When libertarians talk about criminal justice reform, we often draw a distinction between real crime and “victimless crime.” The term is actually an oxymoron, however, as an act that does not victimize another cannot be a crime. What we are referring to are voluntary actions that do not harm anyone against their will, but which…
Tag: libertarian
Re: Ethics of Torture
Parrish, Walter Block recently argued in his debate over spanking with Stefan Molyneux that the basis of libertarianism is not the NAP, rather its punishment theory. I think the NAP is an important component of punishment theory, as I think Block does, too, but the reason he said that was because he views libertarianism as,…
The Ethics of Torture
NOTE: This blog post contains mild spoilers for the 2013 Hugh Jackman movie “Prisoners.” An intriguing movie on many levels, “Prisoners” sets up a very thought-provoking scenario in which the father of a kidnapped girl has extremely strong evidence that a particular suspect is guilty of or at least involved in the kidnapping. The evidence…
On What is Unseen
Frederic Bastiat’s principle that we mustn’t look at only what is seen, but also what is unseen, applies as much to politics as it does to economics. The State of Utah had it’s ban on same-sex marriage overturned by a Federal judge yesterday. Previous to this, a Federal judge also overturned Utah’s ban on polygamous…
Re: If Libertarianism Is Such a Great System
To argue that libertarianism/statelessness is invalid because it’s never been adopted (on a large scale) is similar to arguing that trying to find a cure for cancer is foolish because we’ve never lived in a world without it. When something (be it cancer or the state) has been consistently shown to be destructive and to…
If Libertarianism Is Such a Great System
Nobody asked but … On a podcast, We Are Libertarians, I listened to yesterday, the interviewer asked Tom Woods, “If libertarianism is such a great system, why haven’t any countries adopted it?” Tom did an excellent job of answering, because it was just a softball slow pitch for him. What I was astounded by was…
Crime and Punishment in a Free Society
Would a free society be a crime-free society? We have good reason to anticipate it. Don’t accuse me of utopianism. I don’t foresee a future of new human beings who consistently respect the rights of others. Rather, I’m drawing attention to the distinction between crime and tort — between offenses against the state (or society) and offenses against individual persons or their justly held property.
Episode 001 – Skyler’s Journey (1h13m)
Episode 001 kicks off the Everything-Voluntary.com podcast with a look at Skyler’s journey toward voluntaryism, peaceful parenting, and radical unschooling. Listen to Episode 001 (1h13m, mp3, 96kbps) Show Notes Skyler’s Personal WebsiteFacebook Profile, Skyler J. Collins My Road to Liberty Went Through Economics Why I’m a Libertarian Post-Punitive Parenting Education in the 21st Century Origin…
Hazlitt, Balko, “Private Sector”
Send him mail. “Finding the Challenges” is an original column appearing every other Wednesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Verbal Vol. Verbal is a software engineer, college professor, corporate information officer, life long student, farmer, libertarian, literarian, student of computer science and self-ordering phenomena. Archived columns can be found here. FTC-only RSS feed available here. It never…
My Journey to Voluntarism
Send him mail. “Food for Thought” is an original column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. He is not a member of any social network, nor does he…