Source: Liberalism.org
by Ilya Somin

“Property rights were central to the origins of the liberal political tradition. And, in our time especially, they should be central once again. In addition to their inherent value as a vital element of liberty and autonomy, bolstering them is essential to uplifting the poor and disadvantaged and boosting prosperity and innovation. The right to private property can also help protect a variety of other important rights.” (09/02/26)

https://www.liberalism.org/p/private-property-for-abundance-and-diversity

Source: Expression
by David Josef Volodzko

“In the summer of 1798, Congress gave the president the power to expel any foreigner he personally judged dangerous. Though the president never used the Alien Friends Act, and it expired two years later, it had its intended result. French printers, teachers, and booksellers sold their belongings and took ship out of Philadelphia, rather than wait to find out if the president had them in mind. Thomas Jefferson later argued that to put such power in the hands of one person is the very definition of despotism. Last Friday, a federal court in California reminded us of this in Stanford Daily v. Rubio, in which Judge Noël Wise held the government cannot deport people for their opinions.” (09/02/26)

https://expression.fire.org/p/our-ancient-faith-in-liberty

Source: Caitlin Johnstone
by Caitlin Johnstone

“In a recent interview with Time Magazine, [Sam] Altman said he knows most people hate the technology that he and his fellow tech plutocrats are imposing upon our civilization. ‘Clearly, people hate data centers — right now, at least. People are pretty negative on AI,’ Altman said. Indeed, a recent survey conducted by CNBC‘s Generation Labs found that the public is very negative on AI in general and on its CEOs in particular. … They know we hate them and what they’re doing to us as a society. And yet they’re doing it anyway. They’re going to keep pushing this technology on us which is stealing our jobs, plunging our society further and further into a tech surveillance dystopia patrolled by militarized drones and police robots, and turning everyone into stupid, artless emotional infants who can’t do anything for ourselves.” (09/02/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/09/02/ai-oligarchs-are-poisoning-our-society-new-issue-of-johnstone/

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie

“Rome gave out free grain to its citizens. It began as emergency relief in a time of shortage. It ended as a permanent entitlement, defended by riot whenever a consul tried to touch it. By the late Republic nobody could remember why it existed. It simply had to continue, because it always had. Britain’s welfare state has followed the same arc. It began, in the years after the war, as a safety net for genuine hardship. It has become, for a growing number of claimants, a permanent address. … There is a different principle available, and it has been tested abroad for long enough now to draw conclusions. Help should be temporary by design. Not grudging, not punitive, but genuinely time-limited, aimed at restoring independence rather than administering it away.” (09/02/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-expiry-date-welfare-needs

Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan

“I’ve been an economics professor for almost 30 years, but I don’t think I’ve ever before seen anything like the table below. I knew that claims that ‘58% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 car repair’ were laughable clickbait. I knew that — measured by income — the middle class is disappearing… by becoming upper-middle class. But only recently did I start to fully appreciate the chasm between populist pessimism and actual data on Americans’ net worth.” (09/02/26)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/reflections-on-americans-net-worth

Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Macela Carmo Dos Santos

“For nearly three years, foreign ministries in Washington, London, and Brussels have debated arms embargoes on Israel in committee rooms, largely without result. Meanwhile, a much less formal network of ordinary people has been trying to accomplish the same goal from the ground up—one factory gate, one shareholder register, and one pension fund at a time. Palestine Action, the direct-action network founded in the UK in 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, is built on a simple theory of change: If governments won’t stop arming Israel, activists will go after the companies that do it for them.” (09/02/26)

https://fpif.org/trying-to-choke-off-the-weapons-behind-gaza/