Freedom Daily Archive

Everyone Should Have the Same Freedom to Contract — or Not

by George Leef July 1, 2023

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case, 303 Creative v. Elenis, that seems to turn on the meaning of the First Amendment. In my view, this is indeed an important case, but casting it as a free speech dispute is mistaken. The real issue is whether all Americans enjoy freedom of contract, or if, instead, some ...

The Real Lessons from the Iraq War, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 Twenty years ago — March 19, 2003 — the U.S. government launched its invasion and war of aggression against Iraq. It was a deadly intervention, one that resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people and thousands of U.S. soldiers. The invasion and resulting occupation also succeeded in destroying ...

The Iraq War Was a Systematic Atrocity

by James Bovard June 1, 2023

Media coverage of the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War mostly portrayed the war as a blunder. There were systematic war crimes that have largely vanished into the memory hole, but permitting government officials to vaporize their victims paves the way to new atrocities. On the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, former First Lady Barbara ...

Jeremy Bentham, Usury Laws, and the CFPB

by Laurence M. Vance June 1, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a case that challenges the constitutionality of the funding of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), “a 21st century agency that implements and enforces Federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive.” The agency was created by the Dodd-Frank ...

Celebrating Adam Smith on His 300th Birthday

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2023

Three hundred years ago, on June 5, 1723, one of the most important and influential thinkers in modern history, Adam Smith, was born in the small Scottish village of Kirkcaldy. There are few individuals who it can be said have left as lasting and as positive a legacy on humankind as Adam Smith. He authored only two books, The Theory ...

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 2

by George Leef June 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) Caplan follows up on that observation with a devastating point about the calculating political mindset. Suppose that a politician had to choose between a populace of nothing but independent, self-supporting individuals or one with a large percentage of envious layabouts ...

Ukraine and the Cold War

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 13, 2023

On October 25, 1970, a team of well-armed Chilean thugs attacked an automobile in which Chilean General Rene Schneider was traveling in downtown Santiago. Their aim was to kidnap and kill Schneider. Given that he was the overall commander of the Chilean armed forces, Schneider pulled out his pistol and fought back, but he was no match ...

Snowden and the Fight for American Privacy

by James Bovard May 1, 2023

Edward Snowden did heroic service in awakening Americans to Washington ravishing their privacy. Snowden’s “reward” is to be banished in Russia without a snowball’s chance in hell of a fair trial if he returns to America. But as he courageously declared, “I would rather be without a state than without a voice.” He explained why he leaked ...

How Not to Abolish the Income Tax

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2023

Throughout this country’s history, Americans have always paid taxes of various kinds. But no matter what kind, all taxation is theft. Everyone but a criminal obtains his income voluntarily. He either sells some good or service or he receives some kind of  stipend or gift But as explained by the Austrian economist Murray Rothbard (1926–1995): Only the State ...

Only a Renewed Belief in Liberty Can End America’s Fiscal Follies

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2023

The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) February 2023 report, Budget and Economic Outlook, 2023-2033, documents just how serious the fiscal dilemma is facing the United States. In a nutshell, the federal government’s debt is on a dangerous trajectory, future annual budget deficits are huge as far as the eye can see, and the “entitlement programs” — Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid ...

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 1

by George Leef May 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) If you are a libertarian, or just someone with a streak of skepticism about government, you will enjoy and profit from reading How Evil are Politicians? The author, Bryan Caplan, is a professor of economics at George Mason ...

The Origins of U.S. Monetary Debauchery

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2023

One of the unsung heroes in American history was a prominent New York City lawyer named Frederick Barber Campbell. Campbell graduated from Harvard Law School in 1894 and was a partner in the law firm of Campbell and Whipp. Its offices were located at 20 Exchange Place, which was in the middle of the Wall Street area of the ...