Kym Robinson | The Libertarian Institute

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

by Kym Robinson | Nov 16, 2022 | Featured Articles

The latest adaption of All Quiet on the Western Front is a German production available on Netflix that gives a grim and gruesome depiction of World War I. Based on the 1929 book by Erich Maria Remarque, and differing in parts from both the book and previous film adaptations, it stands on its own and respects the source material. A sobering account of war and the tragedy of state violence, the film's perspective is very much anti-war as human characters are treated as inhuman elements in the harsh setting of the Western Front. Set in 1917, the film focuses on two German soldiers, Paul and...

Liberty Beyond Borders

by Kym Robinson | Nov 3, 2022 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Awareness and conversation about liberty is flourishing, some of it a little more focused on particular messaging than others. Most are fixated on the United States, whether as a criticism of the empire and its wars or a romantic aspiration of converting the nation into a republic of virtue. All nations hold dear a certain mythology that generates pride and loyalty. The natural bias towards the local and familiar that can stir pride and inspiration. Such a bias is also a crucial ingredient for imperialism or any other of the nasty “isms." With the current change of power inside the U.S....

‘Fletch’ Lives in the Courageous Pen of Reporters

by Kym Robinson | Oct 17, 2022 | Book Reviews, Featured Articles

“I must follow the journalistic instinct of being skeptical of everything until I personally have proved it true.”- Irwin Fletcher In the post-Watergate world, fiction was full of lone wolf reporters, the courageous typewriter and camera that pointed where it was unwelcome. When author Gregory McDonald wrote his first “Fletch” novel in 1974 about reporter and former marine Iriwn M. Fletcher (AKA "Fletch" or "Jane Doe"), it would develop into a series of books, two movies starring Chevy Chase, and a remake to be released this year. In the first book and movie, a world of police corruption is...

We Have Just One Planet, Let’s Not Nuke It

by Kym Robinson | Oct 5, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”- President John F Kennedy There was a time when a lot of people feared nuclear war. The Cold War was a delicate dance of destruction between two super powers, each armed with enough weapons that could obliterate the planet. Protest groups were active outside military bases and test sites, and anti-establishment energies were often focused on opposing the arms race and nuclear weapons. Even at the height of the Cold War, when the empires...

Lessons From the Rape of Nanking

by Kym Robinson | Aug 22, 2022 | Book Reviews, Featured Articles

The "Rape of Nanking" is a high watermark of imperial savagery, even in the context of the violent and brutal Japanese Empire. This frenzy of rape and genocide was committed against a Chinese populace after their government abandoned the city and the international community watched in impotent horror as a proud Japanese military conducted itself with dishonor. But courageous individuals defied gangs of Japanese soldiers, exhibiting bravery and moral dignity. In her book The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang concentrates on the eight weeks of terror which in 1937 took the lives of hundreds of...

We’re Governed by the Communist Manifesto

by Kym Robinson | Aug 8, 2022 | Featured Articles

Since its publication the Communist Manifesto has influenced most forms of government. The ideology has mutated from one of utopian ambition to providing a framework that uses the language of egalitarian justice. Marxist ideology no longer has a revolutionary spirit for liberation, but instead has become a template for authority and rule itself. According to Karl Marx there are ten points outlining the necessities of a free society. These points share commonalities with other parts of government ideology that have no historic relationship with Marxism. Even modern right-wing conservatives...

The Anti-Morality of the Coercive Monopoly

by Kym Robinson | Jul 18, 2022 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

There are two ideological camps that matter: those who believe that coercion is required to achieve their means and those who believe in cooperation through voluntary interactions. History and the contemporary world has been defined by the bloodshed of the ideology of coercion. Those who believe that coercion is necessary often have a perspective of self appointed virtue based entirely on intended outcomes. This is the anti-morality used to rationalize the many forms of violence and misery that occur when the coercive ideology is implemented. When coercion is the acceptable means, society...

The War Films of Sam Peckinpah

by Kym Robinson | Jun 29, 2022 | Featured Articles

War movies have been popular since the early days of motion picture, often as means of propaganda to stir contemporary emotions and depict brave warriors of nation or faith locked in battle. War is a popular setting for story tellers, a stage for heroes and villains. The destruction and death is as much a prop as it can be a fellow character. Alongside the romantic war movies, some with an anti-war message emerged. In the 1960s and 70s, American film writer-director Sam Peckinpah gave us the misery of war with his own particular touch, specifically with The Wild Bunch and Cross of Iron....

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