I care about people; that’s why I’m libertarian. I believe all human interactions should be voluntary. If a business (or any other institution) can’t survive through voluntary association, I believe it should die. Customers and employees are equally important.
Tag: libertarian
Why I am Grateful to George Herbert Walker Bush
Unless you live under a rock (and probably even if you do), you’ve noticed the death of George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States, on November 30, at age 94. You’ve probably also suffered through multiple personal remembrances of the man and his presidency — some positive, some negative, some mixed. Mine, which you may read below if you’re not already worn out on the topic, is of the latter variety.
In the House, Everything New is Old Again
House Democrats are raiding the Smithsonian’s dinosaur exhibits to fill their leadership positions. They’re tapping some younger faces for a few less powerful leadership positions, but the old guard — the politicians who lost Congress in 2010 — are simply stepping back into power as if the last eight years never happened.
Gassing Migrants
The Trump administration and its apologists are quick to point out that Barack Obama was as willing as Donald Trump himself to tear-gas desperate people trying to protect themselves by crossing America’s southern border. So he was, though many will refuse to believe it. But that raises an interesting question: if every horrible thing Trump has done so far was also done by Obama, why do Trump and his fans hate the former White House occupant so much?
Doing Justice to Trump’s “Invasion” Claim
It’s perverse to characterize a migrant “caravan” — a group of civilian non-combatants, many of them women and children, moving from one place to another in search of safety, freedom and livelihood — as an “invasion.” Is the morning commute of millions of workers into every major American city an “invasion?” More than 1 in 10 Americans move each year — often across city, county, even state “borders.” Are they “invaders?”
“Red Flag Laws”: Rights Can’t be “Suspended,” Only Violated
Hanna Scott of Seattle’s KIRO radio reports that prosecutors in Washington are wrestling with the question of whether or not the state’s “Red Flag law” applies to minors, and trying to stretch it to do so. Under the “law,” Scott writes, a judge can issue an “Extreme Risk Protection Order” to “temporarily suspend a person’s gun rights, even if they haven’t committed a crime.”
Entrepreneurial Innovation and Crony Corruption
It always starts with entrepreneurial innovators breaking new ground and establishing new avenues for the expression of individual liberty and private initiative. Then, as soon as some of the companies established by those innovators grow sufficiently large and influential, the biggest protection rackets operating in their respective territories stop fighting them and proceed to corrupting them with subsidies, “public contracts”, unofficial monopoly privileges, etc.
Trump’s Foreign Policy War on Americans
Forgive me for repeating myself: Trump is a caricature of a conventional American politician — which is why the political establishment despises him so. He lacks the diplomatic costume that makes brutality acceptable or at least enables people to live comfortably with their heads in the sand.
Two Numbers That Explain Why Trump Won’t Sanction Saudi Arabia
No later than December of 2002, and presumably before that, the US government knew that the 9/11 hijackers had received significant funding and support from Saudi government officials and members of the Saudi royal family. That information remained classified until 2016, when 28 previously redacted pages from Congress’s official 9/11 report were finally released to the public — and still “friendly” relations between Washington and Riyadh continued without interruption.
Hypocrisy Alert: Republicans Agreed with Ocasio-Cortez Until About One Minute Ago
When congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) confessed her personal financial dilemma — “I have three months without a salary before I’m a member of Congress. So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real” — to the New York Times, guffaws broke out on the right.