Freedom Daily Archive

The Roots of American Dysfunctionality, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 Among the best examples of the dysfunctional nature of American society are the mass killings that take place on a regular basis. As everyone knows, many of them occur without any rational motive. Someone just decides that he is going to go out and kill a bunch of people. Whenever one of these mass killings ...

Biden Weaponizes Hate to Win Votes

by James Bovard February 1, 2023

Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” President Biden confirmed this axiom in his raging speeches prior to the mid-term congressional elections. Throughout his career, Biden has relied on a two-step routine —first appealing to “our better angels” before demagogically vilifying his opponents. In December 2020, after the Electoral College ...

Republican Déjà Vu

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2023

The year was 1994. A Democratic president had been in the White House for two years. The Democrats controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives. House Republicans issued a document detailing the actions they would take if they gained control of the House. Republicans were projected to win big. A midterm election was held. A red wave then swept ...

The Life and Significance of F. A. Hayek

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2023

Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950 by Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, (University of Chicago Press, 2022) People who knew Friedrich A. Hayek before he won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 sometimes said that he went through bouts of depression that interrupted his research and writing. Some also said that he could be aloof and distant when ...

Fiat Money and the French Revolution

by Phil Duffy February 1, 2023

Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation is well known, as are more recent hyperinflations in Argentina and, most recently, Venezuela. Perhaps fewer people have heard of John Law’s Mississippi Scheme in France and the issuance of paper money that underlay it. And perhaps even fewer still have heard that the issuance of paper money by the government contributed to the French Revolution ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 On February 26, 1993, terrorists detonated a truck bomb in the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. While the bombing did not bring down the Twin Towers, as the terrorists intended, it did kill six people and injured over a thousand. That terrorist attack was no different in ...

The Federal Dietary Wrecking Ball

by James Bovard January 1, 2023

Politicians are hellbent on intruding further into Americans’ stomachs. In September, President Biden hosted a White House Summit on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. A vast array of activists gathered, waiting for Biden to mobilize Washington to open the floodgates to far more food handouts. But their fond hopes did not survive the opening moments of Biden’s speech. “Jackie, are you ...

Freedom of Conscience

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2023

Libertarian philosopher and historian George H. Smith (1949–2022), in his collection of essays titled Freethought and Freedom, incisively remarked that “without freedom of conscience no other freedoms are possible.” It is my contention that freedom of conscience is under attack right now — in the third decade of the twenty-first century — more so than at any other time ...

Lionel Robbins on the Logic of Choice and a Liberal International Order

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2023

It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that British economist Lionel Robbins (1898–1984) was one of the most influential economists of the last hundred years without most economists, nowadays, being aware of it. This is all because of a relatively short book that he published over 90 years ago, An Essay on the Nature and ...

The Historical Foundation of Civil Liberties, Part 3

by Tom G. Palmer January 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is from a transcript of the opening presentation of FFF’s September 21, 2021, conference “Restoring Our Civil Liberties.” Let’s examine the contemporary use of the term civil liberties. The use of the term in the way that we’re now accustomed to dates to the repressive measures of World ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The coin of the realm in any national-security state is fear. In order to induce people to surrender their rights and freedoms, officials have to inculcate deep fear within them. Thus, national-security officials are constantly coming up with official foreign enemies, opponents, rivals, and adversaries, as well as crises, to ...

Biden’s Bloated IRS Will Skewer Taxpayers

by James Bovard December 1, 2022

The Internal Revenue Service is perhaps the ultimate sacred cow in Washington. It is the “goose that lays the golden eggs” for the city’s power and prestige, delivering trillions of dollars to politicians to work miracles (or at least get reelected). When criticism erupted over the 87,000 new revenooers to be hired thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, Washington’s ...