Will Trump Revive America’s Filibustering Habit?

Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño

“Men with rifles, investors with appetites, and consultants with slide decks have always read a permissive Washington as an invitation, and America has a long-forgotten tradition of citizens who accepted taking military action without waiting for orders from DC. They were called filibusters, from the Spanish filibustero, borrowed in turn from the Dutch word for freebooter. The practice began in the 1790s, when Americans plotted private assaults on Spanish possessions to the south and British Canada to the north. Congress answered with the Neutrality Act of 1794 and a tougher version in 1818, making it a federal crime to launch a military expedition from American soil against a nation at peace with the United States. Americans flouted both for seventy years.” (08/10/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/will-trump-revive-americas-filibustering-habit