One of the more puzzling features of the U.S. approach to world affairs is how officials persist in their enthusiasm for economic sanctions as a worthwhile policy tool despite massive evidence regarding their futility. More than three decades ago, Gary Hufbauer,...
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EXPOSED: Biggest FBI Spy Scandal of the Year
by Jim Bovard | May 25, 2023 | Featured Articles
A Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion released last week revealed that the FBI violated the constitutional rights of 278,000 Americans in 2020 and 2021 with warrantless searches of their email and other electronic data. For each American that the FISA...
Three Lies They’re Telling You about the Debt Ceiling
by Ryan McMaken | May 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Negotiations over increasing the federal debt ceiling continue in Washington. As has occurred several times over the past twenty years, Republicans and Democrats are presently using increases in the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip in negotiating how federal tax...
A Few Thousand Years of Chinese Foreign Policy (In a Nutshell)
by Joseph Solis-Mullen | May 23, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
An examination of Chinese foreign policy historically lends little support to those who depict China as secretly plotting to take over the world. Rather, it points to an entity preoccupied with managing its complex, local strategic environment and internal security...
The Iraq War Is (And Will Always Be) Undefendable
by Ryan McMaken | May 4, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
This spring marks the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. After an initial frenzy of war fever in the early years of the war, support for the war has since largely evaporated. Nearly two thirds of veterans now say the war was "not worth...
News Roundup 5/1/2023
by Kyle Anzalone | May 1, 2023 | News Roundup
Russia A Ukrainian drone strike on an oil storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol caused a massive fire, according to a Russian official cited by the Associated Press on Saturday. AWC A Kremlin spokesperson has rebuked a claim by an American diplomat that...
Samantha Power, High Priestess of Insidious Authoritarianism
by Ted Galen Carpenter | Apr 26, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
Most people who remember Samantha Power know her either as a pro-war propagandist masquerading as a journalist in Bosnia or as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s loyal servant in helping to orchestrate the Obama administration’s disastrous military interventions in...
The World Is Changing, But Is Washington Finally Noticing?
by Ted Snider | Apr 26, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
Recent statements by two Biden administration officials hint that the United States is finally noticing that the world around them is changing. On April 11, CIA Director William Burns spoke at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. In a somewhat stunning...
Bannon, Guo, Yan: Where a Populist Right Idol Gets His Funding
by Kyle Matovcik | Apr 24, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics
As we roll into the 2024 political season, you can rest assured the political right will be posturing more and more against China, while rightfully calling for an end to Ukraine aid. This trend was highlighted by a long line of recent Republican congressional and...
Five Faulty Arguments Against Secession
by Rudolph Kohn | Apr 18, 2023 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
As a state grows, it always tries to find more ways to limit the freedom of its people. In the best case, this might take the form of pervasive surveillance and perpetual nudges. Yet it rarely stops there. The state might decide to support ill-advised adventurism...
Anti-Statism Can Start as Just a Seed
by Cody Cook | Apr 11, 2023 | Featured Articles
While there are plenty of passages in the Bible which explicitly contradict the tenets of Christian nationalism and pronounce impending judgment upon the kingdoms of men, it’s become increasingly apparent to me that this opposition is so thoroughly ingrained into the...
Israel ‘Ready’ to Attack Iran Without US Help: IDF Chief
by Dave DeCamp | Apr 8, 2023 | News
The head of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday that Israel is “ready” to attack Iran and could do so without help from the US.
News Roundup 4/3/2023
by Kyle Anzalone | Apr 3, 2023 | News Roundup
Russia Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Thursday that Russia will continue notifying the US of its missile tests despite its suspension of New START, the last nuclear arms control treaty remaining between Washington and Moscow. AWC A prominent...
Ukraine’s Pro-Peace Minority Feels Intimidated: An On the Ground Report
by Michael Holmes | Mar 27, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
Kiev. Sirens wail. I jump up in bed and try to shake my friend Alex awake. “Wake up! Air alert. Let’s get to the shelter! Hurry up!" He turns away. "Let me be! This shit alarm is constant." I dress hastily. He sighs, wearily grabs his cell phone and checks a warning...
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The Non-Existent Difference Between National Socialism and Democratic Socialism
Summary: National Socialism and Democratic Socialism both advocate institutionalized violence by the state against peaceful people only differing in rhetoric. The most popular self described Democratic Socialists in America today are Senator Bernie Sanders and...
A Response to My Memorial Day Critics
My article against Memorial Day drew a lot of ire and attention. This should not have been surprising; I was making a controversial statement. What did surprise me, however, was that many critics were self-described libertarians or former libertarians. There were many...
Ignoring Political Gossip & Sticking to Principle
https://youtu.be/ZwWHjYVY4tg In the private sector, firms must attract voluntary customers or they fail; and if they fail, investors lose their money, and managers and employees lose their jobs. The possibility of failure, therefore, is a powerful incentive to find...
The Myth of “Hyper-Rugged-Isolationist-Individualism”
Myth #1: Libertarians believe that each individual is an isolated, hermetically sealed atom, acting in a vacuum without influencing each other. This is a common charge, but a highly puzzling one. In a lifetime of reading libertarian and classical-liberal...
The Lesson From Germany and Korea
Institutions are, of course, in some sense the products of culture. But, because they formalize a set of norms, institutions are often the things that keep a culture honest, determining how far it is conducive to good behaviour rather than bad. To illustrate the...
Occupational Licensing Increases Prices and Deprives People of Options
When you shop online, vendors usually give you a bunch of different ways to sort your options. Take Amazon: One popular sorting option – especially for customers with low income – is “Price: Low to High.” You’ve probably used it yourself many times. This...
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