Art Carden is a Christian economist who has a knack for bringing complex subjects down to understandable terms. While he already writes for Forbes.com, Mises.org, and other major online sites, I’ve been encouraging him to submit articles relating to faith and economics to LCC for a while. I’m sure he’ll take me up on that offer someday, but for now I’d love to share one of his videos that was recently posted on LearnLiberty.org that is simply phenomenal.
His previous videos are primarily educational, and while his newest one does educate, it’s extremely practical. As a response to a left-liberal video called The Story of Broke (same creators as The Story of Stuff), it sets an example of how to talk about public choice problems and the knowledge problem while at the same time agreeing with much of the critique of our current system. It’s simple, and brilliant. Add to that the amazing production effects (seriously, there are sharks in this video!), and it’s a wonderful 4-minute video.
Check it out:
Tags: Art Carden, economics, public choice, story of broke, story of stuff, subsidies
The tension on the Korean peninsula escalated late last year when South Korea began live-firing drills off its coastline. That was after North and South Korea shelled each other for the first time since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. U.S. forces in the area went on high alert even as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington joined South Korean naval forces in exercises in the Yellow Sea. That carrier had just concluded drills with Japan involving 400 aircraft, 60 warships, and more than 40,000 U.S. and Japanese troops. South Korea was an official observer during the drills.
Korea shows all that is wrong with U.S. foreign policy.
After World War II, the United States and its allies — against the wishes of most Koreans — divided the country at the 38th parallel. After North Korea invaded the South in 1950, Harry Truman intervened with U.S. combat troops in a “police action.” The result was the senseless death of more than 36,000 American soldiers for Truman’s foolish policies, for the United Nations, for the failed diplomacy of World War II, and for the division of Korea in the same place it was divided before the war started. Since that time, a day has not gone by when the United States has not had thousands of troops stationed in South Korea, some no doubt the grandchildren of the soldiers who fought in the Korean War. There are at least 25,000 U.S. soldiers currently in Korea. There are also more than 35,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan.
There was no U.S. declaration of war against North Korea. On five different occasions, the United States has declared war on a total of eleven other countries: Great Britain in 1812 (the War of 1812), Mexico in 1848 (the Mexican War), Spain in 1898 (the Spanish-American War), Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1917 (World War I), Japan, Germany, and Italy in 1941 (World War II), and Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania in 1942 (World War II).
Only a few Republicans in Congress dared to object to Truman’s clearly unconstitutional intervention in Korea. Most notable was Sen. Robert Taft, who maintained, “The president is usurping his powers as commander in chief. There is no legal authority for what he has done. If the president can intervene in Korea without congressional approval, he can go to war in Malaya or Indonesia or Iran or South America.” The Korean intervention set a terrible precedent, for no declaration of war has ever been issued since, even though the United States has been involved in many military conflicts since then, some of them being major wars, such as Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Tags: Asia, foreign policy, history, interventionism, Korea, war
Today we restart the traditional News of the Week posts, where we highlight a few significant, interesting, and amusing stories each week.
David Neff at Christianity Today wonders if an evangelical meeting to anoint a presidential candidate is a bad idea.
Three articles at Antiwar.com caught my attention this week: Who Wants War With Iran?, Blood On Whose Hands, and Another Reason Not to Go to War So Often.
William Grigg writes about the current crop of presidential candidates who think state murder is a “moral enterprise.”
I mentioned this article yesterday but I would like to highlight again Anthony Gregory’s piece on LRC about why the left’s excuses for not supporting Ron Paul are ridiculous.
Doug Bandow writes in the Huffington Post about that perennial question, Who Would Jesus Vote For? Should we even ask?
Ron Paul Schools Santorum:
I heard about Word Dynamo from my colleagues at UT, and I have to say it is super fun. If you enjoy wordsmith-ing around, you’ll love this site.
If you have interesting news you would like to share, make sure to post in the comments below!
Tags: elections, News of the Week, politicians, politics, Ron Paul, war
The word isolationist is a pejorative term used to ridicule advocates of U.S. nonintervention in foreign affairs, intimidate their supporters, and stifle debate over U.S. foreign policy.
Throughout the twentieth century, opponents of U.S. intervention in foreign wars were smeared as isolationists.
Conservative and Republican opponents of Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, although they may argue and fight among themselves, are all agreed on one thing: Ron Paul is an isolationist and espouses a dangerous foreign policy of isolationism.
Actor and conservative activist Chuck Norris insists that “Texas Representative Ron Paul’s bent toward being an isolationist who wants to bring home every one of our 572,000 troops abroad makes the anti-terror, pro-military hairs on the back of my neck stand.”
Tags: foreign policy, interventionism, Ron Paul, war, war on terror
Norman Horn is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the 