Freedom Daily Archive

Do Our Rights Come from the Constitution?

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 1999

It is commonly believed that the rights of the American people come from the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout history, the standard belief was that people were unconditionally subject to the commands of their government. If the king ordered a person to leave his family to fight in a war thousands of miles away, that person ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 30: The Gold Standard as Government-Managed Money

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Bill Clinton: World Cop

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1999

In a major foreign-policy address delivered a few months back in San Francisco, President Bill Clinton solemnly affirmed that everything everywhere in the world is the business of the United States. If you ever entertained the thought that we Americans should be free just to live our lives, raise our families, and participate voluntarily in our communities — forget ...

Sabotaging Privacy for Political Profit

by James Bovard June 1, 1999

Federal regulators announced last December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, a brazen scheme to convert banks into conspirators against their depositors. The "Know Your Customer" rules were a landmark in the history of the attempted subversion of American privacy and property rights. But enough Americans rallied — at least temporarily — to block this power grab. The proposed rules vastly expanded ...

FDR – The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 7

by Ralph Raico June 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Table of Contents Two major grounds are put forward nowadays for the ...

Book Review: Freedom in Chains

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1999

Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen by James Bovard (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999); 326 pages; $26.95. Are you better off than you were 25 years ago? Listening to critics from the left, the impression would be created that Americans are experiencing a falling standard of living and facing immanent mass ...

A Libertarian Visits Cuba, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Last March, I spent a week in Cuba, which turned out to be one of my most fascinating experiences. I had applied for a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury to travel to Cuba to conduct an informal study of the ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 29: The Gold Standard in the 19th Century

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Tax-Cut Deceptions

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1999

The Republican collapse on taxes is about as surprising as an elephant's fleeing a mouse, which, come to think of it, may be exactly what happened. It looked as though the congressional Republicans were going to make a 10 percent across-the-board unconditional tax-rate cut the centerpiece of their agenda. It was supposed to contrast with the Clinton administration's insistence that ...

Order by Agreements or by Iron Fists

by James Bovard May 1, 1999

In his 1651 classic, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes warned: "To obey the King who is God's lieutenant, is the same as to obey God. We shall have no peace till we have absolute obedience." Many contemporary statists share Hobbes's assumption that near-total control is the only way to avoid near-certain destruction ...

Housing Discrimination Laws and the Continuing Erosion of Property Rights

by George Leef May 1, 1999

Not so long ago in this country, you could stay out of legal trouble by refraining from aggression against other people. The law of torts, crimes, and property was well established and under those bodies of law, you committed no offense unless you acted ...

Book Review: The Future and Its Enemies

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1999

The Future and Its Enemies by Virginia Postrel (New York: Free Press, 1998); 265 pages; $25. May 8, 1999, marks the hundredth birthday of Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek. One of Hayek's most important and lasting contributions to human understanding has been his development of a theory of spontaneous order. Hayek argued (echoing the 18th-century Scottish moral philosopher Adam Ferguson) that ...