Freedom Daily Archive

Bush’s WMD Flimflams

by James Bovard September 1, 2003

The Bush administration’s rush to war against Iraq was justified largely by the danger that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction supposedly posed to the United States and to U.S. allies. In his January 28, 2003, state of the Union address, Bush denounced Saddam as “the dictator who is assembling the world’s ...

The Abolitionist Adventure, Part 3

by Wendy McElroy September 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 National attention soon focused on whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state — a matter that affected the balance of power in the Senate. The immense Kansas-Nebraska territory had been formerly closed to slavery under the Missouri Compromise. But the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 — ...

The Deerslayer, the Bootmaker, and the Violin Player, Part 1

by Scott McPherson September 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 Once there lived a man called “The Deerslayer.” The Deerslayer lived in the plush green valley of a rugged mountain range and survived through his cunning and skillful use of a rifle to hunt game. His mountain valley home was far to the north; he saw only a few short months of warm weather ...

Book Review: Gulag

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2003

Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum (New York: Doubleday, 2003); 677 pages; $35. Siberia. The word has had a chilling connotation for people around the world for 200 years. Long before Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, the tsarist regime had used the vast area that stretches from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific and Arctic Oceans as ...

Classical Liberalism and World Peace

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2003

Since the end of the First World War in 1918, the world has been in search of international order and global peace through the political method of international organization. The League of Nations was seen as the great hope for world peace and security. Its failure in the years between the two world wars was taken ...

There is No Freedom in Iraq, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Most Americans are familiar with the political and civil aspects of liberty. They include such rights as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to vote, and the right to petition public officials for redress of grievances. They also include important procedural protections in ...

Two Great Books

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2003

Libertarians love books. They hunger for reading material and are always eager to hear of new works dealing with the broad and deep subject of individual liberty and its social and economic implications. In my opinion, two books in particular belong on every libertarian’s shelf. I mean this literally because these are books that libertarians will want to consult often. One, ...

The Greatest Ignorance of the Greatest Number

by James Bovard August 1, 2003

The specter of an ignorant or indifferent populace has long haunted democracy. Montesquieu wrote in 1748, The tyranny of a principal in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. James Madison warned, A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue ...

The Abolitionist Adventure, Part 2

by Wendy McElroy August 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 On August 31, 1831, a Virginia slave named Nat Turner instigated a slave revolt in which a slave owner and his family were killed. Eventually, the victims of Turner’s band exceeded 50. The South exploded with fear and rage, with many blaming Northern abolitionists, especially William Lloyd Garrison. A Virginia paper called ...

Book Review: Defend America First

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2003

Defend America First: The Antiwar Editorials of the Saturday Evening Post, 1939–1942 by Garet Garrett (Caldwell, Idaho, 2003); 285 pages; $13.95. It has now long been taken for granted by the American citizenry that the president of the United States, in his role as commander in chief, has the authority and power to send American armed forces into harm’s ...

There Is No Freedom in Iraq, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Given that U.S. forces have failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, U.S. officials have focused on an alternative justification for having invaded that country — to free the Iraqi people from tyranny through military force and to establish democracy after the war. Contrary to popular American opinion, however, ...

Planning and Social Engineering at Home and Abroad

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2003

How often do we look at those around us and think to ourselves: How absurd, dangerous, misguided, or foolish is so much of their conduct? How often do we then think to ourselves: If only they would listen to what we have to say, do as we suggest, learn from our experiences, and act in ways that we know ...