When students at two prominent Texas state government universities — the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M — return to the universities’ campuses in the fall semester, after being booted in the spring semester due to purported worries about coronavirus, they will find the experience much different than it has been in years past. To put it simply, new rules imposed in the name of countering coronavirus will make being a student at these universities suckier.
Take, for example, new mask mandates announced by the presidents of both universities this week.
Have you heard about these prominent American libertarians? A former United States Marine Corps general who was a secretary of defense in the Donald Trump administration while taking a break from serving on the Board of Directors of General Dynamics, one of the largest military contractors in the world. A Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts. A Republican member of the US Senate from Alaska.
Of course, you have not heard of these libertarians. That makes sense. No such people are libertarians.
Last week, United States Libertarian Party Chairman Nicholas Sarwark suggested to these nonlibertarians that they join the Libertarian Party. For the House and Senate members, his suggestion went so far as that they change their party affiliations in Congress to Libertarian.
On Friday, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that a portion of 16th Street near the White House had been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza. That day a street sign bearing the new name was installed. “Black lives matter” was painted in huge yellow letters on the road surface on Friday as well.
Continue readingAcross America over the last week large groups of people have been protesting. Many people have also crowded together rioting and looting, often with no police taking any action to stop the out-in-the-open assaults and theft. Meanwhile, in many of the same cities and towns across America businesses remain totally shut down or are legally allowed to operate only under new restrictions that make profitable functioning difficult to impossible, all in the name of countering coronavirus.
Continue readingA lot can change in three months. In March, the message from the United States government, communicated through individuals including Surgeon General Jerome Adams and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, was that people should not wear masks when they go about their daily activities outside their homes.
Then, in April, the US government and its high profile medical “experts” including Fauci and Adams turned on a dime, urging people to wear masks. And, in May, citing the US government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) new pro-mask guidance, stores such Costco as well as state and local governments including, as of Friday, Virginia imposed mask mandates on their customers and people in their geographic jurisdictions, respectively.
The message transitioned from “do not wear masks” to “you must wear masks” all in three months, and all the while the prominent propagators have insisted that the morphing message is based on science.
With protests, riots, looting, and revolutionary acts rising over the last few days across the country, here is a bit of information for participants in these activities to keep in mind: There are likely government agents among you. These government agents are undercover and taking part in the activities with you. Their role may be to take down names and inform on activities; their role may to act as provocateurs, seeking to lead you and others to do or say particular things; their role may be to make arrests.
Continue readingStarting Friday, people ten years old and older who are indoors just about anywhere in Virginia other than in private homes will be required by a new executive order of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam to “cover their mouth and nose with a face covering, as described and recommended by” the United Sates government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Further, the mandate even requires wearing such a mask when outside at a long list of places “if a distance of six feet from every other person cannot be maintained.”
Oh brother. Indeed, oh Big Brother.
Continue readingFuture of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger failed to win the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in Saturday evening online voting by party delegates. Hornberger, who has spoken at Ron Paul Institute (RPI) events and whose articles have been regularly posted at the RPI website, came in second place in the fourth and final ballot cast by delegates.
Continue readingLast week the Wisconsin Supreme Court became the first among the highest state courts in America to void much of a state government’s coronavirus crackdown. With legal challenges being pursued in response to liberty suppression through the expanding of government power across America in the name of countering coronavirus, expect other states’ top courts soon to be considering the legality of state and local crackdowns as well. A declaration earlier this month by four of the nine justices of the Texas Supreme Court suggests that there may be strong support in that court for taking similar action as did the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Continue reading“Once police stop you, a ticket is the least of your worries,” writes Jacob Sullum early on in his new Reason article “10 Ways a Roadside Police Stop Can Go Wrong.”
After starting off with a short examination of the discretion police have to pull over vehicles on the road for a plethora of reasons, Sullum addresses, in turn, ten of the ways beyond a ticket that a traffic stop can be harmful. He starts with number one, having one’s driver license taken away, and proceeds on to number ten, being killed.