Perspectives on the Question of Immigration - By Stefan Molyneux and Wilton D. Alston One of the truly “hot button” libertarian issues is immigration. While most libertarians would reject the argument “we must have taxation to pay for the welfare state,” many do support the position that “we must control immigration because of the welfare […]

Loving Non-Libertarians As If They Never Hurt You…One of the greatest challenges in the libertarian movement is reaching out to non-libertarians. Some people within the libertarian movement – due to frustration no doubt – have developed a rather scornful attitude towards non-libertarians. I believe that this is the greatest inhibitor to our eventual success as […]

I get scads of emails about two positions I hold. The principle of self-defense is relatively unimportant, and You live a peaceful life, so you are proof that a stateless society can work. A communicator must always take responsibility for misunderstandings, so, as a clarification, here is a more detailed description of what I mean. […]

Once more, bombs rain down in the Middle East, Arabs and Jews hurl fire and murder children, the world turns pale with horror and empty words pour from televised heads – and as usual, the obvious and effective solution can never be discussed! It’s the same with immigration, the national debt, welfare, the war on […]

If the Declaration of Independence were written today… In June of 1776, when Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, he took great pains to detail the abuses heaped upon the Colonists by George III, then King of England. Now we have another ‘George III’, the third President to bear that name. How do the abuses […]

So one morning your daughter comes to you and says that she is engaged to Bobby, a boy she has been dating. “That’s great,” you say, giving her a hug, “but you have to marry Dave instead.” She wriggles out of your embrace. “Excuse me?” “You can’t marry Bobby, pumpkin. You have to marry Dave.” […]

It is the worst day of your young life. Your doctor has just told you that you have terminal cancer. You have a few months to live, maybe six. Your skin crawls, your mouth is bone-dry. Lists of everything you have to do scroll by endlessly in your mind’s eye… Finances, my will, a long […]

After twenty years as a ‘small government’ libertarian, I have spent the last 18 months or so strenuously – and unsuccessfully – resisting the implacable logic of ‘market anarchy’. I started out thinking it was a rather odd theory, but I have come to appreciate some of its finer points, and thought it might be […]

Has this ever happened to you? You’re discussing liberty with someone, and you say something like: “The government shouldn’t take care of the poor.” The response you get is: “Oh yeah? Well then who would take care of the poor?” Ah, you reply, there will be more charities and job opportunities and everyone cares about […]

I am always astounded when someone rejects even the possibility of a stateless society by demanding that I supply proof such a society has ever existed, or could ever work. “But I can give you an example of a perfectly functioning non-violent society right this minute!” I reply. “Oh yeah?” my interrogator will demand skeptically. […]

Let us imagine that tomorrow morning, when you flip on CNN, you see Wolf Blitzer being jostled by surging crowds. Everyone is running, staring at the sky in fear. “Space aliens have landed in Luxemburg!” cries Wolf, wide-eyed and almost hysterical, “and they have a message for all mankind!” There is a burst of static, […]

Containing Danger without Enslaving CitizensBy Stefan Molyneux, MAHost, Freedomain - www.freedomain.com One of the great challenges of anarchistic philosophy is the challenge of prisons, or the physical restraint of violent criminals. I have dealt with this topic once before, but I am still receiving numerous requests for clarifications on how a stateless society might deal […]

By Stefan Molyneux, MAHost, Freedomain – www.freedomain.com A free society is by its very nature based on negative rights – i.e., thou shalt not rather than thou shalt. One common opposition to these negative rights is the ‘saving strangers’ scenario often advanced by statists. In this moral parable, an onlooker sees a man who is […]

Problems and Solutions By Stefan Molyneux, MA Host, Freedomain – www.freedomain.com The current controversy over immigration obscures – as most current controversies do – the depth and scale of the moral problem that is ‘immigration control’. Even the word ‘immigration’ is specious, since what is merely being described is ‘moving’. Moving from New York to […]

A commonly-heard response to criticisms of existing state policies – or, heaven forbid, the existence of the state itself! – is the demand that the person criticizing either drop his objection, or leave the country. (A third option is sometimes given, which is the option of working to reform the existing state system, however, the […]

One of the central challenges faced by libertarians is the need to prove that libertarian moral theory is universally correct, while statist and collectivistic moral theories are incorrect. Until moral rules can be subjected to the same rigour and logic as any other propositions, we will forever be stymied by subjectivism, political prejudices and the […]

All moralists interested in improving society must answer the most essential questions about human motivation, and show how their proposed solutions will create a rational framework of incentives, punishments and rewards that further moral goals generally accepted as good. The 20th century clearly showed that there is no possibility for ideology to invent or create […]

Does more government equal less violence? By Stefan Molyneux, MAwww.freedomain.com When the subject of anarchy comes up, the most common objection to a stateless society is that violence will inevitably increase in the absence of a centralized state. This is a very interesting objection, and seems to arise from people who have imbibed a large […]

One of the sad paradoxes of the environmental movement is the degree to which it tends to ignore or obscure State destruction of natural resources. One chilling example of this was the fairly recent obliteration of the cod stocks off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada – which powerfully illuminates the dangers of allowing the State […]

Most libertarians have, at one time or another, been challenged by the problem of public property, or how the market can best protect and allocate goods ‘owned’ in common such as fish in the sea, roads, airwaves and so on. An old economics parable sums up the problem nicely – let’s briefly review it before […]

Abortion is always a tragedy, and one of the saddest occurrences on this earth. Government ‘solutions’ are also always disastrous, and so it is hard to understand how combining a tragedy with a disaster can create any kind of positive solution. Mixing arsenic with mercury does not solve the problem of poison – and combining […]

So you want to help the poor. After gazing at pictures of homeless men living in cardboard boxes under the shadows of skyscrapers, you’ve been struck with the urge to expand the welfare state, just a little more, to even things out. Or you’ve seen pictures of sad-faced women abandoned by men and ringed with […]

It has been often said that war is the health of the State – but the argument could also be made that the reverse is more true: that the State is the health of war. In other words, that war – the greatest of all human evils – is impossible without the State. The great […]

In my last article on www.lewrockwell.com, I used the argument from morality to approach the problem of health care. Today I would like to show how it can be used to prove the immorality of welfare. We’ll be as kind as possible and define welfare as the redistribution of money and resources from the rich […]

This weekend, my wife asked me my opinion of a particular chapter in a ‘self help’ book she was reading. I did so, and was suitably horrified, because although I know that the world is in terrible shape, and everyone seems to believe false things, I can still be shocked. The basic gist of the […]