Actress Megan Fox recently claimed on social media that she and other Hollywood elites enjoy drinking each others blood, exciting those critical of Hollywood culture. In their minds it proves the evil, secret Pagan nature of the liberal American establishment. It's as though a sub-culture of drinking blood has never existed prior or that the symbolic drinking of blood and eating of the flesh of a body is not an already widely accepted ritual. In any case, a video of a woman boasting of her involvement in the voluntary ritual of blood drinking is upsetting to some. Drinking blood is bad....
war on drugs
Its Not Getting Better: Cops in the U.S. Still Kill Someone Every 8 Hours
It has been nearly two years since Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. At the time, Floyd’s death would set off massive protests across the country as politicians and political pundits played lip service to Black Lives Matter and others, as they offered up their hollow support. Illustrating the extremely hollow nature of their “support” is the fact that despite all the appeals to emotion, the toothless “reform” bills, and incessant gaslighting—absolutely nothing has changed. As the fourth month of 2022 begins, American cops are keeping to their deadly numbers like clockwork. One quarter...
An Indictment of ‘Public Health’
We live in an age of public health. Even in countries with private sector health care, government regulates and steers the practice of medicine. On the surface this may seem a positive. In theory it's an established framework to protect the patient and practitioners from injury and risks. It exists to coordinate in times of widespread crisis and can act as an impartial entity to protect those who are vulnerable. It can also act as the moral heart of a nation, determining the ethics and values in such a manner to guide those who are at times pragmatic or emotionally exposed when decisions...
Lessons from Fentanyl
The use of drugs is sometimes characterized as a victimless crime, since the person who ingests them will bear the negative consequences should something go awry. Supporters of prohibition, who wish for the government to regulate and limit sales and distribution, are typically concerned with not only the moral effects on individuals themselves but also what might be called the “collateral damage”: the family and community members affected by the user who succumbs and loses “the plot” of his life, so to speak. This concern with “collateral damage,” however, applies to drug (including...
An Oppressive Cycle: How Police Militarization and Police Violence Reinforce Each Other
The militarization of state and local police through federal government programs changed the character of policing in the United States. It has turned “protect and serve” into “command and control.” Instead of serving the community as “peace officers,” many state and local law enforcement agencies have turned into domestic military forces. We see the images on TV news—cops in military gear, riding on armored vehicles and toting military-style weapons. Police apologists claim militarizing law enforcement agencies helps them fight dangerous criminals more effectively and that it makes the...
Is the GOP Finally Turning the Corner on Weed?
Both Bloomberg and the cannabis industry publication Marijuana Moment now report that Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace is preparing to introduce new legislation ending the federal prohibition on marijuana. According to Bloomberg: A Republican bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level in the U.S., expected to be unveiled soon, would have a lighter regulatory touch [and] lower taxes…“It would largely delegate regulatory powers to the existing state governments,” said Brady Cobb, a board member of Captor Capital, an Irvine, California-based operator of dispensaries, who saw the...
Foreign Actors Behind the Revolutionary Curtain
Libertarians are quick to support revolutions, especially the American Revolution, as popular uprisings against a tyrannical regime. It is a narrative that allows one to believe that certain political movements are on the “right side of history." They are often rare and can be appropriate responses to improper behavior by the state, but make no mistake, revolutions are not “popular." Revolutions do not just occur anytime a state behaves in a tyrannical or authoritarian way towards its populace. If this was the case, revolts would be happening essentially every day. Plenty of authoritarian...
The War on Drugs for Her
She had just turned fifteen. She was a good girl, though some of her friends had a wilder side. They did like to party. She was excited to attend a music festival, a large one geared to people under eighteen. While she was there the police were conducting an operation to curb the use of recreational drugs. Twenty or so teenagers, including herself, had been taken almost at random by the police officers. It was a hot day, so she had worn very little. As she was taken away she was roughly handled. The police officers accused her of being in possession of drugs, a girl who had not even tried...
Biden’s Vaccine Mandate, and State Power Over Your Life
The Biden administration on Thursday announced sweeping new mandates. The new mandates require that all employers with more than one hundred workers require workers to be vaccinated or to test for the virus weekly. The mandates also require covid vaccinations for the 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid. Moreover, vaccines are mandated for all employees of the federal government’s executive branch, and for all contractors who do business with the federal government. There is no option to test out in these cases. The new mandates extend an...
How the FBI’s War on Drugs Contributed to the 9/11 Attacks
The story of 9/11 is filled with painful “what-ifs.” Among the most prominent: What if the CIA hadn’t blocked two FBI agents from alerting Bureau headquarters that a future 9/11 hijacker had obtained a multi-entry U.S. visa? What if the FBI hadn’t nixed agents’ request for a warrant to search the computer of “20th hijacker” Zacharias Moussaoui after his arrest in August 2001? What if the FBI hadn’t ignored a Phoenix agent’s July 2001 recommendation to contact aviation colleges across the country, on suspicion that Osama bin Laden was preparing extremists to “conduct terror activity...