Explore Freedom

The Nanny State’s Road to Serfdom

by Jeffrey A. Singer May 1, 2007

A reader wrote me about my article “The Slippery Slope of Nanny-State Politics,” which appeared in the last issue of Freedom Daily. The article derided the rise of the “nanny state” and its threat to our way of life as a free people. I had written that New York ... [click for more]

Nanny-State Quandary

by Scott McPherson April 1, 2007

Paternalistic agitators must be in a real quandary. A Massachusetts man is suing his former employer for firing him for smoking. The man lost his job as a lawn-care specialist after testing positive for nicotine. Isn’t this great? After all, anti-smoking types have been haranguing us for years about the dangers ... [click for more]

The Slippery Slope of Nanny-State Politics

by Jeffrey A. Singer April 1, 2007

On December 5, 2006, the City of New York banned the use of transfats in restaurants and food preparation. Ironically, many of the experts proclaiming the dangers of transfats were the ones who urged us to embrace them as “heart-healthy” in the 1980s. William Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard University, who was one of the ... [click for more]

Liberty versus the Morality Police

by George Leef April 1, 2007

Liberty for All: Reclaiming Individual Privacy in a New Era of Public Morality by Elizabeth Price Foley (Yale University Press, 2006); 287 pages, $35.00. Most Americans have settled somnolently into the view that whatever laws are passed are all right because they’re the product of democracy. To be sure, there ... [click for more]

“It Can’t Happen Here”

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 7, 2007

Also see: “The Critical Dilemma Facing Pro-War Libertarians” “The Pentagon's Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans” “The Islamo-Fascist Rationale for Abandoning Liberty” In my article “The Pentagon’s Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans,” I explained that the post–9/11 power to designate Americans as “enemy ... [click for more]

The Horror – Discriminatory Advertising on the Internet!

by George Leef March 5, 2007

Nothing has ever made it so easy for buyers and sellers to get together and engage in trade as the Internet. It reduces transaction costs immensely because they can find each other so readily. And if one seller doesn’t have what a buyer wants, all that has been lost is the ... [click for more]

Public-Access TV: Fascism in Action

by Scott McPherson March 1, 2007

Imagine a public-access aisle at your local grocery store. The store would provide the goods it can profit from on other aisles, but there would be a special aisle where certain merchandise would be offered because the local government required it to be offered. Local residents would go to city council meetings and produce petitions signed by their neighbors saying ... [click for more]

Freedom? Fat Chance!

by Ralph R. Reiland February 16, 2007

Harper’s magazine reports that Americans burn an extra 938 million gallons of gasoline each year because we’re too fat. That estimate of how much the nation’s chubses are wasting in gas comes from a study by Sheldon Jacobson, professor of computer science at the University of Illinois and director of the ... [click for more]

Taxicab Absurdity

by Scott McPherson February 1, 2007

When one hears words such as “crackdown” and “sting” and “bust” the image that comes to mind is that of daring police officers engaged in some colossal operation that nets really bad people doing really bad things. At least, that’s the image that ought to come to mind. In the charming little city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, there are taxicab companies ... [click for more]

No Need for Energy Subsidies

by Sheldon Richman January 26, 2007

For a guy who claims to believe in limited government, President Bush is awfully good at dangling subsidies and threatening coercion when he wants to encourage or discourage something. That’s the lesson to take from his State of the Union Address. Look at what he said about energy: “For too ... [click for more]

The Bush Torture Memos

by James Bovard November 1, 2006

President Bush is proposing to medievalize the American legal code by permitting the use of coerced confessions in judicial proceedings. This is one of the most stunning proposals in U.S. political life since Franklin Roosevelt banned private ownership of gold in 1933. It is vital for Americans to understand the ... [click for more]

The Federal Ripoff

by George Leef November 1, 2006

The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money by Timothy P. Carney (Wiley, 2006); 285 pages; $24.95. Frédéric Bastiat called it legal plunder — the process by which people and organizations use their political connections to obtain wealth that doesn’t belong to them. When a government ... [click for more]