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from Competitive Enterprise Institute
Iain Murray: One of the questions I get a lot when interviewed about my new book, The Socialist Temptation, is how people are still attracted to socialism when its history is plain for all to see. We know about the Holodomor, about the Cultural Revolution, and Cambodia’s Year Zero. We know how people were shot trying to escape East Berlin. We know that even in its less repressive forms socialism led to economic malaise and was rejected in places like Britain and Sweden. So why are people blind to this history?
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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization
The efficacy of face masks has been a subject of debate in the health community during the pandemic. Public health officials who use deceiving graphs only make things worse.
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RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
Trump Agonistes
Can Donald Trump, against all odds, still win in November? It would be a remarkable political feat, on par with his stunning upset in 2016. A global pandemic (however statistically dubious) ravages the country, while riots ravage major US cities. The US economy produces a third less than it did a year ago, 40 million people are out of work and dependent on federal benefits, and 60 percent of all restaurants may go under. Millions of Americans will not pay rent, mortgages, or credit card bills for the foreseeable future. Millions of their kids will not go to school at all, or will simply stare at their teachers on Zoom. Others wear face shields and sit behind plastic screens at their desks. College football, a religion in America, may well be canceled altogether. Trump's own Manhattan is a ghost town. And the media is intensely aligned against him. Yet amid all this mayhem Trump's poll numbers are no worse, and perhaps better, than they were heading into his contest with Hillary Clinton.
Jefferson on the Family and Liberty
Thomas Jefferson has valuable things to say about two key criticisms of the free market. I learned about these from reading C. Bradley Thompson’s America’s Revolutionary Mind (Encounter Books, 2019) Thompson has done an immense amount on research on the thought of the leading figures of the American Revolution, and I urge everyone to read this excellent book. Many critics of the free market say that it is unfair that some people are much wealthier than others. Isn’t it largely a matter of luck how well you do? If so, shouldn’t the state take steps to benefit those who aren’t successful? One of the standard criticisms of the free market point of view is that it treats individuals as isolated atoms who view other people only as means to the pursuit of their selfish ends. You can certainly find people who do adopt this view, but Mises and Rothbard do not.
A Brief History of the Gold Standard, with a Focus on the United States
To fully understand our current global monetary system, in which all of the major powers issue unbacked fiat money, it is helpful to learn how today’s system emerged from its earlier form. Before fiat money, all major currencies were tied (often with interruptions due to war or financial crises) to one or both of the precious metals, gold and silver. This international system of commodity-based money reached its zenith under the so-called classical gold standard, which characterized the global economy from the 1870s through the start of World War I in 1914.
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from National Review RIGHT BIAS
The Lincoln Project is a farcical venture with little to no understanding of the man for whom they are named. Paradoxical as it might seem, the greatness of Abraham Lincoln has actually been obscured by his posthumous elevation to the rank of stone-hewn demigod. The man described by Leo Tolstoy is the one most Americans imagine when the name of our sixteenth president is invoked — the civic savior sent to water the soil of American liberty with the blood of his martyrdom: "Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history, Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Gladstone, and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling, and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us." This is all more or less true, even if Tolstoy gets a bit carried away with talk of “divine power.” Lincoln is not only the greatest ever American president, he is the greatest ever American, and the greatest leader in the history of world politics, to boot. The nations of the earth have reason to look with envy upon the United States when they reflect upon the providential and miraculous fact that we were led through our greatest trials and tribulations by such a man as this.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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What's the big idea? 4 proposals to reform America's immigration system
We cannot let divisive rhetoric prevent us from working toward a compassionate immigration policy that lives up to the ideals of the American Dream. The president has said that Congress needs to “do our job” and get a bill to his desk. Congress has failed to do such. We’ve made some progress — like when the House passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act last year — but more is needed. Partisan bickering only delays progress. Let’s focus on areas of agreement rather than letting politics get in the way. While collaboration is key, we cannot fix our country’s immigration problems until we have a president who is willing to enforce in good faith the laws set forth by Congress. Our immigration system has been broken for decades, leaving millions of people contributing to our families and economy, and helping our communities survive the ongoing pandemic, with no opportunity to earn legal status. For conservatives, one unfulfilled promise really stands out — ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. President Donald Trump promised this during the 2016 campaign and on multiple occasions since then.
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from USA Today
We cannot let divisive rhetoric prevent us from working toward a compassionate immigration policy that lives up to the ideals of the American Dream. The president has said that Congress needs to “do our job” and get a bill to his desk. Congress has failed to do such. We’ve made some progress — like when the House passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act last year — but more is needed. Partisan bickering only delays progress. Let’s focus on areas of agreement rather than letting politics get in the way. While collaboration is key, we cannot fix our country’s immigration problems until we have a president who is willing to enforce in good faith the laws set forth by Congress. Our immigration system has been broken for decades, leaving millions of people contributing to our families and economy, and helping our communities survive the ongoing pandemic, with no opportunity to earn legal status. For conservatives, one unfulfilled promise really stands out — ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. President Donald Trump promised this during the 2016 campaign and on multiple occasions since then.
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