“Illiberalism isn’t limited to the right. As Republicans ramp up their attacks on the DSA—with Trump and other senior Republicans indiscriminately branding democratic socialists and Democrats as communists—the organization practically volunteered to become Exhibit A. On what would have been Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday, the DSA issued a glowing statement describing the late Cuban dictator as a ‘stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination.’ Castro led the revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista’s brutal and corrupt dictatorship in 1959. He then replaced it with a brutal communist dictatorship of his own: a one-party state that imprisoned political opponents, suppressed independent journalism, prohibited meaningful elections, and punished virtually every form of dissent.” (08/24/26)
“Having failed at and then become bored with a shooting war, Donald Trump is returning to what really gets him up in the morning: an economic war. An ‘economic D-Day’ for Iran was announced at around the same time as retaliatory trade measures against Canada, a demonstration of the fact that to Trump, there’s no functional difference between tariffs and economic sanctions. I’ve seen some commentators discuss this as a more humanitarian way to handle Iran, as if starving a country’s citizens is somehow preferable to bombing them. But the combination with Canada, as my colleague Bob Kuttner went over yesterday, reveals that this is just bullying with different tools: a spreadsheet instead of a surface-to-air missile. The nagging problem for any would-be emperor short of Nero is that the ungrateful plebes don’t like the world being created.” (08/25/26)
“Just as every baby boomer knows exactly where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, people my age can tell you precisely what they were doing just after 9 a.m. on 9/11. I was in seventh grade music class. In other classrooms, my friends watched people jump out of buildings. My mom picked me up early from school, and I distinctly remember that every television channel had been overtaken by news coverage. I watched the twin towers collapse over and over again for what felt like days. … The U.S. government responded in many ways that either were largely kept secret from the public or are so integrated into daily life that we no longer recognize them as what they are: marked expansions of government that have weakened constraints on government and eroded our liberties.” (08/24/26)
“Economic planners can’t obtain the knowledge they would need. Prices carry information that no committee could produce. Attempts to impose a uniform design on a spontaneous order tend to destroy the very thing they were trying to improve. But then we turn to politics, and many of us start acting like engineers. Rothbard is the clearest case. About markets he was a thoroughgoing Austrian, insisting that no mind could assemble the knowledge that prices convey. When the subject turned to rights, though, he proceeded almost entirely by deduction, deriving an entire legal and political order from self-ownership and homesteading. … The same thinker who found the market unknowable found the just constitution derivable, as though a system for restraining violence, settling disputes, and determining who owns what were somehow less demanding than the coordination of a grain market, rather than more.” (08/24/26)
“When a government agency comes to an internet service provider demanding information about Americans because of what they have said on social media, the provider should discard the demand, close the door or hang up the phone. The government is not entitled to rummage through the political opinions, associations, criticisms and angry rhetoric of anyone merely because a government official finds those opinions offensive, threatening to an agency’s reputation or inconvenient to its mission. Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dramatically expanded its monitoring of social media platforms and has issued administrative subpoenas seeking information identifying users whose posts have criticized ICE. The reported investigations have included Americans and aliens who have not been charged with crimes.” (08/24/26)
“It took around two hundred years for US government debt to reach one trillion dollars. By contrast, in less than half a year a trillion was added to bring the debt total to the 40 trillion dollars it reached last week. According to the Peterson Foundation, US government debt is on a path to reach 50 trillion dollars within the next six years. Despite promising to reduce government spending in all three of his presidential campaigns, President Trump, with the assistance of congressional Republicans and Democrats, has continued to grow the government debt.” (08/24/26)
“Alas, thoughtful apostasy is vanishingly rare. Not only do most humans dogmatically stick to whatever Big Picture views they embraced when they were 15-25 years old. A large majority of humans who do apostatize do so negligently. Instead of pinpointing subtle inconsistencies in their initial view, they emote. If they even bother to explain their prior intellectual errors, they attack a straw man version of what they used to think, using arguments that they previously would have dismissed as unfair and obtuse. … In recent years, I’ve had the same experience with libertarians becoming culturally conservative. While immigration is almost always the wedge issue, once libertarians turn against immigration, they commonly move on to a bunch of other culturally conservative views. And once again, the more I listen to them, the more I wonder why they changed their minds.” (08/24/26)
“Last week, an article in Governing noted that despite years of reform efforts, roughly one in five jobs in the United States requires government permission in the form of occupational licensing. In a world that is more potentially mobile and flexible than ever, licensing requirements can keep people fixed in place or pose high barriers to entering new trades and professions. The Archbridge Institute’s 2026 State Occupational Licensing Index reveals which states are most burdensome, and which make it relatively easy to earn a living.” (08/24/26)
“Jason Arday was an academic wunderkind and British media darling. When he was hired at Cambridge University in March 2023 as the youngest (and black) professor of Sociology of Education, it was the height of global wokeness. He was greeted with adoring media segment after segment in British media, and even Good Morning America did a profile. Arday’s personal life story of struggles and overcoming them was almost too good, because for the most part, it was. … Cambridge University opened an investigation on August 5 into Arday, after a thorough article examining Arday was published at The Guardian. On August 14, Arday was found dead at his residence and is believed to be a suicide, pending an ongoing investigation.” (08/24/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Carrie Robison
“When government officials threaten to sue and prosecute their constituents over speech, the public should get to see the evidence. Earlier this year, the City of Manton, Michigan, passed a vague resolution condemning what it alleged was ‘a deliberate, ongoing, and escalating campaign of cyberbullying, online harassment, and personal attacks directed at City Commissioners.’ Those so-called attacks included social media posts that allegedly contained ‘deliberate falsehoods’ or threats, or targeted commissioners in ‘an offensive personal manner.’ … It further stated the commission may direct the city attorney to explore legal remedies, including cease-and-desist letters, referring individuals to the county prosecutor for investigation, or bringing civil lawsuits. What were the social media posts that led commissioners to pass the resolution? We don’t know, because the city refuses to say, even after FIRE filed a public records request.” (08/24/26)
