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Whether Medicinally Effective or Not, Marijuana Ought to Be Legal

Whether Medicinally Effective or Not, Marijuana Ought to Be Legal

by | Jun 22, 2022 |

Earlier this year, Mississippi became the 37th state to legalize the medical use of marijuana, which is also legal in the U.S. territories of the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Since California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, every couple of years, another state or two are added to the list (there were five in 2016). It is inevitable that the medical use of marijuana will eventually be legal in all 50 states. The effectiveness of medical marijuana has been debated ever since the residents of...

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The GOP Is Not Your Savior

The GOP Is Not Your Savior

by | Jun 16, 2021 | ,

If Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) had not gotten sick and resigned his Senate seat, then the title of this article would have been “Will the Republicans Save Us?” After serving in the Georgia state house and senate, Isakson served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. He was re-elected in 2010 and 2016. Although his Senate term did not expire until January 2023, in August 2019 he announced that because of his Parkinson’s disease and other health challenges, he was resigning his Senate seat effective at the end of 2019. Under Georgia...

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Should Libertarians Compromise with Taxing Marijuana?

by | May 4, 2021 | ,

Marijuana freedom is a good thing. The taxation of marijuana is a bad thing. Unfortunately, owing to the greed of spendthrift politicians, it looks as though we will have to take the good with the bad or not at all. Now, this does not mean that smoking marijuana is “good.” It just means that the freedom to smoke marijuana — and be responsible for any negative consequences that may come with it — is a good thing. On the federal level, a bill (H.R.3884) to decriminalize marijuana that would have removed “marijuana from the list of scheduled substances under the Controlled Substances Act” and...

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Yes, Republicans Are the Party of Drug Warriors

Yes, Republicans Are the Party of Drug Warriors

by | Mar 16, 2021 | , ,

The federal government considers growing, distributing, buying, selling, possessing, or using marijuana to be a criminal offense, punishable by fines and imprisonment. Possession of marijuana will get you a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a minimum fine of $1,000 for a first conviction. Yet there are fourteen states (plus the District of Columbia) where the recreational use of marijuana is legal. In the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Court ruled that the federal government has the authority to prohibit marijuana possession and use for any and all purposes because...

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Ice and Fire

Ice and Fire

by | Feb 5, 2020 | , , ,

The relationship between conservatism and libertarianism is a tenuous one. However, such was not always the case. Fellow travelers of both groups were united in opposing Roosevelt’s New Deal. The work of the late economist Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) on the “Old Right” is indispensable here. After World War II, the political right was generally opposed, not only to “domestic statism,” but also to war, foreign intervention, and “American statism in the international arena.” But after the death of the political and intellectual leaders of the Old Right, the conservative movement — which...

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Australia and New Zealand Show the True Nature of Social Security

Australia and New Zealand Show the True Nature of Social Security

by | Jan 7, 2020 | ,

Writing at the Christian Post in “Will Social Security Go Broke?” Christian financial advisor Chuck Bentley recently answered a question about Social Security from a “Worried Millennial”: I’m a recent college graduate with my first “real” job. With that comes paying into the Social Security System. My concern is whether or not there will be funds for me someday, especially in light of the recent deficit report. Bentley correctly observes that “many fear that the money to fund America’s Social Security program will run out and a large portion of our population will be negatively affected.”...

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Monsters and U.S. Foreign Policy

Monsters and U.S. Foreign Policy

by | Nov 27, 2019 | , ,

It looks like the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity will be having some competition. The formation of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft was recently announced. The think tank gets its name from John Quincy Adams. According to the organization’s website, The Quincy Institute promotes ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace. The foreign policy of the United States has become detached from any defensible conception of U.S. interests and from a decent respect for the rights and dignity...

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Oklahoma Frees Some of Its Political Prisoners

Oklahoma Frees Some of Its Political Prisoners

by | Nov 15, 2019 | , ,

Communist and other authoritarian and totalitarian governments around the world have always, throughout history and at this very time, arrested (or sometimes just simply seized) and jailed (or sometimes just killed) political dissidents and other nonconformists whom they considered to be “enemies of the state” whose only crime was disagreeing with some government law or policy. Those so horribly treated didn’t kill anyone, assault anyone, violate anyone’s natural or civil rights, destroy anyone’s property, steal anything from anybody, or rape anyone. They were incarcerated (and sometimes...

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