Today's two major contenders for political power seem to be elitists and populists. Funnily enough, both types are present in each of the big tribes known as progressive/liberal and conservatism, left and right, or Democratic and Republican. (Here's the lowdown on...
Sheldon Richman
TGIF: Tribalism and the Dark Art of the Package Deal
by Sheldon Richman | Sep 1, 2023 | Featured Articles, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Tribalism not only lives; it rules -- even more than I thought! I've been reading Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis's book The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America. It's certainly clarified my thinking. The Lewis brothers are a...
TGIF: Why the State Is Corrupt
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 25, 2023 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Why is government corrupt? You'll notice that I did not ask, "Is government corrupt." We've had enough experience to go right to the main question. I might have softened it with the phrase tends to be to acknowledge that not everyone in government is corrupt, at least...
TGIF: On “Giving Back”
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 18, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
P&G, the maker of popular household brands like Tide and Downy laundry products, is giving away $10,000 in college scholarships. That's $1.5 million and 150 scholarships in all. My problem, aside from its encouraging college attendance, is with how the company is...
TGIF: Why Liberty Matters
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 11, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Why does liberty matter? It’s a fair question because, after all, not everyone thinks it matters very much, perhaps beyond some very basic point. If that’s an overstatement, we can safely say that for many people on the left and right, liberty is a lower priority than...
TGIF: Shame on Government for Censoring Us
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 4, 2023 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Alas, federal District Judge Terry A. Doughty's preliminary injunction against government censorship of us on social media has been put on hold. So rules three members of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But this stay of the injunction in State of Missouri et al....
TGIF: What about Politicians?
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 28, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The best-selling social scientist and, it so happens, libertarian Bryan Caplan thinks politicians are immoral. Sounds promising. He's discussed this online and in one of his published blog-post collections, How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery. What are we...
TGIF: Paternalists Cross the Free-Speech Line
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 21, 2023 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Some pundits are puzzled that respectable mainstream Democrats and "progressives" are no longer free-speech absolutists but rather are enthusiastic defenders of the government's massive effort to squelch expression on the social media platforms. (Glenn Greenwald is...