What 'progress toward fixing climate change' Looks Like. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

 QUORA: ‘When we were in shutdown, the Earth started healing, and evidence was clear that pollution can be controlled, so why are so many afraid of progress toward fixing climate change?’

I posted this answer:

Pollution can and has been “controlled.” Progress toward cleaner and cleaner industrialization has been going on for decades. But that has nothing to do with “fixing climate change.” 

So many are afraid because the consequences of COVID-19 combined with government-mandated shutdowns -- the destruction of jobs, businesses, livelihoods, educational opportunities for kids, shortages, etc. -- indicates exactly what “progress toward fixing climate change” looks like. And it’s only a taste of what awaits us if the pushers of this kind of “progress” fully get their way. Given how vital reliable energy like fossil fuels and economic freedom means for humans the world over, the ultimate outcome of the fantasy of “fixing climate change” would dwarf the damage done by the shutdowns. We would endure the worst human catastrophe in history. 

The alleged “healing” of the Earth we supposedly witnessed is evidence, alright -- evidence that we need continued industrial/economic/technological progress to empower man to continue the progress toward greater and greater prosperity and more and more climate mastery, livability, adaptation, and safety. It is also evidence that we need continued access to reliable, affordable energy like nuclear and, especially, fossil fuels, by far the best energy source available for now and the next few decades, at least. The “evidence was clear” that we need to abandon the catastrophic goal of “fixing climate change.” 

So, be afraid. It’s logical, if you value human life, which those who value nature over human life certainly do not. The “healing” of the shutdowns is a warning shot to anyone who cares about human well-being. Pursuing the path of “healing the Earth”—which means, forbidding man to alter the environment to meet human needs—is a frontal attack not only on human progress and flourishing, but on human survival as such. It is the path toward worldwide genocide. Be very afraid—of what the climate witch doctors have in store for us. Their idea of “controlling pollution” (which is not defined) is to stop human life.

There is a better, pro-human approach, backed by a huge volume of expert research, to solving the problems of industrialization without harming progress. It begins with, “First, do no harm.” A good place to start is with The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century by Ronald Bailey. It’s only a start to accessing the sane, humane alternative to climate catastrophism and earth first fanaticism.

Related Reading:

Crisis? What crisis? -- CDN

Power mad: Visions of an eco apocalypse have been used to justify a headlong charge to carbon zero for years. But this current crisis [the British fuel shortage] is a mere harbinger of the candle-lit future that awaits us if we do not change course. By MATT RIDLEY FOR THE DAILY MAIL

On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare by Michael Shellenberger

New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs

The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution by Ayn Rand and other contributors; examines the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the modern Environmentalist Movement.  

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin

‘How things work in a Democracy’ vs. How things Work in a Free Society

In Parents Demanding School Officials Do Their Job ‘Not How Things Work In A Democracy’: CNN Guest, Ben Johnson, reportorting for The Daily Wire, recounts an experience a guest of CNN had at a recent school board meeting:

Rachel Vindman, the wife of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, reflected on her experiences attending her local school board meeting while discussing the importance of education as an issue in the Virginia governor’s race.

“Literally a woman at the school board meeting said she wasn’t able to sign up to talk about Critical Race Theory, so she signed up to talk about salaries. And her first opening salvo is, ‘I’m here to talk about salaries. You shouldn’t be getting yours, because you’re not doing your job,’” said Vindman. “So, this is what they want to say, like, ‘We’re only going to pay you if you do what we tell you [you] should do,’ and that’s just not how things work in a democracy.”

Vindman did not elaborate on how citizens commenting directly on public affairs undermines democracy.

An online video of the incident reveals little threat to democracy — from the mother. [As you can hear, the mother wanted to speak directly on Critical Theory being taught, but the slot was filled. So she, not unreasonably, argued that the topic she was allowed to speak on, salaries, covered the teaching of Critical Theory and explained her reasoning.]

No, this woman’s presentation is not how it works in a Democracy. But it is how it works in a free society.

In a democracy, the electoral victors reign supreme. They can do as they please, regardless of any particular constituents’ disapproval, by grace of winning an election. In a Democracy, electoral victory conveys on the victors totalitarian control. This is the sentiment expressed in the statement, “‘We’re only going to pay you if you do what we tell you [you] should do,’ and that’s just not how things work in a democracy.” Actually, that’s why a free society needs a Constitution -- to restrain the powers of government officials.

In a free society, elected officials wouldn’t be running schools. Schools would be private, and dissatisfied parents would be free to not pay schools for what they believe is “not doing your job,” by removing their children from that school, and spending their education dollars elsewhere. In a free society, private citizens are free to speak their minds; free to peaceably assemble at a public school board meeting (if they exist, though they shouldn’t) and voice opinions and express dissatisfaction; In a free society, the governed are free to petition the government for a redress of grievances. In a free society, citizens always and at all times, retain the inalienable right to hold government officials, from the president to members of congress to governors to school board members, directly and individually accountable: That’s what the First Amendment is all about.

This is why it’s so important to understand the difference between a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic, and to understand that America is, at least as originally conceived and designed, a Constitutional Republic. In our republic, the democratic process is vital, but always subordinate to the defining principle of America -- individual rights. An election is a collective means of holding government officials accountable. But America is not fundamentally about collectivism. America is about individualism, and its derivative, individual rights.

Of course, we live in a semi-Republic, semi-Democracy. Americanism has been greatly “watered down” over the decades, led by the Democratic Party/liberal/Progressive intellectual/political axis. Public schools exist, governed by quasi-dictatorial school boards, albeit elected. But a periodic election is not the primary means of keeping elected officials accountable. A single vote, cast every two, four, or six years, is important symbolically, but virtually meaningless in a practical sense. An individual woman expressing that teaching Critical Race Theory is not “doing your job” as educators directly to those responsible is what free people do to hold those we elect accountable. Yes, in a Democracy, properly understood, an elected official can tell an individual constituent to shut up, go home, and wait for the next election to cast her inconsequential lone vote, and leave we government officials alone to do what we please in the name of “the people.”   

The right of the people to keep their political leaders accountable is primarily about speaking freely, by voice or in print, to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. That’s what the very First Amendment says. Democracy is not mentioned. Neither is the right to vote. The First Amendment is clear. It’s about intellectual freedom, not the procedural rules for selecting government officials.

Again, voting is not unimportant. But it is not a substitute for inalienable individual rights. Don’t let the statists get away with silencing dissenting parents, or anyone else, for whatever reason, for speaking out directly to public officials, while hiding behind the banner of Democracy. America is a Constitutional Republic based on individual rights. It is not a Democracy.

Related Reading:

America; Democracy or Republic or Both--Why it Matters

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Rights and Democracy

Constitutional Republicanism: A Counter-Argument to Barbara Rank’s Ode to Democracy

Mesmerized by Elections, the NJ Star-Ledger Forgot that Tyranny is Tyranny

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

Memo to Micah Herskind: ‘True Democracy’ is a Repudiation of Americanism

Is 'I didn't get it, so others shouldn't either" a Valid Argument Against 'Free' College

 QUORA: ‘Many say that because "no one paid for their college education, current people should not have their student loans forgiven either". Is "I didn't get it, so others shouldn't either" a valid argument?’

I posted this answer:

In the context of government student loans, yes, it’s a valid argument. But it’s not fundamental. And it’ll never win the argument. 

The reason student loans should not be “forgiven” is that a loan carries a moral obligation for the borrower to repay it. The money borrowed was loaned in good faith that the borrower would repay. Therefore, the only people qualified to “forgive” a loan are those who loaned the money in the first place. Since government loans are financed by taxpayers, only taxpayers can forgive the student loans. Since no one asked for my consent, and I haven’t given it, the government has no right to “forgive” student loans that my tax dollars helped finance. 

Of course, the government should not be taking taxpayer money to extend student loans to begin with. But that is a broader issue.

PS: 

(Please don’t remind me that some taxpayers consent to “forgiveness.” That line of argument points to the fundamental moral and practical problems of democracy and socialism. Democracy is majoritarian tyranny. Socialism is the legal (coercive) chaining together of everyone into a collectivized system that obliterates individual choice: Forced collective action, whether instituted by dictatorial fiat or the vote, always violates someone’s rights to make their own choices and exercise individual responsibility. My right not to “forgive” is just as valid as others’ right to forgive. Government loans make those differences irreconcilable, requiring one side’s rights to be trashed. Socialism, the political implementation of collectivism, necessarily creates conflict. In a private student loan system, no such conflict exists. 

(Since we have a collectivized student loan system, my view is that no student loans should be forgiven unless you can get every taxpayer’s unanimous consent, not just a majority’s consent via elected officials. On the personal level, having put two daughters through college, including with student loans, and having paid back every dollar of the loans, I resent having to now pay for others’ college. It’s a slap in the face. I don’t consent to forgiving today’s student borrower, so their loans should not be forgiven. The fact that other taxpayers consent does not justify screwing me over.)

Related Reading:

Student Loans Should Be Repaid

Federal Student Loans and the GI Bill

End, Don't Reduce, Federal Student Higher Education Funding

On "Nightmare" College Debt

Rather Than quibble Over Federal Student Loan Interest Rates, the Feds Should Get Out of the Student Loan Business

America; Democracy or Republic or Both--Why it Matters

NJ Senator Menendez Applies the Brakes to the Dem’s Push for Drug Price Controls

From Menendez opposes fellow N.J. Democrat [Rep. Frank] Pallone’s plan to lower drug prices by Jonathan D. Salant for NJ.com and the 10/21/21 New Jersey Star-Ledger:

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez says he doesn’t like the way the House wants to lower prescription drug prices, and will not support its proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies in President Joe Biden’s proposed spending plan.

“My goal, which I have not seen in any proposal so far, is to ensure that the consumer at the counter gets relief and not just simply the government,” Menendez told NJ Advance Media.

“Otherwise, we will have done all of this, we will have taken billions from a industry that’s important to the nation, as we just saw with COVID, that’s important to New Jersey, but we still won’t have dealt with the cost of prescription drugs over the counter.”

Menendez seems to get it. Medicare is a monopsony. "Negotiations" between Medicare and private drug companies would be a sham. It's nothing more than price controls by another name. High drug prices have deep causes related to the FDA and other regulations, as well as the cost of cutting edge drug development. Simply forcing end prices down for the government would violate the rights of drug companies to set prices for their products and, as Menendez says, will cause great harm to this important industry, and to our health long term. 

It remains to be seen how Menendez would meet his goal of lowering drug prices. He simply states “The cost of prescription drugs and lowering it is definitely something that should be proposed. It needs to be looked at in the context of what can pass and most importantly, what can guarantee that the consumer at the counter gets lower costs.”

But just the fact that Menendez is not a knee-jerk price cutter, and recognizes that the wrong policies can be bad for everyone, including the companies, their employees, and their customers, seems to ensure that whatever steps get taken will be at least less bad than Pallone’s scheme. 

It’s not often that I get to praise a Democrat. Kudos to Menendez on this issue. 

Related Reading:

The Star-Ledger’s Medicare/Prescription Drug Misinformation Campaign

Pharma Can’t ‘Bargain’ With a Medicare Monopsony

Merck- Villain or Victim?

Huber on the Personalized Medicine Revolution—and the Government Roadblocks

How the FDA Violates Rights and Hinders Health—Stella Daily Zawistowski

Vaccine Mandates: What they Are, What They and Are Not, and Why Vaccines Should Not Be Mandated

The data is in: Vaccine mandates work, opines the New Jersey Star-Ledger Editorial Board (SLEB):

The numbers are in, and we hold this truth to be self-evident: COVID vaccine mandates work.

Or, if you prefer its prickly corollary: Where judgment and logic fail, employer mandates succeed, because the specter of job loss and financial hardship is apparently more persuasive than the threat of death.

This is the case in and around New Jersey, where data from health care and education sectors in our region is irrefutable: This tool works, and Gov. Murphy should use it to strengthen existing mandates and impose a passport system for public gatherings like the one used in New York City – because where persuasion fails, pressure works.

What “works” and what restrictions on our freedom are morally justified are two entirely different things. The statist stops at what works, measured by how many people comply. The statist isn’t concerned with the consequences to all other areas of citizens’ lives and rights. The Enlightened American starts with individual rights and considers all facts and weighs the long term consequences of diminished liberties the precedent sets before granting the state the power to mandate anything.

But next, we need to untangle the confusion about vaccine mandates embedded in this editorial. 

Mirriam-Webster defines mandate as an act “to officially require (something) : make (something) mandatory.” As Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine explains, there is a difference between a government order to get something and the “employer mandates” that the SLEB speaks of. An “employer mandate” is not a mandate at all. It’s a job requirement. As Mulshine points out, 

If the government ordered all citizens to get vaccinated, that would indeed be a mandate. That happened in 1905 when the city of Cambridge, Mass, ordered all residents to get vaccinated or face a $5 fine. A few went to court to block the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the city.

Whatever you think of that law, it clearly qualifies as a mandate.

It’s different with workers. If an airline tells its employees that they have to get vaccinated against COVID, as United Airlines recently did, that’s not a mandate. It’s just one of many job requirements.

 

And as Mulshine also points out, “if for some reason . . .  workers want to remain unvaccinated, that’s their right. But keeping their jobs isn’t.”

 

So, employers, whether private or government, have a valid right to require vaccines. But the Star-Ledger goes further. It urges the Governor to order all employers, public and private, to require vaccines via “a passport system” which would extend to all public gatherings. As SLEB editorial page editor Tom Moran reports elsewhere, the passport would apply to customers also and include all “restaurants and theaters and museums” regardless of the establishment's wishes. 

That would indeed be a mandate. (As of this writing, NJ Governor Phil Murphy is resisting the pressure to mandate vaccines, perhaps because of the pending gubernatorial election.)

Which leads us to the question of whether such a mandate justifies the freedom restrictions that results from such a violation of individual rights. 

My belief is no, it does not.

A vaccine protects the individual from contracting the disease, or if a breakthrough occurs, from a serious case of the illness. If the vaccinated is protected from the illness, he is by definition protected from the unvaccinated. So why mandate the vaccine? The unvaccinated are willingly taking the risk, but are not an inordinate threat to the vaccinated. 

The SLEB is wrong in its terminology. It is correct to support employers’ right to voluntarily require vaccines as a condition of employment. It is wrong to call on the state to force such a requirement on unwilling employers. That is an unjustified restriction of our liberty, and liberty considerations -- the protection of individual rights -- comes first in any country that considers itself a free society.

Related Reading:

COVID vaccinations: They’re not a mandate; they’re a choice by Paul Mulshine

NJ’s School/Vaccine Battle Need Not Pit Public Health Against Individual Rights

Moral Rights and Political Freedom—Tara Smith

On Mandatory Vaccinations, Protect Everyone’s Right to Object, Not Just Religionists’ Rights

Vaccine Exemption Bill Violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, Fairness

Related Viewing:

Vaccine False Alternatives: Bribes vs. Mandates, by Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate, New Ideal Live

As an FYI, here is the text of Ayn Rand's statement about mandatory vaccination and quarantines:

"Now, requiring inoculation against disease: should this be a job for the government? Most definitely not and there is a very simple answer for it. If it is medically proved that a certain inoculation is in fact practical and desirable, those who want it will take that inoculation. Now if some people do not see it that way—do not agree or don’t want to take it, only they will be in danger since all the other people will be inoculated. Those who do not go along, if they are wrong in this case, will merely catch the disease. They will not be a danger to anyone else and nobody has the right to force them to do anything for their own good against their own judgement. They will merely be ill then, but they could not infect others.

“The next question in regard to quarantine is somewhat different, because in the state of, sense of a quarantine, if someone has a contagious disease, against which there is no inoculation, then the government will have the right to require quarantine. What is the principle here? It’s to protect those people who are not ill, to protect the people who, to prevent the people who are ill from passing on their illness to others. Here you are dealing with a demonstrable physical damage. Remember that in all issues of protecting someone from physical damage, before a government can properly act, there has to be a scientific, objective demonstration of an actual physical danger. If it is demonstrated, then the government can act to protect those who are not yet ill from contacting the disease, in other words to quarantine the people who are ill is not an interference with their rights, it is merely preventing them from doing physical damage to others.”

This is from a Q&A session during her lecture “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” in 1963. (An edited transcript of this is found on pp. 12-13 of Ayn Rand Answers, edited by Robert Mayhew.)

Murphy the Racist Puts "Equity" Over Jerseyans' Health and Life

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy answered questions on Thursday (10/14/21) on the possibility of mandating vaccines. Brent Johnson reports for NJ.com:

Gov. Phil Murphy told NJ Advance Media on Thursday he likes the idea of New Jersey following in New York City’s footsteps by requiring people show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to dine in a restaurant or attend an entertainment event.

But, the Democratic governor said, he’s stopped short of taking that step so far because of lagging vaccination rates in minority communities.

There you have it. Murphy is not hesitating because he’s weighing the balance between protecting public health and his constitutional duty to protect individual rights. He’s hesitating based on the collectivist premise that certain groups he labels “minority communities” -- which usually means “persons of color” -- have lower vaccination rates than non-minorities, meaning, presumably, “white” groups.

“We’re still not punching at the way we need to punch in Black and brown communities,” Murphy, who is up for re-election Nov. 2, said during a meeting with The Star-Ledger’s editorial board in Newark. “We’re doggedly on that. We’ve made progress. But I don’t feel we’re there yet. I don’t want to inadvertently put something in place that’s discriminatory.” 

“Punching” is presumably Murphy’s word for persuading. He hasn’t made enough “progress” in punching minority people to get vaccinated, so he doesn’t want to mandate vaccines for fear that that would be “discriminatory.”

Of course, a vaccine mandate is discriminatory no matter what. Groups are made up of individuals. The individual is the smallest and only genuine minority. A vaccine mandate by definition discriminates against any individual not vaccinated. A mandate also violates individual rights. Of course, Murphy doesn’t give a damn about individual rights, the cornerstone of America’s constitution, because he doesn’t give a damn about actual living breathing thinking individual human beings.

Murphy on Thursday repeated what he has said for when it comes to taking sterner measures to contain the pandemic — that “everything” remains “on the table.”

But what are the actual chances he’ll institute vaccine passports or student vaccine mandates?

“I’d say not inconceivable by any means,” Murphy said. “I can’t give you a number, but I actually like the vaccine passport, assuming we got to equity. If it kills me, we’re gonna get to equity. ... It’s on the table and it’s a real option.”

“Equity” is the new buzzword of the Left “woke” crowd. Equality is out. The definition of equity is “fairness or justice in the way people are treated, “ “impartial.” But equity to Murphy and his ilk means equality of statistical outcomes of groups, regardless of the effect on individuals. Fairness, justice, and impartiality doesn’t apply to real people, ikn Murphy’s worldview. But real people are the only entity for whom those terms have any meaning. Group statistics tell you nothing of any particular individual. If Murphy were concerned about minorities, he’d be concerned about individual rights. He is not and does not. Murphy is a racist. 

There is another injustice in the kind of mandate Murphy admires: It requires restaurants and other private businesses to do the government’s job of enforcing the law. This is the same cynical tactic that the Texas Abortion law uses -- it deputizes private vigilantes to enforce the law. Except this is worse. NYC is leving fines against private restaurants that don't "comply" with Mayor Bill de Blasio's order. In New York City, and in New Jersey if Governor Murphy “gets to equity," private businesses and other hosts of entertainment events are forced into demanding proof of vaccination from their customers, whether they want to or not, under threat of ruinous fines. It’s a gross injustice and an inversion of American governance principles. 

Governor Phil Murphy has shown that he doesn’t respect the U.S. or NJ constitutions. He shows in this news conference that he is a collectivist who doesn’t respect individual rights. He has plainly shown that he is a racist.

But here’s the horrible irony of Murphy’s delay in implementing a vaccine mandate. If Murphy truly believes that a mandate is a way to “contain the pandemic,” then he is deliberately failing to take actions he knows will reduce COVID cases, thus willing to let people get sick and possibly die unnecessarily for the sake of his vane quest for the chimera of “racial equity.” Is this fair to the people of NJ? To date, NJ has recorded over 1,000,000 cases and nearly 25,000 deaths from the pandemic that Murphy claims a vaccine mandate can contain. If you or a loved one gets COVID, or dies, does it matter whether you are part of a “minority” community? A non-minority community? What color your skin is? According to Murphy, it does. Personally, I oppose vaccine mandates. I point out this irony because it offers a window into Murphy's moral soul. He's putting political correctness above human health and life. This is not just wokism gone mad. It is mainstream wokism.  

There is no justification for a vaccine mandate. Vaccines are widely available for anyone who wants the protection. For those who don’t, they are voluntarily assuming the risk as is their right. The important matter of people who have achieved vaccine-level immunity through COVID infection isn’t even considered, as it should. A mandate is an unjustified, unwarranted restriction on our freedom and a gross violation of individual rights. 

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic is over. It has evolved into an endemic. But these are not considerations that matter to collectivists and power-lusters like Phil Murphy. The pandemic is a useful excuse for Murphy to continue his health emergency that grants him his unconstitutional extraordinary powers of rule by dictat.

Related Reading:

NJ Governor Murphy’s COVID-19 Double Standard Toward the Demonstrators

Governor Murphy Doubles Down on his Double Standard

NJ Governor Murphy’s June 6, 2020 30-Day Extension of the State’s ‘Health Emergency’ Shows the Need to Reign In Executive Power

The Left’s Highest Philosophical Authority Makes Clear it’s anti-Constitutional, Totalitarian Designs on America

The Supreme Court’s overturning of the CDC’s eviction moratorium was a great decision. But the mostconsequential outcome of that decision may very well be the Liberal minority’s dissenting opinion.

The Dispatch summarized the Liberal minority opinion in the SCOTUS Decision Against the CDC's Eviction Moratorium decision on 8/31/21:

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority last week blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to implement yet another eviction moratorium through the CDC. But in their dissent, Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor signed onto an interpretation of the law that would have far-reaching effects within the administrative state. “In effect, [Breyer] and his two liberal colleagues claim that, unless Congress has expressly enumerated that which executive agencies are not allowed to do in a crisis, almost anything else could be considered within their purview,” Noah Rothman writes in Commentary. “Breyer’s logic would subordinate the text of the law and the country’s constitutional order to the urgency of the moment—and the moment is always urgent for someone. His is a prescription for adhocracy.”

In An Exercise in American Lawlessness, Rothman continues: "As National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke observed, that is 'nothing less than an inversion of our written constitutional system' and a recipe for precisely the kind of executive tyranny James Madison feared."

The American system is based on the idea that a government’s only just powers are those necessary to protect individual rights, and that those powers be Constitutionally enumerated. In other words, the government acts only in limited fashion, and only with the consent of the governed. The Liberal SCOTUS wing inverts that fundamental premise. It makes clear that Congress is above the U.S. Constitution, in effect relegating the Constitution to the longtime goal of America’s Democratic Party reactionaries, the dustbin of irrelevance. 

Unfortunately, the majority feeds into the Left’s designs. It made the right decision, but only on statutory, not Constitutional, grounds. It stated simply that Congress didn’t intend to grant federal agencies such broad authority, thus implying that it can if it wanted to.

That said, if the Left fully gets its way, we will have unlimited government ruling over rightless subjects. The Supreme Court is the most philosophical governmental entity in the United States of America today. It follows that the Liberal wing of the Supreme Court is the highest philosophical voice of the American Left. The SCOTUS minority’s inversion of a key American principle—that the government is an agent of, not ruler of, the American people—must be taken seriously as a roadmap for future Leftist (or “Progressive”) activism. Since the Left’s totalitarian designs on America are now codified into Supreme Court jurisprudence, we are another giant step closer to that dystopian future. This Minority dissent will be the standard if the Left ever gets a majority on the Supreme Court.

Related Reading:

On This Constitution Day, Remember the Declaration of Independence

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It by Timothy Sandefur 

 

Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America by Timothy Sandefur and Christina Sandefur  

Property Rights—Ayn Rand