U.S. History

The FBI’s power and federal legitimacy are far more tenuous than Washington recognizes. Beyond the nation’s big cities, federal authority hinges largely on the consent of local citizens.

The Bill of Rights transformed the Constitution from one of supreme and total national power to a partially mixed polity where the liberal antinationalists at least had a fighting chance. 

When a politician says "do the right thing," what he means is "do what I say, or else."

When a politician says "do the right thing," what he means is "do what I say, or else." 

All goods and services are scarce, and government intervention has never changed this reality.  The scarcity of water is nothing new, nor is it an impossible conundrum for markets. 

Bacevich criticizes the outsized role of American intervention overseas, but he goes a step further and questions the old conventional narratives too, going all the way back to World War I. 

Virtually all of the specific economic policies advocated by the Italian and German fascists of the 1930s have also been adopted in the United States in some form, and continue to be adopted to this day.

Many scholars employ excessively narrow notions of homesteading which wrongly suggest that virtually all Indian hunting grounds and food sources were "unowned."  

Eleven states ban happy hour. These laws restrict the sale of alcohol at discounted prices during specially designated times. Unfortunately, many citizens regard these backdoor price controls as perfectly legit.

Discarding the starry-eyed fantasy of unity is the first step in acclimating Americans to the idea of radical decentralization. Realistically speaking, this will be a drawn-out process marked by stumbling blocks along the way.