Tag: security

More Korean War is “Worth it?” To Whom?

Thomas L. Knapp

The last period of open war on the Korean peninsula cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million lives, including nearly a million soldiers on both sides (36,516 of them American) and 2.5 million civilians in the North and South. What did the American taxpayer get in return for three years of fighting, tens of thousands of Americans dead, and nearly $700 billion (in 2008 dollars)?

Putin’s Plan for America II

Alex Voss

It took roughly 24 hours for panic to spread through the newspapers and talk radio all over America. The Pentagon is already using this propaganda as a reason for “expanded U.S. missile defense policy that would address certain threats from Russia and China, departing from a previous strategy that focused nearly exclusively on rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran.”

Words Poorly Used #130 — Militia

Kilgore Forelle

The emotionally driven “we can’t just do nothing” crowd is dragging out the very ambiguous “militia” wording in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, 2nd Amendment.  The Amendment reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  There is, to my knowledge, no definition of “Militia” in the Constitution.  Furthermore, the addition of the dependent preambulatory clause, and the last comma render the passage ungrammatical.

A Vanishing Point

Kilgore Forelle

I worry about the degree to which we let things get out of control, plunging to a vanishing point.  In Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, we built an optimum security detention center for more than 3000 inmates.  What could go wrong?  Well, if a number equal to 1% of the day detainees of the school were of a bent similar to that of Nikolas Cruz, that means at least 30 potential perturbers are related to the school at a given moment. 

Is Education Worth It? My Opening Statement

Bryan Caplan

Is the education system really a waste of time and money, as my new book claims right on the cover? This is a strange topic to debate with Eric Hanushek.  Why? Because if Hanushek had absolute power to fix the education system, education might actually be worth every penny.  Hanushek is famous for focusing on what schools teach rather than what they spend – and documenting the vast disconnect between the two.  If you haven’t already read his dissection of “input-based education policies,” you really ought to.  Hanushek, more than any other economist, has taught us that measured literacy and numeracy are socially valuable – but just making kids spend long years in well-funded schools is not.

“Peace Through Strength” Is a Racket

Sheldon Richman

“I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody — absolutely nobody — is gonna to mess with us,” Trump says. On other occasions he’s said similar things: “We want to defer, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength” (same link) and, a year ago, “Nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military build-ups in American history.”

No Huawei! US Spy Chiefs Reverse Course on Phone Spying

Thomas L. Knapp

Testifying before the US Senate Intelligence Committee, officials from the FBI, CIA, NSA, et al. warned Americans against using phones made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE. Why? Because, Christopher Wray (Comey’s successor at the FBI) explains, the Chinese government might equip, or find and exploit weaknesses in, such phones to “maliciously modify or steal information” and “conduct undetected espionage.”