Democracy

The King James Test for American Democracy

by James Bovard December 16, 2024

On December 1, President Joe Biden announced that he was pardoning his son Hunter for all the crimes he committed from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024. President Biden absolved all of his son’s felonies because of his “serious addictions” and because Hunter was purportedly mistreated by Biden’s own appointees at the Justice Department. But going back 40 ...

The Most Dangerous Democratic Delusion

by James Bovard October 30, 2024

Democracy is a system of government under which the people are automatically liable for whatever the government does to them. Many of the most deadly errors of contemporary political thinking stem from the notion that in a democracy the government is the people, so there is scant reason to worry about protecting citizens from the government. Throughout western history, tyrants ...

Liberty in Peril

by George Leef March 1, 2021

Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in American History by Randall G. Holcombe, Independent Institute, 2019, 245 pages. I finished reading Prof. Randall Holcombe’s book Liberty in Peril during the 2020 election. I have yet to hear any candidate say the word “liberty” and would be shocked if I did. We are bombarded with messages for candidates and messages ...

The Libertarian Angle: What’s So Good About Democracy? (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation April 9, 2019

Is democracy the goal of politics? Are freedom and democracy one and the same? FFF president Jacob G. Hornberger and Citadel professor Richard M. Ebeling discuss. Go to the podcast.

Let’s Keep the Electoral College

by Christine Smith February 8, 2019

We are all familiar with the “A republic, if you can keep it" reply attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the close of the 1787 Constitutional Convention upon being asked what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence (the remark notated by Dr. James McHenry, a Maryland delegate). Though we've weathered countless assaults on this dear Republic, she has ...

When “Democracy” Becomes a Threat to Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling July 5, 2018

For most of the last three centuries, the ideas of liberty and democracy have been intertwined in the minds of both friends and foes of a free society. The substitution of absolute monarchies with governments representative of the voting choices of a nation’s population has been considered part and parcel with the advancement of freedom of speech and the press, ...

The Libertarian Angle: Democracy vs Freedom

by Future of Freedom Foundation November 23, 2016

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling talk about freedom and its relationship to democracy. Go to the podcast.

A Note to Myself on Switzerland

by Harry Teasley June 10, 2016

With each visit, my understanding and appreciation of the political economy of Switzerland becomes deeper and more nuanced. The Swiss people have been incredibly successful in evolving a philosophy, culture, and a structure of political economy which limits the potential power of a centralist, nationalist, and statist administration through the adoption of an effective federal system and other policies, which ...

The Mandatory Voting Panacea

by James Bovard July 1, 2015

Barack Obama suggested on March 18, 2015, that mandatory voting could cure some of the ills of American democracy. He said that compelling everyone to vote would “encourage more participation” — perhaps the same way that the specter of prison sentences encourages more people to pay taxes. While there are many good reasons to oppose mandatory voting, compulsory balloting ...

Why Doesn’t Democracy Work?

by David S. D'Amato January 1, 2015

Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter by Ilya Somin (Stanford University Press 2013), 280 pages. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, law professor Ilya Somin looks down into the apparently fathomless depth of voter ignorance and concludes that dividing and decentralizing the power of the federal government can alleviate many of the ills attending such ignorance. Somin ...

Democracy Is Not the Same as Freedom

by Richard M. Ebeling September 23, 2014

A fundamental fallacy of our time is that democracy is the open-sesame to peace, freedom, and prosperity. The political events surrounding what was called the ill-fated “Arab Spring” a couple of years ago was a based on the idea that “democracy” would solve all the problems of any society. But democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a ...

Obama’s Latest Democracy Scam

by James Bovard July 1, 2013

In his campaign earlier this year to subvert the Second Amendment, Barack Obama unveiled one of the oldest tricks in the demagogue playbook. Speaking in Colorado, he scoffed at Americans who say, “I need a gun to protect myself from the government” or “We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take our guns away.” Obama ...