Tag: Civil Society
By Melancton Smith | Thursday January 10, 2013 at 11:12 AM PDT | 1 Comment
According to the London Evening Standard, Prime Minister David Cameron is planning to announce a referendum to be held after the 2015 general election on Britain’s relationship with the EU. Conservatives hope to negotiate a looser membership in which fewer powers are ceded to Brussels, and hold a referendum on the outcome. In other words, Britain...
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Tags: Civil Society, England, Europe, Nanny State, Nationalism, Personal Liberty, The State
By Melancton Smith | Wednesday January 9, 2013 at 5:23 AM PDT | 5 Comments
Today, the Supreme Court hears argument in Missouri v. McNeely. The issue presented is whether a police officer may obtain a nonconsensual and warrantless blood sample from a driver the officer believes is drunk. The petition for certiorari can be found here. Essentially, the cops stopped McNeely late at night and McNeely did poorly on...
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Tags: Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Constitution, crime, Criminal Justice, Law, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Privacy, Supreme Court
By Mary Theroux | Wednesday December 12, 2012 at 5:30 PM PDT | 6 Comments
Does President Obama hate private charity, or does he think only the government should take care of people? Does he just hate the idea of anyone directing their own money as they choose, or what? For whatever reason, for now the fifth time in his administration, he’s proposing eliminating or limiting the tax deductibility...
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Tags: Budget and Tax Policy, Charity, Children, Christianity, Civil Society, Family, Poverty, Taxation, Welfare
By Vicki Alger | Tuesday December 4, 2012 at 2:08 PM PDT | 0 Comments
Welcome to the 21st century Hotel California. The number of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers warehoused in administrative offices, also referred to as “rubber rooms,” for alleged misconduct has doubled in the past 18 months to nearly 300 according to the LA Daily News. The cost is staggering: $1.4 million a month just...
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Tags: California, Children, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Corruption, Education, Employment, Labor, Personal Liberty, Politics, Power, Safety, The State, Unions
By Mary Theroux | Monday December 3, 2012 at 5:38 PM PDT | 3 Comments
William Binney, a mathematician who worked for the NSA for 32 years as a cryptographer, goes on the record to detail that the FBI’s going through General Petraeus’s email is no particular exception: all electronic communications of all Americans are under constant surveillance and are permanently stored so security agencies can look through them...
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Tags: CIA, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Defense, FBI, Intelligence agency, Liberalism, Liberty, Peace, Personal Liberty, Presidential Power, Privacy, Surveillance, Technology, Terrorism, The State, Transparency
By Vicki Alger | at 12:05 PM PDT | 1 Comment
“What the CTU Strike Teaches Us about the Fight for a Better World” was a featured theme of last month’s Midwest Marxist Conference, held at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. (Document link was available here, but apparently the Chicago Socialists site is down. As of this posting, the document can be accessed here.)...
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Tags: Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Education, Free Market, Labor, Liberty, Personal Liberty, Politics, Power, Progressivism, Propaganda, Socialism, Unions
By Vicki Alger | Wednesday November 28, 2012 at 2:07 PM PDT | 5 Comments
The fight for civil liberties continues in San Antonio. The Northside Independent School District recently launched its controversial “Student Locator Project,” which requires students to carry ID badges equipped with radio frequency tracker chips. If they refuse, they could face fines, “involuntary transfers,” or suspensions. John Jay High School officials insisted the trackers were...
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Tags: Children, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Constitution, Education, Fascism, Liberty, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics, Power, Privacy, Propaganda, Surveillance, The State
By Mary Theroux | Sunday November 11, 2012 at 3:54 PM PDT | 13 Comments
Mayor Michael Bloomberg would apparently prefer his storm-ravaged city’s homeless eat nothing at all than benefit from the generosity of private individuals—declaring that only items his food police pass inspection on can be donated to city homeless shelters: Another example of why the government does not belong in the business of charitable relief. If...
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Tags: Charity, Civil Society, Disaster Management, Nanny State, Politics, Poverty, Welfare
By Vicki Alger | Tuesday November 6, 2012 at 10:07 AM PDT | 0 Comments
Who’s the biggest spender? That seems to be the education policy debate in a nutshell this presidential election season—and it misses the point entirely. First, let’s put federal education spending into perspective. Funding for public schools comes from local, state, and federal taxes. Historically, the federal revenue share has stayed below 10 percent of...
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Tags: Budget and Tax Policy, Children, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Constitution, Education, Liberty, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics, Presidential Power, The State
By Robert Higgs | Sunday October 21, 2012 at 1:55 PM PDT | 1 Comment
Rationality is an essential element for successful thinking and acting. It serves, at bottom, to prevent internal contradictions; it allows us to choose means that are suited to the attainment of our chosen ends. I come not to bury rationality, but to praise it. Yet rationality alone cannot guarantee anyone a successful life. This...
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Tags: Civil Society, crime, Culture, Liberty, Morality, Natural Law, Personal Liberty, Philosophy, Religion, Science