The Right to Refuse Service Should Be Universal and Absolute by Laurence M. Vance January 27, 2021 From New York to Florida, businesses are asserting what they believe is their right to refuse service. It brings up a number of questions. Do these businesses have such a right? Should they have such a right? Should such a right be universal? Should such a right be absolute? What about discrimination? What about fairness? What about equality? What about ...
Federal Censorship Protects Leviathan’s Crimes by James Bovard December 1, 2020 Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Republicans and Democrats have conspired to keep Americans increasingly ignorant of what the federal government does. The number of secret federal documents skyrocketed, and any information that was classified supposedly cannot be exposed without dooming the nation. Politicians and federal agencies recognize that “what people don’t know won’t hurt the government.” James Madison, the father ...
Donald Trump, Flag Burning, and the First Amendment by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2020 Earlier this year, Germany’s Parliament passed an amendment to outlaw the burning of foreign flags, including the flag of the European Union. The vote was in response to an anti-Israel rally held on the streets of Berlin in which protesters burned Israeli flags. The penalty is a maximum of three years in prison. Burning the German flag is already ...
Self-Censorship and Despotism Over the Mind by Richard M. Ebeling August 12, 2020 The political atmosphere in the United States today is one of the most divisive and polarized in a very long time. In my lifetime, the only period with which I can compare it is the 1960s and early 1970s during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, when there were demonstrations on the streets of many cities throughout ...
A New Kind of Tyranny by John W. Whitehead November 7, 2019 What happens to Julian Assange and to Chelsea Manning is meant to intimidate us, to frighten us into silence. By defending Julian Assange, we defend our most sacred rights. Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny. The choice is ours. — John Pilger, investigative journalist All ...
How the Police State Muzzles Our Right to Speak Truth to Power by John W. Whitehead June 6, 2019 “History shows that governments sometimes seek to regulate our lives finely, acutely, thoroughly, and exhaustively. In our own time and place, criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something. If the state could use these laws not for their intended purposes but to silence ...