Freedom Daily Archive

The Cover-Up of the Damning 9/11 Report Continues

by James Bovard December 1, 2015

Do Americans have the right to learn whether a foreign government helped finance the 9/11 attacks? A growing number of congressmen and senators are demanding that a 28-page portion of a 2002 congressional report finally be declassified. The Obama administration appears to be resisting, and the stakes are huge. What is contained in those pages could radically change Americans’ ...

Unions and Strikes in a Free Society

by Laurence M. Vance December 1, 2015

The labor-union membership rate of American workers has been declining for years. Labor-union strikes have concomitantly decreased as well. Unions have historically been associated with violence, corruption, anti-capitalistic propaganda, Democratic politics — and strikes. Unions According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014, union membership fell to 11.1 percent, down 0.2 percent from 2013, although the number of workers belonging ...

War of Pure Defense: A First Sketch

by Joseph R. Stromberg December 1, 2015

Few thinkers have ever set forth (much less developed) the rather straightforward idea of purely defensive war, i.e., war limited to repelling invaders — and otherwise doing nothing at all. The term “defensivism” would suit the case, but since philosopher Eric Mack put it (in my view) to different and rather conventional use almost forty years ago (“Permissible Defense,” ...

The Forgotten Meaning of “Sound Money” (and Why It’s Coming Back)

by Guy Christopher December 1, 2015

We Americans no longer carry gold and silver money in our pockets and purses as our grandparents did during their lives. But we still carry the history, legacy, and spirit of those gold and silver coins in our language — with more meaning than you might imagine. “Sound money” has a clear message recognized for centuries around the world. It ...

Patrick Henry’s Choice

by Ben Moreel December 1, 2015

In 1775, an American patriot stood before his neighbors in a small church in Virginia and challenged the tyranny of government — his own government — in a ringing statement on liberty and death. While I subscribe wholeheartedly to Patrick Henry’s choice of death in lieu of slavery to government, I would like to call your attention to another thought ...

The Resurgence of Lochner

by David S. D'Amato December 1, 2015

Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights against Progressive Reform by David E. Bernstein (University of Chicago Press, 2012), 208 pages. David Bernstein begins his short book, Rehabilitating Lochner, by noting that “Lochner is likely the most disreputable case in modern constitutional discourse.” If you want to raise eyebrows in legal circles, he says, simply embark on ...

Opposing America’s Participation in World War II

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2015

Even in the face of ongoing catastrophes arising out of U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East, proponents of empire and intervention still trot out America’s entry into World War II to justify their imperialist, militarist, and interventionist philosophy. World War II was the “good” war, they say — a necessary intervention, one that saved ...

The Great Sugar Robbery Continues

by James Bovard November 1, 2015

Seventeen years ago, The Future of Freedom Foundation published my piece “The Great Sugar Shaft.” That article hammered federal sugar policy as one of the most brazen interventionist failures in American history. Unfortunately, the political looting of sugar consumers and food producers continues unabated. Federal price supports and import quotas combine to drive U.S. sugar prices far above the ...

Free the Gas Pumps!

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2015

Aside from both being coastal states, New Jersey and Oregon have little in common except for one infamous thing. Drivers vacationing or passing through either state for the first time who have to stop to gas up their cars are in for a rude awakening if they try to pump their own gas. They will quickly find out from ...

Americans Toss Lady Liberty Overboard during Crises

by Ted Galen Carpenter November 1, 2015

Americans take great pride in their country’s commitment to the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. At the top of that list are the rights enumerated in the first ten amendments to the Constitution — the Bill of Rights. Americans are fond of contrasting the protections that freedom of speech, due process of law, equal ...

Inhumanity of the Minimum Wage

by Paul L. Poirot November 1, 2015

A dictator, it is true, can arbitrarily declare human labor to be the only thing of value in the world; and he can set a minimum or a maximum wage, or just fix prices. But he cannot enforce his dictates, because they run contrary to the rules of human behavior. As long as men harbor their own distinctive sense ...

Why We Don’t Compromise, Part 6

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 A few days after the 9/11 attacks, I was attending a big libertarian dinner at an area hotel. As I was walking out at the conclusion of the dinner, a longtime libertarian friend approached me and said ...