Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

What Voters Need to Know About Government Supremacy

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 9, 2022 | Featured Articles

[Source for above image) Libertarians make a self-defeating mistake in assuming that their fundamental principles differ radically from most other people’s principles. Think how much easier it would be to bring others to the libertarian position if we realized that they already agree with us in substantial ways. What am I talking about? It’s quite simple. Libertarians believe that the initiation of force is wrong. So do the overwhelming majority of nonlibertarians. They, too, think it is wrong to commit offenses against person and property. I don’t believe they abstain merely because...

TGIF: How the State Violated Free Speech during the Pandemic

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 7, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

TGIF: The Scourge of Conscription

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 30, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

TGIF: Sam Harris on Saving Democracy from Voters

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 23, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

TGIF: Question Intuition!

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 16, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

Energy News Flash!

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 15, 2022 | Blog, Economics

Higher-income people can cope more easily with government-created soaring energy prices than lower-income people can. The state is no friend of those who struggle to pay their bills.

TGIF: Reject Both Identity and Egalitarian Politics

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 9, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

TGIF: National Conservatism’s Ominous Economics

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 2, 2022 | Featured Articles, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...