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Articles written by Kent Mcmanigal


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  • Opinion: Politics opposite of what I try to do

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 23, 2024

    About the most hurtful thing anyone can say about me is to describe my writing as “political.” It wounds me more deeply than almost any other words can. Politics is what someone is doing when they encourage others to vote for or against something. Or someone. Politics is what people engage in when they advocate yet another law aimed at the rest of society or want existing laws enforced more violently. Politics says this politician will be better at running your life than som...

  • Opinion: Politicians just don't get Bill of Rights

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 16, 2024

    Politicians tend to get every answer wrong. They also ask the wrong questions because they view everything through the warped lens of government supremacy. Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, is a prime example. Politicians are squaring off for or against TikTok, an addictive digital drug from China. Some, including Crenshaw, are looking to ban TikTok in America or force it to become an American company. Like the other digital drug, Facebook. TikTok can be harmful to the...

  • Opinion: New laws aren't ethical solution

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 9, 2024

    “There ought to be a law.” I am disappointed every time I hear that sad phrase. It’s an admission of failure -- both intellectual and ethical. If the only solution someone can see is to call for more government violence -- through legislation -- either they aren’t thinking clearly, or their ethical core is broken. Either way, it’s a problem. Many times when I hear someone say this phrase, there is no real crisis, only something they don’t like. This is a problem, not with th...

  • Opinion: Government will collapse under weight

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 2, 2024

    What’s a liberty lover to do? Authoritarian government seems to be gaining by leaps and bounds. Again. Did humanity learn nothing over the past hundred years? This time authoritarian government is using captured corporations to crack down on liberty in ways it can’t usually get away with, at least in America, due to that pesky Constitution. Authoritarianism also uses the lies of “safety” and “national security.” A variety of tools, all leading to one miserable place. There is...

  • Opinion: US has its own political prisoners

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Feb 24, 2024

    Much of the American public is understandably stirred up over the suspicious prison death of Putin’s critic, Alexei Navalny. Yet America’s anti-American prison industry is also filled with political prisoners. More than anywhere else in the world, by a wide margin. Including political prisoners like Ross Ulbricht. This doesn’t even count heroes like Julian Assange, held by other governments to appease the U.S. government. Or those heroes living under asylum in other count...

  • Opinion: Can't live someone's life for them

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Feb 17, 2024

    People don’t always do what you want. I’m not even talking about those who decide to rob others at knifepoint, which I’m sure you don’t want them to do. I’m talking about when someone chooses to do their own thing based on different values, preferences, and information. When they make a choice you wouldn’t have made. A choice you might think is a mistake, based on your values, preferences, and information. How we handle these situations says a lot about who we are. Some c...

  • Opinion: Some contests not safe to ignore

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Feb 10, 2024

    I’m not watching television today. It’s impossible for me to care less about a sporting event -- a game -- than I do. A good thing about sports contests: it’s safe to not care. The outcome doesn’t grant the winning team power to threaten my life, steal my property, or violate my liberty. The winners will not inherit an army of career rights violators who imagine their job is to control how the rest of us live. I can ignore the event without danger. I wish all silly contests we...

  • Opinion: Our rights are imaginary? Don't be barbaric

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Feb 3, 2024

    It is often said there are two kinds of people. What kinds? It depends on the point being made. Yet, it’s usually true, if incomplete. In this case, I’m talking about two kinds of people where liberty is concerned. There are people who are authoritarian and people who are libertarian; those who want everyone else controlled and those who don’t feel any such need. Politics boils down to controlling someone in some way, so most politics is authoritarian. Maybe all politics. Both...

  • Opinion: Liberty dangerous, but essential to life

    Kent McManigal, Correspondent|Updated Jan 27, 2024

    Like Thomas Jefferson, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." I also know there can be no such thing as "too much liberty" since liberty -- freedom tempered with responsibility -- is self-regulating. Jefferson knew this, too, since he was smarter than me, but he may have been trying to get his point across to someone less aware. There are also people who are scared of liberty. Liberty is...

  • Opinion: Don't submit to crime of 'gun control'

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jan 20, 2024

    Most politicians remind me of bungling bank robbers who get foiled in their clownish attempts to rob a bank. Rather than being sorry or changing their ways, they decide they’ll rob two banks tomorrow. Instead of robbing banks, though, they keep committing the greater crime of “gun control.” New Mexico’s governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, seems to want to be on the Most Wanted list for gun-law criminals, right up there with the worst dictators in history. On one hand, how emb...

  • Opinion: Helping others way to help self

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jan 13, 2024

    Respecting others’ liberty will go a long way toward freeing you. If you truly understand liberty, you’ll know why. There’s no reason to enslave yourself with the desire to control the rightful behavior of others. By encouraging you to respect other people’s liberty, I offer you the chance to increase your own, which eventually increases my liberty. It’s like a snowball rolling downhill. So is the opposite effect of looking to restrict -- to violate -- the liberty of others...

  • Opinion: No one has permission to violate rights

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jan 6, 2024

    You are never obligated to cooperate with anyone trying to violate your rights. Never, for any reason. It will be dangerous to refuse to help them violate you, but in such circumstances, cooperation is just as dangerous. Once someone has decided to harm you, you’re not going to escape without a scratch. Especially when they claim to have the imaginary, magical quality they call “authority.” They’ll try to make you sorry you didn’t help them hurt you. They’ll do their best...

  • Opinion: New year time to accept reality

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Dec 30, 2023

    There haven’t been many years where, as New Year’s Day approached, I thought “I’m glad I survived this one; I wasn’t sure I would.” This has been one of those years. It was a year marked with unrelated random health emergencies, financial crises partly caused by those health emergencies, and general trouble. I’m glad to see the year end and I’m hoping next year will be better. If your past 12 months were rough, I hope the coming year is smooth sailing. If the past year has b...

  • Opinion: Liberty greatest gift you can give

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Dec 23, 2023

    Just about the most valuable gift any human can give another is to fully respect the other person’s liberty. As long as they aren’t harming anyone else’s life, liberty, or property you don’t interfere. Live and let live. You can do this for those you love and for those you only tolerate. You can even give this gift to people you don’t like at all; people whose way of life or politics is disgusting to you, as long as they aren’t victimizing anyone. The hardest part is being ho...

  • Opinion: Liberty takes more responsibility

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Dec 16, 2023

    Most people don’t seem to want liberty. Many of them want freedom, but they aren’t interested in the responsibility that comes with liberty. A majority want to feel safe and comforted. They want guarantees. They want the familiar, even when the familiar is guaranteed to be harmful to them. They don’t want the uncertainties that come with liberty. Uncertainties are a fact of life, like it or not. Some of them would like liberty for themselves but are terrified of allow...

  • Opinion: Liberty needs constant maintenance

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Dec 9, 2023

    It would be nice if you could set liberty in motion and forget about it. Unfortunately, like a clock, you will at least have to keep winding it or replacing the battery. Or, if it has a cord, you must rely on someone else to keep the power flowing. As long as others insist on keeping government around, liberty will have to be maintained. Some consider this a flaw. I wonder if these people took one shower years ago and expect it to last. Entropy happens. Things tend to crumble...

  • Opinion: Liberty always a worthy collectible

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Dec 2, 2023

    Like almost everyone, there are certain things I like to collect. Kerosene lamps being among my favorites. At one time I only wanted enough oil lamps to light the house in case of a power outage. They are useful to have around, even though power outages are rare. Then I started liking them just for how they look. Once I had a lamp for every room of the house, plus a few spares, I realized it was time to stop collecting them. This is when I learned that collecting has an...

  • Opinion: Ready for America to be free again

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Nov 25, 2023

    How long has it been since you heard someone say “It’s a free country?” I used to hear it almost every day. I haven’t heard anyone say this for years now. Another thing people no longer say is “This mammoth steak is delicious.” No one says either phrase anymore for the same reason. No one is eating mammoth steaks and America isn’t a free country. Sure, if all you want to do is agree with government opinions and be obedient to its edicts, you’re still free. A slave is comple...

  • Opinion: Government is always the enemy

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Nov 18, 2023

    If you aren’t against the institution of government yet, you will be. If you’re still taking government’s side, you haven’t realized government considers you the enemy, and treats you as such. Actual criminals and terrorists are not government’s top concern or seen as a real threat -- you and your liberty are, and have been far longer than you’d be comfortable admitting. Just look at a couple of things the omnipotent State has planned for your future: car shutoff switches an...

  • Opinion: Liberty essential, worth fighting for

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Nov 11, 2023

    All sides that don’t prioritize liberty are the same. Excuses don’t matter. If you’re angry about the other side doing something that violates liberty, but you justify your side violating liberty in some other way, you’re not helping. It’s not Democrat vs. Republican, nor “Left vs. “Right.” It comes down to liberty vs slavery. It may be “slavery-light” instead of what you’ve been trained to consider slavery, but is gentle slavery better? Most people are so motivated to find...

  • Opinion: Don't be confused: Government has no rights

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Nov 7, 2023

    When government clearly goes too far, someone may ask whether or not government has the right to do what it did. The honest answer is always “no.” Government has no rights. It’s not that government has no extra rights; government has no rights of any kind. Individuals who work for government have rights. They have the same rights anyone else has. Rights equal and identical to the rights everyone else enjoys, but no more. These individuals don’t magically get extra rights...

  • Don't be confused: Government has no rights

    Kent McManigal, Correspondent|Updated Nov 4, 2023

    When government clearly goes too far, someone may ask whether or not government has the right to do what it did. The honest answer is always “no.” Government has no rights. It's not that government has no extra rights; government has no rights of any kind. Individuals who work for government have rights. They have the same rights anyone else has. Rights equal and identical to the rights everyone else enjoys, but no more. These individuals don't magically get extra rights made... Full story

  • Opinion: Don't trust government with what matters

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Oct 28, 2023

    I could never be talked into sending my daughter on a cross-country trip with a stranger. Or worse, with an acquaintance I couldn’t trust because of a history of dangerous or unethical behavior. If I did, and something tragic happened, how could I live with the guilt? I know better. For this same reason, I would never entrust anything I value to government’s control. Government has a history, stretching back thousands of years, of dangerous and unethical behavior. I can...

  • Opinion: Learn difference between right, wrong

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Oct 21, 2023

    Someday you may have to stand up for something you know is right, or against something you know is wrong, when it appears the whole world is against you. You may not believe you’d change your position in that situation. There was a social experiment where test subjects were told to choose, from among three choices, a line that was the same length as another line. The experiment was designed so the correct answer was obvious. Only one person in the group was actually a test s...

  • Opinion: Any war is always a criminal act

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Oct 14, 2023

    “War is a racket.” — Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler I’m not a good subject for war propaganda. I see the atrocities committed on all sides, going back through history. I also can’t ignore or accept civilian casualties -- “collateral damage” -- under any circumstances. It’s non-negotiable. One innocent person harmed means you’ve done wrong, no matter what justification you use. Blame politicians, not populations. I condemn any new attack, but there’s no such thing as an...

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