Jeff Deist | The Libertarian Institute

Unmask America

by Jeff Deist | Jan 24, 2022 | Featured Articles

Enough is enough. It is time to stop wearing masks, or at the very least to eliminate mask mandates in all settings. This is especially urgent for children in schools and universities, who suffer the effects of masks for long hours each day despite being at exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from COVID. We have a responsibility, once and for all, to reject the ludicrous, ever-shifting narratives underpinning masks as effective impediments to the spread of COVID infections. Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching...

What I Told Ron Paul Institute Attendees

by Jeff Deist | Sep 8, 2021 | Featured Articles

Some of you may know the name Alex Berenson, the former New York Times journalist who comes from a left-liberal background. He has been absolutely fearless and tireless on Twitter over the past eighteen months, documenting the overreach and folly of covid policy—and the mixed reality behind official assurances on everything from social distancing to masks to vaccine efficacy. He became a one-man army against the prevailing covid narratives. Mr. Berenson is famous for creating a viral (no pun intended) phrase which swept across Twitter last year: virus gonna virus. Which means: whether one is...

How a Libertarian Would Solve Land Conflict in the Middle East

by Jeff Deist | Jun 4, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism

The recent spate of bombing violence in Israel's West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza demonstrates the enduring attachment both Israelis and Palestinians have to physical land in the country. Both sides make claims—legal, moral, and political—to land within Israel, from the southernmost tip of Gaza to the northernmost tip of the Golan Heights. This ongoing and often violent dispute is based on interrelated historical and religious events reaching back thousands of years, even before the origins of the biblical Holy Land. And while ancient disputes are inherently more difficult to resolve,...

The Enduring Genius of Murray Rothbard

by Jeff Deist | Mar 5, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

This week we celebrate the life of Murray N. Rothbard, born on the second of March 1926, a Tuesday, in the Bronx. And what a Bronx it was, teeming with brilliant intellectuals, dedicated Communists, and rock-solid middle-class Americans like David and Rae Rothbard. The family would later become friendly with their apartment building neighbor in Manhattan, one Arthur F. Burns. Burns, an economist at Columbia, was destined for a political career at the Council of Economic Advisers under Eisenhower and as Federal Reserve chairman, appointed by Nixon. Tellingly, Burns was also the man who later...

How Reddit Killed Stakeholder Theory

by Jeff Deist | Feb 4, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles

The GameStop saga shows some "equity" movements are more equal than others. Stakeholder theory, the corporate version of social justice, attempts to install this hopelessly amorphous concept of "equity" in the business world. Equity, unlike equality, demands different treatment of individuals and different distribution of resources based on need, identity, and historical injustices. But now equity has evolved beyond a political buzzword, and finds growing support in calls for stakeholder capitalism. The animating impulse in big corporate boardrooms today requires cultivating an image of...

When Will Americans Realize They Aren’t ‘One Nation’?

by Jeff Deist | Nov 6, 2020 | Featured Articles

It’s one thing for mass democracy to produce bad results, in the form of elected politicians or enacted policies. It’s another when the democratic process itself breaks down because nobody trusts the vote or the people who count it. But that’s precisely where we are. As things stand at this writing, last night’s presidential election remains undecided and looking ugly. At least six states are still uncalled, and both the Trump and Biden camps have their legal teams claiming victory. We may be in for days, weeks, or even months of legal skirmishes, all of which can only add to our intense...

It Only Gets Worse From Here

by Jeff Deist | May 14, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles

How bad is it? That is the question on everyone's mind as we come to grips with the economic carnage caused by global economic shutdowns, supply chain disruptions, and ongoing quarantines of million of people. Do we face another Great Depression, or simply a deep recession more like 2008? And equally important, are soft Americans prepared for either? Have we started to process all of this psychologically? Have we really come to terms with the enormity of the situation, with the unprecedented risk posed by business shutdowns? Are Americans so accustomed to a certain material standard of...

A Response to Daniel McCarthy’s ‘Why Libertarians are Wrong’

by Jeff Deist | Feb 26, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age and editor at large for The American Conservative, recently published an essay on the Spectator USA site titled "Why Libertarians are Wrong." It merits a response because Mr. McCarthy is friendly and sympathetic toward libertarianism, and despite the infirmities of his article ought to be seen as a fellow traveler. The title misleads us a bit from the beginning, because McCarthy is sound on the single most important libertarian political issue: war and peace. He objected to George W. Bush's foray into Iraq, he attacks the permanent-war complex and its...

« Older Entries

Next Entries »