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Sheldon Richman Articles

TGIF: Trump and Syria

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 27, 2018

Let's face it: no one knows what Donald Trumps really wants to do in Syria. On a couple of occasions he's said he intends to withdraw U.S. military forces. Does he mean it? Or does he say such a thing only when he's in the mood to strike a populist pose? Who knows?...

TGIF: The Dangerous Deficit in Trade Understanding

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 13, 2018

I was chatting with my tobacconist the other day -- I have no rabbi, no priest, no minister, no imam, no chiropractor, and no lawyer, but I do have a tobacconist -- when it struck me that my trade deficit with him is astronomical. How could I have let this happen? For...

TGIF: Who’s Afraid of Russian Propaganda?

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 6, 2018

If the reader will indulge me, I want to relate some further thoughts about the concern over Russia and the American political system. For the sake of discussion I will assume that expressions of this concern are sincere, that "Russia" did what it's alleged to have...

TGIF: Cambridge Analytica — Bogey of the Week

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 30, 2018

The panic over Cambridge Analytica looks like an acknowledgment that Russiagate is a losing horse. CA is the latest excuse for Hillary Clinton's ignominious loss to Donald Trump, following "the Russians" and former FBI Director James Comey. Since those others haven't...

TGIF: The Iraq War after 15 Years

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 23, 2018

On the 10th anniversary of the U.S. government's criminal, catastrophic, and still-to-this-day consequential war against Iraq in March 2003, I wrote: It is no exaggeration to say that most news operations were little more than extensions of the White House Office of...

TGIF: Economic Nationalism: Elitism in Populist Clothing

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 16, 2018

My old friend and former American Conservative editor Dan McCarthy gets it all wrong about Donald Trump's "national security" tariffs on aluminum and steel. I won't discuss Dan's strictly economic case for the tariffs -- I've already discussed this -- but I want to...

TGIF: Trading Places

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 9, 2018

"What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war." --Henry George When Donald Trump can propose tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, washing machines, and solar-panels without being roundly booed off the...

TGIF: The Grammar of Russiagate

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 2, 2018

Grammar, usually taken to consist of the rules of correct syntactic and semantic usage, becomes, in [philosopher Ludwig] Wittgenstein’s hands, the wider—and more elusive—network of rules which determine what linguistic move is allowed as making sense, and what isn’t....

TGIF: The Tragicomedy of Russiagate

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 23, 2018

The whole election-meddling distraction is remarkable in both comic and tragic ways. The tragedy can be summed up in three words: New Cold War. At a time when the U.S. and Russian governments ought to be working toward nuclear disarmament, relations are deteriorating...

TGIF: ‘Peace Through Strength’ Is a Racket

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 16, 2018

Donald Trump has embraced the popular "peace through strength" doctrine (PTSD) with his characteristic panache: "I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody — absolutely nobody — is gonna to mess with us," Trump says. On other occasions...

TGIF: Raining on the Parade

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 9, 2018

Of course Donald Trump wants a military parade. I'd be surprised if he didn't. It's just what an insecure narcissist would want. A parade would be the national equivalent of his strutting around like a peacock, dying to turn heads. Even a politician can see that: "I...

TGIF: The Church of America

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 2, 2018

One myth that Americans live by is the separation of church and state. Some like the idea; others hate it; but the irony is that church and state were not separated at the founding of the United States and are not separate now. In fact, they were united in the sense...

TGIF: The Voice of American Workers Is a Charlatan

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 25, 2018

Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed voice of American working people, has decreed that the prices of washing machines and solar panels shall rise. So it is written. So it is done. Trump's decree, placing tariffs (taxes) on imported versions of those goods, will impose...

TGIF: Trump versus the World

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 19, 2018

According to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, somewhere President Donald Trump, instead of saying, "Why do we want all these people from Africa here? They’re shithole countries.... We should have more people from Norway.," said, "Why don't we allow...

TGIF: Trump and No Silver Lining

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 12, 2018

I confess I was indulging in wishful thinking when I thought I detected a silver lining to Donald Trump's election as president. That's what comes of being an optimist and a libertarian romantic. Beware apparent silver linings; they may be fool's gold instead. The...

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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