11.

THE SMOKER

Cigarette smokers are now an endangered species. No-smoking zones have been established in hospitals, office buildings, recreational centers, shopping malls, and other places of congregation all over the United States. Cities and municipalities coast to coast have amended their health by laws so as to further proscribe the limits within which smoking is still allowed. In many cases, outright bans have been imposed. For example, cigarette smoking has been prohibited entirely in bars as well as all restaurants, in both San Francisco and New York.

12.

THE HUMAN-ORGAN MERCHANT

In the days of yore, there was no crisis in spare body parts. Organ transplants were an utter impossibility, the stuff of science fiction. Only Dr. Frankenstein and his literary ilk had any need for live organs.

13.

BREAST MILK
SUBSTITUTE PURVEYOR

The so-called infant formula crisis is yet another stick used by critics of the market to beat up on the free enterprise system. Exhibit “A” in their indictment is the fact that manufacturers of this product sell it in powder form in poverty-stricken Third World countries. The problem there, is that the water the baby formula is mixed with is impure. Thus, the result of mixing the powder and this water is harmful to the infants.

14.

TOPLESS IN PUBLIC

The feminists have had their comeuppance, and they don’t much like it.

Several women in both the U.S. and Canada have won court rulings that they could bare their breasts at public parks and swimming pools. They have brought suit under “classical” feminist theory that men and women are in all respects alike, entitled to the same rights, and that since men are permitted by law to go topless in such venues, so must this apply to women.

15.

POLYGAMOUS MARRIAGE

What is the libertarian perspective on polygamous marriage? Whether it’s polygyny (a man with more than one wife) or polyandry (a woman with more than one husband), or group marriage (where several wives and husbands marry one another), the libertarian response is the same as it is on anything and everything else. If the institution constitutes a per se violation of the non-aggression principle, it should be prohibited; if it does not, then it should be legal.

16.

BURNING BED

In 1984, NBC presented a made-for-TV movie, “The Burning Bed.” Starring the late Farrah Fawcett, it told the story of Francine Hughes, a woman who had been beaten by her husband for 13 years. Finally, the battered wife soaked her sleeping husband’s bed with gasoline, lit a match and burned him to death.

17.

THE SEXIST

In the good old days, the idea of human rights was clear. We all had the right not to be murdered, not to be tortured, not to be raped, not to be kidnapped, not to be robbed, not to be trespassed upon, and not to be victimized by other crimes such as assault and battery, fraud, pickpocketing, and other such felonies. These were all negative rights; others had the obligation to refrain from violating our persons or properties.

18.

PEEPING TOM

We live in an era where privacy is exalted, at least insofar as the law is concerned. So called privacy rights are entrenched in law and supported by pundits. What is the right to privacy? It is the right that no one else shall know about your business; that you can remain anonymous if you wish to do so, that you are able to fly under the radar, that no one can see you unless you wish to be seen, among other things.