As Dan McAdams was saying today on the Liberty Report, Twitter has demanded that we hit their Soviet BF Skinner button to delete our terribly offensive tweets, which at least in my case have been deleted from my feed by Twitter already, in order to begin the 12 hour...
waste
FPF #228 – A $700 Billion Waste
by Kyle Anzalone | Aug 3, 2018 | Conflicts of Interest
On FPF #228, I discuss the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. Congress recently passed the 2019 NDAA, authorizing $716 billion in defense spending. The spending is largely for offensive purposes and does not benefit the protect the American people. I break down...
History's Greatest Empire
by Zack Sorenson | Apr 17, 2018 | Blog
A quote from the early American moral philosopher (or, to some, preacher of religion), William Ellery Channing (from Spiritual Freedom, 1830): I call that mind free, which is jealous of its own freedom, which guards itself from being merged with others, which guards...
The Dews From Heaven
by Zack Sorenson | Feb 12, 2018 | Blog
Pliny said, of the dew, that it is, "...the sweat of Heaven, the spittle of the stars." Mormon scripture, evoking Moses, recites, "Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly;...
Capitalism And Backscratchers
by Zack Sorenson | Sep 26, 2017 | Blog
I'd like to relate a blog-appropriate anecdote concerning an epiphany I just experienced. The other day I saw a backscratcher for sale at the store. It was a metal hand, with a telescoping rod, connected to a plastic handle. The display rack containing these...
War And Peace Put Simply
by Zack Sorenson | Jul 20, 2017 | Blog
War is so costly because it requires reciprocal action and therefore wasteful escalation. The force that drives this is the need to "win". This is the same force that ruins politics. If you can accept some of what you want, maybe even in a context of getting mostly...
Study: Pentagon Wasted $28 Million on the Wrong Kind of Camouflage
by Will Porter | Jun 30, 2017 | Blog
The Pentagon overspent between $26 and $28 million on useless camouflage for the Afghan National Army (ANA), a government watchdog study found. Conducted by the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the study not only found that between...
Meet the New Waste. Worse than the Old Waste?
by Sheldon Richman | Mar 21, 2017 | Blog, Economics, Foreign Policy
Jim Bovard writes: "Trump proposes to devote almost all of the savings from cutting domestic programs into the Pentagon, whose budget would rise by $52 billion, roughly 10%. Since 9/11, the Defense Department has been Washington’s ultimate sacred cow — regardless of...
Why Can’t You Pay for Sex?
by Ninos Malik | Mar 7, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism
Is it illegal to date or marry someone only because they are famous, wealthy, or both? No. Are there unattractive people who have good looking dates or spouses only because they are famous or wealthy? Yes. Is it legal to go to a nightclub for the sole purpose of...
Blog
Crime and Poverty
“The theory that crime is caused by poverty is not supported by the known facts. The very poor, in fact, tend to be just as law-abiding as the rich, and perhaps more so. To argue otherwise is to libel multitudes of people who keep to decency under severe difficulties,...
Don’t Be Silent
We should reject the fashionable idea that one should never write or post anything that possibly could be used by bad people for bad purposes. That admonition brings two things to mind. First, it fails its own test. If good people avoid a topic because even...
Can There Be Only One Race?
I'm old enough to remember this 1960s Lay's Potato Chips commercial. (Hell, I'm almost old enough to remember when plays were in black and white!) In the commercial a man (Bert Lahr, the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz) faces a challenge from the devil, who has a...
How Not to Defend “Capitalism” Against” Socialism”
I challenge you to show me a lamer "debate" over "capitalism" and "socialism." (Don't worry; it's not about Bill Maher.)
Yes, Andrew Sullivan Demanded W. Bush Nuke Iraq
He wrote on October 17, 2001: THE COMING CONFLICT: The sophisticated form of anthrax delivered to Tom Daschle's office forces us to ask a simple question. What are these people trying to do? I think they're testing the waters. They want to know how we will respond to...
War is a Euphemism for Theft Funded Mass Murder
The libertarian’s basic attitude toward war must then be: it is legitimate to use violence against criminals in defense of one’s rights of person and property; it is completely impermissible to violate the rights of other innocent people. War, then, is only proper...