For the past decade people have become comfortable in their Culture War trenches, which for the better part of the 2010s have pitted an evangelical, PC-imposing leftwing against a more laissez-faire rightwing. When it comes to the freedom to think and speak verboten...
Libertarianism
Paying Your “Fair Share” of the Warfare-Welfare State
by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Jul 19, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
A recurring theme in national tax debates is the idea that everyone should pay their “fair share” of taxes. While that aspiration’s validity is widely taken for granted, the stark reality is there’s no such thing as a “fair share” of federal taxes. To understand why,...
Etienne de la Boetie²: Peaceful Resistance to the COVID Regime Ep. 175
by Patrick Macfarlane | Jul 18, 2021 | Libertarianism, Vital Dissent
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...
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....