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Thank the Troops? How About Apologizing Instead?

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Sometimes I wonder whether the profuse thanks that many Americans shower on the troops shouldn’t instead be an apology. After all, I think it’s a fair assumption that those who do the thanking were not among those who opposed the U.S. government’s invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, as libertarians did. Instead, my bet is that most of the thankers were among the most ardent supporters of those military actions. Let’s focus on Iraq. Let’s look at the situation from the perspective of an individual soldier, especially one who is now permanently disabled or disfigured. Was it worth it? To answer that question, we need to examine exactly what was accomplished in Iraq. Last Saturday, the New York Times published an article entitled, “Flow of Arms to Syria Through Iraq Persists, to U.S. Dismay

TGIF: Right-to-Work Laws and the Modern Classical-Liberal Tradition

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It’s not widely known, but an earlier generation of libertarians condemned so-called right-to-work laws as anti-market. For example, Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom, compared right-to-work to anti-discrimination laws. Ayn Rand also opposed right-to-work laws. The Spring 1966 issue of the libertarian student-run journal New Individualist Review carried Professor Hirschel Kasper’s article “What’s Wrong with Right-to-Work Laws.” NIR was edited by University of Chicago libertarians Ralph Raico, Joe Cobb, and Jim Powell. Among its editorial advisers were Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Ben Rogge, a classical liberal long associated with the Foundation for Economic Education. (Of course this does not mean that any of these men necessarily agreed with Kasper, although  that may not be an unreasonable inference, considering that NIR never published a pro-right-to-work article. The exception is Hayek, who wrote, curiously, in The Constitution of Liberty that “closed- and union-shop contracts … must be treated as contracts in restraint of trade and ...

TGIF: The Year That Was

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The year coming to an end has hardly been a banner one in the cause of liberty. Once again, high points are tough to find, but low points abound. In mainstream public discussion, freedom counted for nothing, if it wasn’t ridiculed outright. The presidential election saw the marginalizing (again) of the only figure in the race — Ron Paul — who talked about individual liberty, peace, and the need to roll back government power in virtually all spheres. These were precisely the things that made him an oddity for media pundits and his rivals. As someone quipped, Paul was considered crazy because only he opposed an unprovoked war against Iran. How’s that for a commentary on our time? From liberty’s standpoint, the race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney couldn’t have been more repugnant — a cynical contest between two variations of American corporatism fighting over the rate at which government power should grow. In matters of war the differences were ...

TGIF: What’s Need Got to Do with It?

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Recent public-policy debates have taken an ominous turn. Proponents of new government impositions increasingly justify their proposals by asserting that the individuals who would be adversely affected should not complain because they do not need whatever the government action would deny them. We've heard this during debates over both higher taxes on upper-income people and gun control. Those favoring higher ...