“Every day, the news brings fresh reminders of just how divided we are. Violent protests. Political attacks. Horrific headlines, like the murders and attempted murders of lawmakers in Minnesota. Each incident is immediately seized upon as proof of how far gone the other side is — evidence of either creeping authoritarianism or runaway anarchy. But the greater danger may not be in what’s happening — as horrific as it is — but in how we’re choosing to see it. We no longer interpret events through a shared lens of concern or accountability. Instead, we reflexively use them to confirm the worst beliefs we hold about one another. Are the protests in Los Angeles a sign of civic unrest or extremist violence? Is President Donald Trump offering law-and-order assistance in California — or is he flexing authoritarian muscle? The answers depend on your politics. But more importantly, they depend on your assumptions.” (06/21/25)
“In Offended Freedom: The Rise of Libertarian Authoritarianism, two Swiss sociologists, Carolin Amlinger and Oliver Nachtwey, indulge in a common academic habit: blaming libertarians for an intellectual and social phenomena that they find alarming. Their bill of particulars fails to stick because of conceptual incoherence, mistaking radical opposition to any government policy — even one that allows more liberty than the disgruntled person wants — as ‘libertarian,’ and categorizing perfectly understandable anger at government overreach as inherently ‘authoritarian.’ The authoritarians the authors study — those angry at more open immigration — are not at all libertarian. The study’s libertarians — those who opposed COVID-19 restrictions — are antiauthoritarian.” (for publication 07/25)
“The Trump battle cry is America First. Revealingly, it is not Americans First. The former signifies, implicitly if not explicitly, national collectivism; the latter, individualism. To the extent Trump has a political worldview, it is not individualist. We cannot doubt that. All of this is abundantly clear in his Iran policy, which is not just about Israel and Iran. This is not new. His seeming antiwar stance was an opportunistic political ploy. The Republican and Democratic wars of the 21st century were palpable fiascos, so of course he had to distance himself from them if he was to become the president. If he is good at anything, it is in finding his opponent’s weakness. But what he says bears no necessary relation to what he believes.” (06/20/25)
“Defaulting to routine invasive scanning means an end to providing users with encryption, including users threatened by despotic regimes. Current law already requires platforms to report known examples of material that entails the sexual abuse of children. Any good or service that can be put to good use can also be put to evil use. Just as we shouldn’t penalize the makers of knives, forks, mail, curtains, roads, and guns for their use by criminals, the makers of encryption services should also not be so punished. Nor should we grant to government bodies such a frightening dystopian power, accumulated to override our basic freedoms.” (06/20/25)
“It was early afternoon in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Amala Dufour was having her first canvassing conversation of the day. Clad in a bright, lime green baseball cap with ’FREEZE THE RENT’ lettering, Dufour handed a petition to a young Black woman, who, bracing the clipboard against her door frame to sign, had just recounted Dufour’s pitch to perfection. Both Dufour — and now the woman she just recruited to the cause — are among a group of more than 20,000 New York City tenants pledging to vote for Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, June 24, in large part because he is the only mayoral candidate unequivocally backing the call for a four-year freeze on increases in rent-stabilized apartments.” [editor’s note: If their only “choice” is between scumbag grandma-killer Cuomo and avowed commie Mamdani, not much hope for the Apple – SAT] (06/21/25)
“If there’s any lesson to learn from two decades of US and Israeli pressure on Iran to shut down a non-existent ‘nuclear weapons program,’ starting with economic sanctions and leading inevitably to Israeli airstrikes and open war on the apt date of Friday the 13th, it’s that an Iran with nuclear weapons just might be the best option if the goal is to calm down the Middle East.” (06/19/25)
“People barely care about relative income. How do we know? Because you can easily raise your relative income by moving to a poorer neighborhood, state, or country. Yet almost no one does. Actions speak louder than words. People barely care about equality. How do we know? Because you can easily experience more equality by moving to a more equal neighborhood, state, or country. Yet almost no one does. Actions, again, speak louder than words. But now that we’ve established the hypocrisy of a vast swath of statists, an awkward question arises: Can we use the same ‘actions speak louder than words’ logic to show that libertarians barely care about liberty?” (06/19/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Zoltán Kész
“Economic nationalism is back in fashion. In Washington, the slogan ‘Buy American’ is the flavor of the day, promising mandatory US purchases, domestic production, and protection of ‘American jobs.’ This policy is central not only to Donald Trump’s rhetoric but also to that of the previous Joe Biden administration. It sounds good at first. No one opposes more jobs for Americans, stronger industry, and the idea of strategic independence from certain global supply chains. But all these slogans conceal the fact that the ‘Buy American’ ethos is not punishing corporations — it’s ordinary American consumers and small businesses that end up paying the price.” (06/19/25)
“The most important decision of President Donald Trump’s life is before him. It is the decision of whether or not to order the United States military to assist Israel in destroying what remains of Iran’s nuclear weapons [sic] and ballistic missile programs. The U.S. has the capabilities to do so. Does President Trump have the will to order it be done? If he does, he will almost certainly bring this war to an end and open the road to a vast expansion of the Abraham Accords.” [editor’s note: Every time I think Hewitt is all out of ways to get any damn dumber, he hands me his beer – TLK] (06/19/25)
