Politics & Rights

The basic argument for restricting the manufacture, purchase, and possession of firearms runs as follows: Because some gun owners use their guns to commit crimes or suicide, or they use their guns irresponsibly, the rights of all gun manufacturers, sellers, and owners must be restricted. Thus, the case for restricting…

Today hundreds of thousands of people are rallying in Washington, D.C., to protest Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, reports USA Today. In the midst of this crusade, it is crucial for Americans to understand and emphasize that abortion bans are not “pro-life” but anti-life. The genuine…

In evaluating the state of America’s foreign policy, consider the following three events now in the headlines: In discussing the murderous Islamist attacks on American diplomats in Benghazi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered “context” for this outrage: “Since 1988, there have been 19 Accountability Review Boards investigating attacks on…

In his second inaugural address, Barack Obama claimed that the massive federal “entitlement” programs pushing the nation into unprecedented levels of debt—and threatening worse problems down the road—actually “strengthen us” as Americans: [W]e remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a…

Unlike so many ersatz advocates of liberty, Martin Luther King Jr. revered both the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

The American government’s refusal to destroy the Iranian theocracy has allowed Iran’s influence to increase, thus increasing the danger to American lives. As Roger F. Noriega, Cresencio S. Arcos Jr., Otto Reich, Mark D. Wallace—board members of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)—write: The Iranian regime's effort to improve ties with…

Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president of Egypt and a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, tried to pacify his critics on Wednesday by claiming that his recently reported anti-Semitic remarks were “taken out of context.” Morsi insists that his comments were intended not as racial slurs but as criticism of…

In her Philosophy in Action podcast on Wednesday, philosopher Diana Hsieh interviewed Institute for Justice attorney Paul Sherman on the topic of free speech in elections. The interview is remarkable in how clearly it presents the core issues of campaign finance restrictions. Sherman deftly explains the various legal restrictions on…

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…