Drug War

The World Drug War

“We have seen the enemy, and it is us”. Never in modern history has this been so true. Government propaganda has cast not only dangerous criminals and traitors as the enemy, but every individual that lives under its jurisdiction. The wars against poverty, against drugs, against technology, against arms, and everything that the majority deems evil, are numbered without end.

Even in the middle of this war, most people do not oppose it. We permit an attitude of permissiveness about government intrusion to exist, which permits constant attacks against drug users and the subsistance of …

Losers

Cheering the Eternal Losers

Libertarians are basically people who have come to one basic realisation: government doesn’t work. This may seem like a rather superficial proposition. We must therefore make this bromide more precise.

The optimal state of a society, as we know from politics, is what we call a free society – where people ineract voluntarily. Any government intervention that deviates from this norm only makes things worse. There are two main reasons for this : the inherent failure of centralized systems, and the inevitably varying motivations of public workers. Government intervention cannot solve any problem, and has never …

Greed

Good Greed and Bad Greed

Greed is perhaps the most maligned human impulse. It is attributed the failure and fall of civilisation, the sum of all evils, and the modern dissapearance of spirituality. It is perhaps that which is said should be eliminated first, but seems to thrive the most.

Usually, the people who declare this have little understanding of the dynamics of greed, apart from simpleton insults of “money-grubbing”. Therefore, we should examine these dynamics, and see whenever greed is good or bad, and in which situations. Then we can declare that we have an informed opinion on the …

Intention

Intention and crime

The general question of criminality is not an entirely puzzling one. For example, most people would agree that murder is a crime, that theft is a crime, and so on. This is pretty universal opinion.

However, we find much less uniformity on more precise questions, such as punishment and redemption, or what exactly makes a crime. Does having a bad intention make a crime more or less punishable ? The proponents of the notion of “hate crime” would say yes. But that does not seem very reasonable.

Libertarian justice

First, we must consider the libertarian maxim : …

Abortion

Aborting human rights

This type of movement is the antithesis of rational politics. Choice is precisely what an ideal political system maximizes, it is the basic unit of validity in politics. An anti-choice movement is much like a group of mathematicians calling itself anti-counting, or a cooking group that is anti-oven. It is the utmost degree of wrongness.

But of course some people justify fighting against abortion on less laughable grounds. They would contend, for example, that one should not be pro-choice as regards to murder, for example, since murder is a use of force, and frustrates our right of …

WTC

WTC attack : thank gun control

All the fans of force and violence and enemies of voluntary action and capitalism celebrated on September 11th. The death of more than seven thousands in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center is a symbol of everything that the enemies of capitalism and freedom stand for: disrespect for human lives, as well as hatred of pride and abundance.

The concrete reasons for the attack, however, are more controversial. It doesn’t seem too difficult to conclude that American imperialism has a part in this. We could also discuss religious intolerence and …

Numbers

Just the facts, ma’am : statism in numbers

Average GDP per capita in most economically free countries : 23 325 $US
Average GDP per capita in most economically unfree countries : 3 829 $US
(w/purchasing power parity)
(Heritage Foundation, 2002 Index of Economical Freedom)

Average GDP per capita in most economically free states and provinces : 37 268 $US
Average GDP per capita in most economically unfree states and provinces : 21 056 $US
(Fraser Institute and NCPA, 2002 Economic Freedom of North America)

Average waiting times in Canadian hospitals, 1993 : 9.3 weeks
Average waiting times in Canadian hospitals, …

Opeds

Public education is a step back

Last month was back to school for millions of children, and all that comes with it : buying school supplies and clothes, apprehension from the younger children, the beginning of new routines. But for most of these children, it also means a return to bureaucratic brain-cramming, rather than getting the education they deserve.

Let’s face it : most of us are dissatisfied with public education, at least according to recent surveys by Portrait of America. More than three-quarters of people think that parents should have the power to make decisions about education, and less …