“The world seems to be moving at an accelerated rate in a more collectivist direction. The potential trade wars set in motion by Donald Trump’s sky-high tariffs are simply the most glaring sign of this dangerous trend. For more than a century, various forms of government intervention, redistribution, and planning have replaced the far more free-market, classical-liberal world that existed before the First World War.What free-market liberalism offers as an ideal and as a goal of public policy, Mises declared, is an equality of individual rights for all under the rule of law, with privileges and favors for none.” (08/19/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry McDonald
“When we hear the word entrepreneur, many of us think of Silicon Valley stars like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and others who have created sprawling, successful companies whose products and services seep into our everyday lives. These entrepreneurs may be household names, but they are more the exception than the rule. Everyday entrepreneurs — the ordinary people launching and leading small businesses — form the backbone of the US economy. … The education entrepreneurs I interviewed for my new book, Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling, are incredibly diverse, but there are several common qualities shared by most of them.” (08/19/25)
Source: Chris Matthew Sciabarra
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
“My mother’s sister Joan married Frank J. Rubino before the U.S. entrance into the Second World War. Frank was a principled man who was ideologically committed to defeating fascism and racism — both at home and abroad. … Not even the difficulties of military training could deter Frank’s fighting spirit. In a letter from Camp Blanding, Florida, dated December 18, 1943, he described the awful experience of boot camp in a tone that might be recognizable to some of today’s recruits …” (08/19/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Israel is so fucking evil that it has a military unit dedicated to coming up with excuses for the IDF’s atrocities. +972 reports that the IDF has a special unit it calls the ‘Legitimization Cell,’ because it is tasked with finding justifications to legitimize the assassination of journalists and other war crimes for the purpose of ‘public relations.’ Probably goes without saying, but if Israel was on the side of truth and morality it would not have a military unit dedicated to manipulating the public narrative about actions which normal people would see as extremely evil. … I have never been less open to people with different opinions than I am with Gaza. I am simply correct, and if you disagree with me you are wrong and I hate you.” (08/17/25)
“The imperial logic is familiar. Washington successfully weaponized Ukrainian nationalism to weaken a key rival, while bearing minimal direct costs. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian casualties represent losses that are acceptable within U.S. imperial calculus, insofar as Russian power is diminished and U.S. hegemony preserved. The strategy mirrors historical imperial practices of using local populations as hapless cannon fodder in great power struggles, revealing the fundamentally exploitative nature of an American global dominance that masquerades as promoting democracy and human rights. Both the U.S. and Russia fundamentally operate as crime syndicates on a worldwide scale, pursuing power and wealth through violence, threats, and bribery.” (08/19/25)
“The legacy of entitlement programs from FDR to LBJ has been largely framed in terms of charity, solidarity, and community. Many people on the left, and even some on the right, laud these programs for creating a social safety net and for contributing to the fabric of society. Some have hailed these collectivist programs for reducing poverty. But collectivism is not charity. Nor does it generate true solidarity. Nor does it constitute civil society. It pretends to be and to do all these things. Collectivism wears the mask of charity and camaraderie. Though collectivism always brings tragedy, pointing out past failures doesn’t fully unmask it. It continues to capture people’s imaginations because it feeds their desire to belong and to participate in community.” (08/19/25)
“Since the end of World War II, Americans crafted and then embraced a rather disjointed relationship with war, exhilarated by its possibilities to transform the world and make them safe, while also fearing wars they could not prevent or, perhaps worse, win. This tension between faith and fear has haunted Americans and led to a persistent failure to align ends and means in carrying out US foreign relations.” (08/19/25)
“US President Donald Trump and Republicans face a daunting challenge: How to preserve power in the wake of their wildly unpopular policies? Their strategy is to intensify the GOP’s decades-long quest to limit voter participation. Selecting the voters likely to cast ballots for them is far better than letting all voters select their leaders. Trump has taken the strategy to a whole new level. And he’s doing it out of fear and desperation. During midterm elections, the president’s party loses seats in Congress. In Trump’s first term, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House in 2018. In 2010, President Barack Obama’s Democrats lost 63. The exceptions are few and far between. In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush’s GOP gained eight House seats in 2002, but then lost 30 in 2006. In 1998, President Bill Clinton’s Democrats gained five seats, but that didn’t offset the 52 seats that they had lost in 1994.” (08/19/25)
“While adding more police officers to a peaceful society won’t likely decrease crime much, a violent community is another story. People in these communities need greater safety to live their lives. Without becoming a statistic. Law enforcement that is visible on the street can surely help. But rethinking the meaning of ‘safety’ won’t. So what’s burning? Democratic hopes, maybe. We’ll see how Trump’s move to clean up the capital goes. Yet, if he tries to use the National Guard in other cities without constitutional warrant, that’d go beyond mere policing, into police-state territory.” (08/19/25)
