The Alabama Supreme Court ruling on frozen embryos is exactly why we have, in this country, a separation of church and state. Mind you, this is the same state that has laws in effect declaring that a pregnant woman can be charged with murder should she miscarry. (Those laws have been used for just that purpose. They originated in precisely the same ignorance as the Supreme Court ruling and produce an unjustness that should infuriate any compassionate individual.) And now,…
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Of my screed from earlier today, many may say that surely the 9th Amendment (in theory, at least) protects unenumerated rights and freedoms of individuals. We have already seen that this is, in practice, untrue. Refer again to the offhand and incomplete list of government intrusions from the past two years, and it’s easy to see that government has…
The problem with viewing the Constitution and Bill of Rights as prohibitions on government activities is that those rights and freedoms not specifically articulated are then interpreted as perfectly allowable intrusions by government, and its agents, on the anomaly of individual freedom. What if, instead, we recognize individual freedom as the default and government intrusion as the anomaly? This is, I believe, the stance the Founding Fathers took when they drafted both documents, knowing full well (again, I believe)…
I’m on my way home from a spontaneous road trip, embarked upon last week due to an itchy restlessness I couldn’t shake. I haven’t been on one of these in a while. The last one took me to the very same place I ended up in this time, along a very similar route, almost exactly one year ago.I tell people I’m a free spirit, but maybe traveling this journey twice in two years is the beginning of a routine, or…
Note: This post was originally published on my author blog on 11 December 2015. In light of recent shootings, many are calling for tighter gun control laws, ignoring the basic fact that laws already in place did nothing to stop those shootings in the first place. It is therefore irrational to think that more legislation will solve the problem. As Jacob Sullum wrote in a recent post for Reason, “Autonomous Terrorism Calls for Autonomous Defense,” “The perpetrators of last week’s…
Note: This post was originally published on my author blog on 26 November 2015. Today is one of the most revered or reviled days in shopping history, depending on one’s point of view. Bargain hunters awake early on this Friday after Thanksgiving to crowd stores, searching for holiday gifts at special prices, while the not-so-savvy sleep in and do their holiday shopping online. It’s easy to let Black Friday’s overt consumerism reflect negatively on Western society, capitalism, and the free…