Freedom Daily Archive

Deference to Authority, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 30, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The 50-year-old economic embargo by the U.S. government against the Cuban people stands as a testament to the power of the state to mold the minds of a citizenry, in this case the American citizenry. Having been inculcated from the first grade on up that the U.S. government ...

The Government Is Watching You

by Sheldon Richman April 29, 2011

Most Americans seem detached from the U.S. government’s military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. U.S. forces not only engage in wanton killing and harsh treatment of prisoners, but also surveillance and other intelligence activities that might appall the American people if they were used at home. Well, guess what: “Technologies and techniques honed for use on ...

The Forgotten Failures of the Peace Corps

by James Bovard April 1, 2011

This is the fiftieth anniversary year for the Peace Corps. Prior to the creation of AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps took the cake as the most arrogant and overrated government program in Washington. At a time when the agency is being hailed for idealism and almost saving the world, it is worthwhile to consider its early record of debacles and ...

No One Is Safe under the Espionage Act of 1917

by Wendy McElroy April 1, 2011

According do a Wall Street Journal editorial (December 7, 2010), “Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein called for the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange because he ‘continues to violate ... the Espionage Act of 1917.’” Assange’s sin? He leaked thousands of diplomatic cables that embarrassed the American government, especially in the realm of foreign policy. Many ...

The Best Introduction to Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2011

Libertarianism Today by Jacob H. Huebert (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010), 254 pages. Major books on libertarianism seem to come in pairs. First, in 1973, there was Murray N. Rothbard’s For a New Liberty (Macmillan, with a revised edition in 1978) and John Hospers’s Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (Nash Publishing). The year 1997 saw the publication of David ...

Deference to Authority, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 30, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Many years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Cuba, a country that holds valuable lessons in freedom for the American people, albeit not in ways that one might imagine. As a prerequisite to traveling to Cuba, the U.S. government requires Americans to secure a license from the U.S. Treasury Department. ...

Afghanistan: A War of Choice, Not Necessity

by Sheldon Richman March 25, 2011

In December Barack Obama received his awaited assessment of the war in Afghanistan, then reported to the American people that the mission is “on track” and troops would begin to withdraw next July. But the semi-upbeat assessment was less than persuasive because, as the Washington Post reported, “The overview of the long-awaited report contained no specifics or data to ...

Bush, Torture, and the Rule of Law

by James Bovard March 22, 2011

Last November, George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, hit the streets. And Americans could see firsthand the former president bragging about ordering torture. Bush wrote that when he was requested to approve the CIA’s waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he responded, “Damn right.” Six months before his memoir was released, in a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he told ...

Auberon Herbert, Part 2

by Wendy McElroy March 20, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 On other issues, Auberon Herbert predictably sided with working people. In 1869, he acted as one of the presidents of the first national Cooperative Congress. As its name suggests, the Cooperative movement focused on establishing cooperative societies and arrangements, such as mutual insurance agencies. When Herbert’s Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State first ...

The Story Behind the Permanent War

by Anthony Gregory March 18, 2011

Washington Rules: Americas Path to Permanent War by Andrew J. Bacevich (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010), 286 pages. During the last decade, left-liberals accused the controversial Bush administration of a wickedness, arrogance, and incompetence that supposedly set that presidency apart from others in American history. Bush was an especially bad warmonger who broke with the traditional and venerable principles that had ...

Deference to Authority, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 27, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Addressing the WikiLeaks controversy, noted New York Times columnist David Brooks opened up his November 29, 2010, column with the following observation: mother didn’t enroll him in the local schools because, as Raffi Khatchadourian wrote in a New Yorker profile, she feared “that formal education would inculcate an unhealthy ...

Afghanistan: Digging In

by Sheldon Richman February 25, 2011

President Obama once said withdrawal from Afghanistan would begin in July 2011 — maybe, conditions permitting. But he has since backed away from that date. Now NATO, echoing American officials, says security won’t be fully turned over to the Afghan government any earlier than the end of 2014 — again, maybe; the alliance has signed a long-term security agreement ...