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Sheldon Richman Articles

TGIF: Trump’s Escalation Imperils Innocents

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 10, 2020

While an eerie, surreal calm has fallen over US-Iranian relations, I wouldn’t assume we’re out of the woods yet. Trump had no reason to be confident that Iran’s response to his most recent escalation of violence would be little more than symbolic. Although he’s...

TGIF: But Mr. Trump, Is Israel Lovable?

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 13, 2019

Speaking before Sheldon Adelson's Israeli-American Council the other day, Trump took a shot at Jewish Americans who he says don't "love Israel enough." "We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more," Trump said. "We have to get them...

TGIF: To Be or Not to Be a Jewish State: That Is the Question

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 25, 2019

Israel’s champions owe us an explanation. First, they insist that Israel is and always must be a Jewish state, by which most of them mean not religiously Jewish but of the “Jewish People” everywhere, including Jews who are citizens of other states and not looking for...

TGIF: Let’s Make Sure the Nazis Killed in Vain

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 18, 2019

I don’t know how many times I've heard that if we don’t stand by Israel, the victims of the Nazi Judeocide will have died in vain. I knew something was wrong with that claim, but for the longest time I couldn’t put my finger on it. Now I think I can. The claim is...

TGIF: Who Owns You?

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 15, 2019

“The issue comes down to whether the individual is viewed as a private person or as public property: the former has no obligation to the community to be or stay healthy; the latter does.” “Virtually everything the Founding Fathers sought to achieve by separating...

TGIF: The FDA’s Assault on Tobacco Consumers, Part 3

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 8, 2019

Updated Feb. 11, 2019 Early one morning last December, Jeff Gracik was heading to his southern California home garage-workshop where he makes his living when he heard a loud, hurried knock on his front door. Thinking it might be a rushed UPS driver, he quickly opened...

TGIF: The FDA’s Assault on Tobacco Consumers, Part 2

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 1, 2019

A bill introduced in the U.S. House last month would ban the flavoring of any “tobacco product.” The targets are vaping devices (vapes, e-cigarettes), but also cigars and pipe tobacco. (Flavored conventional cigarettes, other than menthol, have already been banned.)...

TGIF: The FDA’s Assault on Tobacco Consumers

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 25, 2019

We’ve all heard horror stories about the run-amok regulatory state. Enabled by open-ended statutes passed by Congress and signed by presidents, regulatory agencies have acquired virtual carte blanche to write rules governing peaceful behavior. Even when a seemingly...

TGIF: America’s War Culture

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 18, 2019

For most of the opinion-making class in America today, war is the default position. Representatives of establishment newspapers and TV news operations are not likely to grill someone who favors U.S. military intervention somewhere -- anywhere. He or she will have no...

TGIF: Tucker Carlson Needs Love from His Leaders

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 11, 2019

Fox News host and Trump cheerleader Tucker Carlson is a culturally conservative, big-government, nationalist populist. As such, he’s upset that establishment politicians and their sponsoring elite don’t care enough to promote his and his fellow Americans’ happiness....

TGIF: War Over Ukraine?

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 7, 2018

Today, the United States and Allies conducted an extraordinary flight under the Open Skies Treaty. The timing of this flight is intended to reaffirm U.S. commitment to Ukraine and other partner nations.‎ The United States is resolute in our support for the security of...

TGIF: Gassing Migrants

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 30, 2018

The Trump administration and its apologists are quick to point out that Barack Obama was as willing as Donald Trump himself to tear-gas desperate people trying to protect themselves by crossing America’s southern border. So he was, though many will refuse to believe...

TGIF: Trump’s Foreign Policy War on Americans

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 23, 2018

Beyond any reasonable doubt, in substance if not in appearance, Donald Trump is a thoroughly conventional American politician. It’s a wonder that anyone requires proof at this late date. This couldn’t be clearer than in foreign policy. Some of us who understand the...

TGIF: The Art of the Smear — The Israel Lobby Busted

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 16, 2018

In 2016 and 2017 Al Jazeera produced a program that unmistakenly documents the Israel government and U.S. Israel lobby’s all-out effort to spy on, smear, and disrupt American students and other activists who are working to build an understanding of the Palestinians’...

Liberty in America During the Great War

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 11, 2018

There’s always plenty for libertarians to complain about in our troubled world, but in many respects, things could be much worse. I’m thinking particularly of how the U.S. government punished dissent before, during, and even after America’s participation in World War...

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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