Law

The federal government didn't take charge of immigration policy until the 1880s. In the early republic, almost everyone agreed that immigration policy was a matter for the states.

While many people have declared the US Constitution to be “crystal clear” on issues of governance, the truth is that much of what the Constitution says is disputed. The first step toward more consensus is understanding that the Constitution is interpreted by fallible people.

The Fourtheenth Amendment has been used in divisive ways, giving the lie to its claim of “equal protection” under the law. We can have equality under the law, or we can have what is becoming a race-based spoils system. We cannot have both.

The media today is fixated on presenting the economic and emotional cases for and against tariffs. As a result, politicians are free to spew their propaganda and the people become roadkill.

Bob argues that the only way to cripple Mexican drug cartels is through US drug legalization.

Although egalitarian interventionism constantly is wrecked on the shoals of reality, there is always a stable of new politicians eager to promote what Murray Rothbard called “a revolt against nature.”

In a recent New York Times column, Dartmouth professor Brooke Harrington claimed that Trump is undoing trust in our institutions while Franklin Roosevelt restored it. Clearly, Harrington doesn‘t know much about FDR—or Trump.

Before leaving office, President Joe Biden posthumously pardoned black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who was convicted of mail fraud in 1923. Like other dissenters that came afterward, Garvey was hounded by the FBI. He remains a complex character even in death.

The bloodletting at the Department of Justice and the FBI has begun, and the mainstream media is portraying the purged agents as victims of a lawless Trump administration. But these agencies have been lawless for years and someone needs to bring them to heel.

Ryan McMaken and Bobby Gunther Walsh discuss birthright citizenship historically.