When Hugo Chavez began ruling Venezuela, he sounded like a classic bleeding-heart – full of pity for the poor and downtrodden. Plenty of people took him at his words – not just Venezuelans, but much of the international bleeding-heart community. By the time Chavez died, however, many admirers were already having second thoughts about his dictatorial tendencies.
Tag: propaganda
The Reformer’s Plight in The Great Idea
I’m a fan of dystopian fiction, but I overlooked Henry Hazlitt’s The Great Idea (subsequently republished as Time Will Run Back) until last December. I feared a long-winded, clunky version of Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, but I gave it a chance, and my gamble paid off. I read the whole thing (almost 400 pages) on a red-eye flight – feeling wide awake the whole way.
False Narratives, Propaganda, and Political Tribalism
In 2013 people rose up around the world to oppose the war in Syria being promoted by Obama, Clinton, Kerry, many European leaders and maybe most obviously, the neocons. Since then, the war slowly squeezed its way into existence anyway gradually though apathy, propaganda, and other bullshit.
Why I Prefer Freedom
Anything deemed too important/necessary to question or face competition is a giant web of protected dark corners. This is why the myth of authority and the myth of the rule of law are so dangerous. They create shelters and havens for scoundrels.
Liberty in America During the Great War
There’s always plenty for libertarians to complain about in our troubled world, but in many respects, things could be much worse. I’m thinking particularly of how the U.S. government punished dissent before, during, and even after America’s participation in World War I. Although it will be a few years before we observe the centenary of…
American Exceptionalism
When others do it, it’s terrorism; when Americans do it, it’s national defense. When others do it, it’s a war crime; when Americans do it, it’s collateral damage.
The US Makes One Too Many Parties to the Spratly Spat
No fewer than six states — China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Phillipines, Malaysia, and Brunei — assert territorial claims over all or part of the (largely uninhabited) Spratly archipelago. To which, if any, of those states do the Spratlys “belong?” That’s for them to work out between themselves, through arbitration and mediation or maybe even war. The US government, neither numbering itself among those claimants nor having any plausible basis upon which to do so if it wished to, needs to butt out.
A Critique and a Defense of Mythologizing the Past
Was Abraham Lincoln really a moral leader who saved the United States and ended slavery? Did George Washington really save the Continental Army and win the American revolution? Was Thomas Jefferson really a forward-thinking liberalizer?
On the Media
Trump recently declared on Twitter that “the FAKE NEWS media” is “the enemy of the American people!” He’s not wrong, but neither was the pot calling the kettle black.
Murphy’s Law: Big Tech Must Serve as Censorship Subcontractors
Since when has government ever produced proper oversight, transparency, or effective management of anything? And what could possibly go wrong with eviscerating the First Amendment to give these jokers “oversight” or “management” powers over technologies that undergird our politics? What’s really going on here?