Visitors to Uganda have rarely been starved of sex if they have wanted it. But there are limitations. The country’s mix of vigorous heterosexuality and religiosity have made it one of Africa’s more homophobic places. Now, say advocates of sexual freedom, a proposed new law against homosexuals will push Uganda back into a grim kind of Victorian age, Africa-style.
Sarah Palin and the Decline of Conservatism
Amid all the tales of savoring the aromas at the state fair and having her wardrobe vetted by snotty campaign staffers, she sets aside space to lay out her vision of what it means to be a "Commonsense Conservative." It takes up all of 11 pages and leans heavily on prefabricated lines like "I am a conservative because I deal with the world as it is" and "If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes."
Ten Reasons Not To Abolish Slavery
Slavery existed for thousands of years, in all sorts of societies and all parts of the world. To imagine human social life without it required an extraordinary effort. Yet, from time to time, eccentrics emerged to oppose it, most of them arguing that slavery is a moral monstrosity and therefore people should get rid of it. Such advocates generally elicited reactions ranging from gentle amusement to harsh scorn and even violent assault.
When people bothered to give reasons for opposing the proposed abolition, they advanced various ideas. Here are ten such ideas I have encountered in my reading.
The Pledge of Allegiance is un-American
Ironically, the Pledge of Allegiance, which today is most fiercely defended by white conservative Southerners whose Confederate ancestors tried to destroy the United States in the 1860s, was written by a Yankee socialist from New York in the 1890s.
Intellectual Property and Libertarianism
Many libertarians abandon minarchy in favor of anarchy when they realize that even a minarchist government is unlibertarian. That was my experience. And it was like this for me also with IP. I came to see that the reason I had been unable to find a way to justify IP was because it is, in fact, unlibertarian. Perhaps this would have been obvious if Congress had not enacted patent and copyright statutes long ago, making them part and parcel of America's "free-market" legal system — and if early libertarians like Rand had not so vigorously championed such rights.
But libertarianism's initial presumption should have been that IP is invalid, not the other way around. After all, we libertarians already realize that "intellectual" rights, such as the right to a reputation protected by defamation law, are illegitimate. Why, then, would we presume that other laws, protecting intangible, intellectual rights, are valid — especially artificial rights that are solely the product of legislation, i.e., decrees of the fake-law-generating wing of a criminal state?
Obama Says Guantánamo Won’t Close by January
President Obama acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by mid-January, admitting the difficulties of following through on one of his first pledges as president.
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