What if we were free? What if government sought to serve the people, not control them? What if we own ourselves? What if property rights spring from that premise? What if each of us determine what makes life worthwhile? What if we need liberty to pursue happiness?...
Libertarianism
TGIF: Jefferson on Not Trusting the State
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 26, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Regardless of written constitutions and the laws on the books, individual liberty is always at risk. And as liberty goes, so goes our capacity to live well, to achieve the good life as rational, virtuous social beings. The danger comes from left and right, both of...
Here’s What Fernando Tesón Misunderstands About Murray Rothbard
by David Gordon | Aug 22, 2022 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
In his valuable article “War and Humanitarian Intervention,” in The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism (pp. 441–56), Fernando R. Tesón raises some interesting criticisms of Murray Rothbard’s views on war as part of a more general discussion of the topic, and I’d...
TGIF: The Coming New and Improved IRS
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 19, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The brilliant people in the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress have decided that one thing America really needs is an Internal Revenue Service (!) fortified by 87,000 more employees and 80 billion more dollars so it can help reduce the inflation that currently...
TGIF: About Those January 6 Committee Extravaganzas
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 5, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I admit it: I watched nearly every moment of the House committee extravaganzas on the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. I did more than that. I was transfixed. I couldn't even multitask. Were the mislabeled "hearings" beyond all criticism? Of course not. They were...
TGIF: The Limits of Ideology
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 29, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I have defended the idea of ideology per se and have disparaged the idea that anyone can operate without an ideology. The self-proclaimed non-ideological person is really one who has an implicit and therefore unexamined or underexamined ideology. No one really judges...
TGIF: Complete Liberalism
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 22, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Many people formerly of the left, who have bid good riddance to their former political home, believe they can retain the mantle of authentic liberalism while ignoring its free-market component. They don't want socialism, and they appropriately dislike the right-wing....
The Anti-Morality of the Coercive Monopoly
by Kym Robinson | Jul 18, 2022 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
There are two ideological camps that matter: those who believe that coercion is required to achieve their means and those who believe in cooperation through voluntary interactions. History and the contemporary world has been defined by the bloodshed of the ideology of...