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Court could help clean up homelessness chaos in this city, and yours

I have an article this morning on Fox News’ website about the recent court ruling that declares Phoenix’s homeless “Zone” an illegal public nuisance. Excerpt:

Phoenix leaders had claimed their hands were tied by a 2019 Ninth Circuit ruling that held that the city of Boise, Idaho, violated the U.S. Constitution’s "cruel and unusual punishment" clause by arresting people for sleeping on sidewalks. "Human beings are biologically compelled to rest," that court reasoned, so punishing them for "involuntarily sitting, lying, and sleeping in public" was cruel — akin to punishing them for "an illness or disease." If a city lacks sufficient bed space in its shelters to accommodate the homeless, the Ninth Circuit said, it’s unconstitutional to arrest them for sleeping on the streets.

But whatever one thinks about that case, it hardly applies to Phoenix’s situation, which doesn’t involve people "involuntarily" sleeping on sidewalks for lack of shelter space. The Zone’s residents are living there indefinitely, not because they’re biologically compelled to, but because they choose not to seek other arrangements.

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Talking about the Arizona "Zone" lawsuit with Armstrong & Getty

I talked this morning with my friends Armstrong and Getty about the ruling in the Phoenix homeless "Zone" lawsuit, as well as about other pressing matters of the day. You can listen here:

The life and ideas of Isabel Paterson

The Objective Standard Institute has posted the video of my talk about the life and ideas of Isabel Paterson, from last year's TOS-Con. You can watch it here:

The dark side of historical preservation

I have an article in Discourse Magazine about the downsides to “historic preservation” laws, which often impose Byzantine bureaucratic rules on people who just want to live in their homes, and which sometimes impose crushing—and unconstitutional—takings of private property without compensation. Excerpt:

Preserving the past is a worthy goal. But like all worthy goals, it also represents a tradeoff, with costs and benefits that must be weighed in the balance. Ignoring property rights, the role of incentives and the principles of due process—which forbid vague laws—blinds both politicians and voters to the cost side of the equation. That tends to benefit the politically powerful at the expense of less influential property owners—and of consumers who would benefit from new and more innovative construction. Without legal checks and balances, historic preservation cannot only stifle new building and improvement, but even obstruct the goal of preservation itself.

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Talking about the ladies who founded libertarianism

I spoke a few weeks ago with Juliette Slegren for her Great Antidote podcast, about the lives and ideas of Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand. You can listen here.

Subversive as all hell

I have an article in Symposium today about the way in which Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand can be considered "counter culture" figures. It tells one of the classic stories of Lane's life--the time the FBI went after her for writing a postcard to a radio talk show host in which she expressed opposition to the Social Security program. You can read those fun details by clicking here.

The Importance of Paterson, Wilder, and Lane

I talked the other day with Jon Hersey about my book Freedom's Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Liberty in an Age of Darkness, for the podcast Philosophy for Flourishing. Jon had some unusual and interesting questions for me about the book and about the lives and ideas of these remarkable women. You can watch it here:

New review of Freedom's Furies

At Discourse, Robert Tracinski reviews my new book Freedom's Furies. Excerpt:

What is perhaps more remarkable from today’s perspective is that these women came up through the world of art and literature. Similarly, H.L. Mencken and Henry Hazlitt—the latter was a leading free-marketer of the time and a friend of the trio; he and Mencken would be fused into the crusading pro-liberty columnist Austen Heller in The Fountainhead—were both editors of the American Mercury. This was one of the prominent right-wing publications of the early 20th century but also one of its leading literary journals. Paterson was a key figure covering the book publishing scene in New York City, while Ayn Rand started out as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and later hobnobbed with studio executives and movie stars. These people were what you might call “coastal elites”—yet they argued for laissez-faire economics, promoted individualism and fought against the left.;

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