Bradley Birzer Has Paved The Way for A Third Party

In a previous post I talked about what a center-right “Liberal Party” would look like. I wrote that it would be moderately traditionalist, supportive of small government and the diffusion of political power from federal to state governments, and amenable to free trade. Bradley Birzer, editor of the Imaginative Conservative, fellow of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and chair of History at Hillsdale College, has reflected on what traditional conservatives and libertarians have in common. His observations are pertinent to the formation of a conservative third party.

Both libertarians and conservatives, Birzer writes, are reacting to the subversion of Western culture that occurred during the 19th century. Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, among others, undermined the Enlightenment’s emphasis on free will and traditional religious authority, paving the way for the expansion of the nation-state and tyranny in the name of progress. “Since the assasination of Czar Alexander II,” Birzer writes, “the ideologues have roamed the world relentlessly.” Idealists seeking to remake the world–and human nature–have sowed disaster and destruction since the Jacobins guillotined Louis XVI. Conservatives have since the publication of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on The Revolution in France yelled, “Stop!”

One excerpt from Birzer’s piece bears extensive quotation:

“It is worth restating that most conservatives and libertarians are, essentially, reactionary and reactive-ist.

“It is certainly worth considering what the two movements, broadly defined, have in common.

“First, each fears the massive enlargement of the modern nation-state, seeing in it the rise of Leviathan.

“Second, each supports–to varying degrees–the free will of the individual person.

“Third, each desires real community to be organic, necessary, and voluntary.

“Fourth, traditionally, each has supported liberal education and the Great Books/Great Ideas of the West.

“Fifth, each has seen warfare (with the crucial exception of the neo-conservatives) as the vehicle by which the state advances toward Leviathan.”

Most fissures within the conservative movement, Birzer notes, occur because of disagreements about the last two points. Philip Giraldi’s recent piece on Victoria Nuland’s tenure at the State Department epitomizes the enmity that exists between paleoconservatives like Patrick Buchanan (founding editor of the American Conservative) and neoconservtive luminaries like Nuland’s husband Robert Kagan. Neoconservatives’ enthusiasm for regime change is unusual in the history of conservatism.

The Dick Cheneys of the world excepted, libertarians and conservatives share an inveterate skepticism of governmental, particularly federal, authority. This observation should form the basis of discussions about the formation of a third party.

 

 

 

 

Socialism and Executive Overreach

Kelley Vlahos has written a temperate piece that raises questions about Merrick Garland’s suitability for the Supreme Court.

Garland’s reputation as a moderate who has garnered bipartisan support obscures his record of deferring to the executive branch on issues of national security. His career as an attorney within the Justice Department included the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and “the Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski. It is conceivable that these experiences shaped Garland’s opinions about when civil liberties should give way to domestic security.

As a judge on the District of Columbia’s Circuit Court of Appeals, Garland was the only Democratic nominee who did not dissent from a decision that granted military personnel the power to transfer Guantanamo detainees to countries where they might face torture without a hearing. Charlie Savage, who writes for the New York Times and whose book about executive overreach ignited my interest in politics, writes that Garland rolled back habeas corpus protections for Gitmo’s detainees between 2010 and 2012.

Even George Washington law professor Jeffrey Rosen, who maintains a personal friendship with Garland, admits that his career has been characterized by deference to administrative agencies. When a veteran sued the DEA in an attempt to classify medical marijuana as a legal drug, Garland sided with the Agency, noting, “We’re not scientists. They are.”

These concerns notwithstanding, Vlahos also mentions Garland’s favorable opinion toward Chinese Uighurs who had been captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay as “enemy combatants.” His record, she observes in reference to a Huffington Post article, cannot be viewed as exclusively pro- or anti-detainee. Garland represents a consensus within the judicial establishment of deference to executive power that Republicans, if they are to be the party of small government, should contest.

Marian L. Tupy has composed another reminder that socialism does not work.

The Derg’s brutal Ethiopian dictatorship sequestered 46 percent of that country’s expenditures for military purposes and pilfered international aid during their reign of terror. After their deposition, per capita calorie consumption has increased dramatically among Ethiopians. This story reflects larger global trends. Of the 10 largest famines in the 20th century, 6 occurred in socialist economies; the others occurred during a time of war. Furthermore, poverty has decreased and food become more readily available with the spread of globalization.

As an undergraduate I took a course on 20th-century China from a professor who had lived through the tail end of Mao’s Great Leap Forward. He gave us a snapshot of the degree to which the Chinese countryside was decimated by Mao’s attempt to place his country on an industrial par with the West. The central government collected exorbitant grain requisitions from rural communes because party apparatchiks exaggerated crop yields for fear of disappointing superiors. Youth who had been “sent down” from the cities for reeducation strained the countryside’s meager resources.

As with similar articles that the Federalist, the National Review, and the Foundation for Economic Education have produced, it is important to note that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are not advocating for a socialistic system. They are pushing for Nordic-style market capitalism with a generous social safety net, which the Danish prime minister has hastened to point out is a capitalistic arrangement. (Emily Ekins has reminded us that millennails don’t really even like that as much as they thought they did when they start paying for it.)

The point is that socialism is an empirically flawed economic model. As the World Bank’s measurement of world poverty suggests, free market capitalism is indeed the best path to prosperity, and not just for that perfidious 1 percent. (Kevin Williamson has wrly commented on our tendency to romanticize the manufacturing jobs that have since the 1950s been automated or outsourced; it’s actually quite cheap, he insists, to obtain a 1957 standard of living in the here-and-now.)

The correct response to campus socialists–socialists, mind you, not Bernie Sanders supporters–is a firm hand shake, a commendation of their misdirected compassion, and an eagerness for them to enter the workforce and adjust their political beliefs accordingly.

“When you’re running down my country, man, you’re walking on the fighting side of me.”

Slainte!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

John J. Duncan, Jr. writes that Donald Trump protesters are intolerant. Liberals, he writes, no longer champion freedom of speech. Their fixation on political correctness alienates them from most Americans. According to Duncan, the protesters have only bolstered Trump’s popularity. I disagree. I do think that liberals are too sensitive, that they are trying to institutionalize their sensitivities, and that these trends are delegitimizing speech that is not racist or sexist. Duncan is correct to note that the liberal tone on college campuses is shrill. However, Donald Trump is a presidential candidate. Presidential candidates elicit criticism. Running and trying to suppress dissent with violence are not appropriate responses to the inevitable consequences of Trump’s rhetoric. Duncan also stretches the truth when he says conservatives don’t employ childish protest tactics. We shouted “you lie” during the State of the Union address.

M.G. Oprea has summarized the chaos that roils the Middle East. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper notes that the United States confronts more national security crises than it has since World War II. The Turks, a purported ally in the war against ISIS, are more interested in suppressing Kurdish separatists. The Kurds, for their part, have responded by bombing Ankara’s business sector. Likewise, the Saudis prefer to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen. Muammar Qaddafi’s deposition in Libya has enabled ISIS to thrive and execute attacks on wealthy enclaves of Tunisia. Iran has taken advantage of the expansive language of the recent agreement concerning its nuclear capabilities. Russia has strengthened the hand of Bashar al-Assad by bombing U.S.-backed rebels in Syria. Vladimir Putin has capitalized on U.S. indecision. Former defense secretary Robert Gates thinks the Middle East will be “on fire” for the next 30 years. I think the situation calls for realism–a clear-eyed pursuit of U.S. interests. We want to marginalize ISIS and ensure a stable flow of oil to world markets. Neither Putin nor Assad nor Iran are inherent enemies in these endeavors.

The editors of the National Review have called for Senate Republicans to resist the nomination of Merrick Garland. His tenure on the D.C. Court of Appeals suggests he supports expansive government. He has upheld the authority of the EPA under its “Haze Rule” and facilitated the attempt by Washington’s mayor to restrict the ownership of firearms. Resistance will make Republicans look like obstructionists, as President Obama intended. However, there is ample precedent for legislators to oppose a Supreme Court nominee on ideological grounds. Chuck Schumer did so in 2007, as did then-senator Barack Obama. The consequences of affirming the Court’s activist wing are too deleterious to accommodate. The editors hope that Ted Cruz, Texas’s former solicitor general and the only reliable supporter of limited government left in the presidential campaign, will have an opportunity to nominate his own pick.

Sandy Ikeda writes that socialism and democracy are incompatible. Democracy, he writes, calls for individual liberty and self-direction. Alexis de Tocqueville, whom he quotes, and Edmund Burke would add that it requires provincial autonomy and visceral attachment to our “little platoons”–our families, churches, and voluntaristic associations. Socialism, on the other hand, requires consensus about protean ideals like “equality” and “fairness.” It concentrates the power to define what those terms mean in the hands of a few, whereas democracy tends to diffuse it. In other words, democracy pushes power down and out, whereas socialism pushes power up and in. Ikeda notes that Sanders is not advocating full-fledged socialism. He begs the question of whether or not the problems inherent in socialism exist in a mixed-economy with an invasive government.

“Damn this old cowboy for my foolish pride.”

 

Capitalism and Freedom

Philip Giraldi faults Michael Hayden for his about-face on torture. In response to Donald Trump’s endorsement of “enhanced interrogation tactics,” the former Air Force general and Bush administration spymaster has said that military officers can refuse to carry out orders that conflict with existing laws. Giraldi notes that Hayden was a proponent of torture during Bush’s tenure. He also supported the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program while director of that organization. Finally, he played a role in crafting the Obama administration’s system of remotely targeting terrorists, a system that resulted in the execution of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without a trial. Hayden supported aggressive anti-terror tactics during his time in office. His memoir denigrates those who perceived the policies he executed as an attack on the Bill of Rights and due process of law. Criticizing Donald Trump for his views on torture, Giraldi concludes, is hypocritical of Hayden. Like other neoconservatives, the general is perturbed by Trump’s willingness to talk openly about the Iraq debacle.

Stella Morabito has commented on the pitfalls of socialism. She aptly chronicles the brutality of Stalinist Russia and socialism’s tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a small oligarchy, suppress freedom of speech, and fracture human relationships. However, her piece could have been more precise. The Soviet Union is a peculiarly appalling example of socialism. Since Russia was overwhelmingly agrarian in the early 20th century, the Bolsheviks felt that a radical elite was needed to expedite the proletarian revolution. Among socialist elites, the Bolsheviks were the most elitist. Stalin’s paranoia was also unique. Furthermore, Bernie Sanders is not advocating that the United States scrap its market economy, his “democratic socialist” label notwithstanding. He is calling for the implementation of the “Nordic model” of capitalism, which entails increased taxation and spending. Fiscal liberalism is not socialism. However, Morabito’s piece is a much needed cautionary tale for teenage revolutionaries unaware of the benefits that accompany free market capitalism.

Rich Lowry has compared Donald Trump to George Wallace. Both are populist demagogues adept at garnering media attention. Both denigrate protesters to the delight of their supporters. Both are despised by their respective party establishments. (Though he has changed his party affiliation five times since 1987, Trump now claims to be a Republican.) Finally, neither politician truly believes in the brand of populism they espoused. In the case of Wallace, the Alabama governor wanted to exploit the frustrations of Nixon’s “silent majority” amid the domestic turmoil of the 1960s. Trump has become the tribune of a white working-class that has seen its cultural and economic power evaporate in the 21st century. Neither man, writes Lowry, is worthy of trust.

Iain Murray has lambasted latter-day Luddites who wish to curtail the 21st century’s revolution in information technology. Unlike their 19th-century counterparts, writes Murray, today’s Luddites enjoy the support of an invasive government. Ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft face protectionist legislation from entrenched taxi companies. Bitcoin is stymied by government’s monopoly over currency. Restrictions on 3D printing prevent the manufacture of firearms. Legislation, Murray writes, cannot keep pace with technology. Consequently, regulators should set limits on the time period in which new regulations are valid.

“You take the boy out of Bandera, not the other way ’round.”

Identity Politics, Socialism, and the Democratic Party

Daniel Larison has dismissed Condoleezza Rice as a viable presidential candidate. She accomplished nothing of note as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under George W.  Bush. She also brings with her the baggage of that administration’s foreign policy failures, the 2003 invasion of Iraq foremost among them. Rice’s record is analogous to that of Hillary Clinton. President Obama’s former Secretary of State had few if any notable achievements during her tenure. She did, however, spearhead the administration’s deposition of Muammar Qaddafi. That action has created a void in Libya in which terrorism can thrive. The fact that Rice has been approached, Larison concludes, indicates how helpless Republican insiders are in the face of Donald Trump’s popularity.

Denise C. McAllister has faulted Clinton for her lack of attention to women’s issues. Women, McAllister notes, are less enthusiastic about Clinton’s candidacy than they were about Obama’s in 2008. Some of this latent opposition may have to do with the fact that Clinton turned her back on women who accused her husband of sexual abuse. Caitlin Jenner’s outspoken disdain for Clinton earned her widespread condemnation from the LBGTQ community. Jenner’s focus, writes McAllister, is on issues that fall within the president’s purview, namely national security and the economy. Conservatives are often portrayed as hateful toward African-Americans, gay and transgender people, and other racial or sexual minorities. The reality, insists McAllister, is more mundane. We don’t hate the traditional targets of Democratic identity politics. We just don’t think transgender rights should be a paramount component of a president’s agenda.

John Fund argues that Donald Trump is unpresidential. In an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Trump suggested that his campaign was contemplating offering legal advice to a Trump supporter who sucker-punched a protester. The Donald has also encouraged his fans to “knock the crap out of” people who disrupt his campaign events. According to Fund, this behavior is in keeping with Trump’s childhood. The boyhood Trump, biographer Michael D’Antonio writes, loved to fight. Judging from his inflammatory rhetoric, he still prefers violence to words. So, too, do his more boisterous supporters. It is inconsistent for conservatives to criticize protesters who took to looting after the deaths of Laquan Macdonald and Michael Brown without condemning violent outbreaks at Trump rallies. The conservative hatred of disorder is colorblind.

B.K. Marcus has questioned millennials’ affinity for socialism. On the one hand, Marcus could have been more specific about his terminology. Whatever he has labeled himself in the past, Bernie Sanders would not implement a socialist agenda as president. (This is assuming he has the congressional clout and political versatility to make his pie-in-the-sky rhetoric a reality. He doesn’t.) Sanders proposes to adopt the “Nordic model” of social democracy. As Denmark’s prime minister has noted, this system depends on a free market economy and a heavy tax burden. Sanders wouldn’t change the fundamentals of our economic system with a government takeover of the means of production; he would just tax and spend a lot more. (As The Economist has noted, Sweden’s top 1 percent still owns 24 percent of that nation’s wealth.) On the other hand, Marcus is right to note that most students have only ever been on the receiving end of America’s fiscal equation. Mark Pastin’s attempt to grade his class on the basis of a rubric analogous to progressive taxation suggests that college students are conservatives in the things that matter most to their futures.

“You can take a boy out of old Dixie Land, but Lord, you’ll never take I’l’ Dixie from a boy.”

 

The Rundown, 02/18/2016

Here’s where moderate conservatism stands today:

Kelley Vlahos has questioned the Department of Energy’s decision to increase production of nuclear weapons. The president’s newest budget, writes Vlahos, provides for the modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal. This project will cost $1 trillion over 30 years. More troubling than the price tag, Vlahos argues, is Congress’ bipartisan commitment to making new plutonium fissile cores even though the “pits” we have in storage are numerous enough to service our existing arsenal for the foreseeable future. This revamped production, Vlahos concludes, represents a boon for contractors and a reversion to a Cold War mindset in the wake of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe.

Christopher Nelson has defended the value of a liberal arts education. As the adjective “liberal” suggests, such an education is suited for free people living in a democracy. Though higher education is becoming more specialized, argues Nelson, the need for informed citizens to absorb information, make connections, and formulate arguments is perennial. Furthermore, the capacity to transcend the methodological restrictions of a discipline and see its connections with another drives innovation. As one History professor told my undergraduate class on the Meiji Restoration, the purpose of a liberal education is to make students “critical consumers of information,” an essential trait in a society that incessantly bombards its citizens with disjointed facts.

Emily Ekins and Joy Pullmann trace Bernie Sanders’ popularity among millennials to their economic and political illiteracy and their lack of life experiences. They cite a CBS/New York Times poll revealing only 16 percent of millennials could accurately define socialism, compared to 56 percent of avowed Tea Partiers. Furthermore, they cite a Rupe-Reason poll that suggests millennials become more wary of the redistribution of wealth once they begin making more than $40,000 a year. The oft-cited example of Scandinavia as a socialistic paradise, they write, is disingenuous; free market reforms bolstered Scandinavian economies in the 1990s and the inferior service provided by nationalized healthcare systems is absent from our political discussions. Finally, millennials are less perturbed about socialism’s history of marginizalizing religious institutions, both because they are less religious than their elders and because they weren’t alive for the Cold War. Though Sanders defines himself as a “democratic socialist” and Ekins’ article has the proximate effect of bolstering the Republican nominee in a hypothetical general election against Sanders, the authors reveal a more profound, nonpartisan concern: millennials’ ignorance of the political, economic, and religious institutions that have created American prosperity may make the electorate more amenable to their destruction.

Kevin Williamson has chronicled the burgeoning heroin epidemic in Alabama and other parts of the South. Junkies, Williamson writes, tend to be white males without a college education and wealthier children from broken homes. He cites two economists who found that the most potent killer of what used to be the white working class is opiate overdoses, suicide, and alcohol-induced liver damage. Williamson’s piece is a helpful corrective in an ongoing national debate about socioeconomic privilege that fixates on race and gender to the exclusion of other factors.

“The Union, the Constitution, and enforcement of the laws.”

 

The Rundown, 02/12/2016

Here’s where moderate conservatism stands today:

Pat Buchanan has warned his readers of the threat perpetual warfare poses to republican liberty. Upon his departure, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan insisted an American military presence in that country was necessary to forestall a return of the Taliban, 15 years after our invasion. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has called for the deployment of American soldiers to Iraq, augmenting the 4,000 who are already fighting ISIS. Finally, saber rattling from Republican presidential candidates has elicited the claim that Russia is an existential threat to the United States. There is no end in sight for America’s military commitments, Buchanan writes. Furthermore, policymakers are toying with the idea of starting new wars over Eastern European countries who want to unify with Russia anyway and worthless piles of rocks in the Pacific Ocean.

Ralph Ancil has reflected on the economic theories of Wilhelm Roepke. Roepke, Ancil writes, chartered a path between socialism and 19th-century laissez-faire capitalism. He believed firmly in the touchstones of libertarianism: property rights, economic competition, and limited government. He rejected the modern welfare state. However, Roepke was also uncomfortable with the urban sprawl that accompanied industrial development and its effect on the human psyche. Consequently, he envisioned a republic of thriving towns in which land ownership was widely distributed in small- to medium-sized plots and agricultural labor venerated. Modern economists’ criticisms of this vision as utopian, Ancil insists, only affirms how far the professions have fallen from Roepke’s humanistic standard into the moral abyss of scientism.

Bre Payton reports that a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency sees Hillary Clinton’s misuse of classified material as Secretary of State as grounds for disqualification for the presidency. Michael Flynn, writes Payton, insists that Clinton’s handling of the email scandal betrays an arrogance toward the American people unworthy of a presidential candidate. Contrary to Clinton’s initial claim that the material conveyed through her private, unsecured email accounts was classified retroactively, an FBI investigation into the scandal has forced the State Department to admit that at least 22 emails were classified at the time of their transmission, and contained such sensitive information as the names of CIA operatives. Contra Bernie Sanders, people are not tired of hearing about Clinton’s emails. This burgeoning scandal and her inability to parry Sanders’ disdain for her public speaking career will handicap her in the general election.

John Fund writes that New Hampshire’s voter registration law is flawed. James O’Keefe, a conservative activist, documented many cases of Sanders campaign officials encouraging journalists posing as non-residents to enter fraudulent addresses on voter registration forms in order to cast their vote in the primary. Though Republican calls for stronger voter identification requirements elicit accusations of racial bias, Fund notes that majorities of both African-Americans and Hispanics support stronger voter registration laws. Using a false name and address, someone could have cast their vote in the New Hampshire primary, to have it discarded only after final vote tallies had been determined. Democrats must do more to convince their opponents that stronger voter ID laws create more problems than they solve.

“The Union, the Constitution, and enforcement of the laws.”

The Rundown 12/09/2015

Here’s where moderate conservatism stands today:

Kevin Williamson has written a piece about “Irish democracy” in the progressive bastions of Connecticut and Silicon Valley. In the latter location, a law requiring residents to surrender firearms with magazine capacities of more than ten rounds turned in a grand total of 0 guns. Williamson and, apparently, political scientists call this “Irish democracy,” a practice where citizens don’t comply with laws they find ridiculous (Williamson mentions the example of Gandhi in India). More interesting than the subject matter of his piece is the balance Williamson strikes between encouraging non-compliance with progressive attempts to subvert the Second Amendment and encouraging respect for due process of law. The Supreme Court, he notes, has on more than one occasion reaffirmed the individual right to own a firearm, and the subversion of teetotaling laws during Prohibition created an environment in which organized crime could thrive. Williamson’s take on Prohibition is on point. The debate over gun control is a cultural struggle. Just as upper-middle-class WASPs used alcohol to underscore the inferiority of groups they thought drank too much–mostly Catholic immigrants–progressives use firearms as a synecdoche for what they perceive to be the cultural excesses of middle America. When someone says, “America’s gun culture is the problem,” what they’re really saying is, “rural, conservative, religious Americans are the problem.”

Over at The American Conservative, Doug Bandow has criticized Garry Kasparov for fomenting aggression toward Russia in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. For the sake of comparison, here’s what Kasparov said. Libertarianism, Bandow insists, is incompatible with foreign intervention, largely because foreign intervention works to increase the powers of the state. This objection goes all the way back to the anti-imperialist tradition of British Whiggism. What’s newer is Bandow’s exasperation with those who want the United States to act as the world’s policeman. Intervention, he notes, brings diplomatic blowback and unintended consequences as it did in the wake of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which ultimately gave rise to the Islamic State. Furthermore, according to Bandow, Kasparov and other Baltic ex-pats should stop calling for the United States to protect “liberal” values that do not correspond to our vital national security interests. Ukraine is nothing to the United States, and it’s senseless to put American treasure, lives, and civil liberties at stake in order to deter Putin’s regional ambitions. The country can’t afford it. Bandow here continues TAC‘s legacy of striking a realist, non-interventionist stance on foreign policy issues (the journal was founded in opposition to the Iraq war), an homage to America’s Revolutionary heritage.

On that subject, Ben Domenech has penned a critique of Marco Rubio, comparing him unfavorably with his newfound rival in the Republican presidential race, Ted Cruz. Rubio’s embrace of George W. Bush’s agenda, particularly as it regards the neoconservative rhetoric of spreading democracy, suggests that the Florida senator has learned very little from the tenure of the last Republican president. Cruz, on the other hand, articulated a fine objection to the shortsightedness of both Rubio and the likely Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton. The fact that Rubio has struck out at Cruz without solicitation suggests he’s worried about the Texan, in the same way Jeb Bush was concerned about Rubio when he engaged in the ill-fated critique of Rubio’s missed Senate votes. With Donald Trump’s rhetorical provocations becoming more grandiose by the day, it seems the Republican frontrunner has begun to do what we all knew he would do eventually and cede power to more serious politicians. Cruz is the preferred beneficiary, on the grounds that he is both more realistic and more conservative than Rubio (recall from a previous debate Rand Paul’s objection to the budgetary effects of Rubio’s thirst for interventionism). Furthermore, Cruz’s embrace of the ACLU and his opposition to the NSA’s domestic collection of bulk data suggests a willingness to co-opt Rand Paul’s libertarian appeal. The question of which of the two senators would be more competitive in the general election is important. For all Rubio’s eloquence, Cruz is a better debater, and as Domenech writes, sounds moderate enough to appeal beyond the conservative base. Finally, Cruz is convincing in his anti-establishment posture. The Republican elites do hate him, in the same way that they love Rubio. This may turn out to be an asset rather than a hindrance, especially when you consider Trump’s populist appeal this primary season.

At The Foundation for Economic Education, Steven Horwitz has issued a call to rebrand capitalism. This article echoes a previous post by Sarah Skwire, which exhorts us to use the word “Daesh” when talking about the Islamic State. Horwitz’s point is that the word “capitalism” suggests that in a free market economy the interests of capital are paramount, when in fact they are only one side of the equation, the other side being the needs of the consumer as they are expressed through the price system. It is the poorly named “socialism” that allocates goods on the basis of the needs of capital, Horwitz argues by referring to the Soviet Union. As Horwitz admits, it’s unlikely that anything will come of this proposal. It does nicely illustrate the success capitalism’s enemies have enjoyed in overloading it with negative connotations.

The Institute for Justice has earned Charity Navigator’s highest ranking for the 14th consecutive year, a feat achieved by less than 1% of the 8,000 non-profits that the service rates. IJ is an excellent counterpoint to the progressive insistence that economic freedom is a euphemism for opacity, exploitation, and oppression, exemplified by the organization’s defense of food truck and taxi operators harmed by (progressive) economic protectionism.

“The Union, the Constitution, and enforcement of the laws.”