We are not talking enough about Uruguay. That small South American country boasts impressive results in its handling of the coronavirus. It is also signaling that it wants to prosper and that it understands more freedom might be the way to go about it. Under president Luis Lacalle Pou, Uruguay has suffered a very…
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Watching news coverage of the U.S.-Taliban agreement would have the average person believing that an end to the longest war in American history was at hand and that U.S. troops would all be coming home from Afghanistan. And that is the impression that President Donald Trump, who promised to stop “endless wars” and is…
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Juan Guaidó, recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate president by more than 50 countries, was brutally returned to reality after a fairy-tale tour of Latin America, Europe and the United States, when hundreds of thugs in the service of his country’s dictatorship welcomed him back at the airport in Caracas by kicking him, punching him and…
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Every time Iran is in the news, the same old myths about the country’s politics seem to fill the airwaves and the print media, fueled by politicians and commentators. By far the most important myth is the one that divides the regime between hardliners and moderates. According to this view, a significant part of…
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I would like to share with readers three lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first, what it teaches us about history. Historicists believe that history is teleologically guided by impersonal forces that shape things inexorably. Several thinkers, among them Karl Popper in The Open Society and its Enemies, debunked this theory…
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Some 72 years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people were killed instantly in Hiroshima and another 40,000 were immediately killed when Nagasaki was bombed. In the coming days, weeks, months, and years, thousands more would die as a result of…
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In one of my recent blog posts, I discussed the work of NYU economist William Easterly. In particular, I noted how his work on the pitfalls of modern economic development planning bear a striking resemblance to the work and ideas of F. A. Hayek and James M. Buchanan. Easterly makes a distinction between “planners”…
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Sixty-nine years ago, Japanese forces attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, provoking the United States to declare war against Japan. When Japan’s ally Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, the United States immediately reciprocated. These actions brought the United States into open warfare against the Axis powers and…
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