Freedom Daily Archive

Congress Is Still Unfit to Govern

by James Bovard March 1, 2021

“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap,” Napoleon is reputed to have said more than two centuries ago. Boundless ignorance is also not a handicap, as Congress demonstrated last December by approving a 5593-page bill without reading it. Plenty of activists and editorial pages howled over the sloppy procedures propelling $2.3 trillion in new federal spending. James Madison warned in ...

The Conflict of the Ages

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2021

The year 2020 was a dreadful year as it relates to individual liberty, free association, commercial freedom, and private property, and 2021 isn’t looking much better. The main reason, of course, is not the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), but the government response to it. Volumes could be written about the government-mandated restrictions on peaceful activity  that have been instituted during this ...

Frank Knight and the Place of Principles in Economics and Politics

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2021

It is sometimes necessary to recall the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same. That never seems truer than when turning to the character and content of economic and social policy issues in modern America. Every time it seems that one of the collectivist confusions and fallacies has been once more shown to ...

Liberty in Peril

by George Leef March 1, 2021

Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in American History by Randall G. Holcombe, Independent Institute, 2019, 245 pages. I finished reading Prof. Randall Holcombe’s book Liberty in Peril during the 2020 election. I have yet to hear any candidate say the word “liberty” and would be shocked if I did. We are bombarded with messages for candidates and messages ...

Salvador Allende and the JFK Assassination, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2021

Part 1 John Kennedy came into the presidency as pretty much a standard Cold Warrior. Like most Americans in 1961, he believed that there was an international communist conspiracy to take over the world, a conspiracy that was based in Moscow. America, it was believed, was in a life-or-death struggle for survival as a free nation. The communists were ...

200th Anniversary of a Great American Demolition of Tyranny

by James Bovard February 1, 2021

This is the 200th anniversary of the publication of one of the best American books on trade policy by one of the most thoughtful and least appreciated political analysts of the Founding Fathers era. I ran into John Taylor of Caroline when I was roaming the shelves of the Library of Congress in 1987. A few weeks earlier, I had ...

Marijuana Wins

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2021

Who really won the 2020 election? Was it Donald J. Trump or Joseph R. Biden? This is a question that will be argued for years to come. And because it is a highly partisan political question, it may never result in a satisfactory answer. There was one clear winner in the 2020 election, though, and it wasn’t Trump or ...

Moritz J. Bonn: A Classical Liberal Voice in a Collectivist World

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2021

Ninety years ago, the United States and most of the rest of the Western industrial world was in the throes of the Great Depression. Usually demarcated as having begun with the U.S. stock market crash of October 1929, the Depression is most often dated as having reached bottom at the end of 1932 and the early part of 1933. Unemployment, ...

On the Wrong Track

by Lance Lamberton February 1, 2021

Romance of the Rails. Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need by Randal O’Toole (Cato Institute, 2018); 376 pages. If ever there was an example of how government intervention in the marketplace creates unintended consequences and makes a situation it was intended to solve infinitely worse by virtue of being involved in it in the ...

Salvador Allende and the JFK Assassination, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2021

On September 11, 1973, Chilean Air Force Hawker Hunter jets attacked the National Palace in the nation’s capital, Santiago. The planes fired missiles into the palace with the aim of assassinating the nation’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, who, along with several of his supporters, was defending himself against the attacks on his life. The attack on Allende has profound ...

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 ...

Non-Issues in the 2020 Election

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2021

In one of his trenchant commentaries written about a month before the election, Future of Freedom Foundation president Jacob G. Hornberger asked the question, “Where Are Open Borders in the Presidential Race?” He then made these observations: Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, immigration is not a big burning issue in the presidential race. There is a simple reason for that: Both ...