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Sheldon Richman Articles

TGIF: Back to Square One?

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 10, 2016

For those who value liberty and peace, this has been a distressing -- even disappointing -- election season. Neither major candidate gives a hoot about individual rights, and neither shows any sign of understanding the spontaneous cooperation and coordination that...

TGIF: Clueless Presidential Candidates

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 31, 2016

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are no friends of liberty. This is not breaking news, of course. In fact, I can't think of a less controversial statement: unlike past Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, they don't even pay lip service to liberty. I...

Obamacare Continues Its Predicted Slide

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 26, 2016

All the negatives predicted for Obamacare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) are coming to pass. But what would you expect of a program in which the government defines the insurance product that (licensed) companies must offer and people must buy, sets...

TGIF: Come and See the Anarchy Inherent in the System!

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 24, 2016

Donald Trump says the presidential election is "rigged." Although he provides no evidence for his charge, lots of things can be said about it. For one thing, he equivocates over the word rigged to include voter fraud along with news-media/polling bias -- two very...

Donald Trump, Hawk

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 19, 2016

Donald Trump is no peacenik. Leave aside Trump's proclamation that he "love[s] war" and unpredictability, and that he is more "militaristic" than anyone. Forget that he wants to enlarge the military and that he refuses to forswear first use of nuclear weapons. Ignore...

TGIF: Shimon Peres and 9/11

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 2, 2016

The death of former Israeli prime minister and president Shimon Peres (age 93), the last major figure of Israel's founding generation, has brought an outpouring of tributes for a man who reputedly had, as President Obama put it in his eulogy, "the capacity to see all...

TGIF: Neither Democracy nor Elitism

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 23, 2016

Whenever we libertarians point out democracy's perverse incentives (as I do here) we risk being accused of elitism. However, those who assume that the only alternative to rule by the people is rule by an aristocracy reveal a tragically incomplete awareness of the...

TGIF: Trade is a Labor-Saving “Device”

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 16, 2016

Democratic politics makes savvy people stupid, at least when they act politically. This has long been demonstrated, and it applies both to voters and policymakers. Several things account for it: the impotence of one vote, the consequent futility and hence wastefulness...

America’s Counter-Revolution Reviewed

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 15, 2016

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Independent historian (and old friend) Joseph R. Stromberg reviewed America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited at The American Conservative magazine website. He opens "The Federalists' Revenge"...

Is the Government’s Budget Equal to GDP?

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 8, 2016

Memo to news people: tax cuts don't have to be paid for. The money is ours; the government takes it from us by threat of force, i.e., taxation. It's government programs that have to be paid for. Tax cuts are not government programs. So if you want to ask how...

Victimless-Crime Laws Breed Police Violence

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 11, 2016

As long as the police are charged with detecting and stopping consensual transactions -- concerning, for example, drugs, guns, gambling, sex, and untaxed cigarettes and CDs -- tension and violence will continue. Abolishing victimless-crime laws won't end institutional...

TGIF: Trump, Saddam, and the Presumption of Innocence

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 7, 2016

The horrifying thing about Trump's recent remarks about Saddam Hussein is not that he expressed admiration for the late Iraqi dictator -- in fact Trump called him a "bad guy" three times. What is horrifying is that Trump seemed envious that Saddam could "kill...

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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