At this tense moment it is important to realize that the hardliners on both sides of any geopolitical rivalry are de facto allies. They need each other in their struggles against their domestic pro-diplomacy, antiwar opposition. So when the hardliners ascend on one side, their counterparts on the other side also ascend. If they could, they'd grab a beer together after work.
No one I know who criticizes America's post-Cold War policy toward Russia -- including the U.S. position on Ukraine -- thinks Vladimir Putin is a good guy. Indeed, the case against U.S. bellicosity toward Russia in no way depends on a favorable view of the Russian ruler. On the contrary, it is because Putin is who he is (an aggrieved nationalist) and because of Russia's place in history that the U.S. policy of ignoring, when not belittling, Russia's security concerns is so dangerous. Russia's history -- including multiple invasions from the west -- is what it is, and that huge nuclear power...
Big Tech's incredible promise to rid its platforms of "misinformation and disinformation" is not only a chimera that will harm the most gullible, but it is also an unwitting grant of power and credibility to some of the dodgiest elements online. That claim might sound familiar. We opponents of drug prohibition and other anti-vice laws often point out that when the government outlaws a product or service that people want, it does not disappear. It simply moves into the shadows where it will be handled by less-than-honorable people because law-abiding types will be averse to supplying the...
If the social media and other high-tech companies, whether under pressure from the state or not, were to lead people to believe that, starting today, only accurate information will get through their gatekeepers, would the public, especially the most gullible, really be better off? How so? How would it do people any favors to have them think that everything they read or have access to through Google, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, etc. is good solid information rather than disinformation or misinformation? (Question: when the establishment media "reported" day after day over four years that...
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose—that it may violate property instead of protecting it—then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (1850)
The emergence of a pro-Enlightenment, pro-reason, anti-woke left, with its eloquent declarations in favor of freedom, is welcome indeed. But this political force still has some way to go. It is disappointing to hear the same people who effectively and properly debunk the power elite in so many ways, including its Covid policies, nevertheless stop regularly to endorse Medicare for all, or single-payer health care, or better, socialized medicine. If you understand what's wrong with a system that enables a power elite to use the state to impose its will, how in the world can you also call for...
If you favor a government-controlled virtual monopoly in schooling, don't be surprised when a school board removes Maus, the award-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from an eighth-grade class that covers the Holocaust from a language-arts perspective. If you are appalled by this news from McMinn County, Tennessee, maybe you should favor placing schools in a truly free and competitive marketplace, where entrepreneurs would have no institutional barriers to offering innovative forms of education. (For details see my Separating School and State.)
I'll admit it: I'm a natural-rights guy. I think you can get to individual rights, including the right to property, from within the ancient Greek eudaimonist (virtue ethics) and Spinozist tradition. But here's a separate point: rights-talk may not be the best way to bring unconvinced people over to the libertarian view of the good society. Heresy? I hope not. This video interview with Chandran Kukathas, author of The Libertarian Archipelago, got me thinking about this subject. Kukathas (whom I've written about here and here) starts with what ought to be obvious to everyone: people disagree...
