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  • Opinion: Government not a moral guide

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Aug 10, 2021

    As rational thinkers since at least the time of François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, have pointed out, it’s dangerous to be right when those with power are wrong. This is because it’s always dangerous to disagree with anyone who suffers from the delusion that they have the right — or some imaginary political authority — to force you to act as they believe you must. Especially when they reserve the power to punish those who disagree. Just look what happened...

  • Opinion: Government has no right to mandates

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Aug 3, 2021

    New Mexico’s government may be flirting with COVID-19 mandates again. Did you think government would just step aside when it became obvious it keeps doing pointless things? I will not accept this “new normal” of endlessly recurring threats of mask mandates, shutdowns, and lockdowns. You do what you want, but I’m not going to accept going backward. I hope businesses don’t get targeted this time. I feel bad for business owners forced to choose between betraying their customers...

  • Opinion: Let rich give humanity new frontier

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jul 27, 2021

    After Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos both went to space — depending on how you define “space” — within days of each other, in rockets built by their respective companies, outrage activists got upset. Were people angry when Henry Ford first rode in a Ford automobile, or when Alexander Graham Bell made his first phone call? It’s not a matter of how wealthy Branson and Bezos are. It was their responsibility to ride their rockets. When your company builds rockets, you, as t...

  • Opinion: More in common than you think

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jul 20, 2021

    Even when we seem to disagree, we have more in common than you might think. I probably want many of the same things you want. I have no respect for those who violate private property. Even less, if possible, for those who harm the innocent. Wouldn’t you agree? Then why would you and I ever be on the opposite sides of an issue? Perhaps you tolerate methods of getting what you want that I can’t tolerate. I don’t believe politics or legislation is ever the right way to do anyth...

  • Opinion: Legislative damage takes time to undo

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jul 13, 2021

    Why are legislative messes so quick to be made but so slow to be removed once in place? After they are shown to move society further from the goal used to justify them, they should be immediately reversed. If politicians can hide their mistakes without admitting or reversing them — and get away with it — that’s what they’ll do. At most, cleaning up these messes is done piece by piece, as though searching for a way to keep as much of the mistake around for as long as possibl...

  • Opinion: Don't tolerate vandals, vandalism

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jul 6, 2021

    The article in last week’s paper about the problem of restroom vandalism in Clovis city parks struck a chord with me. I’ve seen the results myself. I realize the people who vandalize park restrooms aren’t the kind of people who read newspapers. Nor much of anything else for that matter. I’m going to express my contempt for those reprehensible creatures anyway. The most useless thing in the world is a park without restroom facilities. If you’re going to have a park, you need...

  • Opinion: Government wrong tool for society

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jun 29, 2021

    You are smart enough to know a hammer is the wrong tool for driving a screw. Yes, It can work in an emergency, but it isn’t best and can cause future problems. Either use a screwdriver for the screw or find a nail for the hammer. In the same way, government is the wrong tool for solving society’s problems. It might appear to work, but you’d do better to find the right tool for the job. A social tool, not an antisocial tool. Politics is antisocial. Someone only wins by makin...

  • Opinion: You're only responsible for yourself

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jun 22, 2021

    You are responsible for yourself. No one else can be as responsible for yourself as you are, nor can you ever be completely responsible for anyone but yourself. Please do your best in the case of babies and others who are totally helpless, though. When your own responsibility fails -- and all of us have been there -- you can ask others for help. Friends, family, and charity are there to fill the gap when you fail to be as responsible as you should have been. The...

  • Opinion: Look toward cryptocurrency's future

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jun 15, 2021

    It seems nearly everyone is talking about Bitcoin and Dogecoin, as well as the thousands of other cryptocurrencies, these days. Cryptocurrency is seen as a tool for financial freedom and privacy, as a way to hide profits from crime, and as a way to gamble and get rich (or go broke) quick. Depending on how it’s used, it can be all those things and more. The prices of cryptocurrencies, as measured against government fiat currency like the U.S. dollar, rise and fall, often b...

  • Opinion: Liberty is among self-evident truths

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jun 8, 2021

    Many times over the years people have demanded proof that liberty is better than the alternative. Sometimes the detail being questioned changes — maybe it’s the concept of human rights or ethics they are objecting to — but the argument is the same. They don’t accept the superiority of liberty over whatever they’d prefer, so they demand proof. No matter what I say, with each response, they move the goal post. With each objection, I’ll be asked to prove something different....

  • Opinion: Drug abuse stupid but prohibition evil

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Jun 1, 2021

    It’s normal to focus more on things that matter to us personally. It’s harder to care about everything else. I’m most vocal about the liberty I see being attacked the hardest. This is why I mention gun-owner rights so often. These rights are currently attracting the most hate. If you want me to defend a right, start a coordinated attack against it. Beyond rights I care about the most, you have the right to do things that don’t interest me at all, or things I don’t like. As...

  • Opinion: Arguments for government work against it

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated May 25, 2021

    Any argument against the idea of having a free society — one free of political government — also works against the idea of having such a government holding society down. The only reason anyone still tries to make this argument is because crimes are called by different names when they are committed by government employees instead of by the self-employed. When you pretend criminal acts aren’t criminal, you can justify anything. Theft is called “taxation,” “asset forfeiture,...

  • Opinion: Government should have less control

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated May 18, 2021

    If you’re going to tolerate politicians, and a political government for them to operate in, what should they be allowed to do? Not much. Their ability to control anyone should end at government employees. The rest of us shouldn’t be touched by their policies and rules. How would this work? Government can allow its employees to do this or that, or prohibit them from doing these other things — but anyone not employed by government isn’t government’s business. If you believe t...

  • Opinion: Glad I have as much choice as I do

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated May 11, 2021

    It's good to have choices. The continuing COVID-19 overreactions of New Mexico's politicians mean I've spent much less time and money in New Mexico than I would have normally. Why would I go where businesses are either closed or operating with restricted capacity when I have other options? I prefer to go where businesses can decide whether they'll force customers to wear a mask, rather than where a one-size-fits-all mandate declares businesses aren't allowed to decide for...

  • Opinion: Won't sacrifice liberty for worst of us

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated May 4, 2021

    There will always be some members of the population set on killing each other over petty squabbles and imagined slights. Nothing you and I can do will ever change this; nothing government can do will stop it. Some people are just determined to be uncivilized. They may even prefer living this way, and wouldn’t change if given every chance. You will be more free once you realize this truth. Maybe the best outcome is for them to do society a favor by culling their own herd. How c...

  • Opinion: Time to right marijuana wrongs

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Apr 27, 2021

    Once New Mexico’s marijuana rules have changed, everyone with marijuana charges on their record should get a clean slate. At least where marijuana is concerned. Then they need to be paid the restitution they are owed by those who harmed them. People arrested or fined for a crime that is no longer a crime deserve a break. Those who were jailed over marijuana were wronged. Those who were fined need to be repaid the money that was taken under phony pretexts. All for a ...

  • Opinion: Government owes business apology

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Apr 20, 2021

    After this past year, government owes business an apology. Not just empty words, but a meaningful apology. An immediate suspension of all taxation on any economic activity whatsoever and a suspension of all business regulations would be a good start. If you imagine I just said businesses should be free to poison or maim customers, you’re hallucinating. I never said any such thing. If you harm someone (including harming them with government actions) — on purpose or accidentally...

  • Opinion: NM fumbled on legal marijuana

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Apr 6, 2021

    Leave it to government to fumble a chance to do the right thing. New Mexico has finally decided to legalize cannabis. This could have been a win for liberty, but they did it wrong. Instead of letting the market handle it, as they should have, they wanted to get their fingers in as deep as possible. It’s good when a government backs off on violating natural human rights, but the state never had the right to criminalize or control cannabis to begin with. Neither did the f...

  • Opinion: Rebel, but make it responsible

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 30, 2021

    This past year has been hard on liberty. It started with world-wide government overreaction to a pandemic. This was still going strong when some focus shifted to choosing a politician to run your life. Recently, as the pandemic hype began to fizzle in many places and after most of the post-election drama had faded, the push to further violate your natural human right to own and to carry weapons was triggered by the horrible crimes of a few evil losers. Making good people...

  • Opinion: Never give anything to government

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 23, 2021

    It is disappointing to read that the Bill Dalley windmill collection — which had been entrusted to the Roosevelt County government — is being split up. Let this be a lesson: if you want something protected and preserved for the future, don’t give it to a government. I spent some time exploring those windmills several years ago. I love the ingenuity shown by their various designs. I like seeing mechanical devices, especially if they still work and work well. I also appre...

  • Opinion: Gun owners' rights in danger

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 16, 2021

    Congress has begun another epic crime spree: it is passing new anti-gun legislation and plotting more in the near future. If any of this legislation passes, President Biden will sign it — he’s been bigoted against gun owners his whole political career. More dangerous than the legislation itself is how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) — a bureau that violates the Constitution by existing— may interpret and enforce it. One of the new proposa...

  • Opinion: You'll always offend someone

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 9, 2021

    The Righteous and Holy Arbiters of What is Acceptable now seek to cancel Dr. Seuss. This may be my final last straw with “cancel culture.” Yes, some of Dr. Seuss’ illustrations look insensitive today because he and his drawings aren’t from today, but from an earlier time. I seriously doubt he would draw them the same if he were drawing today. Even then, someone would be offended. His illustrations make everyone look ridiculous in one way or another. Even animals, plants, and g...

  • Opinion: 'Law enforcement' not what we have

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Mar 2, 2021

    A couple of local sheriffs claim to be concerned that new legislation makes “law enforcement” (sic) the enemy. If so, they don’t understand the nature of legislation. Legislation always makes someone the enemy. Both those harmed by the legislation — and make no mistake: all legislation harms some innocent people — and those who enforce that legislation. If policing were limited to law enforcement, they would only be the enemy of actual bad guys. When they act as legislati...

  • Opinion: Start getting prepared for emergencies

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Feb 23, 2021

    I thought the past year had taught people to be prepared and less dependent on rescue by others. It seems I was wrong. This has been quite the year for “preppers.” Just one crisis after another, with the recent cold snap and power outages the latest chapter. If you’re still not a prepper, you have no one to blame but yourself when you get caught off-guard by the next event. You’ve had plenty of warning, and you’ve seen that politicians aren’t able to save you, even if the...

  • Opinion: Politicians responsible for much loss

    Kent McManigal, Local columnist|Updated Feb 16, 2021

    It’s so nice of New Mexico’s political overlords to allow businesses to re-open a bit — until they change their minds again. We should gather in the frozen fields and sing hymns to their glory. Wearing two or three masks each, obviously. If you don’t praise the bully when he beats you slightly less, you’re ungrateful. The past year has been educational. I have learned people will tolerate anything, on the flimsiest of excuses. They will allow politicians to destroy their bus... Full story

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