Tag: Liberty
By Mary Theroux | Sunday March 24, 2013 at 11:59 PM PDT | 14 Comments
As we enter Christians’ Holy Week, which culminates with Easter, the day of Jesus’ resurrection and the beginning of God’s new creation, it’s an apt time to reflect on Christ’s lasting teachings. Prior to Jesus’ incarnation, God had directly communicated His Law through the Ten Commandments. Number 6 reads “Thou shalt not kill.” Of...
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Tags: Bible, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Culture, Iraq, Law, Liberty, Middle East, Military, Morality, Peace, Religion, Science, Terrorism, Torture, War, Weapons, Women
By Mary Theroux | Thursday March 7, 2013 at 11:03 AM PDT | 5 Comments
The U.S. military is increasingly putting a feminine face forward in its ads and PR (for example, the bright smiling faces flanking Mrs. Obama at the Oscars). The Navy’s outreach to women proclaims: What’s it like being a woman in today’s Navy? Challenging. Exciting. Rewarding. But above all, it’s incredibly empowering. That’s because the...
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Tags: Corruption, crime, Criminal Justice, Culture, Employment, Integrity, Law, Liberty, Military, Morality, Power, Propaganda, Socialism, Terrorism, War, Women
By Robert Higgs | Monday February 18, 2013 at 5:05 PM PDT | 7 Comments
Eldridge Cleaver famously declared, “You’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.” Although I did not agree with this sentiment in its original context, it has more definite applicability in regard to what one might think of as “solving political problems.” Notice, first, that politics consists in the struggle to...
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Tags: Liberty, Peace, Personal Liberty, Philosophy, Politics, Power, The State
By Ivan Eland | at 2:34 PM PDT | 4 Comments
Presidents’ Day should itself remind us that the executive branch has expanded its power way beyond what the nation’s founders had intended at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. We don’t have a “Congress or Judiciary Day.” The day celebrates powerful executives as caricatured celebrities. The founders had envisioned Congress, as the dominant branch of...
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Tags: American History, Books, Constitution, Defense, Liberty, Military, Nationalism, Police, Power, Presidential Power, War
By Robert Higgs | Thursday February 14, 2013 at 9:00 AM PDT | 14 Comments
Many of my freedom-loving friends have great confidence that communication via the Internet and the World Wide Web will prove to be a game-changer in the fight against the disinformation and propaganda disseminated by the state and its running dogs, and that the greater ease of spreading the truth will shift the balance in...
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Tags: Liberty, Personal Liberty, Power, Technology, The State
By Randall Holcombe | Wednesday February 6, 2013 at 10:31 AM PDT | 15 Comments
The 17th Amendment is in its centennial year, having been ratified in 1913. The Amendment mandates the direct election of senators. Prior to its passage, Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution specified, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state chosen by the Legislature thereof...” The...
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Tags: American History, Budget and Tax Policy, Constitution, Elections, History, Law, Liberty, Nanny State, Politics, Progressivism, Public Choice
By Melancton Smith | at 5:08 AM PDT | 5 Comments
If you have a few minutes, take a look at a government white paper obtained by NBC news on the lawfulness of lethal attacks on U.S. citizens with attachments to terrorists. NBC has this summary of the test for ordering a killing: the confidential memo lays out a three-part test that would make targeted...
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Tags: Bill of Rights, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Constitution, crime, Criminal Justice, Defense, Imperialism, Law, Liberty, Peace, Personal Liberty, Power, Presidential Power, Propaganda, Terrorism, The State
By Robert Higgs | Monday February 4, 2013 at 11:31 AM PDT | 42 Comments
Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, wrote recently: An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a...
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Tags: American History, Bill of Rights, Civil Liberties, Constitution, crime, Law, Liberty, Personal Liberty, Police, Surveillance, Terrorism, The State, Totalitarianism
By David J. Theroux | Saturday February 2, 2013 at 5:10 PM PDT | 35 Comments
The world-renowned philosopher Alvin C. Plantinga has recently received the prestigious Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy, awarded by the University of Pittsburgh’s Departments of Philosophy, History, and Philosophy of Science, and the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science. Plantinga is widely known for his work in the philosophy of...
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Tags: Austrian School of economics, Christianity, Culture, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Free Market, Innovation, Liberalism, Liberty, Morality, Natural Law, Personal Liberty, Philosophy, Public Choice, Religion, Video
By David J. Theroux | Sunday January 27, 2013 at 9:17 AM PDT | 13 Comments
In response to the current, “Progressive” (i.e., authoritarian) jihad against the Second-Amendment right of Americans to own and use firearms non-invasively, here is the Independent Institute’s new archive page of articles, books, and videos, “Firearms, Violence and the Second Amendment,” to arm everyone with the facts. In addition, GLOCK Inc. has just produced three,...
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Tags: Bill of Rights, Civil Liberties, Constitution, crime, Culture, Gun Control, Humor, Liberty, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Privacy, Second Amendment, The State, Video, Weapons, Women