Freedom Daily Archive

Socialism, American Style, Part 6

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 I grew up on a farm on the Rio Grande just outside Laredo, Texas, a city that is situated on the U.S.-Mexico border. I lived practically half my life in Texas. Throughout that time, I witnessed an immigration ...

“Extremism” as a Ticket to Tyrannize

by James Bovard October 1, 2020

“Extremists” are one of the famous bogeymen that American politicians invoke to sanctify their own power. But the definition of “extremism” has forever been in flux. The only consistent element in definitions of extremism is that politicians always win. In the 1770s, people who suggested that the king of England had no right to rule America were considered extremists. Even ...

Donald Trump, Flag Burning, and the First Amendment

by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2020

Earlier this year, Germany’s Parliament passed an amendment to outlaw the burning of foreign flags, including the flag of the European Union. The vote was in response to an anti-Israel rally held on the streets of Berlin in which protesters burned Israeli flags. The penalty is a maximum of three years in prison. Burning the German flag is already ...

The Socialist Elixir Is a Deadly Cyanide

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 2020

Suppose you saw someone holding a bottle that had a label with the word “cyanide” and he was about to drink from it. You tell him to be careful, that that is poison, and he could die a painful death. He says, no that’s not true, cyanide is a delightful drink, that he has heard that it cures many ...

The Continuing, Poisonous Russia Obsession

by Ted Galen Carpenter October 1, 2020

For more than a decade, there has been pronounced animus toward Russia in the American news media and among hawks, especially congressional Democrats, in the political community. That hostility surged when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014. Furious political leaders and Western media outlets slammed the Kremlin’s action as an outrageous case of unprovoked aggression, akin to the ...

Socialism, American Style, Part 5

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 The Federal Reserve System is another prime example of American socialism, because it is based on central planning, a core element of socialism. Government officials plan, in a top-down, command-and-control manner the monetary affairs of hundreds of millions ...

The Korean War’s Forgotten Lessons on the Evil of Intervention

by James Bovard September 1, 2020

This year is the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, a conflict from which Washington policymakers learned nothing. Almost 40,000 American soldiers died in that conflict that should have permanently vaccinated the nation against the folly and evil of foreign intervention. Instead, the war was retroactively redefined. As Barack Obama declared in 2013, “That war was ...

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 ...

Free Trade, Liberalism, and Peace

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2020

The classical liberals of the nineteenth century were certain that the end of the older mercantilist system — with its government control of trade and commerce, its bounties (subsidies) and prohibitions on exports and imports — would open wide vistas for improving the material conditions of man through the internationalization of the system of division of labor. They also ...

The Tortured Legacy of the Mexican-American War, Part 6

by Danny Sjursen September 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4  | Part 5 | Part 6 But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.… the fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.… She might become the dictatress of the world.

Socialism, American Style, Part 4

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 It would be difficult to find a better example of American socialism than the institution of public schooling or, as it might be more accurately termed, government schooling. Public schooling is based on socialist central planning. Whether at a federal, ...

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 ...