How Evil Are Politicians? Part 1 by George Leef May 1, 2023 Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) If you are a libertarian, or just someone with a streak of skepticism about government, you will enjoy and profit from reading How Evil are Politicians? The author, Bryan Caplan, is a professor of economics at George Mason ...
Don’t Let the Government Criminalize Free Speech by John W. Whitehead April 26, 2023 “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington What the police state wants is a silent, compliant, oblivious citizenry. What the First Amendment affirms is an engaged citizenry that speaks truth to power using whatever peaceful means are available to us. Speaking one’s truth doesn’t have to be the ...
Government Spin Doctors Control the News Cycle by John W. Whitehead April 19, 2023 “We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.”—Former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg Let’s talk about fake news stories, shall we? There’s the garden variety fake news that is not really “news” so much as it is titillating, tabloid-worthy material peddled by anyone ...
Why Does NPR Still Exist? by Laurence M. Vance April 14, 2023 One of the hallmarks of authoritarian countries is that the media is state-run or under the direct supervision or control of the government. The Xinhua News Agency is the official state news agency in China. Al-Akhbar, Al-Ahram, and Al-Gomhuriya are state-owned national newspapers in Egypt. Cuba prohibits privately owned media. According to Reporters Without Borders, China, Egypt, and ...
The Government Is Fomenting Mass Hysteria by John W. Whitehead April 6, 2023 “This country has been having a nationwide nervous breakdown since 9/11. A nation of people suddenly broke, the market economy goes to shit, and they’re threatened on every side by an unknown, sinister enemy. But I don't think fear is a very effective way of dealing with things—of responding to reality. Fear is just another word ...
What Republicans Aren’t Saying about Food Stamps by Laurence M. Vance April 4, 2023 According to Democrats and their allies at progressive and liberal outlets, millions of Americans are going to go to bed hungry or starving to death because the extra food-stamp benefits they were receiving because of the “pandemic” ended last month. Now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food-stamp program is a federal program administered by ...
From Immigrant to Public Intellectual by Robert E. Wright April 3, 2023 In 1995, a reviewer called Murray Sabrin a “libertarian hero” due to the perspicacity of Murray’s first book, Tax-Free 2000: The Rebirth of American Liberty. Two years later, Murray became the first third-party candidate in New Jersey history to raise enough funds to be able to debate the two "major party" candidates for governor. How did Murray, ...
The Origins of U.S. Monetary Debauchery by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2023 One of the unsung heroes in American history was a prominent New York City lawyer named Frederick Barber Campbell. Campbell graduated from Harvard Law School in 1894 and was a partner in the law firm of Campbell and Whipp. Its offices were located at 20 Exchange Place, which was in the middle of the Wall Street area of the ...
World Economic Forum Wants to Make You a Serf by James Bovard April 1, 2023 The January meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, should have set off alarms among freedom lovers around the globe. The annual confab of billionaires, political weasels, and deranged activists laid out plans to further repress humanity. But at least the gathering provided plenty of comic relief for people who enjoy elite buffoonery. Self-worship is obligatory in ...
America’s Comeback by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2023 When most Americans hear the word comeback, they immediately think of sports. Whether it is football, basketball, golf, baseball, boxing, or hockey — Americans love a comeback. Like in 2019, when Tiger Woods won the Masters — his first Majors win in 11 years. Like in 2016, when the Chicago Cubs finished the ...
Philip Wicksteed on the Common Sense of Choice and the Market Process by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2023 The British economist Philip H. Wicksteed began his most important work, The Common Sense of Political Economy (1910), with a motto taken from the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): “We all live it, but few of us know what we are living.” Contrary to the classical economists, who had argued that the market value of things was ...
Circus Politics Are Intended to Distract Us. Don’t Be Distracted by John W. Whitehead March 30, 2023 “There is nothing more dangerous than a government of the many controlled by the few.” — Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor It is easy to be distracted right now by the bread and circus politics that have dominated the news headlines lately, but don’t be distracted. Don’t be fooled, not even a little. We’re being subjected to the oldest con game in ...