Keith Knight | The Libertarian Institute

Cops, Kidnappers, and Assassins Are Just Doing Their Jobs!

by Keith Knight | Dec 3, 2022 | Blog

Imagine a police officer arresting you for the crime of selling "drugs". Later in court, the judge asks you how you plea, to which you respond, "Innocent your Highness! For I am a drug dealer. I was just doing my job. My boss, Pablo Escobar told me to do this. If you guys don't like us doing this, apply for a job at our drug cartel, work your way through our system, and persuade Mr. Escobar to change his policy." This is no different in principle than, "I'm a cop, just doing my job destroying food that homeless people need because politicians or a police chief told me to do so. Don't...

Message to Jacobin Magazine: Economic Suppression is Far Worse Than Voter Suppression

by Keith Knight | Nov 27, 2022 | Blog

Imagine two criminals: Criminal 1: Forcibly stopped a woman from having a 1 in 10 million vote to determine the governor of New York Criminal 2: Forcibly stopped a woman from getting the job of her dreams via occupational licensing regulations even though a willing employer wanted to hire her You are the judge in both trials, which criminal should get a longer sentence? Criminal 1's actions may be offensive, but have no effect on the outcome of the woman's life since a one in 10 million vote will make no difference. Even if by some miracle she happened to be the deciding vote,...

The “Greedy Private Property” Deception

by Keith Knight | Nov 26, 2022 | Blog

A "property right" entitles one party to exclude another from interacting with a scarce part of the universe - i.e. to have a property right in my car entitles me to exclude others from driving it to Dallas when I wish to drive it to Phoenix. There is no principled difference between excluding someone from a car, a computer, a house, or if you start selling things out of the house and it's now a "business" involving a web of voluntary contracts. The (democratic) socialist sees this and assumes: Exclusion exists Excluding X from Y means X will have less "liberty" Private property is...

Scott Adams Tweeted Something So Imbecilic It Ruined My Thanksgiving

by Keith Knight | Nov 24, 2022 | Blog

I wasn't expecting to see a compelling argument for letting the state raise kids instead of parents, but here it is. - Scott Adams The situation is as follows: Person X committed murder Person X was raised by a Parent Y who is an explicit bigot and advocate of violence Therefore, Adams says, we have a compelling argument for "letting" the state raise kids The question is: Can the shortcomings of Person X and Parent Y also be applied to the state? 1. Have members of governments ever committed murder? Let's not be bigoted and only stick to the US government, let us get a global...

An Economics Lesson for Idiot Robert Reich

by Keith Knight | Nov 20, 2022 | Blog

...Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, became one of the wealthiest men in the world by figuring out how to cut the price of just about everything to the benefit of everyone, but especially of lower-income consumers. That’s one of the other virtues of the free market: it rewards people who can figure out how to supply products and services that might have originally only been affordable to the wealthy so cheaply that just about anyone can afford and enjoy them. Henry Ford became wealthy by producing cheaper and cheaper (and better and better quality) automobiles; John D. Rockefeller became...

Sam Harris Is Dumber Than I Thought

by Keith Knight | Nov 19, 2022 | Blog

"The sovereign citizen lunatic cult in white society" is what Sam Harris calls someone who has the same standards for the police they would have for anyone else. You know what sounds like a cult? A person (President/Congress) who claims the right to issue executive orders or laws that must be obeyed and those who disobey will be jailed. A group that forces you to fund them regardless of whether or not you value their services (government taxation). An organization which compels children to be indoctrinated in its schools for 12 years (government truancy laws). Being heavily pressured...

Understanding Foreign and Domestic Socialist Propaganda

by Keith Knight | Nov 17, 2022 | Don't Tread on Anyone

https://youtu.be/TA-9y3wsdyQ ...[W]e human beings, as social animals, need individual freedom to fully flourish. The equation is simple: individual freedom = social cooperation = individual and social flourishing. Many corollaries follow. To pick one, the freedom to choose with whom we will cooperate entails competition among those who wish to cooperate with any given individual. – Sheldon Richman, What Social Animals Owe to Each Other (2020, Libertarian Institute) Christopher J. Coyne is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the Associate Director of the F. A. Hayek...

6 Facts That Debunk Feminism

by Keith Knight | Nov 16, 2022 | Blog

Listing the main ways that society appears to treat men less fairly than women requires only a little more reflection to complete. a. Men are overrepresented at the bottom levels of society. They do most of the nasty, dangerous work, are much more likely to be homeless or imprisoned, and much more likely to kill themselves. b. Men spend much more time on the job than women. c. The law heavily favors women in child custody and child support disputes. d. Men are more likely to be victims of violent crime. e. Men are much more likely to die in combat; in fact, during serious military conflicts,...