Hans Herman Hoppe's denunciation of Walter Block and his breakdown of the Israel-Gaza situation is a good read if you want a strongly-principled take on the situation from an ancap perspective (I say ancap instead of anarchist because it is rooted in property right theories that not all anarchists support).
I'm not sure of Block's underlying reasons for supporting Israel, but at least on a superficial level they seem to be rooted in the same foundation of " God Wills It To Be So" theory that many Christians and Jews rely on: the Jews are God's chosen people, God told them to live in Israel, and therefore Israel is theirs. I can see how this works if someone is preaching to the choir, but for those outside of the choir it's somewhere between deliberately obtuse and intellectually insulting.
I'm not sure I agree with Hoppe 100% here because it's a complex issue and I haven't really had time to think his arguments through completely. It seems to dovetail with my belief that the leadership of both governments deliberately stoke and perpetuate the conflict for their own immoral and unethical ends, and the civilians on both sides wind up paying the price.
However, while I think that the prescriptions that Hoppe and many other libertarian / anarchist thinkers present in terms of peace and coexistence are desirable long-terms goals, they ignore the immediate-term problem of highly-indoctrinated, identitarian militants and sympathizers intermingled in the civilian populations on both sides (and in third-parties like the US), in very significant numbers. Even if the existing governments were to agree to a sincere peace (and we're already in rainbows and unicorns territory here), there will still be a strong anti-peace sentiment for at least 2-3 generations that will fight tooth-and-nail to resume the fighting. The only workable solutions I've seen to this aspect are the ones proposed by Machiavelli, and these are understandably looked down upon.
At the end of the day, we must deal with the world as it exists now in order to build the world that we wish it to be. As the saying goes: there are no solutions, only trade-offs. The trade-offs here are hideously ugly any way you look at them, but even so I can't muster much sympathy for the feelings of those who are willing to countenance the endless sacrifice others so that their hands can remain clean and their purity scores high.
The question I propose is this, and not just for Israel vs. Gaza, but for the entire world vs the authoritarians: As free and self-owning humans, is it our life's purpose to engage in an eternal struggle against those who would rob us, turn us against each other for their own gain, use us and our children as they see fit, and even enslave us body, mind, and soul if they could? Or should we destroy them completely, erase them utterly from the face of this Earth, and thrive unabated except by our own limitations?
Either way, innocent blood will be spilled and lives will be destroyed. As much as we desperately want to, we can't choose for that not to happen. It's not an option. It is a condition that is imposed upon us by evil people working towards evil ends. This is the nature of war. Once war has been imposed, our only choice is whether the blood and destruction builds our future or theirs.
Don’t worry!
His “very smart people” are totally right about things this time when it comes to trade.
There is zero - I repeat, zero - moral difference between the people who pushed for "experimenting" with lockdowns because "we have to do something!" and the people who push for "experimenting" with trade wars because "we have to do something!"
Musk is out.
Musk put himself in a corner where he can't rip into Trump and he has to play nice probably at least through the midterms, but just look at the guy's face and watch him refuse to give a straight answer here. He put a lot on the line with endorsing Trump and starting DOGE, and Trump absolutely stabbed him in the back. Trump's supporters will blame congress, but Trump has very openly and loudly endorsed all of the DOGE-defying moves that congress has made, and has viciously attacked the one congressman (Thomas Massie) who has stood against it.
The reason is simple: Trump cares about trophies. Cutting the budget is not a trophy. DOGE trying to take a chainsaw to government was a trophy, but as soon as DOGE became more of Musk's than Trump's trophy, Trump stopped caring about it because congress offered him a Big, Beautiful Bill as a trophy instead. Just like the FBI offered the opportunity to build a Big, Beautiful new headquarters building for them (Trump loves buildings!). ...
As comedy slowly slides into unfunny wokeness hell, the last comedian standing (assuming he doesn't drop dead first, I mean just look at the guy; he's a trainwreck) will be Doug Stanhope. He closed out his recent special "The Dying of the Last Breed" with this bit on how important it is that we be able to make fun of anything. Because making fun.
Language warning, duh.
Preliminary Q2 numbers for Argentina are in. This is still subject to adjustment but so far their preliminaries have been pretty accurate under the Milei administration.
Slashing spending works. Trump and Bessent are very optimistically projecting economic growth of 3% doing the opposite of what Milei is doing to deliver 7.6% - and climbing!
