Freedom Daily Archive

The Disastrous World of the New York Subway, Part 1

by Gregory Bresiger February 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 New York City just went through another egregious subway strike. Again. Yet this was a strike of public workers that was never supposed to occur. The workers are covered by the state’s Taylor law, which isn’t much of a law, since the workers repeatedly violate it. (There were ...

Mary Wollstonecraft

by Wendy McElroy February 1, 2006

O, why was I born with a different face? Why was I not born like this envious race? Why did Heaven adorn me with bountiful hand, And then set me down in an envious land? William Blake’s poem “Mary” (1803) could have been an epitaph for Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) — a woman born with a “different face” in a society hostile to her ...

The Separation of Education and State

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2006

Americans, like most people around the world, have become so accustomed to the role that government plays in educating children that the idea of separating education from the state usually comes as a complete shock to them. While everyone is aware of the ever-growing problems associated with public schooling, the ...

Who Made the State the Ultimate Parent?

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2006

When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already.” — Adolf Hitler If you believe that parents have a fundamental, natural right (recognized in the Constitution) to raise ...

Free Speech on the Ropes

by James Bovard January 1, 2006

The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.” The Founding Fathers could have done nothing to make it clearer that the government has no right to gag the American people. However, in recent years, the Constitution is proving little or no barrier ...

Crippling Competition, Part 2

by Scott McPherson January 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence. —Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead A truly free society ...

Democracy versus Freedom

by Jarret B. Wollstein January 1, 2006

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and conflict; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. James Madison, fourth president of the United States and primary Framer of the U.S. Constitution Politicians and ...

Speaking of Inflation

by Stu Pritchard January 1, 2006

Discussions about inflation remind me of a drink I bought in a Shanghai bar in 1948. I kept tossing rubber-banded stacks of paper money, Chinese National Currency (CNC), onto the bar. Finally, the bartender shrugged and said, “That’s enough.” I once told that story to Dr. Norbert Einstein, an economist in Seattle and a distant cousin to Albert. Standing ...

Book Review: Wilson’s War

by George Leef January 1, 2006

Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin & World War II by Jim Powell (Crown Forum, 2005); 352 pages; $27.50. Although most conventional liberal historians, blinded by their adulation for politicians who embrace “progressive” causes, continue to ...

The Separation of Charity and State

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2005

The primary function of the federal government these days is to help out others with federal welfare assistance. The assistance is dispensed in a variety of ways — directly, in the form of a money payment (Social Security); indirectly, by helping people with payments to third parties (Medicare and Medicaid); subsidies to government entities and private organizations (grants to ...

Abolish the Army Corps — And More

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2005

Hurricane Katrina is the latest evidence that the Army Corps of Engineers should be abolished. It shouldn’t merely be reformed or “privatized.” Its duties shouldn’t be redistributed among other agencies. Just abolished. In its place, if government gets out of the way, will emerge a decentralized industry that will do the ...

Hoover’s Second Wrecking of American Agriculture

by James Bovard December 1, 2005

My last Freedom Daily article traced how the federal government wrecked the agricultural sector after World War I and how the Agriculture Department became a permanent lobby for “socialism in one industry.” But President Calvin Coolidge steadfastly resisted the push to have the feds take over crop pricing. Unfortunately, his successor ...