Libertarianism

Has the statist tide turned from where we were culturally and politically four years ago? Or is this just a temporary lull before the political culture takes another hard left turn?

The author James Lindsay has gotten mileage by introducing the phrase “Woke Right” to describe certain ideological elements associated with the MAGA movement. The “woke” concepts coming from the left, however, are not the same, structurally speaking, as what conservatives are saying.

Rose Wilder Lane, known for her many writings, also has been a favorite of libertarians. In this week‘s Friday Philosophy, David Gordon reviews a book based on her columns in the Pittsburgh Courier from 1942-45 on race and race relations.

The American conservative movement has changed with the advent of MAGA and the economic nationalism associated with it. However, there never was a “golden age” of conservatism, as the William F. Buckley brand was terribly flawed from the beginning.

What fundamentally makes someone a libertarian or a socialist is not the end he finds most important, but the means he believes to be the best way of achieving it.

Libertarians generally agree that slavery violates libertarian principles, but how does one deal with the aftermath of abolition? How best to justly compensate former slaves for what was taken from them by slaveowners? Wanjiru Njoya examines some libertarian alternatives.

Economist Bryan Caplan has held up the United Arab Emirates as an example of how open borders can be successful. Caplan clearly does not understand how immigration works in the UAE.

Modern progressives are obsessed with collective guilt, demanding that Americans pay reparations for slavery even though it ended in the US 160 years ago. However, by employing collective guilt and collective punishment, those seeking reparations violate natural law.

Walter Block has attempted to reconfigure libertarian thinking in regards to self-defense. Unfortunately, his theories are illogical, Orwellian, and conflict with Murray Rothbard‘s clear thinking on the issue.

Now threatening citizens for what they post online, one would hardly believe that England had once possessed a hard-won tradition of limited government and natural rights.