José Niño | The Libertarian Institute

Pulling Decentralization from the Ruins of ‘Liberal Democracy’

by José Niño | Mar 16, 2022 | Featured Articles

So-called liberal democracies have characterized the West for the past century and are viewed as the pinnacle of political development. So much so that Western elites are firmly convinced that this system of governance should be spread far and wide—be it indirectly (color revolutions) or directly (economic sanctions, kinetic military actions, or nation-building expeditions). Liberal democracies are political systems in which people entrust political power to a political class that, at least on paper, is constitutionally limited when it comes to exercising political power. Further, liberal...

We Must Not Repeat Cold War Errors

by José Niño | Feb 28, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

With Russia launching a military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the corporate press has grown shrill in its calls for punishing Russia with draconian sanctions, supplying Ukraine with increased military aid, and diplomatically isolating the Eurasian power as much as possible. The Two Minutes Hate against Russia has been cranked up to eleven, making any nuanced analysis of why the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has reached such a point almost impossible. The failure of policy wonks to understand why Russia took decisive action against Ukraine is emblematic of a flawed grand...

Is NATO the Old Man of Europe?

by José Niño | Feb 21, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

While geopolitical commentators are fixated on Russia’s border with Ukraine, a more interesting development is slowly boiling underneath the surface of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that could potentially reorder international relations—namely, the death of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Founded in 1949, NATO began with only twelve member nations. Presently, NATO counts on thirty member nations, with national security elites in the Anglo-American sphere wanting to bring Georgia and Ukraine into the fold. In both countries’ cases, NATO membership is in limbo. Despite calls for...

Poland vs. European Union: A Battle of Political Sovereignty

by José Niño | Dec 7, 2021 | Featured Articles

Across the pond, Poland and the European Union find themselves deadlocked over a question about judicial primacy. In early October, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal sparked controversy when it ruled that EU law does not supersede national legislation. At stake in the EU-Poland legal dispute, was Poland’s decision in 2018 to rein in its judiciary and establish a disciplinary chamber to remove judges. Before these reforms were undertaken, the Polish judiciary was largely viewed as corrupt and inefficient, possessing vestigial features of the previous Communist order, when Poland was a member...

The Success of Bottom-Up ‘Constitutional Carry’

by José Niño | Mar 29, 2021 | Featured Articles

Few political movements can boast of success like the firearms movement in the United States. Often overlooked is how before the 1980s there was no concept of licensed, let alone unlicensed, concealed carry in the overwhelming majority of the country. The sole exception was Vermont, which through an idiosyncratic state supreme court decision in 1903 has had unlicensed carry for over a century. “Vermont Carry,” the concept of unlicensed concealed carry, would be the Holy Grail for Second Amendment advocates for up to a century. In the intervening decades, in large part motivated by notable...

Return to Normalcy: Victoria Nuland Back To Managing the Empire

by José Niño | Mar 22, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Some things never change in American foreign policy. While there’s a lot of chatter about a “Great Reset” in terms of rebuilding society along technocratic lines in the wake of covid-19, U.S. foreign policy appears to be going through its very own “reset.” Specifically, it appears to be going back to the neoliberal interventionist order of pre-Trump administrations. One of the most palpable reversions to the neoliberal mean was President Joe Biden’s nomination of Victoria Nuland to the position of under secretary of state for political affairs at the State Department in early January....

We Must Come Home from Korea

by José Niño | Mar 17, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

America’s military footprint abroad is unmatched in human history. With more than eight hundred military bases in over seventy countries across the globe, the US is in an ideal position to carry out all sorts of imperial adventures, though the emerging multipolarity on the world stage with the rise of Russia and China has thrown several wrenches into many of the regime change orchestrators' wildest fantasies. America’s overstretched presence abroad began to receive significant pushback after bungled nation-building experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Donald Trump’s election in 2016...

Talk of Secession is the ‘New Normal’

by José Niño | Feb 23, 2021 | Featured Articles, Politics

Secession is a four-letter word for the millions of Americans who have gone through the conventional educational pipeline that teaches them that the American state is indivisible and sacrosanct. However, intellectually honest historians whose minds haven’t been warped by educational institutions know better than to dismiss secessionism as some nefarious activity that only treasonous Southerners of the Confederacy are capable of engaging in. For all intents and purposes, the founding generation was secessionist. When they signed on to the Declaration of Independence, those who fomented the...

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