Culture & the Libertarian Heritage

The Price of Freedom?

by Christine Smith July 1, 2009

What is it to be born free and not to live free? — Henry David Thoreau, “Life Without Principle” “Freedom is not free” is a common phrase found in songs, in speeches, and on ribbons, and it’s the inscription ...

Liberty Creates Order

by Sheldon Richman May 8, 2009

David Brooks, the New York Times’s resident neoconservative, delights in peddling a false alternative: freedom or social order. His latest column hawking this snake oil comes in the form of advice to the struggling Republican Party: “If the Republicans are going to rebound, they will have to reestablish themselves as the ...

Jackie Chan’s Misguided Concept of Freedom

by Scott McPherson April 28, 2009

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” — Thomas Paine Of all the great things ever said in regard to human freedom, the above quotation makes perhaps ...

Why I’m Sending a Donation to FFF

by James Glaser December 19, 2008

I did it. I called Jacob Hornberger at The Future of Freedom Foundation (703 934-6101) and gave a donation. The key here for me is the “future” — future of freedom. At the rate America is going, I am wondering freedom for my children ...

When Government Replaces God and Family

by Christine Smith December 1, 2008

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men. — Mortimer Adler It is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. It knows best what we need and what must be done. We must trust in its absolute power, knowledge, and presence in all areas of our lives. For this overseer is ...

Property Rights, Freedom, and the Constitution

by Rick Lynch November 1, 2008

It is simply impossible to understand the U.S. Constitution without first possessing a thorough understanding of property rights. If you traveled back in time to enter James Madison’s mind as he wrote and debated such weighty issues as free speech, the right of self-defense, freedom of the press, and freedom of conscience, but came away lacking knowledge of his ...

Where Are the Patriots?

by Christine Smith November 1, 2008

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of ...

A Revolutionary Manifesto

by Anthony Gregory October 1, 2008

The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008); 173 pages. Ron Paul’s grassroots campaign — a decentralized undertaking that always had much more to do with the principles of the American Revolution, liberty, free enterprise, and peace than with narrowly defined electoral success — has ...

Memoirs of a Longtime Libertarian

by Ross K. Anderson July 30, 2008

Who is he? What makes him tick? Why should anyone else care? I’m the one who cares and this is why I’m what I am. I am an individual and there is no one like me. Some individuals question some of the thoughts I have so I’ll give some of my background and ...

Can You Really Love Your Country?

by Sheldon Richman May 30, 2008

Why do people get upset with Barack Obama for not wearing a flag pin on his lapel or with Michelle Obama for suggesting she’s not been proud of her country until now? Why is failing to “support the troops” regarded as a sin? Because it’s a secular blasphemy to do or say ...

Why I am a Libertarian

by Mark Richards May 21, 2008

Over the years many people — family members, co-workers, and others — with whom I have come in contact have asked me why I think and believe what I do with regard to politics, economics, history, philosophy, and related topics. To put it another way, these people are curious as to ...

Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize

by David R. Henderson April 10, 2008

On Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences is Princeton University economist Paul Krugman. Krugman, probably the best known economist under the age of 60, is known to the public mainly for his regular column in the New York Times. Yet those columns ...