Author ArchivesJohn

Further to my post of December 7th titled “Anti-globalisation? Read on”, I finally located the photocopy I made of the article in the Reader’s Digest by Johan Norberg, who is a reporter in Vietnam – giving the other side to the story of globalisation and international capitalism. The first significant ...

In today’s Times, I read the most weird criticism of the United States I have ever come across, by commentator Jan Morris. I will print the strangest section in full, so you can see what I mean: [Of life in the US from an Brit’s point of view] “There is ...

Tessa Jowell, Culture Secretary (whatever that is), opened a public debate Thursday on the above as part of a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, by which the public will be invited to write to government officials directly and/or go to meetings on the subject of what, exactly, the British ...

Today the latest results from the British Social Attitudes survey is quite revealing about where people are on the issue of tax vs. freedom: the attitudes of young voters seem to indicate much LESS tolerance toward the ever-increasing taxation of New Labour than they would have before! Perhaps a wonderful ...

You may be interested to read the OTHER side of the story of globalisation – ie. the one that will never come from the mouths of those dreadlocked, anti-war, anti-capitalist, abundantly pierced types with plenty of spare time to wreck the cities on regular occasions like May Day. (The Great ...

Further to my post of yesterday re. The Lancet editorial (which called for tobacco to be made illegal); it seems that some other folks have similarly noticed the bizarrity in such a view. Today’s Times, for instance, in its leading article, makes the following statement: “A ban [on smoking] would ...

“Fat is now a political issue”; so says Minette Marrin in the Times on Sunday. She directly targets her argument at libertarians (such as my good self), saying essentially that she agrees with the government’s initiative to do something about the obesity of the nation. Marrin utilises several devices to ...

Two things that impact the way many evangelical Christians view freedom: (1) Anytime Christians see something in the world they don’t agree with, they think we should seek to ban it. Not very long ago I was in a church service where the pastor asked the congregation to stand and ...

by Tibor Machan Libertarianism is the political position according to which every adult human individual is sovereign, self-governing, not a subject of government or king or society or even God unless he or she has freely chosen such a status. The idea arose slowly in human history and was first ...