Jury Nullification: Right, Remedy, or Danger?

Last December a “mutiny” occurred in a Montana courtroom. At least that’s what a stunned county deputy attorney called it. One of 27 members of a jury pool spoke up to ask why taxpayer money was being wasted to prosecute a man accused of possessing 1/16th of an ounce of marijuana. When polled, a large [...]

Private Guns, Public Health

David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard University, harbors a deep aversion to guns. His book embodies the institutional prejudices of a cohort of academics notable for their abiding predisposition for state control over individuals for “the public good.” So ingrained is the bias that it almost dashes one’s hopes that firearms can [...]

The Great Writ Then and Now

The Great Writ Then and Now by Wendy McElroy Wendy McElroy (wendy@wendymcelroy.com) is an author, the editor of ifeminists.com, and a research fellow for the Independent Institute in Oakland, California. Habeas corpus is a rarely invoked legal writ, or document, widely considered to be the cornerstone of individual liberty. Also known as The Great Writ, [...]

Language, Loyalty, and Liberty

The equanimity with which Americans have watched their freedoms flee puzzles many of us, but perhaps I’ve solved the mystery: they’re too busy worrying about the English language instead. They fear its imminent expiration, however exaggerated reports of that death may be. Some blame rap music, text-messaging, or state-enforced “education” for English’s demise; many fault [...]

I Won’t Vote!

Whenever I reveal my steadfast insistence on not voting, most people look at me as if I just admitted to slaughtering my dogs for dinner. Maybe it’s not illegal, say those looks, but it sure as heck is unseemly and irresponsible. Fancying myself to be a morally upright person, I obviously don’t believe that not [...]

Free to Migrate

No matter what the advocates of free immigration say about the natural individual right to move without government permission, many people remain unconvinced because they expect theory and practice to diverge. Open borders may be good in the abstract, we're told, but the theory doesn't reflect what happens in the real world. To begin, we ought to be suspicious of any claim that a good theory and practice part ways. More . . .

A NEW article by Sheldon Richman

Life, Liberty, and Retirement Pensions

The right to acquire property is a staple of liberal political theory. But why would anyone bother accumulating property? If my monthly expenses are a thousand dollars, then what use could I possibly have for any monthly income larger than a thousand dollars? I could plausibly reason that if I work harder today, I might [...]

Chicken or Egg: Rights and Government

A theme of prominent contemporary political thinking is that our rights are gifts from government. Famous academics such as Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein have argued as much in their book, The Cost of Rights (W. W. Norton, 1999). As they put it, “individual rights and freedoms depend fundamentally on vigorous state action” (p. [...]

Frederic Bastiat: The Primacy of Property

James Dorn is vice president for academic affairs at the Cato Institute and a professor of economics at Towson University in Maryland. This is adapted from a longer article that will appear in the September 2001 Journal des Économistes. Reprinted by permission. Frédéric Bastiat, although best known as an economic journalist, was also a pioneer [...]