Daily Articles

America’s Economic Commissar of Trade

by Richard M. Ebeling June 14, 2019

Since taking office in January 2017, President Donald Trump seems to have declared or threatened economic war on many of America’s leading economic trading partners, including China, the European Union, and most recently Mexico. Two things stand out in all this: first, he presumes that international trade is a zero-sum game in which if the U.S. wins, some other ...

The Libertarian Angle: Tariff-Wall Man’s Extortion of Mexico (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation June 13, 2019

Are barriers to both immigration and trade the hallmarks of a free society? Do they make the citizens of The United States better off? FFF president Jacob G. Hornberger and Citadel professor Richard M. Ebeling discuss. Go to the podcast.

The Omnipresent Surveillance State

by John W. Whitehead June 12, 2019

“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”—George Orwell, 1984 Tread cautiously: the fiction of George Orwell has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state. It’s been 70 years since Orwell—dying, beset by fever and bloody coughing ...

The Russians Are Coming!

by Christine Smith June 11, 2019

The Russians are coming! Sure they are, and the sky is falling too. Based on rhetoric, you'd think the United States government was now stealthily undermined by Russians. With never-ending allegations of Russian interference/collusion and even the absurd implication that the duly elected president might be a Russian agent, along with all the other continual anti-Russia references these days, the Red ...

America’s Legacy of Regime Change

by Stephen Kinzer June 10, 2019

Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War by Lindsey A. O’Rourke (Cornell University Press, 2018); 330 pages. For most of history, seizing another country or territory was a straightforward proposition. You assembled an army and ordered it to invade. Combat determined the victor. The toll in death and suffering was usually horrific, but it was all ...

Should People Be Paid for Not Working?

by Laurence M. Vance June 7, 2019

Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget (Oct. 1, 2019–Sept. 30, 2020), “A Budget for a Better America: Promises Kept. Taxpayers First,” largely mirrors his two previous budgets for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. In spite of Democratic criticism of Trump’s “cruel,” “shortsighted,” “toxic,” “destructive” budget, it is just like the ...

Why Neo-liberalism Is Really Neo-socialism

by Richard M. Ebeling June 7, 2019

If there is one common enemy that all opponents of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government seemingly can agree upon it is the “evil” of neo-liberalism. Everything that is hated in an open, competitive market society is summed into that word and condemned. The problem is that actual free market liberalism has nothing to do with its “neo-liberal” ...

How the Police State Muzzles Our Right to Speak Truth to Power

by John W. Whitehead June 6, 2019

“History shows that governments sometimes seek to regulate our lives finely, acutely, thoroughly, and exhaustively. In our own time and place, criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something. If the state could use these laws not for their intended purposes but to silence ...

Afghanistan Exit: Swift, Responsible Disengagement, Part 1

by Danny Sjursen June 5, 2019

Part 1 | Part 2 The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for more than seventeen years. Despite many years of effort and billions spent, the U.S. military is still suffering casualties in that remote land. In 2017, fourteen American soldiers died in Afghanistan — some, in fact, shot from behind by their supposed local ...

The Libertarian Angle: Free Assange and Repeal the Espionage Act

by Future of Freedom Foundation June 4, 2019

Does the first amendment protect journalists or people? Is the Espionage Act suitable for a free society? FFF president Jacob G. Horngberger and Citadel professor Richard M. Ebeling answer these questions and more. Go to the podcast.

Obama’s Forgotten Frauds and Debacles

by James Bovard June 3, 2019

Former President Barack Obama is again busy lecturing Americans on politics. His speeches have contained many snappy lines that would deserve attention if they came from an untainted source. But Obama as president was guilty of many of the things against which he now warns his fellow citizens. Last September, Obama received the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in ...

The America That Was — The Good and the Bad

by Richard M. Ebeling May 31, 2019

We live in a time when an understanding and an appreciation of what a free society can or should be like is being slowly lost. Or so it seems, often, to a friend of human liberty. Political interventionism and a revived interest in “democratic socialism” dominate public discourse in almost every corner of life. Calls are constantly being made for ...