Free Society

Wars and “Following the Science” are Sure Paths to Tyranny

by Richard M. Ebeling March 31, 2021

In the first press conference of his presidency on March 25, 2021, Joe Biden announced that he had set a target of administering 200 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine before the end of his first 100 days in office. In an earlier statement before the press, Biden said that it might be safe enough for the government to ...

Welcome to Word Tyranny and Cultural Balkanization

by Richard M. Ebeling March 16, 2021

America has entered into a new era of thought control. Back in the 1960s, there was a determined campaign by many conservatives to resist the free speech movement symbolically headquartered on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Then, the idea was to respect people’s right to say what was on their minds, even when it was considered ...

Lin Yutang, a Classical Liberal Voice for a Free China

by Richard M. Ebeling March 9, 2021

China Rising! The news media has stories every day about China’s continued positioning as a geopolitical and economic “power” on the international stage. Beijing says its economy will have strong growth in 2021, as it increases military spending to back up China’s gunboat diplomacy in East Asia, and stifles any remaining residues of democracy and civil liberties in Hong ...

Post-Covid Policy Advice from Ludwig von Mises for Developing Countries

by Richard M. Ebeling March 2, 2021

The coronavirus and the government responses with shutdowns and lockdowns, along with restrictions on international travel and disruptions of the global supply chains that crisscross countries and continents, have made a fuller and more rapid recovery difficult in the Western industrialized countries, but even more so in many places in what used to be called during the Cold War, ...

The Conflict of the Ages

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2021

The year 2020 was a dreadful year as it relates to individual liberty, free association, commercial freedom, and private property, and 2021 isn’t looking much better. The main reason, of course, is not the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), but the government response to it. Volumes could be written about the government-mandated restrictions on peaceful activity  that have been instituted during this ...

The Slippery Slope from Censoring ‘Disinformation’ to Silencing Truth

by John W. Whitehead February 23, 2021

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”― George Orwell This is the slippery slope that leads to the end of free speech as we once knew it. In a world increasingly automated and filtered through the lens of artificial intelligence, we are finding ourselves at the mercy of ...

The Deep State’s Stealthy, Subversive, Silent Coup to Ensure Nothing Changes

by John W. Whitehead February 1, 2021

You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical faith in this country…why in the name of God don’t you have any faith in the system of government you’re so hell-bent to protect? You want to defend the United States of America, then defend it with the tools it supplies you with—its Constitution. You ask for a mandate, General, from a ...

Witnessing Lithuania’s 1991 Fight for Freedom from Soviet Power

by Richard M. Ebeling January 13, 2021

Individual liberty and representative democracy as complementary forms of personal and political self-government are precious aspects of shared social life. Given the political and economic events surrounding the recent presidential election and the restrictions on personal freedom due to the government-imposed lockdowns in the face of the coronavirus, it seems appropriate to recall a real fight for a free ...

The Deadly Precedent of the Waco Whitewash

by James Bovard January 1, 2021

The easiest way to achieve sainthood in Washington is to cover up a federal atrocity. Thus, it is no surprise that former senator John Danforth continues to be treated by the Washington Post as a visionary statesman. The Post showcased Danforth’s attack on Donald Trump in October after Trump derided the Commission on Presidential Debates. Danforth, a permanent member ...

The Case for Freedom in Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Ayn Rand

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2021

Three names are widely associated with the cause of human freedom and economic liberty in the twentieth century: Friedrich A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Ayn Rand. Indeed, it can be argued that Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) and Constitution of Liberty (1960), Mises’s Socialism (1936) and Human Action (1949), and Rand’s novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged ...

Private Charity versus the Political Grinches

by Richard M. Ebeling December 28, 2020

Christmas is a time of good cheer, gift-giving, and hopes for the New Year. This year, 2020, has been a hard and disturbing one for virtually all of us due to the coronavirus and, especially, the government’s heavy-handed shutdown and lockdown responses. What Christmas time also represents is a time of benevolence and generosity to family, friends, and others ...

What If the Christ Child Had Been Born in the American Police State?

by John W. Whitehead December 23, 2020

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace ...