The phrase in vogue today with advocates of minimum wage laws—laws forcing employers to pay employees more than they otherwise would—is “living wage.” But, apart from laws mandating a minimum wage, this phrase has no referent in reality. And laws dictating minimum wages are immoral. To get a sense of…

Had the satirical publican The Onion existed during America’s founding era, this is the sort of story it might have run: In New York City, it is a crime to serve dinner in your home for a fee. The “criminals” involved could have their kitchens shut down by the city’s…

Perhaps we should expect no better from the magazine that published a sycophantic tribute to the Boston bombers. Still, it is disappointing to see Rolling Stone smear Alex Epstein, a contributor to The Objective Standard, president of the Center for Industrial Progress, and outspoken defender of the use of fossil…

We live in an amazing age, filled with astounding, life-serving technological advances. And, in addition to the material goods involved in these advances, we can gain spiritual fuel from them by explicitly recognizing and celebrating them and the great producers who bring them about. Here are some recent examples: The…

Astonishing as it is that we must argue for the principle that the U.S. military should be deployed exclusively in service of America’s self-interest, we must. As Craig Biddle explained on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many Americans, including our politicians, advocate a foreign policy that sacrifices American…

With this week’s DVD release of Star Trek into Darkness, now is a good time to evaluate or reevaluate the oft-stated Star Trek claim, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (or “the one”). This claim is made in various scenes in the films, including in…

It is unclear whether the Obama administration will proceed with an “unbelievably small” military strike against the Syrian regime or plead with Bashar al-Assad to surrender its chemical weapons. One thing that is clear, however, is that to pursue military action in Syria as a means of stopping Iran’s nuclear…

What is the Obama administration’s mission in Syria? Secretary of State John Kerry recently spelled it out: We will be able to hold Bashar al-Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, short-term effort that degrades…

If you purchased ebooks from select publishers, the government is offering to force those publishers to send you “settlement” funds as part of the government’s antitrust action against them. As a matter of justice, you should refuse those funds—as I have done. To accept them would be to sanction the…

As I wrote last December, the U.S. government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) forced out of business Maxfield and Oberton, the producers of the adult toys Buckyballs—small powerful magnets that can be arranged in intricate designs. I summarized: [B]ecause a few parents irresponsibly let their toddlers eat Buckyballs, and because…

Allison Benedikt’s article for Slate, “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person,” is morally atrocious. Benedikt argues that parents should intentionally subject their children to a poor-quality education in the government’s “public” schools for the sake of attempting to make those schools better for…

Secretary of State John Kerry is right that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s use of nerve gas against the Syrian population is a “moral obscenity”—but he is wrong that this moral obscenity justifies U.S. military intervention. As Reuters reports, the evidence indicates Assad used “rockets or missiles . . . to…

Rebecca Cullers of Adweek claims that marketer and so-called “consumer advocate” Alex Bogusky has a “foolproof way of bringing back 1 million U.S. jobs.” Bogusky says in a YouTube video, “It’s as simple as this: Every time you buy something, ensure it was made in America.” He immediately backs off…

Peter Dinklage, an actor known for his work in the 2003 film The Station Agent and now the television series Game of Thrones, worked for years to build his career before reaching commercial success, as the New York Times detailed earlier this year. When talking with the Times, Dinklage initially…

As ObamaCare bears down on us, how do we, as consumers of medical services, avoid getting caught in the vicegrip of bureaucratic, politically controlled medicine? How do we find doctors motivated to help their patients maintain their long-term health—rather than to appease health bureaucrats and the insurance companies the government…