Free Society

The EU Threat to Liberty

by Philip Vander Elst March 1, 2014

“Each year the takes and spends more of our money without EU auditors being able to reliably confirm where much of this money has actually gone. The number of EU bureaucrats rises ever upwards. Ever more bureaucrats seem inevitably to lead to ever more rules and regulations, allowing the EU to expand its influence to almost every ...

TGIF: We Can Oppose Bigotry without the Politicians

by Sheldon Richman February 28, 2014

Portuguese Should the government coercively sanction business owners who, out of apparent religious conviction, refuse to serve particular customers? While such behavior is repugnant, the refusal to serve someone because of his or her race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation is nevertheless an exercise of self-ownership and freedom of nonassociation. It is both nonviolent and nonviolative of other ...

TGIF: Rights Violations Aren’t the Only Bads

by Sheldon Richman January 17, 2014

More than a few libertarians appear to hold the view that only rights violations are wrong, bad, and deserving of moral condemnation. If an act does not entail the initiation of force, so goes this attitude, we can have nothing critical to say about it. On its face, this is strange. If you observe an adult being rude to his ...

El Mal del Estado de la Seguridad Nacional, Parte 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 9, 2014

The following is a Spanish translation of “The Evil of the National Security State” by Jacob G. Hornberger. The translation was done for FFF on a complimentary basis by a FFF supporter in Spain. Please share it with your Spanish-speaking friends.   Parte 1 | Parte 2 | Parte 3 | Parte 4 | 

Biting the Cultural Imperialism that Feeds You

by Wendy McElroy January 3, 2014

On November 21, the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) was introduced in Congress for the fourth time since 2007. I-VAWA seeks to embed the prevention of gender violence and the empowerment of women and girls into American foreign policy. In 2010, while serving as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton declared such global empowerment to be a “central ...

Let’s Make 2014 the Year of Freedom for Low-Wage Workers

by Sheldon Richman January 2, 2014

The federal budget deficit was big in 2013, but not as big as the freedom deficit. We should all resolve to make 2014 the year that we secure our freedom from government, the biggest threat we face. We can start with freedom for low-wage workers. Hundreds of occupations are closed shut unless one has a license. To get the license, one ...

Contested Ground: The Semantics of “Laissez Faire”

by Joseph R. Stromberg January 1, 2014

One frequently runs across accounts of the modern world which hold that laissez faire (or some ideally free market) never existed but yet was (or is) somehow responsible for most ills that have faced mankind for several centuries. The writers seem to have it both ways. How, you might well ask, can that be done? Rather easily, it seems. On ...

TGIF: The Moral Case for Freedom Is the Practical Case for Freedom

by Sheldon Richman December 27, 2013

If I say that a government activity — “public” schooling, perhaps, or the war on selected drug merchants and users — helps turn the inner cities into hellholes and otherwise makes people’s lives miserable, is that a moral objection or a practical (utilitarian or generally consequentialist) objection? Some libertarians are inclined to say it’s a utilitarian objection, but I’ve long ...

Workplace Discrimination and a Free Society

by Laurence M. Vance December 16, 2013

Lately, it seems as though everyone thinks he is being discriminated against in the workplace. According to a national survey of employed American adults who were asked about their experiences with religious discrimination at work, “What American Workers Really Think about Religion: Tanenbaum’s 2013 Survey of American Workers and Religion,” More than half of employed Americans agree that there ...

TGIF: Crime and Punishment in a Free Society

by Sheldon Richman December 6, 2013

Would a free society be a crime-free society? We have good reason to anticipate it. Don’t accuse me of utopianism. I don’t foresee a future of new human beings who consistently respect the rights of others. Rather, I’m drawing attention to the distinction between crime and tort — between offenses against the state (or society) and offenses against individual persons ...

Roger Williams: The Separation of Conscience and State

by Wendy McElroy December 1, 2013

There was a whole country in America ... to be set on fire by the rapid motion of a windmill in the head of one particular man ... one Mr. Roger Williams. — Cotton Mather, New England Puritan minister Roger Williams (c. 1603–1683), founder of Rhode Island, was a key figure in forging the distinctive American character. The American was ...

FFF Webinar: The Phony Trade-Off between Freedom and Security

by Sheldon Richman November 14, 2013

FFF vice president and editor Sheldon Richman hosted a free, interactive online webinar entitled “The Phony Trade-off between Freedom and Security.” This was an interactive experience with Sheldon and and the participants.