The best-selling social scientist and, it so happens, libertarian Bryan Caplan thinks politicians are immoral. Sounds promising. He's discussed this online and in one of his published blog-post collections, How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery. What are we...
Justice
TGIF: Paternalists Cross the Free-Speech Line
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 21, 2023 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Some pundits are puzzled that respectable mainstream Democrats and "progressives" are no longer free-speech absolutists but rather are enthusiastic defenders of the government's massive effort to squelch expression on the social media platforms. (Glenn Greenwald is...

TGIF: Free Speech Upsets Powers that Be
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 14, 2023 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The Biden administration, along with mainstream politicians and journalists, are really upset that U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty has forbidden the executive branch of the central government from communicating with social-media platforms for the purpose of...

TGIF: Good News on Free Speech — for Now
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 7, 2023 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Occasionally, the news makes one cheer. That's the case with a preliminary injunction granted this week (July 4) to stop the federal government from suppressing lawful speech on social media. U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty took the action in the case of...

TGIF: Foreign Policy Matters
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 23, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
In an extra special way, foreign policy matters crucially to champions of individual liberty. Not that it doesn't matter to other people too -- just not in all the same ways. Anyone who understands the importance of keeping government power strictly limited in...
TGIF: Immigration and Liberty
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 2, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Forbidding freedom of movement to aspiring migrants strikes at the liberty not only of those individuals but also of citizens and legal residents of the United States. That's the way it is with immigration. Indeed, that's the way it is with freedom. The government...
TGIF: No One Has a Right to Make Immigration Policy
by Sheldon Richman | May 19, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says "no one has a right to immigrate" to the United States. "We determine as Americans," he says, "what type of immigration system benefits our country. When you're doing immigration, it's not for their benefit as foreigners. It's for your...
TGIF: Ducking Hayek
by Sheldon Richman | May 12, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
May 8 marked the 124th anniversary of the birth of F. A. Hayek, the 1974 Nobel-winning economist of the Austrian school. (He died in 1992.) That makes it a good time to acknowledge one of his many contributions, his epistemic case for the free and competitive market...