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Vin Suprynowicz's Columns Archive

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Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

A Dec. 31 Review-Journal editorial detailed some of the $7 billion in spending the members of the 2007 Nevada Legislature have already proposed -- all while earnestly bleating that no tax hikes will be required.

“Atop the list,” we noted, “is a m

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Nevada lawmakers, due to convene in early February for the 2007 legislative session, have big plans for lots of expensive new government programs -- but vow that no tax hikes will be needed to fund them.

Wow. Talk about an offer we can’t refuse!

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Let’s suppose you manage a restaurant -- one of the pricier variety, with white tablecloths and some hefty double-digit prices in your menu.

A family comes in, is seated, and looks over that menu. Then one of the adults takes you aside and asks,

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

And now the bustling streets and malls fall strangely quiet. In many a home the living room rests ankle-deep in an effluvia of ribbons and paper and bows, while in the background someone has left the TV running -- Alastair Sim throws open his window

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

I see where the Republicrat congresscritters in Washington are pounding on their desks, insisting that the minimum wage be hiked so they can brag they’ve done something for the working man.

Meantime, a high-profile U.S. delegation led by Treasury

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Let’s suppose you had a service to offer, and you knew the average customer was willing (and could afford) to pay about $12,000 a year for it. Over a period of years, what price do you suppose you might arrive at for your service?

Yep.

Now le

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

In a largely symbolic move reflecting frustration with the unwillingness of the federal government to enforce its own immigration laws, the Pahrump Town Board on Nov. 14 adopted an ordinance that bans the flying of foreign flags by themselves (as opp

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Americans make a big hubbub over the Fourth of July.

True, the victory of 1781 was an amazing triumph, and the vision of those gathered in Philadelphia five years before -- that men may rightfully form or disband governments at will, for the

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

If Republicans passed a new, 20-cent-a-gallon tax on milk, what do you suppose the leadership of the Democratic Party -- the party of the working man -- would say?

Wait: Take that a step further. Let’s pretend Republicans wanted to charge poor pe

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Alongside the Pinnacle Lake Trail in the Mount Baker/Snoqualmie National Forest, east of Everett, Washington, the bodies of hikers Mary Cooper, 56, and Susanna Stodden, 27, were found by a hiker on July 11.

The Seattle mother and daughter had eac

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

To enjoy the benefits of a rule of law, the law has to be predictable, knowable, and equitably enforced. If those in power can “reinterpret” or ignore the written law as they please, predictability evaporates. No one feels safe. Long-term investments

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Why do you do a man a bigger favor by teaching him how to fish than by giving him a fish to eat? Because the latter plan leaves him hungry tomorrow; the former gives him a chance at self-sufficiency.

There are exceptions, but on balance, private

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Over the decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has heard many cases stemming from police violence against Americans justified by the so-called “War on Drugs.” Never once have the justices seized the opportunity to rule -- as they are obliged to rule by the

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

For four years, the case worked its way through the courts. The American Council of the Blind was asking the federal judiciary to rule that American paper money as currently printed violates the federal Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discriminat

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Kevin writes in from Texas:

“Hi Vin, I just read your (Nov. 12) column and Googled with some subdued alarm that Nevada voted in a smoking ban. Very interesting, thanks for the public information. I would have never imagined such a thing.

“Her

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

As our modern gladiators chase a pigskin down the field in Dallas or Detroit, we settle into our living rooms, loosen our belts and remind the little ones this is the day we echo the thanks of the Pilgrims, who gathered in the autumn of 1621 to celeb

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

As you read this, the auctioneers are in the midst of the five-day sell-off that will strip the Stardust Hotel and Casino pretty much down to the carpets. It was fun (but also a tad melancholy) to attend the auction preview Wednesday night in the Pav

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

UNLV economics professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe has an effective way of explaining free trade.

Does the opposite of free trade -- quotas and tariffs designed to “protect” domestic industries and their workers -- sound like a good idea? Then why impos

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

They’re at it again.

“Over the past quarter-century, and especially in the last 10 years, America’s very rich have grown much richer,” shuddered the extremely alarmed Kevin Hall of the McClatchy newspaper chain last week, citing a study by econom

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Drive through Goldfield, sometime.

A mere century ago this was the biggest, boomingest town in Nevada. Its hotel was the most opulent between Kansas City and San Francisco; it took 80 bartenders to handle the patrons at Tex Rickard’s Northern. <

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

As her opponent, District Judge Nancy Saitta, surged to a 5-point lead in the polls last week, it began to appear voters are indeed “getting it” about Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker, the first member of the high court that created the odio

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

I hope I won’t be kicked bodily out of the journalistic fraternity if I pass up this “last opportunity” to weigh in on all the latest electoral “scandals” before Election Day -- carefully crafting my “objective analysis” to regretfully reach the conc

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Future scholars, seeking a textbook example of the way a federal bureaucracy can stretch a limited congressional authorization to justify regulating everything in sight, could do worse than the Endangered Species Act.

The law seemed non-controver

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Halloween is here, the day when many an American parent will suit up the little ones in black robes, matching 17th century conical hats, and oversized warty noses, sending them off to delight the neighbors with this impersonation of a witch, as tradi

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Such is the shorthand of politics that -- should Nevadans defeat Question 7 on November’s ballot -- the national press would doubtless report “Nevadans refuse to legalize up to on ounce of pot.”

In fact, I’m no lawyer, but I believe I could easil

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

The Federal Communications Commission kicked off the first of six planned public hearings Tuesday to discuss a number of broadcast ownership rules, including whether a single company should be able to own both a newspaper and a television station in

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

In Philippe de Broca’s 1966 comedy “King of Hearts,” set during the First World War, a British private is sent into a French village in search of an armed bomb supposedly left behind by retreating German forces.

The villagers he encounters seem r

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

At the White House on Sept. 22, President Bush met with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who vowed continuing efforts to root out the Taliban and other extremists from Afghanistan and from Pakistan’s own northwest provinces.

Then, Sept.

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Let us suppose those oil stocks you bought went through the roof, you invented a better mousetrap, or the Megabucks machine finally decided to line up just right. Imagine, in other words, you’re suddenly a millionaire with a new house so big you need

Article Image The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

Off-year elections are about expectations.

The party of a lame-duck president, having presumably spent much of its momentum, is expected to lose seats. The only question is: how many?

When the incumbent president is not the most eloquent of s