Daily Articles

Libertarian Angle: Trump versus Clinton

by Future of Freedom Foundation May 6, 2016

In this segment, Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss the upcoming presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

The Free Market at Work

by Laurence M. Vance May 5, 2016

Even with all the government licensing, regulation, and oversight that American businesses are burdened with, the United States still has a relatively free market compared with most other countries. This is especially true on the consumer side. One of the great weapons that consumers have is the boycott. Let’s look at some high-profile boycotts and then see what it is ...

Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution: A Graduation Message for a Dark Age

by John W. Whitehead May 3, 2016

“The most striking fact about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not that he slept 20 years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up on the mountain, a great revolution was taking place in the world - indeed, a revolution which would, at points, change the course of history. And ...

How I Became a Libertarian and an Austrian Economist

by Richard M. Ebeling May 2, 2016

I suppose I can date my interest in both libertarianism and Austrian Economics from the day I was born. The doctor grabbed me by my little feet, turned me upside down and spanked my tiny bottom. I began to cry out. That is when I realized the fundamental axiom that, “man acts.” In addition, I ...

Why I Favor Limited Government, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2016

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 There are two important points that one should recognize about the anarchy paradigm. First, under anarchy, there would no longer be a United States of America, and no longer would there be any U.S. citizens. There also ...

Bipartisan Battering of Freedom

by James Bovard May 1, 2016

For more than 40 years, Republicans have been promising to cut federal spending. In the same period, federal outlays have inched up by a few trillion dollars. But the Grand Old Party continues singing the same song — though voters may finally be losing confidence in the opposition team. The latest pratfall occurred last December, once again illustrating that Republican ...

Conservatism and Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2016

When conservative politicians are trying to get the votes of libertarians and “libertarian-leaning” Republicans, they often tout the supposed affinity between conservatism and libertarianism. They claim that there is a conservative and libertarian confluence of thought on many issues. They maintain that because the real enemy of conservatism and libertarianism is liberalism, conservatives and libertarians stand on common ground. ...

Regulatory Tyranny

by David S. D'Amato May 1, 2016

Having considered the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the 1937 case of West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in the March 2016 issue of Future of Freedom, a case in which the jurisprudential tide turned in favor of deference to comprehensive social and economic legislation, a look at the earlier case of Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States is in ...

The Revolution of Rising Expectations

by Wendy McElroy May 1, 2016

Starving peasants storm the Bastille because oppression has driven them beyond the limits of human endurance. It is the quintessential image of political revolution. But what if it is wrong? Or what if there is an equally powerful force that also creates revolution and contradicts this received image? The phrase “a revolution of rising expectations” became popular after World War ...

The Empire versus Little America

by Bill Kauffman May 1, 2016

Former Arkansas Sen. William Fulbright said in 1967, “The price of empire is America’s soul, and that price is too high.” War, expansion, the maintenance of a large standing army: these corrupt a country, as poets from James Russell Lowell to Wendell Berry have tried to tell us. The Vietnam or Iraq War may level villages across the sea but ...

Censored, Surveilled, Watch Listed and Jailed

by John W. Whitehead April 28, 2016

“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”—George Orwell, 1984 In past ages, those who dared to speak out against tyranny—viewed as an act of treason—were blinded, castrated, disfigured, mutilated, rendered mute by having their tongues cut out of their heads, and ultimately ...

The Bathroom Wars: More Freedom is Going Down the Toilet

by Richard M. Ebeling April 27, 2016

Let me be frank and up front from the start. I was biologically born male, and I have always felt and viewed myself as male. In addition, I have never had an urge to cross-dress or a desire for a sex change operation. However, in a free society an individual is at liberty to dress however they want and pay ...