The Conservative Sensibility
by George F. Will
Hachette Books, 2019
xxxix + 600 pp.

The well-known Washington columnist George Will was long ago a libertarian, but he soon changed his mind, adopting instead a statist variety of conservatism. In The Conservative Sensibility, he returns to his libertarian roots, but the return is incomplete, and he ends up with a confused position that, in trying to do justice to competing goods, as he sees it, ends up in intellectual sloppiness.

The move to impeach an ex-president is no longer about Donald Trump.

The Democrats’ coming lawless impeachment trial violates the Constitution and libertarian tradition. The Constitution states impeachment can only be used against federal officials, that it doesn’t apply to private citizens. Article II, Section 4, states who can be impeached. “The president, vice president and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Convictions of Treason, Bribery and other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” It doesn’t cover postoffice careers.

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More state lawmakers than ever are introducing sound money legislation in the opening days of the 2021 legislative session.

Several states will consider measures to remove sales or general excise taxes on the purchase of gold, silver, and other precious metals.

Many other states will weigh bills to eliminate income taxes on gold and silver.

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The Senate trial for now twice-impeached former president Donald Trump is set to begin this week, with little doubt over the outcome. A procedural vote in the Senate on the constitutionality of “removing from office” someone who is not in office revealed that nowhere near enough Republicans were willing to join their Democrat counterparts in voting to convict.

The seeds of sound-money destruction were sown at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which established that US dollars could be held as central bank reserves and were redeemable for gold by the US Treasury at thirty-five dollars an ounce. This was the so-called gold exchange standard, but only foreign central banks and some multinational organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), enjoyed this right of redemption. The system depended upon the solemn promise by the US that it would refrain from issuing unbacked dollars.