Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute

Biden’s Sham Snickers Salvation Shtick

by Jim Bovard | May 20, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics

In 1896, Democratic Party presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan made a famous pro-inflation speech, proclaiming "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold" (and stable prices). In 2024, President Joe Biden is campaigning for re-election by denouncing corporations for crucifying consumers on a grocery store rack of Snickers bars. According to Biden, “shrinkflation”—adjusting for inflation by selling smaller products for the same price—is a worse crime than anything his administration inflicted on the American people. And Snickers bars are Exhibit #1 of corporate perfidy in...

Psychiatry is Vexing Americans and Subverting Freedom

by Jim Bovard | May 13, 2024 | Featured Articles

Psychiatry is ruining more lives than ever before. The New York Times recently showcased psychiatric “prevalence inflation”—a vast increase in reported mental illness among teenagers because they are encouraged to view normal symptoms as grave maladies requiring intervention. Oxford University psychologist Lucy Foulkes observed that school programs are “creating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they’re likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional.” In an analysis published last year in the academic journal, New Ideas in Psychology, Foulkes...

Senator Bob Graham, 9/11, and the Mirage of American Democracy

by Jim Bovard | Apr 22, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

Former Senator Bob Graham passed away on April 16 at the age of 87. Graham had been one of the most outspoken opponents of the Iraq War, but his brightest legacy was his perennial fight against the George W. Bush administration’s cover-up of the 9/11 attacks. Graham was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee when terrorists toppled the World Trade Center towers. When President Bush whipped up support for war by blaming the 9/11 attacks on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Graham recognized the scam. In October 2002, when Bush rammed a pro-war resolution (though not a formal declaration...

One Hundred Years of IRS Political Targeting

by Jim Bovard | Apr 15, 2024 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles, Politics

One hundred years ago, Senator James Couzens, a Michigan Republican, took to the Senate floor to denounce the Bureau of Internal Revenue for abusing its power and trampling innocent taxpayers. Couzens launched a sweeping Senate investigation of federal tax collectors. One year later, Internal Revenue Commissioner David Blair personally delivered a demand for $10 million in back taxes as Couzens stepped out of the Senate chamber. Couzens fought the case, and eventually proved that he had actually overpaid his taxes by roughly one million dollars, as David Burnham noted in his 1989 classic, A...

‘Journalists’ and the Fight to Save Freedom of Speech

by Jim Bovard | Apr 8, 2024 | Featured Articles

“What is a journalist?” is a contemporary equivalent of the ancient question, “What is truth?” The U.S. government's prosecution of Julian Assange hinges on the assertion that he is not a journalist and should be punished like a spy for a hostile country. The controversy over Assange is part of broader clashes over the meaning of journalism and freedom of the press across the United States. I recently wrangled on this topic with former top-ranked New York City radio host Brian Wilson, with whom I do a weekly podcast. In one of his Substack essays on the topic, Brian stated that "anyone...

The Great Escape from Government Schools?

by Jim Bovard | Apr 3, 2024 | Featured Articles

After enduring bullshit school shutdowns during the COVID pandemic, many students concluded that school itself must be bullshit and have skipped attending classes. Government bureaucrats are panicking since subsidies are tied to the number of students’ butts in chairs each day. Duke University Professor Katie Rosanbalm lamented that, thanks to the pandemic, “Our relationship with school became optional.” School absences have “exploded” almost everywhere, according to a New York Times report last week. Chronic absenteeism has almost doubled amongst public school students, rising from 15%...

Truth Has No Chance on Capitol Hill

by Jim Bovard | Mar 25, 2024 | Featured Articles, Politics

Americans are encouraged to believe that the U.S. Congress is practically on automatic pilot to serve the public. Happily, most Americans are not so gullible and Congress receives much of the contempt it deserves in public opinion polls. But the media and the Washington establishment continue doggedly fighting against the vulgar truth of congressional depravity. Seventy years ago, comedian Milton Berle quipped, “You can send a man to Congress but you can’t make him think.” Nothing has improved on that score since the Eisenhower era. In 1999, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology...

Will the Ghost of Duncan Lemp Haunt Gun-Grabbing Politicians?

by Jim Bovard | Mar 11, 2024 | Featured Articles

If you post a photo of a rifle on Instagram, tag it to your hometown, and add a caption like “green tip armor piercing gets the girls wet," Maryland police can cite that to get a no-knock search warrant and kill you in a pre-dawn assault on your bedroom. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell warned, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” Duncan Lemp, the 21-year-old software programmer who posted the rifle photo I've just described, was shot three times without warning by a policeman standing outside a smashed-in window at 4:42 am....

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