Freedom Daily Archive

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 ...

Conservatism, Libertarianism, and John Stuart Mill

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2022

Although most conservatives of today seem to have forgotten him, conservatives of yesteryear honored and revered Russell Kirk (1918–1994). After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State College (now University), Kirk earned his master’s degree at Duke University and then his doctor of letters from the University of St. Andrews. Kirk was a prolific writer who wrote not only ...

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 ...

Human Irrationality and Free Markets

by Antony Sammeroff May 1, 2022

If everyone was irrational all of the time, we would be in big trouble. You’d never know when someone was suddenly going to swerve off the road for no apparent reason and drive into a building, or start babbling to you in tongues over the phone when all you wanted to do was order a pizza. That being said, people ...

Let’s End the Cold War Racket

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2022

One of the most under-reported aspects of President John F. Kennedy’s term in office was his decision to end the Cold War and establish peaceful and friendly relations with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the rest of the communist world. In 1963 America, that was a remarkable — and highly dangerous — thing for any president to do. After all, ...

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 ...

There Is No Federal Solution

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2022

The twentieth century in the United States can certainly be characterized by the massive increase in federal solutions to right every wrong, correct every injustice, and fix every problem, real or imaginary. This mentality is what gave us things like the New Deal, Social Security, Prohibition, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Deal, the ...

Can Capitalism Survive? 80 Years After Schumpeter’s Answer

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2022

Eighty years ago, in the midst of the Second World War, Austrian-born economist Joseph A. Schumpeter published one of his most famous books, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942). A central question that he asked and tried to answer was, “Can Capitalism Survive?” His basic conclusion was, “No, I do not think it can” (p. 61). He was (forlornly) confident ...

The Power to Assassinate

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2022

The power to assassinate has become so deeply entrenched within the national-security branch of the federal government that hardly anyone gives it a second thought. State-sponsored assassinations now occur on a regular basis, especially in the Middle East. Most everyone, especially the mainstream press, treats them in a nonchalant, ho-hum way. Hardly anyone questions where this extraordinary power to ...

Corrupt Federal Statistics Cover Endless Cons

by James Bovard March 1, 2022

Federal agencies don’t count what politicians don’t want to know. President Joe Biden and other Democrats perennially invoke “science and data” to sanctify all their COVID-19 mandates and policies. But the same shenanigans and willful omissions that have characterized COVID data have perennially permeated other federal programs. The rule of experts? During his update on his Winter COVID Campaign in December, ...

The Libertarian Brand

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2022

While U.S. presidential elections are held every four years, U.S. senators serve a six-year term, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives are elected every two years. A midterm election is an election where the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are up for election, but the president is not. These elections always occur two ...

Paternalists Plan a New International Political Consensus

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2022

The political paternalists and the social engineers are giddy with hope and anticipation. They are confident that their day has, once again, arrived. The era of even bigger government has returned, and any remaining free-market system is simply out of date. They are full of promises and plans to set the world right, as long as they and the ...