Free Speech and Violence: A Paradox
At the suggestion of a friend, I have been reading over a little bit of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the 1969 legal case which most definitively decided that one's right to…
Ilhan Omar’s Serious Question
One of the newest and most diverse(TM) senators from Minnesota has gotten herself in hot water for asking why democrats care tremendously about political and economic interference of the oil,…
Speech: Thought or Action?
In his excellent book Skin in the Game, Nassim Taleb makes the point that Sargon has been making online for a few years: morality is about what you do not what…
Raising the Temperature
I don't think it's possible to exaggerate the importance of this story: FBI agents raided the home of a recognized Department of Justice whistleblower who privately delivered documents pertaining to…
Why I Am A Propertarian
Libertarianism seems to be collapsing. Even those of us who still feel a kind of emotional affinity with the philosophy (I'm sure I'm not alone) have come to admit that…
Culture of Consent
In 1922, Walter Lippmann coined the idea of “manufactured consent” in his book Public Opinion. The book seems to accept the premise that the social contract was predicated upon consent; that…
Guns and Secrets
The fearless activism of the curiously well-covered David Hogg, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, has resulted in exactly what he wanted. The school is…
Dankula’s Downfall
Markus "Count Dankula" Meechan has just been convicted of "grossly offensive" hate speech, for the crime of teaching his girlfriend's dog to respond excitedly to "gas the jews," and to…
The Strong Case for Censorship
Here's a puzzle: what's wrong with Slavoj Zizek's argument for censorship? I like censorship, but what kind of censorship? Not ‘the office, you get imprisoned,’ but censorship which is a…