Will on Forfeiture Abuse

George Will has a good column today on civil asset forfeiture abuse. He highlights an ongoing case in Tewksbury, Mass., where the DOJ and local police department are colluding to seize a motel from the owners because some drug dealers have stayed there in the past. The government is not claiming that the owners knew [...]

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“Neoclassical Liberalism,” Property Rights, and Capitalism

Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi have a thought-provoking piece entitled, “A Bleeding Heart History of Libertarianism,” in the latest Cato Unbound. They criticize postwar libertarians (specifically mentioning Mises, Rand, and Rothbard) for seeing property rights as absolute and, in their view, regarding the welfare of the working poor as irrelevant to moral justifications for capitalism: [...]

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County Sues Farmer Over Too Many Crops

Another bizarre case of town government versus the property owner. DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County is suing a local farmer for growing too many vegetables, but he said he will fight the charges in the ongoing battle neighbors call “Cabbagegate.” Fig trees, broccoli and cabbages are among the many greens that line the soil [...]

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Business versus the State: the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum’s  Global Competitiveness Report has been released. You can read a summary in the Washington Post or go directly to download the report and the fascinating data tables here. As one might expect, the US has slipped from first to fourth (of 139 nations) over the past several years. Some of the data [...]

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In Which the Town Comes for My Garden

A Town of Tonawanda building inspector wants to destroy my native plant garden through misapplication of town weed laws. But my garden is legal, and I can prove it…

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Ron Paul v. the “Sunshine Patriots”

Ron Paul has stepped into the continuing saga of the “ground zero mosque” with what seems to me to be a reasonable statement, albeit one that will not earn him too many friends on the Right. Congressman Paul reduces things to their essentials: The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a [...]

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Taranto on Paul on Civil Rights

I like James Taranto’s take on Rand Paul’s view of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: Far from being evasive, Paul has shown himself to be both candid and principled to a fault. We do mean to a fault. In this matter, Paul seems to us to be overly ideological and insufficiently mindful of the contingencies [...]

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Tenable Property Rights

This post is simply meant to draw readers’ attention to the interesting conversation going on in the comment thread on the “Property and Serfdom” post below. Kyle Baxter asks: If the original distribution is unjust (e.g. it depended on the violation of rights), but at some point just rules for trade were implemented (ones based [...]

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Property and Serfdom

The distinguishing characteristic of classical liberalism from other liberalisms is its view of property rights. On the classical liberal account, a distribution of property is just if it is a consequence of just transfer, where transfer is generally just if and only if voluntary or appropriately compensatory for wrongs. As Nozick noted, this unpatterned, “side [...]

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Arizona to Allow Concealed Weapons Without Permit

To be honest, I’d prefer passage of open carry laws in states that do not allow it or require a permit to open carry.  I feel safer knowing who is packing and who is not.  But here is an AP story on Arizona’s effort to expand government protection of the right to bear arms: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_on_re_us/us_xgr_concealed_weapons_arizona. According to [...]

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