One perversity of modern American culture is the propensity of some to treat totalitarian mass murderers as “cool” kitsch. Consider, for example, the love affair of many leftist college students with the totalitarian and mass-murderer Che Guevara. Recently, when I attended the conference of the Association of Private Enterprise Education,…

In a delightful essay for the Library of Economics and Liberty, economist David Henderson explains why property rights enable people to live together peacefully rather than fight over preferences and resources through the political system. Henderson opens with the questions, "Should restaurants allow smoking or not? Should schools teach evolution…

The Tea Party is ready for a “hostile takeover” of Washington, or so argues Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks. Recently I interviewed Kibbe about his forthcoming book, Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America. Kibbe said his book “works on the analogy of what a hostile takeover is in…

Why have fifteen states joined the Department of Justice in persecuting several book publishers and Apple? Why do many in the media refer to the leaders of these businesses as “conspirators,” as though they were criminals? The producers are guilty of the heinous “crime” of selling digital books through willing…

Last week at the annual conference of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, I had the opportunity to interview Warren Orbaugh, director of the Henry Hazlitt Center at the Francisco Marroquín University. Orbaugh discussed the work of Manuel “Muso” Ayau, who founded the university to support the ideas of free…

Last week, at the annual conference of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, I interviewed Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, about the development of the Tea Party. Kibbe said, among other things, that the Tea Party is becoming more directly political, focusing on get-out-the-vote efforts and the like, and, more…

In a distressing sign of the times, the New Jersey government has turned to outright theft of people’s gift cards in the Garden State. As the Christian Science Monitor summarizes: Pursuant to a law passed two years ago, the New Jersey Department of the Treasury will soon compel sellers to…

In a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors this past Tuesday, Barack Obama condemned the Republican budget proposal as “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” Why? Because Republicans would spend slightly less money on welfare and other programs than Obama proposes, and increase government spending at a slightly slower rate…

After attending a conference in Las Vegas earlier this week, I had the chance to see Penn & Teller’s magic show at the Rio. A big part of why their show is so entertaining is that they present interesting ideas in novel and provocative ways. Their show is something of…

No, Colorado cannot unilaterally impose tax obligations on out-of-state businesses, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn ruled recently. Blackburn threw out Colorado’s 2010 “Amazon Tax” that sought to force out-of-state sellers to assist the state in collecting sales taxes from residents. The judge ruled that the controls “impose an undue burden…

The Justice Department continues its assault on the property and contract rights of Apple and various book publishers. Bloomberg reports that the DOJ “is close to a settlement with three of the world’s biggest publishers on e-book price contracts with Apple Inc.” According to the antitrust laws under which the…

“America was not founded on God and religion. America was founded on reason,” said Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, at the 2012 Reason Rally in Washington, DC. He added: The Age of Reason . . . was the age when humanity was born again, not from original sin, but…

Apparently Justice Elena Kagan is oblivious to the obvious fact that taxes are coercive, in that they forcibly take wealth away from the owners of that wealth and give it to others. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered oral arguments regarding the Medicaid mandate that ObamaCare would impose on states.…

I am nearly at a loss for words: “The New York City Department of Education is waging a war on words of sorts, and is seeking to have words they deem upsetting removed from standardized tests,” reports CBS New York. The offending words include “dinosaur” because the term suggests “evolution…

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday pertaining to the ObamaCare insurance mandate. At issue is whether the federal government may force people to purchase health insurance. The arguments demonstrate that the mandate is a response to the problems created by other government controls of health care and insurance. Consider…