I occasionally read a writer and podcaster known as a conspiracy researcher who writes on a variety of subjects. Donald Jeffries is all over the map politically (reformer, idealist, libertarian, classical liberal, populist, and cultural conservative), has published several books, and has written a Substack column since 2021. His name is not important because it is his ideas, which are shared by a growing number of people, that I want to address.

Entitlements

I think the first thing I read of his that put him on my radar was his defense of Social Security:

Last month, Donald Trump announced that he intends to set up a government efficiency commission if he wins a second term. The commission would be led by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who would audit the entire federal government to find and eliminate inefficiencies that needlessly cost taxpayers trillions of dollars.

The videos coming out of western North Carolina, of entire towns wiped off the map by flood waters of Hurricane Helene, are both tragic and shocking. Lesser, but serious, impacts have been felt across the entire region. The residents of much of southern Appalachia, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas are facing temporary shortages in terms of access to clear water, power, and fuel. 

For some social-media bomb throwers, however, the floods are an excellent opportunity to attack both private property and immigrant business owners.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Minor Issues podcast. I’m Mark Thornton at the Mises Institute.

Human society is a complex and ever-evolving web of relationships, institutions, and behaviors. At the heart of this complexity lies a fundamental question: Why do people do what they do? What drives human action, and how does it shape the societies we live in? Ludwig von Mises, a prominent Austrian economist, offered a compelling answer through what he called the “action axiom.”

These days, supporters of President Trump and others on the right are often smeared as “fascists,” and what is meant by this is that they support the Nazis. For example, the historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat says: “To get people to lose their aversion to violence, savvy authoritarians also dehumanize their enemies. That’s what Trump is doing. Hitler used this ploy from the very start, calling Jews the ‘black parasites of the nation’ in a 1920 speech.

Many investors, businesses, and consumers cheered the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate cut since March of 2020. The Fed’s 50 basis points interest rate reduction was larger than many Fed watchers anticipated and was followed by suggestions that there are more rate cuts on the way.

At the annual meeting of the Property and Freedom Society in Bodrum, Turkey:

MP4

In tyrannical societies, the state uses its monopoly of violence to dictate what citizens are permitted to say, activities they are permitted to engage in, and cultural symbols they are permitted to celebrate or display. Anyone who violates such edicts can be arrested and imprisoned. Given the tendency of states to become increasingly dictatorial and to trample on their citizens’ liberties with impunity, Murray Rothbard argued that the state itself, by its very nature, is a threat to liberty.