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By Angela McArdle

Twenty-one years ago, our country was changed forever. On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda militants hijacked commercial airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York, killing nearly 3,000 people. As countless families still grieve their lost loved ones from that tragic dayand the country suffers the consequences of the resulting war on terrorlibertarians fear too many of our countrymen still have not learned a vital lesson.

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, then-presidential candidate and now-former Rep. Ron Paul warned Americans that the attacks were blowback for our governments actions in the Middle East. It should be easy to imagine how such a remark astounded the electorate; until then, Americans had been oblivious to their governments ventures abroad. For whatever reason, the corporate media had never covered the CIAs arming of Osama bin Laden in the 1980s to fight communism in Afghanistan, or the fact that US soldiersmassacredIraqi civilians during the Gulf War, or the 1.5 million Iraqi civilianskilledby US sanctions on milk and medicine in the 1990s.

Yet we flooded Afghanistan, a country so poor and remote that many of its citizens had no concept of New York City, skyscrapers, or even televisionsmuch less the events of 9/11. Less than two years later, we plundered Iraq in search of Saddam Husseins ever-elusive weapons of mass destruction;nineteen years and 4,500 dead U.S. service members later, we still have troops there.

America needed Ron Pauls iconic, uncomfortable moment on that debate stage. The integrity to speak truth to ones own team is rare in politics. To be seen as unpatriotic or insulting to the military has always been a political death sentence, and the years immediately following 9/11 were no exception. But the reality was as true then as it is today: There are few acts more inhumane or disrespectful to our troops than sending them to fight and die in pointless, endless wars abroad.

And many of the sacrifices our politicians told us would be necessary have been turned against us: the Patriot Act, NSA surveillance, and detention without due process, to name just a few. Mainstream pundits have evencalled forJan. 6 protesters to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, a place designated exclusively for the most dangerous terrorists. How long until our government starts turning its critics right here at home into political prisoners?

Ron Paul warned what many of the unseen casualties of the war on terror would be: our civil liberties; our ability to engage in diplomacy; trillions upon trillions added to our national debt; and control of our federal government. We have also had more than30,000 veteran suicidessince 9/11, and an estimated38,000 homeless veterans, many of whom suffer from traumatic brain injuries.

The people of the Middle East have paid a price no less heavy. Brown Universitys Costs of War Projectestimatesthat Americas post-9/11 wars have killed between 900,000 and 2 million people, many of them innocent women and children. The number of displaced persons is unknown, and the ensuing political instability has decimated the quality of life for millions of Middle Easterners.

In light of all this, libertarians message for America is simple: No more.

No more entangling alliances, no more military aid in foreign conflicts that do not serve our nations interests, no more grieving parents or grieving children whove lost their family members because of our drone strikes, no more destruction of our Constitutional rights, and no more veteran suicides or starving, homeless veterans wandering American streets.

Originally published in Human Events on 9/9/22

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Lessons Learned: Ron Paul's Warnings Against the War on Terror Stand True - Libertarian Party

In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Katherine Mangu-Ward, Matt Welch, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie discuss the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the White House's misguided principles for reforming Big Tech.

0:30: The queen is dead.

10:15: The White House's tech policy push

23:38: Weekly Listener Question:

I see the Forward Party as planting the seeds for the blossoming of a multiparty democracy. As the initial priority of achieving ranked choice voting state by state is laid out, Forward Party is essentially "the third party for third parties." As the saying goes "may 1000 third parties bloom."

Think of an alliance for a ranked choice voting policy coalition with other third parties. Namely with the other two largest third parties: Libertarian and Green.

This opens up a very interesting dynamic of politics and particularly centrism. No longer is centrism on a binary scale of red or blue, where the center merely takes a little from the left and a little from the right. What is called: "the mushy middle."

Ultimately, should some sort of coalition of libertarians (small and large L), libertarian-adjacent, liberaltarians, and classical liberals join the Forward Party to launch it toward the future?

36:08: This week's cultural recommendations

Mentioned in this podcast:

"If Monarchy Is a Must, Keep It Neutral," by Robert Jackman

"In Defense of Not Mourning Queen Elizabeth," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Maybe a Ceremonial Monarchy Can Show the Way to a Less Powerful State," by J.D. Tuccille

"Everyone Wants To Ban Certain Content Online. No One Wants To Talk Enforcement." by Bonnie Kristian

"Poll: Tech Regulation Should Focus on Privacy and SecurityNot Breaking Up Big Tech Companies," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Both Democrats and Republicans Want To Break Up Big Tech. Consumers Would Pay the Price." by Veronique de Rugy

Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today's sponsor:

Audio production by Ian Keyser

Assistant production by Hunt Beaty

Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

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The Queen Is Dead. Anarchy in the U.K.? - Reason

Monica Tranel and John Lamb, Democrat and Libertarian running for Montanas new congressional seat, have agreed to debate each other in every county in the western district. But Ryan Zinke, their Republican opponent, has not accepted their invitation to participate. I urge him to do so.

Honest debate helps reveal what candidates really believe, whats important, what they will go to the matt for, and what kind of Montana leader they will be. Debate is not easy. I should know. In 1992 I ran for governor against Marc Racicot. Debate was a hallmark of our campaign. It was joked that if three people stopped at a corner to change a tire, Marc and Dorothy would stop and debate. But we believed in the voters right to know, and it is one of the things about that campaign of which I am most proud, although debating our former governor was nothing short of daunting.

Ryan Zinke should welcome the opportunity to present his side of all current issues. As important, he should offer his defense of reports released from the inspector general of the Department of the Interior, regarding his record of public service, that he lied in a deliberate attempt to deceive them. It is a serious charge, along with inquiries that were made regarding his conduct in office and use of public funds. And it is an opportunity for the voters to hear about his actions as Secretary to open public lands to polluters and deny wildlife vital protections. These issues are important to all of us. The candidates should lay them out in their own words.

Now, more than ever, we need open and honest debate. As we are aware, enormous amounts of secretive money have transformed campaigns from an exchange of political perspectives into an unhelpful deluge of TV ads and social media rants that become so annoying we turn everything off. What used to count in Montana politics knocking on doors, answering tough questions, showing up at town meetings is fast vanishing.

I urge Ryan Zinke to join Monica Tranel and John Lamb, to engage in debates that will help make us thoughtful and informed Montanan voters.

Dorothy Bradley is a former director of the University System Water Center at Montana State University and former Democratic Montana state representative. She lives in Clyde Park.

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We Need Open and Honest Debate - Flathead Beacon

California's state government is plowing ahead with its plan of sending free money to people to mitigate the pain of inflation.

On Tuesday, state Sen. Nancy Skinner (DBerkeley) tweeted a reminder that in October, California residents who filed a tax return in 2020 should start seeing checks appear in their mailboxes courtesy of the Better for Families tax refund program.

The rough sketches of the program were announced in late June as part of the budget deal reached between Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and state legislative leaders.

The $9.5 billion program will provide checks of up to $1,050 depending on one's income, filing status, and number of dependents. Single-filers earning more than $250,000 (or joint filers earning more than $500,000) aren't eligible for the checks.

Much like the Inflation Reduction Act passed by the U.S. Congress last month, these tax refunds will likely exacerbate the problem they're trying to mitigate.

The program puts cash in the hands of low- and middle-income consumers with a higher marginal propensity to consume. That's a fancy way of saying they're more likely to spend this money instead of saving or investing it. That's particularly true in an inflationary environment where prices are rising fast.

And boosting statewide demand will boost prices.

There's already evidence of federal checks-for-all have increased inflation. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed in March 2021, which included $1,400 stimulus checks, is estimated by one Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco analysis to have raised inflation by three percentage points.

It's important to point out that the state is issuing these tax refunds because it sort of has to. A convoluted budget mechanism known as the Gann Limit requires the California state government to return budget surpluses to taxpayers or spend them on a few budget categories like infrastructure and education.

One libertarian argument would be that, given the Gann Limit, it's better to return that money to taxpayers than let state bureaucracies spend it on public works and public programs.

That's a fair enough perspective. It's complicated by the fact that the state is mostly flush with revenue because of higher-than-expected tax returns from high-income earners. Many of those high-income earners either won't qualify for the Better for Families program. The Better for Families program is therefore an income redistribution program. For many recipients, their payout might exceed their state tax burden.

Leaving money to state bureaucracies to spend, which has obvious libertarian drawbacks, would probably be better for inflation. Those bureaucracies would be slower to spend the money and thus less prone to boosting demand.

Better yet, California's politicians could return the state's budget surplus to the high-income earners who funded it. That would be fairer. It would also be less likely to increase inflation because higher income earners have a lower marginal propensity to consume.

That's not what state politicians did. The state's consumers will now reap the consequences.

Read more here:
California Providing Free Money In Attempt To Mitigate Inflation - Reason

Adelle Nazarian, CEO of the American Blockchain PAC, whose advisory board is chaired by blockchains co-inventor Dr. W. Scott Stornetta, and Alex Allaire, the co-founder and CEO of the American Blockchain Initiative, recently published a roadmap for Congressional blockchain regulation in the National Interest.

Our two organizations have curated ten legislative proposals among the best, most consequential, and politically most palatable. Soon there will be more.

Many smart people on the Hill and in the executive branch are formulating legislation worthy of President Joe Bidens landmark Executive Order #14067: Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets. That executive order is the most consequential presidential statement of technology policy since President John F. Kennedy sent the United States to the moon with his 1962 Rice University speech on September 12, 1962.

Bidens executive order created a national framework fully respecting, for the first time, the responsible development of digital assets such as the blockchain.

The first policy recommendation on our initial list:

Congress should provide funding for blockchain research and development on the scale of the National Quantum Initiative. In October 2019, Chinese president Xi Jinping, the leader of Americas premier rival, threw down the gauntlet. It is necessary to strengthen basic research, enhance the original innovation ability, and strive to let China take the leading position in the emerging field of blockchain, occupy the commanding heights of innovation, and gain new industrial advantages, Xi declared. America must rise to this challenge!

Federal research and development (R&D) will never pass the libertarian purity test. Yet as one of us noted in a column for Newsmax:

Per [the eminent Norman] Augustine, numerous studies including those that won Robert Solow and Paul Romer Nobel Prizes in Economics, demonstrate that as much as 85% of the long-term growth in America's economy is attributable to advancements in science and technology.

The payoffs from the successes of federal R&D dwarf the cost of the failures. This inconvenient truth is supported by abundant evidence, however horrifying to libertarians.

To loop back to Romer, the proto-supply-sider and coiner of the maxim a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, a 1997 article in Wired titled The Long Boom noted that research by a few economists, like Stanford University's Paul Romer, suggests that fundamentally new technologies generally don't become productive until a generation after their introduction, the time it takes for people to really learn how to use them in new ways.

This latency demands primarily government, rather than corporate, initiative. And here it comes!

Last month, in a massively bipartisan fashion, the president signed the Chips and Science Act of 2022. This committed America, according to CNN, to invest more than $200 billion over the next five years to help the US regain a leading position in semiconductor chip manufacturing.

$200 billion? Our prior call for spending on blockchain on the scale of the National Quantum Initiative$1.2 billion over the next five yearsseems positively, well, libertarian. In retrospect, our proposal called for an unduly modest response to a challenge from Americas number one technological and economic rival, the Peoples Republic of China.

Yet take heart. The New York Times observed that the act would also add $200 billion for scientific research, especially into artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing and a variety of other technologies. (Emphasis added.)

If we dedicate even a few percent of the $200 billion to blockchain, Beijing will be eating Americas dust. America retains a powerful advantage in innovation. Again, per the New York Times: The road to the global peaks of technology, as Mr. Xi has described Chinas aspirations, is decidedly uphill.

Americas advantage becomes especially vivid with possible breakthroughs for blockchain-as-a-platform via concurrency computing using rholang, an advanced mathematics invented by Gregory Meredith, one of our colleagues.

Lets take Romers dictum, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, to heart. Let our federal governments scientific thought leaders allocate 3 or 4 percent of the funds from the Chips and Science Act to put the United States at the commanding heights of blockchain technology.

Todd White is the founder of American Blockchain PAC where Ralph Benko is senior counselor.

Image: Reuters.

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The CHIPS Act Can Fuel an American Blockchain Revolution - The National Interest Online