Category: administrative state

The Deeply Dangerous Attack on Enterprises Such as Juul

Commentary One of many the major historical threats to prosperity goes by the name of regime uncertainty. This happens when the use of government power becomes predictably unpredictable. With legislative or court oversight, agencies lash out at commerce and civic life in general with edicts, pronouncements, impositions, mandates, and outright attacks motivated not by stable…


The Spies Who Loathe Us

News Analysis In the early days of Social Media—it must have been around the year 2005—a friend wrote that she would stay off completely and forever. She valued her privacy. She saw absolutely no gain to posting her whereabouts and goings on for the world to see. The state can too easily take that information…


The American Tipping Point

News Analysis In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called “The Tipping Point” that has since been rolled into the conventional wisdom. The idea is that viral products start very small, gain new adherents, tap into a special something that relates to fear of missing out, and the climb goes higher and higher until that…


The Origin and Operation of the US Administrative State

Commentary On July 2, 1881, only four months into the first term of President James A. Garfield, an angry attorney from Illinois named Charles J. Guiteau shot Garfield in the torso at a Baltimore, Maryland, train station. Guiteau had a motive. He was furious because he believed, due to his work for the campaign, that…


Must We Make a Case Against Dictatorship?

Commentary Some federal officials have made startling statements in recent days. Given the times in which we live, we can no longer take for granted that they won’t be convincing. Ever since lockdowns, which shattered all our social and political rituals and assumptions about government and public health, it seems like everything is open to…


Latest Attempt to End Pennsylvania’s School Mask Mandate Fails

The latest Republican-led bid to end mandatory masking of Pennsylvania school children failed Thursday in Harrisburg in a 4–7 vote by the little-known Joint Committee on Documents. In August, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, asked the General Assembly to approve a mandate requiring all schools and childcare centers to make children wear masks to prevent…