Sheldon Richman

But Hamas…

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 26, 2024 | Blog

When Israel's defenders bring up Hamas's execrable anti-Semitic and genocidal charter, they should be reminded that for decades before the 1948 self-declared founding of Israel, Zionist leaders and settlers had talked about reclaiming and sanctifying the "Promised Land" for the "Chosen People"; supported the "transfer," by force if necessary, of the Palestinian Arabs (those non-Jewish people who for generations lived inexplicably in the "land without a people"); treated them with utter contempt to their faces (to the dismay other Jews); expelled over 750,000 Palestinian Arabs in 1948, the...

Netanyahu as Haman

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 25, 2024 | Blog

The fable of Purim ends with the slaughter of over 75,000 non-Jewish Persians by the Jewish Persians after one official's (Haman's) plot to kill the Jews is exposed when the king is alerted by his Jewish wife. That's a mighty big conspiracy! God makes no appearance. An inspiring story for sure! The closest thing today to the villain, Haman, is Netanyahu and his team. Boo!

Beware: The Government Is People

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 25, 2024 | Blog, Economics

Nearly everyone complains about capitalism's defects, or market failures. In fact, those are social failures, not specifically market failures, which show up when many rational individual actions create a social situation that displeases everyone. This means that government dirigisme -- state direction or displacement of the market -- cannot be a remedy because who do you think staffs the government and how do they get there? A big difference between the two systems -- market and state -- is that while the market diminishes social defects, the government magnifies them.

Who’s the Real Foreign-Policy Realist?

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 22, 2024 | Blog, Foreign Policy

The establishment debate over foreign policy isn't between realists and whatever their opponents call themselves. It's a debate over who's more realistic. It reminds me of the debate between the Federalists and Antifederalists. No one wanted to be considered against federalism, but the centralizers had beaten the real federalists to the label Federalist.

TGIF: Leave TikTok Alone

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 22, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

This is America, last I checked. Surely, the government would not force the sale of a social-media company or ban its app from the Google and Apple stores. Would it? Well, yes, it would, could (perhaps), and might. A bill in Congress, backed by the government's nominal chief executive, could become law. The House of Representatives passed it last week by an overwhelming bipartisan majority -- despite valiant efforts by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY, plus a few others -- and it is now before the Senate. That bill would establish fuzzy criteria defining a "foreign adversary's" alleged influence...

Washington, We Have a Problem

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 22, 2024 | Blog, Economics, Libertarianism, Politics

Centralized power has a problem: the individual. Every person is a potential disrupter of The Plan, and disruption must be forbidden. Otherwise, why have a central plan? This applies regardless of whether the planning is economy-wide or for particular sectors, such as medical services. (See F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.)

How Dare You Vote!

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 20, 2024 | Blog

If you have not mastered Frédéric Bastiat's "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen," how dare you vote! How arrogant of you to presume to set rules for everyone else! Do something constructive on election day: stay home and mind your own business.

Yoda on Identity

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 19, 2024 | Blog

I find the phrase "identify as" strange. Yoda might say, "No. Be or be not. There is no 'identify as.'"

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Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.