While I appreciate when governments express support for natural human rights, I wonder if they really understand the rights they claim to support. Roosevelt County was recently declared a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” by the county commission. How serious are they?
Tag: rights
Lawmakers Want to Give Voting Rights to Teens They Treat Like Toddlers
Teenagers are capable of being valuable contributors to civil society. They should be granted greater freedom and responsibility. Lowering the voting age while trapping them in compulsory schooling gives teenagers neither freedom nor responsibility.
Chelsea Manning: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Again
One of the 21st century’s greatest heroines is behind bars again, held in contempt by federal judge Claude M. Hilton for refusing to help prosecutors trump up charges against the journalists who published information she paid dearly for giving them.
Inconsistency is a Hallmark of Statism
I’ve seen statists hallucinate that the right of self-defense somehow justifies their support of an armed gang of badged government employees, funded with stolen money, imposing counterfeit rules at gunpoint, with little or no accountability.
I Win My European Unemployment Bet
In 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate exceeded Europe’s for the first time in decades. Apologists for European labor market regulation rejoiced, so I publicly bet that European unemployment would exceed U.S. unemployment over the next decade. The original authors I targeted turned me down, even after I offered a 1 percentage-point spread. But noted economist John Quiggin took the bait.
Daniel D’Amico: An Economist’s Look at Intellectual Property Law (1h18m)
This episode features a lecture by economics professor Daniel J. D’Amico from 2011 on intellectual property law. He discusses several arguments for and against government enforcement of intellectual property, including trademarks, patents, and copyrights. He explores both moral arguments (deontological) and cost benefit arguments (consequential), dedicating most of his time to consequential arguments. He finds that, in general, intellectual property is difficult to enforce and is inherently an anti-rival good. As a result, he finds no compelling case for government established intellectual property law.
Does Ideological Dystopia Await Us?
Imagine a world in which the great majority has no respect for facts or for truth of any sort, where ideological convictions rule almost everyone’s understanding of the world, where truth has become an endangered rhetorical species on the brink of extinction. In such a world, facts would still exist, of course, and true propositions would still stand in stark contradiction of false ones, but hardly anyone would care.
Courts Have Institutionalized Revenge
Punishment isn’t justice. I understand the desire to see a person suffer when their actions have hurt you. I’ve been there. But that’s not justice, it’s revenge; justice’s polar opposite. Government courts — the misnamed “justice system” — are founded on ritualized revenge.
Mandatory National Service: “Strengthening American Democracy” by Ignoring Americans’ Rights
The state has no legitimate power to take your life, or any portion of it, from you, nor any legitimate power to force you to serve its goals rather than seeking after your own happiness. “Mandatory national service” is slavery, full stop. It’s a moral abomination with no conceivable justification in anything resembling a free society, and under the US Constitution in particular it is clearly and unambiguously illegal.
Don’t Follow a Sick Society
If everyone wants to be a victim, they’ll find some way I’m victimizing them no matter how I try to bend over backward to accommodate them. So I’m not going to bend. They can take their victimization and choke on it.