For most of the twentieth century, the trouble with libertarianism was never its ideas, it was its posture. Theorists stood outside the arena with folded arms, waiting for voters to reason their way to liberty, treating political philosophy as a kind of religion of non-participation. That turned one of the sharpest critiques of state power into a seminar-room parlor trick.
For some strange reason, there is a certain minority of libertarians out there who think that Curtis Yarvin is some sort of libertarian—or at least some kind of pro-freedom intellectual. Much of this stems from the fact that so many libertarians are gullible and always eager to gush with praise in favor of anyone who even mentions Murray Rothbard in a favorable light once or twice. Yarvin has referred to Rothbard in this way a time or two, and some libertarians ridiculously reacted like Yarvin was the next Lew Rockwell.
The JP calls for the US taxpayer to pay a “debt forgiveness for military service” program to enlarge the US’s standing army. The whole point being to further subsidize the state of Israel.
The central tragedy of modern American public policy is the structural inversion of the Civil Rights movement’s core promise. While the 1960s legislative triumphs aimed to secure individual equality of opportunity under a colorblind framework, the subsequent consolidation of public sector union power systematically re-engineered a bureaucratic caste system. To insulate this system from democratic accountability, public employee unions—chiefly teachers’ unions—executed a brilliant constitutional maneuver.
The rising popularity of politicians on the American left who either explicitly identify as socialist or, at least, don’t shy away from or disavow the term appears to be causing genuine concern within the Washington establishment.
Garrett Langley is the CEO of Flock Safety, and he wants a whole lot of your tax money. Although he claims to be a CEO of a private business, it’s not actually private in any meaningful sense. Flock has essentially one kind of customer: government agencies. Flock Safety, of course, is the company that’s been putting up most of those ALPR (Automated License Plate Readers) cameras across the United States. There are now at least 120,000 of them. They are funded by tax dollars.
When long-term Treasury yields rise, one explanation is often given: investors expect more inflation, so lenders demand a higher nominal rate to offset the future loss of purchasing power. Expected inflation is treated as an addition to an otherwise “real” rate. Murray Rothbard argued that this begins in the wrong place.
