Free Society

We Are All Victims of the Deep State’s Con Game

by John W. Whitehead October 20, 2020

We’re run by the Pentagon, we’re run by Madison Avenue, we’re run by television, and as long as we accept those things and don’t revolt we’ll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche.... As long as we go out and buy stuff, we’re at their mercy… We all live in a ...

One Man Against the Deep State ‘Monster’

by John W. Whitehead October 13, 2020

You gotta remember, establishment, it’s just a name for evil. The monster doesn’t care whether it kills all the students or whether there’s a revolution. It’s not thinking logically, it’s out of control. — John Lennon (1969) John Lennon, born 80 years ago on October 9, 1940, was a musical genius and pop cultural icon. He was ...

‘We the People’ Lose

by John W. Whitehead October 2, 2020

“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.” ― Herbert Marcuse Republicans and Democrats alike fear that the other party will attempt to hijack this election. President Trump is convinced that mail-in ballots are a scam except in Florida, where it’s safe to vote by mail because of its ...

Stakeholder Fascism Means More Loss of Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling September 29, 2020

A strong wave of anti-free market thinking and policy proposals are currently dominating the debates over the role of government in society. From calls for greater emphasis on income equality, to “saving” the planet from global warming, and on to demands for increased attention to claimed gender and racial “social injustice” inside and outside the marketplace, the presumptions are ...

Mile Markers of Tyranny: Losing Our Freedoms on the Road from 9/11 to COVID-19

by John W. Whitehead September 9, 2020

“No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.”—George Orwell You can map the nearly 20-year journey from the 9/11 attacks to the COVID-19 pandemic by the freedoms we’ve lost along the way. The road we have been traveling has been littered with the wreckage of our once-vaunted liberties, especially ...

Trump’s “American Greatness” Also Political Paternalism

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2020

Mind your own business. Every one of us has thought or said words to this effect when others have told us how to live our lives. Who our friends should be, what career we should pursue, where we should live, the person we should marry, how we should spend our money, or even what clothes we should wear or ...

A Four-Point Plan for Government

by Laurence M. Vance September 1, 2020

In July 2010, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI), launched the “If You See Something, Say Something” national campaign to raise “public awareness of the indicators of terrorism and terrorism-related crime, as well as the importance of reporting suspicious activity to state and local ...

Trump’s Authoritarianism Should be a Warning, Not a Guidebook

by Michael Zigismund August 24, 2020

When President Donald Trump floated the idea of postponing the upcoming presidential election, my social media feeds exploded with howls of “authoritarianism” and “fascism” and “toldya so.” More bark than bite I think we can all agree that the president has at least some authoritarian tendencies. But as presidential scholar Gene Healy recently

Watchwords that Threaten Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling August 18, 2020

One of the more disturbing aspects of our times is the growing distrust, even dislike, and, therefore, disregard for liberty in a seemingly growing number of corners of life. There is plenty of talk about “equality,” “racial justice,” “democracy,” “socialism,” “privilege,” “oppression” and “racism.” But, of liberty, that is, the liberty of the individual to live his own life ...

Discrimination and the “Ministerial Exception”

by Laurence M. Vance August 5, 2020

The U.S. Supreme Court issued two landmark discrimination decisions in its term that recently came to an end. However, only one will result in more liberty and fewer lawsuits. For several years, federal agencies and courts were split on the issue of whether the prohibition against discrimination in employment because of sex in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act ...

Pandemic Follies: Tyranny Won’t Keep Us Safe

by James Bovard August 1, 2020

Politicians have destroyed more than 13 million jobs this year in a deluge of edicts aimed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200,000 Americans still died from the coronavirus, but the anti-COVID government crackdowns probably did far more damage than the virus. The COVID crisis has also shown how easy it is for politicians to fan fears to ...

Empire Kidnapping on American Streets

by Benjamin James Bartee July 30, 2020

Lest any observer refuse at this late date to acknowledge that the full weight of the police state is pressed on the American citizenry's neck, let the recent developments in Portland, Oregon settle the debate conclusively. Unidentified federal police are now snatching American citizens off the streets of Portland. Their victims receive no due process because ...