It’s interesting how both Left and Right normally engage in massive special pleading on behalf of their own favorite issues and pet causes. I remember when the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was being considered in the early 90s, sectors of the religious right were attacking it on the […]
Let this be a lesson to those “libertarians” who praise fascist Singapore as some kind of “free market” paradise because of its friendliness to Western business interests. This kid is a hero. A 17-year-old Singapore resident has been arrested for criticizing the recently deceased PM Lee Kuan Yew […]
Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker’s article from the Wall Street Journal from two years ago. Right now, the War on Drugs appears to where the Vietnam War was in the period between 1971-1973. The war was still going on, but it was obvious it was a doomed effort. […]
The university system is the primary institution in North America where the hard Left has achieved dominance as opposed to other institutions (government, business, religion, military) where the Left has to share power with other political currents. The contemptuous disregard for individual rights and freedom of opinion combined […]
Apparently, it will be if Chris Hedges has his way. It’s interesting how hysteria over sex trafficking is slowly replacing the war on drugs as the dominant form of moral panic, and substantial sectors of liberalism and the Left are completely complicit or even leading the charge. Look […]
Interesting. It looks like even sectors of both the left and right wings of the ruling class are concerned that the police state and prison industrial complex have gone a bit overboard. The right is apparently concerned about impending fiscal bankruptcy, and the spillover of state repression into […]
This book is one of the very best I have seen to date that critiques the U.S. criminal justice system. What’s ironic is that the author was neither an anarchist nor a libertarian, or even a leftist or liberal. He was a conservative Republican and an evangelical Christian. […]
By Jesse Walker Reason Reason has obtained the federal government’s recent report on the sovereign citizens, a largely unorganized subculture whose elaborate legal theories say they do not have to follow most laws. Members of the movement are infamous for filing nuisance lawsuits, making their own drivers’ licenses […]
An interesting question that no one ever seems to ask is this: How is it that on one hand we are treated to a never ending series of hysterias over someone having said a bad word pertaining to race, gender, homosexuality, or some other inflammatory topic, and yet […]
Michelle Alexander, highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State University, and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, delivers the 30th Annual George E. Kent Lecture, in honor of the late George E. Kent, who was […]
By Ruth Wilson Gilmore Social Justice Journal by Ruth Wilson Gilmore* After declining for three consecutive years, the US prison and jail population increased in 2013. The widely declared victory over mass incarceration was premature at best. Below I raise four areas of particular concern about the state […]
Written by S. Wess Moss and published originally on High-right.com here. “The fairest part of childhood passes without the necessity of coming to blows with reason. We care nothing at all about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to be persuaded to […]
On the 7th of January, three Islamic gunmen stormed the offices of left-wing satirical mag Charlie Hebdo, killing eleven staff members in the ensuing bullet shower. The magazine had previously made an international name for itself by printing the Mohammed cartoons of 2006, and continuing to satirise Islam […]
It is not unreasonable to suggest that the decades ahead will witness the unfolding of a golden age of anarchism. What is the evidence for this? -The most powerful state in the world, the United States, the mother country of the empire, is slowly losing its internal legitimacy […]
It can reasonably be said that the overwhelming majority of liberals, progressives, social democrats, and Marxists would affirm all or most of the following presumptions: -The state is an expression of popular democracy (see Jean Jacques Rousseau) -The ever increasing centralization of institutions is conducive to economic and […]
By Frank Serpico Alternet In 1971, shortly after exposing widespread, even systemic corruption amounting to millions of dollars in bribes and illegitimate relationships between the New York Police Department and criminals citywide, I was shot point-blank by a dealer during a buy-and-bust drug operation. My backup team failed […]
By Drew DeSilver Pew Research Center Federal drug policy is in the midst of a major conceptual shift away from the long, automatic prison sentences and zero-tolerance policies of the “War on Drugs” era. But it’s the states, whose prisons house the vast bulk of U.S. convicts, that […]
I have long believed that the most important role mainstream libertarians can play is in the realm of the legal system, e.g. more libertarian lawyers becoming activist judges, district attorneys, and defense attorneys that reshape the legal system according to much more libertarian values. The U.S. legal system […]
The police state and prison-industrial complex have become so large that state repression has spilled over into the mainstream, rather than remaining on the margins and on the bottom. It’s become costly enough that mainstream liberals and conservatives alike are starting to rethink it all. Interesting. By Erik […]
The Waco of the 1980s. PBS.Org MOVE members and police during the 1978 confrontation outside MOVE headquarters. It’s the week of the 29th anniversary of the MOVE bombings, and for those who were in the middle of it and are still with us, the memories of those tragic events […]
R.I.P. Phil Africa. Heroic resistance fighter against state repression. ABCNew.Go.Com Free Thought Project Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – According to Ramona Africa, a representative for the MOVE 9, Phil Africa, the organization’s First Minister of Defense, passed away in prison under suspicious circumstances this week.Phil was a legendary activist and political prisoner, […]
Nothing less is acceptable. By Ernest Drucker and Mike Trace Huffington Post Atty. General Eric Holder’s long overdue realization that “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason” was an important step toward a national recognition […]
The case of the NYPD “work slow down” is an example of why a Machiavellian approach to political strategy and activism is necessary. If there were a large and well-organized anarchist movement in North America, that was in turn organizing a larger federation of anti-state groups, we would […]
By Dr. Sean Gabb Libertarian Alliance For the avoidance of doubt, I will begin by saying that the murders this week at Charlie Hebdo were a barbarous crime, and deserve the strongest punishment allowed by law. This being said, the smug chanting of the politicians and media people […]
By Thaddeus Russell Time Magazine Oxford University Press
By T.C. Sottek The Verge Protests for police reform are sweeping the United States following the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and an untold number of other unarmed or innocent people of color. Amid the anger and sadness, one thing is clear: policing in America […]
By Joel Mathis PhillyMag.Com After decades of pain, some sanity. Kids, gather round. Let me share with you the horrors of my youth. Behold: And: Back in the 1980s, these commercials were on a near-constant loop — especially on Saturday mornings and any other times kids might be […]
The Antifa need not worry about efforts by fringe right-wing cults to impose fascism in America. Fascism is already here. By Radley Balko Washington Post Sometimes, real life can be stranger than parody. This can be particularly true when it comes to the beat we cover here at […]
By Josh Wiley Cop Block This article is for the irate minority who, like myself, have come to the realization that government, by its nature, constitutes a monopoly on force. Sadly, we live in a world in which there exists at least two classes of citizens: The average […]
By Scott Shackford Reason.Com Right now in New York City, guys selling black market cigarettes are much, much less likely to be harassed and arrested (or worse) by the New York Police Department. Apparently, or at least in the eyes of the New York Post, we’re supposed to […]
Is this how we defeat the police state? Engage in massive protests against police brutality, and elect anti-police local officials who will inspire the cops to stand down? These events lend support for the credibility of ATS’s adoption of the “Mailer model” for building localized resistance. D.C. Beacon […]
The Heritage Foundation Overcriminalization describes the trend to use the criminal law rather than the civil law to solve every problem, to punish every mistake, and to compel compliance with regulatory objectives. Criminal law should be used only if a person intentionally flouts the law or engages in […]
The people get militant, and the pigs back off. It looks like the protests are working. Lesson learned. By Larry Celona, Dana Sauchelli, Shawn Cohen and Bruce Golding New York Post Officers at slain cop Rafael Ramos’ funeral. Photo: Dennis A. Clark MORE ON: NYPD Hats worn by […]
Wonderful! This is indicative of a deep rift between the political class and law enforcement. Severe disunity between the state and its enforcer arm is always welcome to revolutionaries. FOX News Associated Press Hundreds of police officers outside the Queens, N.Y. church Saturday where the funeral of Officer […]
It looks like mass democracy is working. By Mark Strauss Expand The good news: For those who are worried that the nation is more divided than ever, there’s finally one contentious issue that a majority of Americans agree upon. The bad news: Most people are okay with the […]
By Danny Haiphong FilmsforAction.Org The nascent movement against racist police brutality in the US received a boost of energy from the non-indictment of Eric Garner’s murderers in blue. Thousands filled the streets from New York City to Berkeley, California to protest racist injustice and declare #BlackLivesMatter. In typical fashion, the militarized police and mass incarceration state responded […]
By Justin Raimondo Antiwar.Com The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on how the US government tortured detainees at Guantanamo and at secret “black sites” all over the world has focused on how they did it: rectal feeding, hanging detainees by their arms, “stress positions,” beatings, etc. The prurience of […]
Good article from 2010 about over criminalization in the US. The Economist IN 2000 four Americans were charged with importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran regulation that Honduras no longer enforces. They had fallen foul of the Lacey Act, […]
Drug Policy Alliance
By Elizabeth Nolan Brown Reason “Free speech all the time. Not just when admin says when, where, what about,” read one side of the neon-yellow sign fielded by Ali Cohen, an education major at Coastal Carolina University, during a recent campus rally. On the sign’s flip side: “#BlackLivesMatter. […]
1. Continue to attack all mainstream institutions across the board, until all of the system’s institutions have a single digit approval rating, just as Congress presently does. 2. Continue all dissident movements everywhere, and grow these to the point that they collectively become a majority, and then a […]
This is interesting. A 50 percent plus majority of Americans now favor legalizing marijuana. However, two thirds say it should be a states’ rights issue. How can this be? Because the demographic that is least likely to favor legalizing marijuana is the one that is most likely to […]
By Bonnie Kristian The American Conservative wtfspvm / cc Darrin Manning’s unprovoked “stop and frisk” encounter with the Philadelphia police left him hospitalized with a ruptured testicle. Neykeyia Parker was violently dragged out of her car and aggressively arrested in front of her young child for “trespassing” at her […]
This one seemed open and shut.
This event that took place this past June is a prototype for what there needs to be more of. There needs to be mass protests all over the world against the U.S. and U.N.-led War on Drugs that ties all of the relevant issues together: police militarization, civil […]
I am very to see the outspoken public opposition that emerged in response to this proposal. And it’s not surprising this proposal emerged in the same state that gave us the Salem Witch Trials. The puritans have merely traded in their Calvinist clothing for a new secular, progressive […]
By Zach Weismueller Reason.Com “I’m a narc. I’ve been a narcotics guy forever,” says San Francisco police chief Greg Suhr. “But I’m just telling you, I’ve always felt bad for the people that were addicted to drugs.” Suhr is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, George Gascon, […]
This piece will probably piss off many anarchists and libertarians, but these arguments are worth hearing. The procedural rights of the accused and due process are as important an aspect of civil liberties as any other. One of the reasons we now have the massive prison-industrial complex is […]
By Tony Briscoe Chicago Tribune hicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Monday that the department would begin testing body cameras on officers within about 60 days as part of a pilot project. McCarthy offered few specifics at a news conference called to highlight crime statistics, but he made […]
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson
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