Free Society

The Coronavirus and the Attack on Liberty and Privacy

by Richard M. Ebeling May 13, 2020

The coronavirus crisis has, once more, reminded us all of how much we live in an interdependent world in which what happens in one part of the globe has serious impacts in many other places, and how each of our own actions potentially have implications and importance for the well-being of multitudes of others around us, both near and ...

Six Things the COVID-19 Panic Has Taught Us

by Michael Tennant May 7, 2020

The responses of public officials and the American public to the COVID-19 pandemic have been highly instructive. Here are just a few of the things we have learned. No matter how many times the government has lied to them before, most people will believe its next tale. Remember these whoppers? “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” ...

The Conquest of America by Communist China

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2020

So, “Who’s in Charge?” That is the question that David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, recently (April 25, 2020) asked in terms of dealing with the coronavirus crisis. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman also recently insisted that “We Need Great Leadership” (April 21, 2020), and he was sure what it looks like. While the efforts of individuals, ...

The REAL ID Act Ravages Our Liberty

by James Bovard May 1, 2020

National ID cards have been atop the command-and-control political wish list for decades. In the 1990s, Republican Congresses shot down efforts to move toward national identification cards. However, after 9/11, “everything changed” and politicians seized the chance to unleash far more snooping and create potentially hundreds of millions of dossiers on American citizens. Congress passed the REAL ID Act in ...

Liberal Democracy versus Democratic Socialism versus Social Democracy

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2020

The presidential primary campaign of Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party nomination and the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress from New York have once again raised the issue of the desirability for and the possibility of a system of “democratic socialism.” For many of their critics and opponents the operative word is “socialism” in their vision of a new ...

Donald J. Trump: Patient Zero of Lockdown Nation’s Covid Hysteria, Part 1

by David Stockman April 30, 2020

According to the CDC’s long established mortality models, 687,000 Americans were supposed to die during the 12 weeks between February 1 and April 18. But only 666,000 actually complied. So the Grim Reaper was deprived of his seasonally adjusted mortality quota, even as 21,000 families were spared, at least temporarily, of the loss and grief which accompanies the passing of ...

American Exceptionalism Scars Both Victim and Victimizer

by Danny Sjursen April 29, 2020

Manicheanism means murder. Amidst the present pandemic, America’s irrationally dyadic global typecasting, and consequent capacity for cruelty, are on unusually flagrant display. Consider this the macabre gift of COVID-catalyzed reality exposure. From Uncle Sam’s escalation of proxy war with - and threats to bomb - Iran, to the maintenance and tightening ...

Conspiracies, Corona, and the Hounds of Adam Smith

by John McGinnis April 23, 2020

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground." I think Rahm Emanuel’s corollary (“You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”) is that difficult circumstances make the best opportunities for government expansion. These will probably bear out as we witness the short-term and long-term responses to the ...

The Jackboots Of The Virus Patrol

by David Stockman April 20, 2020

Say what? It seems that the mainstream politicians and commentariat have gone so far off the deep-end on the Covid-19 that it takes a pair of socialists from south of the border to clear the air. That’s right. We are referring to Mr .Lopez-Gatell, Mexico’s minister of health and pedigreed PhD epidemiologist from John-Hopkins and his boss, President Obrador, a true ...

Will there Be Tyranny in the Post-Coronavirus World?

by Richard M. Ebeling April 16, 2020

The coronavirus crisis will be considered one of the most important global events of the early decades of the 21st century. Like a pebble that is dropped in a pond of water from which a series of waves are sent out across its surface, the virus has created waves of hundreds of thousands of human victims in countries all ...

The Press Conference Trump Should Hold Now

by Richard M. Ebeling April 7, 2020

Every late afternoon, the American people have been able to tune into a presidential press conference detailing the day’s events and governmental decisions concerning the coronavirus. Donald Trump is usually joined by vice president Mike Pence, and medical experts, Dr. Anthony Fouci and Dr. Deborah Birx, who are on the president’s coronavirus taskforce, plus other members of his presidential ...

What Comes After the Coronavirus, Freedom or Despotism?

by Richard M. Ebeling April 2, 2020

Chinese The coronavirus crisis that has enveloped the world has brought about calls for society and economy-wide action on the part of governments that has been matched by the imposing of radical shutdowns and compulsory mass quarantining as tens of millions of people are told to not to go to work and to stay at home ...