People on the big-government left who are distraught over the condition of black lives in America are logically committed to opposing the police and teachers unions -- whether or not they realize it. That is because the first indispensable steps in the direction of justice and decency lie in changing the poisonous dynamic between cops and communities on the one hand and bringing competition, entrepreneurship, and parental choice to education on the other. The police and teachers unions, which make it exceedingly hard to fire bad cops and bad teachers, inevitably oppose changing those...
How to Care about the Disadvantaged
You may be in the presence of mere virtue-signalers if they: wring their hands about police brutality without ever calling for repeal of all victimless-crime laws, which create a poisonous dynamic between police and public precisely because the conduct being policed is consensual for each party to the illegal transactions; bemoan the lack of growing black-family wealth without calling for the elimination of Social Security, which imposes a regressive tax to confiscate savings that would otherwise be heritable by the savers' children; lament the inadequate economic mobility of people in...
Prophetic Jewish Anti-Zionists
When Peter Beinart, a self-described liberal Zionist, abandoned the two-state resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict and embraced one state with equal rights for all, he quickly drew the ire of orthodox Zionists, some of whom went so far as to describe Beinart as a "Nazi" who favors a single state as the "Final Solution" for the more-than-century-old problem. By this, Beinart's critics mean that equal rights in the unified land between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River would surely bring the extinction of Jews. It's a repulsive smear, of course, one that well confirms what Beinart...
Feds Out of Portland
Maybe no one would have noticed if Trump had sent in some FBI guys just to help guard the federal courthouse in Portland, but Trump lives by the motto "Be ominously obnoxious or go home." So he sends in unidentified agents from customs, the border patrol, and other such agencies to scoop demonstrators off the streets. Now he's threatening to do the same thing in other cities, including Chicago. State and local officials in Oregon and around the country are concerned. Trump may like the optics in this election season. To many of us, however, it looks bloody fascistic. Let local communities...
To Annex or Not to Annex — Is the Question Moot?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains under a cloud of personal corruption, had more or less promised to annex some of the West Bank in July. He's let his deadline slip, we've been told, because he doesn't want to proceed while his buddy Trump is preoccupied with other matters. He must need the cover, which is interesting in itself. Meanwhile leading Jewish Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer are uneasy with annexation talk, perhaps because his party is no longer solidly in Israel's corner. So who can say when and if a formal annexation will occur? I prefer to ask: does it...
Free Speech Is Sadly Controversial
In the topsy-turvy world we live in, this otherwise unremarkable letter calling for respect for free speech, published in Harper's and signed by 153 writers, etc., has set off a nasty firestorm of statist-left criticism. It seems that some people are so insecure about what they think and who they are that they cannot tolerate a world in which others are free to say and write what they like. The hell with that. I'll take John Stuart Mill.
TGIF: Mises, Ryle, and Me
In 1949, the first year of Harry S. Truman's only elective presidential term, three things happened that were of huge importance ... at least to me. Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) published Human Action. Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) published The Concept of Mind. And, oh yeah, I was born. The connection here is that Mises's and Ryle's books are two of the most influential things I have ever read. What's also interesting is what else the books have in common. Human Action sets out the logical structure of all purposeful action as well as its socioeconomic implications. Mises called the study of...
There’s Independence and There’s Independence
Happy Independence Day, although I prefer immanent to vicarious independence.