Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2276

The Diversity Bridge

Well, that is damned inconvenient. A state-of-the-art pedestrian bridge hailed as the inevitably wondrous result of diversity in engineering has collapsed within days of being paraded before the media. Did I say inconvenient? I should have said symbolic.

“Diversity Bridge” (that’s not the structure’s official name, but I think it fits) was designed to connect Florida International University to the city of Sweetwater, where many FIU students and staff reside. The bridge, installed (though not...

Hillary Is Sorry If You Misinterpreted Her

Hillary Clinton provided an explanation for some recent comments she made that she understood ‘upset or offended’ some Americans – statements that drew criticism from fellow Democrats and the Trump White House alike.

‘I understand how some of what I said upset people and can be misinterpreted. I meant no disrespect to any individual or group,’ she said in a Facebook post. ‘And I want to look to the future as much as anybody.’

Clinton, on a trip to India, had talked about how her voters came f...

Stand Your Ground

Republican Gov. Matt Mead chose not to veto a measure expanding protections in cases where defensive force may be used and allowed the bill to become law without his signature.

Mead, a former federal prosecutor who has stumped to bring gun industry to the state, stood aside on HB 168, a popular bill that widens areas where no duty to retreat exists and provides immunity from civil liability in aftermath of a reasonable use of force. While the proposal’s sponsor welcomed the move, Mead said in...

Finally, Some Good News

Washington’s gratuitous raising of tensions with Russia that we have been witnessing for many years is so reckless and irresponsible that we need some relief from the depression of it all. Perhaps I am grasping at straws, but here are some hopeful developments.

—An establishment journalist, Michael Goodwin, the chief political columnist for the New York Post and a former bureau chief for the New York Times, has blamed the New York Times and Washington Post for the destruction of journalistic...

Russia Did It!

This past week saw an enormous outpouring of respect and admiration for Stephen Hawking upon his passing.

In contrast to his frail health in life, his contributions to our understanding of the universe were prodigious and robust. Hawking’s elevation of rational and intellectual truth above all else, even his failing body, inspired a generation of science lovers.

Perhaps, too, he represented something in desperately short supply in today’s world: intellectual integrity.

Our lives are now fraug...

Black Heart

John 1:5 – And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

For me, there is something about the night sky with its countless brilliant stars that evokes feelings of wonder, delight, astonishment, humility and worship. I cannot explain these feelings to anyone who does not have a sense of the numinous, as C.S. Lewis put it, to someone who is convinced there is nothing sacred and that there is no God; perhaps it would be like explaining music to someone who was born dea...

John Pilger: “We Don’t Even Know

Russia-UK relations have hit dangerous levels amid a row over the poisoning hoax of a former spy and his daughter.

Award-winning journalist John Pilger tells RT that this is all propaganda, a “carefully-constructed drama”.

Unlike Russia, which has destroyed all its chemical weapons, Pilger notes that the US has yet to destroy its chemical weapons stockpiles and the UK’s chemical weapons factory is just a few miles down the street from where Skripal was found.

“You have an attempted murder, yo...

The Free Market at Work

In 2013, in response to the increasing “open carry” debate, Howard Schultz, the chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Starbucks posted an open letter on the company’s website requesting that “customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas.” Until this time, various gun-control groups proposed boycotting Starbucks because of the company’s gun policy of following local laws that permitted open carry. After the Starbucks decision, pro-gun conservatives...

Symptoms of a Deeper Disease

President Trump’s recent cabinet shake-up looks to be a real boost to hard-line militarism and neo-conservatism. If his nominees to head the State Department and CIA are confirmed, we may well have moved closer to war.

Before being chosen by Trump to head up the CIA, Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo was one of the most pro-war Members of Congress. He has been militantly hostile toward Iran, and many times has erroneously claimed that Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terro...

Is Libertarianism Catholic?

Several years ago I attended a dinner party in Paris held by my wife’s friend Sophie. As a functionaire (government worker) and based on an economic formula considering family size and income, she was allowed reduced price social housing. In this case a wonderful apartment along the Canal Saint-Martin. But it waits for another article to unravel the complexities of French socialism.

What I do intend to describe is a short conversation I had with Sophie. In fact, she is a philosophy teacher in...