In his call for the nationalization of police forces, Al Sharpton perfectly encapsulates the mainstream left — frequently dead on target in the diagnosis, yet prescribing a remedy that would only exacerbate the infection. The problems Sharpton identifies, persistent police abuse, unaccountability, and distance between the police and the policed, are the results of a…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “Selective Hearing in the War on Terror” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. “Michael Scheuer, Former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden Unit, said about bin Laden: “[he] is remarkably eager for Americans to know why he doesn’t like us, what he intends to do about it and then…

Hard to believe that 40 years ago the U.S. war in Vietnam ended. Actually, the war was against Indochina: remember Cambodia and Laos. (With previously unexploded ordnance from American cluster bombs killing people in those countries to this day, did the U.S. war really end?) It’s hard to believe because I can remember when I…

We speak of the blowback that results from American foreign policy, the senseless, heinous acts of terror that represent an unfocused and irrational rebellion against American imperialism. We understand that calling it what it is, blowback — pointing out the causal relationship between American foreign policy and terrorism — is not an attempt to exculpate…

Just when I’d managed to get control of my laughter over the “Obama is a Marxist” trope —  he held Red Study Circles where he read Quotations From Chairman Mao with Geithner, Rubin and Summers, presumably — David Harsanyi accuses Hillary Clinton of “class warfare” (“For Hillary Clinton, No War But the Class War,” Reason,…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Ricketson‘s “The Two Simplest Arguments for Open Borders” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. “If someone in Spain and someone in Saudi Arabia want to meet in Bangladesh, preventing them by force from doing so simply because of their starting locations cannot be justified. The same two people, if living…

“The U.S. Navy … has dispatched the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt toward the waters off Yemen to join other American ships prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the rebels, U.S. officials said,” the Chicago Tribune reported on Monday. Thus does the Obama administration risk war with Iran while embracing the mischievous…

Il governo degli Stati Uniti parte alla carica contro un’altra guerra civile in Medio Oriente. Quando continui a chiederti “Impareranno mai?”, la risposta più probabile è che chi prende le decisioni non ha alcun incentivo a fare altrimenti. Quello che sembra un fallimento potrebbe essere invece il risultato voluto. I pantani hanno i loro lati…

The U.S. government has charged into another civil war in the Middle East. When you find yourself repeatedly asking, “Will they ever learn?” the answer may be that the decision-makers have no incentive to do things differently. What looks like failure may be the intended outcome. Quagmires have their benefits — to the ruling elite…

Right now the usual suspects are united in joy by Hillary Clinton’s official announcement of her candidacy for president (although anyone who seriously believed she was previously undecided on the issue probably also still believes in Santa Claus). By “usual suspects,” I mean self-styled “progressives” who think the Red/Blue divide reflects a serious disagreement in…

Un titolo recente su The Week diceva: “NSA: Stavamo per smettere di spiare tutti poco prima che parlasse Snowden” (30 marzo 2015). A prima vista si direbbe una buona imitazione di un titolo satirico di The Onion, se non fosse che la realtà è più strana della finzione. La Associated Press dice: “A sentire alcuni…

To get a sense of how badly the regime in Iran wants sanctions relief for the Iranian people, you have to do more than contemplate the major concessions it has made in negotiations with the United States and the rest of the P5+1. Not only is Iran willing to dismantle a major part of its…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Ricketson‘s “A Left-Libertarianism I Don’t Recognize” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. In fact, what left-libertarianism has as its central tenet is that every individual should have complete control over their life and no one else’s. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and the myriad other bigotries that can haunt the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “The Political Class’s War on Immigrants is a Diversion” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. Politicians rely on this hugely important power to maintain a stranglehold on their subjects. The right to bestow work upon their subjects, and all of the ancillary terms and conditions that come with granting…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Mind Your Own Business, Bobby Jindal” read by Ian Anderson and edited by Nick Ford. The “English only” movement is especially clueless. In most places practical necessity is a far greater incentive to learn English than anything they can come up with. And people are generally pretty smart about learning whatever languages…

A recent headline from The Week says “NSA: We were just about to stop spying on everyone before Snowden spoke out” (March 30, 2015). At first glance this may seem like a good imitation of an Onion headline but truth is stranger than fiction. The Associated Press tells us, “The proposal to kill the program…

Una recente indagine della Associated Press sulle pratiche dei tribunali del Tennessee durante il patteggiamento ha messo in allerta gli americani su una delle tradizioni governative più agghiaccianti e finora considerate proibite: la sterilizzazione forzata dei carcerati. Secondo la giornalista della AP Sheila Burke, un caso recente ha riguardato una donna del Tennessee con disturbi…

Recent investigations by the Associated Press into the practices of Tennessee prosecutors during plea-deal negotiations have alerted Americans to one of their government’s most gruesome and supposedly forbidden traditions: forced prisoner sterilization. According to AP reporter Sheila Burke, a recent example of this practice involved a mentally ill Tennessee woman whose infant child died under…

I hear expressions like “I don’t see race” or “I’m color-blind” a lot from people who want to ignore the issues of structural power imbalance or privilege in race issues. The same people are fond of equating racism to simple bigotry; by this standard, white bigotry against blacks and black bigotry against whites are equally…

President Obama thinks that forcing us to vote might be a good idea. That he could favor punishing people for not voting — which means taking their money by force and imprisoning or even shooting them if they resist — is unsurprising. The essence of government is violence — aggressive, not defensive, force. Government is…