“Instead of barrels of gunpowder, we’re going to be trafficking in books and ideas.” This is what my friend and colleague Gary Gibson wrote in his own introduction to Whiskey & Gunpowder, an innovative product that began in 2005. Its mission has been to explore the outer edges of economic, financial, ...read more

After Sept. 11, the American system of government became crazy obsessed with security. The implementation has not only been brutal and contrary to human liberty; it has completely lacked creativity. Instead of real security, we get what's called "security theater," and at the expense of the customer, who feels the ...read more

While attending the Agora Financial Symposium in Vancouver, I became aware that Americans enjoy some rights that Canadians do not: among them, the limited ability to carry weapons. Even private security guards seem unable to be armed in Canada. This does not make me feel safer. Quite the reverse. Private people ...read more

Even in this seemingly permanent recession, government is intensifying its regulation, taxation and harassment of regular business people. Business pages are filling up with pleas to government from real-life entrepreneurs. All these people are saying is give freedom a chance. An example is Seth Gordon, the co-founder and "TeaEO" of Honest ...read more

People tell me that I get overly worked up about small government regulations. But small matters. The building of civilization is revealed in small steps, tiny, bit-by-bit improvements in the things we have and do. In the same way, seemingly small government regulations can cause a reversal of the magnificent ...read more

I never tire of looking out the windows of airplanes. For all of human history until just about the day before yesterday, no living person saw the world like this. People could climb up to the top of mountains and see the valleys below. But to see that whole view ...read more

Someone asked me the other day if I believe in conspiracies. Well, sure. Here's one. It is called the political system. It is nothing if not a giant conspiracy to rob, trick and subjugate the population. People participate in the hope of making our lives better, or at least curbing the ...read more

The United States is home to a gigantic socialist sector, larger and with a greater reach than any in the world, and it is fed by tax dollars and managed entirely by the government. Strangely, the opponents of socialized medicine and socialized industry don't complain about it. In fact, all ...read more

Libertarianism is, obviously, an idea whose time has come. Or maybe you don't like that term. There are plenty of others. My preference is old-fashioned. I like the term "liberal" -- or maybe "radical liberal" -- to distinguish my own intellectual commitments from the generation that naively believed that government ...read more

"I've got better things to do than broadcast a message to the world about my lunch." An uncountable number of people have said this or something similar to me about Twitter. I've stopped responding. It's the same kind of faux snobbery that causes people to look down on Facebook, YouTube, Angry ...read more