Glenn Loury, the economist at Brown University, often has interesting things to say. His YouTube Glenn Show episodes with linguist and social commentator John McWhorter feature valuable insights and eye-opening data about race, woke "anti-racism," and related matters....
Libertarianism
TGIF: True Liberals Are Not Conservatives
by Sheldon Richman | May 20, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The relevance of F. A. Hayek's essay "Why I Am Not a Conservative," the postscript to his important 1960 book, The Constitution of Liberty, is demonstrated at once by the opening quote from Lord Acton: At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its...
George H. Smith
by Sheldon Richman | May 13, 2022 | Blog, Libertarianism
The sad news has belatedly come to my attention that the philosopher and historian George H. Smith, 73, died on April 8. He had been in poor health. I was fortunate to have known George since the 1970s and to have had many conversations with him. He was self-educated,...
TGIF: Alito’s Challenge to Libertarians
by Sheldon Richman | May 13, 2022 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
In his recently leaked first draft of an opinion that would reverse the abortion-rights cases Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gives Americans a choice between judges who read their personal preferences into the...
TGIF: Mask Mandate – Liberty Can Hang on One Word
by Sheldon Richman | May 6, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
As I mentioned recently, whether the courts protect or violate liberty in any given case is something of a coin toss. The matter could hinge on a single word. We just had a good example of that fact. On April 18 U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump...
Privacy as a Property Right
by Sheldon Richman | May 5, 2022 | Blog, Justice, Libertarianism
In 1993 I wrote an article at the Cato Institute that may be relevant to the current controversy over abortion and the Supreme Court: "Dissolving the Inkblot: Privacy as a Property Right."
TGIF: What Really Protects Liberty?
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 29, 2022 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, as if we needed another demonstration, that little stands between the government and our liberty. Champions of individual freedom have been properly disturbed by how much power governments at all levels have seized since the...
TGIF: NATO and Collective Insecurity
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 22, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman
Collective security, the official goal of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, seems plausible on its face. A group of nations ostensibly concerned about a common threat agree to defend one another in the event of an attack. "All for one and one for all," as...