Freedom Daily Archive

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 ...

Crippling Competition, Part 1

by Scott McPherson December 1, 2005

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 Just about anyone who ...

Minimum Wage, Maximum Intervention, Part 2

by Laurence M. Vance December 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 All arguments for the minimum wage come down to this: since no family can survive on an income lower than the minimum wage, it is the job of government to mandate a minimum wage to keep people out of poverty. No matter how elaborate the argument, this is the bottom line. Even if ...

Economics for the Citizen, Part 10

by Walter E. Williams December 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 In 10 short articles, there’s no way to even scratch the surface of economic knowledge. I’ll simply end the series with a ...

Wartime Attacks on Civil Liberties

by George Leef December 1, 2005

Perilous Times — Free Speech in Wartime by Geoffrey R. Stone (Norton, 2004); 730 pages; $35. If it is true to say, as Randolph Bourne did, that war is the health of the state, it is equally true to say that war is the ...