America’s Forever Wars Are Not the Problem by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 2023 Ever since it became clear that the U.S. invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were turning into disasters, a common refrain has been to end America’s “forever wars.” Politicians of all political stripes, commentators in the mainstream press, and various conservative and libertarian think tanks and educational foundations have embraced the refrain, thinking that if only America can ...
Macaulay and the Ghosts of Tyranny Past, Part 2 by James Bovard September 1, 2023 Part 1 | Part 2 Reposing with a favorite author in the Virginia Tech library in 1976, I savored one zinger after another in Thomas Macaulay’s History of England. Macaulay hailed the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 as “the most stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny,” a law that adds to “the security and happiness of every ...
There Is No America First Case for Supporting Ukraine by Laurence M. Vance September 1, 2023 After the United States foolishly and unnecessarily intervened in World War One — against the warnings of the Founding Fathers about getting involved in European wars — and lost over 116,000 of its young men, American sentiment underwent a shift toward neutrality and nonintervention. With Europe once again embroiled in war beginning in the late 1930s, the America First Committee ...
Thomas Nixon Carver on the Economics of Conflict versus Cooperation by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2023 Human beings have had two fundamental ways of associating with each other: conflict or cooperation. Both methods have run through all recorded human history, as well as long before human beings left intelligible residues of their actions to be deciphered by those who came after them. Group conflicts have seemed to have a variety of causes: religious, political, linguistic, ...
A Pox on Many Houses in Ukraine by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2023 When Russia invaded Ukraine, it immediately became an easy decision for today’s interventionists. Their position was both simple and simplistic: Ukraine is a sovereign and independent country. Russia initiated a war against Ukraine by invading the country. Therefore, Russia is bad and should be condemned. Moreover, the U.S. government, as well as NATO, should come to Ukraine’s defense by ...
Macaulay and My 75-Cent Epiphanies, Part 1 by James Bovard August 1, 2023 Part 1 | Part 2 Fearing that my writing style was becoming anemic, I recently sought a literary booster shot from my bookshelves. Happily, a dozen volumes of Thomas Macaulay awaited me. Macaulay made history mesmerizing, and I have been captivated by his speed, grace, and wit for 40 years. Nobody would mistake my shelf of Macaulay books for leather-bound ...
“Tax Expenditures” Is a Misnomer by Laurence M. Vance August 1, 2023 The April 18 deadline for Americans to file their 2022 income tax returns had hardly passed before House Republicans began to talk about reviving three tax breaks for businesses that had lapsed or begun to phrase out under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that the Republican-controlled Congress passed, and President Trump signed into law, in 2017. The TCJA The ...
George Goschen on Laissez-Faire and the Dangers of Government Interference by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2023 The counterrevolution against the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century has been at work for more than 150 years. In the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, the triumph of a philosophy of individual rights and liberty, impartial rule of law, private property, freedom of trade and enterprise domestically and in international relations, and attempts to mitigate, if not end, wars ...
The Real Lessons from the Iraq War, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2023 Part 1 | Part 2 Our nation was founded as a limited-government republic. It was a type of government whose powers were few and limited. That’s the way our ancestors wanted it. They believed that the greatest threat to their freedom and well-being lay not with some foreign threat but rather with their very own government. Our ancestors were fiercely ...
Biden’s Wrecking Ball Benevolence for Homebuyers by James Bovard July 1, 2023 When did being creditworthy become a federal crime? The Biden administration is intentionally punishing homebuyers with good credit scores to subsidize people with shaky histories of paying their debts. But the latest salvation scheme ignores the sordid history of federal policymakers ravaging homeowners they promised to rescue. As of May 1, a Biden administration decree requires adjusting mortgage calculations to ...
Too Far, or Not Far Enough? by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2023 In his October 22, 2020, column in the New York Times, titled “When Libertarianism Goes Bad,” establishment economist Paul Krugman bemoaned the “libertarian rhetoric” he was hearing from Republican politicians while they questioned the usefulness of wearing face masks during the “pandemic.” This rhetoric he described as “a lot of talk about ‘freedom’ and ‘personal responsibility.’” But in addition to ...
The Dangerous Pursuit of Empire: Russia, China, and the United States by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2023 Giving up the reality, the nostalgia, or the dream of empire is very difficult for those in political power, and even for those citizens who have bought into their government’s indoctrination and propaganda. Historically, empire-builders and political leaders often seem to hold certain attitudes and ideas in common. First, they believe that they and their group or nation are on ...