Tag: government

The Iran Escalation Trap | Robert Pape | TMR

Posted on by Lone Candle

Regime change wars have never been successful from the air with conventional weapons. Administrations get wooed by the ability to strike targets with precision from afar, and forget that blowing a bunch of stuff up and killing important people doesn’t end a regime’s ability to suppress its people or fight back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YptXQ3UFumQ

Purge in Venezuela: The New President Is Selling Out Maduro’s Allies | VisualPolitik EN

Posted on by Lone Candle

Despite some changes, the Venezuelan regime is still the same authoritarian regime, just with a new dictator who is, at least for now, trying to give the Americans what they want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9qBqnQBDw

Bill of Rights Day: How Your Rights Keep Authoritarianism in Check

Posted on by Lone Candle

“the main opposition to including specific protections for the Bill of Rights came not from those who thought the document went too far, but from people who feared it didn’t go far enough.

James Madison, then a representative in Congress decades before his election to the White House, believed rights are natural and preexist any form of government. Man “has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person,” he commented in a 1792 newspaper column. “Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right.” Protecting specific rights, he feared, might lead Americans to believe those were their only rights, and that they’re granted by government.

…

In an 1819 letter Jefferson wrote that “rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

That was long after he’d prevailed upon Madison in their correspondence to consider that the new Constitution assigns significant authority to the federal legislative and executive branches and should “guard us against their abuses of power.”

“If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can” with a formal Bill of Rights, he continued. While such a document “is not absolutely efficacious under all circumstances, it is of great potency always, and rarely inefficacious.”

…

The Ninth Amendment addressed Madison’s concerns about protecting only some rights by embedding his natural rights ideas in the document. It states: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.””

https://reason.com/2025/12/08/bill-of-rights-day-how-your-rights-keep-authoritarianism-in-check/

Taxpayers Still Paying for Hurricane Sandy Relief Mismanagement 13 Years Later, New Report Finds

Posted on by Lone Candle

“A recent Transportation Department audit of Hurricane Sandy relief funds found $95 million in questionable costs and $2.9 billion in unspent money.”

https://reason.com/2025/11/25/taxpayers-still-paying-for-hurricane-sandy-relief-mismanagement-13-years-later-new-report-finds/

The Failure of Russian Capitalism With Bill Browder

Posted on by Lone Candle

Russia’s privatization after the Cold War, failed partially because the Russian government was too weak. It could not enforce property rights and the rule of law. Instead, the government was corrupted by the oligarchs. When Putin took over, he exchanged many oligarchs for one–himself.

When the U.S. tries to deregulate for potentially good reasons, and avoids taxes, we need to be careful that we are not setting up our own oligarchs who avoid helpful taxes and regulations at the expense of the people.

https://www.capitalisnt.com/episodes/the-failure-of-russian-capitalism-with-bill-browder