Louis XIV had hundreds of servants who prepared him dinner. Today, my supermarket offers me a buffet Louis XIV couldn’t imagine. Thanks to trade and property rights and markets, each of us lives as if we had more servants than kings. We also live longer.
Tag: military
Money as a Geopolitical Weapon
People who seek to rule over and control others learned long ago that controlling money and trade is the best way to do it. On a global level, there are open conspiracies among controlling interests that go about doing just that.
Joe Biden Reaffirms Washington’s Message to the World: Never, Ever Trust Us
In February 2020, US President Donald Trump announced a peace deal with the Taliban, giving US forces 15 months to get out of Afghanistan. Nearly a year later, with the withdrawal nearly complete and only 2,500 US armed forces members remaining on Afghan soil, incoming President Joe Biden took the oath of inauguration and instantly began complaining that the May 1 deadline would be “hard to meet.”
The Fraught World of Second-Bests
When discussion turns to how to make government “better,” however any particular person would conceive that condition, libertarians understand that we are in the fraught world of second-bests. In other words, because of the nature of the state, no solution that merely attempts to reform it will be or could be truly satisfying. The system will continue to feature exploitation, rent-seeking, public-choice and knowledge problems, and worse.
The Great Political Stagnation
The last 25 years have delivered amazing economic and technological progress for humanity. *Political* progress, in contrast, is hard even to detect during this period.
Gender Inequality Isn’t the Problem With the Draft
While draft registration does involve unequal treatment of men and women, the larger issue is Selective Service registration itself.
How Three Women Sought to Sway Americans Away From Socialism
In 1943, as collectivist policies were ascendant, an extraordinary thing happened. Three women published three books that year that would jolt Americans from their socialist stupor and remind them of the fundamental American values of individual liberty, limited government, free-market capitalism, and entrepreneurship. This Women’s History Month is an ideal time to reflect on how Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand helped to catalyze the 20th century libertarian movement.
You’ll Always Offend Someone
The Righteous and Holy Arbiters of What is Acceptable now seek to cancel Dr. Seuss. This may be my final last straw with “cancel culture.”
U(nspeakably) S(adistic) Foreign Policy
If you had set out to construct a foreign policy designed to impose indescribable suffering on millions of innocent people around the world, you’d have a tough time coming up with anything more systematic and effective than U.S. foreign policy.
Biden’s Foreign Policy: No Joy in Mudville
Well, at least he hasn’t started any NEW wars! For four years, that was the excuse I got from anti-war Donald Trump supporters every time he escalated one of the several wars he inherited from George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I expect to start hearing it from anti-war Joseph Biden supporters soon.