The Editor’s Notes

Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

This week’s motto comes from Dana Rohrabacher well before he entered Congress, even before he was writing speeches for Ronald Reagan.

I don’t usually mention the letters. But this week Jeff Fullerton brings a lecture by Bjorn Lomborg on the costs of climate alarmism to your attention. Can we say that climate alarmism will prove even more expensive than climate change?

Change Amazon Return Policies for Completed E-books: Protect Authors from Theft! There has been a huge upswing in author’s ebooks being returned to Amazon AFTER they have been read. As a reader this is VERY upsetting. Yes, Amazon’s return policy allows it. However, that doesn’t make it right. When you have read the book, you CONSUMED the product. Returning a book after reading 10-20% is one thing. But when the book has been read in it’s entirety it should not be allowed to be returned. End of discussion. One author had triple digit returns for March! That same author had single digit returns the prior TWO months combined. Authors are not being paid accurately for their art. Please, Amazon, change your policy!

The petition is at 74,100 signatures as I write this. If it gets to 75,000, it becomes officially one of the top signed petitions at change.org. This petition will help support your favorite libertarian publication.

An article at National Propaganda Radio: Authors are protesting Amazon’s e-book policy that allows users to read and return https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1107109243/amazon-kindle-ebook-return-policy

The actual petition.

The hypocrisy of the far left: they only get interested in data privacy when the data in question could be used to prosecute a crime they think is a right. We should have had this kind of data protection long ago, and not just for some personal health data and some web searches. https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/23/ftc_women_tracking/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/abortion-ruling-digital-privacy-important/

Links

I had no idea there was a Journal of Ayn Rand Studies! Now in its 22nd year.

An independent but pro-Ukraine webzine, The Kyiv Independent

The Arrow Is Plugging the Wound: The Writer in Black makes a case for gradualism in moving to a free society. (Tip of the Hat to Sarah Hoyt.)

Once more, as Barry Goldwater observed, the largest threat to America is the federal government.

Eduardo Bolsonaro: More Guns Produced Less Crime in Brazil

Matt Tabbi: “Perhaps the most dependable taboo in American media, however, involves black Second Amendment advocates.”

Does Stand-Up Comedy Still Have The ‘Right To Offend?’ Those canceled by the Huffpo are welcome to submit articles to TLE.

Go woke, go broke: ‘Just closed my Halifax account. They can stick their pronouns up their/his/her a**e. ‘: Bank suffers exodus of customers after social media manager told them to LEAVE if they don’t like staff sharing pronouns on badges