Blog: Value for Value

Posted by a Member: I love this statement, because it dismisses altruism: So then the United States is supporting Ukraine not out of charity, but because it is in our strategic interest. And I’m fully aware that she didn’t say “self-interest,” which would have been much better. I have no illusions about Harris’ domestic politics.

Libertarians are hostile to Israel – posted by Peter Schwartz I have long maintained that the Libertarian movement is at root not anti-statism, but anti-state, and that it is therefore hostile toward free, or semi-free, countries because they demonstrate the rational value, and necessity, of a proper government. This is why Libertarians, like their leftist

I recently posted my first substack post (Available for free at https://substack.com/@harrybinswanger): To combat anti-Israel, anti-Semitic outbreaks on campus, two things are indispensable. 1: Recognize that the cause is the ideas taught by the faculty. The student chanters and rampagers are not intellectually equipped to form independent opinions about anything. They are marching to the

Re: a member’s post of 6/21/24 The reason many people have this perspective — that immigration is not a right — is that they are not conceptualizing “immigration” properly. They package together activities that are rights-violating with activities that are rights-respecting under the concept “immigration,” and then conclude that immigration is sometimes good and sometimes

A member asks why immigration is a right. Another member asks why it isn’t. Who has the burden of proof? Every human action is a right, unless it initiates physical force against another.  So, does the act of immigration initiate force? No, not per se. Does it threaten the initiation of force, since the threat

The public voices opposing the campus mayhem are writing only about freedom of speech. They point out that freedom of speech doesn’t include the freedom to occupy a campus or use violence. That’s better than nothing, but it misses two points: on any private property, the free speech right is that of the owner, and

It is the job of a nation’s intellectuals to connect current events to principles and to past events. Rarely is that done. Look at three examples. 1. Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that we learned that campuses were concerned about students’ need for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” had to be given,

A member asked a few days ago whether anyone really held the event-to-event view of causality. Two unfortunate examples of it appeared the same day (4/4/24) on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal. “Ideology, ‘Information’ and the New Censorship” counter-attacked recent attacks on free speech. The author deals with a supreme court Justice’s

Re: Member’s post 104109 of 3/9/24 Member wrote: The difference between a constitutional republic and a democracy is in the charter or constitution that protects the individual’s right to life and liberty against the whims of a majority. Some claim that the U.S. is a Representative Democracy in that the government is elected by citizens. From my

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