Kym Robinson | The Libertarian Institute

The Principled Cannot Convince the Irrational

by Kym Robinson | Mar 20, 2024 | Featured Articles

No matter how brutal an event, there will be those who can justify, rationalize, or spin a positive narrative. Real and imagined injustices inspire reactions that lead to more injustice, creating a spiral of revenge. Or a group can decide that it is superior, righteous by default, and has the right to claim territory in order to thrive. Outside observers can grapple with favoring one party over others, claiming that it was a "lesser evil." Despite any pretense or deceptions, most violent actors do the irrationally vile for little reason other than self service or with inhuman distance....

A Man Takes His Life

by Kym Robinson | Mar 6, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Recently, Aaron Bushnell burned himself to death as the world watched. Because of the nature of his suicide, its location, and his reasons, he has become more than another statistic, unlike the many other serviceman who continue to take their life. He is a martyr to some and a deluded fool to others. Mentally unwell he may very well have been, though he felt his reasons, his convictions, and his protest warranted taking his own life in such a painful and public manner. How many other military suicides are wrapped in the moral anguish of what they may have participated in, or what they were...

What ‘Conspiracy’ Can Teach Us About Central Planning

by Kym Robinson | Feb 26, 2024 | Featured Articles

The 2001 film Conspiracy is an HBO production about the sinister 1942 Wannsee conference attended by fifteen upper echelon Nazi German bureaucrats, military and department heads. It was the first of two meetings with the intention of solving the “Jewish problem.” With the backdrop of war, emigration and mass incarceration had either failed or become resource draining. It was then decided by the German government to eliminate all of the Jews of Europe. In the initial two hour meeting led by SS man Reinhard Heydrich, it was concluded that death camps would be built and gas used to execute...

A Principled Libertarian Stance Amidst Israel’s Mass Slaughter In Gaza

by Kym Robinson | Feb 14, 2024 | Featured Articles

Recently online Antiwar.com and some voices in the antiwar movement have come under criticism, accused of being “left” leaning or pushing an anti-Western agenda. It is nothing new for those who are consistent in their criticism of war to receive backlash from supposed philosophical allies or the usual pro-war beings. Collectivists however are seldom consistent when it comes to principles. They tend to lack an ability to discriminate nuance or to absorb criticism of their ‘side’ when it comes to injustices inflicted upon the innocent. Certain social media hangers-on in the American liberty...

Who Will Fight These Wars Anyhow?

by Kym Robinson | Feb 6, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The war drums are beating, and public officials and the media are certain that the enemy must be conquered. The war is over there, away from home, in someone else's. The public is conditioned to accept that war is inevitable, that for the liberal democracies of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States it is an "obligation." It seldom matters whether the voting tax base wants war or not. As bombs drop in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, as Israel destroys Gaza and the Russians fight in Ukraine, Washington and its allies talk about expanding the warfront to include Iran, China, and North...

Remembering John Pilger, Aussie Truthteller

by Kym Robinson | Jan 25, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

“Official Truths are often powerful illusions.”- John Pilger For most of his life, John Pilger spoke out against power and championed those who get lost in the shadows of history. The Australian-born journalist (though truly a citizen of the world) passed away in December at the age of 84. It was a tragic loss. Pilger worked for some of the more famed media outlets, from Reuters to the Daily Mirror, though he always kept his own unique voice when reporting and witnessing events. It was during the Vietnam War that his dissident words ascended among his peers, with a film making style and...

They Always Kill Children

by Kym Robinson | Dec 20, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

“Why is the World Silent?” - Chaim Kaplan Humanity has endured self-inflicted savagery for all its history. Modern civilizations have apparently transcended above the primal savagery of ancient barbarity, yet despite technology allowing us to peer in with a voyeur's fascination, the world is mostly silent while children are slaughtered. The children of Gaza are dying in large numbers; they are the victims of a state policy so bent on vengeance that the wider world is absent in any true condemnation or action. A child in the West Bank may as well be a Biafran baby or a Yemeni girl or a boy...

The Duty

by Kym Robinson | Nov 29, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The drumbeats of war seem to be the heartbeat of history and most often requires a generation of boys to wage it. Boys of a certain age are assumed to become combatants, to be used as fodder and be made killers or charged guilty of such potential, regardless of individual deed. Whether a man agrees with his government's policies does not matter. It was decided for him that he should serve, either enslaved into a uniform or as a volunteer seduced by pay, duty bound. In the case of survival, when a people face extinction, the fighting males become the last vestige of hope for a society or...