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...
Politics
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...

Biden White House Denies It Supported Lockdowns
by Ryan McMaken | Feb 9, 2022 | Featured Articles, Politics
Last Friday, a reporter asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki to respond to the Johns Hopkins covid study showing lockdowns provided no real benefit in terms of disease prevention. In response, Psaki dodged addressing the study directly, but then pivoted to...
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...
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: 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...
TGIF: Easy Cases May Make Bad Rules
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 21, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Hard cases make bad law, an adage apparently coined before 1837 tells us. In other words, "an extreme case is a poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases." Not everyone has agreed that this is the case, but we'll let that go. I...
TGIF: Utopianism May Be Hazardous to Your Health
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 14, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Beware those who claim to have a detailed blueprint for the ideal society. If such a person thinks you stand in the way, you may get run over. That's how it is with utopians. They want everything just so, and woe betide those who disagree. The repeated attempts at...