Articles

City government ought not turn the police into rights violators or extortionists with its ill-conceived policies; instead, it should direct police officers to protect people’s rights and to do only that. That would foster greater community support for the men and women in uniform who regularly risk their lives to protect our rights.

We at The Objective Standard extend our deepest condolences to the victims of the jihadist attack in Paris yesterday. We post the "offending" cartoons here in the spirit of Charlie Hebdo and its editor, Stephane Charbonnier, who famously said, “I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.” We couldn’t agree more.

Set in Chicago during the holiday season, Quent Cordair's screenplay Mujahid involves a conflict between Husam, a young Muslim man who takes Islam seriously, and his younger brother Jasim. The conflict escalates after Husam is handed a heavy bag by a bearded man and gets on a bus heading downtown.

Merry Christmas from all of us at The Objective Standard. We wish you and your loved ones a happy new year and a productive, joy-filled 2015.

Contrary to Jonathan Coppage’s claims, services in a market economy are fundamentally dependent on the ownership of property—both physical and intellectual—not somehow untethered from it. The Hank Reardens of the world, the industrial “makers” whom Coppage demeans, continue to play a fundamental role in the economy, and they always will.

Let us not whitewash events surrounding Sony’s now-cancelled film The Interview: The North Korean government apparently perpetrated multiple acts of war against the United States, its people, and their liberties, waging cyber warfare against Sony (of which Sony Pictures is headquartered in California) and threatening to blow up American theaters full of people.

The extravagant window displays at Bergdorf Goodman department store on New York’s Fifth Avenue are a popular draw this time of year, and for good reason. These dazzling arrangements entice pedestrians into the store and inspire crowds to stop, snap photos, and marvel. The artful windows celebrate commerce, wealth, and high-end goods.

The solution to the problem of police brutality is not to presume white officers guilty and the black men they confront blameless, nor to focus only on black victims of police abuse; rather, the solution is to demand justice for each individual, as judged by the relevant facts of a given case. Because all lives matter.

Alex Epstein focuses on two essential points: We should consider the profound benefits of fossil fuels, not just its costs and problems; and we should measure these benefits and costs by the standard of human life, not untouched nature. Epstein reviews relevant scientific and historical facts in view of those major themes.

Eric Brown's death highlights an important truth that everyone who cares about individual rights and liberty must come to see: Government ultimately enforces laws by the threat or use of physical force. Lawmakers should pass only laws that protect individual rights by banning the use of physical force, fraud, and the like.

Brittany Maynard’s decision to take her own life to end her suffering, rather than wait for her aggressive brain tumor to kill her, has prompted a national debate about assisted suicide laws. Individuals with terminal illnesses or devastating trauma have a moral right to decide for themselves whether to continue living or to end their suffering.

New federal regulations intentionally target private, for-profit colleges. The government should not be involved in lending money to students at all. But so long as it is, and so long as it regulates these loans, it is morally obligated—and should be legally obligated—to treat all students and all educational institutions equally under the law.

Google’s owners own the company; it is their property and their enterprise to operate as they see fit. But for years various government entities have sought to violate—and in some cases have succeeded in violating—the moral rights of Google’s owners to operate their business according to their own judgment.

Both Brittany Maynard and Christina Symanski bravely chose to decide for themselves the terms on which they would live and die—and both women bravely chose to make their decisions and struggles public in order to highlight the inhumanity of laws forbidding assisted suicide.

A person with a terminal illness or the like has a moral right to decide whether to keep living or to take his own life to end his suffering. But many conservatives feel they have a right to impose their will on an individual facing such a choice—and to use government to enforce their will.