Anyone who hopes for a peaceful pro-liberty intellectual revolution is interested in the art of persuasion. But is it a practical art? Can enough people be persuaded to abandon long-held anti-liberty views for something quite different?
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
Popular Progressive Policies Helped Ruin Venezuela; They Won’t Work Here Either
The idea that massive government spending, hate speech laws, and gun control will improve America—when they failed horribly elsewhere—is a dangerous myth.
Parents Have Every Right to Shape Their Kids’ Curriculum
We shouldn’t be too surprised that the ongoing exodus from public schools is leading those loyal to government-run schooling to go on the offensive. A new Washington Post Op-Ed is leading the charge, boldly declaring in its headline: “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.”
Who’s Responsible for the Rust Shooting?
On October 21, actor Alec Baldwin shot and killed one person (cinematographer Halyna Hutchins) and wounded another (director Joel Souza) on the set of Rust, a western film he was making in New Mexico. Reportage generally describes the shooting as an “accident,” but it wasn’t. There are two kinds of firearms discharges: Intentional and negligent. This … Continue reading Who’s Responsible for the Rust Shooting?
Actions Have Natural Consequences
Actions have consequences. I can disagree with what someone does, and even believe they should face consequences for their actions, without believing government should hand out those consequences. Government isn’t the proper place to look for solutions.
Pegasus Take Flight: My Vermont “Jury Duty” Experience
“They’re going to think you’re a Pegasus who just came down from a cloud,” a friend of mine from New Hampshire told me over the phone last summer, when I told him I’d be summonsed for “jury duty” here in Vermont. “They’ll probably be asking themselves whether you’re going to burn the building down. And I know it won’t be filmed or recorded, but it would be absolutely hilarious to see the answers you give them.”
The Goalposts of Consent
People routinely justify government on the basis of “consent.” As in: “There’s a social contract, and you’re obliged to follow it.” If you deny consent, they just move the goalposts of consent very close. In fact, they usually give the government an instant touchdown.
“The Public Good” Isn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s — or Congress’s — Priority
Facebook “whistleblower” Frances Haugen, the Washington Post reports, has “repeatedly accused [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg of choosing growth over the public good.” The Post‘s headline puts it a slightly different way: “Growth over safety.”
Political Power is the Problem, Not the Solution
You’ve seen the empty shelves at your local stores. You’ve seen the yellow “out of gas” bags at your local gas stations. You’ve seen the “limited hours” and “drive-thru only” signs at your local fast-food restaurants. Authoritarian politicians and bureaucrats can’t fix those problems. They CAUSED those problems, and anything they do other than sitting down, shutting up, and staying out of the way will make those problems worse, not better.
That Bloody Government Debt
The government’s attraction to borrowing is hardly a mystery. If the politicians had to extract every dollar they wanted to spend directly from the taxpayers, they might have a revolt on their hands–a bad career move for sure. Borrowing tends to make people more tolerant of bigger government than they would have been otherwise. After […]