TGIF: How the State Violated Free Speech during the Pandemic

TGIF: How the State Violated Free Speech during the Pandemic

Is anyone shocked by this observation? Public statements, emails, and recent publicly released documents establish that the President of the United States and other senior officials in the Biden Administration violated the First Amendment by directing social-media companies to censor viewpoints that conflict with the government’s messaging on Covid-19.... This insidious censorship was the direct result of the federal government’s ongoing campaign to silence those who voice perspectives that deviate from those of the Biden Administration. Government officials’ public threats to punish social...

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TGIF: The Scourge of Conscription

TGIF: The Scourge of Conscription

By now Randolph Bourne's observation that "war is the health of the state" ought to be such a cliche that it would hardly need to be said. And yet, it must be said -- often -- because many still haven't gotten the word. If the state is the adversary of liberty, as it nearly always has been, then it follows that war is also the ill health of liberty. And when one thinks of war, one ought also to think of conscription because it's often somewhere close by. In a perverse way, Americans have been lucky. The divisive decade-long Vietnam war and access to the latest war-making technology have made...

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TGIF: Sam Harris on Saving Democracy from Voters

TGIF: Sam Harris on Saving Democracy from Voters

Neuroscientist/philosopher Sam Harris caused quite a stir recently by defending the social networks' conspiracy (his word) to suppress news coverage of Joe Biden's son Hunter's smoking-gun laptop shortly before Election Day 2020. Harris said the suppression was justified because Donald Trump was such a threat to America that he had to be defeated whatever the cost to the election's integrity. In other words, according to Harris, such tampering is okay as long as he deems it necessary to save American democracy from the voters. The social networks are privately owned, of course, but remember...

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TGIF: Question Intuition!

TGIF: Question Intuition!

In the 1960s a popular button that New Left activists wore implored everyone to "Question Authority!" It was good advice, even though many kinds of authority exist. Some authority is chosen (for example, one's doctor) and others are compulsory (the government). But in either case, questioning it is reasonable. The button did not implore anyone to reject authority, only to question it. What about intuition? I have the impression that people think their own intuitions need not be questioned because they are reliable. But is that wise? I don't think so. First let's acknowledge that much of what...

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TGIF: Reject Both Identity and Egalitarian  Politics

TGIF: Reject Both Identity and Egalitarian Politics

The push-back against identity politics by disillusioned leftists is welcome, but the striving to replace identity with economic equality as the guiding political principle? Not so much. I won't spend time on the problems with identity politics, a zero-sum game if ever there was one. The virtue of universalism extolled by classical liberalism seems indisputable. Why wouldn't everyone begin with the same entitlement to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness free of government impediment? As a general matter, past crimes committed by some long-dead people against other long-dead other...

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TGIF: National Conservatism’s Ominous Economics

TGIF: National Conservatism’s Ominous Economics

National conservatism is objectionable on many counts -- the name in itself tells you that -- but it does pay tribute to free enterprise. A closer look, however, may cause one to doubt its commitment. The movement's official Statement of Principles includes Principle 6, which begins encouragingly, though predictably tradition-bound: We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition. We reject the socialist...

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TGIF: Jefferson on Not Trusting the State

TGIF: Jefferson on Not Trusting the State

Regardless of written constitutions and the laws on the books, individual liberty is always at risk. And as liberty goes, so goes our capacity to live well, to achieve the good life as rational, virtuous social beings. The danger comes from left and right, both of which aspire to have a body of elders impose narrow cultural and moral norms on everyone, overriding our right to think for ourselves. (Progressives and National Conservatives have a lot in common in that regard, even if they differ on what is to be imposed.) This point about the fragility of liberty was well understood by the...

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