Here’s my question to you: If an evil person is guaranteed that he can inflict physical pain upon others and guaranteed to never suffer pain himself, what happens to his willingness to inflict pain? You say, “What do you mean, Williams?” OK, I will make my question more concrete. Suppose a young punk knows that he can knock out an innocent person and never suffer physical pain himself, such as being knocked out; what happens to his willingness to play the knockout game? Suppose a rapist knows he can brutally rape a woman and never have to suffer physical pain … Continue reading →

At the recent televised debate among candidates for the Democrats’ nomination for president, Hillary Clinton declared that “the wealthy pay too little” in taxes and “the middle class pays too much.” Some people might wish to argue about whether that is true or not, but no rational argument can be made on either side of this issue, because the words used are completely undefined. Nor is Hillary Clinton the only one who talks this way. It is one of the many signs of the mindlessness of our times that all sorts of people declare that “the rich” are not paying … Continue reading →

One of the most common questions we get from members is how many points will a given violation add to their driving record. It’s an important question, but it’s not the only one to ask after you get a traffic ticket. You also need to know how many points it takes to trigger a license suspension. The answers to both questions depend on what state you’re in. This is because different states use different systems for assessing points against your license, and some don’t use points at all. Traffic violation points systems assign a certain number of points for each … Continue reading →

The anti-immigration Swiss People’s Party (SVP) won the biggest share of the vote in Sunday’s national parliamentary election, keeping pressure on Bern to introduce quotas on people moving from the European Union. Success for the SVP, coupled with gains made by the pro-business Liberal Party (FDP), led political commentators to talk of a “Rechtsrutsch” – a “slide to the right” – in Swiss politics. Immigration was the central topic for voters amid a rush of asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe. ”The vote was clear,” SVP leader Toni Brunner told Swiss television. “The people are worried … Continue reading →

The US Treasury’s recent announcement that the government will reach the debt ceiling on November 3 means Congress will soon be debating raising the government’s borrowing limit again. Any delay in, or opposition to, raising the debt ceiling will inevitably be met with hand-wringing over Congress’ alleged irresponsibility. But the real irresponsible act would be for Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Cutting up its credit card is the only way to make Congress reduce spending. Anyone who doubts this should listen to the bipartisan whining over how sequestration has so drastically reduced spending that there is literally nothing left to … Continue reading →

To those of you who post on Facebook, the following story serves as a warning. Screen your friends. There are loose cannons online. They can go off at any time. The World Wide Web has revealed just how many loose cannons there are out there. Read the posts on any blog site. Loose cannons love to post on blog sites. They fire every which way. They give others a piece of their mind when they really cannot spare it. This is why I killed the “comments” feature of Tea Party Economist as soon as I gained full control over marketing. … Continue reading →

Not a review of Ben Carson, A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties (Sentinel, 2015), xi + 240 pgs., hardcover. It happens every four years. Candidates for president issue books to sucker people to vote for them using the written word just like they sucker people every day to vote for them using the spoken word. One of the latest “presidential” books is by retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson. The book is his second salvo, since he authored with the same publisher last year One Nation: What We Can … Continue reading →

My father Irwin A. Schiff was born Feb. 23rd 1928, the 8th child and only son of Jewish immigrants, who had crossed the Atlantic twenty years earlier in search of freedom. As a result of their hope and courage my father was fortunate to have been born into the freest nation in the history of the world.  But when he passed away on Oct. 16th, 2015 at the age of 87, a political prisoner of that same nation, legally blind and shackled to a hospital bed in a guarded room in intensive care, the free nation he was born into … Continue reading →

I’ve never been a car guy. I just didn’t have any interest in tooling around under the hood to figure out how my car works. Except for replacing my air filters or changing the oil every now and then, if I ever had a problem with my car, I’d just take it into the mechanic and when he came out to explain what was wrong, I nodded politely and pretended like I knew what he was talking about. But lately I’ve had the itch to actually learn the basics of how cars work. I don’t plan on becoming a full … Continue reading →