Free Society

COVID-19 Tested Our Commitment to Freedom

by John W. Whitehead February 28, 2024

“The remedy is worse than the disease.”—Francis Bacon The government never cedes power willingly. Neither should we. If the COVID-19 debacle taught us one thing it is that, as Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged, “Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.” Unfortunately, we still haven’t learned. We’re ...

The Disaster of Libertarian Reform of Socialism

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2024

Prior to my discovery of libertarianism back in the late 1970s, when I was in my late 20s, I had no doubts that I lived in a free society. After all, I had attended 12 years of public (i.e., government) schools, four years of a state-supported college, and then three years of a state-supported law school. Given that indoctrination ...

Trampling on a Symbol of Liberty

by James Bovard February 1, 2024

Last August, 12-year-old Jaiden Rodriguez was kicked out of a public-school classroom in Colorado Springs after school officials decreed that the Gadsden flag patch on his backpack was “disruptive to the classroom environment.” Those Colorado officials didn’t know the meaning of “disruptive.” Thanks to savvy, thoughtful retorts by Jaiden’s mother in a video showdown at the school, the incident spurred ...

Unheralded Resisters in Nazi Germany: The Edelweiss Pirates, Part 2

by Wendy McElroy February 1, 2024

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In the Hitler Youth, as in classrooms, the goal was to produce obedient, race-conscious Germans who were willing to die for Führer and Fatherland. Hitler explained, “After four years of the Young Folk, they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years.... And even ...

How Tyrannical Governments Stifle Political Dissent

by John W. Whitehead January 18, 2024

“No president from either party should have the sole power to shut down or take control of the internet or any other of our communication channels during an emergency.”—Senator Rand Paul What’s to stop the U.S. government from throwing the kill switch and shutting down phone and internet communications in a time of so-called crisis? After all,

Born in a Police State: The Deep State’s Persecution of Its Most Vulnerable Citizens

by John W. Whitehead January 3, 2024

“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 ...

Unheralded Resisters in Nazi Germany: The Edelweiss Pirates, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy January 1, 2024

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Hitler’s power may lay us low, And keep us locked in chains, But we will smash the chains one day, We’ll be free again We’ve got fists and we can fight, We’ve got knives and we’ll get them out We want freedom, don’t we boys? We’re the fighting Navajos! — song of the Cologne Edelweiss Pirates Everyone ...

Conservatives Just Don’t Get It on Discrimination

by Laurence M. Vance December 20, 2023

Liberals, progressives, and other left-leaning individuals have made discrimination a dirty word. Their crusade against all forms of discrimination in employment, in housing, in public accommodations, in private organizations, and in life in general is an attack on private property, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, free enterprise, and freedom of contract. This does not mean, however, that conservatives are ...

The Police State Wants Us To Be a Nation of Snowflakes

by John W. Whitehead December 13, 2023

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol What a year. It feels as if government Grinches and corporate Scrooges have been working overtime to drain ...

Tyranny Comes to Main Street

by James Bovard December 8, 2023

The following is the first chapter of the new book by James Bovard, Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty. Americans today have the “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, wiretapped, injected, censored, injected, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained, and maybe shot by government agents. Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Is America ...

Freedom’s Greatest Hour of Danger Is Now

by John W. Whitehead December 6, 2023

“What if the rights and principles guaranteed in the Constitution have been so distorted in the past 200 years as to be unrecognizable by the Founders? What if the government was the reason we don’t have a Constitution anymore? What if freedom’s greatest hour of danger is now?”—Andrew P. Napolitano We are approaching critical mass, the point ...

Conservatives, Hate Crimes, and Victimless Crimes

by Laurence M. Vance December 1, 2023

Libertarianism and conservatism have been described as “uneasy cousins.” There are some issues where they can unite in opposition to the terrible policies of progressives: the green new deal, universal health care, free college tuition, gun-control laws, taxpayer-funded abortions, defunding the police, etc. But even when they seem to agree on something — like hate-crimes laws — the inconsistency ...