America’s Culture of Death by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2022 In the wake of another mass shooting, this one in Uvalde, Texas, there have been the standard, predictable calls for gun control. The idea is that if more stringent gun-control laws are enacted, there will be fewer mass shootings. That’s simply ludicrous reasoning. When a person wants to kill a lot of people, he is going to be able to ...
Lessons from Biden’s Disinformation Board Debacle by James Bovard August 1, 2022 President Biden’s campaign to banish (or maybe outlaw) political paranoia took a wallop last spring. In April, the Department of Homeland Security proudly announced that it had created a new Disinformation Governance Board. The following month, the board’s chairman resigned, and Biden administration officials claimed the board was being “paused.” But it remains in the wings awaiting the White ...
It’s Up to Them by Laurence M. Vance August 1, 2022 President Joe Biden has done it again. He’s committed another gaffe. But this comes as no surprise since he acknowledged during a stop on his book tour in 2018 that he was “a gaffe machine,” and has not stopped proving the truth of that statement ever since. In late December of last year, Biden spoke with state governors on a ...
Out of Control Government and Isaiah’s Job by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2022 It is very difficult to be a classical liberal or libertarian and not experience bouts of disappointment, frustration, and outright pessimism. The world around us seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Government continues to grow and, apparently, is out of control. For example, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its semiannual Budget and Economic Outlook, 2022-2032 in ...
Now That Inflation Is Back, Here’s the Book to Read by George Leef August 1, 2022 Inflation: What It Is, Why It’s Bad, and How to Fix It by Steve Forbes, Nathan Lewis, and Elizabeth Ames (Encounter Books, 2022). We have been through this many times before — prices start to increase at an accelerating pace and consumers grumble about inflation, while politicians try to pin the blame for it on parties other than ...
Immigration Socialism, the Drug War, and a Police State by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2022 I grew up on a farm a few miles outside Laredo, Texas, which is located on the U.S.-Mexico border. Our farm was situated on the Rio Grande, so we irrigated our fields from water taken from the river. When we would drive down to the river to fix our irrigation pump, we could see Mexico and would oftentimes wave ...
Did the FBI Swing the 2020 Election? by James Bovard July 1, 2022 Joe Biden won the 2020 election as a result of 43,000 votes in three states. The election was far closer than the media has usually admitted. There were plenty of dubious factors that could have tipped the scales for a Biden victory, including machinations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The long history of FBI abuse Though the media usually portray ...
Libertarian Litmus Tests by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2022 It was hundreds of years ago that scientists discovered that litmus, a water-soluble coloring matter obtained from lichens, turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions, thus functioning as a litmus test to indicate the relative pH of a substance. On a scale of 0 to 14, a neutral solution (water) has a pH of 7.0, while ...
Would You Abdicate If You Could Be the Dictator? by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2022 Leonard E. Read, the founding and long-serving first president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), once told a story about when he first met the famous Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. It was in 1940, shortly after Mises had arrived in the United States from war-torn Europe. Read had invited Mises to Los Angeles to deliver a talk ...
Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich, Part 2 by George Leef July 1, 2022 Part 1 | Part 2 Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich — How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey and Art Carden (University of Chicago Press, 2020). McCloskey and Carden also devote many chapters to refuting mistaken ideas about the reasons for the Great Enrichment. Many economists have explained it as a ...
The Stultification of American Conscience by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2022 One of the fascinating consequences of public (i.e., government) schooling is that it molds the minds of children in such a way that by the time they become adults, their minds inevitably mirror whatever narrative the authorities happen to be advancing at any particular time. In fact, the indoctrination is oftentimes so effective that most of them have no ...
Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again by James Bovard June 1, 2022 The Supreme Court ruled in March that Americans have no right to learn the grisly details of CIA torture because the CIA has never formally confessed its crimes. The case symbolizes how the rule of law has become little more than legal mumbo-jumbo to shroud official crimes. And it is another grim reminder that Americans cannot rely on politically ...