Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan

“If I were a socialist, I’d be desperate to deny that the Nazis were socialists. Why? Well, it’s bad enough that: * The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics turned out to be a nightmarish totalitarian despotism, a dystopia of mass slavery and mass murder. * The USSR, by conquest and imitation, spawned dozens of additional nightmarish totalitarian despotisms. * These despotisms included the jaw-dropping hellscape of Maoist China, the world’s most populous country at the time. Yet as long as Nazi Germany was not socialist or even anti-socialist, the socialist can find solace in the fact that the Soviet Union was the primary agent in the defeat of an even more nightmarish totalitarian despotism.” (07/01/26)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/nazism-socialism-and-the-philosophy

Source: Independent Institute
by Daniel Sánchez-Piñol

“The California Billionaire Tax Act has qualified for the November 2026 ballot, promising a massive cash windfall for the state. Proponents confidently declare that it will yield around $100 billion. On paper the calculation seems a no-brainer. If you take the net worth of California’s billionaires from the Forbes list at the beginning of the year, roughly $2 trillion, and apply the proposed one-time 5 percent wealth tax, you land right around $100 billion. However, while the arithmetic is straightforward, the economics are shaky. A foundational principle of economics is that individuals respond to incentives. Apply this principle to California’s wealth tax scheme and a different picture emerges.” (07/01/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/01/california-wealth-tax-accountants-dream-economists-nightmare/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Max Skjönsberg

“One Nation Conservatives emphasize the paternalistic, socially cohesive, and pragmatic virtues of ‘Old England,’ in opposition to reforming free-marketeers and socialists alike, as a British version of centrism. They are the ones Margaret Thatcher called ‘wets,’ though even Thatcher’s ‘sons’ were affected by their force. When Miliband spoke of ‘One Nation’ in a Blue Labour voice, then-Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron launched his own version of Disraelian politics in the form of the ‘Big Society,’ which turned out to be, as the British would say, a damp squib. More recently, One Nation Conservatism has been pitched as an alternative to populism, though Brexit and Reform leader (and one-time Thatcherite) Nigel Farage appears now to have a stronger appeal with the working class, perhaps thanks to his echoing of Disraelian themes.” (07/01/26)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-making-of-one-nation-conservatism/

Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille

“Last week, two federal agents went to David Streever’s home in Rochester, New York, to warn him over a strongly worded email he sent to then-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) interim director Todd Lyons, according to Michelle Breidenbach of the Post-Standard. As such missives often do, Streever’s email evokes the Nazis, telling Lyons: ‘You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher.’ It goes on to excoriate him over the protesters killed by federal agents in Minnesota and predicts, ‘you will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.’ The email is harsh. But at no point is it threatening. It’s the sort of message that public figures of all sorts receive and discard every day. Except that federal officials seem to be emulating the thin-skinned current president’s attitude towards criticism.” (07/01/26)

https://reason.com/2026/07/01/thin-skinned-government-agents-threaten-yet-another-critic/