From the Libertarian Alliance
Week Ending 21st July 2025
Dear All,
This week, our contributors tackle foundational political questions, ancient inequality, modern genocide, and everything from vegetable oil to Death Note. Whether you want to know why Athens might not have had a state, why Britain’s homeownership crisis is a national disgrace, or what the embalmers are quietly discovering about Covid vaccines, we invite you to read, reflect, and share.
Coming up tomorrow: Sebastian Wan reviews Keith Preston’s new book on anarchism.
Yours in Liberty,
Sean
Politics
🏛 The Westphalian State – Neil Lock
Neil Lock argues that the modern Westphalian state—rooted in arbitrary borders, monopoly violence, and opaque claims to legitimacy—is a political fiction. His article takes a moral and historical axe to the idea that our rulers have a right to rule us simply because they control territory.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/18/the-westphalian-state/
🔞 Britain’s Porn Pass: Not About the Children. Never Was. – Marian Halcombe
Marian Halcombe dissects the state’s push for online age verification—not as a measure to protect children, but as a cynical bid for digital control. She shows how this policy opens the door to mass surveillance and social credit systems, all under the banner of virtue.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/20/britains-porn-pass-not-about-the-children-never-was/
🇨🇳 Tiananmen Square 1989: The Truth, the Lies, and the Reality of a Police State – Sebastian Wang
Sebastian Wang explains why, despite all he’s read, he still doesn’t know what really happened at Tiananmen Square. His piece explores not just the historical fog, but the broader question of how totalitarian regimes shape memory, distort evidence, and manufacture consensus.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/15/tiananmen-square-1989-the-truth-the-lies-and-the-reality-of-a-police-state/
War
🕊 Against Realism Without Restraint: A Response to “Gaza: Please Cut the Crocodile Tears” – Sebastian Wang
Sebastian Wang replies to an Israeli writer who dismissed civilian suffering in Gaza as irrelevant. This reply does not trade in outrage. Instead, it coldly explains why a world without moral restraint is not one worth defending.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/19/against-realism-without-restraint-a-response-to-gaza-please-cut-the-crocodile-tears/
🩸 The Genocide Has Been Named: Britain Bears the Mark of Cain – Sebastian Wang
As global recognition grows that Israel’s conduct in Gaza may constitute genocide, Sebastian Wang examines Britain’s complicity. He argues that moral clarity is finally emerging—but far too late.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/17/the-genocide-has-been-named-britain-bears-the-mark-of-cain/
History
🏛 A World Reconsidered: The Greek Polis and the Sino-Hellenic Turn – Sebastian Wang
What can Chinese history teach us about the ancient Greek city-state? Quite a lot, says Sebastian Wang. His comparative analysis reveals new ways to understand Greek decentralisation, autonomy, and political fragmentation.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/17/a-world-reconsidered-the-greek-polis-and-the-sino-hellenic-turn/
🏛 Athens and the Myth of Statelessness: Rethinking Power in the Classical Polis – Sebastian Wang
Athens is often held up as a kind of anarchist paradise. But was it really stateless? Wang challenges this idea by exploring the informal but very real hierarchies and power structures that underpinned Athenian life.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/14/athens-and-the-myth-of-statelessness-rethinking-power-in-the-classical-polis/
📉 GDP and Income Distribution in the Roman Empire – Sebastian Wang
Using available data and modern economic models, Sebastian Wang paints a bleak picture of life in the Roman world—staggering inequality, elite excess, and desperate poverty for most. Rome’s splendour, he argues, was built on mass immiseration.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/19/gdp-and-income-distribution-in-the-roman-empire/
🏺 Roman Life Was Not That Bad: Reply to Sebastian Wang – Bryan Mercadente
Bryan Mercadente offers a counterview, arguing that average Roman living standards may have been higher than often assumed—possibly even better than in Victorian England. His case: longer lives, better diet, less alienation.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/19/roman-life-was-not-that-bad-reply-to-sebastian-wang/
Health/Medicine
🌻 Why Vegetable Oils Are Slowly Killing You: A Review of “Dark Calories” – Bryan Mercadente
Mercadente reviews Dark Calories and makes a searing case against seed oils, showing how they disrupt metabolism, promote chronic illness, and have no evolutionary justification. This is a libertarian case for ancestral eating.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/16/why-vegetable-oils-are-slowly-killing-you-a-review-of-dark-calories/
🧬 I’m Grateful I Refused the Covid Shots: The Embalmer Clots Are Real – Len D. Pozeram
Based on interviews with embalmers and morticians, this piece documents the appearance of fibrous clots in vaccinated individuals. It is not alarmist—but it does call for investigation.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/13/im-grateful-i-refused-the-covid-shots-the-embalmer-clots-are-real/
💨 Breathing Miracles: DMSO and the Medical Marketplace – Sebastian Wang
Sebastian Wang looks at the controversial chemical DMSO, exploring its overlooked medical uses and the reasons it has been sidelined by mainstream medicine. A call for humility and openness in health policy.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/09/breathing-miracles-dmso-and-the-medical-marketplace
Arts/Reviews
🕵️ The Emperor of Paris (2018): A Sewer’s-Eye View of Post-Revolution France – Bryan Mercadente
A stylish but muddled crime caper with Vincent Cassel playing an ex-con with a conscience. Mercadente praises the look of the film but says its narrative is as murky as the Paris sewers it romanticises.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/13/the-emperor-of-paris-2018-a-sewers-eye-view-of-post-revolution-france/
🔫 Going Off Big Time: A Crime Drama That Goes Nowhere – Bryan Mercadente
A forgettable film about tough guys and street deals. Mercadente’s verdict: flat, formulaic, and too proud of its own northern grit.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/18/suggested-title-going-off-big-time-a-crime-drama-that-goes-nowhere/
📓 DeathNote: The Delicious Fantasy of Instant Justice – Bryan Mercadente
A deeply personal review of the anime series DeathNote. Mercadente explains how the show’s brutal clarity and obsession with justice helped shape his teenage worldview—for better and worse.
https://libertarianism.uk/2025/07/20/deathnote-the-delicious-fantasy-of-instant-justice/ |
