Early one morning last December, Jeff Gracik was heading to his southern California home garage-workshop where he makes his living when he heard a loud, hurried knock on his front door. Thinking it might be a rushed UPS driver, he quickly opened the door. But it wasn’t UPS. Standing on his doorstep were three badge-flashing inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They had come to inspect Jeff’s business.
Tag: libertarian
A Preference for Peace: Not the Same Thing as Support for the Bogeyman of the Week
I’m not ashamed to admit it: I’m a peacenik. I think war is a bad thing. I’ve seen it up close and personal as an infantryman, and I’d like to see less of it, preferably none at all, either up close or from a distance. In part, this desire also makes me a “non-interventionist.” That is, in a world with 195 “sovereign nations,” it makes sense that the political officials in each one should mind his or her own state’s business and not try to decide who gets to run the other 194, or how they should do so.
Immigration and Redistribution: The Research to Trust
Evaluating the quality of research is laborious. Unless you re-do the whole paper yourself, how do you know the authors were not only truthful, but careful? Faced with this quandary, one of my favorite heuristics is to ask: Did the authors want to find this result? If the answer is No, I put a lot more credence into the results. In research as in the law, statements contrary to interest count more.
Owning the Past
My excellent fellow writer and contributor here at EVC, Kent McManigal wrote a piece recently in which he pointed out that racism is not a permanent affliction. It is only enduring when the holder of racist views continues to stoke that fire.
Uninformed, Misinformed, Brainwashed Statists
Any bland “news” story about the “arrest” of a drug dealer, and the drugs, cash, and guns confiscated from him, is a nest of lies– opinions, if I were to be nice about it. It will assume statism. It will assume the legitimacy of prohibition, “taxation”, government police, “gun control” [sic], “laws”, the “justice system”, and a hundred other things which shouldn’t be assumed.
“Less Emotional; More Reasoned”
The first time I encountered social psychologist Jonathan Haidt I had a kind of visceral dislike for him. I don’t even know why. However, I have since listened to more of his interviews and lectures and found some pearls there– the instinctive dislike I felt at first has largely faded.
The FDA’s Assault on Tobacco Consumers, Part 2
DeLauro’s bill betrays a fundamental puritanism, which underlies all prohibitionism: since nicotine is a substance that provides pleasure and some people therefore use it habitually, it must be stamped out and its consumers, producers, and merchants demonized.
Tom Woods: Smashing Myths & Restoring Sound Money (47m)
This episode features a lecture by historian and Austro-libertarian Tom Woods from 2009 on smashing the myths about central banking, and on the importance of restoring sound money, such as a gold standard.
“Toxic Masculinity” is Propaganda
The term masculinity is supposed to refer to cultural trends within sex that influence behavior, not the actual behavior. Since we live in an incredibly complex and diverse society with many subcultures, trying to define what exactly our society promotes as masculine is ambiguous.
The Fired Next Time: A “Shutdown” Proposal
I’ve got a better idea. Instead of taking off work in support of furloughed federal employees, why not seize the jobs those employees are doing and free the employees, and the customers, from the competing manipulations of Donald Trump, Charles Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi?