TGIF: Static Analysis Clouds Immigration Debate

TGIF: Static Analysis Clouds Immigration Debate

by | Apr 5, 2024 | , , ,

Opponents of people's freedom to cross national borders to where the best jobs are, aka open borders, make a rookie error: they engage in static analysis and overlook the dynamism of social processes that freedom produces. I was recently asked on Facebook: "Are you enjoying Biden open borders?" There's the mistake right there. People who ask that question look at a bad situation, say, the mess at the southern border; imagine one policy change, namely, the removal of restrictions on movement; and stop there. It's as if that policy shift would prompt no changes in how people, including...

read more

Why I Pick on Israel

by | Apr 4, 2024 |

People close to me ask why I criticize Israel while ignoring the other bad governments in the world. (I guess they don't count the U.S. government as bad.) I have many reasons, but here's a big one: no other government (besides the U.S. government) claims to act in my name. I object to that. (For the record, years ago I declared my exit from the disparate worldwide collection of people that Israel presumptuously claims to speak for.)

read more

The Logic of Eradicating Hamas

by | Apr 3, 2024 |

Is genocide logically required by Israel's stated objective of eradicating Hamas? It looks that way. Israel demonstrably believes that to wipe out Hamas, it must use overwhelming and indiscriminate force in the Gaza Strip, killing tens of thousands, wounding and starving so many others, and destroying homes, hospitals, and infrastructure. If that is not, in effect, a massive recruitment campaign for Hamas, what would be? So what to do? Simple: wipe everyone out so the inevitably traumatized kids won't grow up radicalized and join Hamas to seek vengeance for their dead relatives and miserable...

read more

Is Israel Our Ally?

by | Apr 2, 2024 |

While I was sleeping, did "our representatives" in the U.S. Senate ratify an alliance treaty with Israel, complete with a NATO-style Article 5, obligating us to defend Israel if attacked?

read more

Israel Gives Cover to Anti-Semites

by | Apr 2, 2024 |

Israel identifies itself as the Jewish state and claims to represent "the Jewish people" everywhere, not only Jewish Israelis. Thus Israel's atrocious treatment of the Muslim and Christian Palestinians at least tacitly encourages the anti-Semites, who are eager to point to anything they can describe as bad acts committed by "the Jewish people." The Jewish state equals the Jewish people -- that's what they've been told. (It's not true.) In other words, Israel's own definition of itself and its own treatment of the Palestinians ratify the anti-Semites' crazy ideas about the malevolence and...

read more
TGIF: Israel Humiliated

TGIF: Israel Humiliated

by | Mar 29, 2024 | , , , ,

To more fully understand the ferocity of Israel's massacre of the people of the Gaza Strip, it's perhaps worth considering that on October 7, 2023, the reputedly invincible Israeli Defence Forces and intelligence services were made to look like fools caught sleeping on guard duty. While Hamas's murder, assault, and kidnapping of noncombatants must be strongly condemned, we should be able to see how humiliating that was for the Israeli government, which brags as much about its awesome power as it does about its allegedly unequaled moral stature. Israel has blockaded Gaza for 20 years,...

read more

Ban “Ethnic Cleansing”

by | Mar 28, 2024 |

I propose that we defenders of individual rights stop using the term ethnic cleansing. Why? Because it is the sort of euphemism bad people would use to disguise what they are doing when they expel or annihilate large numbers of people viewed as members of the wrong group. The Nazis used the word hygiene when writing about "purifying" the Aryan "race." That word was meant to soften the truth and dress it in scientific garb. But we all know what it meant. Ethnic cleansing would fit well into that lexicon. Remember, it was the Nazis who talked like that -- not the victims or outraged onlookers....

read more

Read My Books

Coming to Palestine

What Social Animals Owe to Each Other

Podcasts

scotthortonshow logosq

coi banner sq2@0.5x

liberty weekly thumbnail

Don't Tread on Anyone Logo

313x0w (1)

313x0w (1)

313x0w (1)

Pin It on Pinterest