Libertarian Diary

A BLEEDING-HEART LIBERTARIAN IN AMERICA'S DAIRYLAND

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These Days Before the Vote

These Days Before the Vote: ‘He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good’

Whitewater, Wis. — It's sunny here in this small college town. Today‘s entry continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing each day before the November election a principle or position on which the liberal democratic tradition rests. There is a debate, as one would expect, about when America, as a nation,

These Days Before the Vote

These Days Before the Vote: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again'

Whitewater, Wis. — It's a gray and rainy morning in Wisconsin. Over the next thirty-four days, all the world will watch as our people, having endured nearly two years of authoritarian populism, vote in elections across this continent to choose federal and state officials. In These Days Before the Vote, this libertarian blogger

How Much Support for Socialists Is Support for Socialism?

How Much Support for Socialists Is Support for Socialism?

Writing in The Bulwark, publisher Sarah Longwell observes among her focus-group respondents a common explanation for Democratic voters' support for socialist candidates: So, is Democratic socialism the new hotness? Should mainstream Democrats panic? I don’t think so. But mainstream Democrats do need to wake up to what their voters are demanding. Here’

Americans' Embrace of the World Cup Is Yet Another Sign of an America Bigger and Better Than Trump

Americans' Embrace of the World Cup Is Yet Another Sign of an America Bigger and Better Than Trump

For those who are Never Trump, as is this libertarian lawyer and blogger, there was never any doubt that America was more and better than Trump's authoritarian populism. It's understandable that foreigners (and many Americans), having seen the violence of immigration enforcement against innocent thousands, and having heard the threats of

Madison (Wisconsin) Police Department Compensates for Secret Federal Law Enforcement

Madison (Wisconsin) Police Department Compensates for Secret Federal Law Enforcement

In a nation now afflicted with violent, masked federal agents in unmarked cars, ordinary residents in Madison, Wisconsin understandably have legitimate concerns when they see an unmarked government vehicle. To reassure residents that local unmarked government cars are not confused with vehicles from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Madison, Wisconsin, has begun identifying most

Remembering Harris's 'We Choose Freedom' Ad

Remembering Harris's 'We Choose Freedom' Ad

Good morning. Well over a year ago, during the 2024 presidential race, the Harris campaign released a video entitled We Choose Freedom. It was Harris's first campaign ad. I've thought about that ad, now and again, in the year and a half since it was released. Harris was the better choice

Barron County’s “Trust ICE” Message Comes with a Threat

Barron County’s “Trust ICE” Message Comes with a Threat

On Sunday, I wrote that for Wisconsin county officials, cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement has more than one meaning (sometimes plain, sometimes concealed through ambiguity). If official cooperation is sometimes shielded from view, at other times an expectation of the public's cooperation is stated more as an implied threat. That's

Considering Possible Federal Election Interference in Wisconsin

Wisconsin elections

Considering Possible Federal Election Interference in Wisconsin

Even in his first presidential race in 2016, Trump falsely claimed irregularities in Wisconsin’s election results, although final results showed that he won the state. (The Green Party's own bogus post-election claims of lent Trump's baseless assertions a faint patina of credibility.) Then and ever afterward, Trump's

Wisconsin’s Immigration Enforcement — 'Cooperation' Has More Than One Meaning

Immigration Law

Wisconsin’s Immigration Enforcement — 'Cooperation' Has More Than One Meaning

It's a quiet, gray morning here in southern Wisconsin. There's almost a foreboding to these gray skies: the far-yet-near conflict in Minneapolis demands that we consider what a de facto occupation by federal law enforcement means for our fellow Americans. More immediately, Minneapolis is a neighbor to Wisconsin, and

'For My Friends, Everything; For the Federal Reserve, the Law'

'For My Friends, Everything; For the Federal Reserve, the Law'

There is an expression from the first half of the twentieth century of disputed attribution to either Peruvian Óscar R. Benavides or Brazilian Getúlio Vargas, in which an autocrat offers "for my friends everything, for my enemies the law." Donald J. Trump has neither Spanish nor Portuguese, but he's inclined by

The Inclination to Raw Force

The Inclination to Raw Force

At The Bulwark, Catherine Rampell lists four key reasons that Taking Venezuela’s Oil Isn’t the Win Trump Claims (sub. req'd). Her four well-supported contentions are that (1) it’s not clear the United States needs more oil, (2) even if we did want more oil, that doesn’t mean we’

The World's Next Oil Magnate

The World's Next Oil Magnate

Last night, one read that while Donald J. Trump wanted to control Venezuela's oil industry, he hadn’t considered — of course he hadn’t — how the Venezuelan oil industry could operate profitably under his control: Despite Trump's optimism, oil companies have appeared skeptical of quickly entering, expanding or investing in Venezuela.