Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute

Afghanistan and the Sham of Democracy Promotion

by Jim Bovard | Aug 27, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Americans finally recognize the military lies that pervaded the success claims of the 20-year war in Afghanistan. But democracy promotion was an even bigger sham. Afghanistan was Exhibit A for the triumphal crusade to spread freedom and democracy. After the U.S. invasion in 2001, the U.S. government spent more than $600 million to support elections and democratic procedures in Afghanistan (part of the $143 billion the U.S. spent there for relief and reconstruction). Washington bragging points were always more important than Afghan preferences. "In 2002 and 2003, when Afghan tribal councils...

Nixon Closed the Gold Window and Stole My Political Innocence

by Jim Bovard | Aug 16, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles

Fifty years ago, on August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced that the U.S. government would cease honoring its pledge to pay gold to redeem the dollars held by foreign central banks. Nixon declared he was taking “action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators.” But there was no way to defend the dollar against politicians. Nixon touted his default as therapy for his tormented fellow citizens, promising it would “help us snap out of the self-doubt, the self-disparagement that saps our energy and erodes our confidence in ourselves.” Nixon wrapped his decree with lofty...

America’s COVID Kulaks

by Jim Bovard | Aug 6, 2021 | Featured Articles, Politics

"Shut up and submit” is now the favorite COVID cure of some of America’s leading progressives. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist, revealed on Tuesday that since freedom is a mirage, people have no good reason not to comply with endless government commands. Unfortunately, punitive panaceas are increasingly popular among both politicians and pundits. Krugman breezily expunges years of Supreme Court rulings to remove any impediment to forcibly injecting a hundred million Americans with an experimental vaccine. Krugman explains that “when people on the right...

Biden’s New Budget Busting Bill

by Jim Bovard | Aug 3, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics

Since the 1800s, surly Americans have derided politicians for spending tax dollars “like drunken sailors.” Until recently, that was considered a grave character fault. But Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act shows that inebriated spending is now the path to national salvation. It was a common saying in America in the 1930s that “we cannot squander our way to prosperity.” But that was before the latest “best and brightest” crop took the helm of the federal government. The Rescue Act is based on blind faith in government spending—the revival of the “Magic Bean School of Political Economy.”...

America’s Gubernatorial Dictatorships

by Jim Bovard | Jul 15, 2021 | Featured Articles, Politics

There are no fact-checkers for victory laps. Last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo summarized his experience with the COVID-19 crisis: “Speaking for myself, it was a tremendous personal benefit.” Cuomo made that declaration in a speech concluding his one-year chairmanship of the National Governors Association. Because Cuomo’s spiel sought to rewrite history to exonerate politicians who ravaged Americans’ rights and liberties, it requires a rebuttal. Cuomo declared that “we maximized the moment as governors. Governors have a new credibility. Governors have a new status.” Cuomo epitomized...

National Service and the State’s Condemnation of Youthful Independence

by Jim Bovard | Jul 9, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

"Beatings will continue until morale improves” has morphed from an old joke to the latest prescription for national salvation. “Compulsory National Service Could Unite America,” whooped a New York Times Op-ed headline last week. Prominent media outlets, think tanks, and too many professors and former generals are calling for government to commandeer a year of young Americans’ lives to forcibly restore their faith in the political system. Rep. John Delaney made a one-year mandatory service requirement for every 18-year-old a keystone of his Democratic presidential campaign. Last year, the...

The NSA Is Spying on Tucker Carlson (and Everyone Else)

by Jim Bovard | Jul 2, 2021 | Featured Articles

Fox News host Tucker Carlson was mocked on social media this week for stating that he had been told that the National Security Agency was reading his private emails and spying on him. The usual suspects called Carlson paranoid, because there are so many checks and balances to assure the feds would never illegally target a vexatious Biden critic. However, on Tuesday, a dissent by Travis LeBlanc, a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, revealed that one of the NSA’s most intrusive surveillance engines, XKeyscore, may be violating federal law and Americans’ rights and...

How the Biden White House Seeks to Reinvent ‘Domestic Terrorism’

by Jim Bovard | Jun 28, 2021 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles

The Biden administration revealed on Tuesday that guys who can’t get laid may be terrorist threats due to “involuntary celibate–violent extremism.” That revelation is part of a new crackdown that identifies legions of potential “domestic terrorists” that the feds can castigate and investigate. But there is no reason to expect Biden administration anti-terrorism and anti-extremism efforts to be less of a farce and menace than similar post-9/11 campaigns. Since the French Revolution, politicians have defined terrorism to stigmatize their opponents, a precedent followed by the Biden...