Leonard Read, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, had very clear views about the legitimate role of laws—solely to restrain harms to individuals’ and their rights, since going farther than that “night watchman” role necessarily violated some citizens’ rights. In fact, in his October 1, 1969, “Read’s Law” article in The Freeman, he even rode a wave of eponymous laws to create a law about fidelity to that principle:

In the research paper Egalitarianism and the Elites, published in 1995 in the Review of Austrian Economics, one of Murray Rothbard’s most brilliant insights was that even the implementation of an egalitarian society requires leadership. As the fall of one system to the implementation of a new model of society cannot come out of nowhere, someone must command and lead this process. And naturally, these leaders will occupy powerful positions.

College should be a place where academics can educate and mold the minds of our future scientists, doctors, and leaders. For far too long, however, American universities have been dominated by a culture of tyranny and complicity in having our rights stricken from us. I am, of course, talking about the individual rights to freedom of speech and the right to assemble on campus.

Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is colloquially defined as insanity, per a quote attributed to Albert Einstein. Call me insane, but I wince whenever I hear this. As a rule of thumb, it’s fine but it can be slippery. I’m reminded of another quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who is alleged to have said, “A man cannot step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

America’s “monthly federal deficit hit a record $249 billion in November—$57 billion more than the same month last year—with federal spending also hitting new heights in consecutive months, while tax revenues dropped,” reports the London Daily Mail.

As the author of Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom, I guess I should not be surprised to find myself squarely in the digital gulag—banished, perhaps permanently, from Twitter and Facebook. Twitter permanently suspended my account several weeks ago, mere days before Elon Musk took over the helm. Although I cannot be sure, I may have been banned because I suggested that the transgender movement is part of a multipronged neo-Malthusian depopulation campaign.

In the final Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of the year, the Fed did what everyone knew they would. They raised rates. They then proceeded with the usual Fedspeak dance regarding projections for the upcoming year including inflation and rate hikes. The labor market doesn’t normally garner as much attention; but Chair Powell made several statements worthy of consideration.

According to Powell, things couldn’t be better. In his own words:

In last week’s column, I discussed Christophers Coyne’s excellent book In Search of Monsters to Destroy, a cogent account of America’s endeavor to build a “liberal” informal empire. Coyne shows the inherent contradiction of using brutal means to achieve humane values. This week, I’d like to discuss an even more deplorable part of American foreign policy, one which threatens the world with destruction.