Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Patrick McIlheran

“A political scientist laid out the grim numbers about lopsided ideology among his fellow Florida professors—whose donations go to Democrats by a 9-to-1 margin over Republicans—and ended up giving Wisconsinites who want exposure to a fuller spectrum of ideas something to dream about. Because when that political scientist, Ryan Owens, was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he found in 2024 that the margin there was more like 490-to-1. This tilt isn’t just a curiosity or fodder for talk-radio segments. It leads, Owens tells me, to blind spots that weaken universities’ place in society.” (08/10/26)

https://fee.org/articles/florida-shows-how-to-demand-a-more-open-minded-academia/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan DePetris

“Of course, permitting an Iranian toll or fee structure isn’t ideal. Before the war, such a hypothetical would have been difficult to imagine. The strait at that time was free and open, and roughly 120 to 150 ships relied on the route each day to get their products to customers worldwide. The United States wants Iran to return to this status quo. Yet Iran has no intention of doing so — and to expect otherwise is to be completely ignorant of how events have played out since. Trump’s war handed Iran the perfect excuse to leverage its geography, and the Iranians didn’t hesitate to do so.” (08/10/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/straight-of-hormuz-toll/

Source: Persuasion
by Eboo Patel

“A field that once illuminated scarce truths has become an ideology in search of evidence.” (08/10/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/we-must-save-sociology-from-itself

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

Source: Law & Liberty
by Josh Blackman

“Two recent decisions show Chief Justice Roberts’s institutionalism can sometimes be more like illusionism.” (08/10/26)

https://lawliberty.org/a-tale-of-two-chiefs/

Source: Students For Liberty
by Ilia Zhuzhunashvili

“Observing a single ant often reveals little about the organization of ant behavior. Its movements may appear erratic: it changes direction, retraces its path, pauses, and resumes without any obvious plan. Considered in isolation, the ant does not seem to act with clear purpose or coordination. The colony, however, presents a very different picture. What appears disordered at the level of the individual can become highly structured at the level of the group. When a source of food is introduced, ants may rapidly establish a direct and efficient route between the nest and the food. The resulting trail can resemble a carefully planned transport network. Yet no individual ant designs the route, issues instructions, or oversees the movement of the colony.” (08/10/26)

https://studentsforliberty.org/blog/can-ants-teach-us-anything-about-free-markets/