Be Free
Mark Davis
2005-07-10 16:00
The state has grown too big and powerful and conversely the individual appears small and powerless. Libertarians of all stripes can debate endlessly on why this has come about and where we should ideally be instead. When the question of what to do about it comes up, there is typically a moment of silence and perhaps a chuckle or two coupled with some frustrated cynicism. After this moment of...
On Social Contracts
Recommended
Mark Davis
2010-12-31 04:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
“The great political superstition of the past was the divine right of kings. The great political superstition of the present is the divine right of parliaments. The oil of anointing seems unawares to have dripped from the head of the one on to the heads of the many, and given sacredness to them also and to their decrees.” ~ Herbert Spencer...
Fun and Gun
Mark Davis
2011-10-13 00:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
I’ve had enough of the emotional handwringing about the evil of guns and the chastising rhetoric about gun owners. Of course, inanimate objects like guns can’t be evil or good; they are just tools that can be used for good or evil. Further, gun owners are no more inherently wicked than people who own knives, hammers, shovels or...
A Hornets' Nest
Mark Davis
2013-01-25 07:46
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
A man showed up at my door one day not so long ago and said that he was from the Departmental Official Office of Motherland Security (DOOMS) and I was in danger of being stung to death by hornets. I told him that I did not fear hornets and, though I occasionally noticed one, I did not think that they were a big problem. As a matter of fact, I found that if I...
Everybody Does It
Mark Davis
2013-01-08 08:44
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see." ~ Ayn Rand
The good old “argumentum ad populum” or “appeal to the people” is a logical fallacy that has been used by countless children the world over for time immemorial. Unfortunately, the equally old lesson traditionally...
The Myth of Public Goods
Recommended
Mark Davis
2010-06-25 03:00
By Mark Davis
Exclusive to STR
The myth of public goods is based on the belief that there are special things that everybody needs, but nobody will pay for. The priests perpetuating this myth include self-interested professors who spend a lifetime informing young, bright-eyed students about the magical qualities of these special goods that can only be provided by popular...
WTF, Max?!
Mark Davis
2012-08-29 00:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
I’ve enjoyed Max Keiser and the Keiser Report for the last few years. His stands pointing out the thoroughly corrupt financial system, supporting silver and gold money and calling out the US Treasury Department pimps like Paulson and Geithner with their revolving door to Goldman Sachs have been outstanding. Max also took a very courageous stand...
Ron Quixote
Mark Davis
2007-03-05 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Ron Paul for President gives many people hope that the system can work. If only the right man could take the reins, then this beast would be controlled and used for good purposes. The long years of conditioning and indoctrination are difficult to get past. As a naïve young man, I voted for him because I thought that capital L Libertarianism could really work to reform the...
Black and White (Are You Experienced?) - Part II
Mark Davis
2012-06-12 00:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
Part II – It’s the Little Things
When I was a kid, of about 10 or 11 years old, my younger brother (9 or 10) and I would visit my grandparents’ house. My grandmother sometimes would let us walk to a little store about a mile away to get a soda, candy or snack. There wasn’t a straight road to the store and we had to...
For What It's Worth (Go Thoreau!)
Mark Davis
2011-07-08 00:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
There's somethin' happenin' here.
What it is ain't exactly clear.
There's a man with a gun over there
A-tellin' me I've got to beware.
I think it's time we stop.
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's goin' down. ~ Buffalo Springfield
What to do? When asked what to do about the predicament that I have described over the...
An Open Letter to Hank Williams, Jr.
Mark Davis
2011-10-17 00:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
Dear Mr. Williams,
You are the man! Standing up to the corporate media like you did was heroic. I know that heroic is a word that gets way overused these days, but I can’t remember the last time an entertainer stood their ground when assailed by the self-appointed politically correct Gestapo that polices the airwaves. ...
A Book Review of Jerome L. Wright’s 'Equal Freedom'
Mark Davis
2012-01-05 01:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” ~ Albert Einstein
A new book by Jerome L. Wright would have made Einstein proud. The book is Equal Freedom – The Principle of Equal Freedom and Noncoercive Government. It breaks new ground in the libertarian intellectual movement...
Between Barack and a Hard Place
Mark Davis
2010-06-14 03:00
Exclusive to STR
Socialism (noun)-
1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the...
Black and White (Are You Experienced?) - Part I
Mark Davis
2012-06-11 00:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
If you can just get your mind together
Then come on across to me
We'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sunrise
From the bottom of the sea
But first, are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?
Well, I have
I know, I know you probably scream and cry
That your little world won't let you go
But who in your measly...
Debt Madness
Mark Davis
2011-02-22 04:00
Column by Mark Davis.
Exclusive to STR
Finalist #1 in the "Odious Debt" essay contest
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. ~ Henry Ford
Are you mad yet? Tired of all the odious bulldebt being dumped on your head out of...
Reprint Rights
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