January 16, 2014
Thoughts on Liberty’s Poor Thoughts on Snowden
The blog Thoughts on Liberty recently posted a piece arguing that Snowden should face punishment for his actions. The main argument: In short, I’m not hugely happy with the idea…
Posts filed under authority
December 02, 2013
Is There a Duty to Obey the Law?
I did a Podcast with Cato, published today on this topic. The discussion is of course heavily indebted to John Simmons, David Hume, and Michael Huemer, as I’m using many of…
August 08, 2013
Promises and Following Orders
In this brief post, I want to discuss why promising or swearing to follow orders or to obey the law does not excuse people–such as soldiers or police officers–when they enforce…
February 23, 2012
On Passing Laws and Pointing Guns
Libertarians sometimes take their analogies too far. From the plausible insight that taxation is like forced labor certain respects, they jump to the entirely implausible conclusion that taxation is forced…