Mises Search

The horror of Muammar Gaddafi’s approach to keeping power in Libya boggles the mind and shocks the moral conscience. But how different is his approach from the way most all governments behave in the face of citizen revolt? There are differences among them with regard to how far they will go to force submission, but the methods and the rationale

What is the law of the land? Many Americans are under the impression that it is the US Constitution, distorted by time perhaps and the plain meaning changed by bad (or good, depending on your point of view) amendment, court decision, or indifference. This is a complete myth. The actual law of the land is contained in the US Code published every

It’s a strange thing that all the leading progressives feel s chadenfreude toward all the Starbucks closings around the country. I mean, this institution samples all the fashionable attitudes in music, aesthetics, and politics, subtly embracing the ethos of the arch-lefty consumer class: happy to promote commercialism provided that the

The use of lard in cooking is slowly being rehabilitated but the cultural shock of the stuff hasn’t diminished in the slightest. There I was at the store buying just two products: lard and salt. They sat on the black conveyor belt awaiting checkout at the store. The guy behind me — something like this happens every time I buy lard — asked

I’ve held my peace for as long as I can, but there will be no more silence on this critical issue of the day. Here is the bottom line: you need to learn to make a link or you should fall into the grave early. There is no getting by in life without this skill. It is a bloody outrage that people continue not to know how to do this. And yet it

These were sharp businessmen, the four guys who pointed out that there were three dead trees in my backyard that needed to be cut down lest they attract horrible bugs that would infest my entire property. They would cut them down and remove them for $475. In cash. We dickered back and forth and finally settled on $350. In cash. They attacked the

The Catholic Church in America in the 19th century would have never featured an American flag anywhere in sight. This trend began in World War I: the German parishes were pressured to show their loyalty to the state and its war. The trend picked up steam in World War II, when the Italians too were suspected and so had to declare their loyalty. The

The greatest single life-enhancing step you can take in early summer is to change your lawnmower blade. It’s a thing that gets ever duller with use, and you adjust and adjust to the diminished cutting ability with each mow, until the point that you think it is normal that it takes all your strength to shove the thing across the yard and leave a

Yesterday, I inadvertently squandered $4000 plus worth of medical resources during a lunch break. That I could do this, gain no benefit, and not even see the bills, is what’s right and wrong with American medical care. I’ll tell the story in moment but first consider that none of the politically active reform proposals being debated deal with the

There I stood with eight olive pits in my cheek, talking to the checkout lady at the grocery store as she waved my half-pound container of antipasto over the scanner light. All the while, I hoped she that she wouldn’t notice or ask why I sounded like I had marbles in mouth. Like many shoppers before and after, I had been standing at the olive bar