Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Allen Mendenhall

“My son, age 13, knew Charlie better than I did, if it can be called knowing to watch a man through a screen. Thirteen is an age suspended between innocence and experience: old enough to see that ideas have consequences, young enough to hope those consequences need not include death. He would watch Charlie debate, and what he learned was not any particular doctrine but something more fundamental: that it is possible to believe strongly enough to defend those beliefs in public, to submit one’s convictions to the test of argument and counterargument. When he got out of school yesterday, I had to tell him that the man whose clarity of thought he admired had been murdered for, it seems, the crime of thinking aloud.” (09/11/25)

https://fee.org/articles/freedom-of-speech-is-all/

Source: Niskanen Center
by Lawson Mansell

“Each year, few developments in healthcare policy are more consequential than the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) payment updates. These rules determine how much doctors and hospitals are paid by Medicare—decisions that ripple across the entire healthcare system, shaping the supply of medical care and influencing the rates private insurers pay. This summer, CMS released the new administration’s first proposal for adjusting Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. The proposed 2026 rule begins to rebalance reimbursements by shifting spending away from hospital-owned settings for care and toward primary care and other freestanding outpatient clinics.” (09/11/25)

https://www.niskanencenter.org/cms-rules-site-neutral

Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman

“A liberal in the 19th century was a believer in small government, free markets, and individual freedom, roughly what we now call a libertarian. ‘Libertarian’ had earlier been used for left anarchists, still earlier for believers in the doctrine of free will. In the mid-20th Century, after opponents of liberalism stole its name, believers in classical liberalism started calling themselves libertarians. While ‘libertarian’ can still mean a left anarchist, ‘left libertarian’ usually means a libertarian in the newer sense who supports ideas or policies usually identified with the left.” (09/11/25)

https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/left-libertarianisms-886

Source: Reason
by Jesse Walker

“These self-employed prisoners earned more than inmates in traditional prison jobs and were more likely than other inmates to be rehabilitated.” (for publication 10/25)

https://reason.com/2025/09/11/let-prisoners-work-for-themselves/

Source: USA Today
by Rex Huppke

“We shouldn’t have to live in a country where the instant a tragedy like the killing of Kirk or the Denver school shooting happens, every politician and every soul with a social media account rises up and boldly declares: I CONDEMN VIOLENCE OF ANY KIND! Of course you do. That should be a given. Those who don’t condemn violence of any kind are outliers, attention seekers, opportunistic ideologues. Condemnation of violence is inherently human. But we live in a country that has so much violence – political violence, street violence, domestic violence – that we find it necessary to either take out our bullhorn and make clear our dislike of violence or blame the violence on people we don’t like. All of that is horrible. It’s not how a functioning society should operate.” (09/11/25)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/09/11/charlie-kirk-shooting-violence-us/86083016007/

Source: The UnPopulist
by Robert Tracinski

“The president’s appalling statement warned of reprisals and crackdowns against his political enemies.” (09/11/25)

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-is-already-exploiting-the-heinous

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie

“Many people receiving state benefits prefer to think of them as coming from ‘the universe,’ or some impersonal source rather than from taxpayers’ contributions. If benefits are thought of as transfers from workers, recipients may feel stigmatized, as though they are dependent on, or a burden to, others. They are dependent on, and supported by others, but they prefer not to acknowledge that fact. Imagining benefits as coming from a neutral, impersonal source, or even ‘the universe,’ helps them preserve the dignity of not having the sense of being beholden to any particular people.” (09/11/25)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/state-benefits-come-from-nowhere