Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

TGIF: Democracy Can’t Fix Socialism

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 6, 2020 | Economics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

However you feel about democracy, it can’t fix what’s wrong with socialism. In theory, modern representative democracy -- unlike ancient Greek direct democracy -- means that people vote for so-called representatives to fill various executive and legislative government offices. Those officials then enact and enforce rules that people are expected to obey under threat of fine and/or imprisonment. In theory, socialism has mostly been understood as direct government economic planning through public, that is, state, ownership of the means of production. In no real sense can a public...

TGIF: Might You Be a Libertarian?

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 28, 2020 | Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

If you're like most people, you don't go around killing or assaulting others. You probably would never think of torturing, raping, kidnapping, or confining your fellow men and women. I doubt if you'd think that stealing or vandalizing their belongings would be a good thing. And I'm sure you'd never dream of stopping people from pursuing their chosen occupations. Taking this a step further, I'll also assume you wouldn't think these actions would be fine as long as you had the endorsement of a bunch of other people, specifically, if more people expressed approval of such an actions than...

TGIF: The Nonintervention Principle

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 21, 2020 | Foreign Policy, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Anyone old enough to think about "America's" role in the world ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. For example, one ought to be able to argue firmly against U.S. intervention in other countries without feeling obliged to downplay or deny the real crimes that the tyrant du jour has committed. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. I can see the temptation here. Many people believe that all one needs to do to establish a case for intervention is to portray the target as egregiously bad. Consequently, a noninterventionist may think that the easiest way to rebut the...

TGIF: Anti-BDS Laws Violate Our Freedom

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 14, 2020 | Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Americans’ free-speech and other rights are being violated by state laws aimed at stifling the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement against Israel’s illegal rule of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both conquered over half a century ago. Twenty-eight states have enacted anti-BDS laws or executive orders that prohibit state agencies and state-financed entities, such as colleges, from doing business with any person or firm that hasn’t pledged never to boycott Israeli goods. Appropriately, these laws have come under fire as violations of both free speech and the right to...

Palestinians as Pawns

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 10, 2020 | Blog, Foreign Policy

Trump's "vision" for Palestine well illustrates that in his eyes (not to mention the eyes of Netanyahu, Kushner, and others), the Palestinians are mere pawns to be manipulated in the service of Israel's and Trump's designs. This can be readily seen in an obscure provision of Trump's plan, which "contemplates the possibility" that Israel and the future pseudo-state of Palestine could together redraw their boundaries so that nearly a dozen Palestinian towns within Israel, in an area adjacent to the line separating Israel from the West Bank known as the Triangle, would become part of the future...

TGIF: Trump Would Make Palestinian Subjugation Permanent

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 31, 2020 | Foreign Policy, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

The fundamental flaw at the heart of Trump’s Palestine/Israel plan, presumptuously titled Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People, is that Trump -- like his predecessors -- believes that the Israelis are the aggrieved party and the Palestinians are the not-fully-human aggressors inherently unworthy of even the minimum trust accorded fellow human beings. You can see this premise throughout Trump’s corrupt blueprint for the future of Israel and Palestine. But this premise has the aggressor and the victim roles switched in defiance of the facts....

Trump Lays an Egg: The Israel/Palestine Vision

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 29, 2020 | Foreign Policy, Sheldon Richman

Trump's long-dreaded diktat to the Palestinians is now public. (See details here and here if you have the stomach for them.) The so-called plan of the century -- the "Vision" -- is pretty much what the early reports described, so I have little to add to what I wrote before. (My articles are here, here, and here. You can find more in my book Coming to Palestine.) Suffice it say here that this "plan" is dead on arrival. The Palestinians will not be bribed by a $50 billion jobs program to give up their hope of full rights, which would never be achieved in Trump's proposed Palestinian "state,"...

1917

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 20, 2020 | Blog

I've long thought that if you want to see through the deceptive camouflage to the truest essence of the state, you need to study the Great War, renamed World War I after the 20-year intermission between it and World War War II. As you study the prelude to the war that began in August 1914, you grasp how the rulers of each of the great European powers -- Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia -- shared responsibility, though not in equal measure, for the insanity that was to follow, an insanity that annihilated the flower of a generation and inflicted mind-numbing devastation...

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Next Entries »

TGIF: Democracy Can’t Fix Socialism

TGIF: Might You Be a Libertarian?

TGIF: The Nonintervention Principle

TGIF: Anti-BDS Laws Violate Our Freedom

Palestinians as Pawns

TGIF: Trump Would Make Palestinian Subjugation Permanent

Trump Lays an Egg: The Israel/Palestine Vision

1917

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