"It's unfortunate that 68% of American blacks support stronger gun control regulation. Gun rights were extremely beneficial to the African-American community throughout the Civil Rights Movement, which we celebrate today. In fact, if it weren’t for gun rights, more civil rights leaders would likely have been killed." Continue reading →
"The cliché about shouting fire in a crowded theater was coined to justify a horrible Supreme Court ruling that upheld the prosecution of an individual who used his rights under the First Amendment to protest the draft during World War I. Rather than building on such bad precedents we should be correcting the abuses they produced. Leaving those matters aside, however, Andrea Mitchell apparently doesn’t understand that even in those cases, the government did not infringe rights through prior restraint – that is, pre-emptively punishing people for crimes they haven’t committed. That’s one of the myriad evils embodied in so-called gun control measures." Continue reading →
"Tightened security measures sent hundreds of armed soldiers patrolling Metros, train stations, airports and tourist sites across France, while officials instructed the French people to be wary of the increased risk of attack at home — and abroad. News reports indicated Islamist radicals had kidnapped numerous French, European, and American workers from an oil installation in eastern Algeria. Somalia’s al-Shabab militia also announced it would execute a French spy. Those developments came after warnings by a jihadi leader in Mali on Monday that by attacking Islamist forces in Africa, 'François Hollande opened the gates of hell for all French people.'" Continue reading →
"Prosecutors are vested with the extraordinary power to investigate, prosecute, bankrupt, and use the power of the state to imprison people for decades. The US has become a society in which political and financial elites systematically evade accountability for their bad acts, no matter how destructive. Those who torture, illegally eavesdrop, commit systemic financial fraud, even launder money for designated terrorists and drug dealers are all protected from criminal liability, while those who are powerless - or especially, as in Swartz's case, those who challenge power - are mercilessly punished for trivial transgressions." Continue reading →
"Despite Swartz’s family literally placing the blame for his death on the state, and both MIT and JSTOR releasing public statements that were largely positive in how they portrayed him, a spokesperson for Ortiz told the Los Angeles Times, 'We want to respect the privacy of the family and do not feel it is appropriate to comment on the case at this time.' After a year and a half of state harassment, the threat of over 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine hanging over Swartz’s head, after both JSTOR and MIT dropped their criminal charges, the government went after Swartz like a rabid dog – and got a kill." Continue reading →
"It’s not difficult to see why politicians support 'gun control,' which is more accurately described as 'victim disarmament.' What predator wouldn’t prefer that its prey lack teeth or claws? In Barack Obama’s world, events like the Newtown massacre are a small price to pay for the uncontested ability to do wholesale what Adam Lanza did retail. What’s hard to understand is why we’ve put up with the predator for so long. In the 20th century alone, governments murdered in excess of 260 million people, and that’s an extremely low-end estimate." Continue reading →
"Japan may be the poster child for reckless and irresponsible tax and spending policy. Even though the public sector already is far too big and even though the government has incurred more debt than any other developed economy, the new Prime Minister thinks another Keynesian stimulus package is the recipe for economic revival. I’m not joking. Even though the economy has been stagnant for 20 years – a period that has seen several so-called stimulus schemes, the government wants to throw good money after bad." Continue reading →
"On Friday the Democratic leadership of the Senate — Majority Leader Harry Reid, Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, Conference Chair Charles Schumer, and Conference Secretary Patty Murray —wrote to President Obama urging him to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling in the event that Republicans either block such an increase or attempt to pass one 'as part of unbalanced or unreasonable legislation.' Put aside the picture of leading lawmakers, usually so jealous of their constitutional prerogatives, asking the president to ignore Congress. Every one of the letter's signers voted against raising the nation’s debt ceiling just seven years ago." Continue reading →
"Obama has spent years denigrating revolving-door lobbyists and 'fat cats' from Wall Street, yet he has populated his administration with them. By all accounts, Jack Lew is a serious, smart hard worker. But his resume is everything Barack Obama ran against." Continue reading →
"There is one group, I propose, that should be an exception to this rule: federal government employees. The greatest atrocities in the history of mankind have been committed by government employees during periods after guns were confiscated from 'the people.' Thus, there is clear justification for disarming them. If someone is threatening them, they should just do what they want all the rest of us to do, call the local police. And further, since they are all just 'serving' the people, in their minds, who would be shooting at them anyway? But, sometimes, government employees have an odd definition of serving the people and that's what we need to protection against them." Continue reading →