Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2160

Gun Owners Should Fear the Deep State

Washington, often in federal agencies with vast sway and little accountability. According to a March poll, 74 percent of Americans believe that a deep state probably exists.

Unfortunately, the deep state could increasingly focus on gun owners in the coming years. The number of Americans who are violating firearm laws and regulations is increasing by tens or hundreds of thousands almost every year. This is not the result of a violent crime wave, but because politicians are continually criminal...

When Mainstream Economics Was Wrong

[Foreword to Mark Thornton’s new book The Skyscraper Curse: And How Austrian Economists Predicted Every Major Economic Crisis of the Last Century (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2018).]

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, the economics profession suffered a blow to what reputation it had. But unlike most of his colleagues, Mark Thornton was vindicated by 2008. Mark has been a voice of sanity at times when the wild interventions of the Federal Reserve have caused otherwise sensible peop...

In a Corporatist System of Government

Last year, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed on the US Senate floor that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”

“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can...

Is There Enough of America Left

As many readers of this website have noticed, the United States has lost its character and become a dysfunctional society. In place of a largely homogeneous population once united in veneration of the Constitution, there exists today massive diversity which Identity Politics has used to disunite the population into separate interest groups.

No clause or article of the Constitution, nor the Bill of Rights, is safe. The George W. Bush and Obama regimes destroyed two of the most important protec...

Julian Assange

It was one of those mistakes which often happen when you involve a government in your affairs — but it wasn’t Mr. Assange, it was the two women who managed to bed him who made that mistake – – –

Ms. Ardin accompanied Ms. Wilen to the police station on August 20 [2010], playing a supporting role. Neither of them intended to press any criminal charges against Mr. Assange. They wanted to compel him to take an HIV test. Once they were at the police station and told their stories, the female polic...

What Conservative Canon?

In 2012, I came across a scholarly article in a journal on rhetoric on “The Conservative Canon and Its Uses.”  The author, Michael J. Lee, undertook to explain why the American conservative movement had put together a “secular canon” featuring its leading thinkers.  According to Lee, this selection of books and seminal authors has been designed to forge a “spiritual bond” among groups that otherwise have exhibited sharp disagreement.  Conventional libertarians, social traditionalists, and ana...

Why Do They All Look the Same?

Government homogenizes everything it touches. It makes things uniform, drains the color, randomness and difference out of life.

Government is the reason why cars increasingly look . . . homogenized. The basic shape is becoming uniform – the inevitable end result of having to comply with government edicts specifying that a car must successfully withstand being hit from the side, behind and at various angles; this has imposed a design template on all cars, regardless of brand or model. It is wh...

Why Did the US Invade Iraq?

QUESTION: I recently watched the movie Shock & Awe on the Iraq War. It really showed how the pretend free press are just stenographers for the government and that your President Trump is absolutely correct about fake news. The movie ended with the New York Times apologizing for its fake reporting. Previously you said you knew William Kristol who is mentioned in the film as one of the people behind the theory to take over Iraq. Have you seen the film? Do you agree with the story that is told?...

Secessionist Sentiment Remains a Plurality

Amidst the growing intensity and louder calls for independence around the globe, John Zogby Strategies once again conducted a nationwide poll on the topic over the July 4thholiday.  We asked 1,001 likely voters the following question:

Which of the following is closer to your view?

Statement A: If a majority of residents within a given state prefer to have the final say over their destiny without the control of Washington D.C., then let them have it – it is their right.

Statement B: If residen...

The Satanic Nature of the Atomic Bombings

“Ahab is forever Ahab, man.  This whole act’s immutably decreed.  ‘Twas rehearsed by thee and me billion years before this ocean rolled.  Fool!  I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders.”

– Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint…But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails a...