by Runaway Slave | Mar 9, 2007 | Essays & Articles, Freedom, Government, Income Tax, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon, Liberty
I didn’t have time for a new column this week. In keeping with my tax terror season theme, however, here’s an essay I did after a tax trial like the Browns’, that of Larken Rose, in the summer of 2005. The Browns of NH are still awaiting their opportunity to face a...
by Runaway Slave | Apr 26, 2006 | Costa Rica, Essays & Articles, Health, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon
Shortly after I turned 50 I had a medical checkup in Key West. I remember only one specific piece of information the doctor gave me during that exam. He said, “There is no reason anyone should ever die of colon cancer.” An annual preventive colonoscopy would detect...
by Runaway Slave | Apr 11, 2006 | Essays & Articles, Fraud, Income Tax, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon, Taxes
It’s probably because I’m living in a foreign land, but I’ve noticed fewer scary stories than usual this year about the dangers surrounding income taxes. The Service is still plenty scary. It still issues lots of carefully worded, thinly veiled threats. And there’s...
by Runaway Slave | Mar 31, 2006 | Deflation, Economics, Gold, Inflation, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon
I think it was Voltaire who noted that paper money always returns to its intrinsic value. Money created out of thin air, as every dollar, euro, yen, franc and mark in the world are now created, must eventually return to the value of thin air. This graph shows the...
by Runaway Slave | Mar 28, 2006 | Economics, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon, Politics
A million or so Frenchmen took the day off to protest a law that would make it possible to fire a worker if he had worked less than two years and was under 26 years old. After that, he pretty much owns the job. Those who had jobs probably got paid for the day. They...
by Runaway Slave | Jan 18, 2006 | Essays & Articles, Freedom, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon, Liberty
We should all cheer the Conch Republic’s conquest of the pilings under the old 7-mile bridge. It should settle the apparent jurisdictional confusion surrounding those chunks of concrete. Incorporating the base of the bridge into the Conch Republic will give refugees...
by Runaway Slave | Nov 7, 2005 | Essays & Articles, Freemarket, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon, Liberty, Licensing
Like a Pope Gregory granting dispensation from sin to Crusaders, our local government has suspended the need for building repair permits in our flood ravaged city. In doing so our leaders admit what they never would in normal times. Permitting and building inspection...
by Runaway Slave | Jul 13, 2005 | Essays & Articles, Law, Libertarian Curmudgeon, Politics, Rights, Taxes
Liberals demanding Constitutional shelter from big government, like thieves demanding justice, are always good for an ironic chuckle. Except for the sacred right to kvetch in print, I no more expect to hear the left hollering about Constitutional rights than I expect...
