Blog 63 | The Libertarian Institute

Lying Politicians Gonna Lyingly Politick

by Sheldon Richman | May 8, 2024 | Blog, Politics

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaking on Holocaust Remembrance Day:

We remember what happened then [in Nazi Germany], and today, we are witnessing American universities quickly become hostile places for Jewish students and faculty.

The very campuses which were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus. Students who were known for producing academic papers, are now known for stabbing Jewish peers in the eyes with Palestinian flags.

Faculty who once produced cutting-edge research are linking arms with pro-Hamas protestors calling for a “global intifada.”

Administrators who were once lauded by their peers for leadership are barring Jewish faculty and choosing not to protect their Jewish students. Jewish students are physically threatened when they walk on campus, as their peers hold posters repeating the Nazi propaganda and the program: the final solution.

Now is a time for moral clarity – we must put an end to this madness.

The Purpose of the Antisemitism Awareness Act

by Sheldon Richman | May 8, 2024 | Blog, Justice

The point of the House-passed (and misnamed) Antisemitism Awareness Act is not to empower the Education Department to sue and defund colleges under civil rights law. It is to make lawsuits unnecessary by chilling expression.

The Prussian Culture of Disobedience

by Bill Buppert | May 8, 2024 | Blog

“The German and Prussian officer corps are the officer corps with the greatest culture of disobedience–with maybe the exception of the French. The stories and events that kept alive the virtue requiring an officer–even in war–to disobey an order “when justified by honor and circumstances” were corporate cultural knowledge within the Prussian and German officer corps and it is therefore important to recount them here.”

– Jörg Muth, CommandCulture

Contrary to popular opinion, the German Army in both world wars was not an army of automatons but a thinking and reactive combat force at the tactical and operational level unmatched in efficacy and superiority.

I recommend this splendid essay.

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Zionism versus Judaism

by Sheldon Richman | May 8, 2024 | Blog, History

From the start, political Zionists identified their program with Judaism the religion (despite their secularism, even atheism).

Also from the start, Jews — including the most tradition-bound Jews — vigorously disavowed that identification. They were shamed as self-hating traitors to “their people.” As a consequence, many went silent and eventually acquiesced in the creation of Israel, the self-identified “Jewish state.” Some even converted to Zionism.

So don’t blame non-Jews for being unclear about the relationship between Zionism and Judaism.

Sen. Mitt Romney Admits TikTok Censorship is All About Protecting Israel

by Scott Horton | May 7, 2024 | Blog

Of course it is. No one hates free speech more than Zionists.

You know, because accurate descriptions of Israel make them look bad.

The F35 Continues NOT to Stick the Landing

by Bill Buppert | May 7, 2024 | Blog

f35cash

“I’m getting tired of over-promising and under-delivering,” F-35 program head Air Force Lt. Gen. Mike Schmidt said.

The newly-envisioned Block 4 would instead focus on delivering “‘must-have’ content,” Schmidt wrote, which will include an undefined “subset” of 88 capabilities originally approved as part of the Block 4 plan. “Reimagined Block 4 must consist of ‘what industry can actually deliver’ across the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP),” Schmidt wrote, and will likely consist of traits like enhanced electronic warfare and communications capabilities.

By the time this aircraft originating in the 1980’s is fully operational and capable, we may be in the next century. And, as we have previously discussed, a two trillion dollar lifetime buy.

“I am as frustrated as you that I can’t nail down a specific date and be extremely clear about exactly when we will deliver,” F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt told lawmakers during a House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

The “best chance” the program has is to accept jets before TR-3 is fully finished, Schmidt said. Under this “truncated” plan, the Pentagon will receive jets loaded with an interim version of the TR-3 software.

See: https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/04/f-35-deliveries-could-resume-july-new-jets-wont-be-combat-ready-year/39581

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At First I Hated Rian Johnson

by Scott Horton | May 6, 2024 | Blog

For making the very worst Star Wars movie, Episode 8, and ruining Luke Skywalker.

But now I realize that he was just making a film about how disappointing it was to meet Mark Hamill.

Chasing Ghosts Dispatch 006: The Carrier Reality: Dead on Arrival

by Bill Buppert | May 6, 2024 | Blog

Stop the madness.

Stop deploying carriers

Stop building them.

Just stop.

I won’t be getting Christmas cards this year from the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition

I am not alone in these notions and the late Captain Wayne Hughes did yeoman’s work on these ideas along with the terrific analyses from CDR Jeff Vandenemgel, author of “Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the US Navy”, which should be on every amateur navalist’s bookshelf.

All of these gentlemen have great ideas although I do think they neglect the vast broken design and infrastructure process for shipbuilding in the US that would not support a wholesale re-imagining and implementation of rational fleet design in this century.

Although the Navy wants to achieve and maintain in coming years a fleet of 381 manned battle force ships, including 12 aircraft carriers, force-structure studies done by the Navy that eventually led to the 381-ship goal showed future Navy force structures that included 8 to 12 carriers, to be supplemented (in the case of the lower end of that range) by up to 6 light aircraft carriers (CVLs). The Navy does not currently operate CVLs. The Navy in recent years has experimented with the concept of using an LHA-type amphibious assault ship with an embarked group of F-35B Joint Strike Fighters as a CVL.28.

It gets worse:

The most criminal event occurred in 2019 when it was obvious there were serious problems with the Ford design that may be un-fixable. Admirals pressed Congress to fund two more Fords earlier than planned, as though they wanted to get them under construction before Congress and media learned about problems.

And stop the surface stealth tilting at the military windmill. I can assure every military on Earth that your stealth technology will be decoded and broken shortly after deployment. The ridiculous F35 willfully baked in payload limitations (both radar cross section (RCS) concerns and internal loading for the former) on a conceptual design that beggars engineering description.

Read the rest.

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