I hit a nerve whenever I write about voting and democracy. Point out the sheer lunacy of the civic religion and a certain group of readers will blow their stacks, sending back long emails stuffed with long words, calling me things like “intellectually vacuous” and insisting I’m full of “self-aggrandizement.” Such is the case with […]
Laissez-Faire Today
Loopholes: Another Word for Freedom
Let’s say that a thief demands $100 and lets you keep $10 because he likes your suit. He calls that a deduction. The next day, he demands the whole $110. He says that he is not stealing more. He is only eliminating deductions and closing loopholes. That’s the GOP’s tax plan in a nutshell. They […]
Okay, Grandma’, It’s Your Turn in the Pokey
Proponents of liberty argue over what parts of the economy or society government should not touch. Government should get out the education business, stay out of health care, and even leave roads and infrastructure to the private sector. But when it comes to criminal justice, even many libertarians think government should supply the police and […]
The Fundamental Right of Secession
What is the world’s smallest country? Monaco? Nope. Malta? Too big. Even Vatican City with a mere population of 770 is huge in comparison. It’s called Sealand, founded and ruled by Paddy Roy Bates, a remarkable man who died this week at the age of 91. He was the original pirate radio operator and the […]
Could the Government Get a Mortgage?
Mortgage credit is tight, and extremely so. Romney and Obama were even questioned about it in their first debate. Think of all the potential issues that presidential candidates might address–fiscal cliffs, budget deficits, mass unemployment. That they were even asked about this matter illustrates how much government sponsors and supports the nation’s housing market. People […]
Regulators Destroying Your Home Appliances
Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, the ebook of the week in the Spy Briefing Club, is a story about a government that hates, fears, and bans technology precisely because it wants to keep the people enslaved in a primitive state of being. Preposterous right? Wrong: this is going on every day right in the United States, […]
How to Expand the Great Conspiracy
Spreading the ideas of freedom and glories of free markets is an ongoing job. One thing we do here at the Spy Briefing Club is resurrect the works of previous generations of freedom fighters. It is the Rothbards, the Chodorovs, and Nocks on whose shoulders we stand. The works of these champions of laissez faire […]
How to Protect Against the Evil Eye
In large parts of the oldest civilized region of the world, you will find in nearly every room a pretty blue charm that looks like an eye. It’s in the front entrance of homes, somewhere in every room, on boats, in airports, in restaurants, and built into the designs of everything from wallpaper to grocery […]
A Haircut in the Turkish Style
A trip to Hans and Gulcin Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society (PFS) salon in the beautiful port city of Bodrum is unforgettable in so many ways. The “politically correct-free zone,” as professor Hoppe described it in his introductory remarks, is chicken soup for the isolated anarchist’s soul, with four days spent with the creme de […]
The Center of the Conspiracy
I’ve found it: the organizing cell of what must be the world’s most dangerous intellectuals. It is right in this room where 100 people now sit, listening and discussing. But instead of heated and sweaty plotting, what we find instead is the atmosphere is of a 19th-century salon: polite, smart, fun. It’s the ambition and […]