In the over five decades since Dr. King laid out his dream at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, our country has made great progress toward racial equality by destroying Jim Crow, expanding voting rights, and more thoroughly integrating our society.
Today, black people hold seats in Congress, the Cabinet, Fortune 500 company boardrooms and, of course, the Oval Office.
Originally adopted on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” and states that “No State shall…deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
A very happy 200th birthday to Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery and overcame massive hardships to become one of the greatest advocates for liberty in the 19th century.
While the Eighteenth Amendment, which was passed and subsequently repealed in the early 20th century, is often regarded as the first major prohibition in the United States, it certainly was not the last.
The War on Drugs, begun under President Richard Nixon, continues to rely on prohibition policies as a means of controlling the sale, manufacture, and consumption of certain drugs.
Supporters of drug prohibition claim that it reduces drug-related crime, decreases drug-related disease and overdose, and is an effective means of disrupting and dismantling organized criminal enterprises. But the data shows that continued prohibition is both ineffective and counterproductive at achieving these goals.
Economically, while prohibition does limit the supply of drugs and raise prices, therefore reducing the demand for drugs, these mandates push the market for drugs into underground black markets and generate unintended consequences that work against prohibition’s goals. Due to the lack of quality control, this market results in tainted, highly potent drugs, increasing the chances of poisoning and overdose.
Truly effective reform will not only require changes at the state level, but ultimately necessitate critical shifts in U.S. federal policies, both domestically and internationally.
Rep. Marino has a long history of taking a hard line on the drug war. He voted against the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, which allows state medical marijuana industries to function without the constant fear of federal prosecution, and has also voted to prevent Veterans’ Affairs doctors at facilities in states with legal marijuana from prescribing medical marijuana to their patients.
Forty-four states and the District of Columbia allow some form of legal cannabis consumption, including eight states (and D.C.) which have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. The dire predictions of drug warriors in those states have not come true.
In drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson expressed a sophisticated, radical vision of liberty with awesome grace and eloquence. He affirmed that all people are entitled to liberty, regardless what laws might say. If laws don’t protect liberty, he declared, then the laws are illegitimate, and people should rebel. While Jefferson didn’t originate this idea, he put it in a way that set afire the imagination of people around the world. Moreover, he articulated a doctrine for strictly limiting the power of government, the most dangerous threat to liberty everywhere.
Happy 112th birthday to Ayn Rand, who was born February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia, and died March 6, 1982, in New York City…
Upon her 110th birthday Cato’s Executive Vice President David Boaz wrote that it’s hard to think of a writer more popular — and more controversial — than Ayn Rand. Despite the enormous commercial success of her books, and the major influence she’s had on American culture, reviewers and other intellectuals have generally been hostile. They’ve dismissed her support for individualism and capitalism, ridiculed her “purple prose,” and mocked her black-and-white morality. None of which seems to have dissuaded her millions of readers.
Although she did not like to acknowledge debts to other thinkers, Rand’s work rests squarely within the libertarian tradition, with roots going back to Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, Paine, Bastiat, Spencer, Mill, and Mises. She infused her novels with the ideas of individualism, liberty, and limited government in ways that often changed the lives of her readers. The cultural values she championed — reason, science, individualism, achievement, and happiness — are spreading across the world.
To remind our fellow citizens of their responsibility in that regard, the Cato Institute has distributed more than six million copies of our pocket Constitution. At this time of year, it’ll make a great stocking stuffer.
Let’s enjoy the holidays (and remember many of the positive trends that are underway) but let’s also resolve to be more vigilant about defending our Constitution.
96 years ago today, on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.
The amendment—which marked the culmination of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement—prohibited any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex.
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
“A libertarian must necessarily be a feminist, in the sense of being an advocate of equality under the law for all men and women, though unfortunately many contemporary feminists are far from being libertarians.”
“Mary Wollstonecraft…is increasingly acknowledged as one of the most influential thinkers on women’s rights…Although not consistently libertarian, she was consistently in favor of equal legal rights for men and women, and she operated within a generally classical liberal framework.”
“When human beings are regarded as moral beings, sex, instead of being enthroned upon the summit, administering upon rights and responsibilities, sinks into insignificance and nothingness.”
“A self-taught escaped slave, statesman, and leader of the American abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglass is best known for his speeches and autobiographies, in which he stressed the universal equality of all humans. While Douglass is well-known for his support for the abolition of slavery, he is less known for his outspoken support of the women’s liberation movement.”
“Some libertarians are not aware of the differences between libertarian feminism and other kinds of feminism. They even criticize libertarian feminists just for being feminist without any knowledge of what libertarian feminism or even feminism itself stands for…Those libertarians…have not done their homework. When libertarian feminists say they want liberty for all women and men, they really mean it.”
“What does libertarian feminism look like? How does libertarianism appeal to women?…How can issues that affect women be approached from a libertarian perspective? It seems that there are more women among younger generations of libertarians. Is there an explanation for this?”
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