Politics & Rights

A seventy-year-old southern Italian man has been fined 1,000 Euros (nearly $1,300) for the so-called crime of “scorn against the nation.” The first version of the law was introduced as part of the “crimes against the State’s character” in 1889 and was kept on the books after Mussolini’s fascist takeover.…

Earlier today, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed House Bill 2, banning most abortions after twenty weeks and severely regulating the state’s abortion clinics and certain birth-control drugs. For now, I want to leave aside the regulations the bill imposes both on abortion clinics (restrictions so severe that “only five of…

The Objective Standard aided and abetted lawbreaker Jonathan Hoenig for more than a year—but we are now in the clear. Hoenig, a.k.a. “Capitalist Pig,” has purchased a back-cover advertisement with The Standard since the summer of 2012 to promote his hedge fund business. But, as Peter Sterne reports for the…

In a July 8 episode of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson rejected civil rights, which, he conceded, underpinned the recent Supreme Court rulings concerning homosexual marriage. And for some reason now the Supreme Court has said homosexuality is now a constitutional right and homosexual marriage, this decision that was handed…

The Department of Labor recently estimated that U.S. employers added 195,000 jobs during the month of June, which prompted excitement from the White House and spurred a rise in stock prices. But the full set of figures hardly points to a strong economy. Consider: The overall unemployment rate remained steady…

Do we properly have freedom from religion? Some say no. In June, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed new legislation permitting displays of religious expressions in tax-funded schools. He rationalized the law by saying, "Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion." And Roy Costner IV, the high school valedictorian who…

Today U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled against Apple in an antitrust suit, claiming that the company “conspired to raise the retail price of e-books,” NPR reports. What did Apple allegedly do wrong? Bloomberg summarizes: The U.S. sued Apple and five of the biggest publishers in April 2012, claiming the…

A short video from a twelve-year-old boy in Egypt is going viral on the Web, approaching two million views on YouTube. Assuming the translation is accurate, the boy condemns the Muslim Brotherhood and its attempt to impose sharia law. “We didn’t get rid of a military regime to replace it…

The founders would have been shocked to learn that their nation would outlaw the homebrewing of beer—shocked, among other reasons, because Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, and other founders brewed beer themselves. Finally, after 80 years, homebrewing has been re-legalized in all fifty states. The American Homebrewers Association summarizes: Even after…

Today the Supreme Court ruled the federal government may not discriminate against gay couples recognized by states as married. By throwing out the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbade the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, the Supreme Court ruled that DOMA resulted in “deprivation of an essential…