Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

A Question of Motives

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 27, 2020 | Featured Articles, Politics

People who regard themselves as members of the ideological environmental movement may or may not have good science on their side in any particular matter, but they do themselves no service when they speculate wildly about the motives of their opponents. I frequently hear such environmentalists characterize their opponents as people who want to make the planet uninhabitable for human beings and other living things. I suspect I'm not alone in finding that motivation highly implausible, and I'm surprised that those who traffic in such accusations don't realize that they undermine their own...

Word from the Wise

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 25, 2020 | Blog

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. --H. L. Mencken

Who Becomes a Cop?

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 4, 2020 | Blog, Justice

If a major police mission is to catch us in forbidden consensual transactions, you may not like the kind of people who become cops.

Regarding Seth Rogen: Some Feelings Ought to Be Hurt

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 3, 2020 | Justice, Sheldon Richman

When actor Seth Rogen, an atheist of Jewish heritage, announced that he no longer supports Israel -- "I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life" -- he was criticized for his apostasy. (Being an atheist does not constitute Jewish heresy, but breaking with Israel does.) Then, during a call with Jewish Agency chairman Isaac Herzog, Rogen learned that “many Israelis and Jews around the world were personally hurt by his statement, which implies the denial of Israel’s right to exist." Herzog says Rogen apologized, explaining that his comments were meant to be humorous. But Rogen...

Oh, the Irony!

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 3, 2020 | Blog, Justice

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

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 27, 2020 | Blog, Economics, Justice

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

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 23, 2020 | Blog, Justice

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

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 22, 2020 | Blog

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...