Ignoring for the moment whether a state as such can have any rights at all (it can't), we can ask: does a state have the right to "defend" itself against the people it subjugates?
Libertarianism
TGIF: The Right to Move
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 5, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
If people individually own themselves and have a right to be free of aggressive force, then they have a right to change their location in ways consistent with other people's rights. Whether you call this moving around relocating, emigrating, or immigrating, doesn't...
The Christmas Truce of World War I
by Will Grigg | Dec 24, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Will Grigg
For a tragically short time, the Spirit of the Prince of Peace drowned out the murderous demands of the State. In August 1914, Europe's major powers threw themselves into war with gleeful abandon. Germany, a rising power with vast aspirations, plowed across Belgium,...
TGIF: Beware Elitists in Populist Clothing
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 22, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, History, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
We're led to believe that today's political struggles are largely a contest between populists and elitists. But something besides libertarians is missing from that simple tale: the elitists in populist clothing, or elitist populists. We have no better example than a...
A Libertarian Defense of Surrogacy
by Benjamin Seevers | Dec 7, 2023 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
Amidst announcements of gay conservatives having children by surrogate, commentators such as Michael Knowles and Katy Faust levied criticism against the practice of surrogacy in general. These commentators, however, get a lot wrong. Let’s examine each of the most...
TGIF: Arms Sales and Democracy
by Sheldon Richman | Nov 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The U.S. government's role as the world's premier arms donor and dealer is now under renewed scrutiny. I can't imagine why. But seriously... We may legitimately ask if this role fulfills democracy's promise of, in Lincoln's words, "government of the people, by the...
TGIF: Bigotry versus Social Cooperation
by Sheldon Richman | Nov 17, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
We who value individualism, freedom, and social cooperation as essential to flourishing should be distressed by the hostile bigotry that has lately reared its ugly head, to some uncertain extent, on the streets and campuses of America and abroad. This is not new. In...
The European Union’s Distorted Theory of ‘Liberty’
by Brice M. Vanhaelen | Nov 9, 2023 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
Today, governments in Europe have a broad answer to the question, “What is the role of government?” A culture of interventionism incrusted over many years convinced European governments that everything can be solved with more money, more bureaucrats, and more plans....