14 Laws Everyone Believes Are Real (But Aren't)

As a libertarian (or for that matter as someone with an iota of common sense), I certainly oppose the arbitrary and often bizarre restriction of our freedoms by the many strange and inappropriate laws on the books of nearly every jurisdiction in the world, including the freest ones.

Sometimes legislators just have nothing better to do, it would seem, or are convinced that by micro-regulating every aspect of human behavior, they can produce better people and a better society. That's why I love (and had a good laugh here and there at) this list of 14 laws everyone believes are real, but aren't.

Did you know in Michigan it's illegal to curse in public? In Minnesota it's illegal to have *ahem* "relations" with a live fish (but a dead fish is fair game, apparently). In Australia you can be fined for changing your own light bulb (only a licensed electrician can legally do the screwing and unscrewing).

Yeah. Silly. Check out the details and the rest of the list here.

Tax Bill Is Beginning of Formal Debt Criminalization

The noose is tightening on liberty. The United States Congress is steadily headed to a place where those who owe money to the US government shall be treated criminally. This phenomenon is advancing domestically and now, increasingly, internationally. The first shot in this latest campaign took place in 2010 when US President Barack Obama signed into law The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It demanded, basically, that foreign banks withhold up to 30 percent of the income that an American abroad might earn. This bill isn't working so well because overseas banks are not cooperating (a state of affairs that was certainly expected). Thus, there is a need for something else: Senate Bill 1813, recently introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). This bill, in part, states that taxpayers with unpaid taxes over US$50,000 may find their passports confiscated. This isn't criminal per se, but the IRS has recently made noises about "sharing" information with police a...

Thomas Sowell Returns

By: Thomas Winslow Hazlett Reason

How To Cripple The Real Estate Market In Five Easy Steps

If the government and the banks had just allowed real estate prices drop to market equilibrium, we'd be out of this mess and housing would truly be affordable. But the government is determined to artificially prop up housing prices, whatever the cost to the economy. If you were head of Central Planning (howdy, Ben!) and were tasked with crippling the real estate market, here's what you would recommend. Choke the market and banking sector with zombie banks... Have the central bank (the Federal Reserve) buy up $1 trillion in toxic, impaired mortgages... Lower the rate that banks can borrow from the Fed to zero, and then pay the banks interest on all funds deposited at the Fed... Try to prop up the housing market by giving poor credit risk buyers loans with only 3% down... Load young people up with the equivalent of a mortgage in student loans... OK,let's see how our Organs of Central Planning are doing: check, check, check, check, check: a perfect score! they're...

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