There’s a lingering – but easy to answer – question about whether it’s legal to put a conventional, ordinary-sized ‘Recall Walker’ sign on your private lawn. Yes, it is. It’s a free speech right that cannot be abridged by state or local election ordinances limiting the mere display on private property of conventional political signs.…
Liberty
Liberty, Tyranny
Russia’s Struggling Democracy, Twenty Years On
by JOHN ADAMS •
Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Defending Street Vendors, Food Trucks, and Consumer Choice
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s an update in the battle for economic freedom and consumer choice. I’ve written before about how incumbent, brick-and-mortar restaurants try to use government to shield themselves from food-truck competitors. Those restaurateurs do not — will never — deserve governmental protection. They made a free choice to open a store, instead of operating a truck,…
Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Raw Foods Raids: Rawesome Foods Raided…Again
by JOHN ADAMS •
Today’s a day of catching up on new developments about earlier posts. Longtime readers may recall a post from November 2010, entitled, Raw Foods Raids: The Fight for the Right to Eat the Food that You Want, about an armed raid on the Rawesome Foods co-op in California. They’ve been raided yet again. Here’s a…
Libertarians, Liberty
What Nat Hentoff Found in His FBI File
by JOHN ADAMS •
Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Planning
Plant a Garden, Go to Jail for 93-Days?! Reason’s Nanny of the Month for July 2011
by JOHN ADAMS •
Food trucks, baggy pants, but the winner involves trying to ban vegetables in a front yard. Oak Park, Michigan’s city planner, Kevin Rulkowski, tried (but ultimately failed) to ban a front-yard vegetable garden on private property. What’s funny-sad is his attempt to justify the ban through his limited understanding of the word ‘suitable,’ coupled with…
Law, Libertarians, Liberty
Mark Grannis on Rights
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Crime, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Whitewater’s Concealed Carry Debate
by JOHN ADAMS •
Concealed carry legislation went to the governor, and he signed it, about a month ago. (For an overview of that legislation, see Mary Spicuzza’s Concealed carry bill heads to Walker for signature. A provision of the bill allows communities to place restrictions on the presence of otherwise lawfully-concealed weapons, beyond the restrictions (police stations, court…
Freedom of Speech, Libertarians, Liberty
Forget the Tea Party: Is It Libertarianism That’s On the Rise?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s a press release for FreedomFest, a place to meet libertarians from across America: “Greatest libertarian show on earth” projected to hit record crowds LAS VEGAS – Move over Tea Party, libertarianism is on the rise. Combining much of the civil liberties perspectives of social democrats with a fiscally conservative philosophy, libertarian-minded voters want to…
Law, Liberty, Official Misconduct, Police
Six Years in Prison for Legally Recording a Police Officer?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Photography and video recordings both protect honest police departments against false accusations and assure communities receive information about instances of official misconduct. When citizens exercise their rights to photography and video recording, they are also bolstering the work of good officers by helping identify a few corrupt ones. Yet not everyone sees it this way,…
Liberty
Raw Milk’s Not an Ordinary School Food
by JOHN ADAMS •
I have long favored raw milk as a choice for adults, and adults who choose it for their children. It’s not, though, a food that’s ready for school children whose parents have not constented to its inclusion on a menu: Laboratory test results show that the Campylobactor jejuni bacteria that caused diarrheal illness among 16…
Liberty
The FBI wants your garbage (and a lot more)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yes, they do. Here’s a message from the ACLU, describing another of the federal government’s ceaseless quests for more power over the lives of law-abiding citizens: You probably wouldn’t expect that FBI agents would want to dig through your trash unless they had a real good reason. And you surely wouldn’t want them following you…
Crime, Government Spending, Law, Liberty
On 40th Anniversary Of War On Drugs, Cops Decry Obama’s Drug Policy
by JOHN ADAMS •
The least one can say is that these last decades have failed to assure Americans’ health or safety. There’s irony, too, as even the regulation-favoring Richard Nixon would not have imagined nor supported the course the war on drugs has taken. We’ve wasted money, enriching only agencies and vendors quick to slop at a trough…
Liberty, Wisconsin
Wisconsin 25th of 50 for Freedom
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Mercatus Center of George Mason University released its annual report on liberty, ranking freedom in each of the states. Wisconsin comes in a disappointing 25th, no better than middling. See, Freedom in the Fifty States 2011. Wisconsin’s freedoms have been under siege in 2011 — our new administration and legislative majority regulate from the…