At a recent graduation ceremony at one of Latin America’s oldest and most prestigious law schools, young lawyers applauded a vision of authority in which law no longer operates as a limit on power, but as its instrument. This was not a trivial academic ritual or a moment of youthful enthusiasm, it was a revealing social signal. When those trained to defend due process celebrate its suspension, the problem is no longer merely legal, it is civilizational.

When President Donald Trump recently told the New York Times that he is restrained only by “my own morality” instead of by international law or treaties, people rightfully were shocked. People who feared the Trump presidency might turn authoritarian hoped (maybe against hope) that the existing constraints that came with the office of president might “moderate” his views, but so far it has been a false hope.

I have long maintained that one of the big obstacles libertarians face in the achievement of a genuinely free society is the fact that most Americans honestly believe they are free. When people are convinced they are free, they have no reason to want to join up with us libertarians in our effort to establish a genuinely free society. Instead, they simply view libertarianism as a “weird” philosophy that purports to achieve what we already have — a free society.

In time for the autumn blues last year, Andrew Ross Sorkin delivered a riveting doorstopper-sized account of the fateful year 1929. What most people know about the 1920s revolves around endless optimism, dancing, underground bars, and speculative financial fevers.

“These are men who fight so that the product of their industry should not be the spoils of those who enslaved them; it is an ignoble war. The war waged by Pompey against Caesar charms us; its object is to discover who will be the party who will tyrannize the world; it takes place between men equally incapable of subsisting by their own efforts; it is a noble war. If we trace our opinions to their source, we will find that the majority have been produced by our enemies.”—Charles Comte, De l’organisation sociale, pp.

In his second term, Trump is clearly focused on building his legacy.