Archive for May, 2016

The right to secede

Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

I’ve been reading in Thomas DiLorenzo’s 2012 hardback from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, “Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government.” The book features brief summary chapters, with useful references, from the Loyola University economics professor, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, and member of the Mont Pelerin Society, weighing in on such topics as […]

Other candidates talk about guns

Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

(A version of this column, filed for an early April deadline, appears in the June 10 issue of “Firearms News,” formerly “Shotgun News,” on newsstands now.) A regular reader asked why — since I mentioned Donald Trump’s position on gun rights recently — I haven’t mentioned other presidential candidates who might honor the Second Amendment.

Politics Creates Anarchists (true or false?)

Friday, May 27th, 2016

  My (dear, departed) father was active for some time — a few years, perhaps — with the LP, decades ago. Later, he declared himself (at least quietly, to me) an anarchist. He was a peace loving man, and never quite grokked the vital importance of guns in peaceful hands to a free society. But, […]

“A Fount of Strange Wisdom”

Friday, May 20th, 2016

Post title pilfered from this Reason “Hit and Run” blog post. Images mainly stolen from McAfee’s F***book pages, here and here.

Is Donald the GOP’s Doctor Doom?

Wednesday, May 18th, 2016

A friend who’s a Republican (hey, no one’s perfect) writes to ask: “In your opinion, with The Donald at the GOP’s helm, are we doomed? I say nay, but others say oh hell yes. I think Hillary is too unsavory for most to support while the Donald’s brashness appeals to the lowest (voting) common denominator. […]

They’re ‘NOT in jail for possession of marijuana or any other harmless, non-addictive, plant-derived substance’

Wednesday, May 18th, 2016

A reader of my May 10 column in “Firearms News” (formerly “Shotgun News”) — the one headlined “Donald Trump On Guns” — wrote in: “The column started off great, but as we got closer and closer to the end Vin apparently got wound up listening to his own rhetoric.

“Uninstall the system”

Friday, May 13th, 2016

Or, Confessions of a Disillusioned (Former) Libertarian (by the Brunette)

What was the difference? They had ‘guns’

Sunday, May 1st, 2016

(A version of this column appeared in the April 10 edition of “Firearms News,” formerly “Shotgun News.”)

‘The Annual Roosevelt-Kennedy Dinner’

Sunday, May 1st, 2016

I grew up in a New England Democratic family. Since politics were a matter of culture and ethnicity (I never actually heard it described that way — we just knew), it would have seemed unnatural for us Swamp Yankees to be anything else.