Topic: History

What the Data Say About Civil War Monuments

– June 23, 2020

“The course in public memorialization of anti-slavery figures and events is at long last moving in a positive direction. It can and should be sustained, provided that the mob, now haphazardly targeting almost any form of public statuary, does not make those same monuments into additional casualties of iconoclasm.” ~ Phillip W. Magness

Art and Culture, Crisis, Government, History

The Meaning and the Mind of an American

– June 22, 2020

“America’s hope has been for the color-blind society, and in spite of everything has been moving closer to it, in numerous facets of everyday life. Its path is being blocked not by anything inherent wrong in its founding principles. Its way is threatened by those whose view of man is based on collectivist identifiers,.” ~ Richard Ebeling

Economic Education, Economic History, Free Markets, History

An Open Letter to the Institute for New Economic Thinking

– June 16, 2020

“Treating this as a mistake and correcting it is the right thing to do in response to an unfortunate lapse in judgement. Failure to do so in my opinion would amount to among the most egregious instances of such crass intimidation I have seen.” ~ Max Gulker

Art and Culture, Economic History, Education, History

Thomas Sowell at 90: Understanding Race Relations Around the World

– June 16, 2020

“Now, at the age of 90, Thomas Sowell continues to offer us understanding and insight into the attitudes and institutions that can bring all people greater peace and prosperity, as well as human liberty.” ~ Richard Ebeling

Crisis, History

The Return of Brutalism

– June 15, 2020

“When governments behave this way, as if freedom doesn’t matter, this is what they unleash. They punish and drive out decency, integrity, and virtue. When you do that, you release unpredictable forces within society that make the world ugly, even terrifying.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Capitalism, Economic History, History

American History Reveals the Alternative to the Police State

– June 10, 2020

“There is ample evidence that decriminalization of Americans’ personal lives, the proliferation of gun ownership, and the encouragement of competitive markets for property insurance and private protection services can greatly improve upon our current monopolistic, union-controlled, taxpayer-funded machines of state repression.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Crisis, Economic Education, History, Philosophy

Tragedies of Our Time: Pandemic, Planning, and Racial Politics

– June 8, 2020

“The magnitude and depth of what has actually been experienced in declines in production and rises in unemployment have one and only one primary and singular source: the federal and especially state government-ordered shutdowns across the country.” ~ Richard Ebeling

Crisis, Education, History

A Nation of True Believers

– June 4, 2020

“Lots of Americans are also frustrated. Their putative leaders have infantilized them through decades of paternalistic laws that try to micromanage their lives. It is beginning to dawn on them that election results are unlikely to change anything under our duopolistic, or revolving monopolistic, political system.” ~ Robert Wright

Crisis, History

Will the Politicians Admit Their Lockdown Mistake?

– May 27, 2020

“Was this a mistake? Yes. It’s time to admit it. There ought to be acts of contrition from the political class and the modelers who advised them, in which they loudly and earnestly declare that they are heartily sorry for their sins, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Crisis, History

The 2007 Origins of Forced School Closings and Mandatory Human Separation

– May 26, 2020

“If you have any doubt that the main push for the lockdown was less about therapy than models, inspired by the fantasies of a computer scientist rather than a genuine expert in viruses, a social experiment conducted with disregard for freedom and the rule of law, a wild and foolhardy central plan hatched without regard to experience or serious medical science, this email chain as passionate demand to implement the 2007 CDC blueprint is the proof.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Crisis, History

Is this Really a Post-Liberal Era?

– May 17, 2020

Liberals of all types should not despair and feel they are like Sir Edward Grey watching the lights of liberal civilisation go out all over Europe: if they understand better where we are then the new state of affairs could end up being an improvement over the way they have been for the last two to three decades.

Crisis, History

The 2006 Origins of the Lockdown Idea

– May 15, 2020

So far as anyone can tell, the intellectual machinery that made this mess was invented 14 years ago, and not by epidemiologists but by computer-simulation modelers. It was adopted not by experienced doctors – they warned ferociously against it – but by politicians.