Big questions are being thrashed out these days. One of the biggest is this: do we want capitalism or socialism? Unfortunately, the online discussions I've witnessed have been, to put it as politely as I can, terrible. (For an example, see this one between Reason...
Politics
Don’t Be Silent
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 28, 2023 | Blog, Politics
We should reject the fashionable idea that one should never write or post anything that possibly could be used by bad people for bad purposes. That admonition brings two things to mind. First, it fails its own test. If good people avoid a topic because even...
Can There Be Only One Race?
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 27, 2023 | Blog, Politics
I'm old enough to remember this 1960s Lay's Potato Chips commercial. (Hell, I'm almost old enough to remember when plays were in black and white!) In the commercial a man (Bert Lahr, the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz) faces a challenge from the devil, who has a...
TGIF: Immigration Foes, What’s the Beef?
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
If people are going to hate on immigrants, they should at least get their stories straight. Do immigrants take our jobs or do they sponge off us through welfare? Today, let's talk about jobs. Recently I was listening to Spiked's Brendan O'Neill interview Batya...
TGIF: Fins Left, Right, and Center
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 17, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Th[e] central question is not clarified, it is obscured, by our common political categories of left, right, and center. --Carl Oglesby, Containment and Change You got fins to the left, fins to the right And you're the only bait in town. --Jimmy Buffett, "Fins"...
Arizona Must Pass ‘Defend the Guard’
by Paul Gosar | Feb 14, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics
President Joe Biden’s foreign policy is fundamentally broken. What should have been a clean, quick withdrawal from Afghanistan was given an artificial extension by the White House and bungled by complacent Pentagon brass. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been...
Don’t Get Duped By the ‘State of the Union’
by Jim Bovard | Feb 13, 2023 | Featured Articles, Politics
Watching President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech was like being cornered by a drunken lout who endlessly yanks on your shirt sleeve and babbles about all the favors he’s going to do for you. Biden told so many howlers that he eventually got heckled like a...
TGIF: Games Politicians Play
by Sheldon Richman | Feb 10, 2023 | Featured Articles, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Except for the civic religion on ostentatious display at the annual presidential state of the union address, one can hardly think of a reason for the tradition at all. It's not as though we learn something substantive or even hear a truthful material claim. (Yes, it...