A recent Supreme Court ruling asserting free speech rights is being condemned by the political Left. In 303 Creative v. Elenis, the Court ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of a website designer to refuse service to gay individuals. Progressives Regressives are arguing that the ruling opens the door for businesses to discriminate…
In a case of temporary sanity, the Seattle City Council recently voted down a bill that would have enacted a rent control law. Though Washington State prohibits rent control, the measure proposed by socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant would have taken effect if the state repeals its prohibition. The council’s opponents to the law correctly argued…
In July, the Dutch Housing Minister has proposed a law that would allow municipalities to force homeowners to sell homes valued at less that 355,000 Euros to market only to low- and middle-income households. Like all coercive measures, the Dutch “solution” isn’t going to solve anything. Indeed, it will make the problem worse. A Dutch…
On January 1, 2024, vendors who sell books to Texas government schools will be required to rate each book they offer for sexual content. Any book that portrays or describes sexual activity must be labeled as sexually explicit or sexually relevant. The former is defined as books with content that is “patently offensive” which Texas…
In 2024, California voters will decide whether to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which prohibits municipalities from imposing rent control on properties built after 1995. Regardless of the outcome of the election, this is just another in a long string of examples that California is dominated by mob rule. In California, nearly every activity…
In late July, two professors issued a call for dictatorship. In an open letter to President Biden, Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet and San Francisco State University political scientist Aaron Belkin urged the President to restrain MAGA [Supreme Court] justices immediately by announcing that if and when they issue rulings that are based on gravely…
Defenders of government schools like to claim that vouchers, educational savings plans, and similar programs give “public money” to parents for private schooling. Indeed, a recent headline states, “More states using taxpayer dollars to help families pay for private school.” This claim is effective only if one drops context. There is no such thing as…
I began this series by referring to Ayn Rand’s claim that without property rights, no other rights are possible. I was initially skeptical of that claim, and that is what led to an intense study of philosophy, history, and economics. My goal was to determine if Rand’s claim was indeed true. It is. A few…
This post is the seventh in a series. While I have long understood the importance of property rights, my understanding has reached a much deeper level over the past decade. During that time, I have written nearly one-thousand blog posts, OpEd articles, and policy papers. I have written three books and conducted dozens of workshops…
This post is the sixth in a series. In the early 1990s, I wrote a paper titled “Government Without Taxation.” In the paper, I examined various ways to finance government without coercive taxation. At the time, I thought that this would be a good topic for a book and made several futile attempts to write…
This post is the fifth in a series. In the past two posts, I have summarized my experiences while fighting zoning in two different cities—Houston, and Hobbs, New Mexico. I learned many things from those efforts. Perhaps the most important lesson was that when clear moral distinctions are made between opposing views, the more rational…
This post is the fourth in a series. About twelve years after zoning was defeated in Houston, I was contacted by two businessmen in Hobbs, New Mexico. The city council was considering a zoning ordinance, and they wanted me to help defeat the proposal. They had found the pamphlet that my friend and I had…