The Daily Mail (U.K.) reports that a British National Party candidate was jailed for burning a copy of the Koran. He was charged with violation of section 29 of the Public Order Act. Under this statute, “A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty...
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Anyone who thinks that they know anything about World War I, Harry S Truman, or Winston Churchill should first read Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal by Ralph Raico. Once they do, they might realize just how little they really know. I have taught and researched American history for a quarter century...
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You probably have seen stories like this about student riots in Britain last week protesting tuition hikes. The hikes are fairly substantial, roughly tripling the tuition students will be asked to pay. What I find unsettling about this is that people in what we think of as a very civilized country that recognizes individual...
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As usual, this week’s Lighthouse deals with a wide range of topics, including British Prime Minister David Cameron’s efforts to slash public spending (Alvaro Vargas Llosa), same-sex marriage in California (William J. Watkins, Jr.), the virtues of private policing (Bruce L. Benson), and the importance of entrepreneurship (David J. Theroux). Here are links to...
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Here Is the Final Part Continued from Part 2: Part 1 Scientism For Lewis, science should be a quest for knowledge, and his concern was that in the modern era science is too often used instead as a quest by some for power over others. Lewis did not dispute that science is an immensely...
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Continued from Part 1: Part 3 Moral Relativism and Utilitarianism Of central importance in Lewis’s discussion of natural law is his critique of the moral relativism of utilitarianism (“the end justifies the means”) as a theory of ethics and guide to behavior. Lewis claimed that the precepts of moral ethics cannot just be innovated...
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This is the third in a series of posts on my new book, The Pursuit of Justice: Law and Economics of Legal Institutions. In this post I will discuss how the law evolves instrumentally — that is, to serve private interests rather than the public interest. Law is often assumed to be a public...
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In an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News and with global temperatures declining since 1998 and record winter cold and storms not letting up, Senator James Inhofe has called for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate possible fraud by perpetrators of the “global warming hoax,” what he calls the greatest scientific scandal of...
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This audio of an entire America First Committee rally from June 1941 is a real treat. The sound quality is crisp and clear: The all-star line-up includes John T. Flynn (about 4:30 minutes into the audio), probably the most important activist in the “Old Right” during the 1940s and the 1950s. Speaking after Flynn...
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Syndicated columnist and bestselling author Dave Barry’s provides an incisive and hilarious, month-by-month review of the year 2009, “Dave Barry’s year in review: 2009.” As he begins: It was a year of Hope—at first in the sense of “I feel hopeful!” and later in the sense of “I hope this year ends soon!” It...
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