Edward TJ Brown's Official Blog

I do not smoke cigarettes or marijuana.  I have family and friends that do partake and that is why I tend to take a reasonably libertarian attitude on these particular drugs.   I appreciate the public health interest and I am not rejecting any regulations. Still, I believe that high taxes or too much regulation on these so-called "vices" will probably have unintentional consequences. I am a part of the Xennial Generation and in my younger days, smoking and drinking were certainly cool things to do.  Being a nerd, I had neither the desire nor the potential to be cool.    Yet, in high school, I read a book by the late Peter McWilliams titled Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do, which made the libertarian case for the legalization of victimless or consensual crimes.  I am not a member of the Libertarian Party, and I feel that the book sometimes oversimplifies public health interests, but the idea that the best way to handle vice is to criminalize it or tax it to the Stone

Can Ramadan save Gaza? Might as well also ask, Can Purim save Israel? Both Islam and Judaism have the Golden Rule and plenty of scripture that calls upon its followers to help create a more compassionate, just, and equitable world. Alas, history teaches us that people of faith are just as capable of being cruel, bitter, hateful, and plain mean as atheists. The simplistic message in the Purim story is that anti-Semitism is evil, but it can also offer a more complex lesson about the evils of hatred and intolerance of all kinds. As an American follower of Judaism, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, I know that a great many Arabs subscribe to anti-Semitic tropes, just as a great many American Christians and Jews subscribe to biases against Arabs and Muslims. It is no surprise that many Arab Muslims, not all Arabs are Muslim mind you, and many Jewish people have sought a better life in the United States, with its Constitutional protections for freedom and equality. If Congress ever gets ar