Free Society

A Graduation Message for a Terrifying Age

by John W. Whitehead May 21, 2019

“No matter who you are, no matter how strong you are, sooner or later, you'll face circumstances beyond your control.” — Cersei Lannister, Game of Thrones Those coming of age today will face some of the greatest obstacles ever encountered by young people. They will find themselves overtaxed, burdened with excessive college debt, and struggling to find worthwhile employment in ...

D Is for a Dictatorship Disguised as a Democracy

by John W. Whitehead May 9, 2019

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility. — Professor Neil Postman, ...

Tax Cut or Welfare Increase?

by Laurence M. Vance May 3, 2019

The Democratic senator from New Jersey and presidential candidate Cory Booker wants to cut the taxes of 150 million Americans. But is what he’s proposing a tax cut or a welfare increase? After declaring his intention to run for president, Booker unveiled a new proposal called the Rise Credit that would expand the existing Earned Income ...

What 19th-Century Foreign Writers Said about American Freedom and Prosperity

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2019

If you look at the results of relatively open and competitive market economies over the years, the decades, and especially the last two centuries, the only conclusion that can reasonably be reached is that free market liberal-oriented societies provide the conditions and opportunities for constant and continuous material and social betterment for the vast majority of those living in ...

When Dissidents Become Enemies of the State

by John W. Whitehead April 18, 2019

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. In the current governmental climate, where laws that run counter to the dictates of the Constitution are made in secret, passed without debate, and upheld by secret courts that ...

Financial Tyranny

by John W. Whitehead April 12, 2019

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street, If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat. If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet. Don’t ask me what I want it for If you don’t want to pay some more ‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman… And you’re working for no one ...

Has Modernity Made Us Indecent?

by Richard M. Ebeling April 11, 2019

He dressed decently and had a decent meal before going to work. He showed some common decency toward his next-door neighbor. He did the decent thing to do. From these examples, you might conclude that the word decent refers to following some rule or standard of conduct, or behaving in some proper and ethical way toward others; and you would ...

The America That Was — The Good and the Bad

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 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 ...

No Sanitized Pages in History, Please!

by Richard M. Ebeling March 26, 2019

Imagine that in 1946 the general-secretary of the United Nations had submitted a resolution to the General Assembly stating that Nazi crimes were so horrendous and despicable that the countries of the world needed to impose a blanket censorship on any public reference to or discussion of Hitler or his henchmen. Only the names of victims were to be ...

Clarity on Diversity and Pluralism

by Richard M. Ebeling March 21, 2019

Freedom and the free society are once again under direct attack by those who espouse far-greater degrees of government control over people’s lives. Wrapping themselves in the cloak of progressivism, “social justice,” and liberation from oppression and discrimination, they use a lexicon of words that are designed to reflect their view of and desires for the world: diversity, inclusiveness, ...

Libertarians and Abortion

by Christine Smith March 20, 2019

As issues of life and death become more pronounced in our society, it is time for those who value freedom, liberty, and nonaggression to re-examine their political position on abortion. The United States is experiencing a resurgence of those who not only condone abortion (and its federal funding) but also seek to extend it to include born infants — now ...

The Student Debt Conundrum

by Laurence M. Vance March 18, 2019

Using data from the Federal Reserve, Student Loan Hero — an organization that provides “resources, tools and information” to help “student loan borrowers understand their student loans and make intelligent repayment decisions” — reports that Among the Class of 2018, 69% of college students took out student loans, and they graduated with an average debt of ...