuana deal.” It wasn’t a huge marijuana deal. It was a $180 sale. The seller apparently shot a buyer who tried to drive off without paying.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
Private Property Rights Made the First Thanksgiving Possible
When they came to America, the pilgrims decided to share everything. The governor of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, wrote that the pilgrims thought “taking away of property and [making it communal]…would make them happy and flourishing.” Food and supplies were distributed based on need. Pilgrims would not selfishly produce food for themselves. In other words, they, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and many American young people today, fell in love with the idea of socialism. The result was ugly.
Conserve Your Sympathies, Fight Your Own Battles
As has not been lost on many modern-day libertarians, the ancient Greek and Roman Stoics counselled – among many other things – that since the vast majority of occurrences we encounter in life are matters beyond our control, it only makes rational sense to disregard such goings-on, and focus exclusively on those things which are of immediate concern to us, and fall within our own sphere of personal influence.
The Other Side Isn’t What’s Evil
Evil isn’t just whatever you don’t like. That would be too easy. Evil is any action that violates someone who isn’t currently violating the life, liberty, or property of another; an act that harms someone who doesn’t deserve to be harmed at this moment.
Rittenhouse Verdict: Justice, But Not Joy
On November 19, a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on various charges related to the shootings of three people (two fatally) during an August night of “unrest” (that is, a protest turned riot) in Kenosha.
My Upside of Covid
Since this is Thanksgiving Week, I’m reflecting on all the ways that my life has improved since Covid. And the list is not short.
Momentum Is Tricky
Confronted with a naked alphabet, I must devise a word or phrase that starts with each letter, is related to a bucket list, and related to voluntaryism. The benefit is that you may realize a few things, people, places, and/or occasions that carved into your subconscious.
Rigged Political Language
It’s an old trick: gain advantage over others by hiding one’s meaning behind euphemisms and other forms of linguistic camouflage and misdirection. People do this in all walks of life, but politicians make careers of it. If they engage in straight talk at all, it is by far the exception. The journalist Michael Kinsley defined a gaffe as “when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.”
How Markets are Like the Internet and Dinosaurs
“Slowly but surely,” Neal Freyman reports at Morning Brew, “the supply chain bottlenecks that have plagued the global economy for over a year appear to be easing — or at least have been circumvented.”
“I Have Not Assumed Libertarianism”
Like The Problem of Political Authority, Huemer’s Justice before the Law begins with common-sense moral premises, yet reaches radical libertarian conclusions. A tall order? Indeed, but he delivers.