Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2400

Who Are ‘The People’ Anyway?

Every time I listen to Sean Hannity or some other Trump-enthusiast stressing the “mission” for which our president was elected, I hear flattering references to “the people.” Mind you, I’m not against populist tropes being used to execute an end-run around the likes of Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi. Moreover, I’ve never pretended to be a “Never-Trump” establishment Republican. My endorsement of Trump during last year’s presidential campaign is too much a matter of record to be credibly denie...

The Vegas Shooter: His Motivation?

As I write this, there is only a small handful of facts, or alleged facts, that all of the talking heads in Big Media seem to agree upon regarding “the largest mass shooting in American history.”

First, 64 year-old Stephen Paddock, a white man and resident of Nevada, appears to have acted alone when he opened fire upon over 22,000 country music concert attendees in Las Vegas.

Second, Paddock had a lot of weaponry, guns of various sorts, in the hotel room that he used as a sniper’s nest.

Third...

EU Hypocrisy Exposed Again

The European Union cockroaches were quick on condemning strong leaderships running after terrorists and drug trafficking, yet mum on the daylight police brutality of the Spanish government against the legitimate exercise of political power by the Catalans.

Over the last few days, tens of thousands of Catalans have mobilized en-masse to take part in a referendum on the future of Catalonia.

Whatever your opinion on the question of Catalonian independence, there can be no doubt the response from...

Wake Up, America

For news to be read and understood by a great number of people, it must be simple, sensational and forgettable. Most individuals are not interested in “heavy” news or complicated issues. Just compare television and newspapers today to say 50 years ago. At that time, newspapers had very few pictures but instead covered serious matters with in depth analysis. Same with television. In the 1960s there was serious news and many programmes which raised important issues in society or politics, which...

CIA Mind Control Project MKUltra

“Project MKUltra” was the name given to an illegal program of human experimentation conducted by the US Central Intelligence Agency, which investigated mind control. The 1975 Church Committee hearings exposed the operation – and on July 20, 1977 a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to it.

The origins of MKUltra lie in 1945, and Operation Paperclip — the secret transfer of top Nazi scientists to the US. Armed with extensive documentation on unethi...

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Recently I made reference to the criticism Simon Leys made of a book by Maria-Antonietta Macchiocchi. He said that the most charitable interpretation that could be put on it was that it was the product of stupidity; any other interpretation must involve outright fraud on the part of the authoress.

I once made use of a rather similar argument myself, in another context and before I knew of Leys’ criticism of Macchiocchi. I had written an article just after NATO had finished bombing Serbia sugg...

Thank Goodness for Trump

Trump is like a set of studded tires. They suck most of the time, but then comes a blizzard – and you are grateful.

Just so now.

If he were not jefe and instead we had her instead, it is probable that – before this day is out, an emergency executive order would emanate from Washington, outlawing the possession of “weapons of war” (as she has styled them) by other-than-government-workers and, of course, the people such as this Stephen Paddock character. The laws – and strict punishments – that...

Are They Really Out To Get Me?

Libertarians and others who seek to be left alone to run their own lives habitually ask themselves the above question regarding their government.

So, what’s the answer? Are they out to get you? Well, unfortunately, the answer isn’t a simple “yes” or “no.” In fact, it’s “yes” and “no.”

The secret to understanding a government’s intentions is that there’s no unified overall objective, sentiment, or approach to dealing with the private sector. Quite the opposite. With any government, it couldn’t...

DC’s 6 Year War

Now that the defeat of ISIS in Syria appears imminent, with the Syrian army clearing out some of the last ISIS strongholds in the east, Washington’s interventionists are searching for new excuses to maintain the illegal US military presence in the country. Their original rationale for intervention has long been exposed as another lie.

Remember that President Obama initially involved the US military in Iraq and Syria to “prevent genocide” of the Yazidis and promised the operation would not dri...

The GOP Tax Reform Plan

The Republicans have released their latest tax-reform plan. “Unified Framework For Fixing Our Broken Tax Code” is a simple, 9-page document that leaves the reader with many unanswered questions.

Back in 2015, I subjected the tax proposals President Obama made in his State of the Union address to a libertarian analysis. Earlier this year, I did the same for President Trump’s tax plan. It is only fitting that I now do the same for the Republicans’ framework.

The “unified framework” developed by...