Boomerang Argument

Any argument against a totally free society that depends on the dark side of human nature inevitably circles around to hit the one making the argument smack in the back of the head. Hence, it is a boomerang argument. The reason is that if people are so bad that we can't trust them with total freedom, then how can we possibly trust anyone with monopoly political power? The answer is we can't. Statelessness is the ultimate in checks and balances, which liberal devotees of the limited state claim to value.

Why Politicians Do What They Do

I don't think politicians relish closing down the economy, nor do I think they'll be eager to do so in the future. For one thing, it's contrary to their interests. They do what they do because when all you have is a blunt instrument, every problem looks like something that can only be solved with a blunt instrument.

Flunk the State!

Knowledgeable people (Bill Gates among them) had warned for years that governments were ill-prepared for serious pandemics. The US government was not just ill-prepared; it also maintained regulatory obstacles — in the name of public health — to others who were willing and able to act.

I’d say the case for statelessness looks better all the time.

TGIF: Anarchism and Kavanaugh

Regarding Brett Kavanaugh, I’ve been wondering how I can blame the state for what we’ve endured these past weeks. I can safely say that without the state, we would have been spared the Kavanaugh episode.

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: Trump and No Silver Lining

I confess I was indulging in wishful thinking when I thought I detected a silver lining to Donald Trump's election as president. That's what comes of being an optimist and a libertarian romantic. Beware apparent silver linings; they may be fool's gold instead.

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: Wrong Lessons from the Congressional Shootings

I’ll start off by saying that no one should commit violence except as a last resort in immediate defense of self or other innocent life. I know this subject lends itself to endless hypothetical scenarios, but that’s all I’m going to say — except for this: political violence has a poor chance of achieving liberty or any other good thing, but an excellent chance of producing repression by the state and other bad things. It carries within itself the seeds of many evils, so even in purported good causes, violence as a strategy must be viewed with the deepest apprehension.

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: The Religion of the State

In 1912 the pioneering French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) published The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, which presented his findings (not without controversy) on primitive clan-based religious culture. Durkheim sought to identify the nature of religion by studying it in what he took to be its pristine form. In the course of his work, he realized that modern secular societies had many important similarities to the societies he was observing. For Durkheim, religion satisfied a need for social solidarity and identification that would also require satisfaction in a secular scientific epoch. His observations are pertinent to the proposition that religion and purportedly secular ideologies like nationalism, rather than being opposites, are actually two members of the same family. One implication of this insight is that the West’s proud determination to separate church and state has overlooked the dangers of joining ostensibly nonreligious worldviews to the state.

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!

Cognitive Dissonance

On this day of all days America’s priestly political class can extol the great glory of the Almighty State without restraint — but Donald Trump is the one being crowned.

What If?

If government played by the same rules as the rest of us, it would cease to be government.

Trump Neither Smart nor Wise

Trump thinks the problem with government is bad managers. Open-and-shut case against him that is. Therein lies a confession that undermines his claim to being smarter than anyone else.

The State Defined

The state is an organization of mere mortals who, by one dubious method or another, have been allowed to don the mantle of political legitimacy and to command obedience on pain of imprisonment even of those who never consented to the preposterous arrangement.

The Not So Grand Jury

The grand jury may have begun as a check on state abuse, but it has long been a cover for state abuse -- confirming a Rothbard maxim: Principles ostensibly intended to limit government power will morph into justifications for its expansion.

She's Wrong Again

Unsurprisingly, Hillary is wrong: "Don’t do stupid stuff’ is an organizing principle -- for government.

The State Defined

The state is an organization of mere mortals who, by one dubious method or another, have been allowed to don the mantle of political legitimacy and to command obedience on pain of imprisonment even of those who never consented to the preposterous arrangement.

Remember This . . .

Soldiers don't die for their country. They die for vain politicians and war profiteers. That's what they kill for too.

Goddam State

I just saw a commercial for the Wounded Warrior
Project that brought tears to my eyes. It shows a little girl reading to and helping her young but feeble father, who suffered a severe head wound in Iraq. It outraged me that a young daughter should have to see her father in that condition, and I said out loud, "That is what the state does to families."

See if you have the same reaction.

Opting Out of the State

The freedom to opt out means that no one can force you to participate in any government activity that you object to.... This would not get rid of the government immediately, as we market anarchists would like. But it would sure beat the hell out of what we have now.

Read my full op-ed at the Center for a Stateless Society.

The Purpose of Government

I pause when people write, "The purpose of government is to protect life, liberty, and property." What are those words worth? If we judge by history, it appears that the purpose of government is exploitation of the industrious classes for the benefit of some ruling class. The root of the confusion is that governments traditionally have accorded some measure of protection for life, liberty, and property through police, courts, and defense against invaders. But this is perfectly consistent with the exploitation theory. Why wouldn't the ruling class want the industrious classes to be dependent on government for protection against criminals and for peaceful resolution of disputes? And why wouldn't it want to keep out invaders so that it may have unrivaled access to the revenue extracted from the subjugated population?

So why overlook the fundamental and seek government's purpose in secondary things?

More on the Debt Crisis

A government that is too big to fail is too big.

Greatest Commercial Ever?

I can't resist sharing this classic Coca Cola commercial. It brings a tear to my eye. Watch the men's faces closely. The spot says so much -- far more than Coke intended, I'm sure -- without a word spoken.



HT: Roderick Long