When force is made the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. – Ayn Rand If you’ve read the previous two pieces in this little series, you’ve probably got the idea that I don’t much like governments. You’re right about that. The State, the human organization defined by its monopoly privilege of using …
Category: rights
Feb 20 2024
Killers Part 2
An ancient principle of the law holds that he who aids or abets the commission or the concealment of a crime is as guilty of that crime as the perpetrator of the criminal act. Clearly, the abettor must condone the crime. Equally clearly, the abettor and the perpetrator share certain convictions, whether about the …
Feb 19 2024
Killers Part 1
The civility cherished by the civilized men had finally been defeated by their ideas, although they did not know that this was the cause. After years of preaching contradictions and of evading principles with an anti-ideological shrug, these men were astonished to see the nation conclude that man cannot live by principles, that reason …
Feb 18 2024
Apply The Logical-Ethical Cement
Pascal passed the following video along to me for my contemplation: Jordan Peterson has become a hugely important voice in the ideological war. There’s no question of his significance, nor of his reach. Why else would the Left be working so hard to destroy him? In the video above, he emphasizes responsibility as …
Jan 14 2024
Blue States’ Assaults On The Second Amendment Continue
We already know about New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ Governor J. B. Pritzker, and New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and their machinations against the right to keep and bear arms. But now Democrats in the state of Washington have gotten into the act: According to Jason Rantz …
Dec 21 2023
Discomfort On Display
I don’t know how to embed one of these YouTube “shorts,” but this one is worth your time. It’s a fine example of the kind of squirming that anti-Second Amendment activists will do to avoid a straightforward question. They cannot abide having their intentions displayed plainly. They will not answer a question with a …
Sep 20 2023
A Matter Of Units And Standards
When it comes to individuals’ Constitutionally guaranteed rights, the lines are sharp and clear. The understanding of a right would not be possible otherwise, for a right divides the universe of actions into permissible and impermissible. Thus, it’s always possible to know when an individual’s right to his life, his liberty, or his honestly …
Sep 11 2023
Sovereign Immunity
[The following piece first appeared at Liberty’s Torch V1.0 on June 14, 2016. And before you ask: No, I haven’t been to the kzinti homeworld since then. – FWP] Some years ago, a friend of mine who sought to pursue an action against his township for mistakenly demolishing his house was told, in …
Sep 10 2023
Where The Power Is
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. – William Pitt Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act. – The Talmud One of the most illuminating bits of the Game of Thrones series …
Sep 03 2023
The Drones Of Labor Day: An Unpacking
This tidbit should be inspiring more questions than it is at present: The New York Police Department will dispatch drones to monitor backyard parties and private social gatherings over Labor Day weekend in response to any complaints. However, some are saying that drone surveillance by police would be an invasion of privacy. …
Jul 04 2023
On Non-Payment Of Premiums
Have a few quotes from the greatest of all Americans, the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson: “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.” “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a …
Jun 06 2023
The Imperative Question
Toward the end of Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden has a final meeting with the “looter elite” in which they propose a “Steel Unification Plan.” That “plan” is plainly just as vampiric as every other that emerged from the looter-ruled economy described in the novel. Yet the elite are solidly behind it…which causes Rearden to …
May 04 2023
The Plunderers Hunger Part 2: The Coin Of The Realm
Let’s start the day off with a little Ayn Rand: “Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care …
Apr 19 2023
Wrong Turnings
Please don’t misinterpret what follows. I love my Church, despite my handful of disagreements with it. But now and then some of its notables go off the rails so dramatically that I’m compelled to take exception to it. The United States has a shortage of Catholic priests. Parishes from coast to coast find …
Jan 24 2023
There Are Days I Wish I Were A Journalist
…especially one who conducts interviews with politicians: U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) blamed the overturning of Roe v. Wade for the Republican party’s lackluster midterm showing during a recent appearance on Meet the Press. “It’s the reason we didn’t get more of a majority. We could have had a two dozen seat majority, …
Jan 17 2023
Statist In A Cleft Stick Dept.
Men of good will should celebrate every event that compels the evil-minded to show their true colors. This is nowhere more important than when an individual right is under threat. An episode of this kind occurred just yesterday in upstate New York: That’s all the specific information I have on this incident. The …
Jan 10 2023
Taking Exceptions
Let’s spin up with a Blinding Flash of the ObviousTM; The bottom line is that if you don’t have control over what gets injected into your own body, you have no meaningful freedom in any sense of the word. Any state that does not safeguard the right to full autonomy over what pharmaceutical …
Jan 05 2023
The Obfuscation Game
The Left has adopted a new tack in its campaign against the right to keep and bear arms. A recent article in The Atlantic, a left-inclined publication, contended that the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is a “mystery” whose meaning is uncertain. While the article refers to several considerations (some …
Dec 13 2022
Accountability: A Conundrum
From the most recent dump of Twitter Files: 38. Outside the United States, Twitter’s decision to ban Trump raised alarms, including with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, and Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. 39. Macron told an audience he didn’t “want to live in a democracy where …
Oct 02 2022
Learned Soullessness
I scratched around for quite a while, looking for a title for this piece. The above is the best I’ve got, and not very good at that, so please bear with me. This is “Respect Life” weekend at my parish. We have the annual drive for funding for the local crisis pregnancy center, …
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