Disaster Relief, Foreign Aid, and Ukraine by Laurence M. Vance September 5, 2023 The deadly fire in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui is the fire seen round the world. The death toll is in the hundreds, with hundreds more still missing and thousands of people evacuated. There is a lot of blame to go around. Progressives are blaming the severity of the fire on climate change. Some people are questioning why ...
The Myth of NATO as a Defensive Alliance by Ted Galen Carpenter August 31, 2023 Western leaders have long fostered the self-serving myth that NATO is an organization solely for the mutual defense of its members. The corollary is that other nations therefore have no legitimate reason to fear the most powerful military alliance in history. After all, it is an association of peace-loving democracies. The operational expression of the myth is ...
Macaulay and My 75-Cent Epiphanies, Part 1 by James Bovard August 30, 2023 Fearing that my writing style was becoming anemic, I recently sought a literary booster shot from my bookshelves. Happily, a dozen volumes of Thomas Macaulay awaited me. Macaulay made history mesmerizing, and I have been captivated by his speed, grace, and wit for 40 years. Nobody would mistake my shelf of Macaulay books for leather-bound collector items. In 1981, I ...
“Tax Expenditures” Is a Misnomer by Laurence M. Vance August 25, 2023 The April 18 deadline for Americans to file their 2022 income tax returns had hardly passed before House Republicans began to talk about reviving three tax breaks for businesses that had lapsed or begun to phrase out under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that the Republican-controlled Congress passed, and President Trump signed into law, in 2017. The TCJA The ...
George Goschen on Laissez-Faire and the Dangers of Government Interference by Richard M. Ebeling August 24, 2023 The counterrevolution against the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century has been at work for more than 150 years. In the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, the triumph of a philosophy of individual rights and liberty, impartial rule of law, private property, freedom of trade and enterprise domestically and in international relations, and attempts to mitigate, if not end, wars ...
From Press Room Raids to Indictments, Anything Goes When the Government Piles On by John W. Whitehead August 23, 2023 “When players are piled on top of each other after a mad scramble for a loose ball, it’s a free-for-all. There are no rules. Anything goes. That’s because there’s nobody in the pile to monitor what’s going on.”—Mike Thomas, sports editor What is playing out before our eyes right now should be familiar to any fan of ...
The Real Lessons from the Iraq War, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger August 22, 2023 Part 1 | Part 2 Our nation was founded as a limited-government republic. It was a type of government whose powers were few and limited. That’s the way our ancestors wanted it. They believed that the greatest threat to their freedom and well-being lay not with some foreign threat but rather with their very own government. Our ancestors were fiercely ...
Have Religious Conservatives Lost Their Minds? by Laurence M. Vance August 17, 2023 Although the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution, the concept is based on the First Amendment, which reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, ...
Biden’s Wrecking Ball Benevolence for Homebuyers by James Bovard August 16, 2023 When did being creditworthy become a federal crime? The Biden administration is intentionally punishing homebuyers with good credit scores to subsidize people with shaky histories of paying their debts. But the latest salvation scheme ignores the sordid history of federal policymakers ravaging homeowners they promised to rescue. As of May 1, a Biden administration decree requires adjusting mortgage calculations to ...
Too Far, or Not Far Enough? by Laurence M. Vance August 14, 2023 In his October 22, 2020, column in the New York Times, titled “When Libertarianism Goes Bad,” establishment economist Paul Krugman bemoaned the “libertarian rhetoric” he was hearing from Republican politicians while they questioned the usefulness of wearing face masks during the “pandemic.” This rhetoric he described as “a lot of talk about ‘freedom’ and ‘personal responsibility.’” But in addition to ...
The Dangerous Pursuit of Empire: Russia, China, and the United States by Richard M. Ebeling August 11, 2023 Giving up the reality, the nostalgia, or the dream of empire is very difficult for those in political power, and even for those citizens who have bought into their government’s indoctrination and propaganda. Historically, empire-builders and political leaders often seem to hold certain attitudes and ideas in common. First, they believe that they and their group or nation are on ...
Everyone Should Have the Same Freedom to Contract — or Not by George Leef August 9, 2023 The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case, 303 Creative v. Elenis, that seems to turn on the meaning of the First Amendment. In my view, this is indeed an important case, but casting it as a free speech dispute is mistaken. The real issue is whether all Americans enjoy freedom of contract, or if, instead, some ...