TGIF: What a Perverse Presidential Incentive System!

All I can say is, we’ve got a hell of a political system on our hands when the surest way for a president to win the adoration of those who thought him a dangerous, ignorant, narcissistic, erratic, and bullshitting blowhard yesterday is to drop a bomb or fire a cruise missile today.

Read TGIF at The Libertarian Institute.

TGIF (The Goal Is Freedom) appears on Fridays. Sheldon Richman, author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited, keeps the blog Free Association and is executive editor of The Libertarian Institute. He is also a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. Become a Free Association patron today!

TGIF: A Principle for All Seasons

Despite my utter disdain for Donald Trump, I am uneasy about many who oppose him. My specific concern is that they apparently believe that, because of the kind of person Trump is, they may dispense with all constraint when fighting him. Thus the common-sense rules of just conduct and decency that are normally honored at least by lip service, if not by strict observance, are not regarded as binding when Trump is the target. It is a bad -- not to mention shortsighted -- idea.

Read the full TGIF at The Libertarian Institute.

TGIF (The Goal Is Freedom) appears on Fridays. Sheldon Richman, author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited, keeps the blog Free Association and is executive editor of The Libertarian Institute. He is also a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. Become a Free Association patron today!

Fiorina Is Not the Anti-Hillary

As an advocate of a stateless society, I don’t want anyone to be president. Nevertheless, someone will be chosen to live in the White House next year. Will it be a woman?

Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina hope so. But these two women are essentially indistinguishable from each other and from their male rivals. Style must not overshadow substance. Really, what’s the point?

Executive Privilege

I see Barack Obama has one-upped George W. Bush in his defense of executive autocracy by invoking both state secrets and sovereign immunity against people suing the government over Bush's warrantless wiretapping. Well, what's the point of being president if you're not going to have all those cool executive powers Bush accumulated?

Kevin Carson has a good comment here.