Another Voice: We don’t need a federal law limiting ticket ‘bots’

Paul McCartney scheduled a visit to Buffalo for the first time in his legendary career. I am a lifelong fan who had mouse poised at the precise moment tickets went on sale. I did not get a ticket. “Scalper bots” had apparently bought them faster than virtually anyone else could click on a seat. I was disappointed.

But I’m even more disappointed to hear there is support for a federal law prohibiting these kinds of programs. Under the guise of protecting the environment (but really just more crony capitalist scams), we already have the federal government telling us what light bulbs we may use and how much water our toilets are allowed to flush. We don’t need a law telling us how to buy and sell tickets to a rock concert.

The first and foremost reason is principle. Concert tickets are private property. They belong to the promoters of the concert, who have a right to sell 100 percent of them to customers using purchasing software. They also have a right to develop software to prevent bots from buying their tickets. The government’s role in exchanges of property is to ensure these property rights are secure, not to violate them as this bill proposes to do for the convenience of those who seem to believe someone owes them a concert ticket.

Read the rest at The Buffalo News...

The Libertarian Moment Is Alive and Well, Regardless of Rand Paul's Campaign

Rand Paul's campaign reported $2.5 million in donations for the entire third quarter, a precipitous drop from his previous reports and a fraction of what rivals Ben Carson ($20 million) and Jeb Bush ($12 million) brought in. That and anemic poll numbershave inspired many to not only pronounce Paul's presidential campaign dead, but to gleefully declare the so-called "Libertarian Moment" over.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Anyone who believes the presidential election is a barometer of how libertarian America is becoming doesn't understand libertarianism and isn't paying attention to what's happening in the real world. Libertarians don't believe government solves anything, no matter who is running it. The purest libertarians refuse to vote on principle.

As radical as that might sound, almost half of all eligible American voters behave the same way, if not for the same reasons. Let's face it, most Americans couldn't name three policies held by the frontrunner in either party and couldn't explain one in detail.

This is often ridiculed in the myriad You Tube videos where men and women "on the street" are asked basic policy questions and don't have a clue what policies their candidates support. You're supposed to assume they're stupid.

For the most part, they're not stupid. They just don't care. They may say they support this or that candidate when a microphone is shoved in their face, but in reality they live their lives, do their jobs and run their businesses without giving politics a second thought. This is an inherently libertarian worldview and it's growing.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post...

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

What if school shootings are caused by drugs instead of guns?

What if the entire schooling paradigm of having children sit at a desk for 8 hours is especially unnatural for boys?

What if schools have been decreasing opportunities to release pent up energy and making boys even more repressed while participating in this compulsory institution?

What if society has responded over the past several decades by inventing new pseudo-diseases like “ADHD” to describe normal, boyish behavior and then recommended treatment of these non-diseases with psychotropic drugs whose known side effects are homicidal and suicidal thoughts?

What if these drugs succeed in keeping boys at their desks but for a small percentage result in them flipping out and acting on the homicidal and suicidal thoughts caused by the pills they are taking?

Read the rest at TomMullen.net...