https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-RacyNx7nE I was glad to be joined by Etienne de la Boetie² to discuss how he, with the help of others, was able to organize civil disobedience during the height of the COVID lockdowns. We also discuss his book, "'Government' The...
Libertarianism
TGIF: Who’s the Aggressor? Who’s the Victim?
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 16, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
When a libertarian says that the most basic individual right is the right not to be aggressed against, a clever interlocutor may accuse the libertarian of begging the question, of stuffing the rabbit into the hat. The trick, the critic will say, is in the word...
Legacy of Instability: The US Must Cease Intervening in Haiti Ep. 174
by Patrick Macfarlane | Jul 13, 2021 | Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Vital Dissent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FcemWok4_s Last Wednesday, Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in the middle of the night. The last time a Haitian president was assassinated, the United States invaded Haiti and occupied it for two decades. U.S. pundits...
National Service and the State’s Condemnation of Youthful Independence
by Jim Bovard | Jul 9, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
"Beatings will continue until morale improves” has morphed from an old joke to the latest prescription for national salvation. “Compulsory National Service Could Unite America,” whooped a New York Times Op-ed headline last week. Prominent media outlets, think tanks,...
Consent of the Governed?
by Robert Higgs | Jul 8, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
What gives some people the right to rule others? At least since John Locke’s time, the most common and seemingly compelling answer has been “the consent of the governed.” When the North American revolutionaries set out to justify their secession from the British...
American Historians Misjudge American Presidents
by Hunter DeRensis | Jul 7, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Politics
"They adored him as no man in a democracy deserves to be adored,” Walter Lippmann wrote, describing progressive worshippers of Theodore Roosevelt in 1916. American historians suffer from the same malady, a predisposition to hero-worshipping chief executives (T.R....
F.A. Hayek, the Progressive’s Devil
by Richard Ebeling | Jul 7, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism
There is the ideologically captured mind that squeezes all the complexities, diversities, uncertainties, and serendipities of life into one limited dimension of cause and explanation. One such mind is that of Wellesley College historian, Quinn Slobodian, who sees...
TGIF: Defend the Enlightenment!
by Sheldon Richman | Jul 2, 2021 | Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The libertarian philosophy is embedded in Enlightenment liberalism. This is clearly seen in its commitment to free inquiry (reason) and free speech, the full realization of which, I argue, requires complete respect for individual rights, including property rights....