The Police State

James Bovard makes a case that private property is the bulwark of liberty—spotlighting how courts, cops, and bureaucrats chip away at it.

So-called democratic socialists claim they just want to empower ordinary people through democracy. Socialism, however, invariably must turn into a top-down system of central planning in which the state is all-controlling.

The present US regime is far more tyrannical than the British government that supposedly was so intolerable that independence was the only way out. Perhaps it is time for another Declaration of Independence.

When the state declares war on an abstraction, it discovers the formula for perpetuity.

The recent murder of a young woman on the Charlotte, North Carolina light rail highlights the casual attitudes that progressives in government have toward violent crime. This will not change any time soon.

Thomas Paine, perhaps more than the nation’s official “Founding Fathers,” understood that government will deteriorate into tyranny unless those it governs are vigilant to keep that from happening.

In his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump sought libertarian support by promising to protect cryptocurrency and its users. His Department of Justice, however, is looking to criminalize crypto.

While libertarians, and many conservatives, often rightly discuss problems of government intervention, there is a counterintuitive category where the government simultaneously monopolizes, taxes, and refuses to provide promised services.

Trump’s recent actions recall earlier episodes of US industrial policy, such as wartime production controls and financial crisis interventions, when governments assumed temporary stakes or direct control over private enterprise.

The popular game, Rock-Paper-Scissors, operates according to a firm set of rules. However, when government sets the rules or refuses to properly enforce rules, then so-called limited government simply turns into a government power play.