“‘Empires, by Pride & Folly & Extravagance, ruin themselves like Individuals.’ Benjamin Franklin wasn’t merely reciting history; he was warning us. Because every empire follows the same script. And while the common themes are overextension, debt, or even running the printing press, those are merely symptoms of the deadly disease. The root cause is always the same: Consolidate power. The eventual destruction of liberty and final collapse are guaranteed. And now, it’s our turn. This is the story of how empire destroys liberty, because liberty must die for empires to live.” (01/21/26)
“Trump’s attacks on working people (threats to send troops into major U.S. cities, ripping collective bargaining rights from a million federal workers, an immigration enforcement terror campaign that borders on unconstitutional) have been so extreme that many people are talking about a general strike. These calls are coming not just from the usual suspects, but even from my own mayor, former Chicago Teachers Union leader and organizer Brandon Johnson. We’ve all heard calls for a general strike before — usually not as a serious proposal or strategy, but as a reaction to the attacks that working people face on a regular basis from existing political and economic power.” (01/21/25)
“‘Trump’s Second Term Has Ended the Conservative Era.’ That’s the headline to a column by Ross Douthat that’s been widely discussed in my corner of the world (indeed, we talked about it on The Dispatch Podcast yesterday, and Ramesh Ponnuru has a typically good column obliquely responding to it today). … I am the last person to hold columnists fully accountable to their headlines, because we usually don’t write them. But I should say the title doesn’t really match the essay. That doesn’t mean the headline is wrong or that Ross disagrees with it. But his column is more about how Trump might be remembered. The key word there is ‘might,’ because Ross admits he doesn’t know.” (01/21/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“The common mindset among most Americans is that the United States could never become a totalitarian-like country — that is, one in which freedom of speech is sharply curtailed, protests and demonstrations are violently suppressed, people are kidnapped on the streets and quickly incarcerated in secret prisons without trial or due process, prisoners are tortured, no one dares to criticize what is occurring, deep fear exists within the citizenry, the powers of the president and the national-security establishment are omnipotent, elections are temporarily suspended, and people have convinced themselves that all this totalitarian tyranny is necessary because some national-security emergency requires it. Yet, there is one big problem with that mindset: U.S. officials have demonstrated that they favor that way of life, at least in foreign countries.” (01/21/26)
“The U.S. has never needed to own Greenland to secure North America, and there is nothing to negotiate. Greenland is not ‘our territory,’ it never has been, and it never will be if the people of Greenland have anything to say about it. The president is a deranged revisionist who wants to ‘reclaim’ territory that has never belonged to our country. The president’s claim that his expansionist mania has something to do with security is a lie. Trump’s fixation on Greenland is akin to Smeagol’s desire for the Ring. ‘We wants it’ is the sole motivation behind this. The president is driven by nothing but gnawing greed. Trump said that he won’t use force to steal Greenland. No one should believe him when he says that, but it is no consolation when he is willing to use coercion and threats to intimidate the people of Greenland and Denmark.” (01/21/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Rudolph Kohn
“If you happened to be a fly on the wall at a Libertarian National Convention, you might see this happen: Someone will take a microphone and ask for a point of information. Then, he will ask, ‘Is taxation theft?’ The Chair will then answer, ‘Yes.’ Then the convention-goers will laugh, and clap, and pass over this momentary interruption, and get back to deciding who they want to run for the positions at the head of this gang of thieves. Why expend so much time, money, and energy trying to gain seats at the top of this band of robbers? Because the alternative that every voluntary organization must offer is denied to them: exit. … of all the coercive acts in a state’s arsenal, I argue that the worst is dominion, because it makes all the others possible.” (01/21/26)
“I’m saddened to discover how few people value liberty more than they hate other people and love big government. It wasn’t a surprise, but I still hate to see it. One faction hates gun owners and wants armed government employees to take their guns and kill them if they resist. Another faction hates people who dwell somewhere without government permission and wants armed government employees to kidnap, cage, and evict them. They are happy to see government agents kill these people and their supporters if either of them resist. They don’t realize how similar they are; both want to hand illegitimate power over you and me to government.” (01/21/26)
“A year into Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Justice has become his private law firm, devoted less to the impartial administration of justice than to blackmailing, intimidating, and persecuting Trump’s foes while selectively enforcing the law to spare allies who break it. … The decision to ignore evidence that demands investigation or prosecution can be equally nefarious, as we’ve seen in Minneapolis, where federal authorities refused to investigate a masked government agent for shooting an unarmed mom in the face, and where half a dozen federal prosecutors have since resigned after being pushed to investigate the woman’s widow instead. These are all examples of the executive branch abusing its prosecutorial discretion. And thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court, Trump is likely to get away with it.” (01/21/26)
“California’s potential adoption of a one-time 5 percent ‘billionaire tax’ on the net worth of high-value individuals is already sending wealthy residents fleeing for the exits. By one estimate, at least a trillion dollars has moved beyond the reach of state officials. But a new analysis says the tax may be even more onerous than advertised. Californians may need to get used to the sight of moving vans leaving the state.” (01/21/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Australia’s Labor government has successfully passed a ‘hate speech’ bill that’s plainly aimed, at least in part, at suppressing pro-Palestine organizations as ‘hate groups.’ Free speech advocates are sounding the alarm about the new laws, saying their extremely vague wording, lack of procedural fairness and low thresholds for implementation mean groups can now be banned if they make people feel unsafe or upset without ever actually posing any physical harm to anyone. For me the most illuminating insight into what these laws are actually designed to do came up in an ABC interview with Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Tuesday. … Rowland was asked by ABC’s David Speers to clarify whether the new laws could see activist groups banned for criticizing Israel and opposing its genocidal atrocities in a way that causes Jewish Australians to feel upset feelings, and she refused to rule out the possibility every single time.” (01/21/25)
