Imagine two candidates for president, and ask yourself who is more likely to win. Candidate A observes that people are facing generally rising prices. Their total at the supermarket checkout is higher than last year. Filling up the car at the gas station takes a...
Politics
Democracy’s Damndest Defamation
by Jim Bovard | Sep 4, 2024 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Politics
In a democracy, people automatically become liable for whatever the government inflicts upon them. Many of the most deadly errors of contemporary political thinking stem from the notion that in a democracy the government is the people and vice versa, so there is scant...
What Donald Trump Told the National Guard
by Dan McKnight | Sep 2, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics
One week ago Donald Trump spoke in Detroit, Michigan in front of the National Guard Association. He recognizes that the National Guard is the backbone of the U.S. Armed Forces, but is too often dismissed as a critical branch. “We always can count on you. I’ve counted...
TGIF: Doing Good at a Profit
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 30, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
[P]eople started to believe that the bourgeoisie and its economic activities of trade and innovation were virtuous, or at least tolerable. In every successful lurch into modern riches from Holland in 1650 to the United States in 1900 to China in 2000, one sees a...
Kamala and the Deadly Perils of Sham Idealism
by Jim Bovard | Aug 26, 2024 | Featured Articles, Politics
As the presidential race enters the final stretch, politicians are recycling the usual cons to make people believe this election will be different. At last week’s Democratic National Convention, sham idealism had a starring role, accompanied by ritual denunciations of...
TGIF: Back to Barbarism
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 23, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Has Kamala Harris inadvertently done free-market advocates a favor? Let's not get too hopeful, but maybe. How so? By pandering to voters and marketing herself as a consumer watchdog who will stamp out (undefined) supermarket "price gouging." This could create teaching...
TGIF: Gaslighting
by Sheldon Richman | Aug 16, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I wonder who's gaslighting us now. Here are some of the major perpetrators: The pundits and pseudo-economists of all tribes who try to convince us that the government can spend, borrow, and create money almost without limit or harm. What happens when interest on the...
Nixon’s Resignation and America’s Impunity Democracy
by Jim Bovard | Aug 13, 2024 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles, Politics
August 8 was the fiftieth anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Unfortunately, that anniversary spurred little reflections or lamentations on how lawless the federal government has become in the subsequent half century. Aside from his Watergate abuses,...