Big Tech's incredible promise to rid its platforms of "misinformation and disinformation" is not only a chimera that will harm the most gullible, but it is also an unwitting grant of power and credibility to some of the dodgiest elements online. That claim might sound...
Libertarianism
TGIF: More Voices, Please
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 11, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
If the social media and other high-tech companies, whether under pressure from the state or not, were to lead people to believe that, starting today, only accurate information will get through their gatekeepers, would the public, especially the most gullible, really...
Bastiat Foresees 1/6
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 8, 2022 | Blog, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose—that it may violate property instead of protecting it—then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political...
Socialized Medicine Ain’t Freedom
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 7, 2022 | Blog, Economics, Justice, Libertarianism
The emergence of a pro-Enlightenment, pro-reason, anti-woke left, with its eloquent declarations in favor of freedom, is welcome indeed. But this political force still has some way to go. It is disappointing to hear the same people who effectively and properly debunk...
Government Education Chickens Return Again to the Roost
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 4, 2022 | Blog, Libertarianism, Politics
If you favor a government-controlled virtual monopoly in schooling, don't be surprised when a school board removes Maus, the award-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from an eighth-grade class that covers the Holocaust from a language-arts perspective. If you...

TGIF: Disagreement without Conflict
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 4, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I'll admit it: I'm a natural-rights guy. I think you can get to individual rights, including the right to property, from within the ancient Greek eudaimonist (virtue ethics) and Spinozist tradition. But here's a separate point: rights-talk may not be the best way to...
Boomerang Argument
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 28, 2022 | Blog, Libertarianism
Any argument against a totally free society that depends on the dark side of human nature inevitably circles around to hit the one making the argument smack in the back of the head. Hence, it is a boomerang argument. The reason is that if people are so bad that we...

TGIF: Anti-Woke Isn’t Necessarily Pro-Liberty
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 28, 2022 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I had a reminder this week that those who oppose fashionable postmodernist-style attacks on reason and objectivity, such as "critical" race and gender theories, are not necessarily consistent friends of liberty and the free society. That reminder came in a recent...