Articles

Modern American politics continues to read like something out of Atlas Shrugged, Alice in Wonderland, or The Onion. As a recent example, various economists, pundits, and politicians have, with a straight face, endorsed the minting of a trillion-dollar coin to escape the debt limit. Talking Points Memo offers the background.…

In the face of the government’s shocking violations of private property rights, at least a number of pro-liberty attorneys, such as those with the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), are fighting for the rights of property owners in the courts. In a January 9 email, Rob Rivett, president of PLF, announced…

In a USA Today op-ed Tuesday, Glenn Reynolds, author of the popular blog Instapundit, reported that government schools are seeing ever higher competition from private and online schools and homeschooling. He writes: Americans across the country—but especially in large, urban school systems—are voting with their feet and abandoning traditional public…

In the aftermath of the horrific murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School—while various federal and state legislators have proposed numerous bills restricting the sale and possession of guns, magazines, and ammunition—many Americans have wondered about or discussed the propriety of self-defense and of gun ownership. My father, Linn Armstrong, is…

Craig Biddle fields questions on the ideas that undergird liberty, the morality of communes, and the prospect of defending liberty with "non-coercive altruism." http://www.youtube.com/embed/18YochP4wVg

A tax break is not a subsidy. As I’ve written, a tax break lets someone keep more of his own wealth, while a subsidy takes money from one person and gives it to someone else. Thus, when the “fiscal cliff” compromise gave tax breaks to Nascar, Starkist, “algae-based fuel,” and…

As Michigan lawmakers moved toward enacting “Right-to-Work” legislation earlier this month, President Obama swept into the state to defend employees’ “right to bargain for better wages." Governor Rick Snyder subsequently signed the measures into law. Of course, when Obama speaks of the “right to bargain,” he does not mean the…

Fox Business reports that executives from more than 800 companies and medical-groups are demanding a repeal to the medical-device tax. Here are some excerpts from their letter to the senate demanding its repeal and elucidating why the tax will “adversely impact patient care and innovation, and will substantially increase the…

Earth date: January 3, 2013. William Shatner—most famously known as “Captain Kirk” from Star Trek—sent a Tweet to Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut currently commanding the International Space Station. Shatner Tweeted, simply, “@Cmdr_Hadfield Are you tweeting from space?” Hadfield replied, “Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain. And we're detecting signs of life…

Congress avoided the so-called “fiscal cliff” only by passing tax hikes and leaving out-of-control federal spending practically untouched. But, to those with friends in political places, Congress rewarded special tax breaks. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Congress rewarded various special tax breaks in the “fiscal cliff” legislation, including the…

Although weather forecasters brilliantly predicted Superstorm Sandy's impact days in advance—thereby saving many lives—in the near future forecasters could see their science take "a significant step back." The New Jersey Star-Ledger’s Stephen Stirling reports: Satellites critical to the ability of meteorologists to build accurate long-term forecasts are expected to fail…

Rather than reduce federal spending more than a token amount (let alone enough to balance the budget now and in the long term), Congress has decided to continue its profligate spending, to ignore the “entitlement” crisis, and to “solve” the financial crisis by raising taxes. Stephen Ohlemacher writes for the…

An American who considers all the places he might have been born will conclude (if he values his life and happiness) that he was lucky to have been born in America, the Land of Opportunity, the Land of Liberty. Those born anywhere in the industrialized (or even semi-industrialized) world will…

Dear Friend of TOS, I’m writing to ask for your support in defense of your values. For seven years, The Objective Standard has consistently delivered high-quality, in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective. We’ve gotten the journal into more than a hundred libraries—including those of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and many other top…

Peter Schiff discusses in this video why the mob doesn’t have a right to steal his money, and he warns Americans about the continuing assault on the wealthy. I have no doubt that the mob has the means to steal my money, the government has given them the means, we…