Tarnell Brown
eccentricecon.com
Tarnell Brown
@eccentricecon.com
We can all use a good dose of hope these days.
January 10, 2026 at 8:14 PM
5. If classical liberals can’t distinguish resisting conquest from starting wars of choice, they haven’t found prudence—they’ve embraced a moral and strategic blur.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/classical-...
Classical Liberalism at the Front Line
Why a tradition built on law, markets, and sovereignty cannot shrug at Russia’s war in Ukraine
www.eccentricecon.com
January 9, 2026 at 11:48 PM
4. Letting Russia redraw borders at tolerable cost doesn’t preserve peace; it shifts risk into the future and normalizes revisionism.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/classical-...
Classical Liberalism at the Front Line
Why a tradition built on law, markets, and sovereignty cannot shrug at Russia’s war in Ukraine
www.eccentricecon.com
January 9, 2026 at 11:48 PM
3. Adam Smith put it plainly: defense is of more importance than opulence—free trade doesn’t survive if aggressors can seize ports and routes by force.

www.eccentricecon.com/p/classical-...
Classical Liberalism at the Front Line
Why a tradition built on law, markets, and sovereignty cannot shrug at Russia’s war in Ukraine
www.eccentricecon.com
January 9, 2026 at 11:48 PM
2. A reflex of “non-intervention” in Ukraine isn’t prudence, it’s a selective reading of the tradition that treats conquest as someone else’s problem.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/classical-...
Classical Liberalism at the Front Line
Why a tradition built on law, markets, and sovereignty cannot shrug at Russia’s war in Ukraine
www.eccentricecon.com
January 9, 2026 at 11:48 PM
5. The question my piece asks: what would it take to have border enforcement without building an American Gestapo as a budget line item?
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-americ...
The American Gestapo Is a Budget Line
ICE calls it self‑defense. The incentives say otherwise.
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:01 PM
4. If immigrant neighborhoods can be patrolled by armed federal teams that no local voter can hire or fire, that’s not rule of law. That’s a design choice.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-americ...
The American Gestapo Is a Budget Line
ICE calls it self‑defense. The incentives say otherwise.
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:01 PM
3. The script is always the same: “vehicle as weapon,” “split‑second decision,” “within policy,” and an internal investigation that quietly clears the shooter.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-americ...
The American Gestapo Is a Budget Line
ICE calls it self‑defense. The incentives say otherwise.
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:01 PM
2. This isn’t “one bad agent.” It’s what you get when Congress funds a domestic security force that answers to D.C., not the cities where the bullets land.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-americ...
The American Gestapo Is a Budget Line
ICE calls it self‑defense. The incentives say otherwise.
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:01 PM
5. Classical liberal take: real power is getting free societies to want you there. If America has to threaten Denmark to “secure” Greenland, the strategic problem isn’t Denmark—it’s us.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-greenl...
The Greenland Grab: How America Would Trade a Liberal Order for One Island
Washington's Greenland Gambit Would Break the Liberal Order It Claims to Defend
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:31 PM
4. Dollar dominance rides on trust: that the U.S. won’t treat allies like colonies. A Greenland land grab would be a gift to every finance minister arguing to diversify away from the dollar.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-greenl...
The Greenland Grab: How America Would Trade a Liberal Order for One Island
Washington's Greenland Gambit Would Break the Liberal Order It Claims to Defend
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:31 PM
3. The U.S. already has Pituffik, treaties, and deep access in Greenland. If this is about Arctic security, you reinforce cooperation. You don’t blow up NATO to plant a flag on more ice.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-greenl...
The Greenland Grab: How America Would Trade a Liberal Order for One Island
Washington's Greenland Gambit Would Break the Liberal Order It Claims to Defend
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:31 PM
2. Europe’s answer—“Greenland belongs to its people”—isn’t woke posturing. It’s the core rule NATO and the post‑1945 order were built on: allies don’t redraw each other’s borders by force.
www.eccentricecon.com/p/the-greenl...
The Greenland Grab: How America Would Trade a Liberal Order for One Island
Washington's Greenland Gambit Would Break the Liberal Order It Claims to Defend
www.eccentricecon.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:31 PM
removing the figurehead is the easy part, dismantling the network underneath is hard, and Washington trying to micro‑manage that process from the outside is how you end up owning the whole mess.
January 3, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Totally fair point. Maduro is in U.S. custody, but the machinery of Chavismo is still sitting in the ministries, barracks and security services in Caracas. That’s exactly why I’m wary of Trump’s “we’ll run the country until a transition” line:
January 3, 2026 at 9:24 PM
And here is mine:
bsky.app/profile/ecce...
January 3, 2026 at 8:09 PM