Drones -- unmanned flying machines -- will soon fill our skies. They conjure up fears, especially among some of my fellow libertarians, of spying and death from above.
These fears aren't groundless. President Bush approved the use of armed drones against suspected terrorists overseas, and President Obama vastly increased their use. Drones have killed thousands of people in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, countries against which we have not declared war.
If I drive across a U.S. border, I expect to stop at a Border Patrol checkpoint. But imagine driving to the grocery store, or Mom's house, well inside America, and being stopped by the Border Patrol. Many Americans don't have to imagine it -- it's how they live.
I'm the underachiever in my family. My parents also produced Harvard Medical School research director Thomas Stossel. Mom called him the one who had "a real job."
For years, my brother annoyed me by not embracing the libertarianism that changed my life. It bored him. He was comfortable in his Harvard cocoon.
But then he realized that the anti-capitalist activists who fight with me on my TV show are also the people who make life more difficult for doctors, and for patients who want cures.
I want the police to be better armed than the bad guys, but what exactly does that mean today?
"Tea party members don't think there's a federal role in transportation!" complained Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, last week, near the site of a $5.8 million highway project.
Wars, plane crashes, mass murder -- it's easy to report news that happens suddenly. Reporters do a good job covering that. But we do a bad job telling you about what's really changing in the world, because we miss the stories that happen slowly. These are usually the more important stories.
Recently, President Barack Obama was mocked for saying: "The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed than it's ever been. It is more educated than it's ever been."
There's capitalism, and then there's "crapitalism" -- crony capitalism.
Capitalism is great because it lets entrepreneurs raise money so they can scale up and get their products and services to more people. If there is free competition, innovators with the best ideas raise the most money, and the best and cheapest products spread far and wide.
But it's crapitalism when politicians give your tax money and other special privileges to businesses that are "most deserving of help." Often those businesses turn out to be run by politicians' cronies.
Reporter Sharyl Attkisson's story sounds familiar to me: A major network got tired of her reports criticizing government. She no longer works there.
Ray Kurzweil -- inventor of things like machines that turn text into speech -- has popularized the idea that we are rapidly approaching "the singularity," the point at which machines not only think for themselves but develop intellectually faster than we.
At that point, maybe we no longer talk about "human history." It will be "machine progress," with us along for the ride -- if machines keep us around. Maybe they'll keep us in a zoo, like we do with our monkey ancestors.
Both libertarians and conservatives want to keep America safe. We differ on how best to do that. Most libertarians believe our attempts to create or support democracy around the world have made us new enemies, and done harm as well as good. We want less military spending.
"Young people are exploited!" "Income mobility is down!" "Poor people are locked into poverty!"
Those are samples of popular nonsense peddled today.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "No They Can't: Why Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed." To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
It's easy to scare people about what's in their food, but the danger is almost never real. And the fear itself kills.
Take the panic over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Ninety percent of all corn grown in America is genetically modified now. That means it grew from a seed that scientists altered by playing with its genes. The new genes may make corn grow faster, or they may make it less appetizing to bugs so farmers can use fewer pesticides.
It's wedding season! More Americans get married in June than in other months. Why June? The timing seems pretty arbitrary if you look up its history.
Last week, when the NBA banned racist team owner Donald Sterling, some said: "What about free speech? Can't a guy say what he thinks anymore?"
Did you know that I started Facebook? Really! Well, sort of ...
When I was in college at all-male Princeton, I tried to make money by adding photos to a snarky guide to neighboring girls' schools. The guide had been a profitable publishing success, and my idea was simply to add the girls' pictures. Schools like Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, etc., already published those pictures, so all I had to do was get permission from administrators at those schools. Surprisingly, they gave it to me.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "No They Can't: Why Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed." To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
Scarlett Johansson left nude photos of herself on her computer. A hacker grabbed them and sent them to gossip websites.
A Pennsylvania high school issued laptop computers to students and then remotely activated the laptops' cameras to watch the students when they were away from school.
On my computer, a program called Disconnect reveals that my favorite websites spy on me and track what I like to read, what I browse, what I buy.
Privacy is almost a thing of the past.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "No They Can't: Why Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed." To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
"The heavens reek, the waters below are foul ... we are in a crisis of survival." That's how Walter Cronkite and CBS hyped the first Earth Day, back in 1970. Somehow we've survived since then, and most of life got better, although I never hear that from the worrywarts.
Of course, some things got better because of government: We passed environmental rules that got most of the filth out of the air and sewage out of lakes and rivers. Great -- but now we're told that we're in big trouble because greenhouse gases cause global warming. I mean, climate change.
It's tax time. I'm too scared to do my taxes. I'm sure I'll get something wrong and my enemies in government will persecute -- no, I mean prosecute -- me. So I hired Bob.
Bob's my accountant. I like Bob, but I don't like that I have to have an accountant. I don't want to spend time keeping records and talking to Bob about boring things I don't understand, and I really don't want to pay Bob. But I have to.
Did you fill out a March Madness bracket this year? In many states, if you put money in a pool, that's illegal!
The NCAA website warns, "Fans should enjoy ... filling out a bracket just for the fun of it, not ... the amount of money they could possibly win."
Give me a break. Americans bet more money on March Madness this year than on the Super Bowl.
John Stossel is host of Stossel on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of No They Can't: Why Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
