Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Independent Institute
by Phillip W Magness

“The significance of trade to the Revolution’s origins helps to resolve a long-observed paradox about the colonists’ motives. Despite the Revolution’s reputation as a tax revolt, Americans paid relatively low tax rates compared to people in England proper. The total sum was ‘paltry,’ and most of Parliament’s new revenue measures were ‘moderate and often short-lived,’ to quote economist Deirdre Nansen Mccloskey. They nonetheless sparked a political upheaval against the assertion of a novel and foreign authority. The issue was not the tax rate; it was the fact that Parliament could claim a tax power over trade, and thus over all else.” (07/06/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/06/america-founded-tariff-men/

Source: Persuasion
by Harry Cheadle

“Alicia Kennedy, one of the most celebrated food writers of her generation, sometimes seems to approach food as a series of moral dilemmas waiting to be untangled. In her new memoir, On Eating—a useful starting point to consider progressive culture as a whole—she writes that alcohol ‘is one of the most wasteful things one can consume, producing twelve times the wastewater for the amount of spirit created.’ Climate change may make wheat scarce, she worries. Sugar, meanwhile, conjures up a litany of horrors—it was originally harvested by slaves, and the present-day sugar industry is often accused of mistreating workers. … For at least a decade, left-of-center, educated, middle-class-and-above Westerners have become inflamed with guilt for the way we live. In a roundabout way, the left has reinvented the idea of sin.” (07/06/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/progressives-have-reinvented-sin

Source: The Daily Economy
by Thomas Savidge

“Pandemic-era aid allowed many states to expand spending without confronting long-term costs. The bill is coming due.” (07/07/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/states-relying-on-federal-aid-face-a-reckoning/

Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Marie McMullan

“For nearly four decades, students in America’s public schools have experienced a straightjacketed version of the First Amendment. That’s due to the Supreme Court’s Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier decision. School administrators — who are government officials — have used Hazelwood to censor student expression, often prioritizing the school’s reputation over student voices. These administrators mark certain stories and topics as off-limits, including critiques of school boards or commentary on federal immigration policy. … Justice Samuel Alito’s recent dissent calling the Court to reconsider Hazelwood should be echoed, not dismissed.” (07/06/26)

https://www.fire.org/news/hazelwood-training-wheels-version-free-speech-its-past-time-court-revisited-it

Source: Liberal Currents
by Mathan Goldwag

“Today it is not revolutionary communists but so-called conservatives who wish to trample on human individuality in service of dreams of a remade society.” (07/07/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/there-is-no-such-thing-as-society/