MARKETS
The Delusions and Dangers of the New Mercantilism
Trump has assumed the powers of a near absolute monarch to decide when, why, and against whom he will arbitrarily raise and lower and raise again tariffs on the importation of goods into the United States.
Can the Government Confiscate Your Gold?
The Real Risks of Owning Gold (and Why It’s Still Worth Owning)
Business Sucess Requires Principles Over Pragmatism
One of the reasons businesspeople dismiss moral principles is that they see them as burdensome duties to benefit others by sacrificing one’s own interests.
Understanding “Austrian” Economics, Part 2
All the rest of Austrian economics follows from these basic insights.
LAW
The United States of America is Not a Democracy
If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny.
A Prosecutor Breaks Down the ICE Officer Shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota
Objectivist former prosecutor James Valliant assesses the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minnesota.
Legal Leviathan: Big Law Is Yet Another Problem
Big Law fundamentally distorts the American legal system by offering billions of dollars in free legal services to unconstitutional crusades and liberal pet projects while denying access to any opposition group.
The Death of Renee Good: When Ideology Overides Reason
This is not a story about a blameless victim. This is a story about ideology so divorced from reality that it sends people into dangerous confrontations apparently unprepared for obvious consequences.
CULTURE
Left Can’t Meme
Richard Dawkins coined “meme” in 1976 to describe units of cultural transmission—ideas that replicate like genes.
Inconvenient Historical Truths From ‘Black History Month’
A few historical and inconvenient notes left on the cutting room floor during Black History Month.
Making Resolutions Outlast January
As Ayn Rand put it, a value is something you act to gain or keep. A desire without action then is just a wish.
Why America’s Land Isn’t Stolen
What conquest built justified the conquest—not because the process was clean, but because the result expanded human freedom and flourishing beyond what existed before.
WORLD
War Without Killing, Killing Without War
The U.S. has ample opportunity to kill bad guys while leaving good guys—American and Iranian—unharmed.
Justice in Caracas
Venezuela has a chance at revival. America has removed a security threat. And autocrats everywhere just learned that no palace provides immunity from justice.
Brussels Bets the Farm
If the EU wishes to be honest about the concept of free markets and preserve its agricultural base, it must reduce the environmental, administrative, and social burdens imposed on its own farmers.
The Hazard of Doing Business with China – and What to Do About It
Moral, profit seeking businesses must be vigilant about the China risk; it is in their self-interest to compete and trade freely and not help authoritarian countries expand their control.
SCI-TECH
Books: A Rebel in Eden: The War Between Individualism and Environmentalism
A Rebel in Eden: The War Between Individualism and Environmentalism, by Robert Bidinotto, explains the philosophic foundations of the modern political movement, theories that, in some cases, go back centuries.
“Greenwashing” and the Anatomy of Compromise
As Ayn Rand explains in her short essay The Anatomy of Compromise, compromising rational principles never works.
Science As an Excuse
How we find ourselves again in the awkward position of having trusted the experts and discovering that this was not a good idea.
How to Unleash Small Modular Reactors
Testimony to the House Oversight Committee on “The New Atomic Age: Advancing America’s Energy Future.”
POLITICS
Decentralizing Public Health: Institutional Monopolies Are Fraying
It is ironic that the Trump administration, rightly, objects to the WHO’s mission creep and politicization but fails to see the same problem with the CDC in its own backyard.
The Future of Liberty
Liberty is freedom from the government, specifically, freedom from the initiation of physical force by the government
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ICE, and Illegal Immigration
ICE agents enforcing the law aren’t the threat to American values. The threat is the accumulated mass of people who broke the law to enter, refuse to assimilate, exploit systems meant for citizens, and vote for politicians who promise more of the same.
Make Health Care More Affordable by Correcting Government-Created Distortions
What follows is a menu of health care, welfare, and related tax changes that would reduce spending and deficits and show that Republicans are serious about restraining federal spending, reining in welfare abuse, and improving health care affordability by removing government-created distortions.