FDL Review

What is the objective of education? This is the first question that the teachers unions, governors, legislators, and President Donald Trump should consider as they approach the issue of reopening schools. In the most basic sense, education consists of bestowing three things upon the young: knowledge, the ability to think critically, and social skills. The student is at the core of education, and his development is the entire point of offering public schooling. Otherwise, property taxes and Department-of-Education funds would be better allocated to different uses. To say otherwise is akin to suggesting that the goal of industrial production is not what is being produced, but the workers manning the machinery. Or that the goal of healthcare is not the patients being served, but the nurses and doctors doing the work. In reality, every effort has an end goal (e.g., producing hammers, healing the sick, or cultivating young minds). The means are not the end. In this cas...

On June 15th, the Supreme Court signaled their opposition to individual liberty and the rule of law through three major decisions. The court refused to review cases that challenged qualified immunity and Second Amendment infringements, but also chose to expand the scope of employment discrimination legislation. Supreme Court building With regard to qualified immunity, perhaps the most salient matter examined, multiple cases involving substantial errors by police went unheard. One case involved a police officer in Georgia who accidentally shot a 10-year-old boy in the leg while aiming at a family dog. Another dismissed case involved officers in Idaho who fired tear gas into a woman’s home under the false assumption that a suspect was inside. Officers in both cases protected themselves from culpability through qualified immunity. The Supreme Court’s lack of action on this matter signals that they are unwilling to hold law enforcement accountable for misconduct that would land ...

More than a year ago, President Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Dr. Judy Shelton -- the U.S. director for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development -- to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. On 16 January 2020, he formally submitted her name to the United States Senate. The pick immediately drew controversy, principally because Shelton supports a return to the gold standard. This concern is illogical for reasons both economic and strategic, but it has allowed the mainstream media -- which detests unorthodox ideas, even if they are rooted in millennia of historical practice -- to paint her as an uncouth flat-earther. In reality, Shelton is one of the president's best nominees yet and she would provide a check against the irrational actor that is the Fed. Dr. Judy Shelton Shelton's nomination is Trump's third attempt at filling the same Fed seat. In November 2017 and September 2018, respectively, Trump sent to the Senate his first ...