Wendy McElroy | The Libertarian Institute

Do Activists Want Domestic Violence To Increase During the Pandemic?

by Wendy McElroy | Jun 8, 2020 | Featured Articles

A contradiction is grabbing the narrative on domestic violence (DV) during the coronavirus lockdown: a decline in police reports on DV means the rate is increasing and more government is needed. A cynic might wonder if DV experts want to stoke the panic that drives funding and legislation. DV is too important, however, to allow either cynicism or opportunism to dominate the discussion. Reality should fill this role. DV may tend to increase during times of stress, but this cannot be assumed. A May 8 headline in The Atlantic ventures, “The Worst Situation Imaginable for Family Violence. All...

Native American Boys: Forgotten Victims

by Wendy McElroy | Jun 3, 2020 | Featured Articles

A recent study by the Nebraska State Patrol and the Commission on Indian Affairs should change how the media and lawmakers view violence against Native Americans. They should look carefully at male victims, but it is far from clear that they will. The Omaha World-Herald offers a surprising statistic, “The greatest percentage of Native American missing persons are boys age 17 or younger, accounting for 73.3% of all Native American missing persons in Nebraska.” In fact, they account for 59.6% of missing people in the state. The data is even the more remarkable because it resulted from LB 154,...

New York Times Hurts Survivors With Falsehoods About Domestic Violence

by Wendy McElroy | May 19, 2020 | Featured Articles

The dominant narrative on domestic violence (DV) during COVID-19 hurts survivors, like me. Decades ago, I was blinded in my left eye by a man who said he loved me even as his fist hit my face. I’ve tried to make sense of that insanity ever since. Why did he do it? Why did I stay? The one thing that anchors me to answers is reality—what is true of DV?—not what is emotional or political. The media delivers the opposite. “Domestic Violence Calls Mount as Restrictions Linger: ‘No One Can Leave’” by Julie Bosman appeared in the New York Times on May 15 and addressed DV in Chicago; the article...

No Evidence That Domestic Violence Is Rising Due To COVID-19

by Wendy McElroy | May 12, 2020 | Featured Articles

A media blitz declares domestic violence (DV) is soaring during COVID-19 because stay-at-home orders have trapped women and children in close proximity to abusive men. Flawed evidence and assumptions underlie this claim but, with the panic of the crisis, it could be embedded in public policy, nevertheless. A headline in Vice presents the perceived problem: “New York Is Seeing a ‘Frightening’ Increase in Domestic Violence Calls. Calls to New York’s domestic violence hotline rose by 30% in April, compared to the same month last year.” The information apparently comes from Crystal Justice, the...

Reform Title IX Now

by Wendy McElroy | Apr 15, 2020 | Featured Articles, Justice

The Department of Education’s (DOE) reform of Title IX — the law that bans discrimination based on sex at federally-funded schools — has been a long time coming. For three Senators, it has not been long enough. They strenuously object to the impact on how colleges handle accusations of sexual misconduct. No longer will an accused be presumed guilty until proven innocent. Instead, he will be accorded due process. On March 31, Patty Murray — the leading Democrat on the Senate education committee — Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand sent a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to...

The Parallel Universes That Are America

by Wendy McElroy | May 20, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

Many see recent attacks on Attorney General William Barr not as politics as usual but a call to overthrow the status quo. The intransigence of the Republican response indicates that many now view current affairs as a battle to destroy or preserve America’s defining political traditions, such as the electoral college, a separation of powers, and the Second Amendment. It’s not hyperbole to say that politics are tearing America in two along ideological seams. Whichever side people fall on, they should be aware of the dynamic. The Narrative It is akin to the Cultural Revolution of China...

Exporting Roosevelt’s New Deal through Aid, Investment, and Threat of War

by Wendy McElroy | Mar 12, 2018 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The Marshall Plan is more than a historical event — it has become a modern myth. As such, it may be mostly true or mostly false, but it exercises a powerful hold over reality. And the perceived success of the Marshall Plan has influenced American policy since the late 1940s. — Tyler Cowen The European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan was an American post–World War II program by which approximately $13 billion was used to rebuild the economies of nations in Western Europe. ($13 billion is about $130 billion in 2016 dollars. Some historians, such as Joseph Stromberg, place the...

The Libertarianism Antithesis: War

by Wendy McElroy | Aug 4, 2017 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Until the longest war in U.S. history ends, substantive liberty will not return to American soil. Nothing is more important to freedom than to oppose the militarization of society because the two social models cannot coexist. Inevitably, one will overthrow the other. What Is War? What Is Libertarianism? The root of the conflict is expressed in the definitions of "war" and "libertarianism." War is traditionally defined as the situation in which one state officially declares open hostility against the territory and people of another. Sometimes the word "war" is replaced by euphemistic terms...