Author: Barry Fagin
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COLUMN: Central Bank Digital Currencies are not a great idea
Let’s talk about money. Filthy lucre. Cash. Moolah. Legal tender. The big bucks. Central Bank Digital Currencies. What, what was that last one? Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDCs for short, are the latest fad among academic economists inside the world’s national governments. They’re a great idea. As long as you hate financial privacy and…
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COLUMN: Politics not always the architect of human prosperity
Politics is supposed to be some grand, noble enterprise that reflects how society comes together to get things done. Things that we citizens, for some reason, are presumed to be unable to do ourselves. But once you step out of the high school civics classroom, it’s almost never about that. It’s about responding to the…
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COLUMN: It’s time for peace in the education wars
You might think, as a free speech activist and ACLU honoree, I should be squealing with glee at the struggles of “Take Back Our Schools.” TBOS, a local conservative organization, wants certain books removed from school libraries in multiple Colorado Springs school districts. The standard liberal reply would be something like crying censorship, unconstitutionality, ridiculing…
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COLUMN: Making a sacrifice for democracy and freedom
This week, a great man is on trial. He will be sentenced to life in prison by a tribunal of state-appointed judges. There will be no jury, no opportunities to challenge the “evidence” presented. It will be the sham trial of the century. Jimmy Lai is accused of violating Hong Kong’s “National Security Act”, passed…
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COLUMN: Understanding Argentina’s libertarian president
A country we don’t pay much attention to picked a president most of us have never heard of. Let’s get better acquainted. Javier Milei is now the president-elect of Argentina, a South American country with a population of 46 million. He won in a landslide with a 12% margin of victory. Why is Milei’s victory…
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COLUMN: Government should leave economic activity alone
Of all the messed-up policies in the neoliberal bag of tricks, antitrust has got to be the worst. If your business charges prices the government thinks are too low, you’re engaged in “predatory pricing”. If your prices are “too high”, that’s evidence of “monopoly power”. And if you charge the same prices as everybody else,…
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COLUMN: Support Ukraine in their struggle against a tyrant
For an American, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Russian-speaking part of the world. I’ve taught in Russian universities. I’ve traveled to eastern Ukraine, to Odessa, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Mikolaev, all of which have since been attacked by Shahed drones and Russian missiles. The first hotel I stayed at was bombed to rubble…
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COLUMN: Israel, Hamas and Biblical prophecy
When I ask the internet about “Israel Hamas Bible prophecy”, I get over 5 million hits. These include YouTube videos wondering if the war between Israel and Hamas is a sign of the end times. I have some knowledge of biblical Hebrew, the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), and the New Testament, albeit from an admittedly secular…
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COLUMN: Little equality in public expressions of affection
Thanks to the internet, everyone on the planet knows Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) engaged in some pretty disgusting public behavior. I’m referring, of course, to vaping. That stuff is nasty. How she could permit herself to do that even in private, let alone in a crowded theater, is completely beyond me. The viral security footage…
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COLUMN: An unpleasant break with logic and critical thinking | Barry Fagin
As a passionate believer in reason and critical thinking, I had an unpleasant encounter with my newsfeed last weekend. Once again, the natural human need for meaning that compels belief in the unreal has made the news. This time, it’s the notion of “incorruptibility”, the idea that the bodies of sufficiently good people are somehow…