STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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September 01, 2015
The technology that lets unmanned U.S. drones blow up alleged "enemy combatants" in the Middle East is coming home. U.S. police departments, which already embraced drones for surveillance purposes, now want to deploy weapons on them. North Dakota's legislature ...
September 01, 2015
With the seventieth anniversary this year of the end of the Second World War, a number of commentators have focused on the presumed "unity" of America seven decades ago to "win the war" against global tyranny and international aggression by Nazi Germany and Imp ...
August 31, 2015
A good question arose in the comments to our Thursday story about U.S. border agents searching and seizing laptop computers. Can't people simply store their data on the cloud to keep it safely from government hands? Let's think this through. Say you have a few ...
August 31, 2015
Following Monday's historic stock market downturn, many politicians and so-called economic experts rushed to the microphones to explain why the market crashed and to propose "solutions" to our economic woes. Not surprisingly, most of those commenting not only f ...
August 30, 2015
Two years before Dancing Fawn made her first crossing, Arnold Wilson Parker* sat on the veranda of his estate overlooking the Rockies. Next to him sat Edgar Kohrob, CEO of ENGCO, a conglomerate of the largest engineering, design, and construction companies in t ...
August 29, 2015
Declining civilizations (and the current moment provides a fine example) are characterized by basing political power on free food and similar handouts. This not only diverts production to foolish ends, but it harshly punishes producers. Worse, it undercuts the ...
August 28, 2015
George Will, who often has no problem embracing Big Brother, found enough small-government vocabulary to write an entertaining takedown of Donald Trump's immigration plan. The article exemplifies the exasperation mainstream GOP powers must feel at Trump's ascen ...
August 28, 2015
It's 3:00 in the morning. Your wife and young children are asleep. You hear a commotion outside, followed by the sound of a window rattling. You get up, grab your 12 gauge and creep down the stairs. You hear window glass breaking. A black-clad man scrambles in, ...
August 27, 2015
There are logical arguments for nation-states to defend their borders against illicit persons and goods. Those arguments are not nearly as compelling as some people think, but they exist. They apply mainly for people and goods entering a country – not those l ...
August 27, 2015
First published in Inquiry, November 12, 1979. A half-century ago, America — and then the world — was rocked by a mighty stock-market crash that soon turned into the steepest and longest-lasting depression of all time. It was not only the sharpness and dept ...
August 27, 2015
The talking heads of the establishment are heaping scorn on Donald Trump like squawking crows defecate on those beneath the phone lines where they sit. The long knives are coming out of the sheaths of the New York-Washington literati. Everyone is attacking Dona ...
August 26, 2015
Having the right to vote is significant only to the extent it means you can vote for some meaningful office or issue. Saudi Arabian women can now vote in municipal elections. This is progress for a kingdom in which men, particularly men of the royal family, hol ...
August 26, 2015
There’s an ill will blowing across the country. The economy is tanking. The people are directionless, and politics provides no answer. And like former regimes, the militarized police have stepped up to provide a façade of law and order manifested by an overt ...
August 25, 2015
Americans like to think the nation takes good care of their veterans. Its actual record for doing so is spotty at best, as recent VA hospital scandals demonstrate. Nevertheless, one category of veterans always lands on its feet after it hangs up the uniform. Re ...
August 25, 2015
The U.S. presidential election of 2016 may still be well over a year away, but those who dream of sitting at the desk in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. are busy scrambling for campaign supporters, financial contributions and potential vo ...
August 24, 2015
In a world where economic dinosaurs quickly go extinct, traditional banking is one of the prime survivors. Abundant capital and friendly capital have let it adapt to every challenge. When banks lost commercial lending business to asset backed securitization in ...
August 24, 2015
What should be done with the estimated 15 million people living in the United States without the legal right to be here? It seems most politicians and many Americans come down on one or the other extreme. Many Republicans, including Republican presidential cand ...
August 23, 2015
Arnold Wilson Parker sat with his back to the French doors of his upstairs study. Light from a gloriously clear winter sky streamed past his shoulder, fell on the bare wooden floor, and filled the room with a golden glow. Facing him, across a coffee table on a ...
August 22, 2015
This week, we'll see the truly subversive nature of Jesus' teachings... a subversion that remains unappreciated but potent. One has to wonder what would happen if large numbers of professed Christians took these concepts seriously. Continued from last week… W ...
August 22, 2015
The term “Sagebrush Rebellion” is again showing up in newspapers across the American west as states seek more control over federal lands within their own boundaries. As with the original Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s, several western states, wh ...
August 21, 2015
On the surface, Ohio looks like a strong candidate to join the list of states allowing legal recreational marijuana. Look deeper and you will find a more complicated story. "ResponsibleOhio" is a noble-sounding name for a group of investors who seek a state-enf ...
August 21, 2015
The Saudi-led war against Yemen is going very badly for Yemeni civilians. A recent Amnesty International report has revealed the extent of destruction resulting from the fighting that has been raging for the last four months: The conflict has been raging in 20 ...
August 20, 2015
Charles Blow, the New York Times columnist we quote today, is no libertarian. Nonetheless, he points to an important issue libertarians should consider. The reasoning goes like this: If we must have government at all, power should reside mostly in local governm ...
August 20, 2015
Can anyone stop the overweening lunacy of the banking oligarchs? No more than anyone can stop pythons from devouring rabbits at play. Our bankers are not honorable. They are not farsighted. And they have set in motion forces that no human effort can avert. More ...
August 19, 2015
Donald Trump's persistent poll lead puzzles both journalists and political operatives. Despite breaking all the normal rules of electoral politics, he obviously appeals to a sizable voter segment. Yet another paradox is that, in the course of pursuing public of ...
August 19, 2015
Saddled with a corporate media that marches in lockstep with the government, elected officials who dance to the tune of their corporate benefactors, and a court system that serves to maintain order rather than mete out justice, Americans often feel as if they h ...
August 18, 2015
The line between government and private business is often fuzzy, but for AT&T it seems almost invisible. Asked by the National Security Agency to help spy on American citizens, the company apparently jumped at the opportunity. So did other telecom providers, bu ...
August 18, 2015
There is little that happens in society in general and the market economy in particular that most on the political "left" do not think needs more government intervention, regulation and redistribution to make "better." One recent example of this is a lengthy "r ...
August 18, 2015
Many people think the Internal Revenue Service was violating civil liberties when it harassed tea party groups. After all, the groups were targeted because they wanted to exercise their civil liberty to challenge government policies. However, the specific issue ...
August 17, 2015
Those of a libertarian or anarchist bent like bitcoin for both its privacy and the incapacity of governments to debase its value, but the underlying "blockchain" technology has a wealth of other potential uses. "Smart contracts" are one such use. As MIT Technol ...
August 16, 2015
Synopsis: After crushing almost all of a large international counterfeiting ring, Special Agent Weidemeyer is now cleaning up the details. One by one, he chases down the last few members who managed to avoid having their real names or addresses in the ring's ca ...
August 15, 2015
Judaism and Christianity, often to the horror of their proponents, are and always were subversive sets of beliefs. The quote I open with below is but one of many that can be found in the Bible. And this set of writings, no matter how desperately abused, has had ...
August 14, 2015
Like the proverbial frog in a kettle, the American public is almost completely unaware that its president is waging an illegal war. President Obama has been spending American blood and treasure in and around Syria for a full year now. Whether attacking the Isla ...
August 14, 2015
Asset price inflation, a disease whose source always lies in monetary disorder, is not a new affliction. It was virtually inevitable that the present wild experimentation by the Federal Reserve — joined by the Bank of Japan and ECB — would produce a severe ...
August 13, 2015
Dogs may be man's best friend, but they do make mistakes. Lex, an Illinois drug dog, signals drugs are present in 93% of his searches. Yet searches by human officers find Lex is wrong some 40% of the time. A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of a man ...
August 13, 2015
Sometimes it seems as if the single most defining characteristic of the human race is our ability to dehumanize. What other animal slaughters and subjugates its own species in the way we do? What primordial flaw gives birth to dictator butchers, as well as thei ...
August 12, 2015
The news media loves to speculate about the impending robot invasion. Automated systems will steal our jobs, they say. The robot apocalypse will seal the doom of unskilled workers. You might buy some time by learning to code now, at least until the robots learn ...
August 12, 2015
Being a citizen in the American corporate state is much like playing against a stacked deck: you’re always going to lose. The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, most stay in the game, against all odds, tr ...
August 11, 2015
Last week's GOP presidential "debate" was more interesting than expected. While Donald Trump certainly enlivened the event, the night's most substantive discussion was the Chris Christie – Rand Paul exchange on warrantless National Security Agency surveillanc ...
August 11, 2015
One of the great voices for personal liberty was that of the British economist and political philosopher, John Stuart Mill. His essay, "On Liberty," though penned well over 150 years ago, is a classic statement that the individual should be respected in his rig ...
August 10, 2015
"Never let a good crisis go to waste," a phrase attributed to various American political strategists, is advice politicians everywhere try to follow. Certain European leaders are following it right now. The Greek debt drama exposed serious divisions in the Euro ...
August 10, 2015
Among the items awaiting Congress when it returns from its August break is reconciling competing House and Senate bills reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. These bills passed early this spring. Each bill is being marketed as a huge step toward restoring state a ...
August 09, 2015
"Father, I'm confused," said twelve-year-old Arnold Wilson Parker II, known to his acquaintances and family as Junior. "Not uncommon. At your age. Not at all," answered his father, expecting to begin a discussion of the world's most confusing subject. "Yes, sir ...
August 08, 2015
One of the great changes of the last fifty years is that broad populations have lost their respect for politicians. Such changes can have profound effects. Without legitimacy, it's only a matter of time before an empire fails. Continued from last week… LIFE I ...
August 07, 2015
When farmers plunge their life savings into mining stocks at 6-to-1 leverage, it is fair to assume a bubble has formed that will eventually pop. That is certainly the case in China right now. Farmers like Yang Cheng made the mistake of believing their governmen ...
August 07, 2015
Revisionism, according to Harry Elmer Barnes, is bringing history into accord with the facts. Why would history and factual evidence be at odds? Because governments, per Orwell, falsify the past to keep the population subservient. If people really knew what gov ...
August 07, 2015
Seventy years ago today [August 6] a president of the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a city full of innocent Japanese. It was the second time in three days that Harry Truman had done such a thing: He had bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Th ...
August 06, 2015
Police shootings have been a major news topic for a year now, dating back to when a Ferguson, Missouri officer killed Michael Brown in August 2014. Social media and video evidence have convinced many Americans police kill citizens far too frequently and without ...
August 06, 2015
Greece is a hot topic at the moment, mostly with the continued negotiations over bailouts from the European Union and, through institutions like the IMF, the world at large. Much of the discussion paints the image that Greece is only a debt-restructuring away f ...
August 06, 2015
Ronald Reagan used to be called the Teflon president, on the grounds that no matter what gaffe or scandal engulfed him, it never stuck: he didn’t suffer in the polls. If Reagan was the Teflon president, the military is America’s Teflon institution. Even peo ...
