Free Society

Everybody’s Guilty

by John W. Whitehead June 24, 2022

“In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught.”—Hunter S. Thompson The burden of proof has been reversed. No longer are we presumed innocent. Now we’re presumed guilty unless we can prove our innocence beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Rarely, are we even given the opportunity to do so. Although the Constitution requires the ...

The Stultification of American Conscience

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2022

One of the fascinating consequences of public (i.e., government) schooling is that it molds the minds of children in such a way that by the time they become adults, their minds inevitably mirror whatever narrative the authorities happen to be advancing at any particular time. In fact, the indoctrination is oftentimes so effective that most of them have no ...

When the Government Plays God

by John W. Whitehead May 6, 2022

Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the ‘right’ of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the ‘property rights’ of slave masters in their slaves. ...

Federal Testing Debacle Multiplied COVID Carnage

by James Bovard May 1, 2022

On a bitter cold January afternoon, lines of people awaiting free COVID tests stretched around the block at a Rockville, Maryland, public library. Looking at the scene reminded me of seeing East Germans lined up in endless queues in the 1980s to receive their potato and sauerkraut rations. But few of the people docilely waiting in Rockville recognized that ...

In the Beginning: The Mont Pelerin Society, 1947

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2022

Seventy-five years ago, there occurred an important event in the post–World War II revival of free-market liberal ideas. Over the first ten days of April 1947, 39 people from Europe and the United States met in a hotel in Switzerland at a mountain place known as Mont Pelerin. They came together to discuss the future of economic, social, and ...

We’re Only as Free as the Government Allows

by John W. Whitehead April 27, 2022

“Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. Sooner or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government … doesn’t ...

The Latest Media Assault on Freedom

by James Bovard April 1, 2022

Prominent journalists are calling for the media to champion a “pro-democracy” bias in how they portray politicians and government agencies. But tub-thumping for democracy — or at least for politicians who claim to be pro-democracy — is a poor substitute for exposing the proliferation of government abuses. Freedom will be the victim if journalists grasp a new pretext to ...

Humilitainment: How to Control the Citizenry Through Reality TV Distractions

by John W. Whitehead March 29, 2022

“Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a ...

Dystopian Movies Fit for a Dystopian World

by John W. Whitehead March 25, 2022

“The Internet is watching us now. If they want to. They can see what sites you visit. In the future, television will be watching us, and customizing itself to what it knows about us. The thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we’re part of the medium. The scary thing is, we’ll lose our right to ...

Beware of the Government’s Push for a Digital Currency

by John W. Whitehead March 16, 2022

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—Thomas Paine The government wants your money. It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it. The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, ...

The Battle of Golden Spurs

by Scott McPherson March 11, 2022

The political and social order of the Middle Ages was feudalism. Land ownership was the pinnacle of wealth and power, and from it was derived, at least for men, the obligation of service to a liege lord as a knight in battle. Not even high birth could replace the importance of land. Without land, a human ...

Things Are Getting Worse, Not Better

by John W. Whitehead March 9, 2022

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”—Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism Let me tell you about the state of our nation: things are getting worse, ...