News Coverage Misinforms Americans on the Bergdahl Swap by Sheldon Richman June 10, 2014 In national-security matters, the news media couldn’t do a better job misinforming the public if they tried. The latest example is their portrayal of the five Taliban officials traded for Bowe Bergdahl. The media of course have an incentive to accentuate controversy. In the Bergdahl deal, this includes portraying the five Taliban prisoners as, in Sen. John McCain’s words, ...
The Libertarian Angle: Amazon, NSA, and Bergdahl by Future of Freedom Foundation June 9, 2014 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: Amazon, the National Security Agency, and Bergdahl. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.
TGIF: The Disaster That Is U.S. Foreign Policy by Sheldon Richman June 6, 2014 We live in angry times. For evidence, turn on any news program. An awful lot of people, led by right-wing politicians and radio and TV entertainers, are angry at Barack Obama for trading five Taliban officials, who have been held for years without charge in the Guantánamo prison, for an American soldier, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who apparently walked away ...
Sgt. Bergdahl and the Fog of War by Sheldon Richman June 4, 2014 The “fog of war” is a reference to the moral chaos on the battlefield as well as the rampant confusion. Individuals kill others for no other reason than that they are ordered to. Things deemed unambiguously bad in civilian life are authorized and even lauded in war. The killing and maiming of acknowledged innocents — in particular children and ...
The Libertarian Angle: Afghanistan and Bergdahl by Future of Freedom Foundation June 2, 2014 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: Afghanistan and the trade for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.
The U.S. Embrace of Monetary Tyranny, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2014 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In the midst of the Civil War in 1862, Abraham Lincoln secured passage of the first legal-tender law in the history of the United States. It was a law that planted the seeds of monetary debauchery that would culminate more than 70 years later during the presidential regime ...
Fighting Discrimination without the Government by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2014 Should the government coercively sanction business owners who refuse to serve customers because of their race or ethnicity? While such behavior is troubling — judging persons by their involuntary membership in a group eats at the foundation of libertarianism, respect for human dignity — the refusal to serve someone on such a basis is nevertheless an exercise of self-ownership, property ...
How Trade Wars Shaped Early America, Part 1 by James Bovard June 1, 2014 Part 1 | Part 2 Fair trade is once again a rallying cry for many Americans. Many contemporary leftists believe that the U.S. government should impose restrictions or tariffs on imported goods that are alleged to have been produced by underpaid or oppressed Third World workers. Few contemporary protectionists are aware of the sordid history of trade ...
Class Theory, Part 2: Modern Progressive Class Analysis by Anthony Gregory June 1, 2014 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 On September 17, 2011, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement staged its first protests in Zuccotti Park, a location in New York’s financial district. This “direct action” movement has been defined in terms of its opposition to economic inequality, institutional corruption, and the revolving door between corporate America ...
The Defining Challenge of our Time by George Leef June 1, 2014 Why Liberty — Your Life, Your Choices, Your Future edited by Tom G. Palmer (Jameson Books 2013) 116 pages. With this short, easily read, yet intellectually powerful book, Tom Palmer continues his work of making libertarianism the philosophy that will appeal to and animate young people around the globe. While the arguments for vastly downsizing our enormous, meddlesome, and ...
The Boast in the Machine by Joseph R. Stromberg June 1, 2014 Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen (Dutton 2013), 304 pages. In Average Is Over, George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen delivers good news and bad news with nearly equal enthusiasm. Basically, artificial “intelligence” (AI) is aggregating the “knowledge of the entire world” and intruding everywhere, ready to overturn our lives, ...
TGIF: Trivial Dispute: Obama versus the Interventionists by Sheldon Richman May 30, 2014 American politics is largely a series of debates over unimportant details. These debates are conducted far above the fundamental level because the supposed contenders share the same premises. Where they disagree is at the level of application, and so the disagreements end up being fairly minor, especially if you think the premises are wrong. This is an especially pronounced feature ...