During the Cold War, pro-assassination forces gained ground, but the illegal killing was hidden because it was inconsistent with the shining-city-on-the-hill propaganda.

In my first column after the events of Jan. 6th, 2021, I criticized those who called the protest a “coup,” pointing out that, “Some of the same politicians and bureaucrats denouncing the ridiculous farce at the Capitol as if it were the equivalent of 9/11 have been involved for decades in planning and executing real coups overseas. In their real coups, many thousands of civilians have died.”

The extraction of resources from the domestic population has always been a crucial and central function of every state, whether it’s the United States, Russia, or Argentina. In the modern world all states at least attempt to impose a mixture of excise taxes, income taxes, import taxes, or a variety of similar taxes. Most states with a reasonable level of state capacity are able to successfully impose and enforce these taxes. 

Durable, transportable, and divisible—in other words, salable across time, space, and scales. Austrian economics recognizes these as core properties of sound money. However, beyond the marvelous social phenomena that is sound money, these properties can be relevant in describing another of humanity’s great marvels: cheese.

In “Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment” Raoul Berger argues that the Fourteenth Amendment is treated by activist judges as a platform for “social and political revolution.” In theory, the role of the courts is to interpret the Constitution not to amend it. Nevertheless, by treating the Fourteenth Amendment as a “vague and elastic” tool designed to forge a brave world of racial equality, progressive judges have conferred revolutionary powers on themselves.