Politics

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 2

by George Leef July 24, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) Caplan follows up on that observation with a devastating point about the calculating political mindset. Suppose that a politician had to choose between a populace of nothing but independent, self-supporting individuals or one with a large percentage of envious layabouts ...

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 1

by George Leef June 12, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) If you are a libertarian, or just someone with a streak of skepticism about government, you will enjoy and profit from reading How Evil are Politicians? The author, Bryan Caplan, is a professor of economics at George Mason ...

Biden Weaponizes Hate to Win Votes

by James Bovard February 1, 2023

Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” President Biden confirmed this axiom in his raging speeches prior to the mid-term congressional elections. Throughout his career, Biden has relied on a two-step routine —first appealing to “our better angels” before demagogically vilifying his opponents. In December 2020, after the Electoral College ...

When Will Congress Admit Its Mistakes?

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2022

“I was wrong,” says a group of New York Times opinion writers. “Eight Times Opinion columnists revisit their incorrect predictions and bad advice — and reflect on why they changed their minds” is the statement that appears at the end of each of the articles. “I was wrong about inflation,” writes Paul Krugman. He “made a very bad call” when ...

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 ...

Leftists Lose When People Move

by Scott McPherson April 22, 2022

Over half of the American people believe the country is on the “wrong track,” according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released back in February. And it's not even close. Sixty-three percent expressed this concern. By comparison, just 24 percent are happy with the state of the nation. Republicans and Independents, 86 percent and 67 percent respectively, are most alarmed, but ...

Political Rhetoric Hides the Reality of Peaceful Production vs. Plunder

by Richard M. Ebeling September 13, 2021

The very nature of modern democratic politics is that it is seen as a means and a mechanism to transfer income to some in society at others’ expense. Virtually every politician runs for office on a campaign platform that promises to extend concrete and specific benefits to various selected groups through the taxing or regulating powers of government. This means ...

Congress Is Still Unfit to Govern

by James Bovard March 1, 2021

“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap,” Napoleon is reputed to have said more than two centuries ago. Boundless ignorance is also not a handicap, as Congress demonstrated last December by approving a 5593-page bill without reading it. Plenty of activists and editorial pages howled over the sloppy procedures propelling $2.3 trillion in new federal spending. James Madison warned in ...

Trump’s Fall and the Rise of the Tribal Collectivists

by Richard M. Ebeling January 20, 2021

It has often been said that religious wars are the most unforgiving because one or both protagonists are absolutely, if not fanatically, certain that “the” truth is on their side. This is threatening to become the situation in America today with the ideological dogmatism seen in the mindset and extremism of the identity politics warriors and cancel culture crusaders, ...

Non-Issues in the 2020 Election

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2021

In one of his trenchant commentaries written about a month before the election, Future of Freedom Foundation president Jacob G. Hornberger asked the question, “Where Are Open Borders in the Presidential Race?” He then made these observations: Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, immigration is not a big burning issue in the presidential race. There is a simple reason for that: Both ...

The Stench Of Bipartisan Cooperation On The Potomac

by David Stockman December 9, 2020

Well, here is a picture worth a thousand words. Featured front and center is Mr. Crony Capitalist Never Trumper, Mitt Romney, explaining how  another $908 billion of Everything Bailouts–on top of the $3.5 trillion that have gone before—is  just the thing to do. In the above photo Romney is speaking for a “bipartisan” group ...

Why Politics Breeds Divisive Fears and Angers

by Richard M. Ebeling November 11, 2020

The recent presidential election confirms and reinforces what many political observers and common citizens have increasingly known and noted: Americans are seriously divided over the problems they see facing society, and the means and methods to solve or reduce their impact on all of us. This division of views is, of course, partly shown in the number of votes cast ...