On July 20, citing “discriminatory treatment of American products” by the Canadian regime, US president Donald Trump signed three proclamations raising Americans’ taxes.

Again.

Trump’s latest tax hike comes in the form of a 50% tariff on Americans’ purchases of Canadian imports “ranging from wine to hockey sticks to cement.”

Tariff supporters try to sell their desired tax increases on American consumers as “retaliation” against other regimes for “unfair” treatment of goods made by American workers and exported by American companies.

Odd form of retaliation, that — “you’re hurting YOUR people … fine, we’ll hurt OUR people — that’ll show YOU!”

And for for the most part, those other regimes aren’t the manufacturers of or buyers of those exports/imports, any more than the US regime is the manufacturer or buyer of whatever the company you work for happens to export or the imported goods you choose to buy.

So no, tariffs aren’t “retaliation” for “unfairness.”

What are they, then?

They’re a way of protecting politicians’ domestic business cronies from competition, at the expense of domestic consumers.

Suppose you want a particular widget, and — all other things being equal, which isn’t necessarily so — the Canadian version of that widget sells for $1.00 while the American version sells for $1.49.

If Trump slaps a 50% tariff on the Canadian version, it suddenly costs $1.50 … meaning the US manufacturer magically becomes price-competitive with the Canadian manufacturer with the added expense coming out of your pocket rather than the US manufacturer’s bottom line.

In the past, a supposed positive feature of tariffs involved “job creation” in domestic industry, but that was always an iffy proposition and advances in automation have pretty much eliminated the “if” part.

Few if any “new jobs” get created — and the same people filling those positions are, like everyone else, paying more  for the goods they want and need, while reducing the workforce available to produce goods and services that don’t need “protection” to sell at reasonable prices.

To put a finer point on it, tariff proponents and perpetrators urinate on your back and try to convince you it’s raining.

The proper “retaliation” for foreign tariffs on US goods — the response that benefits everyone except politically connected business owners and the politicians they connive with — is unilateral “free trade.”

In free markets, producers and customers drive the best deal they can … and that deal is only made if both parties see themselves as better off for having made it.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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The term “gerontocracy” (rule by the elderly) isn’t new — it’s been in use since the 1830s — but according to Google Trends it’s come into more frequent usage since 2018.

And no wonder. The two most recent US presidents have been the oldest ever, senior citizens who frequently lapse into dementia-driven rants in public.

A number of US Senators and Representatives likewise have to be led around by the hand, shushed when their babbling gets too weird, and told by staff how to vote on bills.

To be clear: Not just which votes to cast on which bills, but sometimes literally how to operate the voting machinery they’ve been operating for decades. And that’s when they’re not collapsing and dying, or disappearing into hospitals, due to age-related maladies.

Solutions to the problem cover a narrow range: Age limits to stop people over a certain age from seeking election, term limits to get them out of office before their hundredth birthdays.

Really, though, our aging political establishment is just an end-stage symptom of an even worse disease: Archomania.

You won’t find archomania listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but you should.

While it often manifests in the same ways as other manias (kleptomania, an irresistible urge to steal; oniomani, a compulsion to shop; etc.), archomania is a distinct disorder.

Its symptoms include a compulsive urge to rule others, distress at the prospect of not being allowed to rule others, and a narcissistic belief in one’s unique qualifications to exercise such power.

The colloquial term for an archomaniac is: Politician.

Gerontocracy is just the result of coddling and empowering archomaniacs. Their hair grays, their gaits slow, their minds wander … but the compulsion remains, as does the grip on power seized back when muscles were stronger and  hands less arthritic.

Age limits and term limits would treat a symptom, but not the disease itself, and certainly not the effects of the disease on those who don’t suffer from it. Younger archomaniacs would just file in to fill the seats of the forcibly retired ones.

I’m not sure there’s a treatment for archomania.

Early exposure to the works of, say, Frédéric Bastiat and Lysander Spooner might have a sort of vaccine effect, but that’s questionable.

It seems more likely that the only thing to be done with archomaniacs is to try to keep them away from political power, just like — and for the same reasons — we try to keep pedophiles away from school playgrounds and alcoholics away from liquor cabinets.

And really, the only way to keep archomaniacs away from political power is to keep as little of that power as possible on hand and available to anyone. It’s bad stuff anyway.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“I want to stop American aid,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 30. “It’s like welfare; I don’t want it.”

Usually, Netanyahu gets anything he demands from Uncle Sugar. But on July 15, the US House of Representatives voted, 314-104 against even partially granting his wish.

Every Republican except Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and more than half of Democrats, voted down an amendment that would have removed $3.3 billion in “Foreign Military Financing” aid from the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act.

What’s up with that?

Was Netanyahu perhaps a wee bit disingenuous in his public request, passing word through back channels that he didn’t really mean it?

Is US Congress more “pro-Israeli” than Netanyahu himself, or perhaps just so addicted to spending that they can’t bear to cut anything at all, even if the recipient doesn’t want it?

Some combination of the above?

This may be the first time I’ve ever found myself in agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu on anything.

Well, partial agreement, anyway.

US aid to Israel isn’t “like welfare.”

It IS welfare.

What does the US regime in return for its billions of dollars per year? Two things:

1. A way of re-routing tax money to crony “defense contractors” with Israel as the cut-out to obscure the  domestic end of the corporate welfare pipeline; and
2. Dragged into a Middle Eastern garrison ethno-state’s every conflict with other regional powers — powers which substantially differ from Israel mainly in ethnicity, prevailing religion, and actually having some oil to make the entanglement worthwhile.

Don’t give me the “liberal democracy” stuff. The Israeli regime censors the press, bans political parties it doesn’t like, confines millions of Arabs to apartheid-style “homelands” as rightsless, non-voting serfs under Israeli rule, and just passed a law declaring that theological studies in one, and only one, religion are “fundamental” to its existence and thus deserving of exemption from the compulsory military hitch mere “secular” Jews serve. Politically, the main difference between Israel and Iran is that in Iran, Jews are guaranteed at least one seat in parliament.

Some “pro-Israel” — and “pro-US-aid-to-Israel” — people I talk with love to inform me that Israel has a longer average lifespan, a lower infant mortality rate, and a lower homicide rate (excluding the  Palestinians ruled by, and murdered by, Israeli troops) than the US.

That doesn’t strike me as the “gotcha” they seem to think. Could those billions in aid possibly have anything to do with the statistical differences? Every dollar in US aid is a dollar more the Israeli regime gets to spend on healthcare and police salaries instead of on weapons to power its expansionist foreign policy.

This time, Congress should have given Netanyahu what he said he wanted.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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