Trump promises to slam a 100-percent tariff on [Update:] imported cars made in Chinese-owned factories in Mexico. He announced this not to a group of prospective car buyers but to a group of car makers. So what else is new? Car buyers, who outnumber the well-organized car makers but are not themselves organized, would have to pay more for cars they do not want if Trump got his way. That's the point. This is America first? No, it is not. It is "An Interest Group Whose Votes I Want" First versus everyone else. That's always the case with protectionism. Stopping consumers from buying whatever...
TGIF: Reverse Scapegoating in the Immigration Debate
In the controversy over immigration we can spot a phenomenon I call "reverse scapegoating." According to Merriam-Webster, the scapegoat is "one that bears the blame for others." With reverse scapegoating, others bear the blame for one. Both are unjust. Reverse scapegoating is clear in the demagoguery about "migrant crime," occasioned most recently with the murder Laken Riley. As the Associated Press shouted in a recent headline, "Killing of Laken Riley is now front and center of US immigration debate and 2024 presidential race." The 22-year-old Georgia nursing student's body was found after...
Celebrating the Gaza Onslaught: Is There No Shame?
To Israel's supporters: are you not ashamed when you see the videos that IDF soldiers make to celebrate the death, destruction, and humiliation they're inflicting on the people of Gaza? Some would call those soldiers "my people." We're talking about Abu Ghraib stuff here.
Something to Agree on?
Can't we all at least agree that this was an extremely clumsy sentence from Academy Award-winning Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer that invited misinterpretation? Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza. I assume he meant that they repudiate (why would this British guy say "refute"?) Israel's hijacking both Judaism and the memory of Hitler's victims in a cause that has produced such...
Now an Audiobook: What Social Animals Owe to Each Other
My book What Social Animals Owe to Each Other is now an audiobook. It's on YouTube here. And here's an MP3. What? You need an MP4? Okay, here. HT: Spencer Hayek
TGIF: Is Israel Mad?
Has Israel gone mad? Or has it always been mad? What is the country thinking? The collective nouns seem reasonable in light of the widespread support in that country for the Israeli government's appalling military assault on the people of the Gaza Strip for the last five months. How can Israel -- and its outside supporters -- cheer on the bombings (compliments of coerced Americans), the ground attacks, the mass starvation, the terror, and the rest of the crimes that we witness every day? The death toll is pushing 31,000, most of them infants, children, women, and old men, not fighters. So...
Coming to Palestine Now an Audiobook!
My book Coming to Palestine is now an audiobook. You can listen to it on YouTube. The audiobook is also here.
My Guest Appearance on the Bob Murphy Show
Podcaster and economist Bob Murphy and I recently talked about my life as a libertarian, the outlook for liberty, and Israel. Watch it here.
Sheldon Richman
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Domestic Imperialism: Nine Reasons I Left Progressivism
Imagine the Catholic Church (or any person or group of people) doing what the government does every day: Everyone who doesn’t give the Catholic Church 25% of his annual income every year will be put in jail. If he resists the Jesuit officer, the officer has the right...
Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania
FOREWORD BY JAY BHATTACHARYA, MD, PHD Diary of a Psychosis is different from all other books on Covid: it traces the development of the government response as it happened, bit by bit, and subjects it to relentless scrutiny: did any of it do any good? It thereby...
Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty
Americans today have “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, injected, harassed, surveilled, vilified, disarmed, beaten, detained, and maybe shot by federal agents. From hapless homeowners hit by SWAT raids to pandemic lockdowns pointlessly paralyzing lives, government...