“We have now reached peak Libertarianism,” Thom Hartmann informs us at CounterPunch, “and this bizarre experiment that has been promoted by the billionaire class for over 40 years is literally killing us.” That claim is so bizarre on its face that it’s easy to dismiss. On the other hand, even the craziest claims can fool people if nobody takes the time to debunk them.
Tag: blame
Firing and the Left
Over the last decade, many leftists have not just moderated their former stance against firing. They have become enthusiastic advocates of firing people they dislike. “He’s performing his job adequately, so you have no right to fire him” has strangely morphed into a right-wing view.
People Responsible for Own Actions
You bear no guilt for things you had no part in. Don’t accept guilt you didn’t earn.
The Problems We Must Solve Are Too Important to Reduce to Left vs. Right Politics
When considering a way forward, the discussion initially seems to be complicated because there are a lot of things that have gone wrong in the aftermath of George Floyd’s tragic death.
Setting People at Each Other’s Throats
Anytime you politicize anything— by letting government dictates and legislation force a one-size-fits-all path on everyone– people get angry. And who can really blame them?
Want to Reform the Criminal Justice System? End the Drug War
“It pitted police against the communities that they serve,” says neuroscientist Carl Hart in my new video. Hart, former chair of Columbia University’s Psychology department, grew up in a tough Miami neighborhood where he watched crack cocaine wreck lives. When he started researching drugs, he assumed that research would confirm the damage drugs did.
A Modest Proposal for Compromise on “Confederate” Military Bases
Don’t rename those “Confederate” bases. Instead, shut them down. Completely. Move or destroy the weapons, move or discharge the troops, and sell the real estate (with contract clauses forbidding use of the bases’ names or namesakes in subsequent uses).
COVID-19: Freedom Means That We Can Do Stupid Things, Not That We Have To
Yes, as freedom returns, some people will throw caution entirely to the winds. They should be free to act like idiots, right up to the point they actually — not prospectively, not hypothetically, ACTUALLY — cause harm to non-consenting others. They should also be free to refrain from acting like idiots.
Defense for The Incapable
A common tactic from those who want to at least appear to have an argument against abolishing the police is to either claim that they themselves are incapable of protecting their own life, liberty, or property, or to try to scapegoat someone else as being incapable. Nonsense.
Roof Koreans: How Civilians Defended Koreatown from Racist Violence During the 1992 LA Riots
The riots of the spring of 2020 are far from without precedent in the United States. Indeed, they seem to happen once a generation at least. The 1992 Los Angeles Riots are such an example of these “generational riots.” And while most people know about the riots, less known – though quite well known at the time – were the phenomenon of the so-called “Roof Koreans.”