Hunter DeRensis | The Libertarian Institute

A Review of Sinners (2025)

by Hunter DeRensis | May 1, 2025 | Blog

This review contains spoilers for Ryan Coogler's Sinners (2025). It is reprinted from Libertarian Institute editor Hunter DeRensis' Letterboxd. I never expected that I would be quoting Zora Neale Hurston in back-to-back film reviews, but her insights are too valuable for setting the scene of Sinners (2025), which takes place in a “juke joint” in Clarksdale, Mississippi in October 1932. She writes: “Jook is the word for a Negro pleasure house…the house set apart on public works where the men and women dance, drink, and gamble…Musically speaking, the Jook is the most important place in...

Libertarianism: Manual to Humanity

by Hunter DeRensis | Jan 22, 2024 | Blog, Libertarianism

Brian Gray has an essay, originally featured at the 2019 Libertarian Scholars Conference, making the case for libertarianism's non-aggression principle and the concept of an objective, universal morality at his blog Anarcholife.

Reevaluating Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston

by Hunter DeRensis | Jan 2, 2024 | Book Reviews, Featured Articles, History

The Iron Dice of Battle: Albert Sidney Johnston and the Civil War in the West by Timothy B. Smith (LSU Press: 2023), 248 pages "You were still reading that book when I walked by three hours ago. It must be a good one." Sitting outside the cafe, I looked up to see a man strolling by on the sidewalk. I gave him an affirmative smile, and turned my book so he could see the cover. All afternoon on that chilly mid-December day my mind was fully embedded in The Iron Dice of Battle, the first major biography of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston in nearly six decades. I chose this compact...

These Iraq War Supporters Are Still in Congress

by Hunter DeRensis | Mar 18, 2023 | Blog, Foreign Policy, Politics

On March 19, 2003 the United States began its military invasion of Iraq. The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq passed Congress in October 2002, with 296 congressmen and 77 senators voting in favor of giving President George W. Bush carte blanche authority to decide if and when to go to war. Twenty years later, this is a list of members of Congress who voted for the AUMF and are still in office. There are sixteen congressmen, including nine Republicans and seven Democrats. Ken Calvert (R-CA) Darrell Issa (R-CA) Mike Simpson (R-ID) Hal Rogers (R-KY) Sam Graves (R-MO) Chris...

Scott Horton on Kennedy Nation 10/17/2022: Biden has always been a degenerate

by Hunter DeRensis | Oct 18, 2022 | Blog

Three Kennedys and Scott discuss the recession, the war in Ukraine and Biden's sickening degeneracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_db95LMBhZI

A Dissenter’s History of the First World War

by Hunter DeRensis | Jul 11, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Just as villains can be more compelling than heroes, are dissidents more intriguing than the leaders of history? “I’ve been interested, in some ways, in the history of losers,” Justus Doenecke tells The American Conservative. Doenecke, who taught at New College of Florida from 1969 to 2005, made his reputation in the historical profession through an open-minded reappraisal of arguably the most prominent group of American losers in the twentieth century: the pre-World War II anti-interventionists. These were the middle Americans who saw Franklin Roosevelt’s foreign policy as the path to...

Press Release: Survivors of Israel’s Strike on USS Liberty Commemorate 55th Year

by Hunter DeRensis | May 23, 2022 | Blog, Events

Survivors and of the brutal Israeli military attack against the American communications vessel U.S.S. Liberty will gather at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. on June 8 to commemorate the memories of 34 Americans who were killed and host a 55 year reunion at the Holiday Inn Arlington, Virginia on June 6-9. While patrolling in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked without warning or justification by air and naval forces of the State of Israel. Of a crew of 294 officers and men, including three civilians, 34 crew...

Veterans’ Group Responds to Liz Cheney: ‘Put Up or Shut Up’

by Hunter DeRensis | Feb 7, 2022 | Blog, Foreign Policy

Today Bring Our Troops Home, a national organization of Global War on Terror veterans, called on Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney to stop using the U.S. Constitution "as a media prop" and support congressional war powers as stated in Article I, Section 8. "It is time for Liz Cheney to either put up or shut up. In a weak attempt to defend herself after the Republican National Committee rebuked her, Cheney tried to claim she was standing on constitutional grounds. It is a lie," said Sgt. Dan McKnight, Chairman of Bring Our Troops Home. In reaction to the censure enacted Friday by the...