Scott Horton | The Libertarian Institute

6/24/21 Nasser Arrabyee: Roadblocks to Peace in Yemen

by Scott Horton | Jun 28, 2021 | The Scott Horton Show

Nasser Arrabyee comes on the show for an update about Yemen. There seems to be some promise of a real peace negotiation, Arrabyee says, though it's hard to get both sides to see eye to eye on the realities of the situation. The Houthis, as Arrabyee explains, feel they can negotiate from a place of strength, since they have controlled most of the country for the last few years. They are demanding that Saudi Arabia lift the blockade as a condition of sitting down to peace talks. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has tried to make demands of their own, since they are on the side of the nominal...

6/24/21 Ben Suitt on the Alarming Suicide Rate Among Post-9/11 War Vets

by Scott Horton | Jun 24, 2021 | The Scott Horton Show

Scott interviews Ben Suitt about his work about veteran suicides for Brown University's Cost of War Project. Suitt conservatively estimates that about 30,000 veterans of America's terror wars have taken their own lives, a truly astonishing number. This side of modern warfare often goes undiscussed, but it is every bit as concerning as the physical injuries that soldiers sustain overseas. Discussed on the show: "High Suicide Rates among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post-9/11 Wars" (Cost of War Project) "Poll: 42 percent of Americans think the US is winning the 'war on...

6/24/21 Ted Carpenter on the Bloody Legacy of America’s Drug War

by Scott Horton | Jun 24, 2021 | The Scott Horton Show

Ted Carpenter discusses the harmful effects of drug prohibition in America, both at home and abroad. First of all, he points out, prohibition simply doesn't work. We learned this during alcohol prohibition, when consumption remained high but prices and violence skyrocketed, and we continue to see it now, with ubiquitous street drugs, gang violence and millions of people in prison for nonviolent crimes. The public health problem of drug use is very real, Carpenter readily concedes, but that doesn't in any way imply that the answer is to use the police force and the penal system to try to...

6/23/21 Doug Bandow on America’s Dangerous Alliance with Ukraine

by Scott Horton | Jun 24, 2021 | The Scott Horton Show

Scott interviews Doug Bandow about the U.S. relationship to Ukraine, perhaps the perfect case study in America's foreign policy arrogance. Ukraine, of course, has very little direct strategic relevance to daily life in America—and yet the U.S. government considers Ukraine one of its closest allies. In practice, what this means is that the United States would have to be prepared to go to war with Russia on Ukraine's behalf, if there were a sufficiently severe provocation. But as Bandow points out, this is an absolutely crazy policy: Russia, remember, has nuclear weapons, and any war between...

6/22/21 William Hartung on the Pork Barrel Politics Behind America’s H-Bomb Policy

by Scott Horton | Jun 23, 2021 | The Scott Horton Show

Scott talks to William Hartung about America's nuclear policy and the shocking profit motives that end up determining it. Hartung draws particular attention to land-based ICBMs, which, he explains, aren't nearly as effective, since they're fixed in one place, and for that same reason are especially vulnerable to the possibility of an accidental launch. When a country's government thinks their missile silos are being attacked, they have very little time to decide whether to launch those missiles in a counter-strike before losing the opportunity forever. This is why cutting back on ICBMs is...

6/22/21 Kalmen Barkin on Israel’s New Coalition Government

by Scott Horton | Jun 23, 2021 | The Scott Horton Show

Kalmen Barkin is back for an update on Israeli politics. Naftali Bennett has just taken over as Israel's prime minister, following Benjamin Netanyahu's failure to successfully form a coalition government. Bennett, explains Barkin, is quite far on the right, yet he and Netanyahu are bitter rivals—indeed, Barkin says, this whole election was less about specific policy issues than it was about mutual desire to oust Netanyahu. And so the new ruling coalition has elements from both the left and the right, and, for the first time, Arabs. Mainstream Israeli political parties have traditionally...

Biden’s Buffoonish War on Extremism

by Scott Horton | Jun 21, 2021 | Blog

Jim Bovard in TAC: 'Extremism' is a meaningless word weaponized by politicians against their enemies. The Biden administration revealed on Tuesday that guys who can’t get laid may be terrorist threats due to “involuntary celibate–violent extremism.” That revelation is part of a new crackdown that identifies legions of potential “domestic terrorists” that the feds can castigate and investigate. But there is no reason to expect Biden administration anti-terrorism and anti-extremism efforts to be less of a farce and menace than similar post-9/11 campaigns. Since the French Revolution,...

Intro to Rothbard

by Scott Horton | Jun 21, 2021 | Blog

I don't know. Maybe you're new at this libertarianism stuff and need to read Anatomy of the State; War, Peace and the State; Our Anti-Imperialist Heritage; Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty; and The Case Against the Fed by Murray N. Rothbard