Sheldon Richman Articles

TGIF: Dying for the Empire Is Not Heroic

Predictably, the news media spent most of the week examining words Donald Trump may or may not have spoken to the widow of an American soldier killed in Niger, in northwest Africa, in early October. Not only was this coverage tedious, it was largely pointless. We know...

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TGIF: Is Secession by Referendum Libertarian?

I have concerns about secession by referendum. Individual secession, of course, is no problem; that's simply libertarianism. Before I get into my reasons, let me stipulate that smaller political jurisdictions are on net preferable to larger ones if for no other reason...

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TGIF: Overcoming Confirmation Bias on Guns

Confirmation bias is one of the great obstacles to making the practical case for liberty. People see in events what they want to see. I think of the joke about the person who planned to take his hyperactive dog on a train trip and asked his veterinarian for a...

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TGIF: Flags, Football, and Begged Questions

Defenders of Donald Trump's condemnation of NFL players who "take a knee" during the national hymn -- sorry, anthem -- beg a few questions. They assume the truth of matters that are or should be in dispute. So, not so fast, Trump defenders. You have work to do. The...

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TGIF: Trump’s Americanized Fascism

Donald Trump delivered a depraved address to the UN General Assembly this week. It might not have been a new low for Trump, but that's only because he went into the UN at an appallingly low level. The address had some obviously egregious parts, most especially Trump's...

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TGIF: The American Führerprinzip

Why is the president of the United States expected to rush to a weather disaster zone to reassure the victims? Why do distressed people want to be comforted by the president, any president? Commenting on Donald Trump's visit to hurricane-stricken Florida, Julie Pace...

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TGIF: Operation CYA – Afghanistan

Steve Bannon's Breitbart and others notwithstanding, that was Trump being Trump when he announced he would not be quitting Afghanistan, despite the manifest futility and counterproductivity -- that is, idiocy -- of America's 16-year war there. He is not a captive of...

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TGIF: Immigration and Social Engineering

Immigration brings out the social engineers and central planners across the political establishment. We see this clearly in the debate over Donald Trump's support for legislation that would cut legal immigration in half while tilting it toward well-educated...

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TGIF: On Property and Aggression

Some critics on the left enjoy faulting libertarians for believing that property is a bulwark against aggression. To the libertarian argument that violations of property -- including trespasses on land -- constitute aggression, these critics respond that property...

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TGIF: We Are the Economy They Want to Regulate

Critics of the libertarian philosophy think they can score points by calling libertarians "market fundamentalists." It's supposed to conjure images of dogmatic religious fundamentalists, just like the term global warming denier is supposed to conjure images of...

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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

Book Animalssm

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.

Coming to Palestine

by Sheldon Richman

In this incredible volume of essays, collected over 30 years, Sheldon Richman exposes the true history of Israeli dispossession of the Palestinians.

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