“How can one sign a contract before birth? That question can’t be answered by President Bill Clinton, who said ‘we mustn’t break the solemn compact between generations,’ in a 1998 address on Social Security. Such a speech constructs Social Security as a contractual mandate in need of protection rather than an insurance and redistribution program. Grand national ‘contracts’ should face significant scrutiny, as they borrow the moral force of a contract without the requirements that define one. … Legally, the four requirements of a contract are offer, consideration, acceptance, and an intention to create legal relations. A person not yet born cannot be offered a contract, consider it in any manner or ask for compensation, accept it in any way, or intend legal relations. By any measure, Social Security cannot be a legal contract.” (07/14/26)
“Rubio’s problem with the ICC isn’t that it can ‘override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states.’ It’s that when an American allegedly commits a relevant crime on the soil of an ICC member state, the ICC, rather than US courts, adjudicates the matter. To put it a different way, Rubio’s demand of ICC member states is ‘global sovereignty for the US, no sovereignty for anyone else.'” (07/14/26)
Source: EconLog
by Christopher Coyne & Abigail R Hall
“One of the defining features of war is the centralization of state power. War and foreign intervention require the use of resources and the ability to make choices about how to use them. As national governments are responsible for planning, implementing, and overseeing war and other foreign intervention, war necessarily draws peripheral political units (e.g., state and local authorities) toward the political center. … This bureaucratization of life, the drawing of peripheral units of government toward the political center, effectively erodes the pluralism of democratic governments. Instead of working to provide a check or counterbalance to the central government, peripheral political units become aligned with the goals of the central government.” (07/14/26)
“Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter recently offered what he apparently believed was a devastating answer to those decrying the genocide in Gaza. ‘Jews do not use children’s blood for rituals,’ Leiter said. ‘Jews do not poison wells. And Jews do not starve populations or commit genocide.’ The smear in this common Zionist talking point is obvious: Those who accuse the Israeli government belong in the same moral category as those who spread medieval blood libels against innocent Jews. To say the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed genocide is not merely to criticize a government, an army, or a political ideology. It is to accuse ‘the Jews.’ But there is a growing problem for Zionism and its favorite smear: the moral indignation of Jews.” (07/14/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Let’s give credit where credit is due: The Trump administration, including ICE and the Border Patrol, is showing what needs to be done to ‘secure the border.’ For decades, advocates of America’s socialist system of immigration controls have assumed that it’s possible to have a gentle and benign immigration-control system, one that not only works to keep out illegal immigrants but also treats people with kindness and respect. Among my favorite statist mantras is, ‘We just need comprehensive immigration reform to fix America’s broken immigration system.’ That has always been a pipe dream.” (07/14/26)
“Evan Barker isn’t surprised. ‘The democratic socialist surge of the past several weeks has stunned the nation,’ this former Democratic operative wrote last week. ‘From left to right and everywhere in between, people are asking: How did we get here? What does it mean? And will the Democratic Party survive it? The prevailing reaction has been shock.’ She’s not shocked, though, because for half a decade she had worked for ‘a slew of progressive candidates’ teaching ‘DSA-aligned staffers how to build a money machine for the left; coached progressive politicians on how to speak to donors; and collaborated with billionaires to create a robust fundraising network.'” (07/14/26)
“What better way to observe the semiquincentennial of the American founding than in the company of Russell Kirk? A true gentleman, Kirk spent his career insisting that the founding was neither a revolution in the modern sense nor an experiment in abstraction but, rather, a carefully cultivated inheritance, rooted in centuries of English common law, Christian moral order, and classical wisdom. A new collection of his essays offers a corrective to the sentimentality and ideological appropriation that too often attend our national anniversaries.” (07/14/26)
“Over more than 30 years in Congress, the South Carolina senator reflected the GOP’s cynicism, warmongering, and abandonment of democratic principles.” (07/14/26)
