Freedom Daily Archive

Fiat Money and the French Revolution

by Phil Duffy February 1, 2023

Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation is well known, as are more recent hyperinflations in Argentina and, most recently, Venezuela. Perhaps fewer people have heard of John Law’s Mississippi Scheme in France and the issuance of paper money that underlay it. And perhaps even fewer still have heard that the issuance of paper money by the government contributed to the French Revolution ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 On February 26, 1993, terrorists detonated a truck bomb in the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. While the bombing did not bring down the Twin Towers, as the terrorists intended, it did kill six people and injured over a thousand. That terrorist attack was no different in ...

The Federal Dietary Wrecking Ball

by James Bovard January 1, 2023

Politicians are hellbent on intruding further into Americans’ stomachs. In September, President Biden hosted a White House Summit on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. A vast array of activists gathered, waiting for Biden to mobilize Washington to open the floodgates to far more food handouts. But their fond hopes did not survive the opening moments of Biden’s speech. “Jackie, are you ...

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 ...

Lionel Robbins on the Logic of Choice and a Liberal International Order

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2023

It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that British economist Lionel Robbins (1898–1984) was one of the most influential economists of the last hundred years without most economists, nowadays, being aware of it. This is all because of a relatively short book that he published over 90 years ago, An Essay on the Nature and ...

The Historical Foundation of Civil Liberties, Part 3

by Tom G. Palmer January 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is from a transcript of the opening presentation of FFF’s September 21, 2021, conference “Restoring Our Civil Liberties.” Let’s examine the contemporary use of the term civil liberties. The use of the term in the way that we’re now accustomed to dates to the repressive measures of World ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The coin of the realm in any national-security state is fear. In order to induce people to surrender their rights and freedoms, officials have to inculcate deep fear within them. Thus, national-security officials are constantly coming up with official foreign enemies, opponents, rivals, and adversaries, as well as crises, to ...

Biden’s Bloated IRS Will Skewer Taxpayers

by James Bovard December 1, 2022

The Internal Revenue Service is perhaps the ultimate sacred cow in Washington. It is the “goose that lays the golden eggs” for the city’s power and prestige, delivering trillions of dollars to politicians to work miracles (or at least get reelected). When criticism erupted over the 87,000 new revenooers to be hired thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, Washington’s ...

The Free Market Can and Should Be Absolute

by Laurence M. Vance December 1, 2022

The 1932 Democratic Party platform advocated “the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest.” But since the advent of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal — a raw deal for Americans that raised taxes; forced most manufacturing industries into cartels with codes that regulated prices; paid ...

Monetary Freedom Instead of Central Banking

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2022

The United States and most of the rest of the world are, once again, in the midst of an inflationary crisis. Prices in general are rising at annualized rates not experienced by, especially, the industrialized countries of North America and Europe for well over 40 years. More than 50 percent of the U.S. population is under 40 years of ...

The Historical Foundation of Civil Liberties, Part 2

by Tom G. Palmer December 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is from a transcript of the opening presentation of FFF’s September 21, 2021, conference “Restoring Our Civil Liberties.” In the later classical period, a new system, which came to be known as democracy, emerged, notably in Athens. It was based on the liberty of the citizens and was ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The biggest mistake America has ever made since the inception of our country was the conversion of the federal government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state. It is the reason that all of us have been born and raised under what can only be called a national-security police ...