ID cards are an idea whose time should never come
By John Silveira
October 28, 2001
I just read in the October 8th issue of U.S. News and World Report a column by Randall E. Stross in which he advocates some kind of national I.D. Card....
How America can be saved from stupid people
By Dave Duffy
Issue #155 • September/October, 2015
Fifteen years ago (in Issue No. 65) I wrote an article in this space titled, "Can America Be Saved from Stupid People?" It was widely read and stirred...
My View: Jury duty: The charge was rape
Dave Duffy
I was on jury duty for 2½ weeks between issues. On trial was a 21-year-old man (now 23) accused of raping a 20-year-old girl during an encounter two years previous in which both...
Can an understanding of math and statistics save America’s freedoms?
By Dave Duffy
Issue #66 • November/December, 2000
The other day John Silveira and I were walking by a gas station in Gold Beach, Oregon, where this magazine is located, when I remarked, "The price of...
Goodbye TV, hello constructive time
By Dave Duffy
Issue #67 • January/February, 2001
About six months ago the satellite dish for my family's TV stopped working. Because we are too far from cable TV and an antenna does not bring in...
Animal rights loonies save the chickens but ruin the County Fair
By Dave Duffy
Issue #84 • November/December, 2003
We had our County Fair between issues.
It was a small Fair with just a few thousand in attendance, but no one in our town of 1500 would miss...
Against a rapist
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #65 • September/October, 2000
Can you use lethal force in self-defense against a rapist? The answer, of course, is yes. Deadly force is permissible only in a situation of "immediate, otherwise unavoidable...
If you want to take care of your health, you have to take control...
By Dave Duffy
Issue #100 • July/August, 2006
The other day a man called the office to thank me for writing Issue 98's page 7 editorial, in which I urged readers to get a stress test...
The land of the unfree
By John Silveira
Issue #101 • September/October, 2006
It's official! The numbers are in once again! For I-don't-know-how-many-years-running, the United States, this so-called "land of the free," is imprisoning more people, in both absolute numbers and...
My View: Three Cheers for Free Enterprise
By Dave Duffy
I love free enterprise. I see it all the time in our many trips across the country to show Backwoods Home Magazine at the fairs and expos we attend. Perhaps the most...
Consider the trades when it comes to your future ability to make money
By Patrice Lewis
When I was in my late teens and getting ready to attend college, my father gave me a piece of advice: “Study whatever you want, but always make sure you have a...
If you want to survive an emergency, look to yourself, not the Government
By Dave Duffy
Issue #96 • November/December, 2005
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath said what I could not have said convincingly in ten thousand words: The government cannot protect you in a major emergency. It doesn't...
Putting it all on the Amtrak line for Self-Reliance magazine
By Dave Duffy
Issue #163 • January/February, 2017
As publisher of Backwoods Home Magazine for 28 years, I have not had to work as hard in recent years, as younger people like Managing Editor Jessie Denning...
Do rural homeowners need guns for self-defense?
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #72 • November/December, 2001
Do rural homeowners need guns for self-defense? Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, according to Ayoob's experience, but those who did never really knew they would until...
Understanding the gun debate, part 1
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #161 • September/October, 2016
It has been said that gun legislation and abortion are the two most polarizing issues in the United States. The former has taken the lead on both the...
The parasitic nature of bureaucracy
By Dave Duffy
Issue #106 • July/August, 2007
As we go to print with this issue, my local newspaper's main page one headline reads: County tax levy soundly defeated. I applauded at my desk to the...
