Mary Ruwart's Blog

Congress passed the 1962 Amendments to the Food & Drug Act in an attempt to make drugs safer; however, if anything, today’s drugs are more dangerous than they were back then. These regulations suppressed life-saving information about food and nutritional supplements, added a decade to the time it takes for life-saving drugs to reach the public, slashed innovation 50-80%, and---as a result---cost each of us at least5-10 years of our lives. Using published studies, Death by Regulation: How We Were Robbed of a Golden Age of Health and How We Can Reclaim It, details how the side effects of bad law can be...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote4 0

Without your health, it’s tough to live a happy, fulfilled life. With the changes in Obamacare, soaring pharmaceutical prices, and the regulatory pressures that favor treatment over prevention, our health is at risk. This one-day program will inform you of little known changes in recent legislation and scientific knowledge that can help you not only survive, but thrive. John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods and Conscious Capitalism, will share his ideas on nutrition, supplements, and other aspects of healthy living. He’ll help you take responsibility for your part in keeping your body “whole.” Starlee Coleman from the Goldwater Institute...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote1 0

In the 1980s, whenever I would go into the classroom to explain libertarian principles, students were very concerned about the idea of private police. They feared that private police would turn into gangs that would steal from, and maybe even kill, the people they were supposed to protect with impunity. My answer was that this was more likely to happen with public police, who could not be fired simply by refusing to continue to pay their fees. My comments were met with a great deal of skepticism, because private policing was rare back in those days. Fast forward to the...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote4 0

Today, SunStar Press of Kalamazoo, Michigan and co-publisher International Society for Individual Liberty of San Francisco, is pleased to announce Healing Our World: The Compassion of Libertarianism has been chosen as a finalist for the 18th annual Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards. The author, Mary J. Ruwart, Ph.D. (www.ruwart.com), currently resides in Burnet, Texas. Healing is in its fourth edition. Former Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) wrote the foreword. Each year, Foreword Reviews shines a light on a select group of indie publishers, university presses, and self-published authors whose work stands out from the crowd. In the next three months,...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote3 0

The United States engaged in the War on Drugs for the same reason it passed Alcohol Prohibition—to save people from themselves. However, people still used intoxicants anyway. When these substances were purchased on the black market, people paid the ultimate price when they died from bathtub gin or adulterated drugs. Shared needles became the most common transmission pathway for AIDS as sale of sterile needles, seen as “drug paraphernalia,” were also banned in many states. Indeed, the War on Drugs kills about 10 times as many people as drugs do, primarily because AIDS is spread this way. The U.S. government...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote8 1

The best way to protect the environment is to deter polluters with restitution. If those who polluted had to clean up their messes, they wouldn’t make them in the first place. Cleaning up pollution is much more time-consuming and expensive than prevention. Unfortunately, the world’s greatest polluter, the US military, is not bound by this principle. Usually, our military claims sovereign immunity, which basically says the sovereign, government, is exempt from its own rules. Sovereign immunity violates the second principle of nonaggression and protects government polluters, who would be more careful if they were required to right their wrongs. Thousands...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote3 0

Many libertarians think of the nonaggression principle as the unwillingness to threaten first strike force, fraud, or theft against another, or what I call “honoring our neighbor’s choice.” However, this is like having the “yin” without the “yang,” the “male” without the “female.” The second part of the nonaggression principle, restoring the victim or righting our wrongs, is just as important as the first. Indeed, without the balance of restitution, the first part of the nonaggression principle creates contradictions. For example, imagine that you are walking down a busy street talking on your cell phone. Someone comes up behind you...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote6 0

The governments of our world are mired in debt. Some people don’t think this is a problem, because we “owe it to ourselves.” However, that debt sits in our retirement funds, our investment portfolios, and in the hands of foreign speculators. At some point, we will be faced with either higher direct or indirect (e.g., inflation) taxes to settle it. Either way, we end up with less. However, there is an “easy way out.” If we were able to create more wealth at a faster pace, our debt could be retired without increases in taxation or inflation. The...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote7 2

As we’ve seen in earlier posts, most poverty in today’s world is a result of aggression-through-government, such as minimum wage and licensing laws (see earlier posts for more detail). We usually support such laws because we are unaware of how harmful they are to the disadvantaged. Without such awareness, we repeat our mistake by using aggression-through-government to give them a welfare check. Most welfare backfires by ensnaring the poor in a never-ending cycle known as the poverty trap. As a landlady renting to low-income tenants, I found out just how the poverty trap works. In the United States, many different...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote2 0

In the early 1900s, our great-grandparents trudged off to their neighborhood school. For the better part of the day, the teacher stood in front of the class, chalk in hand, to expound on lessons contained in the schoolbooks. Today, our children take cars or buses to school, but once they are there, students listen as the teacher stands in front of the class to expound on the lessons contained in the schoolbooks. The facilities are newer, the chalk has become a white board marker, an occasional video clip is shown, and the curriculum includes some additional subjects, but otherwise our...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote2 0

The Federal Reserve is probably the most powerful cartel in the world. Most people think it is a government agency; in fact, it is an organization of private bankers. The US government has given it a monopoly on US currency, which it can inflate or deflate at will. Virtually overnight, the Fed, as it’s often called, can destroy the US economy, creating boom and bust cycles. As goes the United States, goes the world. The government has given the Fed its power in order to get a powerful trade-off. When politicians want to spend, but don’t want you to let...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote3 0

Most people think that government protects the environment, but it actually does just the opposite. For example, Yellowstone Park, the jewel of the US national park system, has been incredibly mismanaged. In 1915, the Park service decided to eradicate the Yellowstone wolves which were deemed to be a menace to the elk, deer, antelope, and mountain sheep that visitors like to see. Eventually the Park subsidized the killing of fox, lynx, martin and fisher too. Without predators, the hoofed mammals flourished and begin to compete with each other for food. The larger elk eventually drove out the white tailed deer,...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote3 0

The last few posts showed how the number of service providers was diminished by licensing laws. Sometimes, licensing laws are deliberately made exclusive, meaning that only one company is allowed to provide us a service. We must use that service provider or do without. Bell Telephone initially had a monopoly on telephone service, created by its patents, which were awarded to Bell rather than his two competitors. When the patents ran out in 1894, smaller companies with more limited service and lower prices started to erode Bell’s monopoly. In the next 15 years, the rate of telephone installations more than...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote2 0

If you were terminally ill, you might wish to try a drug that hadn’t yet been fully tested, but might save your life. In the United States, however, that would make you a criminal. In 1962, Amendments to the Food and Drug Act gave the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unprecedented power to regulate the pharmaceutical industry. As a result, an additional 8-10 years was added to the time it takes to get a drug from the lab bench to the marketplace. AIDS patients couldn’t wait that long. They hired black market chemists to make the drugs that industry...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote4 0

Healing Our World: The Compassion of Libertarianism, is competing for a prestigious Readers' Choice Award, but the deadline is FRIDAY!!! If Healing gets enough votes, Foreword Reviews will promote it to bookstores, libraries, and other book buyers in the next few months. Imagine voters, frustrated with the presidential candidates of the two mainstream parties, searching for an alternative. We can help them discover how liberty can enrich the poor, protect the environment, deter crime, defuse terrorism, and much, much more! You don't have to buy anything to make this happen, pledge money, or even invest a lot of time. All you need to do...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote0 0

We have a chance to get a popular libertarian primer in front of librarians, book stores, and readers who might not otherwise pick it up—right before the elections! My book, Healing Our World: The Compassion of Libertarianism, is a finalist in two separate categories for the prestigious Foreword Reviews “Book of the Year Award.” More importantly, because it is a finalist, YOU have a chance to vote for it as a “Readers’ Choice.” If Healing gets enough votes, Foreword Reviews will promote it to bookstores, libraries, and other book buyers in the next few months. Imagine voters, frustrated with the presidential...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote3 0

We expect licensing laws to protect us from shoddy service providers whose mistakes could kill. However, studies show that the licensing laws themselves are often even more deadly. For example, licensing laws lower the number of electricians in a given area by imposing extra requirements. Fewer electricians mean higher prices. To save money, people attempt to do their own wiring or go without needed repairs. As a consequence, accidental electrocutions go up in states that have the most stringent licensing requirements for electricians. Licensing laws intended to protect us can and do kill. The observation that licensing laws lower the...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote12 9

The last post described how jobs, the vehicle of modern day wealth creation, were destroyed through minimum wage laws. Historically, many people chose to create their own jobs by becoming entrepreneurs. The United States was once considered “the land of opportunity” because there were few restrictions on those who wanted to start their own business. Today, licensing laws prevent many people, especially the disadvantaged, from creating their own jobs, especially in their homes. I rented apartments to a couple of women who were supporting themselves and forced on to welfare by these laws. One was sewing curtains in her apartment...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote1 0

Sometimes, in our eagerness to help the disadvantaged, we violate the non-aggression principle. Since means and ends are related, we end up keeping the disadvantaged from taking their first step up the economic ladder. In the past, immigrants, the unskilled, blacks, and women got on-the-job training by working for a pittance. For example, when I started out in biomedical research in the late 1960s, I was able to work for less than the current minimum wage, because the student lab assistant jobs weren’t yet covered. I had to be trained, which required expensive lab supplies as well as extensive supervision,...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote4 1

The tragic sight of children starving in developing nations evokes the desire to eradicate poverty forever. To be effective is such a quest, however, we need to understand what wealth is and how it is created. We usually equate money with wealth, but they are really two different things. Imagine a person stranded on a desert island without food, water, shelter, or medicine, but with $1 billion in gold coin. Is this person wealthy? Hardly! Food, water, shelter, and medicine — prerequisites for survival – are true wealth. Money can only buy available goods or services. If no wealth is...

By Mary J Ruwart Vote4 0

This regulation is shaving 5-10 years off your life… Mar 25, 2018

Last week to register for potentially life-saving event! Mar 4, 2017

Policing Aggression (from the Cliff Notes Version of “Healing Our World” Nov 14, 2016

“Healing Our World: The Compassion of Libertarianism” named Foreword Reviews’ 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards Finalist Oct 31, 2016

Dealing in Death Oct 10, 2016

Restitution Is the Pollution Solution! (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Sep 14, 2016

Why Restitution Works Better than Punishment (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Sep 6, 2016

How to Create Enough Wealth to Retire the National Debt, Keep Our Promises to Our Seniors, and More! (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Aug 25, 2016

Springing the Poverty Trap (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Aug 12, 2016

Learning Lessons Our Schools Can’t Teach (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Aug 2, 2016

Banking on Aggression (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Jul 25, 2016

Destroying the Environment (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Jul 14, 2016

Creating Monopolies That Control Us (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Jul 1, 2016

Protecting Ourselves to Death (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Jun 21, 2016

Last Day to Make “Healing” an Award Winner! May 19, 2016

Please VOTE to give “Healing Our World” a prestigious “Readers’ Choice” Award! May 7, 2016

Harming Our Health (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Apr 12, 2016

How Small Businesses Are Destroyed (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Jan 24, 2016

How Jobs Are Destroyed (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Dec 15, 2015

Wealth Is Unlimited! (from the “Cliff Notes” version of “Healing Our World”) Dec 6, 2015