Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute

Debacles at Home and Abroad Propel ‘Defend the Guard’

by Jim Bovard | Jan 30, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The National Guard is back in the headlines thanks to a showdown at the Texas border and Joe Biden’s latest foreign policy debacle. The Biden administration has refused to enforce federal law to limit undocumented immigrants (many of whom “lost” their documents just before arriving at the U.S. border) from crossing from Mexico into the United States. The Transportation Security Administration permits those new arrivals to board domestic flights merely by showing their Department of Homeland Security arrest warrants as identification. (American citizens are permitted no such luxury.) Texas...

Davos Demolition Derby for World Freedom

by Jim Bovard | Jan 22, 2024 | Featured Articles

The World Economic Forum had their annual conference last week in Davos, Switzerland. Once again, the Davos crowd ran a demolition derby for the destruction of liberty around the globe. The WEF seized the COVID pandemic to champion a “Great Reset” to radically increase the power of politicians over every aspect of modern life. In June 2020, the WEF announced that “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate…We need a...

Biden: Vote for Me or Hitler Wins

by Jim Bovard | Jan 8, 2024 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles, Politics

“Endless hysteria will keep you free,” said none of the Founding Fathers. But President Joe Biden missed that message before his absurdly overheated speech last Friday near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Biden draped himself in Revolutionary War virtue as he demanded that Americans quiver in fear at the prospect of his reign ending. Biden invoked the third anniversary of the January 6 Capitol clash to effectively call for canceling the 2024 presidential election. At a minimum, Biden wants to turn the November election into a referendum on Adolf Hitler. Biden boasted, “We are still a nation that...

Bovard’s Zestiest Zingers of 2023

by Jim Bovard | Jan 2, 2024 | Blog

2023 was another godsend for cynics. Here’s a round-up of my zestiest lines from my articles in the past year. Some lines were tweaked for this collection. Hearty thanks to Hunter DeRensis and editors at other outlets who ran those articles up the flagpole. "Telling the truth is the only war crime now recognized by the U.S. government." "The new, improved definition of 'dictatorship' refers only to rulers who promise to do bad things to good people." "Shrouding the federal iron fist in a velvet glove betrays the Bill of Rights." "Would-be tyrants can always find lofty pretexts to shackle...

Truth is the Biggest Threat to DC ‘Democracy’

by Jim Bovard | Dec 18, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In Washington, truth is reckoned as the greatest enemy of democracy. Hard facts are deadly threats to a president’s prerogative to define reality and impose “the will of the people.” Early this year, Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member, was arrested and charged with transmission of national defense information among other charges. Teixeira allegedly leaked classified documents on the Ukraine war and other foreign policy issues to a Discord gaming group. The document propagated from there and appeared in many news articles in the following months. A hefty...

Tyranny Comes to Main Street

by Jim Bovard | Dec 12, 2023 | Featured Articles

The following is chapter one of James Bovard's new book, Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty, published by the Libertarian Institute. Order your copy today. Americans today have the “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, wiretapped, injected, censored, injected, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained, and maybe shot by government agents. Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Is America becoming a Cage Keeper Democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties? “We live in a world in which everything...

Kissinger and My Interstate 81 Epiphany

by Jim Bovard | Dec 5, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Henry Kissinger died last Wednesday. So far, I’ve been handling the grief pretty well. Kissinger was the most esteemed war criminal in American history. As Richard Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Kissinger summarized the president's order for bombing Cambodia: “Anything that flies on everything that moves.” In a 1972 conversation captured by the secret White House taping system, Nixon told Kissinger, “The only place where you and I disagree...Is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about the civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.” Kissinger replied, “I’m...

Julian Assange Still Deserves a Medal of Freedom

by Jim Bovard | Nov 27, 2023 | Featured Articles

Five years ago, USA Today published my piece, "Julian Assange deserves a Medal of Freedom, not a secret indictment." Assange has been persecuted because he and Wikileaks exposed war crimes by the U.S. government and its allies. But he still deserves a Medal of Freedom for his heroic efforts to save democracy from Leviathan. The Joe Biden administration's pursuit of Assange has been as shameless as the Donald Trump administration's indictment. Assange is locked away in one of Britain's most repressive prisons while the Biden administration is seeking to extradite Assange to the United States...