Freedom Daily Archive

The Liberal Assault on the Poor, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 Liberals say that they love the poor, needy, and disadvantaged. Unfortunately, however, the economic philosophy that liberals favor constitutes a direct assault on the economic well-being of the poor, along with nearly everyone else in society. Liberals claim to combat poverty in two principal ways. First, they use the force of government (e.g., income taxes) to ...

Obama’s Message to Schoolchildren

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2009

When President Obama announced last August that he would address American schoolchildren in a nationwide televised speech, the Right went bananas. August, of course, was the height of the health-care controversy, and conservative leaders and media commentators imagined that Obama was going to make an overt pitch for his quest for government control over medicine and medical insurance, as ...

The Material-Witness Charade

by James Bovard December 1, 2009

Last September, a federal appeals court ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft could be personally sued for the unjustified incarceration of innocent people as “material witnesses” in the wake of 9/11. The case involved a former college football star — Lavoni T. Kidd — who converted to Islam, changed his name to Abdullah al-Kidd, and was seized at Dulles ...

The Evil of Sanctions, Part 2

by Brian Cloughley December 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 U.S. attacks on Iraq in the no-fly zones were carefully planned, especially in the months immediately before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion by the deluded “coalition” that Washington cobbled together by means of deceit and downright lies about “weapons of mass destruction.” On September 5, 2002, for example, some 100 coalition aircraft bombed and rocketed ...

Barack Obama’s America [Must] Serve Plan

by Scott Shields December 1, 2009

Throughout Barack Obamas campaign for president, he expressed his desire to increase community service in America. He outlined his plan, called America Serves, on change.gov, the website that provided details of his presidential agenda and transition. A screen-shot of America Serves is still available at www.politicallore. com/images/change.jpg. President Obamas plan for community service is now described as a part of ...

Alienating the Inalienable

by Hannah Hoffman December 1, 2009

The freedom movement is inspiring in many ways. It promotes a peaceful, liberated society in which people can be free to pursue their own ideas. Yet I find it ironic that while most involved in the freedom movement recognize the idea of personal liberty, many still hold an anti-liberty, anti-immigration view. When it comes to inalienable rights with which all ...

Government Caused the Meltdown

by George Leef December 1, 2009

Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by Thomas E. Woods (Regnery, 2009); 194 pages. Thomas Woodss Meltdown is a truly radical book. That is to say, it probes to the root ...

Liberal Delusions about Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2009

To combat the town-hall protests that sprang up around the nation against President Obama’s health-care plan, one of the favorite tactics employed by liberals was to question the sanity of the protesters. Anyone who showed up at such meetings angrily protesting Obama’s plan to socialize medicine was termed a crazy. That was especially true if a protester happened to be ...

Nationalized Health Care and Economic Fallacy

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2009

It takes a discussion of the role of government in health care to really bring out the economic illiteracy among the politicians and commentariat. The long list of fallacies they have uttered about markets and government is truly stunning. Take competition. President Obama, after several unsuccessful attempts at selling his plan to redesign 15 percent of the U.S. economy, turned ...

Frightening Voters into Submission

by James Bovard November 1, 2009

Former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge has a new book out that reveals that he almost resigned because the Bush administration was hustling bogus terror alerts before the 2004 election. Ridge’s revelation was not surprising to people who had closely followed the tactics Bush used to snare a second term. During the 2004 campaign, residents of swing states were under ...

Langdon, Stark, Bennington, and the Triumph of a Private Army, Part 3

by Scott McPherson November 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The Battle of Bennington Despite some gallant and spirited attempts to resist Burgoyne’s advance through the summer of 1777, the Continental Army’s Northern Department, first under Horatio Gates, then under Philip Schuyler, then under Gates again, was not inspiring much confidence. “The withdrawal from Ticonderoga reinforced Stark’s view that the northern ...

Keynes and the Assault on Savings, Part 2

by Gregory Bresiger November 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 The reason, I believe, that Keynes’s anti-saving, consume-more philosophy is politically popular is simple: Consumption is immediate and usually enjoyable. Saving requires self-discipline and patience. Also, the philosophy is remarkably bi-partisan. It fits in with the ideas of a massive and ever-growing welfare/warfare state. This ...