Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Chapin Lenthall-Cleary
“Acceptance of violence against speakers used to be a liberal thing. No longer.” (09/15/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/violence-is-now-a-gendered-issue
Source: Persuasion
by Jeffery Tyler Syck
“The idea of an egalitarian human dignity at the heart of the political order was not just Jefferson’s quirky view of liberal government and society. For most of liberalism’s early history, liberal thinkers saw themselves as making more universal and secular the Christian idea of the Imago Dei—that everyone is born with God Himself reflected in their being. Yet, over time, liberals changed emphasis. Between Jefferson’s time and our own they started championing legal proceduralism, free market economics, and religious freedom. To be sure, these are valuable aspects of liberalism and should be defended. But none alone has the moral force and philosophic weight to anchor an entire approach to politics.” (09/15/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/liberalisms-most-important-idea
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“Across the political spectrum, Americans continue to tolerate abuses of power so long as those abuses are carried out by the ‘right’ people, against the ‘wrong’ people, or in the name of some emergency deemed too important to question. That is how constitutional government dies. Not all at once. Not with the Constitution formally abolished or the Bill of Rights ripped from the National Archives. It dies by degrees: through executive power that expands while congressional authority withers; emergency powers that never quite disappear; wars waged with little regard for constitutional restraints; surveillance systems capable of tracking whole populations; federal agents empowered to operate with ever less accountability; military forces normalized on American streets; and courts that too often allow questions of standing, immunity and procedure to determine whether unconstitutional conduct will ever be confronted on its merits. Every such precedent makes the next abuse easier.” (09/15/26)
Source: The Crucial Years
by Bill McKibben
“Obviously the story of the moment is the sudden, coordinated bout of cold feet in the AI industry, whose leaders expressed support over the weekend for some kind of effort to slow down the pace of their R&D. This is something that’s never happened in the 40 years of the climate fight, and so it shouldn’t be dismissed; in fact, it could conceivably provide an opening for common sense across the entire apocalypse front. So let’s try to game out how responsible political leaders—which means, I tremble to say, Democrats—might try to talk about it. First, credit where due. The fact there’s an opening at all is owed to the remarkable citizen resistance to data centers that has sprung up in the last year, and also to the courage of a few kids in the AI industry.” (09/16/26)
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-two-horsemen-riding-in-formation
Source: In These Times
by Miles Kampf-Lassin
“In June 2024, investor David Sacks hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for then presidential candidate Donald Trump at his Pacific Heights mansion in San Francisco, bringing together the titans of Silicon Valley and venture capitalism to pledge their allegiance — and financial support — to the candidate promising to make their wildest tech-authoritarian dreams come true. The dinner party was orchestrated by then Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who served as a point of contact between Sacks and Trump, the former real estate tycoon who had notoriously been less than friendly to Big Tech during his first term. This time, however, Trump reportedly struck a different tone, criticizing Bidenera regulations on the ascendant industries of crypto and artificial intelligence (AI), promising to lift them if elected.” (09/15/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/tech-trump-vance-crypto-artificial-intelligence-silicon-valley
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jonah Goldberg
“Just this week, Trump excoriated Ukraine for targeting Russia’s oil infrastructure because it’s creating problems for him. ‘Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing,’ Trump said. ‘He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel.’ Trump — who endlessly insisted on the campaign trail that he could ‘end the war in Ukraine in one day’ — doesn’t demand Putin stop murdering Ukrainians. He instead demands that Ukrainians not fight back in a way that inconveniences Trump amid a surge in oil prices overwhelmingly caused by the war Trump started with Iran.” (09/15/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Exclaiming against the upsurge in popularity for socialism, especially among young people, right-wingers wax eloquent about the virtues of America’s ‘capitalist’ system. By the same token, left-wingers vehemently denounce America’s ‘capitalist’ system. Notice the common denominator: Both right-wingers and left-wingers have absolutely no doubts that Americans live under a capitalist system.” (09/15/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/09/15/its-no-surprise-that-young-americans-are-going-for-socialism/
Source: Agorist Nexus
by Derek R Wills
“Black markets are often dismissed with prejudice by the general population due to the state’s conditioning that they are inherently immoral, unethical, and evil. Even when presented with evidence of the state’s hand as the root cause of violent outcomes — such as the prime example of alcohol prohibition — the average person continues the misguided belief that malum prohibitum is still a justifiable excuse for the state’s use of force. After all, if the legislature declares a voluntary exchange illegal, then the exchange itself somehow becomes immoral, and the state’s guns become virtuous. Black markets are condemned by habit, not by reason. The average mind has been trained to recoil at the term and to associate unlicensed commerce with violence, chaos, and predation. This is not only backwards but objectively false.” (09/15/26)
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
‘The biggest reason to oppose use of ALPRs is that they create an ongoing, persistent, nationwide web of warrantless search and surveillance that encompasses everyone who drives, without probable cause to believe that those drivers have committed particular crimes or even that those particular crimes have actually occurred. That’s something the government isn’t supposed to be able to do. It’s also something the government doesn’t NEED to do.” (09/15/26)
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ron Paul
“President Trump has justified tanking the US economy by claiming the attack on Iran was essential because they were about to get a nuclear weapon. Our intelligence community disagreed, but he refused to listen and took his cue from Netanyahu instead. It turns out Iran actually does have a ‘nuclear weapon.’ That weapon is the ability to control the world’s oil flows at a margin high enough to cripple the economies of any country seeking to conquer it.” (09/15/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2026/09/14/the-crippling-effects-of-unnecessary-war