Category: Opinion

Source: Law & Liberty
by Titus Techera

“At Reykjavik, Reagan paired principle with strategy and hard-nosed negotiations.” (09/04/26)

https://lawliberty.org/reagan-and-gorbachev-on-the-brink/

Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman

“No charge leveled against individualist, pro-capitalist classical liberalism has been less deserved or more enduring than the charge of heartless Social Darwinism. The absurdity of it is obvious after a few moments’ thought. Charles Darwin’s findings on natural selection described the ‘struggle for life’ among the lower animals, which must essentially adapt themselves to their environment as they find it. (Some species instinctively make limited, repetitive modifications.) In contrast, in a capitalist society, competition turns from a life-and-death contest among consumers to a creative contest among producers who change the environment in their quest for consumers’ freely chosen custom.” (09/04/26)

https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-was-spencer-a-social-darwinist

Source: In These Times
by Cathy Otten

“In the middle of the ocean, a man was drowning. He could not hold fast to the ropes dangling from the bow and stern of the bulk carrier that stopped to help. Below, a small, blue wooden boat crammed with people was tossed by a raging storm. As high winds sloshed water over the deck, the passengers — who had sailed for a day and a night without drinking water — rushed toward the swaying ropes. But the lines slipped through their hands. The children lacked the strength to climb. Even for the strong, a single slip could mean being crushed beneath the swaying hull of the massive ship. ‘We were all very scared in the moment and drove away from [the] big ship,’ Daniel [a pseudonym], a survivor from Eritrea, reportedly told rescuers, describing how the migrant boat he was on powered away from the larger vessel in fear of being capsized.” (09/07/26)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/migrant-deaths-mediterranean-sea-europe

Source: Independent Institute
by Ryanne Swanson & Raymond J March

“Payton Herres successfully underwent heart transplantation surgery as a preteen. A year later, she began taking everolimus—a vital medication used to prevent her body from rejecting the transplant. Her insurance provider soon after denied coverage, leaving her with an indispensable but largely unaffordable prescription. Herres’[s] situation was alarming, but not uncommon. About 30% of Americans find themselves with uncovered treatment despite having health insurance. Unfortunately, medications for rare and/or chronic conditions, in some cases, have no generic alternatives. Not covering expensive but seldom-utilized treatments is an easy way for health insurance providers to cut costs. Unfortunately, these decisions can leave unsuspecting and financially strapped policyholders with few options. This is when Mark Cuban stepped in.” (09/04/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/09/04/mark-cuban-competition-prescription-drug-coverage/

Source: The American Conservative
by James P Pinkerton

“So is the Pentagon doing right by drones, or not? Until there’s some new war somewhere, we simply won’t know. Obviously, plenty have loud opinions, but the paucity of hard facts—the proof is in the fighting—has inspired one savant, abiding in the immortal empyrean, to warn against bad methodology: ‘One begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’ Who is this sage? Why, Sherlock Holmes, of course. Okay, Holmes is a fictional character, and yet his methods—pattern recognition, omission analysis, structured inference—are timeless.” (09/04/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-adventure-of-sherlock-holmes-and-the-future-of-war/

Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison

“Since the U.S. and Israel started the war at the end of February, at least 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed, and the total is probably much higher. Compared to the horrors of the war in Gaza, that may seem low, but these are all lives of innocent people snuffed out in a war that the president started on a whim. If not for the criminal actions of the U.S. and Israeli governments, all these people would be alive today. When we count the human cost of our government’s wars, we tend to give short shrift to the lives of the people in the country that our military is bombing. Even though Iranians are the ones bearing the brunt of our government’s aggression, their deaths and injuries are often treated as an afterthought. The loss of innocent lives caused by our military never seems to generate that much outrage.” (09/03/26)

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/the-human-cost-of-the-iran-war

Source: USA Today
by Ilya Somin

“Democratic socialism is a terrible ideology. If implemented, its agenda would cause grave harm and imperil democracy itself. And in seeking massive state control of the economy, today’s socialists ironically have much in common with the MAGA nationalists they claim to oppose. Both promote government control over the economy, and both paths undermine liberty, prosperity and democracy. Socialists do not control the Democratic Party in the way MAGA largely dominates the Republicans. But their influence is growing.” (09/03/26)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2026/09/03/socialism-maga-government-control-economy/91565398007/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Michael Pakaluk

“It is curious how ‘the common good,’ when it bubbles into public discourse, always seems to be at the center of bitter controversy. One would expect that everyone would be in favor of ‘the common good,’ or at worst that it would represent the kind of vaguely uplifting language that few find objectionable. Instead, it leads to rancor. That was certainly the case with the recent controversy involving public personalities at the Daily Wire, National Review, and other right-wing outlets. Critics of the New Right suspect that its members are using the phrase ‘common good’ as a sanctimonious smokescreen to avoid serious discussion of their real priorities and purpose. That suspicion, it seems to me, is largely correct.” (09/03/26)

https://lawliberty.org/abusing-aristotle/

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie

“In ancient Greece and Rome a leisured class could pursue philosophy, politics and the arts because slaves did the work. … A similar transformation happened much more recently, and to far more people, without anyone being enslaved at all. It happened in the twentieth century, in the ordinary home. Before the washing machine, doing the laundry for a family could take the best part of a day: hauling water, heating it, scrubbing, wringing, hanging out to dry. Before the vacuum cleaner, carpets were beaten by hand. Before the dishwasher, someone stood at a sink after every meal. … We are now entering a new phase of the same process, and it is set to be larger than anything that came before. Robots and artificial intelligence are beginning to do the work that used to require a person.” (09/03/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-new-domestic-revolution

Source: Washington Post
by Stuart Anderson & Mark Regets

“Donald Trump is on track to become the first president in a century to oversee a U.S. labor force that will be smaller when he leaves office than when he entered. Since the start of his second term, the number of people in the United States who are either employed or looking for a job has dropped by 1.6 million — and it’s largely because of Trump’s immigration restrictions. Unless those policies change, a shrinking workforce will cause slower economic growth and lead to more expensive public debt. This is an anomaly in U.S. history. The civilian labor force has increased by the end of every president’s term, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln’s because of the number of people who left the workforce to fight in the Civil War.” (09/03/26)

https://archive.is/CS1bS