Mar 02

“Conservatives” advocate more regulation on abortion

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Here is a great column by the gifted libertarian writer Jacob Sullum.

Sullum nails the hypocritical approach of so-called conservatives regarding abortion.

People who call themselves conservatives are generally knowledgeable about the true effects of regulation. Regulation almost never accomplishes its stated goals; rather, it makes things more expensive and of lower quality. Regulations supposedly aimed at improving access or toppling the establishment actually benefit the rich and the establishment, and end up limiting access, availability and affordability for the poor.

In the case of abortion, “conservatives” really do know what they’re doing when they constantly push for measures that are supposedly aimed at making abortion safer.

Such regulations–as most “conservatives” are well aware–do nothing for the “safety” of women.

Mar 02

Bob Barr: the government is actually demanding that Apple invent a way to defeat its devices’ encryption safeguards

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Good essay by former congressman and former Libertarian Party candidate for president Bob Barr, regarding the current fight between Apple and the U.S. government:

the government is for the first time demanding that a company actually invent a way to defeat the very encryption safeguards it builds into the devices it sells.

Mar 02

More Campus Censorship at California State University

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During the 1960s, American-Nazi-Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell often spoke at colleges and universities. Rockwell was hated and despised, and the college audiences occasionally erupted in loud booing; but college administrators reluctantly allowed the spectacles. They submitted to an understanding that public colleges were subject to the First Amendment and could not discriminate or engage in censorship.

Today, the government-funded colleges have become so one-sided that even the presence of a mild, neo-conservative speaker like Ben Shapiro sends government campuses into near riot.

Here is Ben Shapiro’s description of a recent speaking engagement at Cal State Los Angeles.

According to Shapiro:

Hundreds of students gathered to chant slogans, block entrances and exits to the student union auditorium, rough up those who wished to enter, pull the fire alarm, and trap other students inside that auditorium under threat of violence. Police officers stood aside and allowed that mob to violate basic safety protocols, reportedly at the behest of the school administration.

Mar 01

Another dubious study claims humans are destroying the earth

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Even more from the ‘false, but peer-reviewed’ category. The journal Nature recently published a study purporting to show that humans may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth’s history.

The study lays the blame for this alleged mass extinction on a variety of manmade causes: habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species, and climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases.

But this ‘mass extinction’ wave exists mostly (or only?) in the computer models of government-funded research scientists. The mass-extinction claim is similar to a claim made a decade ago by eminent Harvard ecologist Edward O. Wilson that 50,000 species were going extinct every year due to human mistreatment of the planet.

When these scientists are asked to name any of the alleged 50,000 species that are going extinct every year, they are unable.

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, has said that the ‘mass extinction’ calculations are produced as follows:

We have named about 1.7million species, half of which are insects. Wilson says there are probably 50 million so he puts that number in his computer model. Then, using the theory of Island Biogeography, which states that if an island in the sea is reduced to 10% of its area then 50% of its species will die off (simple food chain energetics) he assumes that our fragmentation of the landscape is the same as islands in the sea. When he runs his model it spits out 50,000 extinctions per year.”

See here.

Feb 28

The U.S. has now gone 10 consecutive years in which GDP growth never rose above 3 percent

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China, India and other countries have seen their annual GDP numbers grow by 6 to 8 to 10 percent annually. Much of the world has embraced increasing freedom, commerce and capitalism.

Life expectancies have grown, and people are living healthier and happier all over the world.

But not in the United States. A period of steady growth of the government sector, along with life-limiting regulations and laws which punish poor people for strivng, have choked growth for the American people.

Now the US has set a record: 10 consecutive years of growth below 3 percent.

See here.

Feb 26

Oregon’s “Cover Oregon” Health Care Program Collapses after Losing Millions

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Cover Oregon was a government “health insurance marketplace” that the state set up pursuant to Obamacare.

The program initially cost $300 million to set up. About 170,000 people tried to sign up for Cover Oregon before it folded.

Feb 24

45 percent of U.S. households pay no income tax

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One of the biggest lies of government-trusting socialists like Bernie Sanders is that “the rich” are in control of American politics because of the Citizens United decision, “unlimited” rights of spending on campaign ads, etc.

In fact, the overall share of the federal tax burden paid by the richest 10 percent has been steadily increasing for years. The burden paid by “the poor” has gotten smaller and smaller.

The poor are kept down by a brutal combination of licensing requirements, overregulation of businesses in which poor people might otherwise thrive (hairdressing, trucking, transportation, guiding and commercial fishing are examples), and the rapid expansion of criminal penalties for daily conduct and behavior.

New data show that fully 45 percent of U.S. households do not owe or pay any federal income tax at all. See here.

Feb 24

Bejing now houses more billionaires than does New York City

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For much of two centuries, the United States was the global flagship of capitalism and free enterprise.

New York City, with its New York Stock Exchange, and its large investment banks, was the world capitol of commerce. The buildings on the Manhattan skyline–the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building (built mostly by the investors of General Motors)–exemplified America’s dynamic business climate.

But high taxes and overregulation have taken their toll on the Big Apple. Millionaires and billionaires have fled New York for freer shores.

Now Bejing, China has overtaken New York as the world’s billionaire capitol. See here.

Feb 24

Government launches major campaign to promote its surveillance agenda; accuses Apple of using the issue as a marketing strategy

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The Justice Department has embarked on a national advertising campaign to drum up public support for forcing the makers of the iPhone to unlock the device used by alleged San Bernardino killers.

It seems that FBI agents themselves are to blame for the locked-up iPhone. They bunglingly reset the password while trying to hack into the device.

Apple executives have said they cannot give the government a “back door” to the device without compromising the privacy of all their consumers.

The USA Today compared the controversy to a political campaign: “Feds, Apple want your vote in iPhone dispute: Battle over privacy takes on tone of political campaign.”

Feb 21

Top-Spending Republican Candidate Flops at Polls

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The SuperPAC supporting Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination blew through $116 million and came up empty. See here.

Bush’s collapse proves yet again that “unlimited” money to spend on campaign ads does not “buy” elections.

The frontrunner, Donald Trump, has barely spent ten percent of this massive sum.