Free Society

The Deadly Precedent of the Waco Whitewash

by James Bovard January 1, 2021

The easiest way to achieve sainthood in Washington is to cover up a federal atrocity. Thus, it is no surprise that former senator John Danforth continues to be treated by the Washington Post as a visionary statesman. The Post showcased Danforth’s attack on Donald Trump in October after Trump derided the Commission on Presidential Debates. Danforth, a permanent member ...

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 ...

Private Charity versus the Political Grinches

by Richard M. Ebeling December 28, 2020

Christmas is a time of good cheer, gift-giving, and hopes for the New Year. This year, 2020, has been a hard and disturbing one for virtually all of us due to the coronavirus and, especially, the government’s heavy-handed shutdown and lockdown responses. What Christmas time also represents is a time of benevolence and generosity to family, friends, and others ...

What If the Christ Child Had Been Born in the American Police State?

by John W. Whitehead December 23, 2020

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace ...

Opponents of Liberty Remain Misguided Sore Winners

by Richard M. Ebeling December 18, 2020

The 2020 presidential election has been the most divisive in many people’s living memory. Not only has there been the anger and fury over whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden should occupy the White House come January 20, 2021, there have been concerns and controversy about whether democracy itself is under attack in America. One indication of people’s concerns about ...

Mandatory Vaccination and Liberty

by Christine Smith December 14, 2020

Compulsory vaccination has no place in a free society. On December 4, 2020, a bill ( ) was introduced to the New York State Legislature which would, if passed and enacted, result in mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations. The pertinent text from the bill, "If public health officials determine that sufficient immunity has not been developed, this legislation will allow the Department ...

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 ...

Lockdowns as a Political Tragedy of the Commons

by Richard M. Ebeling November 4, 2020

Several of the leading European countries are now in the process of implementing a second wave of social and economic lockdowns in the face of new and a rising number of cases of the coronavirus. After bringing their societies to near total halts in the spring of 2020 with lockdowns and shutdowns in the name of “flattening the curve” ...

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 ...

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 ...

COVID-19 and Liberty

by Christine Smith October 30, 2020

If there's one thing we've learned about the public's understanding and practice of liberty from the pandemic, it's that some when pushed to the brink will rebel. Sometimes, for humans to learn, takes a loss of liberty to awaken them. Currently, millions want their states to "open up" while local governments say "no." People lost much during this pandemic: livelihoods, freedom ...

Something Wicked This Way Comes

by John W. Whitehead October 27, 2020

Every day I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination. — Philip Roth, novelist Things are falling apart. How much longer we can sustain the ...