“They said it was for safety. They said it was for order. They said it was for the good of the nation. They always say it’s for something good … until it isn’t. Nearly a quarter-century after 9/11, we are still living with the consequences of fear-driven government power grabs. What began as ‘temporary’ measures for our security have hardened into a permanent architecture of control. The bipartisan police-state architecture that began with 9/11 has been passed from president to president and party to party, each recycling the same justifications — safety, security, patriotism — to expand its powers at the expense of the citizenry.” (09/11/25)
“Tuesday’s strike was an odd but telling maneuver: kill the people you’re trying to negotiate with to prolong the war you say you’re trying to end. But it wasn’t the first time. In strikes on Tehran in June, Israel tried to assassinate Ali Shamkhani, the Iranian official overseeing nuclear talks with the Trump administration. … There is indeed a double standard at play, but not in the way that is often assumed. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that appears to have an unlimited right to defend itself, while simultaneously denying that right to others. It can act with impunity across international borders, violate sovereignty and disrupt diplomatic processes — consequences be damned. No other country in the region, or anywhere else, enjoys such latitude. This isn’t only about Israel, though. It’s about us — about America’s willingness to enable behavior that we would condemn from any other nation.” (09/11/25)
“If the feds won’t eliminate patents and government research funding, they should at least eliminate any and all combinations of the two, rather than demanding their own taste of the racket’s revenues.” (09/11/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“With the murder of 31-year-old noted conservative advocate Charlie Kirk, it’s worth asking an important question: Is America great again yet? My answer: Far from it. In my book, Kirk’s killing demonstrates that America is still a very sick, dysfunctional nation. Not only are there periodic killings like this one, there are also mass killings. … And let’s not forget that we still live in a massive drug-addled society, one in which millions of Americans are ingesting drugs because, U.S. officials say, they are being ‘attacked’ by international drug dealers who, I guess, are somehow forcing them to ingest the drugs against their will.” (09/11/25)
“The president and his minions are effectively claiming that he has unchecked, unreviewable authority to mete out death to anyone he deems to be a threat. For all intents and purposes, Trump is claiming to be an absolute ruler and he is acting like a barbaric despot. This is the danger that opponents of presidential usurpation and the warfare state have been warning against for decades, and now it is here. This is lawless tyranny out in the open for everyone to see. The tyrant isn’t concealing his abuses of power. He is proud of them.” (09/11/25)
“The period of finger-pointing and blame-shifting among Democrats for their 2024 election defeat should be near its end, but not before hearing from Kamala Harris. Her book on the 2024 campaign, 107 Days, will be released by Simon & Schuster on September 23, but The Atlantic has published an excerpt about her life as vice president prior to Joe Biden’s announcement that he was dropping out. The only way to put it is that Harris is seething with anger over her treatment by Team Biden before she was suddenly thrust into the global limelight as putative replacement candidate.” (09/10/25)
“John Locke’s idea that tyranny is arbitrary power as opposed to the rule of law seems to underlie the whole classical liberal tradition (see Locke’s Second Treatise of Government [1690, Chapter 18]). Arbitrary power allows the state or any other central political authority to discriminate among its subjects by bribing its supporters and harming its opponents. In reality, public discrimination (in the sense of state discrimination) is probably a synonym of arbitrary power. The gradual discovery of the rule of law has come with the idea that the state should not discriminate among its citizens, residents, and often even foreigners.” (09/11/25)
Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen
“Intellectuals argue — they provide reasons for their view and against the views of their opponents. … Killing someone for engaging in argument is obviously anti-intellectual. We all know this. And it doesn’t matter if we disagree with the intellectual. … To stop the maelstrom of political hatred and violence, we need to stop incentivizing people to seek power through intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) means. We need to listen to experts, but even then we must listen critically, questioningly, with some degree of skepticism.” (09/11/25)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Nico Perrino
“Sigmund Freud once said civilization started the day man first cast a word instead of a stone. He was right. Words are not violence. Words are what we use instead of violence to resolve our differences. We must not lose sight of this civilization-defining distinction. Unfortunately, since 2021, we’ve seen a steady rise in support for violence in response to speech on campus. … While we do not know the identity or motive of the gunman, what happened yesterday is indicative of a broader cancer in our body politic that we must address. But it must not be addressed with censorship.” (09/11/25)
“Right after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017 someone punched white nationalist Richard Spencer in the face on live television. This led to several days of the internet asking whether it is okay to sucker punch Nazis. (The answer, for those who missed that session, is that no, it is not okay to sucker punch people who have noxious views, because it is not okay to sucker punch people, period.) At the time I was deeply disturbed to see how many people were willing to endorse political violence. In retrospect, this seems almost quaint.” (09/11/25)
