Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 106

Stepping Out of the Debt Trap

Donald Trump has claimed that American banks are not allowed to do business in Canada, which isn’t true, but the US banks would love to have a bigger piece of the financial pie in Canada, since commercial banks are some of the most profitable businesses in Canada.

And banks have an obvious advantage: it’s easier to be profitable when you can make money by making money.

As Mark Carney stated in his book Value(s), “In the modern financial system, the private sector creates most of the money in cir...

Nothing to Say, Ma

As a result of recent conversations, my life-long closest friend Diego wrote the following. If you’re lucky as we are, you have such a friend whose interests and thoughts match yours so closely that it seems that you were separated at birth in a dream. We both felt from the days of our youth when chance brought us together that, to paraphrase Bob Dylan,  it was not he, she, them, or it that we belonged to, or that we would ever gargle in the rat race choir for those who make the rules to terroriz...

What Rothbardians Should Think About States Rights

States Rights has been a dominant theme in American history. We all know about the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, the Tariff of Abominations, the War Between the States, the battle over the civil rights movement, and so on. But I’m not going to rehash American history in this week’s column. Instead, I’m going to ask a more fundamental question. What should Rothbardians think about states rights?

For Rothbard, the key question in all political issues is  how to promote freedom. As he says in ...

Ron Paul Rewind: Don’t Ban Flag Burning

In a Tuesday speech at Fort Bragg, President Donald Trump declared that “people that burn the American flag should go to jail for one year,” something Trump proceeded to state he is working with United States senators to bring about.

Twenty-two years ago this month, members of the United States House of Representatives were debating on the House floor whether they should approve H. J. Res. 4, a proposed constitutional amendment that would have empowered the Congress to “prohibit the physical des...

Skilled in All Ways of Contending

On a cruise in the Aegean—the first time in 20 years—I am reminded that contending with adversaries lies at the heart of the human condition. For millennia, the lands and islands that are now the territories of Turkey and Greece have been contested by a bewildering array of tribes with conflicting tribal and religious identities.

Many of the places I have visited were the scenes of conflict between the Knights of Saint John and the Ottoman Turks. The following photo is of a little church that wa...

Staring Down the Barrel of War With Iran Once Again

Well it looks like the US is on the precipice of war with Iran again.

US officials are telling the press that they anticipate a potential impending Israeli attack on Iran while the family members of US military personnel are being assisted with evacuation from bases in the region.

This comes as Tehran issues a warning that it will strike all US military bases within range of its missiles if it comes under attack. There are reportedly some 50,000 US troops in 10 bases which could come under fire ...

Now That the Parasites Have Consumed the Host….

The parasites have been feasting for so many decades that they’ve lost the ability to discern reality: their survival now depends on feeding on other parasites.

Let’s conduct a thought experiment. First, set aside all the usual economic-ideological certainties, mythologies and filters–capitalism and free markets are the fountains of endless wealth, socialism is the answer, etc.–and then look at our culture not as a monetary-economic machine but as an ecosystem of parasites and hosts. From this p...

What They Don’t Tell Us About Treating Pain

Most patients with chronic pain will typically first be recommended a variety of pain medications and physical therapy, then once those fail, steroid injections, and then a joint surgery. Unfortunately, each step in this process is often ineffective at addressing the patient’s pain or creates a variety of complications that make their situation even more unbearable. For this reason, it is critical to understand the risks of each part of this process and the safer alternatives that can permanentl...

Palantir: The Intersection of Government and Corporate Power

International Man: Palantir is a data analytics and AI company known for its work with governments, particularly in defense, intelligence, and law enforcement.

Critics argue it enables mass surveillance, predictive policing, and military applications. A significant portion of its revenue comes from classified government contracts, and some allege ties to the Deep State.

What is your perspective on Palantir?

Doug Casey: When Palantir was founded in 2003, all the initial funding came from Peter Th...

Remembering the Crimes of Totalitarian States

[This article is a selection from Chapter 5 of Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal.]

Whenever anti-Semitic attitudes or acts are mentioned, de Zayas observes, Goldhagen speaks of “the Germans”—not “the Nazis,” or even “many Germans”—offering no justification at all; it is simply a polemical trick. He neglects to mention well-known facts, e.g., that everyone connected with the killing of the Jews was bound by Führer Order no. 1, as well as by special orders from Himmler, mandatin...