Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | The Libertarian Institute

The Civil War Didn’t ‘Settle’ The Question Of State Secession

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Aug 7, 2024 | Featured Articles, History, Politics

Secessionist inclinations are on the rise in the United States, and are sure to intensify after Nov. 5 regardless of which party prevails. When that happens, you can expect the accompanying discourse will be peppered with assertions that states have no right to secede, with many declaring the question was “settled” by the Civil War. The embedded contention that legal and moral questions are rightly and permanently settled by the outcome of a mass-murder contest is absurd on its face. However, the notion is so widely and casually embraced that it invites an emphatic response. It also serves...

A Tiebreaker? Electoral College Rules Could Bring On Constitutional Crisis

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Jun 25, 2024 | Featured Articles, Politics

While many Americans know that an Electoral College tie sends presidential and vice presidential elections into the House of Representatives and Senate, few realize there’s a constitutional crisis lurking in the incomplete rules for resolving such draws. In 2024, scrutiny of these hidden dangers is more than a mere academic exercise, as there are plausible scenarios by which Joe Biden and Donald Trump could end up with 269 electoral votes apiece. One, for example, centers on Trump winning Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and Biden winning Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona. In...

George Washington Warned Against A ‘Passionate Attachment’ To Israel

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | May 14, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

As war rages in Gaza, the intensifying debate over the U.S.-Israel relationship spotlights a glaring political paradox: Those Americans who view George Washington with deepest reverence—that is, would-be “conservatives”—are often the ones who most zealously violate the central tenet of his foreign policy philosophy. Specifically, their fierce devotion to the State of Israel defies Washington’s admonition against “passionate attachments” to other countries—attachments that, he said, inevitably lead America “astray from its duty and its interest.” That’s not to say that excessive advocacy for...

No, World War II Didn’t Cut Short the Depression

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Apr 8, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles

A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum”—and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression. This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds...

Iran’s Jewish Population Belies Claims Of Tehran’s Genocidal Intent

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Feb 28, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

For decades, Israeli government officials—chief among them, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—have accused Iran of plotting a new Holocaust against the millions of Jews who call the Zionist state home. Netanyahu has said Iran is “planning another genocide against our people,” and wants to “destroy another six million plus Jews.” Western journalists are quick to quote these claims, yet slow to publicize contradictory evidence—such as the fact that Iran is home to the Middle East’s second-largest population of Jews, who freely practice their faith, peacefully coexist within the Islamic...

Americans Are Fighting For Control Of Federal Powers That Shouldn’t Exist

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Jan 17, 2024 | Featured Articles

It’s no secret that politics in the United States is growing increasingly acrimonious—to the point that a 2022 poll found 43% of Americans think a civil war is a least somewhat likely in the next decade. But here’s what few people realize: The intensity of our division springs from a federal government operating far beyond the limits of the Constitution—fueling a fight for control over powers that were never supposed to exist at the national level. To put it another way, if the federal government were confined to its actual granted authorities, federal elections would be of little interest...

Penn Students’ Lawsuit Shows Campus Antisemitism Uproar Is A Manufactured Crisis

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Dec 13, 2023 | Featured Articles

Saturday’s resignation of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill came after months of controversy—and a viral-video grilling of Magill in a congressional hearing—over allegations the school has become a hotbed of antisemitism. While those allegations have been given widespread credence, a Stark Realities analysis of dozens of claimed antisemitic incidents at Penn finds that, apart from a small handful of cases, the great majority are merely instances in which Penn students, professors and guest speakers engage in political expression that proponents of the State of Israel strongly...

No Country Has a ‘Right to Exist’

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Nov 2, 2023 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

In the weeks since 2,500 Hamas militants went on a murder and kidnapping rampage in southern Israel, a wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations has erupted across the United States and around the world. These displays have only grown in size and number as Israel’s military responds by punishing the entire, densely-packed population of Gaza with a blockade on food, water and medicine, a devastating bombing campaign and now a ground invasion. While no mass protest is free of people with bigotry and amoral stances, proponents of Israel have been far too quick to accuse pro-Palestinian protesters...