Free Society

Danger Within: The Government Is Turning America Into a Constitution-Free Zone

by John W. Whitehead May 11, 2023

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”—James Madison How far would you really go to secure the nation’s borders in the so-called name of national security? Would you give the government limitless amounts of money? Surround the entire country with ...

Government Spin Doctors Control the News Cycle

by John W. Whitehead April 19, 2023

“We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.”—Former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg Let’s talk about fake news stories, shall we? There’s the garden variety fake news that is not really “news” so much as it is titillating, tabloid-worthy material peddled by anyone ...

The Government Is Fomenting Mass Hysteria

by John W. Whitehead April 6, 2023

“This country has been having a nationwide nervous breakdown since 9/11. A nation of people suddenly broke, the market economy goes to shit, and they’re threatened on every side by an unknown, sinister enemy. But I don't think fear is a very effective way of dealing with things—of responding to reality. Fear is just another word ...

World Economic Forum Wants to Make You a Serf

by James Bovard April 1, 2023

The January meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, should have set off alarms among freedom lovers around the globe. The annual confab of billionaires, political weasels, and deranged activists laid out plans to further repress humanity. But at least the gathering provided plenty of comic relief for people who enjoy elite buffoonery. Self-worship is obligatory in ...

America’s Comeback

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2023

When most Americans hear the word comeback, they immediately think of sports. Whether it is football, basketball, golf, baseball, boxing, or hockey — Americans love a comeback. Like in 2019, when Tiger Woods won the Masters — his first Majors win in 11 years. Like in 2016, when the Chicago Cubs finished the ...

Circus Politics Are Intended to Distract Us. Don’t Be Distracted

by John W. Whitehead March 30, 2023

“There is nothing more dangerous than a government of the many controlled by the few.” — Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor It is easy to be distracted right now by the bread and circus politics that have dominated the news headlines lately, but don’t be distracted. Don’t be fooled, not even a little. We’re being subjected to the oldest con game in ...

When the Government Thinks It Knows Best

by John W. Whitehead March 1, 2023

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”—Simone Weil, French philosopher It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that ...

Don’t Bow Down to a Dictatorial Government

by John W. Whitehead February 17, 2023

“If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.”— President Dwight D. Eisenhower The government ...

The War on Consumption

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2023

Although Americans believe that they live in a free country — some would even say the freest country on earth — that freedom is limited and relative. The Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index “presents the state of human freedom in the world based on a broad measure that encompasses personal, civil, and economic freedom.” The United States ...

Freedom of Conscience

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2023

Libertarian philosopher and historian George H. Smith (1949–2022), in his collection of essays titled Freethought and Freedom, incisively remarked that “without freedom of conscience no other freedoms are possible.” It is my contention that freedom of conscience is under attack right now — in the third decade of the twenty-first century — more so than at any other time ...

Cancel Culture’s War on History, Heritage and the Freedom to Think for Yourself

by John W. Whitehead November 23, 2022

“All the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible… In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors ...

We’re Being Gunned Down Like Dogs in the Street

by John W. Whitehead November 4, 2022

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned. —William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” Things are falling apart. How much longer we can sustain the fiction that we live in a constitutional republic, I cannot say, but anarchy is ...