Politics & Rights

Although you’re far more likely to die in a car crash than at the hands of a mass murderer, you face some risk of a criminal assault or a terrorist attack, especially when our government is failing on multiple fronts to eliminate the threat of terrorism. So it is worth…

At the fifth annual Tax Day Tea Party in Chicago, Jonathan Hoenig delivered an excellent speech on the principles of Americanism and the need to return to them. Focusing on what made America unique in history, he pointed out what it means to be free and what it means to…

As the New York Times’s Suzanne Daley recently reported, Denmark’s massive welfare state imposes “the highest marginal income-tax rates in the world” in order to subsidize “able-bodied” Danes with “no intention of taking a demeaning job.” Consequently, the nation faces massive and growing unemployment; “only 3 of Denmark’s 98 municipalities…

During a pre-game ceremony at Fenway Park last weekend, the Boston Red Sox commemorated the city’s return to normalcy following the capture of the Boston Marathon bombers. Addressing the crowd, and on live television, popular Red Sox slugger David “Big Papi” Ortiz shouted, “This is our f***ing city, and nobody…

Events last week surrounding the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers were instructive regarding the contradiction that is anarchy. Anarchy, the absence of government, leaves political justice to the will of the general public. How would that have played out in this instance? Had there been no government—that is, no…

First, television host and university professor Melissa Harris-Perry said that “kids belong to whole communities.” As I pointed out, “a child belongs neither to his parents nor to ‘whole communities,’ but to himself. When someone belongs to someone else or to a group of other people, that person is a…

In the latest episode of Reason at Large, I answer a question from Jason: "You've written and spoken at length about why capitalism is the only moral social system, and I find your arguments very convincing. But in daily conversations with people, I don't have an hour to make the…

"We are seeing an incredible acceleration in the speed and in the breadth of the restrictions on abortion that are passing” at the state level, says Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights and a supporter of abortion rights. The Wall Street Journal reports that, among recently passed…

One need not agree with everything Margaret Thatcher said or did to recognize her as among the most important political leaders of the 20th century—the Iron Lady of British politics—a champion of freer markets, and a stern critic and dogged opponent of socialism. She is best remembered by some of…

This MSNBC video featuring Melissa Harris-Perry (see below) will shock anyone with even a shred of respect for America’s founding principle of individual rights. Here is what Harris-Perry, a professor of political science at Tulane, has to say about children: We have never invested as much in public education as…