Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute

‘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....

Will Any ‘Last Rights’ Epigram Go to the Moon?

by Jim Bovard | Feb 27, 2024 | Featured Articles

Epigrams are excellent propellants for seditious ideas. How far can one line go? Thirty years ago, I casually appended a sentence to the end of a paragraph in the final chapter of my book, Lost Rights: The Death of American Liberty. I was amazed: “Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner” became one of the most popular worldwide epigrams on democracy. It was translated into almost fifty languages, quoted by the Chief Justice of Hong Kong, and is serving as a rallying cry for oppressed dissidents everywhere. That epigram circulated on coffee cups,...

Guilty But Clueless: Special Counsel Verdict On Biden

by Jim Bovard | Feb 12, 2024 | Featured Articles

Did a Special Counsel report officially launch the Biden administration Death Spiral? President Joe Biden is not guilty because he is hopelessly clueless about his own life and career. That is the tacit verdict of Special Counsel Robert Hur, who concluded that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed" classified information, which "risked serious damage to America's national security.” If anyone else did this, they would be federal crimes. But Biden cannot be convicted of a "felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” the Special Counsel concluded – apparently because Biden’s mind is...

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...