Freedom Daily Archive

The Case for Freedom in Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Ayn Rand

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2021

Three names are widely associated with the cause of human freedom and economic liberty in the twentieth century: Friedrich A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Ayn Rand. Indeed, it can be argued that Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) and Constitution of Liberty (1960), Mises’s Socialism (1936) and Human Action (1949), and Rand’s novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged ...

End Subway Socialism in New York City

by Gregory Bresiger January 1, 2021

The misery will continue for New York subway riders, who don’t understand how previous subway reforms have failed. State and city officials concede things will worsen. “There is no question our subways are in crisis after decades of underinvestment and inaction,” wrote New York City Comptroller Scott Stinger in a recent report. “The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA),” writes New York State ...

Black Lives Matter, But Not to Everyone, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 Some people argue that the solution to the problem of police abuse of blacks is to defund or dismantle the police. But that is no solution at all. That only opens the door to those who violate the rights of others through the commission of violent crimes. As we have seen in Portland and ...

Federal Censorship Protects Leviathan’s Crimes

by James Bovard December 1, 2020

Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Republicans and Democrats have conspired to keep Americans increasingly ignorant of what the federal government does. The number of secret federal documents skyrocketed, and any information that was classified supposedly cannot be exposed without dooming the nation. Politicians and federal agencies recognize that “what people don’t know won’t hurt the government.” James Madison, the father ...

Conservative Principles

by Laurence M. Vance December 1, 2020

Back at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis in the United States in March of this year, two Democratic representatives (Tim Ryan of Ohio and Ro Khanna of California) proposed that the federal government give at least $1,000 to every American making less than $65,000 a year. Three Democratic senators (Michael F. Bennet of Colorado, Cory Booker of New ...

Collectivism Breeds Indifference to the Loss of Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2020

Who does not want to make the world a better place? With so much sorrow and suffering, poverty and plunder, cynicism and corruption in far too many places, nearly everyone, if asked, will usually say that if he could he would try to make this shared planet of ours a safer, prettier, more prosperous, and less unjust shared domicile ...

The Gold Clause: A Free-Market Gold Standard

by Wendy McElroy December 1, 2020

President Franklin Roosevelt destroyed one of the most valuable uses of gold when he nationalized ownership of the metal in 1933: the gold clause. This value did not return when private ownership of gold was legalized once more in 1974, partly because its use is still discouraged by anti-usury laws. The impact of its sudden absence was dramatized by a ...

Black Lives Matter, But Not to Everyone, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 I recently watched the Netflix series Seberg, which profiles the Hollywood actress Jean Seberg and the U.S. government’s intentional and secret destruction of her. Why did the federal government, specifically the federal government’s national police force, the FBI, decide to destroy Seberg? Among other reasons, it was because back in the late 1960s and 1970s ...

End Police Tyranny by Repealing Laws

by James Bovard November 1, 2020

“I can’t breathe,” George Floyd protested as a Minneapolis cop pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for eight minutes while Floyd was lying face down. Floyd’s death sparked violent protests, looting, and arson attacks in Minneapolis and St. Paul. It is just the latest reminder that politicians and judges — through federal law and judicial interpretation — have turned ...

The Real Constitutional Crisis

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2020

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a crisis (plural: crises) is: 1a: the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever b: a paroxysmal attack of pain, distress, or disordered function c: an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life; a midlife crisis 2: the decisive moment (as in a literary plot); The crisis of ...

Francis Lieber’s America and the Politics of Today

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 2020

Presidential election years always seem to mark dramatic and historically important milestones. The political parties nominate their candidates for the highest governmental office in the land. Party platforms are written and offered to the voting public with great fanfare about how, if their candidates to the White House and the Congress are elected, a new dawn will spread over ...

Will People Now Ask the Fundamental Question?

by Michael Swanson November 1, 2020

The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew Bacevich (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020), 236 pages. Andrew Bacevich’s new book, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory, examines the period of time between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the election of Donald Trump in 2016. ...