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Sheldon Richman Articles

TGIF: Joe Biden, What the Hell?

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 1, 2022

What's going on with Joe Biden? Is he oblivious to the fact that Russia has about as many strategic nuclear weapons as the United States has? Is he taking advice from the neocons, who apparently believe that we should not fear a nuclear holocaust because that's...

TGIF: Our Age of Character Assassination

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 25, 2022

I am not one for romanticizing the past because in every alleged golden age you find grumblers looking longingly to some earlier alleged golden age. Nevertheless, our own time has earned its share of criticism. For example, we live in a time when, for many, character...

TGIF: Congress Again Rewards Israel’s Misdeeds

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 18, 2022

To judge by what Congress is up to these days, one would think that it wants to reward Israel for its relentless confiscation of Palestinian land and continued ethnic cleansing. Congress -- which is not only interested in "the Benjamins," that is, Israel Lobby...

TGIF: Russia in Ukraine: Cui Bono?

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 11, 2022

I don't know if the U.S. foreign-policy elite wanted Russia to invade Ukraine -- an argument could be made for the affirmative -- but I'd hate to think it did. Yet given its long record of global mischief (a polite word for its machinations), we certainly cannot rule...

TGIF: When History Begins – Russia, Ukraine & the US

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 4, 2022

Contrary to what hypocritical U.S. rulers and their loyal mass media suggest, two propositions can both be -- and indeed are -- true: that Russia has grossly, brutally, and criminally mishandled the situation it has faced with respect to Ukraine, and that the U.S....

TGIF: On Privilege

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 25, 2022

One of the most abused words in English is privilege. Observe how indiscriminately this word is spoken and written. For example, in some quarters, all straight white men -- without exception -- are said to be privileged, which seems absurd. Practically all we hear...

TGIF: Licensing the Fringe

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 18, 2022

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...

TGIF: More Voices, Please

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 11, 2022

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...

TGIF: Disagreement without Conflict

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 4, 2022

I'll admit it: I'm a natural-rights guy. I think you can get to individual rights, including the right to property, from within the ancient Greek eudaimonist (virtue ethics) and Spinozist tradition. But here's a separate point: rights-talk may not be the best way to...

TGIF: Anti-Woke Isn’t Necessarily Pro-Liberty

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 28, 2022

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

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

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...

TGIF: National or Enlightenment Liberal Identity?

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 7, 2022

I find much to admire about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch-American scholar, author, and one-time politician who has drawn international attention to the violence against women and girls not only in Muslim-majority countries but also in the West at the hands...

TGIF: Pursue Your Happiness and Forget the Rest

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 31, 2021

How about we do something novel in the new year? Let's stop worrying about the stuff most politicians, pundits, and activists want us to worry about and instead think about ourselves, our families, our friends, and whatever communities we choose to be part of. Let's...

TGIF: Double-Rigging of the Auto Market

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 17, 2021

U.S. government interference with our lives often resembles a Russian matryoshka doll: regulation is nested in more regulation. Take the provision of Biden's pending Build Back Better bill that would create a big tax credit for people who buy U.S.-built electric...

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Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

What Social Animal's Owe to Each Other

by Sheldon Richman

These essays, written over the past 20 years, have a single underlying theme: namely, that we human beings, as social animals, need individual freedom to fully flourish.

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Coming to Palestine