Oh well...

I'm sorry. I was going to change the colors on this blog, but I hated the way it turned out. So it's back to normal for now.

Second Amendment

Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy has authored a huge page devoted to info on the second amendment.

Link via AnalPhilosopher

Privatize Space

A company called TransOrbital Inc. is planning on sending a privately financed craft into space. The article even says, "...NASA could learn a thing or two from the approach".

Link via Free-Market.net

Education

The Mises Institute has an article about the history of education in America and England, as it went from being private to state run.

Globalization

The NCPA has an article, authored by Virginia Postrel, about IT jobs and globalization.

Guns

The Cato Institute has an excellent article about gun control in Washington D.C. Here's my favorite paragraph: Walton's interpretation is, of course, at odds with the fairly clear text of the Constitution. The Framers were careful enough with language not to confuse the "right of the people" with the rights of a state. Just as in the First and Fourth Amendments, "the right of the people" in the Second Amendment is an individual right.

How intellectually dishonest do you have to be to believe that the second amendment doesn't give people the right to bear arms.

Campaign Finance

Today's edition of LP News discusses Florida campaign finance. This article reminded of this website which has been updated since the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Outsourcing

Arnold Kling has a post discussing outsourcing.

NASA

The Cato Institute has an article that discusses the private sector's potential role in space. I like the way this sounds: Creating enterprise zones in orbit would help make up for government errors of the past. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher proposes a "Zero Gravity, Zero Tax" plan that would remove an unnecessary burden from "out-of-this-world risk-takers."

Religion and Liberty

Margaret Thatcher discusses the subject, published by the Acton Institute. Link via Dissecting Leftism.

Economic Freedom

The NCPA reports that there is a strong correlation between economic freedom and the wealth of U.S. states and Canadian provinces.

Budget Deficit

The Cato Institute reports that the budget deficit will total 2.4 trillion dollars over the next decade.

Ballot Access News

The January edition of Ballot Access News has been released.

Good Day for Civil Liberties Part 2

Part of Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional

Good Day for Civil Liberties

Supreme Court Reaffirms Miranda Ruling

FDA Watch

The National Center for Policy Analysis has an article that discusses how the FDA delays drugs that fight cancer, even ones that are proved to work! For more info regarding the FDA click here.

Samizdata

Have you checked out the new Samizdata design, I like it!

Drug Re-importation

Catallarchy has a post about why drug re-importation doesn't harm American consumers.

Eminent Domain

The Pacific Legal Foundation and the ACLU are trying to overrule a decision that allows private property to be seized and given to big business. They "argue that the use of eminent domain impacts the poor and minorities more harshly because they have less political influence and fewer resources to fight the government".

Speaking of Excessive Regulation

Citizens Against Government Waste has an article that discusses the harm of forcing companies to expense stock options.

High Minimum Wage = High Unemployment

The NCPA has an article about the connection between the minimum wage and umemployment. The Angry Economist also has a good post about the minimum wage.

Cost of Regulation

Catallarchy has an excellent post regarding the cost of regulation.

Sarbanes-Oxley

Donald Luskin of The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid links to this article that critiques the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation that was passed after the Enron and Worldcom affair. It argues that one-size-fits-all legislation and overburdening regulation is doing more harm then good.

On Trade Deficits

The depths of people's ignorance regarding trade deficits is just shocking. To clarify this issue, Julian Sanchez gives a link on the Reason Blog to this page. It starts of with a real world account of trade deficits by using an analogy between trade among nations with trade between the author of the article and Barnes & Noble, the rest of the article is also worth reading. There's another great post regarding trade deficits by The Angry Economist.

Immigration

The National Center for Policy Analysis has an interesting article about immigration. It specifically discusses the benefits of limited migration. It would be more interesting if they did an economic analysis of full immigration, though this one is still interesting.

State Budgets

The Reason Public Policy Institute has published an edition of Privatization Watch featuring state budgets. Naturally, my home state of California is in poor condition. I recommend the section entitled Why the States Are Broke for analysis as to why states are in such bad shape. The section mostly focuses on Parkinson's Law. Read the whole thing if you're interested.

State of the Union

The Cato Institute analyzes the state of the union address.

Economic Freedom

The Heritage Foundation has published its annual Index of Economic Freedom. On top is, no suprise, Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the U.S. has fallen to tenth place. A particularly disturbing development is Venezuela, where Leftist President Hugo Chavez is not making life easy for his citizens (or anybody else for that matter). Venezuela's score for capital flows and foreign investment have plummeted and is now 2 points worst this year. Despite a number of troubling developments, I'm still optimistic that globalization is going to make the world a more free and prosperous place for all.

Eco-Imperialism

Fascinating article at Tech Central Station. It discusses the negative side effects of some Western Green ideas.

Social Security

Arnold Kling has an article about social security privatization.

Antitrust watch

The NCPA has an article regarding the ineffectiveness of antitrust laws.

Blogrolling

My blogroll is now powered by Blogrolling.com

Lifetime Savings Accounts

Marginal Revolution has a good post on Lifetime Savings Accounts. I also agree with Tyler Cowen's point, "Until we address runaway government spending, tax changes will only bust the budget in the shorter run."

NCPA

If you're not aware of the National Center for Policy Analysis, then you should check it out. Their site is updated daily and it's full of interesting stuff. Today, they have interesting articles on The omnibus appropriations bill for 2004 and Health Savings Accounts. I recommend you read both articles.

Forced Volunteerism

LP News has an article entitled What's wrong with national service. In summary, it says national service should be opposed because: "They are antithetical to the spirit of America", "They get government more involved in private charities", "Voluntary service programs can be a stepping stone to non-voluntary programs", and "They are not needed". It also talks about what Libertarians want to do: "End mandatory service programs for young people", "Abolish Selective Service", "Don't bring back the military draft", and "Abolish all federal paid volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps and the USA Freedom Corps".

Carnival of the Capitalists

Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Unpersons.net.

About this site

This blog will be devoted to libertarianism from a pragmatic, consequentialist, gradualist, minarchist approach. You won't find any appeals to first principles or any mention of coercion or initiation of force anywhere here. The main focus of this site is to explore libertarian solutions regarding real world problems, as opposed to making abstract philosophical appeals to rights. This blog will be a resource for those who want to use facts to persuade non-libertarians. A secondary purpose of this blog is to express my personal opinions of various issues of the day. I think of myself as a medium-core libertarian (I score about 80-85 points on Bryan Caplan's Libertarian Purity Test). If you want to contact me, I have my e-mail address posted on the right side of the blog. Please spare me any personal attacks, but if you disagree with me and want to debate something then go ahead and e-mail me.

Update: Here's a pic of me:

Good call

U.S. Troops to Relocate From Seoul

Lucky Swiss

Marginal Revolution has an article about a canton in Switzerland that's moving from a progressive to degressive tax system. This means the rich pay less then everyone else! I'm pretty sure the idea behind this is that it would provide incentives for wealthy people to put their money in that canton. Apparently they understand incentives better then the U.S. does. It never really made sense to punish people simply for being more productive, maybe some day we'll wake-up and realize this (yeah not likely).

Update: Unfortunately, the tax policy has been ruled unconstitutional by the Swiss Federal Court.

Recommended Reading

Samizdata has an article about The Future and Its Enemies by Virginia Postrel. I just finished reading it about a week or two ago and I highly recommend it. If you want to know more there's an excellent review here.

Updates

I've updated the blogs and activism section so much that it's hard to keep you up-to-date. If you're interested in the links go ahead and check them out.

Grim day for 2nd amendment

Federal Court Upholds DC Hand Gun Ban

No on 58

In today's LP News there's an article about Proposition 58 (in case you're wondering why I'm interested it's because I live in California). Governor Schwarzenegger wants to pass this as part of his recovery plan, but it's a total sham. It does nothing to limit the government. Something that might have worked would have been what's called a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights or TABOR for short, but alas this isn't it. TABOR has had a lot of success in Colorado. Here's an article from the CATO Institute if you want more info.

I hope that's enough activism for you

My activism section is huge, well I guess it would be an understatement to say I got carried away. If you have any suggestions don't be afraid to e-mail me.

Good News

Since I've finished making this blog way ahead of schedule and the fact that I'm bored as hell, I'm going to have my grand opening on Sunday 18. See you there.

Contact

If you want to contact me I posted where you can e-mail on the right side of the blog.

Wow, how time flies!

Creating this blog sure has been fun. I hope blogging will be just as enjoyable! I'm getting a lot more done then I expected so I might have my grand opening sooner then expected.

More links

I added more links in the Activism section today.

No Comment

I don't know if I want put in a comments section, but it's not going to happen anytime soon.

New Section

I added an Activism section. This will have links to various websites that are either Libertarian or friendly-towards libertarian views and issues in one way or another. More to come in the future.

As of now my blog links will be libertarian. Though I might have a change of heart later.

First none blog related post

Carnival of the Capitalists is up on Ensight.org. Check it out.

Well, I just added a number of links to blogs. This will be a continuing work in process. Stay tuned.

I added a number of links. More to come soon.

The official launch of this blog will be in February. Until then I'll fine tune the Settings.