In 1966, Dr Timothy Leary argued for the widespread usage of psychedelics in an attempt to raise the collective consciousness of American society. His famous phrase, “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out” inspired generations of psychonauts to seek an elevated level of cognition. The eponymous spoken word album addressed topics ranging from anti-school ideas to Indian spirituality. The aim of the phrase was to raise the consciousness of an entire generation, to promote views completely separate from societal norms. Psychedelics have been illegal since 1970, alongside many other drugs that were demonised ..read more

On Wednesday 15th December, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that members of Congress should be allowed trade stocks. Pelosi argued that “We’re a free market economy, they should be able to participate in that”. This comes after a Business Insider investigation revealed that over 50 members of Congress had violated the STOCK Act, which was designed to combat insider trading. It is pertinent to highlight that Nancy Pelosi made over $11.9 million worth of trades last year, which puts her fifth highest out of the House of Representatives. Pelosi also had a mean stock price increase of 10.6% in t ..read more

There is no better feeling than watching your team do well, particularly if it comes at the expense of a rival. As a football fan, some of my best experiences have been at derby days, where the other team and their fans are the enemies and are subjected to chants, jeers, and the rest for ninety-plus minutes. This is part of the atmosphere that makes football great, but this hyperpartisanship ends for most when the final whistle blows. After that, the red and blue teams go their separate ways until the next meeting. This is the sort of tribal mentality that is a from times long past, and it is ..read more

The conversation about the United Kingdom giving up its nuclear arsenal has been led by pacifists, and they have not been very successful. A more Hawkish approach to the subject may prove more palatable to the British public. As Jeremy Corbyn found out during the 2017 General Election, being against nuclear weapons is seen as a sign of weakness. I intend to set out by removing the Nuclear option; Britain can retain all of the benefits of the Nuclear umbrella while being free to spend more on its conventional forces.  The UK nuclear deterrent consists of four Vanguard-class submarines arme ..read more

Through a throwaway comment on Reddit I have recently been made aware of a disgusting part of the internet. The hashtag #mnsfw which stands for “minor not safe for work” continues to make ground on Twitter with users as young as 14 offering to sell explicit photos of themselves. Users who post with this hashtag use subtle tools to make their age clear but not explicit. An example being: “I’m -15 +29”. This user was 14 and posting explicit photos of themselves. In the United States, the legal age of pornography is 18 years old. This is the same in the United Kingdom. How then, does Twitter cont ..read more

Just another famous person once said that in order to spur our creativity we should look at things closely. For someone with both myopia and great creative anxiety, this was a source of constant frustration for me. I dropped my eyes to the ground, as if searching for a solution; but instead of directly diving into some plain surface I came across a weird fractional object: my hands. I started looking at them in such a thorough manner that my initial shallow observations like the length of the fingers, the dryness of the knuckles, the negligent vibe of my nail polish, suddenly became too claust ..read more

How do you side when one of your views meets and makes conflict with another? I believe in a woman’s right to choose, in her right to govern her own body, her right to abort what grows within it. I believe that, following conception, aborting those cells, however developed, is murder. I believe in free market principles but also that all people are fallible and the economy of those people needs management to prevent the excesses of those fallible men and women. I agree in the value of sovereignty and autonomy but draw issue with any man or women’s inalienable right to certain land – how can th ..read more

Is Koch’s vilification by the media justified? David Koch, born in Kansas in 1940, joined his father’s company, Koch Industries, in 1970 and after setting up a New York division, became President of it in 1979. On August 23rd David Koch passed away, although his cause of death was undisclosed, he had been battling prostate cancer for close to 28 years. After his death was announced the media was quick to point out the lasting and damaging legacy that Koch had left behind. The information put forth in these articles would make it easy to build up an image of Koch who, through his death, managed ..read more

Likening sadness to illness has long been thought of as a convenient means of ridding the world of grief and perpetual melancholy. The time for this misconception to end is now. Mental illness is a myth, and before you lambast this article, I urge you to carry on reading.  It was only until recently that mental illnesses fell under the domain of disease. Prior to this shift disease was thought of largely as ‘an alteration of the bodily structure’ such as smallpox or syphilis,  whilst mental afflictions lay outside this definition. What constitutes a disease now, however, includes bot ..read more

In simple terms: the EU single market = more capitalism. The European Union is a customs union. This means that all member states have removed customs barriers (tariffs, levies, duties and embargoes) on all other member states. This is to ensure that, within this union, there are normal conditions of capitalist competition. If a no-deal situation were to occur, the UK would leave this customs union and we would be forced to fall back on WTO rules. Every WTO member has a list of tariffs and quotas on certain goods that are applied to other member states. So, just as an example, under WTO rule ..read more