Category:Free Speech
Civil servants should not lose their jobs for committing thought crimes.
February 14, 2017 | Post
A government commission has recommended that a civil servant be removed from his post because of his thoughts. A scene from George Orwell’s 1984 or the dystopian novel Kallocain? Alas, no. Welcome to present-day Oregon. On January 25, 2016, Oregon’s Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability recommended that Judge Vance Day be removed as a […]
When Nazis were Nazis: Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night
February 10, 2017 | Post
Swastika Night is one of the first works of fiction to address the question, “What if the Nazis won the war?”
Libertarians you’ve never heard of: Lydia Maria Child
February 7, 2017 | Post
“I am so great an advocate of freedom that I would have everything done voluntarily.” – Lydia Maria Child
“Really, really, really bad” — Why Trump hates Super PACs
February 3, 2017 | Post
If Super PACs had been abolished, that would have hurt Trump’s opponents. To the cynic, it should be no surprise that Trump remains critical of them.
Shaming Someone Doesn't Change Their Mind
February 1, 2017 | Video
So you want to fight prejudice and change people’s minds? Step 1: Don’t insult them. Step 2: Have a real conversation.
Why you should encrypt — and 3 tools to get started right now
January 26, 2017 | Post
Whether it’s protecting your banking information from potential hackers or making sure some nefarious government agent doesn’t intercept sensitive data, there are a ton of reasons to use basic encryption technologies for your communications.
President Trump's 6 biggest threats to liberty
January 20, 2017 | Post
Donald Trump is president. Here are his six biggest threats to liberty.
Does the constitution require a war on Christmas?
December 25, 2016 | Post
“In no way did America’s Founders — especially those men who drafted and ratified the First Amendment — desire to build a wall of separation between church and state.” — Mark Hall
It’s Your Right to Burn the Flag
December 23, 2016 | Post
The Founders understood the incentive faced by Congress and the president to exceed the constitutional limits on their power.
Encryption is a human rights issue: Your privacy and free speech depend on it
December 21, 2016 | Post
Encryption was at the heart of the ideas that led to the America’s founding.
Naughty and Nice 2016: Who made the list?
December 20, 2016 | Post
Here at Learn Liberty, we like an optimistic muffin with our bitter coffee, so we took the liberty of compiling a naughty and nice list for the holiday season.
When fans become creators
December 9, 2016 | Post
When fans of Star Trek or Harry Potter write their own stories or make their own films or music set in those universes, are they hurting the original art or its creators? Or are they in fact making new art and adding something positive to the world?
Collective punishment at Harvard University
November 28, 2016 | Post
Collective punishment is unjust. This is the case whether it is employed by governments, corporations, teachers, or parents.
Resist the pressure to conform: Tocqueville’s warning
November 16, 2016 | Post
Is tyranny of the majority still a threat? Alexis de Tocqueville would say so.
Halloween is for Irish people only; for anyone else, it’s racist cultural appropriation
October 31, 2016 | Post
A year ago, lecturer Erika Christakis wrote an email criticizing Yale’s attempt to control students’ Halloween costumes. Christakis suggested that students, as adults, are capable of policing themselves, that the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable costumes is contestable, and that Halloween is holiday meant to allow people to indulge in certain transgressions. Students harassed her […]
Anonymity: The Greatest Weapon Against Oppression
October 27, 2016 | Video
“Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority” – Justice Paul Stevens When we think of anonymity on the internet, we often think of the negatives. Trolls say horrible things because they can hide behind a screen, but you might not know that anonymity is also a quintessential part of our functioning democracy.