Explore Freedom

After bin Laden

by Sheldon Richman August 28, 2011

Osama bin Laden is gone, yet controversy will rage for a long while. There are many questions, and complete answers are not likely to be forthcoming. Was the shooting necessary, or could bin Laden have been taken alive? What exactly were the orders given to the Navy SEALs? The operation appears to have been a military mission rather than a ... [click for more]

Memorial Day Reflections and Revisionism

by James Bovard August 26, 2011

On Memorial Day, the media do their usual sacralizing of war. Instead, it should be a day for the ritualized scourging of politicians. During the last 60 years, their lies have resulted in the unnecessary deaths of almost 100,000 thousand American soldiers and millions of foreigners. And yet, people still get teary-eyed when politicians take the stage to talk ... [click for more]

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 4

by Gregory Bresiger August 24, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 <em>That, in my mind was the turning point of U.S. policy, the Greek Turkish ... [click for more]

Endless Evil: The Drug Wars Continuing Collateral Damage, Part 1

by Radley Balko August 21, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 In September 2009, 28-year-old Jonathan Ayers pulled into a gas station in Stephens County, Georgia, to withdraw money from an ATM. Ayers, a pastor, had just given $23, all the cash he had in his pocket, to Johanna Barrett, a drug addict alleged to be a prostitute to whom Ayers had been ministering. His ... [click for more]

Rolling Back the Myth of Good Government

by Laurence M. Vance August 20, 2011

Rollback: Repealing Big Government before the Coming Financial Collapse by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Washington D.C.: Regnery, 2011); 232 pages. The government of the United States has secured the confidence and consent of the American people through myths of its benevolence, provision, innovation, achievements, scientific advances, educational system, and protection. It takes credit for everything good that happens ... [click for more]

Lessons from the Middle East, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 30, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Two of the primary complaints made by the protesters in the Middle East have been the refusal of government officials to lift decades-old emergency legislation that permits the dictatorial regimes to arbitrarily arrest people, detain them indefinitely, torture them, and even execute them; and the horrible economic conditions that ... [click for more]

The Budget Mess: A Crisis in Legitimacy

by Sheldon Richman July 28, 2011

Reality has finally caught up with the ruling elite, and its members inside and outside of government are in a panic. They have freely spent the taxpayers’ money for generations, building a corporatist warfare-welfare state, and when that wasn’t enough to finance their projects, they borrowed just as freely. For a long while it paid off handsomely in power ... [click for more]

The Soviet Union’s Continuing Influence on America

by James Bovard July 26, 2011

It has been almost 20 years since the Soviet Union officially dissolved. While the nation of that name no longer exists, its legacy continues influencing political thought and practices in many places in the world. The glorification of the Soviet Union by American intellectuals from the 1920s onwards helped spur the creation of federal programs that continue plaguing the ... [click for more]

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 3

by Gregory Bresiger July 20, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 Why did the United States, in 1947, suddenly decide that it could no longer ... [click for more]

Should Social Security Be Saved?

by Laurence M. Vance July 18, 2011

Speaking at a conference for a finance trade association in Chicago, former President George W. Bush said that the biggest failure of his administration was not privatizing Social Security. In 2001 the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security was formed. This bipartisan, 16-member commission issued a report that included three reform proposals, all of which allowed workers to voluntarily transfer ... [click for more]

Understanding the U.S. Torture State

by Anthony Gregory July 15, 2011

The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse edited by Marjorie Cohn (New York University Press: 2011), 342 pages. When I was a child in Reagan’s America, a common theme in Cold War rhetoric was that the Soviets tortured people and detained them without cause, extracted phony confessions through cruel violence, did the unspeakable to detainees who were helpless ... [click for more]

Lessons from the Middle East, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 30, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Among the many ways that our American ancestors viewed the role of government in a free society that were so different from modern-day Americans was how they regarded militarism and a standing army. Our ancestors disdained the concept of professional armies because they viewed them as antithetical to freedom. Keep in ... [click for more]