As the calendar turns over once more, there’s just enough time to peruse the year gone past, before turning to face the year yet to come. Here’s a few of our best and most timely articles from 2019:
- Bruce Ramsey covered both past and present, between a deep dive on the Great Depression, the background of the bloody protests in Hong Kong, and yeoman’s work documenting the endlesspomposityoftheDemocraticdebates.
- Jo Ann Skousen rode out a hurricane, struggled to get a landline installed, and provided another year’s worth of sterling film reviews (my particular favorites: an admirably concise summation of the Marvel franchise capstone, and reconsiderations of past bêtes noires Quentin Tarantino and Adam Sandler.
- Gary Jason found a bit of hope in Trump’s otherwise dismal trade policies.
- Jacques Delacroix sang the praises of nuclear power, documented his doubts about climate change science in a two-part feature, and recalled a simple seaside scene.
- Steve Murphy forecast the future of work in America and damned the new aristocracy.
- Wayland Hunter cast a gimlet eye on the machinations of the FBI and CIA, marveled at the evident genius of Hunter Biden, and pondered toilet paper and the downfall of societies.
- Michael Christian looked at the fate of gun law in a firearm-frenzied age.
- Russell Hasan reported from the scene of the LP Convention in Manhattan and speculated more broadly on the purpose of the party in the contemporary moment.
- We also welcomed a new writer to Liberty, Michael F.S.W. Morrison, who documented the long pre-Trump history of Russian collusion in the polity and failed to report for jury duty.
It was a particularly fine year for overseas and travel reporting, between
- Robert H. Miller’s two-part report on his trip to warm, welcoming, post-genocidal Rwanda;
- Jayant Bhandari’s essays on the pointless, dangerous conflict in Kashmir and why China should never have taken back Hong Kong; and
- Bill Merritt’s travelogues on the surprisingly normal Iran and the astoundingly bizarre Turkmenistan.
Meanwhile, our editor Stephen Cox continued documenting the follies and fripperies of language, as well as a long-running Liberty tradition of shooting down an “endangered” species. Furthermore, he made the case against intervention in Venezuela, chuckled at an Ayn Rand “Giving Tuesday,” and penned a poem to intellectual inquiry.
The year was not without its sadness, as we said a sudden and far-too-soon goodbye to the inimitable Lori Heine. Over her years of writing for Liberty, Lori won many fans for her warm-hearted, hope-filled looks at life, culture, and the political scene. You can get some sense of her from her writings this year on the fraud of politically progressive Christianity, for instance, or on the prospects of libertarians in nationwide elections, or on the politics of sheer volume. their volume. But it’s still just a reflection of the person who brightened many of our days. You can read Stephen Cox’s obituary here.
However, like Lori, we will turn our gaze forward, fully aware of the great need for both skepticism and lightheartedness in a world that increasingly lacks both. 2020 promises to be a strong year for Liberty, including full election coverage and on-the-ground reporting from the Libertarian Party convention in Austin, Texas. We look forward to seeing you all along the way.
