Daily Articles

Healthcare Whack-a-Mole

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2021

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of libertarians and conservatives have played an extensive game of Whack-a-Mole. That’s the Japanese game in which plastic moles pop up at random on a board and a person whacks each mole as it appears. In Healthcare Whack-a-Mole, governmental assaults on liberty have continuously popped up during the course of the pandemic. As ...

Ambrose Bierce’s Pro-Freedom Cynicism

by James Bovard July 1, 2021

The friends of freedom must recognize the verbal charades that sway people to surrender their rights and liberties. The political establishment and its media allies are continually abusing the English language to lull people into submission. From pupils being required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each school day to adults being endlessly hectored to vote, ...

Should There Be Equal Pay for Equal Work?

by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2021

Although I rarely watch cable television, I happened to tune in to an episode of Mysteries at the Museum on the Travel Channel the other day. The segment I saw was about Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Murphy (1894–1964), the first female professional baseball player. The diminutive first baseman from Warren, Rhode Island, who was known professionally as Spike Murphy, billed ...

Modern Collectivist Trends and How to Resist Them

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2021

The First World War and the Great Depression were, I would suggest, the major events that have shaped most of the political, social, and economic trends for more than a century. The Great War, as it used to be called, undermined the generally “classical” liberal world that prevailed, at least in much of Western and Central Europe and North ...

Frank Chodorov’s Peaceful, Persistent Revolution, Part 2

by Wendy McElroy July 1, 2021

Part 1 | Part 2 Chodorov’s rejection of war was motivated largely by the growth of the state that accompanied it and that savaged individual freedom. Chapter 11 of his autobiography, entitled “Isolationism,” summarized his position: When the enemy is at the city gates, or the illusion that he is coming... the tendency is to turn over to the captain ...

“Progressives” Blame F. A. Hayek for Everything They Dislike

by Richard M. Ebeling June 30, 2021

There is the ideologically captured mind that squeezes all the complexities, diversities, uncertainties, and serendipities of life into one limited dimension of cause and explanation. One such mind is that of Wellesley College historian, Quinn Slobodian, who sees everywhere the manipulating agents of a nefarious “capitalism.” Even what seems as differing or even opposing ideas are placed through an analytical ...

George Orwell’s 1984 Has Become a Blueprint for Our Dystopian Reality

by John W. Whitehead June 29, 2021

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”— George Orwell, 1984 Tread cautiously: the fiction of George Orwell (Jun. 25, 1903-Jan. 21, 1950) has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state. It’s been more than 70 years since Orwell—dying, beset by fever and bloody coughing fits, and ...

The Political Paternalists Take Aim at Milton Friedman

by Richard M. Ebeling June 28, 2021

The cancel culture movement has caught wide attention with its insistence on “cleansing” the country of persons, statues, building names, or any other public monument accused of being in any way tainted by or identified with American slavery or racism, past or present. This has served as a “cover” to delegitimize virtually anyone not aligned with or acquiescent to ...

Four Libertarian Principles to Guide Childcare Policy

by Laurence M. Vance June 25, 2021

Just as many conservatives believe that the federal government should have an education policy, so many conservatives believe that the federal government should have a childcare policy. A case in point was an event held last March by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) titled “Should Conservatives Favor Child Allowances?,” as well as a recent ...

The FBI’s Mafia-Style Justice: To Fight Crime, the FBI Sponsors 15 Crimes a Day

by John W. Whitehead June 21, 2021

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”— Friedrich Nietzsche Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government. Think about it. Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. ...

The Labor Shortage Is a Government-Contrived Scarcity

by Richard M. Ebeling June 15, 2021

Not long ago, my wife and I decided to go out to our favorite Thai restaurant not far from our home in the Charleston, South Carolina area, which we had not been to for well over a year. With so many retail businesses having returned to a no-mask, no-distancing “normality,” we were looking forward to a tasty inside, sit-down ...

What Is Missing in the Arguments for Marijuana Legalization

by Laurence M. Vance June 14, 2021

The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act with “a high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” and “a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.” The possession of even a small amount of marijuana can result in ...