The man who would weaken the state must begin, not at the tax office, but at its ministry of opinion. Rothbard shows in his classic essay, The Anatomy of the State, that a predatory ruling apparatus cannot endure by force alone; it requires a caste of “court intellectuals” to wrap plunder in a halo of necessity, science, and morality. In his discussion of revisionism, he underlines that these intellectuals are paid to “bamboozle” the public in favor of power, fogging history and theory alike.
In the modern world, that ministry of opinion is housed above all in tax-financed universities and research institutes. There the state’s preferred intellectuals are trained, credentialed, and installed as guardians of “knowledge,” and from thence they sanctify the state’s depredations as inevitable, “evidence-based,” and morally enlightened. Any libertarian strategy against the state must therefore put the delegitimization and defunding of this caste at the center of its program.
The Academic Cartel
The university must be described not as a neutral temple of truth but as a cartelized guild. Hoppe notes in his analysis of natural elites and intellectuals that modern intellectuals are overwhelmingly tax-funded, tenured, and shielded from consumer feedback, which allows their output to become “ever more voluminous” and “viciously statist.” This is a structural result of their position as publicly funded monopolists. The mechanisms are straightforward:
Control of entry through degrees, accreditation, and hiring committees;
Use of jargon and hyper-technical writing as a shield against lay scrutiny;
Reward of ideological conformity to interventionist fashions in economics, law, sociology, and education
Rothbard’s history of public schooling already shows this pattern at a lower level. From the early republic, public schools were openly justified as instruments to mold citizens into obedient servants of the state, crush dissenting sects, and assimilate minorities. Schooling was consciously used as a weapon to regiment language, belief, and behavior. The modern university is simply the same project at a higher intellectual tier.
The academic aura of “disinterest” is fraudulent. The material existence of the professoriate depends on ever-expanding budgets, subsidies, and grants. When the very livelihood of a class depends on state expenditure, its purported neutrality is a joke.
Manufactured “Consensus”
The prestige of the academic caste rests heavily on appeals to “the consensus of experts.” The libertarian must relentlessly unmask this consensus as a manufactured product of political incentives. Within any discipline there are real disagreements; yet what the layman hears as “the consensus” is usually the viewpoint that survived three filters:
Funding priorities that reward certain questions and conclusions;
Hiring and tenure that quietly exclude heterodox thinkers;
Professional position statements that bless official policies as “science”
Hoppe’s account of the modern intellectual class describes how—once education is thoroughly state-funded and dominated by democratic ideology—the number of intellectuals multiplies while their quality falls and their politics converge toward ever more interventionism, precisely because their jobs and status depend on it. Hoppe makes explicit that today’s academics form an opinion cartel: they set the boundaries of “respectable” thought and brand those outside as cranks or heretics.
President Trump revealed on a radio show late last week that the US had “knocked out” a drug facility in Venezuela as the campaign against foreign drug cartels and the Maduro regime intensifies.
The strike on Wednesday comes days after Trump told reporters, “Soon we’ll be starting the same program on land. The land is much easier.”
Trump confirmed the strike on a “dock area where they load the boats up with drugs” while speaking to reporters on Monday.
Trump: There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs. They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.
While discussing Venezuelan drug boat strikes on WABC Radio’s “Cats & Crosby” show on Friday, Trump first told co-host John Catsimatidis that the facility was hit two days prior:
Trump: Well, they’re only objecting because I’m the one doing it. If it were anybody else, even another Republican— let’s say you take a weak Republican, they would say “that’s all right.” But because they have Trump derangement syndrome, they’re sick people. There’s something wrong with them. But every time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives. It’s very simple.
And what’s happening is they’re having a hard time employment wise. They can’t get anybody. And we just knocked out— I don’t know if you read or you saw they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard, but drugs are down over 97%. Can you believe it?
US officials reportedly confirmed that the successful strike was launched against a drug facility inside Venezuela.
American officials said that Mr. Trump was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela and that it was eliminated, but provided no details. Military officials said they had no information to share, and the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment. The White House declined to comment.
If Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the United States had struck a site in the region proves accurate, it would be the first known attack on land since he began his military campaign against Venezuela. U.S. officials declined to specify anything about the site the president said was hit, where it was located, how the attack was carried out or what role the facility played in drug trafficking. There has been no public report of an attack from the Venezuelan government or any other authorities in the region.
Earlier this month, US forces began seizing Venezuelan oil tankers after Trump ordered a full blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers going to and from Venezuela.
The US has also executed at least 29 strikes against drug-trafficking vessels in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea since September 2.
Last week, US forces took out a “low-profile” vessel in the Eastern Pacific, killing one male narco-terrorist. At least 105 narco-terrorists have been killed in these operations.
And so we’ve come to the point where the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations, as troubled as the process has been, seem to have arrived at the point where it might actually produce the expected results.
So, nothing was more expected than some unhinged action by Volodymyr Zelensky and his regime, who decided to unleash a massive strike on one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences in the Novgorod region.
“All drones (there were 91 of them) that attacked the Russian presidential residence in the Novgorod region were destroyed by Russian air defense systems.”
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stated that ‘such reckless actions will not go unanswered’.
“Targets for retaliatory strikes and the timing of their execution by the Russian Armed Forces have been determined. Russia’s negotiating position will be revised given Ukraine’s shift to a policy of state terrorism.”
Russia’s top presidential aide Yuri Ushakov stated that, during today’s call between Donald J. Trump and Putin, the US president said he was ‘shocked and outraged’ by Ukraine’s attempt.
Russian side argued that the US should understand Russia’s intentions to reconsider its negotiating positions following attempted attack on Putin’s state residence.
“Trump said in a conversation with Putin that he could not even have imagined ‘such insane actions’ as a drone attack on the Russian president’s state residence. The attempt to attack Putin’s presidential residence will affect the US approach in working with Zelensky, Trump added.
Trump told Putin that, ‘Thank God’, Zelensky was not given ‘Tomahawks’.”
UPDATE:
Ukraine is fiercely denying having attacked Putin’s house.
REMINDER: Ukraine initially denied attacking the Crimean Bridge and orchestrating assassinations in Russia too
China’s People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command on Monday began large-scale joint military drills around Taiwan, code-named “Justice Mission 2025,” involving ground, naval, air, and rocket forces, according to China’s state media.
According to a report from Xinhua News Agency, the drills started on Dec. 29 and are being conducted in the Taiwan Strait as well as in areas to the north, southwest, southeast, and east of Taiwan. The announcement was made by Shi Yi, spokesperson for the PLA Eastern Theater Command.
Shi said the command has deployed units from the PLA Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force to carry out coordinated operations in waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan. The exercises are designed to test joint operational capabilities across multiple services operating simultaneously in close proximity to the island.
The drills focus on several operational subjects, including sea and air combat readiness patrols, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority, blockades of key ports and areas, and what the PLA described as “all-dimensional deterrence” beyond the island chain.
“With vessels and aircraft approaching Taiwan Island in close proximity from different directions, troops of multiple services engage in joint assaults to test their joint operations capabilities,” Shi said, according to Xinhua.
The Eastern Theater Command said the exercises involve coordinated movements of warships and military aircraft operating from multiple axes around Taiwan, simulating scenarios that require joint command and control, integrated firepower, and synchronized maneuver.
Chinese authorities described the drills as a response to what they characterize as separatist activities related to Taiwan and what they call external interference. Shi said the exercises serve as “a stern warning against ‘Taiwan Independence’ separatist forces and external interference” and described them as a “legitimate and necessary action” to safeguard China’s sovereignty and national unity.
No specific numbers of ships, aircraft, or missile units involved were disclosed in the report.
The PLA Eastern Theater Command is responsible for operations in areas covering the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, and it routinely conducts exercises near Taiwan. However, the scale and scope described in the “Justice Mission 2025” announcement point to coordinated participation across all major PLA service branches.
China has stepped up the frequency and complexity of military activities around Taiwan in recent years, including joint exercises, air and naval patrols, and simulated blockade operations. Beijing considers Taiwan part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to assert control over the island.
China’s PLA Rocket Force is concealing mobile Dongfeng intercontinental ballistic missile launchers by disguising them as civilian crane vehicles linked to Zoomlion designs.
The practice aims to obscure missile launcher movement and parking, complicating visual identification and surveillance of China’s road-mobile strategic forces.
China’s People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force uses mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers disguised as civilian cranes produced by Zoomlion, according to images and descriptions circulated this week.
The disclosure centers on mobile launch platforms for China’s Dongfeng series ballistic missiles that are concealed to resemble commercial crane vehicles. The approach is intended to mask the military nature of the systems during movement and parking, complicating visual identification from a distance.
As described in the released material, the launchers are presented externally as large mobile cranes, with body shapes, covers, and markings similar to heavy construction equipment. The disguise is intended to blend the platforms into civilian traffic and industrial environments during road transport.
The systems involved are mobile transporter-erector-launchers operated by the PLA Rocket Force, the branch responsible for China’s land-based nuclear and conventional ballistic missile arsenal. The Dongfeng family includes China’s intercontinental-range missiles, which are designed for road mobility to enhance survivability.
According to the description, the vehicles shown in the imagery are not standard yellow construction machines as commonly seen on highways. Zoomlion’s actual production vehicles are painted green, while the yellow appearance comes from removable external coverings used as part of the concealment effort.
The camouflage approach relies on visual deception rather than structural conversion. The launcher’s military components remain concealed beneath crane-like housings and tarpaulins, allowing the platform to retain its operational missile-launch capability while appearing civilian in form.
Mobile ICBM launchers are a core element of China’s nuclear deterrent posture, allowing missiles to be dispersed, relocated, and concealed across a wide road network. Disguising these systems as civilian equipment further complicates detection by surveillance assets that rely on visual or pattern-based identification.
China has previously emphasized mobility and concealment for its strategic forces, including the use of tunnels, hardened shelters, and decoy systems. The crane-style disguise represents an additional layer intended to reduce exposure during routine movement outside of protected facilities.
