William J. Watkins Jr. | The Libertarian Institute

Trump Flirts With War Crimes

by William J. Watkins Jr. | Apr 13, 2026 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

President Donald Trump owes the Pakistanis for securing a fourteen-day ceasefire with Iran. He now has a chance to extricate the United States from the biggest blunder of his second term. Tensions, however, remain high. “It is emphasized that this does not signify the termination of the war,” the Iranian government said in a formal statement. “Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force.” One must worry that Trump does not appreciate the ceasefire off-ramp as good luck or an unmerited gift; instead, he likely...

An Empire Without Liberty?

by William J. Watkins Jr. | Apr 1, 2026 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Since the beginning of the war, President Donald Trump has touted dismantlement of the Iranian government as the American endgame. Even as U.S. officials negotiate with their Iranian counterparts to end the fighting and restore stability to world energy markets, Trump says he still wants to see a “very serious form of a regime change” in the ultimate peace deal. This imperial hubris is unworthy of the president of a federal republic and would cause the Founding Fathers to cringe. While Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries were often excited about continental prospects for the thirteen...

National Emergencies Act: Flawed from the Beginning

by William J. Watkins Jr. | Mar 21, 2019 | Featured Articles, Justice

There has been much debate about President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on our southern border. Critics complain either that no real emergency exists and/or that Trump’s actions are unconstitutional. Too often, how one feels about the issue of immigration shades one’s view of the declaration. Open borders advocates detest it and condemn the declaration, but those in favor of less immigration generally like it. No matter where one comes down on this immigration issue, anyone holding any loyalty to our written Constitution should decry the National Emergencies Act itself. In...

Could the Civil War Have Been Avoided?

by William J. Watkins Jr. | May 2, 2017 | Featured Articles, Politics

Trump is taking heat from the media on his ramblings about whether a leader such as Andrew Jackson could have crafted a compromise to avoid the 620,000 deaths in the Civil War. The general view seems to be that Trump is crazy for questioning the inevitability and justness of the slaughter. Of course, everyone knows that had Lincoln not attacked the South, slavery would exist today, right? Not exactly. As I pointed out in my book Reclaiming the American Revolution, at the time of the war there was a long history of peaceful abolition occurring around the globe. From 1813 to 1854, peaceful...

Is America Too Big to Be Free?

by William J. Watkins Jr. | Nov 4, 2016 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Americans consider themselves to inhabit, in the words of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the land of the free. However, the latest report from the Human Freedom Index ranks the United States the 20th freest out of 152 jurisdictions. The study examines personal and economic freedom as they relate to such matters as the rule of law, the size of government and associational rights. The top 10 freest are Hong Kong, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Sweden. One cannot help but look at the 10 freest and notice a commonality: size. Most of...

Trump Flirts With War Crimes

An Empire Without Liberty?

National Emergencies Act: Flawed from the Beginning

Could the Civil War Have Been Avoided?

Is America Too Big to Be Free?

Podcasts

Success!

Pin It on Pinterest