Free Society

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.

AmeriCorps: Idealistic Triumph or Usual Buffoonery?

by James Bovard November 1, 2013

National service is the latest fashionable panacea for all that ails America. Time magazine ran a July cover story, “How Service Can Save Us,” on the potential benefits of pressing all young people into service. The article approvingly quoted a retired Air Force veteran: “There isn’t an 18-year-old boy who doesn’t need to get his butt kicked by someone ...

Whither Power?

by Kevin Carson November 1, 2013

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be by Moisés Naím (Basic Books 2013), 320 pages. The topic of Moisés Naím’s book is the decay of power — the shift of power “from brawn to brains, from north to south and west to east, ...

TGIF: Treating People Like Garbage

by Sheldon Richman October 4, 2013

The government “closed” this week. The quotation marks are meant to indicate that the worst parts of the government remain open at some level. It would be preferable to keep the monuments and national parks, like the Grand Canyon, going while closing the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the NSA, ICE, FBI, ATF, and all related so-called national-security ...